Kjathleen Worris
 
 JOSSELYN'SWIFE 
 
 By KATHLEEN NORRIS 
 
 Anthor of 
 
 " The Story of Julia Page," 
 " The Heart of Rachel," Etc. 
 
 A remarkable fate trans 
 ports, sweet, simple Ellen 
 Latimer from the humdrum 
 life of a small country town, 
 first to the studios of Paris 
 and then to the luxuries among 
 the wealthy New Yorkers. 
 Her love for Gibbs Josselyn 
 is made to undergo a severe 
 strain when his youthful and 
 attractive step-mother man- 
 oeuvers her way between 
 them. Then, when she is 
 thrust overnight into the 
 midst of all the sensations 
 and agonies of a murder trial, 
 the last shred of doubt in her 
 love is wafted away in her 
 valiant fight for her hus 
 band's life.
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE
 
 "It was his beautiful young mother-in-law who shared 
 with Gibbs the interest of his guests
 
 JOSSELYN'S 
 WIFE 
 
 BY 
 
 KATHLEEN NORRIS 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 THE STORY OF JULIA PAGE, 
 MOTHER, ETC. 
 
 FRONTISPIECE BY 
 
 C. ALLAN GILBERT 
 
 GROSSET & DUNLAP 
 
 PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
 
 COPYRIGHT, igiS, BY 
 
 KATHLEEN NORRIS 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 AT 
 THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. T. 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1917, 1918, BY THE PICTORIAL REVIEW COMPAST
 
 SRLF 
 URL
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ELLEN LATIMER reached the big station just before 
 the rain began to fall, and whisked into its gloomy 
 depths with a smile of triumph on her pretty gipsy face. 
 Her suit had just been pressed, and her hat was new; 
 it would have been a calamity to have them get wet. 
 Aunt Elsie had cautioned her to carry her umbrella that 
 morning, and Ellen had merely shaken her head; the 
 November sky was dark and low, it was true, but they 
 were reaching the season now when they might look 
 for snow, not rain. 
 
 However, now it was raining, and she had escaped 
 it undeservedly. Ellen followed the line of hurrying 
 Long Island commuters down the long arcade, her own 
 feet adding to the unceasing crisp and shuffle of a 
 thousand other feet. She went past the paper stand, 
 where laden men were slapping down pennies and rush 
 ing on with hardly a perceptible pause, and where 
 young boys and girls were buying packages of gum and 
 chocolates, and where all the pretty girls in the world 
 were smiling from the brilliant covers of magazines; 
 girls peeling pumpkins, in demure kitchen ginghams, 
 and girls furred to the eyes, going to football games 
 with pennants over their shoulders, for Thanksgiving 
 was close at hand. And she went past the clock that 
 was watched by so many patient and eager eyes, and the 
 
 3
 
 4 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 empty bootblack stand where a tired woman had 
 established herself and her babies, and so came to the 
 special gate among a dozen gates where a red boxed sign 
 showed the words "Express Port Washington 5:22." 
 Already a hundred tired men and women, in sober 
 wet-weather clothing, were pressed against this gate, 
 and Ellen pressed with them. She had spent the 
 morning, as usual, at the Art Students' League, but 
 she had deliberately loitered about the city, all the 
 afternoon, in the hope that Ellis Thorpe would join 
 her on this train. Ellen's destination was Port Wash 
 ington, a quiet old village at the terminus of the line, 
 but Ellis lived at Douglaston, which was a fashionable 
 modern colony, four miles nearer New York. 
 
 Ellen did not know him well: they had been intro 
 duced in the train, and never met elsewhere. Ellis 
 was only nineteen, still in High School, and the girl 
 was more than three years older. But, for want of 
 more appropriate admiration, she enjoyed his, and 
 she made room for him beside her in the seat to-night 
 with a welcoming smile. 
 
 He was a handsome boy, with rain on his thick, rough 
 suit, and on his absurd yellow oxfords, and on his pale 
 gray felt hat. Ellen thought him marvellously well- 
 dressed, an opinion the youth innocently shared. She 
 knew only a few men, and she was at an age that 
 hungers for their company. 
 
 They talked only of themselves as the train tore on 
 its noisy way. Ellen talked of her day's experiences 
 at the Art League, and her starry beauty, and the 
 flash of her blue eyes, under the new, fur-trimmed hat, 
 and the infectious gaiety of her laugh, lent the dull 
 subject a sudden charm. Young Thorpe was personal
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 5 
 
 in his replies; his was the type that renders person 
 alities inoffensive, and Ellen flushed with amusement 
 and pleasure, and turned from his merciless stare to 
 smile at her own reflection in the dark car window. 
 
 It was a lovely reflection. The laughing eyes were 
 a deep Irish blue, with soft shadows and long sooty 
 lashes accentuating their essential innocence. The 
 skin had a pure and healthy pallor, except on the high 
 cheekbones, where there was a brilliant touch of 
 colour, and Ellen's mouth was wide, like her Irish 
 mother's, kindly, humorous, the thin lips exquisitely 
 red, the big teeth shining. Her hair was a satiny 
 black, and to-night the rain had curled it, and little 
 strands had blown up against the fur of her hat. Ellen 
 thought, herself, that she was pretty, but the thought 
 rarely gave her any pleasure. What was the use of 
 mere beauty if one lacked every other good thing in 
 the world? She was poor, ambitious, eager for life, 
 ignorant as to the means of gaining her place in the 
 world. 
 
 Her father's father had been a sea captain. He was 
 an old man now, living with a vigorous widowed daugh 
 ter, Ellen's Aunt Elsie. The two had made a home for 
 Ellen and little Joe when Ellen's father, several years 
 after her mother, had died ten years ago. Her 
 father's business had been vaguely connected with 
 ships, too; he had a little office on a dock, in the city, 
 and sometimes took the children there on Sunday 
 afternoons in summer, calling various men he met 
 "Dan" and "George," and being called "Joe" by them 
 in return. In these days the children boarded with 
 him in a quiet old house in Christopher Street, and Mrs. 
 Daley, the landlady, washed them tremendously before
 
 6 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 school each morning, and scolded them about their 
 clothes. 
 
 At least once a month their father took them down 
 to Port Washington, eighteen miles away from New 
 York on the Sound side of Long Island, to see Grandpa 
 Latimer and Aunt Elsie, in the old-fashioned house on 
 Main Street, and sometimes he left them there for a 
 week or two, in summer, and they swam and boated 
 and wandered along the shore as happy as the clams 
 that shot streams of water over their boots, or the 
 puppy that gambled in their wake. Aunt Elsie wor 
 ried and fussed over them constantly, and Grandpa 
 was notably inhospitable, but they did not notice 
 grown persons in these care-free days, and were always 
 sorry to go back to Christopher Street. 
 
 But with their father's sudden death everything was 
 changed. They said good-bye to the weeping Mrs. 
 Daley forever, and went to live with Aunt Elsie in the 
 Main Street house. Ellen was twelve then, and sen 
 sitive, and Joe, at eight, was beginning to be unman 
 ageable. Grandpa, idle, and shelved after a life of high 
 adventure, resented their noise and their claims. 
 And Aunt Elsie's way of enjoying life was to worry 
 and fret, fume and scold and fuss. Ellen never real 
 ized this; she always believed that Aunt Elsie might 
 have been happier had domestic events run more 
 smoothly. As a matter of fact, Mrs. Baldwin was 
 supremely happy, in her own way. 
 
 Ellen went to the village school, and then to High 
 School, always with the dread in her young heart that 
 after High School she would have to "work." To her 
 there seemed something dreadful in the idea of becom 
 ing a working woman. She decided that she would go
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 7 
 
 away, if this necessity came upon her, she would be 
 come a nurse, in a trim white uniform, and there would 
 be, in the hospital, a stunning young doctor. . . . 
 
 However, just before her graduation, a miracle 
 happened. On a certain July day, when there were a 
 million roses in bloom in the old garden, Mrs. E. 
 Sewall Rose came to call on Aunt Elsie. Her car 
 waited at the gate, she was on her way to Sands Point, 
 the fashionable colony of a score of seaside homes two 
 miles away. She was large, perfumed, beautiful, and 
 kindly. She kissed Ellen, and called her "Nellie 
 Buckley's girl," and she told Ellen that she had loved 
 her mother. They had been girls together in a con 
 vent boarding-school. 
 
 "The Buckleys were lovely people," said this en 
 chanting visitor, "and Nellie was an angel. They had 
 a great deal of money then; I went to drive with her 
 many a time behind a pair of the handsomest horses 
 you ever saw. Whatever happened. . . ?" 
 
 Aunt Elsie said something of speculations; it was all 
 long ago. The Buckleys were all scattered and dead. 
 She sighed with sad enjoyment. 
 
 The visitor roamed about the parlour, with its shells 
 and albums and antimacassars, and its embroidered 
 mantel drapery, and glass tube of sand from Palestine. 
 The summer sunlight came in under the green shades, 
 and through the stiff lace curtains, and the canary, over 
 a window full of potted plants, broke into song. 
 
 She came upon some of Ellen's school work, and asked 
 Ellen questions. And Ellen told her with shy eagerness 
 that she had hoped to be an artist; she had gotten all 
 the highest marks, and once had won a prize. Mrs. 
 E. Sewall Rose asked her where she was going to study.
 
 8 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 Aunt Elsie answered this question. Ellen had no 
 time for fooling; she was going to work; they had the 
 boy to raise, and Father felt they had done all that duty 
 required. It was time now for Ellen to realize that life 
 wasn't all prettiness and play. 
 
 She said it pleasantly enough, and the background of 
 the comfortable home, and pretty Ellen, in her carefully 
 made gingham, and the plate of crullers and the decan 
 ter of wild cherry wine were all there to soften it. But 
 a week later Mrs. E. Sewall Rose wrote to Aunt Elsie, 
 and sent a check that was to cover all the expenses; 
 commutation-ticket, lunches, materials, and fees, for 
 Ellen's first quarter at the Art Students' League. 
 Ellen mounted straight into Paradise. To tell the 
 girls to let it casually drop that her life was not to 
 be as other lives to spend her mornings in a real 
 studio, with real workers it was Heaven indeed. Ah, 
 how she would work, how she would advance, how proud 
 they would all be some day! 
 
 She fairly rushed into it. She was the most earnest, 
 the most tremblingly happy, of all the earnest, tremb 
 ling beginners that fall. And she did succeed. Her 
 honesty, and her simplicity, and her pure and fiery 
 ambition, made her a marked figure in the classes from 
 the beginning. She was pretty, and she naturally 
 loved admiration, but she did not recognize harm, and 
 her soul slipped from it unscathed. There were a great 
 many silly girls in the art classes, and a few serious 
 ones, like Ellen. The boys were dark, earnest young 
 Hebrews for the most part, risen from emigrant homes; 
 poor, shabby, sometimes hungry, but making steadily 
 for their goal. Other boys were there, too, lounging, 
 unkempt youths, who meant to "get into the news-
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 9 
 
 paper game." Olga Briner, a pretty Russian girl of 
 whom Ellen was fond, said, with what Ellen thought 
 profound truth, one day: "These boys are fun. But 
 the sort of men you and I could marry are in college 
 at these years." 
 
 Perhaps two or three times during the winter Mrs. 
 Rose asked her protegee to lunch with her. She would 
 be on a shopping trip, furred, and scented with violets, 
 and she would make Ellen order all sorts of expensive 
 dishes. Mrs. Rose herself generally played with clear 
 bouillon and cold chicken, but she made Ellen have 
 sweets, at the end, and smiled at her as she sipped black 
 coffee. The girl went back to her work with a flushed 
 face and a dancing heart. All afternoon she would be 
 living over their conversation; had she talked too much ? 
 had she talked foolishly? 
 
 So two terms, three terms, went by. And now 
 Ellen was well into a fourth, and felt herself no nearer 
 a livelihood than she had been at the end of the first. 
 How did a woman begin to support herself by art? 
 Some of the boys did really drift into newspaper offices, 
 but what they did there seemed to be errands and 
 answering the telephones and rushing about town 
 upon uninteresting investigations, rather than sitting 
 at drawing-boards. Ellen could not do that. Nor 
 could she open a studio on Washington Square, and go 
 about from office to office of the magazines selling 
 pictures. 
 
 A deep discontent fell upon her, and she began to 
 turn to the world-old refuge of women: she would 
 marry. Then, when the urgent financial question 
 was laid at rest, she might begin to make her way. 
 
 She knew that Ellis Thorpe came of a good family,
 
 10 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 for he spoke of "Mother's dinners," and "the year Sis 
 came out," and he was sometimes met at the train by 
 a motor-car. Ellen innocently decided that Ellis 
 would "do," in spite of the humiliating discrepancy in 
 their ages. ~If he asked to call some day, she would 
 ask him to dinner. That would be the beginning. 
 
 He left her at Douglaston, and looking out into the 
 black night to smile a good-bye, she saw with satis 
 faction that the rain had really turned to a fine snow, 
 the first of the season. Her hat was safe. 
 
 And Joe, with an umbrella, met her with the first 
 rush of pure country air, at the station. Ellen, whose 
 Celtic heart was always eagerly reaching for evidences 
 of affection in this adored younger brother, thought 
 this wonderfully sweet in Joe. 
 
 He was a big, lumbering, loosely-built lad of eigh 
 teen, in muddy boots, rough corduroy trousers, and with 
 a gray sweater's rolling collar touching his ears. Win 
 ter and summer Joe lived in this or a similar sweater. 
 His untidy black hair fell in a long lock between his 
 handsome black eyes; he grinned amiably at his sister. 
 
 "Joe, you are a darling!" Ellen said gratefully. 
 "Aunt Elsie would have scolded me. Did you come 
 right out again, when you got home, to meet me ? " 
 
 "No, I've been home all afternoon, fooling 'round." 
 Joe yawned. "I fixed a coal-box on the back porch 
 for Aunt Elsie. All you've gotter do is have the feller 
 slide in half a ton, and she doesn't have to go down 
 cellar at all!" 
 
 "But what about Bates?" Ellen asked anxiously. 
 For Joe's latest employment had been with a contractor 
 .named Bates. Joe had declined High School, and had
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 11 
 
 driven the village grocery wagon during his fifteenth 
 year. Then he had worked with the plumber, and the 
 electrician. After that he had worked upon a private 
 yacht for a whole summer, had lived in New York for a 
 few months, deeply enjoying his initiation into the 
 work of a cub reporter, and only two weeks ago, upon 
 Grandpa Latimer becoming distrustful of the effect 
 upon so young a boy of boarding in the city, Joe had 
 indifferently and good naturedly returned home, and 
 engaged himself to Bates. 
 
 "Can't work this weather!" he reminded his sister, 
 keeping beside her, but refusing to share the umbrella. 
 
 "I wish Grandpa had left you with the Tribune!" 
 Ellen said. "You could have gone in on the seven 
 train, and gotten the six back!" 
 
 "Sure I could!" agreed Joe, with another yawn. 
 Ellen looked at him, and sighed sharply. Joe was 
 utterly devoid of ambition. 
 
 The Latimer house was on the right side of Main 
 Street, perhaps the tenth or twelfth in an unbroken 
 line of fenced, old-fashioned village homes. On the 
 left side of the wandering street, which curved half 
 a mile downhill to the shore of Manhasset Bay, several 
 orderly blocks had been outlined, but the houses on the 
 right hung on the edge of a hill, and behind them was 
 only old farmland. All these houses had flat gardens 
 in front, and big trees. All were wooden, and simple 
 of design: four windows separated by a porch door 
 downstairs, five windows in an unbroken row upstairs, 
 looking out upon the porch roof. There was a definite, 
 primitive beauty about them; they were old, and age 
 had somewhat softened their ugliness; their small- 
 *>aned windows radiated homely cheer. But Ellen
 
 12 JOSSELYN S WIFE 
 
 saw no beauty here, she longed for one of the modern, 
 smaller houses up toward Flower Hill; houses with 
 bathrooms in them, and electric light, and fireplace 
 and furnaces; houses with wide windows, and shingles 
 and white paint. 
 
 The Latimer house was warmed downstairs by two 
 air-tight stoves and upstairs by such currents of 
 softened air as emanated from these homely but useful 
 articles. Also there was a large kitchen range, built 
 solidly in a brick frame, with a cast-iron top, in which 
 there was only one circular opening, and four graded 
 rings of iron to fill the opening. There had been five 
 rings once, but Joe had lost the littlest one, to Aunt 
 Elsie's abiding grief. Since then there had always been 
 a tiny round hole on the very top of the fire, into which 
 a child might glance at the blue heart of the flames. 
 This stove radiated a glorious heat, and on cold morn 
 ings the family breakfasted in the kitchen, with winter 
 sunshine pouring in the window, and toast and eggs and 
 coffee smoking hot from the fire; a dazzle of snow with 
 out, and all comfort and cheer within. But Ellen 
 never told her friends at the League that she break 
 fasted in the kitchen. 
 
 To-night her aunt nodded to her from the stove, and 
 Ellen, who had hung up her hat and coat, smiled back 
 as she warmed her hands over the glow. There was a 
 delicious smell in the kitchen. Mrs. Baldwin was a 
 stubborn cook, not apt to learn new ways of doing 
 things, and inclined to sniff at talk of calories and 
 phosphates and the balance of starches and fats. 
 But she cooked a great many things with skill, and was 
 justly proud of her art. Her mood never came so close 
 to gaiety as when Joe shouted over her layer-cakes and
 
 13 
 
 waffles, or when, as now, Ellen gave a deep smiling sigh 
 at the sight of creamed mutton stew with dumplings, 
 corn pudding, and fried sweet potatoes. 
 
 "Oo Aunty! What a good dinner! And I'm 
 starving." 
 
 "Well, I hope you'll get enough," Mrs. Baldwin 
 said, with the little nervous twitch of her countenance 
 that passed for a smile. "I don't know what possesses 
 the meat they don't give you the meat now they did 
 ten years ago. You cook the taste all out of it, and 
 then it's as tough as your shoe. I s'pose you didn't 
 think to tell Joe to leave his shoes outside the door or 
 else come in through the laundry. It'd be a relief to 
 me, Ellen, if you'd try to think of it now and then. I 
 can't wait on you folks like you were babies, forever. 
 There's a letter for you up by the clock. Go tell Grand 
 pa supper's ready, and see if I've left anything off the 
 table. . . ." 
 
 Ellen escaped the tireless voice. She went into the 
 living room, a rather small room where the round 
 table was already set for supper. One of the air-tight 
 stoves was here, and near it sat old Captain Latimer, 
 with his thin silky white hair brushed scrupulously, 
 and his old carpet slippers resting on the nickel-plated 
 shield of the stove. He wore old gray trousers, and a 
 brown jacket he called his "Cadogan," and over his 
 chest a thin beard flowed, as white as milk. His sharp 
 eyes were bright blue, in a clean, weather-beaten face. 
 He was reading the Port Washington News. 
 
 "Do, Ellin?" he said, in a sharp, high old voice. 
 "Don't Elsie p'pose to give us no supper t'night?" 
 
 "Two seconds, Grandpa!" Ellen answered absent- 
 mindedly. Her eyes were only for her letter, a big
 
 14 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 square letter, standing by the carved and filagreed 
 Swiss clock on the mantel. Who was it from? Ah! it 
 was from Mrs. Rose, of course. 
 
 Two minutes later the exulting Ellen was back in the 
 kitchen. 
 
 "Aunt Elsie, isn't this wonderful? Isn't this just 
 lovely ? Mrs. Rose wants me to go to her Thanksgiving 
 house party. Her son, that's Arthur, and the girl, 
 Lucia, are going to have a lot of friends at Hastings-on- 
 Hudson! Oh, I think she's a darling to want me. 
 And here's my ticket and all my made-over gray dress, 
 and my lace dress doesn't it just seem as if my clothes 
 were made for this special thing? And she signs it: 
 'Your friend, Abby Carnaby Rose'; I think Carnaby's 
 a stunning name = " 
 
 Thus Ellen, stuttering and stumbling in her joy 
 and excitement, and all the while automatically assist 
 ing in the process of "dishing up." She took the glass- 
 towel her aunt handed her, tucked the precious lettef 
 into her blouse, engineered the bubbling dish of corn to a 
 cold plate, decorated a platter of stew with puffy dump 
 lings, and finally bore the latter in to the dining room. 
 Mrs. Baldwin followed with a glazed brown tea pot 
 and other delicacies. Ellen had to rush back for a second 
 load, rush back a third time to hang up her tea-towel; 
 finally a jerk of her foot brought her chair to the table, 
 and Joe, entering through the kitchen, placed his grand 
 father's chair, and gave the stiff old man a helping hand. 
 
 The little room, filled with useless possessions of 
 every description, was already warm from the stove, 
 now the steam from cooked meat and strong tea rose 
 in the air. They were all hungry, and ate fast. Ellen 
 propped her letter against the tea pot, and regaled her
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 15 
 
 family upon the delights of winter house parties among 
 the upper classes; Joe listened with a grin; the old 
 Captain drank his tea noisily from his saucer, and 
 removed from his mouth portions of the stew too hard 
 for mastication. Mrs. Baldwin, who had been a baby 
 in his arms fifty years before, a dutiful little daughter, 
 an admiring comrade, was his mother now. She 
 crushed the hard crusts of his toast, and over-sweetened 
 his tea, and saw that he had plenty of soft food. Now 
 and then she told him bits of village gossip; that Cap 
 tain Johnny wasn't so well, and she shouldn't wonder if 
 the Robbinses moved down to the Cherry Place. He 
 could no more offend her than might a baby of two 
 years. Joe's own conduct at the table was almost 
 equally open to criticism, and Ellen was too used to her 
 grandfather to suffer from his manner, so that great 
 harmony reigned in the house on Main Street. Ellen 
 had had her times of objecting to the country custom 
 of putting the dessert on the table with the dinner, and 
 to the little old-fashioned butter-plates, but her aunt, 
 after an intensely practical life, had small patience 
 with these affectations, and the girl's ideas of gentility 
 were too vague, even in her own mind, to make much 
 impression. To-night she saw nothing and heard noth 
 ing; she was going to visit at a fashionable country 
 
 house; she was beginning to live! 
 
 i 
 
 There were difficulties to be met, of course. The 
 first was the surprising resentment of Aunt Elsie. 
 Thanksgiving was a home day. Aunt Elsie didn't 
 like the idea of Ellen going off with a lot of godless 
 people; dancing, as likely as not, getting her head full 
 of crack-brained ideas
 
 16 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 "Well, I don't like the idea of old-fashioned Thanks 
 giving!" Ellen answered, trying not to sound im 
 pertinent. "We all eat too much, and the house gets 
 too hot, and you're working for three days baking and 
 fussing!" 
 
 She did not dream that she struck to her aunt's 
 heart. The national holiday was a sacred institution 
 to Mrs. Baldwin. The turkey and mince pies were 
 on her mind for many happy, bustling days. She 
 always had Cousin Tom and Ella and their two or 
 three, or four babies, over from Roslyn for the whole 
 day, and she liked them to praise her food. She liked 
 to have both the air-tight stoves red hot, and Ella, 
 thin and radiant, gossiping at the end of her kitchen 
 table while the babies napped. And now Ellen Ellen 
 was disparaging Thanksgiving! 
 
 The two were in Ellen's bedroom when this conver 
 sation took place, and Mrs. Baldwin turned and went 
 downstairs without a word. Ellen stood still, in the 
 centre of the ice-cold room, her face flushed with 
 shame, the gaudy patchwork' quilt she was about to 
 spread over her newly made bed hanging from her 
 hands. Outside the sun was shining on the first heavy 
 fall of snow, boys were sliding down Main Street with 
 wild shrieks. The trolley car grated by, and Ellen 
 saw Joe flounder down the snowy path and begin to 
 shovel snow from about the blocked gate. His aunt, 
 her checked apron over her head, called him from the 
 steps; she had his thick woollen gloves, and also some 
 thing edible that Joe was munching as he shuffled 
 back to his work. 
 
 Ellen's heart smote her. They would miss her on 
 Thanksgiving Day. But what could she do? Noth-
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 17 
 
 ing in life seemed so important as Mrs. Rose's wonder 
 ful invitation. 
 
 When she went downstairs, there was a decided chill 
 in her aunt's attitude. Mrs. Baldwin was reading 
 from the paper a sheriff's vendue notice that was 
 printed too finely for the old Captain's glasses to 
 decipher, and he was listening with his white head 
 cocked like a spaniel's. It was Sunday, and the older 
 woman was neatly dressed for church. She enjoyed 
 church, and would come home at half-past twelve rosy 
 from the cold air, and full of kindly gossip. She 
 would walk down to the post-office for the mail, too; 
 there was rarely any mail, but all the world of Port 
 Washington would be there. 
 
 The house was still. Captain Latimer pushed his 
 glasses up on his forehead, and went to sleep. The 
 canary burst into song; fell silent again. Out in the 
 spotlessly clean kitchen the clock ticked and ticked. 
 Ellen would have liked to sew on her fancy-work, but 
 her aunt would not let her sew on Sunday. So she 
 began to read. She felt guilty. She wished that she 
 were heroic enough to give up the Rose week-end, and 
 stay here and help Aunt Elsie through Thanksgiving. 
 
 Mrs. Baldwin brought back one letter, after all. It 
 was from Mrs. Rose, for Ellen. It said that Mrs. 
 Rose was delighted that Ellen could be with them, and 
 that she would expect her on the two o'clock train from 
 New York on Friday! So that Ellen would have 
 Thanksgiving at home, after all. 
 
 "Well, I guess you're not too good for some white 
 meat and fixings, party or no party!" Mrs. Baldwin 
 said drily. Ellen could find nothing to say. 
 
 The question of clothes remained. Even when
 
 18 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 Ellen had run fresh ribbons into her best underwear, 
 and had washed her one pair of silk stockings, and had 
 pressed the cheap yet dainty lace gown, and basted 
 fresh frills into the neck and cuffs of the made-over 
 gray velvet; even then she felt some misgivings. She 
 had the dresses, but what about all the accessories? 
 She did not even know what they were; much less did 
 she own them. Combs, pins, hair-ornaments, scarfs, 
 and belts flitted uneasily through her dreams. She 
 woke, in the cold winter mornings, filled with wretched 
 doubts. But at night, when her lamp, and the stove 
 in the hall downstairs, had somewhat warmed her 
 room, she sat at her mirror, and looked at the lovely 
 vision of rosy cheeks and shy eyes and loosened black 
 hair; and the red lips would curve in spite of themselves 
 into a confident smile. 
 
 Might she be the belle of the whole party? . . . 
 might they all admire her? Might it be a glorious 
 triumph for the newcomer, the beginning of wonderful 
 things. Ellen would jump between the cold, heavy 
 sheets with a smile still in her eyes, and go off to dreams 
 of glory.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 ALL the way up in the train she was busy identifying 
 the various groups about her, as either being bound 
 for the Rose house party, or being unworthy of that 
 classification. Ellen was so excited by this time that 
 she could not breathe naturally; her cheeks were 
 blazing, and her heart beat fast. With her little 
 new suitcase it was Joe's, and she had given it to him 
 on his birthday a few weeks before she got down 
 from the train in a sort of joyous panic of expectation. 
 The Roses's chauffeur made himself known, and Ellen, a 
 gray-haired, elderly man, and an exceptionally hand 
 some and self-possessed young woman, all got into the 
 limousine. The two bags that were now associated 
 with Ellen's bag were the finest of their kind, and were 
 plastered with the labels of European hotels. Ellen 
 imagined the pair to be father and daughter, and 
 thought it would be romantic to be rich, and travel 
 abroad with an adoring father. 
 
 The lady looked at her amiably enough, but did not 
 speak. Long afterward Ellen realized the absurdity of 
 their two-mile drive in silence; the other two occa 
 sionally murmuring a comment upon the scenery, and 
 smiling vaguely when their eyes encountered Ellen. 
 Presently they turned in at a snow-powdered gate 
 and could see a splendid stone mansion, lying along a 
 hillside draped in bare vines, but with heartening smoke 
 arising from a dozen chimneys. 
 
 10
 
 20 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 "Isn't that a lovely house!" Ellen said shyly then, 
 and the old man nodded smilingly, while the lady said 
 with a sort of languid sweetness : 
 
 "Isn't it, though! I've never seen it before." 
 
 "Nor I," Ellen said eagerly, glad not to be the only 
 stranger. 
 
 "I designed it for them," the old man said casually, and 
 the lady said, "Oh, did you, dearest ? You smart boy!" 
 
 This did not sound exactly daughterly. Ellen was 
 puzzling over their relationship as they all went up 
 the stone steps, and were admitted to an enormous 
 warm hall, where fires and tables and rich rugs and 
 great bowls of flowers all were jumbled together before 
 her confused senses. Here was Mrs. Rose, magnificent 
 and distrait, murmuring that the children were about 
 somewhere, perhaps they had gone out, giving a maid 
 directions in an aside, and looking a little blankly at 
 Ellen until the girl reminded her brightly: "It's 
 Ellen Latimer!" 
 
 "Well, of course it is, you dear child," she said then, 
 with a warming kiss, "and you came up in the car with 
 Mr. and Mrs. Josselyn. Tom, this is a little friend of 
 mine, Miss Latimer; and this is Mr. and Mrs. Josselyn, 
 Ellen. I hope you all talked to each other?" 
 
 Ellen was just going to say, "We weren't introduced," 
 but the young and beautiful Mrs. Josselyn spoke first, 
 with a sort of pretty langour, "I always talk, on all 
 occasions!" and then they all laughed. Ellen knew, 
 suddenly, that the two women did not know each 
 other very well, and that the man was quite at home 
 in this house. 
 
 "Where'd you put us, Abby?" he asked. "Don't 
 come up; I know my way about."
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIIu 21 
 
 "I've got to go up," Mrs. Rose said, interrupting a 
 low-toned conversation she was having with an elderly 
 maid. "I declare," she went on, mounting a dark, 
 carved stairway that was spread with rugs, ornamented 
 with potted palms, and lighted with a stained-glass 
 window, "I declare, I get perfectly frantic sometimes, 
 when the children have these affairs. Arthur brought 
 down four boys from Harvard on Wednesday, and 
 Lucia presumably not out yet, if you please! all I 
 can say is, that I don't expect to live through it until 
 she is out! and it's rush to this, and rush to that I 
 don't know what they're doing now 
 
 Ellen perceived that the matron was really deeply 
 enjoying the responsibility and confusion, and the 
 strain on meals and beds. They were upstairs now, 
 and had left the Josselyns at the door of a delightful 
 room. 
 
 "Which explains," said Mrs. Rose, "why I've tucked 
 you in here, on a couch in my sewing-room, my dear. 
 'Lucia should have moved in here, but she has three girls 
 with her, and they all had to be together, of course. 
 Girls do have the best times, nowadays! Or these girls 
 do. Just one good time after another! Now you're 
 in here, and you see you use my bath. You needn't 
 hesitate to come in and out, for Mr. Rose is up at 
 Great Barrington, for the golf. It's the sewing-room, 
 but I had Pauline clear it out ' 
 
 "It's lovely," Ellen smiled. "It's a perfectly won 
 derful house," she added bashfully. 
 
 "It's comfortable," Mrs. Rose said carelessly. 
 "Josselyn did it." And with a sudden twinkle she 
 added: "How did you like the bride and groom?" 
 
 "I thought they were father and daughter!"
 
 22 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 "Everyone does. I've known Tom Josselyn all my 
 life, we knew his first wife well. She only died a year 
 ago, and ten months later he married this Lillian 
 Keeler. Nobody knows anything about her. Doris 
 Potter you'll meet her to-night says that she was 
 a model for Madame Yvonne, but I don't believe it. 
 Young Gibbs Josselyn, the son one of the dearest 
 fellows that ever lived has never gotten over it. 
 Tom Josselyn is sixty-five, you know, and she's twenty- 
 eight. He broke with his father the day he heard the 
 news, hasn't seen him since. He was in the firm, too, 
 I guess the old man felt it pretty much. Now I hear 
 that Gibbs is going to study painting he's a gifted 
 fellow. . . . Well! now I'll leave you. Brush up 
 a little, and then come down and have tea. There's 
 nothing to-night; I believe the boys have got a moving 
 picture machine and they're going to try it in the ball 
 room, but I'm not having a dinner, really." 
 
 It was just like an English house party in a novel. 
 Ellen smoothed her hair, and put on the gray velvet 
 dress with the fresh frills, and went down to the library 
 in a tremor of happiness. She was early, and had 
 time to enjoy a book of photographs and a fire before 
 her hostess came down. Then the Josselyns came, and 
 an old aunt of Mrs. Rose, and two friends of the aunt, 
 paying a tea-call. Ellen was much the youngest, and 
 Mrs. Rose enchanted her by letting her pass sand 
 wiches and toast, and bring back the cups for more tea. 
 It was a wonderful hour. Ellen glowed, and even 
 chattered, and they all enjoyed her. 
 
 She was able to see now how really beautiful young 
 Mrs. Josselyn was. The bride sat a little apart from 
 the others, with her splendid brown eyes on the fire,
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 23 
 
 and her beautiful body stretched at ease in a great chair. 
 Her golden brown hair was wound carelessly in glorious 
 waves and coils above her white forehead, and her 
 white hand, heavily ringed, lay against the dark wood 
 of the chair-arm with all the pure beauty of alabaster. 
 She sometimes raised her glittering eye-lashes, brown 
 eye-lashes with a hint of gold in them, to smile lazily 
 at her husband, but for the most part she was inert, 
 making no effort to be more than a lovely picture. 
 
 Mrs. Rose asked her about Paris, and she answered 
 casually. Ellen did not know that she was trying to 
 make the older woman think that travel, wealth, and 
 the free purchase of gowns and jewels were but an 
 ordinary part of the day's work to Lillian Keeler, She 
 did not know that Mrs. Rose was trying to find out 
 several much-discussed facts about the bride. Pro 
 fessor and Mrs. Keeler of Milton were not relatives 
 of Mrs. Josselyn, were they? Mrs. Josselyn smiled 
 at the fire, and contented herself with a single negative 
 monosyllable. But Ellen was deeply interested and 
 even thrilled by their talk. Her loyalty and affection 
 were bound to Mrs. Rose; she decided that young Mrs. 
 Josselyn was not a gentlewoman. All those blazing 
 jewels at informal tea! Just above the mantel was a 
 superb portrait of Mrs. Rose, painted when she was in 
 deep mourning for her first husband, with little Arthur 
 and the younger Lucia at her knee. About the hand 
 some widow's neck was a splendid string of pearls; her 
 kindly eyes smiled down at Ellen, and Ellen smiled back. 
 The girl did not question the wearer of the pearls, 
 nor the propriety of this picture's position in Edward 
 Sewall Rose's house. The Queen could do no wrong. 
 
 A great grandfather's clock in the dimness of the room
 
 24 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 boomed half-past five. And with a cold and joyous 
 rush, the youngsters came in for their tea. 
 
 That was Ellen Latimer's last happy minute in the 
 Rose house. The little velvet dress did not fall from 
 her as the clock struck, but she would have been hap 
 pier running away from them all into the night, bare of 
 feet and hair, and in her shabbiest kitchen dress, than 
 she was to be here, in all their luxury and warmth. 
 
 They were introduced, and they nodded, flinging 
 furs and wraps into the arms of silent, patient, waiting 
 maids. Ellen marvelled at their sports-clothes, the 
 soft Swiss coats, the smart, shaggy little caps, the velvet 
 skirts with their big buttons, the silk blouses so im 
 maculately white. Lucia was not pretty, but how 
 smart she was, and how she chattered! Doris was 
 pretty, and everything else that Ellen would have liked 
 to be as well. The five boys were all quite young, 
 fresh-faced, well-groomed, superficially poised in spite 
 of their youthful clumsiness. There were nine of them, 
 altogether. They talked only to each other, in a sort 
 of running fire of growling and tittering and laughing. 
 It was impossible for an outsider to follow their con 
 versation, and even when the older people had drifted 
 away, and Ellen was left with them, they made no 
 concessions for her. 
 
 She was in a chair, in the very centre of the group. 
 So much was an advantage. And she had had her tea, 
 so that their rather obvious indifference to her comfort 
 had some excuse. But she was miserably unhappy. 
 
 "You're on my foot, Larry!" 
 
 "Get off her foot get off her foot!" 
 
 "Is no girl safe?"
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 25 
 
 "Listen, do any of you want anything? Mother 
 said you gents could have cocktails tell him to bring 
 some cocktails, Art." 
 
 "Then I'll wait. Red's going to give me half of his, 
 aren't you, Red?" 
 
 "Curses on this snow, I thought you said we could 
 play golf all Saturday!" 
 
 "Betty, you know what I told you this morning? 
 Well, it's true. Isn't it, Red?" 
 
 "About ?" 
 
 "About you know." 
 
 "Doris said it was, anyway." 
 
 "I didn't know you were calling me anything but 
 Miss Potter, Mr. Everett." 
 
 "Oh, didn't you, Snooky-ookums ? What would ums 
 yike me to call it ? " 
 
 "Oh, Red, don't be so sickening!" 
 
 "Listen, girls, we want to know about this German 
 to-morrow night. Who's going to have it with who? 
 I hate Germans, Lucia. Let's cut out the German 
 
 "What are you whispering about, Dorothy?" 
 
 "Lean over here and I'll tell you!" 
 
 There was a contagious ripple of laughter, some 
 whispering and monosyllables. Ellen turned to the 
 youth who was slowly sipping a cocktail next to her 
 and said, uncertainly: 
 
 "Will you have a sandwich oh, you have one?" 
 
 He looked at her vaguely, and leaning to the girl who 
 Was sitting on the floor at his knee he said earnestly: 
 
 "Say, listen, Dorothy. I meant what I said about 
 the seventh hole. If he said he did it in that, he lied. 
 It can't be done. Kidder himself takes three to it, 
 and is it likely that that boob could cut it down? Now
 
 26 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 listen, I suppose the links '11 be closed up for awhile. 
 But if we come down here Christmas my mother 
 is in Paris, so if Arthur's mother asks us we'll probably 
 
 come I'd like to take that feller up there " 
 
 Ellen's face burned. She did not speak again 
 
 Oh, what a fool she was to come here at all, she 
 thought, undressing late that night. And how she 
 hated them all! They felt her unwelcome, and shabby, 
 and different, and the bitter thing was that Ellen 
 knew that they were right. She could not speak their 
 language, nor understand them when they spoke; her 
 little attempts at merriment fell flat, her best gown 
 was not as smart as their simplest sporting outfit. She 
 had gone downstairs timidly, in the fussy little lace 
 dress, to have them presently follow in their exquisite 
 simplicities of sheer linen and lawn, with girlish touches 
 of pink baby roses or childish wide Roman sashes, 
 plain silk stockings, plainly dressed little satiny heads, 
 with jewelled pins tucked trimly against the coils and 
 plaits. How fresh, how virginal, they were; school 
 girls just on the threshold of womanhood, seventeen, 
 eighteen, nineteen! Ellen's twenty-two years seemed 
 suddenly grimy and gray. A sense of injustice seized 
 her. She had never been as young and sweet and con 
 fident as they were ! 
 
 They were all in love with life, and with each other; 
 it was a pity that they could not spare a little love for 
 Ellen, too. But Dorothy complimented Lucia, and 
 Lucia, Doris, and Doris in turn told Mary that she 
 looked adorable. No one of them gave to Ellen the 
 word for which she hungered, or, better than praise, 
 made the slightest effort to bring her into the group,
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 27 
 
 gave her any reason to believe that with eyes like 
 hers, and cheeks like hers, the lace gown mattered not 
 at all. 
 
 The elaborate dinner was served, the moving-pictures 
 finally brought to triumphant finish, and the young 
 people began to dance. Then Ellen slipped upstairs, 
 equally unable to review the events of the day, or to 
 anticipate those of to-morrow, with any equanimity. 
 There would be a big dance to-morrow night, and a 
 ride to the "Red Lion" for lunch. Ellen did not ride. 
 Well, she would go with old Mr. Josselyn and Mrs. 
 Rose in the closed car. Unless she had a wire from 
 Aunt Elsie saying that Grandpa was dead ah, if 
 only she might ! 
 
 But Grandpa was far from death, and Saturday had 
 to be endured. It was all worse than Ellen's fears. 
 Mrs. Rose was not going on the ride, after all, she and 
 the aunt and the Josselyns were going to play bridge. 
 Lucia unbent from her indifference long enough to urge 
 Ellen to try to ride. But Ellen, although she was 
 eager to dare it, did not like to risk the danger of making 
 herself absurd on a horse. Afterward, she never quite 
 forgave herself her cowardice. Better to chance it, 
 better to be thrown, be maimed for life, than to do what 
 she did. 
 
 There was another choice, but that, too, Ellen did 
 not see until long afterward. She might simply have 
 pleaded indisposition, have begged to be left quietly at 
 home, and so have watched the bridge, which inter 
 ested her, and have had another pleasant tea-hour. 
 
 But instead she let Lucia separate herself from her 
 friends to drive the funny girl from Long Island in a 
 small roadster. The roads were heavy* but Ellen knew
 
 28 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 nothing of cars, and did not know that really difficult 
 driving was angering the already exasperated Lucia. 
 For perhaps fifteen minutes out of the long two hours 
 the girls talked naturally, and then it chanced to be 
 about the Josselyns. Lucia spoke of the new wife 
 contemptuously, and Ellen asked her if she knew the 
 son. 
 
 Knew Gibbs? Indeed she did. Lucia's pretty 
 colour rose as she spoke. Gibbs was well, he had al 
 ways been like her brother, don't you know? He had 
 given her the odd topaz ring she wore. And now the 
 girls were teasing her about Gibbs, which was per 
 fectly absurd. Of course she adored Gibbs, but he 
 was thirty at least, or thirty-one and somehow she 
 didn't want to think of those things at all, yet. 
 
 Ellen, in her simplicity, believed her, and although 
 she had never seen Thomas Gibbs Josselyn, Junior, a 
 faint pang of something like envy stirred at her heart. 
 Lucia had everything. 
 
 They reached the "Red Lion" an hour after the 
 others, and immediately had a large and noisy lunch 
 in a sort of club lunchroom, with stags' antlers and 
 bearskins, a roaring open fire, and exposed rafters of 
 dark wood to give a rustic effect. After lunch skis 
 were brought out, and Ellen was dragged several cold 
 miles on a sort of combination walk, scramble, slide, and 
 skate. The boy called "Red" drove her silently home; 
 he had had a good many cocktails before and after the 
 walk, and drove recklessly. 
 
 They got home none too early to dress for the dance, 
 an experience that Ellen never forgot. The young 
 guests in the house had been indifferent to her yester 
 day; to-day they actively disliked her, and she afforded
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 29 
 
 them delicious material for laughter. Mrs. Rose was 
 again playing bridge after dinner, but Ellen could not 
 watch the game now, for her hostess felt the social 
 responsibility, and would chill Ellen to the soul by 
 saying: "Wait until I'm dummy, dear, and I'll find you 
 someone to dance with." 
 
 So Ellen kept away from the card room, and loitered 
 about miserably. No one asked her to dance, she 
 might have been an invisible witness to the gaiety, as 
 she heartily wished herself, for any attention that was 
 offered her. The girls, perfumed, powdered, laughing, 
 pushed by her without a glance, and the boys, gathering 
 eagerry about them, saw her as little. She went into 
 the room where two maids were murmuring together 
 between pyramids of cloaks and furs, but even these 
 minced monosyllabic answers to her timid observa 
 tions, and stared after her as if she had been a strange 
 animal. 
 
 The aunt had gone to bed now, and the bridge table 
 was completed by a relative of Mrs. Rose, a retired 
 army officer who was quite deaf. At twenty minutes to 
 one Ellen found herself watching the game; Mrs. Rose 
 made no attempt to get her into the dancing now, the 
 matron's face was flushed, and she seemed excited. 
 She was playing with Mr. Josselyn, and it was evident 
 that the luck was running against them. 
 
 "You don't bid them when you have them, Tommy!'* 
 the bride said lazily, scoring a fourth consecutive rub 
 ber for herself and partner. The old man only gave 
 his wife an indulgent look. But Mrs. Rose said with 
 some acerbity: 
 
 "There's no bidding hands like these! I declare I 
 never saw anything like it!"
 
 SO JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 "I suppose we can't start another we said we 
 would stop at one," young Mrs. Josselyn smiled. 
 Ellen saw Mrs. Rose give her a venomous look as the 
 jewelled hands tumbled the cards idly, and the army 
 man earnestly and quickly added the various scores. 
 
 "I owe you seventeen and Captain James nine,'* 
 said Mrs. Rose. "Now come, everybody, and have 
 something to eat. I'm starving." 
 
 "Nothing for me at this hour!" Mrs. Josselyn said 
 lightly, "I shouldn't have a complexion or a figure for 
 a week!" The inference was plain. 
 
 "And I'm going upstairs, now," Ellen put in shyly. 
 "I am a sort of a headache I think I'd really better! 
 And Mrs. Rose, will you tell me about trains to 
 morrow? I think I had better Aunt Elsie expects 
 me 
 
 She had nerved herself for opposition, but Mrs. 
 Rose made none. 
 
 "I'm sorry you can't stay," she said, fighting a deep 
 yawn, "'Scuse me, everybody, but cards always make 
 me so sleepy ! They're all going over to Dorothy's to 
 morrow, I think. Better stay and have a little more 
 good time. Auntie will forgive you! Anyway, come 
 down and have some supper now!" 
 
 But Ellen murmured of her headache again. She 
 would not face that hilarious supper room; or appear 
 under her hostess's wing, as one unable to make her 
 own way. She slipped upstairs. 
 
 And once in the safety of her own room, she began 
 to undress automatically, with scarlet cheeks and a 
 heaving breast. They had been rude to her, they had 
 been rude to her! She had only wanted to be inno-
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 31 
 
 cently happy, she had only asked that they be reason 
 ably kind, and they had turned her world upside down, 
 and scarred the old happy confidence forever! 
 
 In Mrs. Rose's room, beyond the bathroom, a fire 
 was burning, and Ellen went in to it, and sat down be 
 fore the steady glow of the bed of coals. It was an old- 
 fashioned steel-rodded grate, the furnishings of the 
 entire room were old-fashioned. Mrs. Rose's ideals 
 in furnishing had stopped short with the period of her 
 first marriage, nothing to her would ever be so beauti 
 ful as solid brass beds and furniture of polished maple. 
 A table loaded with handsome objects was pushed 
 against the broad foot of the bed, and every chest and 
 bureau and bookstand was filled with expensive things, 
 boxes and frames and lamps and small statues and 
 trays. These were all dusted by the maids every day 
 and put carefully back in their places. The maids 
 lifted the satin runners from the tables, and the rich 
 lace strips that lay over the satin, and shook all the 
 silk cushions on the big couches every day, too. To 
 night there were several enormous pots of flowers in 
 the room, presents that had been sent Mrs. Rose for 
 Thanksgiving: two poinsettias, a begonia, and a large 
 fern. The cards from the senders still dangled among 
 the foliage, and stiff" ruffs of crepe paper were pinned 
 about the clay pots. In a day or two the plants 
 would droop in the hot air, and then Maurice would 
 be called in to carry them out, and fling them, cards, 
 tissue-paper, and all, into the rubbish heap near the 
 furnace. 
 
 Ellen, huddled in her wrapper, was dreaming over 
 the coals, when the door was pushed open, and she 
 turned with a smile, expecting to see her hostess.
 
 <& JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 But it was young Mrs. Josselyn who came in, wrap 
 ped in a splendid Oriental robe, and with her thick, soft 
 brown hair hanging in a loose coil between her shoulders. 
 
 "I saw the door open," said she, dropping into the 
 chair opposite Ellen. "I'm tired to death, but I don't 
 feel like going to bed!" 
 
 She stretched her slippered feet to the blaze, locked 
 her hands behind her head, and yawned, as unself-con- 
 scious as a cat. Ellen studied the lovely white arms, 
 the smooth low forehead from which the hair was 
 swept, the dropped bronze eye-lashes. She dared not 
 open a conversation, and risk another snub. 
 
 "Danced yourself tired?" asked Mrs. Josselyn in 
 differently, after awhile. 
 
 "I didn't dance," Ellen answered, smiling as if the 
 fact were entirely insignificant. But her tone was 
 hurt in spite of herself. "I don't know them," she 
 added, her voice thickening, "and this is my first 
 visit here we took a long trip to-day, too I really 
 didn't want to go and I got tired She stopped 
 
 short. 
 
 , Mrs. Josselyn elevated her delicate eyebrows in 
 entire comprehension, pursed her lips, and looked 
 thoughtfully at the fire. 
 
 "What'd you go for, then?" she asked, presently. 
 
 "Well, I felt I had to!" Ellen answered lamely. 
 The other woman took a framed picture from the 
 table, studied it for a few minutes, and again moved 
 her eyes slowly to Ellen. 
 
 "So you've been having a perfectly rotten time?" 
 
 Ellen laughed nervously. 
 
 "Why, no, I couldn't say that!" 
 
 "I suspected it, the way you hung around the card-
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 33 
 
 table," said young Mrs. Josselyn, frankly. She ex 
 tended the picture she held to Ellen. "Know him?" 
 she asked briefly. 
 
 Ellen shook her head. She looked at the face of a 
 young man, thin, earnest of mouth and jaw, keen of 
 eye. Even in the picture she could see that the thick 
 crest of hair was gray, and even in the picture the 
 handsome face showed character and power. At one 
 corner, in a small square hand, was written: "To 
 Lucia's Mother, from T. G. J., Jr." 
 
 "He's not spoken to his father since our marriage," 
 Mrs. Josselyn said, dispassionately. "I've never met 
 him. He's good looking " 
 
 She stared silently for several moments at the face 
 of her unknown step-son before replacing the silver 
 frame upon the crowded table behind her. Ellen, 
 whose sense of the romantic had been touched by this 
 situation, looked at her with new interest. Mrs. 
 Josselyn, again stretching her lithe body with luxur 
 ious pleasure, apparently dismissed the subject from 
 her mind, for when she spoke again, it was of Ellen. 
 
 "So you've had a nasty time, and they treated you 
 badly?" she said ruminatingly. "Well, that's your 
 fault, my dear. I've been watching you " 
 
 Her languid voice dropped, and she yawned. 
 
 "I believe I could sleep like a baby, now!" she said. 
 Then suddenly glancing at Ellen, she added: "Girls 
 are alike, you know, and you could have as good a time 
 as any of them! But you mustn't try to play their 
 game; they'll have you there. Make them play 
 yours!" 
 
 "Easier said than done! "Ellen said, sensitive and 
 girlish.
 
 34 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 "Tell 'em you hate walks, and you think they're all 
 silly. Tell 'em you won't dance until you feel like it 
 they'll fall for anything!" said the bride. "But you 
 should have gotten on a horse this morning. You can 
 ride." 
 
 "I know I can! But I don't know how you know 
 it!" Ellen laughed, ashamed, interested, reassured 
 and thrilled at once. 
 
 For answer the other woman rose, touched a piece 
 of coal with her slipper, looked at one or two photo 
 graphs on the mantel, wound her loose hair with a sud 
 den gesture into a coil, and yawned so profoundly 
 that she laid her arms on the mantel and her face on her 
 arms during the operation. 
 
 "Oh, girls are all alike! I'm going to bed good 
 night!" she said sleepily, and was gone.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE morning came with glorious winter sunlight, and 
 Ellen Latimer, turning luxuriously under her warm soft 
 blankets, stared blankly at a clock that was rapidly 
 moving toward nine o'clock. They must all have had 
 breakfast by this time evidently nobody cared whether 
 she was alive or dead. 
 
 But the situation seemed rather interesting than tragic 
 this morning. She got up, enjoying the unexpected 
 warmth of the room, and went yawning into the bath 
 room, and turned on both faucets for a bath. Not that 
 Ellen took a bath every morning, there was no bath 
 room in the old Latimer house, but she was as adaptable 
 as most girls of her age. 
 
 While the bath was running, she peeped timidly into 
 Mrs. Rose's room, and was pleasantly surprised to see 
 that lady's large form, heaving in deep slumber, upon 
 the bed. One person would be later than Ellen, at 
 all events! 
 
 Ellen had had a white night, one of the few in her ex 
 perience. For long hours she had lain awake, thinking 
 soberly about the events of the past two days, and, 
 quite unconsciously, assimilating their bitter lesson. 
 
 These girls were not better than she, not wiser, not 
 really happier. But their circumstances were utterly 
 different, and it was Ellen who was to blame, not they, 
 for trying to bridge the gulf between their lives. She 
 still had her good home, her own admiring and affec- 
 
 35
 
 36 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 tionate group, her books to read by the fire, her garden 
 to dream over in the spring, and the swimming and 
 boating and tennis that absorbed all youthful Port 
 Washington from June to October. She had Willa and 
 Olive and the Henshaw boys and Bobby Carnival to 
 take Sunday walks with, and, above all, she had her 
 work at the League and she was going to work in 
 deadly earnest now. Lucia and Doris were not real, 
 and Ellen's life dealt only with what was practical and 
 sane. One might sigh for the prettiness, the gaiety, 
 the irresponsibility, of Lucia's life, one's face might 
 burn because this pretty butterfly could be so trium 
 phantly rude, and so self-centred, but it was wiser to 
 forget it all, or remembering, remember, too, that the 
 dainty superfluities were a mere accident of income. 
 Ellen Latimer would have something that Lucia Torrey 
 might envy some day, and through no accident of 
 birth. 
 
 Consoling herself with her first hard-won philosophy, 
 Ellen fell asleep as a clock somewhere struck the third 
 hour of the morning, and being young, she woke joy 
 ous and refreshed, and went down to breakfast with 
 feet that felt more like dancing than they had felt at 
 any time the night before. 
 
 The breakfast room was deserted. Ellen was the 
 first of all the household to appear. She smiled over 
 her carefully served courses, and presently was hang 
 ing absorbed over a jig-saw puzzle that had been scat 
 tered upon one of the library tables the day before. 
 Her train went at half-past eleven, it was not yet 
 ten o'clock. 
 
 As the young people straggled downstairs she looked 
 up to nod at them composedly. And the youth called
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 37 
 
 "Red" came to the table, to busy himself with the 
 fascinating confusion, lazily declining breakfast be 
 cause "he and Miss Latimer were having such fun!" 
 There was really some show of warmth in their invi 
 tation that she go with them to Dorothy's to-day, but 
 Ellen saw her new-found path too clear, and resolutely 
 shook her head. At eleven the smart little woolly 
 coats and the scarfs and heavy laced boots were all in 
 evidence again, and a group of horses trampling the 
 snow at the side door. 
 
 "I think you're awfully smart to have done so much 
 of that!" Lucia murmured lamely, in farewell, her 
 eyes on the puzzle. 
 
 "I like it," Ellen said, her voice a little gruff. 
 
 "I'll give you a puzzle to take home with you!'* 
 Mrs. Rose called from the card-table, and when Ellen 
 turned again Lucia was going out of the door, a whis 
 pering girl linked on either arm. She presently went 
 quietly upstairs to pack, and pinned on the fur-trimmed 
 hat, and fastened a little clump of fresh violets, from a 
 vase, against the sober little suit. It was only good 
 byes now, and the whole experience was over! 
 
 "The limousine's coming 'round, dear," Mrs. Rose 
 said, stacking a last trick, and rising somewhat heavily 
 to accompany her guest to the door. They stepped 
 out to the stone veranda that Ellen had crossed with 
 such high hopes two days ago, and looked down upon 
 a panorama of scattered homes and gardens powdered 
 with the light snow and washed with brilliant sun 
 shine; stone fences, brick fences, clean-swept drive 
 ways, everything shining and prosperous in a bath 
 of Sunday peace. 
 
 "I'd like a ride myself this morning, but I haven't
 
 38 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 been on a horse for years,'* said the hostess. "She 
 hasn't played bridge much, but she seems to be a nat 
 ural born player, and don't say one word about luck!" 
 she added inconsequentially. Ellen began her thanks 
 and good-byes. 
 
 "Don't say one word, dearie," said kindly Mrs. Rose, 
 "I'm only sorry you have to go." Her eyes suddenly 
 were fixed upon the gate, and Ellen, turning, too, saw 
 a low-hung powerfully built roadster turn in, and come 
 quickly up the drive. "Now who's that?" wondered 
 the older woman, discontentedly eyeing the two furred 
 men who occupied the car. " I never sit down to a game 
 of why, it's Ward! It's my husband and Gibbs Jos- 
 selyn!" She turned agitatedly to Ellen. "For Heav 
 en's sake, what shall I do?" 
 
 Ellen, aware of an emergency, had yet not at all 
 grasped the situation when the two men came laughing 
 up the steps, and greeted her hostess. Mrs. Rose 
 dazedly kissed the small, gray-haired man who was 
 her husband, and dazedly introduced Ellen. 
 
 "Ward, this is Nellie Buckley's girl you've heard 
 me talk about, and Miss Latimer Mr. Josselyn," she 
 said. 
 
 Ellen gave her little gloved hand to Gibbs Josselyn. 
 She would have recognized him instantly from the 
 picture. Like his companion, he was smothered from 
 neck to heels in a great fur coat, but he snatched off a 
 heavy gauntlet before he took Ellen's hand. His head, 
 bare in the sunshine, was silver, and the lean, clever 
 face she remembered was clear olive in colouring, and 
 brightened now with a most winning and kindly smile. 
 Ellen's first rather awed impression was of poise, re 
 serve, self-confidence. Authority spoke in the pleasant
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 39 
 
 voice, and every inch of the man was stamped to her 
 young vision with a fineness, an aristocracy, a some 
 thing that marked him superior to others. 
 
 In the midst of the first jumble of explanations from 
 the newcomers, as to their reasons for leaving Great 
 Barrington, and their first details of the trip, Mrs. 
 Rose distressedly interrupted. 
 
 "Gibbs Gibbs, my dear boy," stammered she, hold 
 ing his hand in both her fat ones, and fixing upon him a 
 look all imploring and conciliatory. "You know your 
 father is here, dear I wouldn't have had it happen 
 for anything in the whole world but he and Lillian 
 got in on Wednesday, and he telephoned me at once 
 to come down and lunch with them I really do feel 
 terribly about it " 
 
 Gibbs Josselyn had flushed up to the silver crest, 
 but he smiled upon her not unkindly. 
 
 "Dad's here, eh?" 
 
 "Yes, Gibbs and and Lillian!" 
 
 "Gosh, that is awkward!" ejaculated Ward Rose, 
 with a sharp, anxious look at his guest. 
 
 "Not awkward a bit," Josselyn said quickly. "Of 
 course you had to have them, I'm glad you did but 
 of course I won't meet her. I'll be getting right along, 
 and see you soon " 
 
 "Listen, Gibbs she's really quite nice!" Mrs. Rose 
 said eagerly. "Do do be reasonable about it! Your 
 father your father isn't going to have any more chil 
 dren, Gibbs, and you simply " 
 
 "Gibbs is the best judge of what he wants to do, my 
 dear!" her husband interrupted nervously, with a 
 liint of disapproval in his tone. "I wouldn't I think 
 I wouldn't try to force matters, Abby. We're awfully
 
 40 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 sorry, my dear boy, but you understand of course I 
 had no idea " 
 
 Mrs. Rose looked despair. 
 
 "But youVe not had breakfast, Gibbs, Lucia will 
 be wild if I let you go coming eighty miles a morning 
 like this " 
 
 "But I can get breakfast!" he said impatiently, as if 
 he found the situation insufferable. 
 
 Ellen had been a rather embarrassed witness to 
 this scene, her sympathetic eyes going from one face 
 to another. Now her hostess suddenly noticed 
 her: 
 
 "My dear child all this time where's the lim 
 ousine?" she exclaimed nervously. "Who was to 
 telephone the garage? Why isn't it here? What 
 time have you, Ward Miss Latimer must catch the 
 eleven-thirty!" 
 
 "She has exactly eleven minutes," Gibbs Josselyn 
 said drily, glancing at his watch, and the older man 
 added surprisedly: "What on earth's the matter 
 with Maurice? Why is everything topsy-turvy, Abby r" 
 
 "Good-bye, both of you see you soon!" Gibbs 
 said suddenly. "Run down and jump into my car, 
 Miss Latimer. I'll run you to the train. We'll make 
 it very nicely. Good-bye, Ward ! Good-bye!" 
 
 "Oh, now, I den't like this one bit!" Mrs. Rose con 
 tinued to protest, but she kissed Ellen good-bye none 
 the less, and her husband ran with the two young persons 
 down the steps, tucked Ellen's bag into the back of the 
 car, and forced her to slip into his big fur coat for the 
 two-mile trip. 
 
 "Leave it in the office some da}r, Gibbs," he said. 
 "You can make it, I guess! Good-bye, Miss
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 41 
 
 Awfully sorry, old boy, but such things will occur. 
 Abby's all upset about it, I know." 
 
 Young Josselyn put Ellen into the car, and tucked 
 the heavy robe snugly about her. In another ten 
 seconds he had sprung into his own seat, and waved a 
 good-bye to the watching Roses. The roaring of the car 
 drowned out all farewells. Ellen laughed excitedly 
 and waved her hand. A glance at her companion's 
 dark, unsmiling face, however, rather daunted her, and 
 she sobered instantly and shrank down into her seat, 
 staring gravely ahead. 
 
 A day or two ago Ellen might have felt it her place 
 to keep the conversation moving. But the last forty- 
 eight hours had been full of painful lessons for her; 
 she knew better now than to attempt any friendly 
 overtures. The men and women of this strange world 
 did not like it. Boys younger than she had snubbed 
 her, girls of seventeen had looked upon her askance. 
 And now she was alone with a man whom even these 
 superior girls and boys held in deep admiration and 
 respect. So she kept absolutely silent, her bright eyes 
 moving between the fur of her hat and the fur of her 
 collar like those of a timid but interested bird. 
 
 The roadster ran along smoothly between snow- 
 heaped hedges, past one stately gateway after another. 
 The sun shone, and the wheels made a pleasant crunch 
 ing sound. Ellen's small body was tipped into an 
 attitude more like lying down than being seated, but 
 she found it delightfully luxurious and comfortable. 
 
 Sometimes a closed car filled with well-dressed, 
 church-going women turned them from the road, and 
 twice they met riders, rosy-cheeked and laughing in 
 the windless, clear cold morning. Smoke was pouring
 
 42 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 up from wide chimneys straight to the cloudless sky, 
 and the village, when they reached it, was full of chat 
 ting groups, on their way to church, or clearing the side 
 walks with noisy shovels. 
 
 Ellen was more interested in these details than in her 
 train, but as the car was brought neatly against the 
 station platform, she began to free herself from her 
 wrappings, and said politely: 
 
 "I'm a thousand times obliged to you,'Mr. Josselyn!" 
 
 "I don't know whether you are or not," he said, 
 narrowing his eyes at her quizzically. "I think we've 
 missed it!" 
 
 "Missed it ! Oh, goodness ! " Ellen echoed in dismay. 
 
 "Stay where you are," he said, jumping from his 
 seat. "I'll find out." 
 
 He crossed the station platform and disappeared, and 
 Ellen sat in a panic, waiting for him. Oh, she couldn't 
 go back to that house, and have the whole thing begin 
 over again 
 
 "Yes, ma'am, weVe missed it," said Gibbs Josselyn, 
 coming back, and leaning against the car with sym 
 pathetic eyes on her face. "Was it pretty important, 
 or what? The next is at one-twenty-two." 
 
 "It's not so important," Ellen said, in a troubled 
 voice. "But I don't like to go back I'll wait here!" 
 
 "What until after one o'clock!" 
 
 "Yes, I think so," Ellen answered firmly. "I I 
 don't know them very well," she went on confusedly. 
 "And and I think I rather worry Mrs. Rose, not 
 getting on exactly with the others." She stopped, 
 conscious that this explanation was rather lame, and 
 added finally: "You see, they all know each other so 
 well, and they don't know me!"
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 43 
 
 "I see perfectly," Gibbs said pleasantly. "You 
 would be safer in a band of Hottentots ! " 
 
 Ellen laughed. Her white night had only added a 
 touch of mystery, of spirituality, to her Irish beauty, 
 after all, and the drive, after her breakfast, had brought 
 back her wild-rose colour. The man looked at her 
 as if he saw her for the first time, looked down at his big 
 fur glove, plunged his hand suddenly into it, and 
 asked carelessly: 
 
 "You couldn't make the run with me, I suppose? 
 I'm going straight down to my club. It won't take us 
 more than a couple of hours." 
 
 The girl's blue eyes danced. The thought of a refusal 
 never entered her head. 
 
 "Oh, I'd love it!" she answered happily. 
 
 "Good girl!" he said. He walked about his car, 
 eyeing it from all sides, opened the engine-hood and 
 made a few mysterious investigations, got back in his 
 place, and they were off". The village and the chat 
 ting neighbours and the scraping shovels slipped behind 
 them, and they were out between the stately 
 fences and the snow-draped gardens again. Once 
 her companion, who was now wearing dark goggles, 
 turned to Ellen and dropped another pair of glasses in 
 her lap, with the four brief words: "Better put them 
 on." Ellen obediently snapped them against her 
 soft hair. Not another word was spoken for three 
 miles. Ellen was entirely conscious that the man 
 beside her was gradually working off his irritation and 
 anger. 
 
 After awhile he glanced at her, smiled a sudden and 
 perfunctory smile, and said : 
 
 "I'm pleasant company for you what? Have you
 
 44 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 minded my chatter?" Ellen laughed, in some em 
 barrassment. 
 
 "I didn't mind not talking!" she said, shyly. 
 
 "You what!" he asked in so loud a voice that she 
 felt rather frightened. "You didn't mind? Well, 
 that's so much gained, anyway." He drove on for a 
 minute or two, and then asked abruptly: "Lorimer, 
 is it?" 
 
 She looked puzzled, smiled, reddened, suddenly 
 caught his meaning, and answered hastily: 
 
 "Latimer!" 
 
 "Latimer I beg your pardon! Well, Miss Latimer/ 
 how much of that did you get ? " 
 
 Again Ellen was not quite sure she understood him. 
 
 "You mean there at the house?" she faltered, as he 
 gave her a shrewd side glance. 
 
 "Exactly!" 
 
 "I knew that Mr. that your father was there!'* 
 
 the girl said, timidly. 
 
 Gibbs wrenched at the wheel with large, strong 
 hands; his brow clouded; they flew along in silence. 
 
 "Damn such women!" she heard him say under his 
 breath. Ellen felt her colour rise, she looked straight 
 ahead. "I wonder if she arranged that!" Gibbs 
 presently said, in a suspicious and musing tone, as the 
 car coasted noiselessly down a grade, and they and 
 the white world were wrapped in a momentary silence. 
 
 Ellen's quick look met his; she shook her head 
 decidedly. 
 
 "Mrs. Rose? Oh, no! She wouldn't do a thing like 
 that! She was frightfully nervous the instant she saw 
 you," she answered confidently. "She's too good- 
 hearted she wouldn't do a thing like that ! "
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 45 
 
 Again he did not answer, except for a dubious glance 
 and a half-satisfied nod. But after a while he spoke. 
 
 "I guess you're right. You probably are. I guess 
 I'm just out of sorts making too much of the whole 
 thing!" The car slowed down, Gibbs looked at the 
 fastening on one of his big gloves, shot Ellen a glance. 
 
 " Have you got a mother ? " 
 
 "No," Ellen answered. "My mother is dead." 
 
 "So is mine," he said soberly. "I loved her very 
 much. I don't I don 't get used to it ! " 
 
 "I'm sorry!" the girl said, simply, after a moment. 
 
 "That crowd," Gibbs said darkly, "can make light 
 of it, if they like! The King is dead long live the 
 King. Well, I'm not that sort. I'm done with the 
 whole crowd of them!" 
 
 "It was awkward," Ellen said thoughtfully. "But 
 I don't think it was any one's fault." 
 
 "Perhaps you're right!" he conceded, again. And 
 again for a few minutes he was silent. Then he sud 
 denly began to speak of his mother. 
 
 "I don't know why," he said unexpectedly, "but I 
 wish you had known my mother. She was a most 
 extraordinary person. She was frail always, I think, 
 and when I was a boy about eighteen or nineteen, she 
 had an illness, and she never left her couch after that 
 for twelve years. I was studying in Paris, she and my 
 father had left me there; she wanted me to be a painter. 
 But on my own responsibility I came home when my 
 father wrote me that she was ill. I've never forgotten 
 her look when I came into the garden. It was summer, 
 and she was lying on the porch thin, and so white 
 
 Ellen hardly dared breathe. She had never had a 
 man's confidence before. "I gave up my painting, and I
 
 46 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 went into the firm with my father," he pursued. "It 
 was all made mighty easy for me, of course. I had my 
 riding horse, and my country club, I'm not represent 
 ing myself as a martyr. When he had to go to London, 
 I stayed with her, and when Dad came back they sent 
 me around the world with another chap a wonderful 
 trip, too. A year ago, we were both in the library with 
 her, when she well, she just gave a sort of sigh, that 
 was all. Her heart got tired, there was no pain. And 
 for awhile we thought my father was going, too. 
 He drooped and brooded it was ghastly. He'd al 
 ways been so young for his age. But now he seemed 
 broken, somehow!" 
 
 Ellen cast about for something to say, fearful of chill 
 ing his mood. 
 
 "He seems young now," she ventured at last. 
 
 "Now? Of course he does!" Gibbs assented half- 
 angrily. "Mind you," he added, speaking fast and 
 vigorously, "Mind you, he had a perfect right to 
 remarry if he felt like it. That's his affair. But to 
 marry this pink-cheeked, empty-headed, stupid cloak 
 model if she was that! I only saw her once. She 
 was engaged, when my father met her, to a big black- 
 moustached fellow who had a couple of living wives. 
 That's her measure! The fellows began to hint to me 
 about it six months ago; I didn't believe it. Then I 
 saw my father with her one night, having dinner; at 
 
 Sherry's, I think it was. I thought " He glanced 
 
 at his companion suddenly. "Well, you're only a 
 kid," he said, more gently. "But I never dreamed this 
 would come of it!" 
 
 Ellen's colour rose. 
 
 " But but there is nothing disgraceful in his marry-
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 47 
 
 ing her," she said bravely. "And and if I were your 
 mother I would rather he did that than than did any 
 thing that wasn't fair to her!" 
 
 Gibbs drove on in silence. She thought perhaps he 
 had not been listening. 
 
 "You're quite right, my dear," he said presently, in 
 a softened tone. "You make me feel ashamed of my 
 self. A good woman has the trick of putting her finger 
 right on the vital spot sometimes, and I believe my 
 mother would agree with you!" 
 
 Ellen's happy colour flooded her sensitive face. 
 
 "I've not seen my father since this thing happened, 
 two months ago. I suppose they told you that?" 
 Gibbs said. "I've not been home since. I suppose 
 he's established her there, if they got in on Wednesday, 
 and she's prowling among my mother's books and laces 
 and jewellery. I can't I can't quite go it. The 
 world's big enough, and people will stop buzzing about 
 us presently. Let her have her money and position 
 and good times, I don't grudge them, God knows. 
 But I feel as if it wasn't only my mother who died a 
 year ago, but my father, too, and the old days, and the 
 old way of thinking. Some day I don't know I'll 
 go in and see the old man, and we'll have a talk 
 
 "But you've not met her?" Ellen asked thought 
 fully, when his voice had dropped to silence. "She 
 doesn't seem to me the cloak-model type." 
 
 "Pretty, eh?" he asked, with dry interest. 
 
 "Oh, extremely! She's more than pretty, she really 
 has a lovely face, and I think she is clever, too. She's 
 studying French and music, and she well, she has a 
 way of keeping silent that makes other women seem 
 like chatter-boxes!"
 
 48 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 "Paris gowns, I suppose, and tiaras to breakfast?" 
 
 "Well, too many jewels, I should think. But her 
 clothes are really exquisite; she had on some sort of 
 awfully plain peacock blue thing this morning, not a bit 
 of trimming, not even a belt it was just wrapped 
 about her like a robe all the girls were watching it 
 out of the corners of their eyes! And Mrs. Rose said 
 she happened to have ordered one just like it, only 
 in green!" Ellen said innocently. 
 
 Gibbs laughed shortly. 
 
 "That's Abby for you! She'll have it, too, the next 
 time Mrs. Josselyn visits her. Go on, tell me about 
 them. Why were the girls watching out of the cor 
 ners of their eyes ? " 
 
 "Well, I don't think they wanted your your father's 
 wife to think she could show them anything they 
 didn't know!" 
 
 "Exactly. It must be lots of fun to play her game," 
 Gibbs said musingly. "Watching every chance, 
 studying the Social Register as if it were her catechism, 
 picking up bridge and French and music! I wonder if 
 my father sees through it?" 
 
 "It wouldn't be worth while to me, not if I was left 
 a million dollars," Ellen contributed, "There's too 
 much that's uncomfortable about it. And if I had 
 daughters, I wouldn't want them to think that only 
 money counted. I don't mean that I could do it, even 
 if I did want to!" she said hastily. 
 
 "Do what?" Gibbs asked kindly, his interested 
 eyes on her face. 
 
 "Oh, dress as they do, and go to a fashionable 
 school, and keep up that sort of rushing about and 
 talking Ellen answered, a little uncertainly.
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 49 
 
 "There's nothing in it for the people who chase it all 
 their lives," Gibbs observed. "And the real people 
 the ones who are born to it, don't know they have it 
 so there you are! You can't buy anything real 
 with money, as I see you suspect. Well, now I've 
 talked you to death about me, and told you my maiden 
 name and everything, and it's your turn. You didn't 
 drop out of the sky, I suppose, just to give mean ex 
 cuse to blow off steam ? You live in ? " 
 
 "Port Washington, Long Island. Age, twenty-two," 
 Ellen said demurely. She told him about her grand 
 father, and Joe, and her work at the Art League. It 
 pleased her to be able to paint Mrs. Rose in the 
 colours of a generous benefactress, to show him what a 
 difference the friendship of the kindly old meddler 
 had made in her life. She said that she lived in an old- 
 fashioned village house, and that Aunt Elsie was 
 considered the best housekeeper in the village, and that 
 her tomatoes and Ellen's dahlias had twice taken 
 prizes at the Mineola Fair. 
 
 "You sound quaint," said Gibbs, "and as if you 
 might have a melodeon in the parlour." 
 
 "We have!" Ellen said, dimpling and widening her 
 eyes as she smiled at him. 
 
 "Well, nice little country girls should not use rouge in 
 excess," Gibbs rebuked her. "Look at yourself in 
 that mirrorscope, and rub some of it off at once!" 
 
 The girl laughed delightedly, and leaned forward to 
 see the vision of a miniature Ellen royally furred, with 
 black hair loosened about crimson cheeks and happy eyes. 
 
 After that they ran on for awhile in contented si 
 lence, and then Ellen suddenly said, from the depth of 
 a thoughtful mood :
 
 50 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 "And now will you be an architect in business for 
 yourself? " 
 
 "I don't know," Gibbs answered with a quick, amused 
 glance at her. "I've been drifting. I may go 
 abroad, and go back to the old work. I've had a hank 
 ering for it at various times during these years. 
 My mother's little estate comes to me in a few months. 
 That would keep me going until I struck my vein." 
 
 "You could take it all, and go to Paris." Ellen, 
 who had about seven hundred dollars in mind, said 
 enthusiastically. "I would if I could! I don't mean 
 that I want the Bohemian part," she went on eagerly, 
 "but I want to get among people who are poor, 
 and working like mad, and not just in it for the fun! 
 I've thought sometimes that I'd go to some woman 
 there, and ask her to let me live in her family, you 
 know, cooking and washing dishes, and let me off for my 
 classes! Surely that'd be perfectly safe, wouldn't it?" 
 
 "Why, yes if more girls had that idea there'd be 
 considerably less suffering and sin in Paris this mo 
 ment," Gibbs said, for some reason rather touched by 
 the humble little dream. "But you see they want to 
 enjoy life, and they spend their money, and then there 
 comes a cold winter, and not too much fire and food, 
 and somebody willing to play the friend and then 
 trouble! It's too bad your heart is aching for some 
 one or other all the time you're there!" 
 
 And having said this in a fatherly tone, he stopped 
 the car at one side of the road, and took off his glasses. 
 Ellen took her own off, too, and looked at him in some 
 surprise, as they blinked at each other in the strong 
 light. 
 
 "We are now forty miles from Columbus Circle,
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 51 
 
 and it is one o'clock," said Gibbs. "How do you feel 
 about luncheon? A place called 'Adrian's' is about 
 three miles from here, and I am a frail young thing, 
 and I've not had any breakfast!" 
 
 Ellen was not Aunt Elsie's niece for nothing. She 
 showed immediate consternation. 
 
 "No breakfast! Oh, why didn't you say so!" 
 
 "Then j^ou'll join me in a large steak, several pounds 
 of fried potatoes, and some coffee?" Gibbs asked, 
 in satisfaction. 
 
 The conventional aspect of the affair struck Ellen 
 for the first time. She looked at him gravely, and her 
 ready colour crept up. She did not know him, her 
 chaperone was even unaware that she was in his care. 
 Men loved to get foolish girls into strange places, Aunt 
 Elsie said, and a girl never made a mistake in refusing 
 when she was in doubt. If Ellen didn't get back to 
 New York to-night Aunt Elsie would think her with 
 Mrs. Rose, and Mrs. Rose would think her safely home. 
 
 Gibbs was smiling at her obvious hesitation. 
 
 "You know you're safe with me, Kiddie, don't 
 you?" he asked. "You know I wouldn't take you 
 anywhere that I wouldn't take my mother?" 
 
 That settled it. Ellen had not been born yesterday, 
 after all. She had her own stern girlish standard of 
 judgment, and she knew she was safe. The luncheon 
 was a perfectly natural part of the trip; they were both 
 hungry. And he had not had any breakfast! 
 
 She made him an answer that pleased him deeply, 
 although he apparently conceded it nothing but a 
 satisfied nod, and immediately hid his eyes under the 
 glasses again. 
 
 "If you say it's all right, I know it must be."
 
 58 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 So they went to "Adrian's," a big, shabby hostelry set 
 upon a rise of ground, and provided with wide ve 
 randas for the summer crowds; verandas deserted now 
 under their bare awning frames. 
 
 Inside was great warmth, and the odour of cigars 
 and food. Ellen found the rush of hot air delicious. 
 She was cramped and chilly and sleepy, and surprisingly 
 hungry. Gibbs put her in the care of a cheerful little 
 Irish maid whose presence there was in itself reassuring 
 to Ellen, and when she had washed her face, and brushed 
 her hair, and readjusted her hat, she came out in 
 great spirits to find Gibbs waiting for her at a small 
 table in a corner of the sun-flooded dining room. 
 
 Other starved motorists were eating, and Ellen and 
 Gibbs childishly hoped that every tray, borne slanting 
 by a staggering waiter through the swinging kitchen 
 door, might prove to be their own. They rapturously 
 praised the bread and butter. 
 
 The meal came at last, hot and odorous and appetiz 
 ing, and they talked while they ate. Gibbs told her 
 of his first acquaintance with Mrs. Rose. 
 
 " I was a small kid of ten or twelve, in Rome, do 
 you see? And she was there with her first husband, 
 Torrey, who was a good deal older than she a man of 
 fifty-five or sixty, I should say. He had struck it rich in 
 the West somewhere, and she wasn't the woman to 
 settle down in Nevada City. Arthur was a baby then; 
 Lucia was born later. My mother was kind to her, 
 we were at the same hotel, and she was awfully kind to 
 me. She had a brother with her, about my age, and we 
 saw a good deal of each other. Later, when she was a 
 widow, she turned up in Paris with the two children. 
 My mother and father were staying there for a while,
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 53 
 
 before leaving me there to study. And later, she 
 came here, and married Rose, who is a darn nice fel 
 low, and now of course she regards me as a member 
 of her family! And I'm fond of her, too, although 
 Lucia's a little fool, and I can't stand Arthur." 
 
 "She went to school in Boston with my mother," 
 Ellen said. "But I never saw her until a few years 
 ago. Now that I've visited her I can see just the care 
 less way she suddenly thought of inviting me to her 
 Thanksgiving house party. She thinks all young 
 people ought to like each other and dance and have a 
 good time, and I suppose she felt sorry for me. But I 
 never had such a wretched, uncomfortable time in my 
 life; perhaps it was my own fault!" 
 
 She told him all about it, inconsequentially, and he 
 listened with genuine interest in his handsome eyes. 
 Perhaps this artless revelation of a girl's heart was 
 novel to a man who found the sex remarkable in all its 
 phases, perhaps with beauty like Ellen's opposite him, 
 and a delicious breakfast under way at last, he would 
 have found anything she said equally absorbing. 
 
 "Little cads and snobs," he said, when she had 
 finished. "And some of them will never be anything 
 else. If Lucia marries well, and starts off with a 
 limousine and three or four servants, and a big wedding, 
 she'll never know that she really is a rather ignorant 
 and undeveloped girl, whose money has proved about 
 the worst thing that could have come to her! Well 
 how do you feel now? Anything more?" He sum 
 moned the waiter; the check was paid. It seemed 
 quite natural to Ellen that he should put a piece of silver 
 into her hand: "For the girl, when you get your 
 coat."
 
 54 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 Warmed and contented, they went out to the car 
 again, and again Ellen was wrapped in snugly, and dis 
 guised by the big dark glasses. 
 
 "Half-past two," said Gibbs, again at the wheel. 
 "That means that we will run into the city just about 
 four o'clock.'* 
 
 "It's going to snow," said Captain Latimer's grand 
 daughter with certainty. Her companion gave a quick, 
 suspicious look at the sky. 
 
 "I believe you're right, Miss Fatima Larimer. But 
 we'll beat it to New York just the same. Let us 
 away!" 
 
 The car moved smoothly away over the snow. 
 Ellen was beginning to love the steady, gliding motion. 
 She secretly wished that there was a longer journey 
 ahead. But when the disquieting thought leaped into 
 her mind that he might offer to drive her all the way 
 down to Port Washington, she most inconsistently 
 began to pray that it would not occur to him to do so. 
 Aunt Elsie's big Sunday dinner would be over, the 
 house would reek of Grandpa's old pipe. There 
 would be only cold food in the house for supper, and 
 Aunt Elsie might not be gracious. No, if he said any 
 thing about it, she must dissuade him at all costs. But 
 perhaps he would mercifully be unaware that it was 
 only seventeen miles from the Williamsburg Bridge 
 to the Port Washington Post Office. 
 
 The snow was surely coming; dark little cottony 
 clouds were gathering ahead, and pressing low over the 
 silent earth. There was no sunshine now, and the air 
 seemed heavier and colder. The roads were almost 
 deserted. 
 
 "Never you mind, we'll beat it!" Gibbs said
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 55 
 
 with great enjoyment. "Look out for a signpost, 
 and tell me where we are." 
 
 "Columbus Circle twelve miles,'* Ellen announced, 
 after a few minutes. 
 
 "Twelve miles well, we must look out for the Sunday 
 speed cops now!" He slackened his pace. They were 
 running through a well-settled region. Ellen began 
 to realize that the trip was almost over. She might 
 get the train at four-twenty, otherwise she could easily 
 catch the five-twenty, and get home just in time for 
 the late supper. The day had run away; a day always 
 to be a wonderful and treasured memory. 
 
 Afterward, she tried to remember just how she 
 was shaken from her musings. Like all accidents, the 
 thing was simplicity itself. They were running par 
 allel to a trolley track, on the wide street under the 
 beginning of the elevated trains. There was a car on 
 the track a few hundred feet ahead, and next to the 
 car a man driving an enormous team of horses and an 
 empty truck. Both truck and trolley were travelling 
 in the same direction as the automobile. 
 
 The street was so wide that there was no question, 
 even in Ellen's mind, of the propriety of passing the 
 car and truck, especially as the stretch of street be 
 yond was absolutely empty. Gibbs turned his 
 wheel toward the left, and was running unconcern 
 edly by, when the motorman suddenly sounded an 
 ear-piercing whistle a terrific, prolonged blast of the 
 siren with which trolley cars are sometimes equipped 
 in the country. The horses, with a wild plunge 
 of terror, flung themselves straight across the path of 
 the motor-car coming up behind them, almost unseating 
 their driver, and tangling themselves in reins and harness.
 
 56 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 Gibbs jerked his car violently to the left, instinc 
 tively avoiding the plunging hoofs; there was a moment 
 of horrible skidding and grinding in the snow that edged 
 the ditch, then the roadster turned abruptly on her 
 side, and Ellen was spilled out, with Gibbs on top of 
 her. 
 
 The girl had hardly time for a moment of hideous 
 apprehension and panic before she was on her feet 
 again, with his arm about her, laughing with the 
 revulsion and the shock. The skid had saved them, 
 for the car was turned at an exact angle, and so had 
 slipped with her lights firmly wedged against the 
 further side of the ditch, and had no opportunity to 
 turn turtle, as she must otherwise have done. 
 
 For a few confused moments Ellen hid her dazed face 
 in the fur of the man's shoulder; no, she really wasn't 
 hurt, she had landed on her shoulder, honestly she was 
 not hurt, it just hurt her for a moment, that was all! 
 And it had scared her 
 
 Gibbs, reassured, began to nurse a wrenched wrist 
 of his own, and to discuss the accident with the two 
 carmen and the truck-driver with the usual anger and 
 threats. What was the sense of blowing a whistle 
 right into the horses' ears 
 
 "You was passing too close to the edge of the road, 
 anyway!" shouted the motorman furiously. Upon 
 Gibbs taking his number, he blew his whistle again, 
 and banged triumphantly down the line. The truck- 
 driver, a little frightened, standing at the horses' heads, 
 expressed his satisfaction that the lady wasn't hurt, and 
 drove away. A policeman, coming up with a few 
 interested stragglers, was noncommital. 
 
 "You's driving pretty fast," he said calmly, to Ellen's
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 57 
 
 indignation. "You mustn't take chances with them 
 heavy cars. You might easy have been killed, both you 
 and your wife. You don't want to do that, you know." 
 
 "You've bust your front spring, Mister," volun 
 teered a youth gaily. 
 
 "I know I have," Gibbs said savagely. "You poor 
 little thing," he added tenderly to Ellen. "I've scared 
 you to death!" 
 
 "Oh, it feels all right, now," she said quickly, but she 
 was white, and still shaken from the narrow escape. 
 He read her expression truly. 
 
 With only one worried glance at her, he set about 
 extricating them from the difficult position as rapidly 
 as possible. The gay boy was left in charge of the car, 
 and Gibbs caught up Ellen's suitcase, as, still in their 
 heavy coats, they started on foot to the nearest garage. 
 
 Fortunately this was not far away, and from here 
 Gibbs sent mechanics back to the roadster, and en 
 gaged a taxi cab to take Ellen and himself as far as the 
 subway at Van Cortlandt Park. The girl protested 
 against his accompanying her all the way, she was quite 
 able to take care of herself now, but he would not 
 listen to her, and when they reached the city, finding 
 that they had forty minutes to spare before the train at 
 twenty minutes past six, he took her to the Vanderbilt 
 tea room, and ordered tea. 
 
 All the while he was praising her, not only in words, 
 but with his appreciative eyes, and in the sudden cheer 
 fulness that the averted tragedy inspired in him. He 
 talked to her frankly and gaily; she was a good sport, 
 she had really shown incredible nerve. And they had 
 had a great day, hadn't they? since they missed the 
 train from Hastings.
 
 8 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 "I had to put the car up anyway," he reassured her. 
 "I never use it much in winter, and, as I told you, as 
 soon as my mother's estate is all settled up, I may go 
 abroad." 
 
 "And your wrist?" Ellen asked, her radiance 
 returning with the hot tea and the felicitous hour. 
 
 "That I don't know which one it is! No, we're out 
 of it all very nicely, Miss Purple Eyes." 
 
 "Purple Eyes mean trouble," Ellen said, smiling. 
 
 "Oh, you know that story? I didn't think your 
 generation did. Well, I hope this day hasn't meant 
 all trouble to you." 
 
 Ellen looked down at her plate. He could see the 
 betraying crimson creep under her wild rose pink- 
 and-whiteness. 
 
 "It's been a wonderful day!" she said, hardly 
 above a whisper. 
 
 Perhaps the man's first impulse was to lay his hand 
 over the small hand that lay on the table not far from 
 his own, and say something that should meet her mood. 
 It was not the only time that Gibbs Josselyn had had 
 such an opportunity, it was the first move in a game 
 that he had played with supreme success for many 
 years. 
 
 But he did not want to play that game with Ellen. 
 There was no conscious, idle flirtatiousness in those 
 lowered blue eyes, no coquetry in that honest little 
 Irish mouth. It could bring her no joy, it might it 
 must bring her pain to know Gibbs Josselyn well. 
 No, let her have this day's adventures to keep, an un 
 clouded memory, and let the story end here. She had 
 played her part fairly, and he would play his, too. 
 
 So he let the moment pass, and presently a ta*\ was
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 59 
 
 had, and a large bunch of violets; there was barely time 
 at the train for laughing good-byes. Ellen glanced 
 back when she had passed the gate: he was watching 
 her, and as their eyes met he gave her his disturbing 
 smile again, and again raised his hat. 
 
 "He's thirty or more, and every woman he knows is 
 in love with him," said Ellen to herself, settling down in 
 the train. "It's been wonderful it's been heavenly, 
 and I'll never see him again!"
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 AUNT ELSIE and Joe and even the old Captain 
 listened to Ellen's tired and excited recital that night; 
 the woman exclaiming over descriptions of meals and 
 clothes, the old man and the young anxious to grasp 
 exactly what happened to the car. Aunt Elsie hoped 
 that Ellen had thanked that young man for bringing 
 her down in his car, and Ellen sat up after the others 
 had gone to bed and wrote a pretty note of thanks to 
 Mrs. Rose. She said that she and Mr. Josselyn had 
 had a "spill in the snow," but that fortunately no harm 
 was done; it had been a lovely run. 
 
 After the letter was gone she sat reflecting; could 
 she with any propriety write Gibbs? She knew 
 she could not. She knew that he would read her 
 motive in doing so as clearly as if she wrote the words : 
 "I like you. I'm not married, and you're not mar 
 ried. I don't want to let you go." 
 
 She gave up the idea, and put her letter to Mrs. Rose 
 by the clock, to be mailed in the morning, and went 
 to bed, twisting and turning because the wrenched 
 shoulder had begun to ache, but finally falling into 
 deep, exhausted sleep between the cold sheets, too tired 
 to dream. 
 
 Joe mailed the letter the next morning, and stopped 
 at the drugstore on the way back, for Ellen could not 
 twist her sore shoulder into her dress, and came down- 
 Stairs in her wrapper. After breakfast, in the coffee- 
 
 00
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 61 
 
 scented dining room, Aunt Elsie investigated the 
 shoulder with kind, hard fingers, and Ellen winced 
 and moaned. Joe came back with the liniment, and 
 the shoulder was rubbed, and Ellen lay on the hard lit 
 tle settee all morning, trying to prop pillows under her 
 aching neck. 
 
 Her aunt and the Captain prophesied that it would 
 get better immediately, and a day or two went by. 
 Ellen lay patiently through the long day-time hours, 
 and wept with pain in the night. A night came when 
 Mrs. Baldwin, looming fantastic in the shadow of a 
 kerosene lamp against Ellen's wall, threatened in a 
 worried tone to call the doctor in the morning. 
 
 By this time the girl was in such agony that she 
 only wanted to wail because the doctor could not be 
 called then, on the instant, in all the lonely cold and 
 terror of the night. But a doctor was an unusual 
 thing in the Latimer house and her aunt went slowly 
 back to bed hoping that she would "get some sleep." 
 
 Morning came, and Ellen's one fear was that her 
 aunt would forget. She brushed her hair with her left 
 hand, and washed her face with icy water, and went 
 downstairs in her wrapper again. Seven o'clock. The 
 doctor could not possibly come until nine. 
 
 Mrs. Baldwin did not forget. She persisted that it 
 was either a cold in the shoulder, or a "wranch," or 
 "the stiffneck." But she sent Joe for the doctor after 
 breakfast, and Ellen felt better when she knew Joe had 
 gone. Her aunt aired the dining room, anticipating 
 the call, and had everything in order long before nine. 
 But it was almost noon when the busy doctor came in, 
 and sat down by Ellen's side with a smile of kindness 
 and reassurance.
 
 62 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 That was the beginning. Ellen, who had never been 
 in a doctor's hands before, smiled up at him uncom 
 fortably as his skilled fingers pressed and explored. 
 She made a rueful face when she heard her fate. She 
 must lie absolutely still for an unspecified number of 
 days, perhaps a week. Mrs. Bradley afterward told 
 some intimates that she mistrusted Ellen was in for 
 a bad spell when Doctor Older, who was fresh from the 
 city hospital himself, said that he was going to see an 
 old doctor in the city who was a spine authority in a 
 day or two and discuss Ellen's case with him. 
 
 The preliminaries of a long illness are almost always 
 wretched for the patient. Before the rebellious soul 
 and body will accept the situation, before the house 
 hold has adjusted itself to the altered needs and the 
 altered hours, before the physician himself has judged 
 ,his patient's capacity for endurance, the responsiveness 
 to remedy and opiate, hours of misery must be borne. 
 
 Ellen was suffering acutely, she was mystified and 
 shocked, and she was heartsick at the hideous possibility 
 she suspected under the young doctor's frankly trou~ 
 bled manner. Her bedroom was cold, she slept 
 badly, and she was lonely. All the books in the house 
 she had read a dozen times; there was no member of 
 the family to whom it occurred that Ellen might be 
 hungry for books; it did not indeed occur to her. 
 Joe came in to see her for a few minutes twice a day, 
 her grandfather once, her aunt kept the room clean, 
 and brought her trays she could hardly touch. Fe 
 vered, restless, dazed with lack of sleep and with the 
 effect of the medicine that controlled the worst of the 
 pain, she would stare at them dully.
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 65 
 
 "What say, dear?" her aunt, flushed from the kit 
 chen, would bend over her to ask kindly. 
 
 "If you'd just straighten up these covers, Auntie, 
 it hurts my neck so to move " 
 
 "Ain't you going to eat no more than that, Ellen?** 
 
 "Oh, no, thank you ! The custard was delicious; that 
 was enough!" 
 
 Gradually she reached the second stage, and, if 
 hope died within her then, as to the future, at least she 
 found the present more bearable. Not as a whole, 
 for her soul shrank from the horror of the thought 
 that she might never walk free and young through the 
 garden, and into Main Street again. 
 
 But she grew to enjoy the little pleasures of the day., 
 There was a tiny white pill at night that sent her off 
 into dull, delicious sleep, there was a kerosene stove 
 that warmed the icy bedroom; her gratitude for a water 
 bag. to be brought her gloriously hot three or four times 
 a day, was out of all proportion to its cost. The doctor 
 suggested most of these things, and Aunt Elsie de 
 lighted in capably adding them to her domestic system. 
 
 Aunt Elsie brushed and braided the cloud of soft 
 hair that had hung about Ellen's hot face for the first 
 few days, and began to take a certain pride in her in 
 valid. And Ellen's girl friends began to come sym 
 pathetically in, and presently there were so many books 
 to read that Ellen used to find herself wondering when 
 she would have time for them. Her trays had a dif 
 ferent soup and jelly for every day in the week. 
 
 A few days before Christmas the New York spec* 
 ialist came down, and was friendly and informal to a 
 degree that enchanted Aunt Elsie, He could say little
 
 64 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 more than Doctor Older. Miss Latimer had done 
 something mysteriously harmful to one of the delicate 
 vertebrae at the very base of the brain. It was an 
 unusual case; he asked Ellen how she would like to see 
 her bones described in a journal of medicine. 
 
 The girl quivered into the invalid's invariable 
 question. 
 
 "Doctor do you think can you give us any idea 
 it can be cured, can't it?" 
 
 "Almost anything can be cured. We had a curious 
 case in the hospital last week. Did one of the boys 
 tell you about that, Older? They brought a child 
 in " 
 
 He launched into a most diverting story. When it 
 was told Ellen tried to bring him back to her own case. 
 
 "DoctorOlder tells me that you want to be an artist," 
 said the specialist for answer. "Now, there's nothing 
 to prevent you from going right on with your work 
 here. Get out your pencils, and don't bother your head 
 about your back! You're not having so much pain, 
 now 
 
 "Not unless I move," Ellen faltered, feeling the 
 tears of bitter disappointment press behind her eyes. 
 
 Doctor Older immediately began to discuss a sort 
 of harness he was having made for the neck, and when 
 the city man had highly approved this experiment, the 
 two went away. Only Ellen knew the bitter desola 
 tion they left behind them; and the long hours in the 
 night she lay sobbing over what in her dark hour she 
 thought the death of hope. 
 
 But hope was born, and died again, a hundred 
 agonizing times, in the days to come. The harness 
 gave her blessed relief, although its ugly brownness,
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 65 
 
 pressing up against her white face, was a hurt to her 
 girlish pride. And on Christmas Day, with Joe's help, 
 the doctor moved her down to the dining room, where 
 a wide couch had been placed for her. 
 
 After that she came downstairs every day, and 
 Aunt Elsie and Joe helped her tenderly upstairs every 
 night. And there were hours, whole days sometimes 
 between the moods of revolt and resentment, when 
 she found a new, odd flavour of joy in her life. She 
 grew nearer Joe, in the long evenings when they 
 laughed over their games Parchesi, and Halma, and 
 cribbage, the first tenderness any one had ever seen in 
 Joe was awakened by his inarticulate pity for his pretty 
 sister. Aunt Elsie, too, found that an unexpected 
 sympathy existed between her and her niece. Ellen 
 listened interestedly to her village gossip, to her 
 speculations as to affairs local, and, having nothing 
 else to do, Ellen exerted herself to amuse the village 
 women who came in, and began to reach eagerly for 
 the village babies, laughing in pure delight as she un 
 wrapped the little soft bodies, and pressed her pale, 
 warm cheeks to the rosy little unresponsive faces. 
 
 But it was the Captain who proved the real surprise 
 of the illness. The old man was not talkative, nor 
 had he ever been gracious in manner. But he liked 
 company, and when he found that Ellen would smile 
 for ten minutes over something he had found her in his 
 old leather trunk, or picked up for her on the shore, he 
 began to turn toward her for companionship. He 
 liked to watch her play solitaire at night, advising her 
 over his pipe, and sometimes when the hour she dreaded 
 came, in the early winter darkness, and soul and body 
 seemed at low ebb, when the last red sunlight dropped
 
 66 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 abruptly from the framed picture of Franklin at the 
 Court of France, and touched Aunt Elsie's sewing ma 
 chine, and was gone, when a chill crept into the close, 
 darkening room, and it was too early for the dinner 
 stir, and the lamp, and when the little familiar thread 
 of pain worked its weary way back to her tired head, 
 lie seemed to realize her utter need, and he would 
 begin long tales of wreck and mutiny, stories that won 
 Ellen to interest in spite of herself. 
 
 "Never mind, Ellin," said the kindly old voice one 
 day. "Tide's bound to come back, ye know. And, 
 as the sailors say, it's putty generally at low tide that 
 ye find things wuth pickin* up!" 
 
 "That's poetry, Grandpa," the girl said, smiling 
 with pleasure. "And it's true, too." 
 
 "Ye do get better, don't ye?" he asked, with a sharp 
 look over his glasses. 
 
 "Oh, I think I do. I don't know when the doctor 
 means to let me take this collar off, and while it's on of 
 course I can't tell! But Saturday night, when I was 
 having a bath, Auntie took it off for a few minutes, and I 
 almost died until it was on again!" 
 
 Her grandfather was watching her closely, with 
 bright, anxious old blue eyes. 
 
 "Never mind!" he said. "First thing ye know 
 ye'll be jumping in and out of here again like a fiddler's 
 elbow!" And he returned to nis paper comforted, 
 because Ellen laughed again. 
 
 Almost every hour something took her thoughts to 
 Gibbs Josselyn and the adventurous day that had 
 been her last day free from pain. At first it had seemed 
 that he must know, that he had a right to know, whi:t
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 67 
 
 the accident had cost her, and that his Miss Purple 
 Eyes had come to know what trouble was, after all. 
 She longed ah, how she longed, for his splendid 
 concern and sympathy. There were whole hours 
 when she lay and dreamed of it, his shock, his horror, 
 his visits, and his flowers. 
 
 Sometimes the wording of the letter she knew she 
 would not write flitted through her mind. "Dear Mr. 
 
 Josselyn I know you will be sorry something 
 
 that seems to puzzle the doctors the pleasant land 
 of counterpane " 
 
 But she did not write. Pride kept her silent. She 
 would not send him the three lines that must buy his 
 friendship. If that was to come to her, it would come. 
 She dared not beg for it. 
 
 And honest as she was to the core, Ellen knew that 
 her motive in keeping silent was not quite unmixed. 
 ,The note might bring him straight to her, it was true. 
 "But suppose he did not in the least realize that her life 
 had been crushed and altered in the one brief moment 
 of terror and shock they[had laughed over and so quickly 
 forgotten? Suppose he said to himself that he was 
 sorry, and it was a pity and nothing more ? Then 
 she would lose not only the future, but the bright and 
 precious memory of the past. He might be in France 
 now, for all she knew. He might crumple the little 
 letter and toss it aside wondering why girls were 
 all alike, each one. reaching out in her own way for a 
 man's attention and admiration. 
 
 Again, he might respond to the little appeal with all 
 the generous ardour that she knew was in him, waiting to 
 be stirred. He might come straight down to the house 
 in Main Street
 
 68 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 To find Aunt Elsie, opening the door, suspicious of 
 his errand, and find the dining room overheated and 
 unaired, and find Joe's boots oiled and drying by the 
 air-tight stove, and adding their odour to the other 
 odours 
 
 And to find Ellen, his rosy companion of the furs and 
 the laughter, a small white-faced thing under a patch 
 work quilt, with brown leather straps under her chin 
 
 Reaching this point in her thoughts, Ellen would 
 give a little shudder. Better that he should never 
 know. Better that she had never crossed his path, or 
 he hers. But for that memorable week-end she might 
 be going to the Yacht Club dance with Willa, Bobby 
 Carnival, and the Henshaws to-night, she might be 
 in the Mardi Gras Kermess that was to convulse and 
 enchant the village next week. And summer was 
 coming, a summer without driving and tennis and 
 swimming for Ellen! 
 
 She must lie still while the others boated and danced 
 and played without her. She must be a witness now 
 to what had seemed so commonplace a few months 
 before, and seemed so sweet and full a life now. Willa's 
 new evening gown, and the suspicion that Olive Car 
 roll was really beginning to return Bobby Carnival's 
 devotion, and the secret that Mary Pitcher, the wife of 
 a year, had told Ellen in a winter twilight what mir 
 acles of simple happiness all these were! 
 
 She must lie still, the old physical joy in living gone, 
 and the old peace of mind gone, too. For Bobby and 
 the Henshaws seemed changed now, and in the back of 
 her heart and the back of her mind there lingered the 
 disturbing vision that had displaced them: the memory 
 of a cultivated voice; of deep kind eyes, and silver hair;
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 69 
 
 of clever, groomed hands. There lingered the hurting 
 knowledge that certain doors were closed to Ellen' 
 Latimer, that certain lips spoke a language she could 
 not understand, that there was a world, so near her 
 own, where her mere youngness and goodness and will 
 ingness to learn could win her no place. Other keys 
 were needed for those doors, and through no fault of her 
 own, Ellen had not those keys. 
 
 Mrs. Rose had gone to Bermuda, and later, according 
 to the news columns of a morning paper, would leave 
 her daughter, whose pre-debutante year had been one 
 of exceptional delights, in school, while she visited 
 friends in California. The check for Ellen's expenses had 
 arrived promptly during the first week of the year, 
 however, and had been the cause of some serious de 
 bate in the Latimer house. 
 
 Ellen wished to send it back, with a note explaining 
 the circumstances. The warm-hearted Mrs. Rose 
 might show her sympathy in some decided way, might 
 even mention Ellen's sad situation in some quarter 
 through which it would reach Gibbs Josselyn. 
 
 But Mrs. Baldwin, quite unsuspicious of this vague 
 thought in- her niece's mind, suggested that the check 
 simply be banked for the time when Ellen could use it. 
 No use distressing her generous friend with a tale of 
 misery for which she was indirectly responsible, and 
 which she could not help. Ellen would be well, one of 
 these days, and perhaps the money might be used for 
 some special course, this midsummer, which would en 
 able her to start in her regular work in the fall. 
 
 Ellen agreed to this somewhat reluctantly. The 
 girl hungered for the romantic and dramatic; life thrust
 
 70 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 her back resolutely into the commonplace, do what 
 she might. But she was learning patience and self- 
 control, coming to believe that what made for happiness 
 and harmony here, in the old house, was her first 
 concern. 
 
 During a cold wet week in March she realized that 
 her aunt was worrying about something, and with the 
 quick sensitiveness of the invalid, she felt the instant 
 effect on her own spirits. 
 
 "Well, the truth is, money don t grow on trees," 
 Mrs. Baldwin admitted, opening the stove to thrust in 
 another wet stick of wood. "And several bills have 
 come in, and your Grandpa was frettin' about them a 
 little. I say that doctors are accustomed to waitin', 
 and let 'em wait until summer, when his dividends 
 come in. There's no sense in touching your capital- 
 unless you have to." 
 
 Ellen had never given money a serious thought be 
 fore. She supposed that there was plenty, perhaps 
 half-supposed that Aunt Elsie and Grandpa lived in 
 this simple fashion because they preferred it. 
 
 "We could rent a couple of rooms all summer, and 
 more than make it up that way!" pursued Mrs. Bald 
 win. "I've kept boarders before this. You see be 
 tween the little Grandpa has put away, and poor Mr. 
 Baldwin's insurance, and having no rent to pay, we 
 have about eighty or ninety dollars a month, Ellen, and 
 dear knows that's enough! But now here's one bill 
 for forty-two dollars, and that harness seventeen-fifty, 
 and the city doctor's twenty for that one call, and the 
 drugstore bill of course considerable nine dollars 
 and something, I think and it kind of gets on Grand 
 pa's mind!"
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 71 
 
 Ellen fought a wave of bitter heartsickness and 
 rebellion. Oh, it was too much it was too much! 
 To endure and endure, to be silent, to be brave, and 
 yet to be a burden on these loyal hearts, powerless 
 to raise one hand to help them! She had a swift 
 thought of Lucia, of the beautiful Doris 
 
 "I'm so sorry, Auntie," she said, after a silence. 
 "But if you did take boarders, I believe I could really 
 help. I could shell peas and peel apples and do all the 
 mending, anyway 
 
 Mrs. Baldwin, who had been standing at the window, 
 with her arms rolled in her apron, and her eyes fixed 
 upon the steadily falling rain, turned suddenly about, 
 and for almost the first time in her life Ellen saw tears 
 in the faded blue eyes. 
 
 "I declare, Ellen," said the older woman, trying to 
 laugh. "You beat everything! I wouldn't have any 
 more trouble laid on your poor little shoulders for all 
 the money in Christiandom 'Tisn't really the 
 money that's got on Grandpa's mind, it's seeing you 
 lay there, you poor scrap! And you do melt me all 
 up, rememberin' your way when you was well and 
 strong, talkin' meekly about shellin' peas and darnin* 
 socks ! If we could see you startin' off for town pretty 
 and happy like you used to be, I guess Pa and I could 
 make out well enough somehow!" 
 
 With which Mrs. Baldwin whisked out of the room, 
 to tell Minnie Rodney, presently, when Minnie came in 
 to tell her all about Al's baby, that she never had seen 
 a character soften like Ellen Latimer's had softened the 
 last few months. 
 
 Left alone, Ellen put her thin hand over her eyes 
 for a few minutes, and cried quietly. Presently she
 
 n JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 groped under her pillow for her handkerchief, and 
 wiped her eyes, and said an earnest little prayer. And 
 after that, hearing Minnie's voice, she called out cheer 
 fully to hear about the baby, and Minnie and her 
 Aunt came gladly in to tell her. 
 
 The prayer was answered, as such prayers always 
 are. Three weeks later, in the last heavy snow of the 
 year, a letter with a California postmark came to 
 Ellen, and she called her aunt to share the new plan. 
 
 "It's from Mrs. Rose, in answer to one I wrote her 
 last month. They're just starting for Honolulu, and 
 she writes so sweetly about my accident and all. And 
 she says that of course I'm to use that money for any 
 thing in the world that will make things easier, so you 
 tell Grandpa to-night that I won't have a happy min 
 ute until he's paid all my miserable bills with it! 
 And she says that if they go to Japan, she's going to 
 send me the prettiest kimono she can find!"
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 APRIL was rainy, and May was rainy, but the miracle 
 of the year went on despite the rain. Between warm 
 showers, Ellen, at the window, could hear the peepers 
 shrilling in Baxter's woods, and the sweet rush of the 
 freed waters in the creek. Then came the children's 
 eager voices as they hunted for violets, and the lin 
 gering of the light on an occasional sunlighted afternoon 
 almost until the supper hour. A film of green showed 
 on the hard dark earth of the garden and against the 
 bare limbs of the trees, and sweet wild winds swept 
 over the world with the odour of damp turned soil 
 and bursting buds in their wake. 
 
 Then suddenly there were still hot days, when bang 
 ing screen doors and the distant crowing of cocks 
 brought a foretaste of summer, the sky was high and 
 blue, and the plum trees in the front yard looked like 
 enormous popcorn balls. All the windows were open, 
 and a scent of lilacs drifted through the house; a new 
 fruit-store, sure sign of summer, opened in Main 
 Street, and young voices began to echo again through 
 the early evening darkness. 
 
 And Ellen, a little thin and limp, but dressed and 
 radiant, had a comfortable chair under the lilac tree, 
 and waved now and then at friendly passers-by in the 
 street. She had a book, but often she sat dreaming 
 blissfully, with the pages unturned, for hours at a time. 
 No book was half so exciting as was a slow walk to the 
 
 73
 
 74 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 gate, with a stop on the way back to gather herself a 
 dozen violets, or a plume of lilac. Spring had never 
 seemed half so lovely, or the world so kind. 
 
 "We ought to be content just to know it's coming 
 back every year, Joe, with the flowers and the fruit 
 blossoms!" 
 
 "But gosh, we aren't!" Joe made her laugh by 
 answering seriously, one day. 
 
 "If I could have someone to love me, and a little 
 place of my own to work in, and a garden like this, I 
 know I wouldn't want any more, Joe!" 
 
 "You'll get married!" Joe said a little uneasily, 
 smiling at her. 
 
 "Well, I didn't mean exactly that," El'en answered 
 thoughtfully. "I meant that I hope this winter had 
 taught me not to care about the little things/' 
 
 "Gosh I'll never be happy!" Joe burst out bit 
 terly. Ellen did not take the little tumble-headed 
 brother in the sweater too seriously. Joe would read 
 of an actor, and ache to be an actor; read of Panama, 
 and yearn for linen clothes and tropical leisure; pore 
 over pictures of cadets at West Point with envious 
 eyes. Even the portrait of a President's young son, 
 displayed in a Sunday pictorial supplement to the news 
 paper, would stir Joe to keen discomfort. "Look at 
 the boob, with his hunting whip and his dogs," Joe 
 would sneer, "he thinks he's something! Gee, some 
 body must like him, to pay someone for painting that!*' 
 
 The glory of the year deepened swiftly, and joy kept 
 pace with it in Ellen's heart. The harness was long 
 gone, the couch was upstairs again, and only a cush 
 ioned rocking-chair in its place. Ellen could sweep 
 the garden path again, with her blue sunbonnet over
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 75 
 
 her eyes. Ellen could cut out cookies on condition 
 that she went straight upstairs and lay down for 
 an hour afterward. Except that she usually went to 
 bed at eight o'clock, and avoided the more violent 
 forms of youthful amusement, Ellen might live her 
 old life again. 
 
 But it would never be the old life. It was so en 
 riched and so enhanced by the five long months in 
 prison that Ellen felt sensations of freedom absolutely 
 birdlike, warmth and flowers and blue sky intoxicated 
 her. Leonard Henshaw, for whose attentions she had 
 wistfully longed a year ago, was her captive now, but she 
 did not want to marry Leonard Henshaw. She only 
 wanted to be alive, and to claim her work and play 
 among the living again. 
 
 May thirtieth, always a great day in Port Washing 
 ton annals, broke cloudless, and found all the village 
 already in holiday mood. Tides of human life, even as 
 early as seven o'clock, began to turn toward the water, 
 there were picnics, boating-parties, barbecues afoot; 
 not a girl or boy in the village was without a golden 
 plan for the day. Manhasset Bay, as blue and smooth 
 as blue silk, under the high arch of the sky, was dotted 
 with craft of every description: big steam yachts, and 
 houseboats, two or three fleets of anchored smaller 
 sailboats, and the usual busy traffic of rowboats, 
 launches, canoes, and even crude rafts, working their 
 ways like water bugs through the softly moving 
 passage-ways. 
 
 To-day the yacht clubs would go into commission at 
 high noon, with every imaginable form of gaiety to do 
 honour to the occasion. At the Port Washington Club
 
 76 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 i 
 
 where Ellen and her friends would presently gather, 
 there were to be swimming races, a great outdoor 
 luncheon, a baseball game between the married and 
 the unmarried men, moving pictures, games, and prizes 
 for the small children, a dance until long after mid 
 night, and, of course, the raising of the colours, and 
 the yacht race that were the nucleus for the whole 
 day's celebration. 
 
 Ellen was taken down by the Henshaw boys, in their 
 car, at eleven o'clock, and was under parole not to 
 race, even if she swam, not to "crew" even if she 
 sailed, not to enter the tournament, even if she played 
 tennis, and to be home at five o'clock to get three hours' 
 rest before the dance. But long before Ellen was 
 awake there were men on every one of the anchored 
 yachts, whistling and shouting to each other as they 
 groomed the brass work and the decks, and straightened 
 rigging. Pails of dancing emerald water were hauled 
 on board, and pails of dirty soapy water were flung 
 back into the green deeps again; ropes banged against 
 wood, and sails were shaken out in the first fresh 
 breeze of the morning. Patient youths untangled long 
 strings of flags on the pier; old Captain Larimer, in his 
 glory, and Joe, gravely content to putter in the warm 
 ing sunlight on the damp, heaving raft, were authorities 
 here, and consulted alike by old mariners and by cal 
 low youths who petted their "Stars" as if they were 
 fragile women. 
 
 By ten o'clock strings of colour were fluttering every 
 where, women with baskets were gathering on the club 
 house porch, eager boats were cutting about the pier- 
 end like restless gulls, and the silent Commodore, with 
 a trimly uniformed figure and a trimmed, gristled beard,
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 77 
 
 was circulating among the hilarious men, women, and 
 children with a smile of utter approval on his kindly old 
 face. Tenders, loaded to their capacities, were making 
 for the yachts now. Presently the colours went up, 
 fluttering gayly against the blue, and the cannon, 
 fired from the grassy mound before the clubhouse, was 
 answered by twenty booming shots from the boats. 
 As the detonation died away the band burst madly 
 into sound, and thirty young figures plunged from the 
 pier end for the first swim, to pull themselves upon the 
 float a moment later as sleek as seals, and add their 
 shrieks and laughter to the general uproar. 
 
 If Ellen Latimer, one of the seals, who was warning 
 Bobby Carnival that if he pushed her into the water 
 again he would be sorry for it the longest day of his life, 
 had chanced to glance toward The Eaglet, one of the 
 visiting yachts in the bay, anchored three hundred 
 yards away from her, she might at this moment have 
 received a shock. For a man with a thick mop of 
 silvered hair under a visored yachting cap was stand 
 ing there, yawning happily in the warm sunshine, look 
 ing with appreciative eyes at the bay and the shore in 
 the soft hazy morning of what was to be a hot day, and 
 in particular at the brilliant picture presented by the 
 little club. 
 
 Gibbs Josselyn, if he had been through no such 
 schooling as Ellen in the last few months, had suffered, 
 too, in his own way. Like Ellen, he had seemed to lose 
 his place in the world, with his father's marriage, his 
 resignation from his father's firm, and the transplanting 
 from his father's house to his club. Sensitive and 
 proud, he found the attitude of his intimates equally 
 distasteful, whether they sympathized with him or criti-
 
 78 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 cized him, he missed his work, and found no incentive 
 to take up anything new. 
 
 Beside the fire in his mother's drawing room, amus 
 ing the men and women she drew about her, he had been 
 in an atmosphere infinitely stimulating to what was 
 fine in him. He missed it, and in none of the homes 
 where he was welcome did he find it again. 
 
 Without his realizing it, the pretty little Miss Lat- 
 imer's rapture at the thought of Paris had touched 
 him. She was not flirting, like Lucia, she was dead in 
 earnest, the bright-eyed, rosy little enthusiast. Gibbs 
 had more than once caught himself wishing that she 
 might have the Paris, at twenty-three, that lay open to 
 his hand, and found him lukewarm, ten years later. 
 
 He went to Maine, and modernized a seaside farm 
 house for an old friend whose wife made love to him 
 and thereby deeply annoyed him; he drifted into an 
 other friend's office, and earned his undying gratitude 
 by designing some factory cottages, and superintend 
 ing their erection at Newark, New Jersey. And 
 then he chanced to come to Manhasset harbour with 
 George Lathrop and George's motherless boy and 
 girl in time for the opening of the clubs on Decoration 
 Day. 
 
 George, Junior, presently leaping out of the cabin 
 ready for swimming, the older men followed suit, and 
 Gibbs, whom the boy adored blindly in all things, passed 
 him in the fresh dancing water, and dragged himself 
 up on the anchored raft at the side of the club pier, 
 where they got into conversation with a boy in a dirty 
 gray sweater, who was sitting there idly in the sun. 
 
 "This is going to be the girls' race now," said the 
 boy. when he and George, Junior, had discussed sev- r
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 70 
 
 eral important matters. "They'll all line up here, and 
 dive, and swim to the float, and touch it, and then 
 swim back." 
 
 "Well, we'd better get out of the way!'* George, 
 Senior, suggested. But the son begged eagerly: "Aw, 
 Dad, let's stay and see the race. He says that after the 
 girls, the boys race, and I wanter see it!" 
 
 "Sit up here under the pier, and keep out of their 
 way, then!" Gibbs suggested. The boy with the 
 sweater approved, saying: "We're all right over 
 here!" 
 
 On the pier, the crowd was gathering to watch the 
 races, and presently a dozen slender laughing girls in 
 wet bathing-suits formed a line on the edge of the float, 
 and at the crack of the pistol were into the water with 
 one shout, and tearing like so many salmon for the 
 swimmers' float. The sweatered boy was now heard 
 to observe to George, Junior: 
 
 "That's my sister out there on the float. She could 
 beat 'em all ! She g^t first prize last year, and two years 
 ago." 
 
 "She's very decent to keep out of it, then!" Gibbs 
 said casually. "And if she's that one with all the dark 
 hair, she's pretty." 
 
 "She fell out of an automobile, and hurt her spine, 
 and they won't let her swim yet," said the boy. 
 
 "I don't know what she's doing in that rig, then," 
 Gibbs observed. 
 
 "Oh, well, she swims, but she can't race!" 
 
 Gibbs thought the big, loosely-built country fellow 
 had a most engaging smile, and paid small attention 
 to his words at the moment. He questioned the boy 
 about the other races, and promised George, Junior,
 
 80 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 that he would watch the "Stars*' get off at three 
 o'clock. Meanwhile Ellen, wrapped in a mantle of 
 drying black hair, was rocking herself back and forth on 
 the float, discussing the races, and congratulating the 
 winner. Perhaps she noticed the two strange men and 
 the boy who dived suddenly from the anchor float, but 
 as this chanced to be the moment when the Henshaw 
 boys, with two girl passengers, elected to upset their 
 canoe, it was probable that she saw nothing of the visi 
 tors. 
 
 Later, when she and Aunt Elsie were busy at the 
 lunch-tables that had been built on the green between 
 the clubhouse and the tennis-courts, and with a score 
 of other women were cutting cakes, helping salad, 
 and pouring coffee, Joe lounged up to them, gorging on 
 sandwiches, interested in all other forms of food, and 
 even willing to be useful in some not too conspicuous 
 way. 
 
 "Take that mashed piece, Joe that's about the 
 best-looking chocolate cake I ever set knife to!" said 
 his aunt. "Where you been all day, dear? Now you 
 stay right here where I can lay my hand on you, and 
 I'll send you down shipyardway with something for 
 Grandpa, I don't s'pose we could drag him up here 
 with a span of horse." 
 
 "There's a feller on one of the yachts that ast me to 
 come out with a boat, about four o'clock, and bring him 
 in to get cigarettes and ice and butter and things," 
 Joe volunteered. 
 
 "You told him the stores were all closed until six?" 
 Ellen asked quickly. Her brother looked blank. 
 
 "Gee I am a fool " he murmured penitently. 
 "Gosh, now what can I do about that?"
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 81 
 
 "Go down and get into a canoe or something," 
 Ellen advised, "and go out and tell him. He can get 
 anything at six, they'll be open an hour then." 
 
 "I guess I'll do that," Joe said, and securing another 
 triangular wedge of cake, and putting seven or eight 
 moist, thin sandwiches in his pocket, he was gone. 
 Ellen, who followed him down to the shore with some 
 lunch for her grandfather, saw the little motor-boat 
 he had informally borrowed churning out to the yacht, 
 and sauntered back to the lunch-tables with him when, 
 he returned. 
 
 "That was awfully nice of you, Joe, I hope he ap 
 preciated it?" 
 
 "Sure he did. He said he was much obliged, and 
 please to come at six, then. He asked me my name, 
 and I said Latimer. I get sick of this 'Joe Joe Joe* 
 business. Every wop in the place is named Joe! 
 Gosh, that kid with them must have things pretty 
 easy. His sister was there, a little kid but Gosh, 
 she was a pippin! Harriet! She's about ten or twelve 
 with her hair all hanging round!" 
 
 Ellen laughed, and laughed again when Joe, re 
 turned to the lunch-table, began a fresh attack upon 
 the food. For the young Latimers the episode seemed 
 closed. And yet not only to Ellen, and to Gibbs 
 Josselyn, but to Joe and the innocent Harriet of the 
 hanging locks, the hour was filled with possibilities, 
 and never to be stricken from the calendar of the 
 four lives again. 
 
 For Gibbs had caught the name Joe called to 
 George Lathrop, Senior, and had mused upon it. 
 
 "Latimer that's funny. Latimer and Port Wash-
 
 82 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 ington he might be her cousin or something. I sup 
 pose the same names run through all grades in these 
 old country places. If he comes at six, I'll ask him if 
 he knows my little lady. I'd like to see that serious 
 little girl again. What the deuce was her first name, 
 did she tell me? What did Mrs. Rose call her? 
 Helen, that was it!" 
 
 "Is there any one down here named Helen Lat- 
 imer?" he duly asked Joe, late in the sweet summer 
 afternoon, when the races were over, and the wilted 
 merrymakers had climbed home through the quiet, 
 steep village streets, and the fast-sinking sun, over 
 beyond Great Neck, was touching the flags with a 
 last bath of splendid colour. Gibbs and Lathrop, 
 Senior, were alone with the boy, for the children had 
 elected to stay on the yacht. But Joe was clean and 
 shaven now, his white shirt open to show the fine 
 brown column of his neck, and his thick hair brushed 
 and dampened into something like order. Joe had 
 thought that the lovely Harriet might come with 
 them, and was nursing a secret disappointment. 
 
 "No, sir. I guess my Grandfather and my sister 
 and I are the only ones of that name," Joe answered, 
 after a moment's thought. 
 
 "I believe I'll get an old place 'round here some 
 where," George Lathrop said. "And keep the kids 
 down here next summer. They could swim, and have 
 some sort of a boat." 
 
 "Do 'em both a world of good," Gibbs said ab 
 sently. "You never heard of a lady named Mrs. 
 Rose Mrs. Sewall Rose ? " he presently asked Joe. 
 
 "Sure I did!" Joe said, smiling. "She's the lady 
 that got my sister started in the art school!"
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 83 
 
 "Well, of course!" Gibbs was surprised at his own 
 pleasure in identifying her at last. "Your sister, 
 that's it! And what is her name?" 
 
 "Ellen," Joe smiled. 
 
 "Ellen, of course!" Gibbs echoed. "Well, how is 
 she?" 
 
 "Oh, she's all right now," Joe answered carelessly. 
 "If you're coming ashore for the dance to-night, you'll 
 see her. She can't dance, except just a little, but she's 
 going down." 
 
 "I hardly think we will come in for the dance," 
 Gibbs answered. "Funny she looks as if she could 
 dance! But you give her my love Mr. Josselyn, 
 will you?" 
 
 "My boy is bursting to get in to that dance," Lath- 
 rop, Senior, smiled to Joe. "But we can't very well 
 bring the boy and leave the girl alone " 
 
 "I should think the little girl could look on for 
 awhile," Joe said, suddenly hoarse. 
 
 At the dinner table, when the men had accom 
 plished their marketing, and were back on the yacht, 
 George Lathrop asked Gibbs if he had noticed that 
 boy. That was no sort of boy to be knocking about 
 the water-front of a small fishing village, he had an 
 exceptionally fine face. 
 
 "I'd like to get hold of a boy like that, and keep him 
 about the place," Lathrop said, enthusiastically. "It 
 would be the making of George." 
 
 "Well, if you like the Soy, I assure you you'd be 
 amazed at the sister," Gibbs said. "She's a little 
 beauty; dainty, clever, quick as a whip! I take it 
 they're the best sort of American blood, come of a long 
 line of simple, decent people "
 
 84 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 " What's the matter with her?" Lathrop asked. 
 
 "The matter with her how d'you mean?" Gibbs, 
 who was mixing a salad dressing, looked up sharply. 
 
 "Why, she's sickly, or something," his host answered 
 innocently. "Didn't you hear the boy say this morn 
 ing that she couldn't swim any more, and just now, 
 didn't you hear him say that she couldn't dance? 
 I suppose you have to have kids of your own to notice 
 that sort of thing?" 
 
 "He said she'd been in a motor accident, and hurt 
 her spine," little George said. "But she got the prize 
 for swimming last year, and second prize in the ladies* 
 singles What is it, Uncle Gibbs?" 
 
 For Gibbs had laid down his fork and was staring 
 at him strangely. 
 
 "Great Lord!" he said in a horrified undertone. 
 "But that couldn't be!" And as they all looked at 
 him in surprise, he turned toward his host. "You 
 remember when my car was in a smash-up, last Novem 
 ber, George?" he said. "It just occurred to me it 
 just occurred to me that that little girl was with me! 
 I don't suppose there's one chance in a thousand that 
 that was where she got hurt I don't suppose there's 
 one chance in a million " 
 
 He got up and walked to the cabin window. The 
 sunset gun had fired, the banners were lowered, Port 
 Washington was dotted with lights in the early dark 
 ness, other lights mirrored themselves in the quiet bay. 
 
 "I guess you and I will have to go over and have a 
 look at that dance, George," he said. 
 
 It was a night made for youth, and beauty, and the 
 innocent, radiant egotism of beauty and youth. Ellen.
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 85 
 
 knew, when the girls told her she looked perfectly 
 adorable, that they spoke no more than the truth. 
 To her happy eyes they all looked adorable, and she 
 truthfully returned their compliments. Ellen was in 
 palest pink, her gown, of silky, cloudy frailness, had cost 
 forty cents a yard for eight yards, but as the girl had 
 decided that it was to be "severe" a word she often 
 repeated with a sort of dimpling severity in her own 
 manner and trimmed with nothing but the wide, 
 soft hems that finished its deep, soft ruffles, it had not 
 proved a too expensive garment after all. And her 
 slippers were pink, and her stockings pink, and as every 
 other girl had miraculously achieved a similar har 
 mony in colour, they looked like a flower garden in full 
 bloom, and fully deserved all the praise that the 
 escorting boys could not find time enough between 
 bursts of laughter and gales of chatter to whisper to 
 them. 
 
 The air was still soft and warm, and sweet with the 
 odour of trampled fresh grass. About the club there lin 
 gered still the happiness of the long hot day. In the 
 darkness water lapped gently at the pier, the sky was 
 spattered thick with stars, and there were lights here and 
 there along the Great Neck shore, and a long line of them, 
 lying like a necklace down at Plum Beach. Even far off 
 toward Hart Island and the Connecticut side of the Sound 
 lights were discernible, and presently there would be a 
 moon to shed an actual enchantment over the world. 
 
 Gibbs, his host, and both the children came ashore 
 in the rowboat of The Eaglet at eight o'clock. Lath- 
 rop, Senior, had friends among the club members, and 
 was quickly taken to the heart of Port Washington's 
 younger set. He was a democratic man, and he liked
 
 86 
 
 to see his daughter's blonde locks bobbing over the 
 shoulder of the boy who had rowed the boat that after 
 noon. Gibbs had declined to enter the ballroom at 
 once, and had remained on the porch to finish his 
 cigarette. 
 
 From the darkness here he watched the dancers, and 
 he had no difficulty in finding Ellen, in her pale pink 
 ruffles, with her exquisite, radiant face. She was not 
 dancing, although the blue eyes and the pink slippers 
 evidently longed to dance, and when Gibbs first saw 
 her, was talking prettily to some older woman with 
 great gravity and attention. A youth came up and 
 she transferred her earnest gaze to him, and presently 
 Gibbs felt a quick sensation of almost pain near his 
 heart as her face brightened into an actual laugh. 
 
 Another man was smoking quietly beside him, and 
 after a while Gibbs asked him, just for the pleasure r 
 of hearing the answer, the name of the pretty girl in 
 pink ? 
 
 "That's Miss Ellen Latimer her grandfather is one 
 of our old Captains, here quite a character," said the 
 other man, in a slow, pleasant voice. "They're making 
 a great fuss over the girl to-night; she hasn't been at a 
 dance for six months! She gave herself a very ugly 
 dislocation of the spine. I began to think she wasn't 
 going to get over it. I happen to be her doctor " 
 
 "That must have been an unusual case," Gibbs 
 said, to lead him on. The other man was launched at 
 once. His listener presently could form an idea of the 
 little, inconvenient house, the suffering girl, the endur 
 ance, the patience, the cruel doubts and delays. He 
 pleased the doctor with his warm congratulations 
 upon the cure, and when the medical man had excused
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 87 
 
 himself, to go and dance with his wife, Gibbs stayed 
 on at the window, watching the pink ruffles again. 
 
 So sweet, so young, so innocently fresh and good! 
 Gibbs wondered whether summer and moonlight had 
 gotten into his blood, as he felt it run warmer at the 
 sight of her. Too dignified to write him what a day of 
 pleasure had cost her, too honest to make capital out 
 of the fortuitous chance, she could adjust her little 
 affairs with courage and character, and, having chosen 
 her path, pursue it to the end. 
 
 The man who won Ellen Latimer would be a lucky 
 man, he thought, with a curious wistfulness. It was a 
 wonderful thing to think that there were still in the 
 world purity, and simplicity, and goodness, character, 
 clean standards 
 
 And suddenly, with an unaccustomed flush of colour 
 in his face, the question sprang into his heart full formed. 
 Suppose such a girl could come to care for a man like 
 him ? Where could he find anything better, or sweeter, 
 or more rich in promise for the years to come ? He was 
 tired of the old life, he had never really cared for the 
 false standards, the superficial women, the intriguing, 
 shallow girls, the show and glitter and cost. To put 
 his arm about that lovely young body, to feel her close 
 to him as she raised her flower-like face for his kiss, to 
 see -Ellen in the sort of gowns he could design for her, 
 crouched beside a studio fire crossing an old garden in 
 spring Nothing in months had so stirred his old 
 delight in living as the thought of pleasing her, spoiling 
 her, finding the untouched deeps of her joy always 
 fresh. How she would love to shop with him, to 
 read the books he loved, to meet the few old friends 
 he really valued!
 
 88 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 They would find some old farmhouse in this neigh 
 bourhood, and he would make it over with white paint 
 and old draperies, and he might have his easel there 
 Ellen could paint, too she had told him of her 
 dreams 
 
 Suddenly the plan was born. Paris! They would 
 go to Paris, and there they could both work, and could 
 make for themselves a life nothing short of the ideal. 
 A dim old studio, one of those clever maids who de 
 light in the cooking art, summers idling in Brittany 
 or Holland. And the lovely young Mrs. Josselyn, a 
 picture in gipsy hats and summer smocks, or velvet, 
 childish winter gowns, would fill his life with sweetness, 
 and inspiration, and everything that was clean and 
 good and honest. 
 
 He had for her the awe that any man feels for an inno 
 cent girl. To Gibbs Josselyn it would have seemed 
 unbelievable that she could imagine him essentially 
 her superior. Older he was, and more experienced, 
 but he balanced these things against her youth and 
 beauty, and felt the exchange perhaps a little less than 
 fair. Money, position, and power, the good things of 
 life had been his since the hour of his birth, but he had 
 had success and unsuccess in his work; sorrow, as well 
 as joy; enemies no less than friends, and in this hour of 
 real humility he felt himself a rather commonplace 
 fellow, with only his hands and his mother's little 
 fortune of a few thousand dollars to offer the woman 
 he made his wife. 
 
 He crossed the porch to the door of the ballroom 
 as the dance ended, and met her, in the group of girls 
 and boys who were coming out for a breath of cooler 
 air. She was talking to another girl, but she saw the
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 89 
 
 strange man, and turned her bright eyes curiously to 
 ward him. Then she stopped speaking, and one hand 
 went with a quick gesture to her heart, and in the dim 
 ness he saw her white breast rise suddenly, and her 
 lips part a little. 
 
 He got her hand, and held it, and still she did not 
 speak, merely stood breathing high, and looking stead 
 ily at him. 
 
 Gibbs found his own voice curiously unmanageable. 
 He cleared his throat. 
 
 "Ellen!" he said. 
 
 Another dance began, and another, and yet another. 
 And through them all Ellen and Gibbs sat on the dark 
 porch, over the softly moving water, and talked with 
 that desperate deep relief that pilgrims know who find 
 fresh, icy springs after the parching desert, or mothers 
 know who weep beside the bedside of the child that will 
 live. 
 
 It seemed to Ellen that all her life had been only a 
 preparation for that talk. Gibbs's arm was about her, 
 on the porch rail, and slipped over the pink gown was 
 his big soft coat, faintly redolent of tobacco. Behind 
 them long screens had been placed, to shut the porch 
 into darkness, and farther down its length other 
 gowns, of blue and white, were protected by other 
 coats. But the two in the corner saw and heard noth 
 ing but themselves, unless now and then they noticed 
 the moonlight that was making the bay seem like 
 some detached and floating segment of fairyland, or 
 heard the quiet plop of oars as some small boat slip 
 ped silently over the water. 
 
 Sometimes he made her laugh, and she would flash
 
 90 JOSSELYN'S WIPE 
 
 him a look from averted blue eyes, and bring all her 
 dimples into sudden play, and often she made him 
 laugh, and would regard him with delicious childish 
 seriousness until his mirth was explained. But for 
 the most part they were serious, there was much to 
 explain, much that was sad and poignantly sweet to 
 remember, and with eloquent looks and monosyllables 
 they relived it all, and found it inexhaustibly wonder 
 ful and strange. 
 
 And at midnight, true to her promise, Ellen was 
 driven away, by Leonard Henshaw, her hand still 
 warm from the touch of Gibbs's big hand, her shoulder 
 still feeling the pressure of his protective arm, her heart 
 and mind and soul in a whirl of starshine. Leonard 
 could make nothing of her; like all her friends he ex*- 
 pected some explanation, facetious or serious, of hei 
 curious conduct to-night, but Ellen was in a dream. 
 She merely smiled at his hints, left him with hardly a, 
 good-night, and floated into her own doorway like 
 something bewitched. She undressed, wrapped in ? 
 sort of love for the gown and the hair and the eyes 
 Gibbs had praised, and lay down on her small white 
 bed and extinguished her light so promptly that her 
 restless aunt, in the next room, felt a sensation of 
 gratitude. 
 
 But Ellen had no time to waste with sleep to-night. 
 
 Nor did Gibbs sleep. He sat outside his stateroom 
 far into the morning, smoking, thinking, smoking again. 
 At about four o'clock, when a faint hint of dawn was 
 glimmering into the darkness, George, Senior, looked 
 yawning out. 
 
 "For the Lord's sake old man!"
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 91 
 
 "I know I'm coming now." Gibbs arose, cold, 
 yawning, and stretching. "I know," he apologized, 
 smiling. And coming near to the tousled and pajama- 
 clad form of his friend he said with a certain boyish 
 appeal in his voice: "I'm awfully happy about some 
 thing, George, and awfully sort of scared. Wish me 
 luck, old man!"
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 "ToMMY, dear," the little mother in the big blue coat 
 said presently, lifting the child from her lap, and setting 
 him upon his own sturdy legs on the deck, "run and tell 
 Dad that Mother wants to see him! Tell him we're 
 almost almost in ! " 
 
 Her voice rose almost to song on the last phrase, and 
 although the child was already out of hearing, her 
 nearest neighbour, an elderly woman also comfortably 
 stretched in a deck chair, heard her and smiled. 
 
 "You sound glad to be back, Mrs. Josselyn!" said 
 she. 
 
 "I didn't know how glad I was going to be," admitted 
 Ellen Josselyn, her happy eyes leaving the prospect of 
 the dark waters of tfie harbour mouth, and the unmis 
 takable approach of the solid blue shadows that mean 
 land. "I don't want Mr. Josselyn to miss the first 
 sight of Ellis Island and the Liberty statue, and all 
 the skyscrapers!" 
 
 "Ah, we've an hour before we'll see them!" smiled 
 the older woman. And she added with a sigh: "I 
 wish I could be spared the homecoming, myself. I've 
 friends here but no one very close! And Italy is 
 home to me now. I remember arriving years ago 
 with Mr. Benson, my husband long before my 
 daughter's marriage, and death. But I really hardly 
 feel myself an American now." 
 
 "I know!" Ellen said, warmly sympathetic. "I 
 
 92
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 93 
 
 feel that myself. Mr. Josselyn and I went abroad 
 the very day after our marriage, and that was six years 
 ago last October. We've lived in France all this time. 
 Tommy was born there, and when we decided to come 
 back to America I felt a sort of terror, actually! It 
 seemed much, much harder than the original uprooting, 
 strangely enough! I never have been homesick for 
 America, but I'm homesick already for France! And 
 yet, now that we're almost in, I'm beginning to be 
 terribly thrilled!" 
 
 "My daughter's husband has married again," the 
 other woman said, as little interested in Ellen's history 
 as Ellen was in hers. "She's very nice to the little 
 boys " 
 
 Her voice died away on a dissatisfied note. Ellen 
 let her eyes rest on the tumbling water again, and the 
 nearing land. America again! Thirty-fourth Street 
 again, Central Park again; after all, it was home. She 
 had curiously, vaguely dreaded it, she had had her times 
 of hoping never to return, and yet now she felt a sudden 
 thrill and a rush of something like rapture in her heart. 
 
 She was an older Ellen, at twenty-nine, and an as 
 tonishingly developed Ellen. The six years had made 
 a woman of her, and a woman of intelligence and charm. 
 Travel and study had done their share, joy had had its 
 part in the change, and sorrow, too. They had been 
 full and glorious years, and looking back, Ellen saw 
 them as years of almost unclouded happiness. Wife- 
 hood had brought her generous nature only what was 
 fine and good, motherhood had brought her the boy 
 that was the core of her heart. And motherhood had 
 brought sorrow as well, for little Tom had had a sister 
 for a few happy months, three years ago, and the baby^
 
 $4 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 grave, in a strange cemetery, was never long out of 
 Ellen's thoughts. 
 
 But that was the only shadow. Otherwise, it was all 
 gain. The radiant girl that had sailed with Gibbs from 
 this same harbour more than six years ago had not 
 been an exacting wife. There was no background of 
 spoiling and selfishness to make Ellen Josselyn a dif 
 ficult woman to live with. Her joyous: "Oh, Gibbs, 
 won't that be. fun!" had charmed him, and perhaps a 
 little touched him, a thousand times in those first days. 
 Everything was delight to her, the ship, the new friends, 
 the new gowns. Her eyes and heart were never tired of 
 new impressions. 
 
 Paris was all she had ever dreamed for her life, much, 
 much more than her brightest dream. They saw it 
 first in the languid airs of autumn, and were snugly 
 settled in the roomy apartment on Mont Saint Etienne 
 long before the first snow. Ellen had danced in her 
 joy at finding the four perfect rooms, the big studio 
 with its view of roofs and river for they were on the 
 sixth floor the two bedrooms that, if small, were 
 sunny, and the kitchen where Yvonne was queen. 
 
 Yvonne was a Lilloise, a big, red-cheeked, mighty- 
 armed grandmother, whose ideas of housekeeping and 
 cooking made Aunt Elsie seem but an extravagant 
 beginner. She was an artist, and she loved her art. 
 The Josselyns, renting their apartment, and engaging 
 Yvonne, had said to each other: "If we don't like the 
 house, or if she doesn't suit, why, we can easily change!" 
 
 But they never moved, and never dreamed of parting 
 with Yvonne. Life fell into a groove of joy and com 
 fort undreamed by Ellen, and unequalled, Gibbs said, 
 in his own experience. Yvonne was no hireling, she
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 95 
 
 v/a& their loyal and passionately devoted guardian. 
 She watched their meals, their health, their clothes, and 
 their pocket-book jealously. And when Tommy came, 
 and Ellen brought him in triumph from the American 
 Hospital, Yvonne had a daughter waiting to be a per 
 fect nurse for Tommy. Indeed, when the baby was 
 three months old, and terrifying feeding problems 
 began, did she not produce a good-natured peasant of 
 a daughter-in-law, who would leave her own home and 
 baby to give Tommy a little help over a rough bit of 
 *-oad ? 
 
 And before Tommy came, and afterward, and al 
 ways, how wonderful life was for Ellen! Exploring 
 the magic city, with her hand in Gibbs's.arm, watching, 
 content and ambition mark new lines in his face, hear 
 ing him say, a dozen times a day, that she had given 
 him back his life; her happy, grateful heart was only too 
 full. He began to work at once, and for awhile she 
 worked, too. But swiftly she saw that her earnest 
 and clever beginning was as that of a promising child. 
 There were ten thousand girls in Paris who could do 
 what Ellen could do. 
 
 Gibbs was a genius, she never doubted it, and it was 
 only a year or two after they came to Paris that his 
 world began to see it, too. He went straight at his 
 portrait work, and he lived only for that, and for her. 
 About them, on the left bank of the river, were swarm 
 ing hundreds who were working as hard as they, and 
 some of these were their friends. And Ellen, watching 
 other women struggle and despair, in loneliness and 
 poverty, wondered, with her old, sweet, childish sur 
 prise, why God had been so good to her. 
 
 She had her warm little home, safe above the struggle,
 
 96 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 she had Yvonne to baby her if ever a dull hour came, 
 or a moment's pain or doubt. She might put her warm 
 little glove over the wet, cold hand of some other 
 woman, and leave a coin there, and say, from the ful 
 ness of her heart: "I'm so sorry! Go get yourself 
 some hot coffee She might watch, with half-sad, 
 
 half-fascinated eyes, the dramas that went on about 
 them, in the streets and the cafes, with Gibbs at her 
 side, big and tender and protecting. 
 
 And presently she had Tommy, and they were play 
 ing at housekeeping in the tiniest of little lost villages 
 in Brittany. These were days of sunshine, while 
 Gibbs, wonderful in knickerbockers and a paint- 
 smeared smock, painted, and Yvonne walked bare 
 headed to market, and Ellen played under twisted old 
 trees with Tommy. Tommy had no nurse but his pic 
 turesque little mother now, for Ellen was thrifty, even 
 in Paris, and Ellen had spent more than one evening on 
 the arm of Gibbs's chair, working out the financial 
 end of their problem. Their money must last until 
 this time or that time they must think of the future. 
 
 Gibbs laughed at the future. He would catch her 
 little figure, in its sea-green draperies, or in the gipsy 
 hat and the apricot smock, and tousle her black hair, 
 and kiss her. What did she think he was going to be a 
 portrait painter for? Love ? He was going to paint all 
 the rich Jewesses in Paris. 
 
 She believed him, but still she watched the family 
 expenses closely. In the astounding freedom of the 
 world into which they had transplanted themselves 
 it was a pleasure to do so. Nobody cared how the Jos- 
 selyns lived, or where, or what they wore, or had in their 
 drawing room. Their sole duty was to be happy, and
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 97 
 
 to get the joy out of every sou in their own way, and to 
 be able to offer a friend a salad and a glass of wine, or 
 the loan of a few francs, as the case might be, in an 
 emergency. In America, Ellen would never have 
 dared wind her dark hair about her head in the way 
 that was so comfortable and becoming, and dress 
 herself in cheap cotton frocks of plum blue or lemon 
 colour, with accessories of Oriental scarfs, curious old 
 jewellery, and the various buckles, bands, and belts 
 that Gibbs delighted to find for her. It was not nat 
 ural for Ellen to make herself conspicuous, no matter 
 how sensible or comfortable she might find it. But in 
 Paris no one is conspicuous, and the gods of American 
 women clothes, furniture, and table accessories ex 
 isted not at all. 
 
 When Tommy was two years old, and before the sec 
 ond child was born, Gibbs painted his wife. They 
 were in Brittany again, and Ellen, with white sewing 
 in the lap of a checked blue gown, and figure and face 
 already caught in the first rising tide of motherhood, was 
 set against a background of gnarled old grapevines. 
 Gibbs called the picture "Wizardry." It was simply 
 done, the woman's face was turned toward the sea 
 beyond the grape-arbour, one hand, in the mottled light 
 and shade, had been given a careless but most arrest 
 ing beauty, but the face was merely a glimpse of 
 curved, flushed young cheek under a wing of black 
 hair. 
 
 The picture was hung in the Salon des Independents, 
 and Ellen, when her delicate little girl was a few weeks 
 old, went to see it. There was a crowd about it; there 
 was always a crowd about it. It was the discussed 
 picture of the year, but she always looked at it with
 
 >a little pang at her heart. She had been so happy 
 in those sleepy July days in the grape-arbour; she had 
 thought that the new baby would be like Tommy, 
 strong and gay and hungry. And the tiny new thing, 
 who had been named Rose for Gibbs's mother, was 
 so frail. Even while she was looking at Gibbs's picture, 
 his first success, Ellen's heart was in the little nursery 
 on Mont Saint Etienne, hanging agonized above the 
 little bed where Rose Josselyn lay quiet, apathetic, 
 half asleep. 
 
 The picture, during the winter, caused a widening 
 circle of comment and admiration, and presently Gibbs 
 had his first commission, and was to paint a boy of ten, 
 in the trim gray uniform of a military school, and re 
 ceive two thousand francs for the picture. 
 
 So fame was coming, and fortune would come close 
 on her heels. Ellen, sitting by the studio window in 
 the winter afternoons, and looking out at the fluttering 
 snow into which Yvonne had taken the dancing 
 Tommy, mused upon the dream that had become the 
 fact. She had Paris, Gibbs, and Tommy so much 
 more than she had asked! But the silent, apathetic 
 little Rose was gone from the nursery now, never to 
 lie against her mother's heart again. 
 
 Was that the cost of success she wondered. Suc 
 cess was new, but ah, this constant hunger at her heart 
 was new, too. How gladly how gladly she would let 
 the one go, if she might lose the other ! 
 
 They went to Holland that summer, and were happy 
 again, in a deeper and truer sense. Ellen knew the 
 ecstasy of gain, now she gathered the difficult fruit of 
 loss. Other women suffered and were strong, and she 
 must be, too. She made herself join Gibbs on tramps
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 99 
 
 and outings, made herself smile and talk. She /ought 
 down the bitter sense of futility, the longing to cry out. 
 "What use is it all? Nothing can give me back my 
 daughter!" 
 
 Gibbs painted three more portraits the next winter, 
 which made them feel rich; but he was working hard 
 and enthusiastically in the atelier six mornings a week, 
 and neither he nor Ellen were inclined to extravagance 
 so that there was no particular incentive to seek com 
 missions. 
 
 And so the exquisite years went by, and Tommy was 
 three and then four, and still the Josselyns lived in 
 their own happiness, shut away from the world, and 
 glad to forget it. Ellen's whole heart was wrapped 
 about her husband, her girlish idealism had never 
 been disturbed. True, she knew now that Gibbs 
 was human. She knew now that he could be un 
 reasonable, that he had moods in which she and Tommy 
 and Yvonne must keep even a crumpled roseleaf from 
 his path. She knew that while he was less sensitive 
 than she to the feelings of other people, and while she 
 felt that everything he did was perfection merely be 
 cause he did it, he liked to have his wife aware of the 
 conventions; it distressed him when her artlessness 
 and honesty made her seem in any way ignorant or at 
 a loss. 
 
 But he loved her, she amused him and pleased his 
 pride, and her happy ways with him, that sometimes 
 were those of a daughter and a pupil, sometimes wide- 
 eyed admiration, sometimes all motherly, were dear to 
 him. He did not have to ask her if she loved him; 
 he was all her world.
 
 100 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 Suddenly, in the seventh year, a new note came into 
 their conversations. Without any premonition they 
 began to say: "If we do go back to America/* Ellen 
 was as innocent as Gibbs of any prearranged planning 
 to that effect. They simply felt the possibility in the 
 air. 
 
 "If we go Yvonne wants to rest anyway we need 
 more room we must move sooner or later and of 
 course Grandpa's getting so old Tommy could wear 
 this coat on the steamer we could store this chest full 
 of small things " 
 
 So Ellen mused. Presently Gibbs's mind had seized 
 strongly upon the idea. He would go to New York, 
 and find a studio, and see what the prospect was of 
 painting portraits there. After Tommy's birth, at 
 Ellen's request, he had written his father, enclosing a 
 little photograph of the small, bald-headed lump of 
 babyhood that was Thomas Gibbs, Third, and the 
 grandfather had eagerly responded to the overture. 
 A magnificent gold-lined cup had come from Tiffany's 
 for the baby, and presents on all formal occasions. 
 
 Now Gibbs began to think he would like to show 
 his father the stalwart Tommy, who spoke two lan 
 guages at five, and played his little violin so nicely. 
 
 Then, abruptly, it was settled, and they began to 
 wonder how they had managed to stay away so long. 
 Ellen, during the last busy days, would stop sometimes 
 in her packing to look out of the undraped studio 
 window. They had been so happy here since the 
 marvellous days when she and Gibbs had unpacked 
 the boxes, and laid the rugs, and hung the pictures with 
 their own hands. Was it wise to run away from it all? 
 
 And then came the memory of Fifth Avenue in
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 101 
 
 spring sunshine, and the sound of one's own tongue 
 spoken on all sides and the garden in Main Street sweet 
 with lilacs, and she would smile again. 
 
 She smiled now as the little boy and the tall man 
 crossed the deck to her. Gibbs was young, at thirty- 
 eight, despite the silver hair. He had been playing 
 bridge, and was glad to get into the fresh air, after 
 the hot smoking room. 
 
 "You packed everything!" he accused her. 
 
 "Because I wanted you to be free to see the very 
 first of the city!" she answered eagerly. "Look, Tom 
 my, that's Ellis Island, dear, where all the immigrants 
 have to get off. And look, there's Liberty!" 
 
 "It is darned thrilling!" Gibbs said, smiling, as 
 they leaned on the rail. The ocean was left behind 
 them, they were well into the river now, and on both 
 sides the land was coming down to meet them. The 
 Jersey shore was a tangle of factory chimneys wrapped 
 in smoke under a bright April sun, but New York's 
 astonishing silhouette stood out cameo-clear. It was 
 nearly noon, and the air was warm, but there were heaps 
 of dirty snow here and there in Battery Park, and on 
 the shady sides of chimneys, on the tiled roofs. Trees 
 were still bare, but Easter was near, and there would 
 be thousands of lilies ranged in Union Square, under 
 boughs just showing a faint film of green. 
 
 "We've missed all the ugly, hard part," Ellen ex 
 ulted, "and we'll get all the glory of the spring!" 
 
 "I wrote the old man we'd go to the Brevoort," 
 Gibbs said. "I bet we'll find a message there. They'll 
 ask us down to the new house." 
 
 Ellen smiled. Her father-in-law and his wife had
 
 102 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 recently taken possession of a new home at Wheatley 
 Hills, a fashionable colony only a few miles from Port 
 Washington. It would be rather fun to visit there, as 
 Gibbs's wife, with little Thomas, Third. She well 
 remembered the handsome woman who had been so 
 bafflingly superior in her manner toward Mrs. Rose; 
 her own what was it? step-mother-in-law now, so 
 curiously had events come about. 
 
 And she would see Grandpa, too, and Aunt Elsie, 
 and Joe. These were about equally unsatisfactory as 
 correspondents; but Ellen knew that Aunt Elsie had 
 been ill last winter, ill enough to have a little maid, 
 but was well now, and that Joe was doing well with 
 a publishing house, and that Gibbs's old friend, little 
 Harriet Lathrop, had spent several summers at Sands 
 Point, where her father had built a roomy white cottage, 
 and that George Lathrop had taken Joe on one or two 
 cruises, and had been a good friend to him. Ellen, like 
 all good sisters, determined to take a hand in Joe's 
 affairs. 
 
 "Gibbs!" she said suddenly. "Look there by 
 that little boy on the pier who's waving the flag! 
 Isn't that your father of course it is! And your 
 step-mother, too and there's Joe there's Joe, the 
 old darling that's Uncle Joe, Tommy Oh, Joe Joe 
 Joe!" 
 
 "That is Dad," Gibbs said, deeply pleased and 
 touched. "And there's old George I call this 
 decent! We've been away so long, Ellen, that I'd for 
 gotten how nice it is to have folks! I suppose the 
 dashing lady in the black hat is my mama? Wave 
 your hand, Kid, that's your family! And try to re 
 member the English for things, or they'll not like you!"
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 103 
 
 Five minutes later they were all together in a jumble 
 of landing. Ellen was kissed on her suddenly wet 
 cheeks by her father-in-law, and by George Lathrop, 
 who had been best man at their wedding, and by the 
 sweet and rather silent Joe. Joe was taller than ever, 
 he would never be well-dressed or well-groomed, or 
 have a particularly happy manner in company, but 
 Ellen clung to the big, boyish arm, and laughed into 
 his handsome, kindly face as if she could never feel and 
 see and hear enough of him. He had improved so, 
 and he looked so well, so grown-up! After all, one's 
 little brother was one's little brother, even if he was 
 twenty-five! She found her father-in-law aged, he 
 was somehow shrunken, and his face had grown leaner 
 in its aspect. He wore a splendid fur-lined coat, gold- 
 rimmed glasses, irreproachable gloves and footwear, 
 and was a conspicuously dignified and fine old figure, 
 in the confusion of the wharf. Lillian was so changed 
 as to be hardly recognizable. 
 
 She was dressed with great severity, but everything 
 she wore was fine and rich. Her skin was like a rose 
 leaf, her great dark eyes were rimmed with faint violet 
 shadows eyes made for sorrow, but shining with 
 pleasure and hospitality now. Ellen thought she had 
 never seen whiter teeth, or a more beautiful scarlet 
 mouth to enhance their whiteness. Lillian's thick, 
 soft, golden-brown hair showed only a burnished band 
 under her wide black hat. It was not a large hat; it 
 was tipped like a hunting-hat over her eyes, and orna 
 mented only by a tumbled cockade of cock's feathers; 
 Ellen learned later that it had cost its beautiful wearer 
 more than one hundred dollars. Her suit was plain, 
 an iron-gray cloth bound in black silk braid, and she
 
 104 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 wore loosely fastened across her shoulders sables of 
 regal beauty. In one immaculately gloved hand she 
 carried an enormous bunch of fragrant double violets, 
 and through all the greetings she did not lay them 
 down, nor put aside her immense muff. 
 
 She had been beautiful seven years ago, she v/as 
 more than that now. She radiated charm and per 
 sonality, there was a hint of sadness in her face when 
 it was in repose, there were a hundred provocative 
 attractions in her thoughtful smile. She was ready 
 with a French phrase, a German phrase, she touched 
 lightly upon the Italian political situation, she had 
 the name of a Russian novelist readily upon her tongue. 
 Ellen, when they were whirling from the dock to the 
 hotel, complimented her upon her hat. 
 
 "And you from Paris!" Lillian's new, rich voice 
 answered. The sables moved under a slight shrug, the 
 red lips half smiled. 
 
 "My Paris isn't the Paris of the fashions," Ellen 
 explained. "One never sees extreme styles there, 
 except on the models at the races. And almost all my 
 friends make their own frocks and funny enough 
 they are, sometimes!" 
 
 "I have a good woman here," Lillian said carelessly. 
 "I'm too busy to worry much about it but she looks 
 out for me, and tells me what I need. George here 
 laughs at me when I talk about studies and lectures," 
 she added, glancing toward George Lathrop, who, 
 with Joe, was with them in the limousine, "he thinks 
 all women are born merely to shop and gossip, but 
 fortunately, I don't worry much about what George 
 thinks!" 
 
 "Fortunately I M the man answered, with a grimace
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 105 
 
 evidently intended for a smile. Ellen, a little surprised 
 to detect an animosity between the two, realized that 
 she was back in the land of unadjusted womanhood 
 again. It would be hard to define, but she knew that 
 only in America could the woman assume that attitude 
 of childish importance, and the man so openly show 
 his amused contempt. 
 
 She thoroughly liked George Lathrop, who was 
 Gibbs's senior by only six or seven years, and his best 
 friend. George was a lawyer and a man of import 
 ance, but he was somewhat insignificant in appear 
 ance, and his manner still betrayed the country boy who 
 has fought his own way to the top. Ellen wondered 
 that he could dare to snub the beautiful woman beside 
 her, and wove a little dream to explain it, in which 
 George showed a too-marked admiration for Lillian, 
 and Lillian, repudiating it with dignity, angered him 
 beyond forgiveness. 
 
 "You must help me get some new gowns," Ellen 
 said, realizing for the first time in seven years that 
 gowns really were important. "Of course at home 
 in Paris, I mean, I've worn only studio things." And 
 she glanced down with some misgivings at the simple, 
 almost childish, suit under the rough blue coat, and 
 her sensible, neat little shoes. 
 
 " But, my dear, you should have gotten loads of things 
 in Paris! 5 * Lillian said. "You'll think they're pirates 
 here!" 
 
 "Well, I did get an evening gown, and an after 
 noon dress,'* Ellen said. "Gibbs and I tried to 
 pick out something smart. But really it is hard, there. 
 There are so many new models, and one can't tell 
 which is going to be adopted and so many women
 
 106 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 dress just to fit their own types, now, regardless of 
 style!" 
 
 "Here we are!" Joe, who could not move his de 
 lighted eyes from his sister, said suddenly. They all 
 got out at the great hotel, where, Ellen learned, they 
 were to stay for a day or two, instead of the Hotel 
 Brevoort, before going down to the country house, to 
 which Lillian had given an Italian name, "Villino delF 
 Orto." After her frugal and exquisite economies, this 
 prodigality was almost startling. 
 
 Josselyn, Senior, it appeared, kept a suite at the 
 Biltmore throughout the entire year. He and his 
 wife could come and go at their own pleasure, change 
 in their own familiar rooms from street attire to evening 
 dress, keep an appointment there with manicurist or 
 masseuse, or entertain their friends with a cozy meal 
 served before their own fire. To-day he had engaged 
 the adjoining suite for his son's family; Ellen could 
 only widen her blue eyes with pleasure as she studied 
 the detail of the immense bedroom. There were a 
 dozen shaded lamps, a desk delightfully equipped, 
 deep chairs, soft rugs, and from the cushioned window- 
 seat so wonderful a view of the great city that Ellen and 
 Tommy could with difficulty be drawn away from it. 
 
 Below them were the bustling streets, the elevated 
 trains rattling like toy trains over their little frames, 
 the boats in the river moving like other toys. Smoke 
 and steam rose gaily into the clear April air, little 
 drifts of soot-stained snow were vanishing from the 
 shady cornices. The spires of Saint Patrick's church 
 rose against a sky of uncertain blue. 
 
 "Isn't this corking?" Gibbs exulted, when the 
 younger Josselyns were alone.
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 107 
 
 "Oh, Gibbs, it's such fun! And aren't they dears to 
 do it all and aren't you glad now that I made you 
 write when Tom was born!" Ellen had taken off 
 the big blue coat, and the jacket of her suit, and 
 appeared in a loose little blouse of dark blue velvet 
 with a deep collar of old lace. Gibbs, who had 
 brushed his thick mop, and washed his hands, now 
 came over to kiss her, an invariable preliminary to 
 meals, and touched the little waist with a sort of 
 embarrassed and amused discontent. 
 
 "You'll have to get some clothes, woman!" 
 
 "Well, if your angelic father entertains us for a week 
 or two," she whispered, laughing, "I'll be able to! 
 Come, Thomas, we've rubbed the lamp! The genii 
 will now bring us up a sumshus repast!" 
 
 " Really, mother ? " the child, always ready for make-( 
 believe, asked eagerly. 
 
 "Really, you little goose! And speak English, 
 Tom." She opened the door into the drawing room 
 of the other suite, and there, to the child's delight, 
 was the lunch-table, with two waiters hovering about 
 it, and a shining display of covered dishes and steaming 
 pots. They gathered about it immediately, Ellen 
 between Joe and George Lathrop, Tommy chattering 
 to his enraptured grandfather, Gibbs and Lillian 
 making each other's acquaintance after the long 
 years. 
 
 Afterward, Ellen walked to the lift with her brother, 
 and stood there talking to him as if she would never 
 be done. 
 
 "You seem to like Mr. Lathrop, Joe?" 
 
 "He's a king'" Joe said, with a quick meeting of 
 tyes.
 
 108 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 "And the boy, is he nice, Joe?" 
 
 "George he's all right. He's in college now. 
 Harvard." 
 
 "And how's Harriet ? She must be " 
 
 "She's nineteen." 
 
 "Is she all over the sickness now?" Ellen saw that 
 she was not in his confidence. She had remembered 
 suddenly that the tomboy Harriet had had a frightening 
 illness about a year ago something that their vague 
 reports had given her to understand was like an infan 
 tile paralysis. 
 
 "Sure. She limps some she's getting well. I pack 
 her about a good deal!" Joe said noncommittally. 
 
 "Pack her about?" 
 
 "Yep. Take her walks, and get her over hard 
 places." Joe fell silent, straightening the corner of 
 her lace collar carefully. Something in his gravity 
 troubled her vaguely, and she turned thoughtfully back 
 to her room, wondering. At the doorway she met 
 George Lathrop, also departing. 
 
 "My little brother has grown up!" Ellen said., 
 with a rueful smile. 
 
 He answered her with another smile. 
 
 "Joe? Joe's a great fellow," he said. "We're very 
 fond of Joe at my house. In some ways he's the most 
 remarkable boy I ever knew!" 
 
 "Joe?" Ellen asked in pleased surprise. 
 
 "He's absolutely and utterly honest," George 
 Lathrop said. "Things don't deceive Joe. I like to 
 introduce him to people if they've got anything that 
 interests Joe, he gets it out. If they haven't, it 
 doesn't matter how much champagne they open, or 
 whether they have a season opera box or a villa in Italy T
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 109 
 
 they simply don't register with Joe. I think that fellow 
 will go a long way! He's taught my boy more now 
 than I could ever teach him, more than he'll get out 
 of college. This New Year's Eve I let'em both come 
 into town, to meet some friends of George's, and spend 
 the night. It seems they broke away from the crowd, 
 about two o'clock, and came to their hotel, but when 
 Joe was asleep, George had promised to sneak back 
 to the others. However, Joe woke up just as George 
 was shutting the door, and I tell you there was the 
 mischief to pay! Joe brought him home the next day, 
 George looking like a whipped puppy, Joe in a pass 
 ion Joe wouldn't stay to dinner, wouldn't talk, and 
 Wouldn't wipe his feet on George! My boy had a 
 hard time to make the peace, I can tell you." 
 
 Ellen laughed, and her cheeks glowed. She went 
 back to Gibbs with her eyes shining. 
 
 "Mr. Lathrop was talking so nicely about Joe, 
 Gibbs!" 
 
 "Oh, that's a love affair all 'round!" Lillian said 
 lazily. "Of course Harriet's feelings are no secret, I 
 suppose I can speak of that, Tom ? " 
 
 The older Josselyn shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "She's a child, my dear!" 
 
 "She's not a child at all, she's a woman, as far as her 
 feelings go," Lillian answered, with her indifferent 
 smile. "She's plain, and she's not likely to meet any 
 one else on the same intimate terms that she's known 
 Joe. George is willing, Joe is willing I suppose 
 and Harriet is more than willing." 
 
 "Joe!" Ellen could only echo, in amazement. 
 
 "Joe is clever, and steady, and sensible," Lillian 
 said, "and George doesn't care about anything else.
 
 110 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 His one terror is that his precious child will be snapped 
 up for her money. Joe's position doesn't make the 
 slightest difference to George!" 
 
 It was said so pleasantly, in her good-natured, indif 
 ferent manner, that the oddity of this sentiment, com 
 ing from Lillian, did not occur to Ellen, nor the pro 
 priety of her saying it to Ellen at all. The two women, 
 utterly different in type, were inclined to like each 
 other, perhaps for the reason that they lived in alien 
 worlds, and spoke alien tongues. Ellen, clear of vision 
 for all her simplicity and inexperience, knew that 
 Lillian regarded her with a sort of indulgent contempt. 
 A woman who was cheerfully unfashionable to the 
 , point of dowdiness, who was domestic and unselfish 
 ' and contented, had no common ground upon which to 
 meet Lillian Josselyn. 
 
 Yet Ellen's handsome husband was her own hus 
 band's son, and Lillian could not ignore her. So she 
 kindly and pleasantly took Ellen shopping, quite 
 obviously rousing herself from silence and her own 
 thoughts, to meet Ellen's efforts at conversation half 
 way. She mildly advised a tailor-suit that cost 
 ninety-five dollars, and a little blue spangled evening 
 dress at nearly twice that sum, and she selected for 
 Ellen a small three-cornered hat at forty-five dollars, 
 and herself tied the seven-dollar veil that went with 
 the hat. Lillian smiled her sleepy, pleased smile 
 when Gibbs delightedly complimented his wife upon 
 these garments, but Ellen knew that they were not a 
 success. She needed all the accessories of shoes and 
 silk stockings and collar and spats and jewellery; her 
 very corsets and underwear were wrong. She felt 
 that Lillian would take a Japanese or Esquimaux
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 111 
 
 * 
 woman in hand in much the same spirit, and with the 
 
 same success. Lillian would compliment her, delib 
 erately and kindly, but there were far better dressed 
 women than Ellen whom she criticized with keen ap 
 praisal and biting derision; to criticize Ellen was sim 
 ply not worth her while. 
 
 As the pleasant days went on, Ellen marvelled at 
 her more and more. Lillian never talked of herself. 
 She had her mysteries, her cryptic reserves. She had 
 friendships of a sort with women, sometimes she tried 
 to make Ellen express herself about them. And she 
 had friendships with men, but of these she never spoke 
 at all. She was the type of beautiful woman who can 
 remain silent with perfect self-possession, and when 
 she did speak it was to amuse her old husband, or to 
 encourage Ellen and Gibbs to talk. 
 
 Her energy amazed Ellen. Lillian was never idle. 
 She had her masseuse and hairdresser twice weekly, 
 she studied two languages, and took a lesson in book 
 binding every week, and never missed the Saturday 
 lectures that were given by a certain Miss Roberts, 
 in one of the hotels, every winter, on topics of the day. 
 Almost every day Lillian had luncheon or tea with the 
 women friends she met at lectures, lessons, or conceits, 
 and despite her professed distaste for shopping, she 
 shopped every day with a patience and cleverness 
 that were an object lesson to Ellen. Lillian's corsets 
 and lingerie were fitted as carefully as her blouses and 
 skirts; cosmetics and complexion creams were a serious 
 matter to her, and on one occasion, when Ellen hap 
 pened to be with her while she selected a pair of slip 
 pers, they were exactly one hour in the shop. 
 
 In the evening occasionally all four went to the
 
 112 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 
 theatre. But Lillian liked better to dine at leisure 
 
 somewhere, and to meet friends, as they always did, 
 and to dance. Gibbs danced a little, Ellen less. They 
 sat and chatted with Josselyn, Senior, quite happily, 
 enjoying the music and the general gaiety of the 
 scene. Lillian's partners would bring her back, flushed, 
 lovely, silent; she would exert herself to be pleasant to 
 the group at the table until she was claimed again. 
 She taught Gibbs new steps, but it was quite apparent 
 that she enjoyed dancing with good dancers, regardless 
 of her feeling for them as men. Sometimes they 
 went to the tea dances that were the latest attraction 
 at the big hotels; Ellen would feel a little sorry for her 
 father-in-law. He was always well-groomed, inter 
 ested, alert. She found a little pathos in his eagerness 
 to join them in all their amusements, not to be a clog, 
 or to affect their plans. 
 
 He treated his wife with unvarying courtesy, but he 
 grew deeply fond of Ellen, and little Tom became the 
 joy of his life. There were days when the three went 
 together to the Park or the Zoo and chattered all day 
 as if they had been of one age. And Ellen felt no pity 
 for the silver head when she saw it bent against Tommy's 
 black locks; somehow there was a dignity and a fitting- 
 ness here that was lacking at the dances and the teas. 
 
 Lillian's friends gave her more clue to the character 
 that puzzled her than Lillian ever did. These groomed 
 and busy young women were duly introduced to Ellen, 
 and although they frankly regarded her as an alien, 
 they liked her, and laughed at her in all kindness and 
 hospitality. She joined them at lunches and teas, and 
 they talked to her about each other's "suitors.'* 
 Ellen learned that Lillian had a suitor; all the other
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 113 
 
 women were keenly interested to know how much 
 Lillian saw of Lindsay Pepper, did he send her flowers,' 
 had Ellen met him? 
 
 Ellen, keenly uncomfortable to find herself discussing 
 Lillian's affairs at all, admitted that the older woman 
 had introduced her to Lindsay Pepper. She didn't 
 know whether he sent her flowers or not. 
 
 "You're too decent to give her away, Cutie," said 
 Mrs. Jordan good-naturedly. "And I don't blame 
 you. Lillian's too clever for words, anyway. I don't 
 know how she does it. She could get any one's suitor 
 away. Wait until you get some man " 
 
 Ellen felt outraged; she tried to laugh. 
 
 "We're making you mad, and no wonder," said 
 pretty Paula Woodward sensibly. "You think we're 
 all silly, don't you? But we don't mean any harm, 
 Mrs. Josselyn; it's just our reckless way of talking. 
 Besides, if I had a husband as handsome as yours, I'd 
 never look at another man ! " 
 
 "Except Roger Young," Emelie Jordan said. 
 Mrs. Woodward gave her one laughing, contemptuous 
 glance, but later, when they could talk unheard, she 
 asked Ellen if she had met Roger Young. 
 
 "I think Lillian introduced him to us the other night 
 at Delmonico's," Ellen answerdd. Mrs. Woodward 
 frowned in a puzzled fashion. 
 
 "What night was that?" 
 
 "Why, it was Tuesday, I think." 
 
 "H'm! Tuesday." The other woman's face sud 
 denly brightened. "Oh, yes, I knew he was there 
 Tuesday," she said in a relieved voice. "He told me 
 he was. Did you like him?" she asked with a cautious 
 look about her.
 
 114 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 "Well, I hardly saw him. He seemed very nice." 
 
 "What did you say?" Mrs. Woodward brought her 
 wandering look suddenly back to Ellen. 
 
 "Just that he seemed nice. He was dancing with 
 Lillian, you know, I hardly saw him!" 
 
 "Tell me exactly the impression he made upon you," 
 Mrs. Woodward said. "Talk to me about him!" 
 
 The effect of this was to silence Ellen. But pres 
 ently the other woman turned to her again, and be 
 gan in a confidential undertone: 
 
 "Roger is peculiar, you know. Meeting him that 
 way you probably wouldn't get much of an impression. 
 Especially, if you don't mind my saying so frankly, 
 as he can't stand Lillian. Most men adore her, you 
 know. But Roger is an unusual fellow, and he never 
 got over what Lillian did one time. All the girls 
 know this, and there's no reason why I shouldn't tell 
 you- 
 
 Ellen, scarlet of -cheek, listened to a long story 
 involving telephone messages that were not de 
 livered, speeches that were misquoted, friendship that 
 was betrayed. Under the other woman's manner of 
 generosity and indifference, jealousy and petty selfish 
 ness stalked uncloaked. Ellen felt hideously un 
 comfortable. 
 
 "Did you have a nice time?" Lillian asked, when 
 she and Ellen were being whirled away from the 
 lunch-party to a recital at Aeolian Hall. 
 
 "They they gossip too much. About even about 
 each other, a good deal!" Ellen commented uneasily. 
 
 Lillian laughed, scrutinizing her lovely face in the 
 tiny mirror of her vanity case as she touched her lips 
 with red.
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 115 
 
 "About me," she interpreted, calmly. "That 
 doesn't do any harm, Ellen. Those girls aren't cap 
 able of a genuine, good friendship between a man and a 
 woman, they have to misunderstand, and construe it 
 their own way!" 
 
 A great relief flooded Ellen's honest heart; she put 
 her hand impulsively over Lillian's. It was the near 
 est thing to confidence that Lillian had vouchsafed her. 
 The older woman smiled her composed and temperate 
 smile. 
 
 "Just don't pay the least attention to them!" 
 Lillian said indolently. Instantly Ellen was aware of 
 barriers again.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 RAIN kept the two families in the city hotel for 
 more than a week of luxury and pleasure. Aunt Elsie, 
 upon whom Ellen had descended for the day, had 
 found a pleasant little country nurse for Tommy, the 
 same maid that she had had during her illness, and 
 Ellen consequently had nothing to do but amuse 
 herself. The big car was at the ladies' disposal, Gibbs 
 often went with them, his father less frequently. It 
 was the end of the opera season, there were scattered 
 concerts of importance, the season's dramatic successes 
 were still running. Joe sometimes joined them in the 
 evenings, and George Lathrop duly gave them a dinner 
 party. 
 
 To this party Harriet came, a thin, nervous, sweet 
 girl, plain of face, but with a pretty manner, and most 
 at ease with Joe. She accepted Ellen's overtures of 
 friendship eagerly, sent her flowers, and showed in 
 more than one way her pleasure in the companionship 
 of Joe's sister. 
 
 So ten days went by, and long before they were over 
 Ellen began to long for a simpler life, where Gibbs 
 would seem her own again, and where Tommy might 
 always be free, in the happy old way, to be in liis 
 mother's company. They would visit the Long Island 
 house, that would be a simpler life, at least, and then 
 they would find a studio and apartment of their own, 
 keep the little Port Washington Lizzie for Tommy, 
 
 116
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 117 
 
 get a cook besides, and go back to their own way of 
 living. 
 
 Lillian had told them something of the home at 
 Wheatley Hills, "Tom had great fun designing it." 
 
 "You designed it!" the old man said gallantly. 
 
 "I stuck in everything I wanted," Lillian con 
 ceded, "and Tom almost lost his mind trying to recon 
 cile Spanish tiles and old English woodwork and Dutch 
 doors!" 
 
 "It must be wonderful and fearful to behold," Gibbs 
 said later to his wife. "I have a vision of tapestries 
 and Mission oak and black-and-white stripes and 
 Tiffany lamps all merrily intermingled. Lillian would 
 get what was smart, you know, if she lived in La 
 Trappe monastery!" 
 
 Two days later they drove straight from the hotel 
 to Wheatley Hills, and to the " Villino dell' Orto." It 
 was a day of soft showers and uncertain sunshine. 
 Ellen, sitting next to her father-in-law, who was driv 
 ing the car, was in an ecstasy as she began to recognize 
 the familiar country. 
 
 "This is our little outfit," Josselyn, Senior, said, at 
 last, turning in at a white-pebbled drive, between great 
 trees and spraying, enormous rose-trees that already 
 wore young green. The hard-rolled lawns showed a 
 faint, emerald film; bushes ready to bud were every 
 where; in a few weeks the place would be a mass of 
 fragrant bloom. All about were the curves and rises 
 of wooded hills, beyond lay the Sound, coldly blue in 
 the distance. Here and there another country home 
 was visible; a stately facade of dark brick, or the classic 
 green and white of the modern colonial wood. Each 
 of these had its fifty or a hundred acres, its stables and
 
 118 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 garage and lodge to match the house. The Josselyn 
 estate was small, less than ten acres in all, there was 
 a handsome fence, and some of the finest woodland on 
 the entire island, but no lodge. 
 
 But Ellen had only a confused impression of these 
 things at the moment; her whole attention was centred 
 on the house. She gave Gibbs one amazed glance, 
 he met her look, and they both burst into laughter. 
 
 "We've been had, old dear, what?" he said shame 
 facedly. 
 
 Lillian smiled contentedly. 
 
 "You Jo like it?" 
 
 "Like it!" Gibbs merely echoed. And Ellen said 
 honestly "I think itV the loveliest house I ever 
 saw!" 
 
 It was Italian in type, the plaster walls stained a 
 warm cream, the windows and doors placed irregularly; 
 some large, some narrow. A wide stone stairway rose 
 from the pebbled path to the second floor, climbing 
 against the side of the house, at its base stood great jars 
 of potted hydrangeas. Under the stairway water 
 poured from a lion's mouth into a shallow basin, and 
 above it, in the smooth facade of the house, a blue 
 plaque was embedded in a vine-wreathed arch, a Delia 
 Robbia bambino spreading his little hands in untiring 
 blessing over the doorway. 
 
 There was the perfection of exquisite simplicity in 
 the whole, the perfection of absolute order and ap 
 propriateness. The three years that the house had 
 been standing here might have been three hundred, 
 so kindly did the trees enclose it, so readily had the 
 bare vines made themselves at home. Even while 
 the newcomers stood gazing at it, a nesting bird, with
 
 JGSSELYN'S WIFE 119 
 
 a thread hanging from his bill, disappeared into the 
 chimney ivy, and a maid, opening an arched door in 
 the house wall, showed behind her trim little figure a 
 sun-flooded vista of stone arches and tiled floors that 
 tempted Ellen to an immediate investigation, and 
 made her exclaim again. 
 
 They went up the wide outside stair, a.id through 
 the dark carven wooden door at the top, and were in a 
 quaint, long room marvellously panelled in rich 
 wood, with a glorious view through enormous win 
 dows that were curtained only by thin widths of some 
 dark silken stuff. The room was devoid of merely 
 ornamental things, one splendid rug crossed the floor, 
 logs blazed under the carved acanthus leaves of the 
 great marble fireplace. There was a black oak table 
 that might have come from a monastery, the chairs 
 were large and comfortable despite their severity of 
 line. The effect was of space, silence, and shadow. 
 
 Lillian, enchanted by her visitors* admiration, led 
 them to other rooms. Here was her piano, with a harp 
 beside it, in a small room lighted by three narrow gothic 
 windows. Here was the breakfast room, bright and 
 square, with Quimper plates ranged on an old dresser, 
 and Perugian blue cottons at the windows. Some 
 times they stepped up, and sometimes down, through 
 exquisite doorways deeply arched; every vista had been 
 studied, and made perfect. Sometimes Ellen looked 
 down at the formal garden, with its moondial and its 
 trimmed cypresses close to the woods, sometimes she 
 laughed in surprise at finding herself unexpectedly 
 above the tiled courtyard where maids were chatting in 
 the sun, or crossed a stone balcony presumably leading 
 into the library, to find herself in one of the long,
 
 120 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 bare corridors again. Everywhere was the same effect 
 of space, and restraint, and emptiness. 
 
 Gibbs presently went to his stepmother, and took 
 both her hands. 
 
 "I congratulate you, my dear! I've not seen any 
 thing better in my life!" 
 
 She looked up at him with unsmiling eagerness. 
 
 "No, but truly ? You know I've been waiting 
 
 for your verdict, Gibbs." 
 
 "It's a fairytale!" Ellen said. 
 
 "Of course I had a big architect to help me do it," 
 Lillian said, with a prettily deferential glance at her 
 husband. 
 
 "And we had that damn Pepper in the house for 
 three months," the old man said mildly. 
 
 "Who's that damn Pepper?" Ellen asked, with 
 her gay laugh. "Lindsay Pepper, the man we met?" 
 
 "He's a very nice fellow," Lillian corrected, with an 
 indulgent smile. "He decorates, and picks out things 
 for you, and so on it's his business. Most people 
 are afraid of him, but I am one of the very few who 
 boss him about, and he likes it. He and I had great 
 fights about everything, and I always got my own 
 way. So, if you like it, I won't have Lindsay Pepper 
 get the credit!" 
 
 "He got more than the credit, he got the cash!" 
 said Josselyn, Senior, in an undertone, and with a mis 
 chievous look at Ellen. 
 
 "Don't listen to him," said his wife. She took 
 Ellen and Gibbs to their own rooms, and before she 
 even left them she stood for a moment, with one hand 
 on Ellen's shoulder, and the other holding Gibbs's 
 hand, as they stood before her.
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 121 
 
 "I hope you're going to be comfortable," she told 
 them, with a wistful smile. "It means so much to 
 your father, and to me, we There was a hint of 
 feeling in her voice and as if she had not meant to show 
 it, she laughed a little shakily. "We want you dears to 
 like us!" she said. And immediately she was all 
 practical. "I've put you both in here, Ellen, it's not 
 the largest room, but it has the prettiest view, and the 
 fireplace. And in summer, you can move if you like. 
 And Thomas is right next door, across the bath. Lizzie 
 can either sleep there or have a room upstairs with the 
 other girls. Little Keno will look out for you, she's 
 Japanese, but she understands everything, and if you 
 ring, she'll bring you anything. Don't dress unless 
 you want to; I'm going to get into something com 
 fortable " 
 
 She was gone, and the younger Josselyns left to smile 
 upon each other like children in a fairytale. Ellen 
 explored the little domain; every need had been antici 
 pated, everything was perfect. 
 
 "These aren't Pembroke beds, but by George, 
 they're awfully good imitations," Gibbs said, in 
 vestigating. "And I like the goldfish floating about 
 in that tall bowl." 
 
 "There are other goldfish downstairs, and did you 
 ever see anything so wonderful as the flowers?" Ellen 
 contributed. "Just freesia lilies in the music room, 
 and masses of pussy-willows in the hall, and early 
 violets here Gibbs, dear," and she came close to him, 
 and put her hand on his shoulder, "are we lucky, or 
 what?" 
 
 "Did you get that delicate insinuation of what 
 we were to do in summer?" her husband questioned
 
 122 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 in turn. "Do you suppose they expect us to live 
 here?" 
 
 "Gibbs," Ellen answered, with a cautious look about 
 that amused him, "it looks like it! 
 
 "And you know," she went on happily, when she 
 had taken a simple, soft little brown dress from the 
 closet where Keno had carefully arranged all her 
 clothes, and was brushing her dark hair, "you know, 
 it would be simply wonderful beyond words to be here, 
 Gibbs, and then for you to have a studio in town. 
 I've always felt that it was a mistake for families to 
 combine, but if we had the studio, and could stay there 
 for a night or two, and then with your father and 
 Lillian going to town as much as they do, and leaving 
 us alone here, it wouldn't be like falling over each 
 other all the time! And, Gibbs, if it's like this now, 
 imagine what June will be and how Tommy will' 
 love it!" 
 
 "She must be smart, you know, to get away with 
 this!" Gibbs said thoughtfully, coming to the bath 
 room door with shaving soap spread over the lower 
 half of his face just as Tommy in woolly pajamas came 
 rioting through. 
 
 He had had his supper, and wished to find his books 
 so that Lizzie could read to him. Ellen showed him 
 where Keno had neatly stacked them, but before de 
 parting Tommy investigated her balcony, tied a string 
 there with a magnet dangling from it, attempted un 
 successfully to get one of the green glass marbles from 
 the goldfish bowl, and entered into several enterprises 
 in the bathroom that wrung from his father an impa 
 tient "Stop that, Tom! . . . Do you hear me?" Gibbs, 
 fully dressed, finally carried the squirming child to his
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 123 
 
 mother, for prayers, and Ellen, fastening the last hook 
 of her brown dress, went to the fireplace for the final 
 ceremony of Tommy's day. Then Lizzie, with a 
 smile on what was usually a rather sad little face, 
 carried him away. 
 
 It was just one of their happy, intimate hours; the 
 years had been full of them. But they had never 
 seemed anything but a miracle to Ellen, whose blessed 
 privilege it was to be shut into four walls, evening after 
 evening, with Gibbs and Tommy, to share their hours 
 of relaxation and confidence. 
 
 She was happy to-night, happier than she had yet 
 been in this old atmosphere that was yet so strangely 
 puzzling and new. Life in the city had been trying, 
 she had been conscious a hundred times a day that she 
 was unfitted for it. But now she was back in the coun 
 try, Aunt Elsie and Joe and Grandpa only a few miles 
 away this was her own atmosphere. They would 
 soon dilute the luxury of Lillian's home with intervals 
 in 'some simpler place where Gibbs could lunch in his 
 old painty jacket, if he liked, and where Ellen could 
 cook a little, even if it were on a gas stove, and garden a 
 little, even if it were only in a window garden. And 
 he would be painting all through the happy mornings, 
 and she would go to market with Tommy beside her, 
 and hear him his reading-lesson, and make him spend 
 half an hour on exercises with his violin. 
 
 "What are you smiling about?" Gibbs asked, as 
 they wert downstairs, with his arm about the velvet 
 dress. He had told her he liked that foolish little dress, 
 and the violets pinned beside the prim white collar. 
 
 "You!" She gave him the usual answer, and as 
 usual, he tipped her bright face up for a kiss.
 
 124 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 A moment later her father-in-law called her from the 
 entrance hall downstairs. Ellen ran down to join him, 
 and to walk about the bare garden with him, respect 
 fully asking him questions about the lawn and the roses. 
 
 Gibbs went on to the long drawing room, where 
 Lillian was standing, dressed in some Oriental shapeless 
 garment that gleamed with rich embroidery. She 
 was staring down at the fire, her beautiful dark head 
 bent; she did not seem to hear him come in. 
 
 When his shadow fell across her vision she looked up, 
 her eyes grave. Then she smiled, and merely shaped 
 the word "Gibbs'* with her lips before dropping her 
 eyes again. 
 
 "Ellen is out in the garden with Dad," Gibbs 
 volunteered, rubbing his hands before the blaze. 
 Lillian gave him an absent look, and fell to dreaming 
 again. Little flames licked noisily about the back 
 log, in the silence. 
 
 After a few minutes Gibbs gave his stepmother a 
 quick look; it was as if he saw her, young, beautiful, 
 troubled, for the first time. Something was making 
 her unusually silent to-night; he wondered what it 
 could be. 
 
 "Headache, Lillian?" he ventured. The words 
 sounded curiously intimate and tender as he heard them 
 fall, he had a quick flash of diffidence. Did he call 
 her " Lillian?'* But of course he did! 
 
 She looked up with her slow smile. 
 
 ""No, Gibbs. Just one of she passed her 
 hand quickly over her forehead, frowned faintly, and 
 sighed "just one of my bad times," she said, very 
 low, looking down at the fire again. "I'm not on 
 speaking terms with your friend to-night!"
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 125 
 
 His friend? Gibbs could not understand her. 
 She would not call Ellen that. She would not speak 
 so of his father. He could only echo her words stu 
 pidly: 
 
 "My friend?" 
 
 "Your friend Lillian," she elucidated smilingly. 
 Gibbs felt an unexpected sensation at his heart. He 
 did not speak again, nor did she, and when Ellen and 
 the old man came up from the garden, chilly and laugh 
 ing, with a few early violets adding their wet freshness 
 to Ellen's other violets, Lillian and Gibbs were still 
 standing before the fireplace, and still silent. 
 
 Gibbs did not attempt to repeat this little conver 
 sation to his wife. To do so would be to give it an 
 undeserved importance. He told himself that there 
 was really nothing to repeat, and yet he thought of it a 
 hundred times during the next few days. 
 
 That night at dinner he had twice looked across the 
 dinner table straight into Lillian's eyes, each time 
 experiencing that faint, pleasant shock in his heart. 
 He began to think of her, to wonder what thoughts 
 her silences covered, to notice her silk-clad ankle or 
 her white, ringed hand. Cadences in her voice be 
 gan to linger with him, she made life more interesting 
 for him in an innocent, undefined sort of way. Living 
 in the same house with her, and in a house that inci 
 dentally furnished so exquisite a setting for any friend 
 ship, began to seem like a scene in a play. She was 
 always playing some part; it amused him to play an 
 answering part of his own. He had never deceived 
 Ellen. He was merely playing a vague little game that 
 s>he would not have appreciated at its innocent worth,
 
 126 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 and that might stop at any moment, leaving no one the 
 worse. 
 
 Ellen had her own reserves, too, a tiny secret from 
 Gibbs that worried her to an extent that she knew 
 herself was entirely disproportionate. George Lath- 
 rop had taken the liberty of an old friend, and had 
 advised her not to make her father-in-law's house her 
 permanent home. 
 
 He had done it kindly, in the most brotherly man 
 ner, and without making it particularly emphatic, yet 
 his earnestness had made Ellen vaguely uneasy, and she 
 had not been quite happy since. 
 
 George had spoken on a certain beautiful May 
 evening, when Ellen and Tommy, who had spent the 
 day with her family in Port Washington, had come 
 down to Sands Point late in the afternoon to see 
 Harriet. Reaching home a little earlier than usual, 
 George came upon them at tea. Tommy was riding 
 about the garden on a golf stick, Ellen and Harriet 
 were on the porch. 
 
 "Go telephone Lillian that I'm going to drive Ellen 
 and Tommy home," George said to his daughter, 
 "and put on a coat, Baby, and come, too!" 
 
 "Oh, now that's a lot of trouble!" Ellen protested. 
 But the man, sipping his tea indifferently, merely 
 smiled, and Harriet delightedly ran off to obey him. 
 
 "This begins to feel like spring," he said content 
 edly, with a nod toward the garden that was bursting 
 with new green. 
 
 "It begins to feel like Heaven," Ellen answered. "I 
 should have gone home long ago. But somehow there 
 is always one day that seems to advance the spring 
 by leaps and bounds; and this is the day! Tom and I
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 127 
 
 had luncheon with my aunt, and then Grandpa 
 took him down to the water-front, and while I was 
 hunting for them to take him home, Harriet came 
 along in the car, and brought us down here for a 
 talk!" 
 
 "You do her good," George said. "I wish you 
 were nearer her!" 
 
 Ellen felt a warm impulse of affection. She had 
 felt somewhat out of her element of late. She was 
 not at ease in the new environment. She began to feel 
 that the picturesque old dresses and the simple, hospit 
 able meals, and the old laughing assurance, belonged 
 only to the Paris life, and that she must change now, 
 although she did not know how to change. 
 
 But she was always at ease with the clever, homely, 
 blunt little lawyer, always happy with him and Harriet. 
 
 "Wheatley Hills isn't far!" she reminded him now. 
 Instead of answering, she saw him frown, and fall to 
 thinking, over his empty cup. 
 
 "You're going to be with the Josselyns all sum 
 mer?" he asked, after a silence. 
 
 "I suppose so," Ellen answered. "Gibbs's father 
 idolizes Tommy. They're wonderfully kind about' 
 wanting us, and they won't let us mention any other 
 arrangement." 
 
 "I think you make a mistake," George said flatly. 
 Ellen, who had been living in an atmosphere of honeyed 
 sweetness of late, looked at him in quick and sensitive 
 surprise. 
 
 "Of course Gibbs is looking for a studio in town!" 
 she said uncomfortably. "Is it is it that you don't 
 think it is right for Gibbs to let his father well, 
 support him?" she asked bravely.
 
 128 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 "That sounds like Joe's sister," George said, smiling. 
 "No, it's not that. Tom Josselyn has more money 
 than he can spend, and he hasn't done much for Gibbs, 
 so far. No, it's not that. But but I don't believe 
 it's the happiest arrangement for any of you. Lillian, 
 now she's not a normal woman. She has her quar 
 rels her fancies " 
 
 "I know you don't like Lillian," Ellen answered, 
 smiling in her turn. "But she and I get along beauti 
 fully. We're not a bit alike, you know " 
 
 "I should say you are not!" George interrupted. 
 "Well, you know best. But I shouldn't advise it." 
 And Harriet reappearing at that moment, he held 
 Ellen's blue coat for her, and watched her button it 
 over her plain pongee gown. An hour later, when 
 they were coming home, he asked Harriet about her 
 "You've taken a fancy to young Mrs. Josselyn, 
 Baby, haven't you?" 
 
 "Ellen? I love her!" Harriet responded enthusias 
 tically. "Don't you think she's pretty, Daddy, in her 
 dear little way? Don't you think she has lovely blue 
 eyes? I think she's a thousand times prettier than 
 Lillian " 
 
 "Come now!" her father smiled. 
 
 "Oh, Daddy, I do! At least I think she's a million 
 times sweeter than Lillian 
 
 "Ah, well, that's a different thing, Baby," he con- 
 ^ ceded with a sigh. But Harriet did not hear him. 
 
 "She doesn't seem to know how sweet she is, Daddy. 
 Now think of her coming over here twice a week to 
 spend the day with Mrs. Baldwin. To-day, she was 
 roaming along the water-front, talking with all those 
 old men as happily as if she never had seen well, seen
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 129 
 
 things any different or lived any other life! She's just 
 like a little girl. Mrs. Baldwin will say to her: Tut on 
 that apron, Ellen/ and she obeys just as if she was eight 
 years old." 
 
 "Then you'd be ashamed of the Latimers, if you 
 were any relation to them, Baby?" her father asked,, 
 with a sidewise grin. She laughed, flushed, and squeezed 
 his arm in great felicity. 
 
 "Daddy, you're horrible!" she told him. And she 
 added demurely: "You like Joe, don't you?" 
 
 "Who spoke of Joe?" her father asked innocently. 
 "Joe who?" But Harriet would not permit this 
 duplicity. She told him vivaciously that Joe was to 
 come down to luncheon on Sunday, and they were to 
 try the tennis, if there was no intervening rain. 
 
 To both father and daughter the lingering twilight 
 of the season's first warm day was memorably sweet 
 as they motored home. There were lilacs and fruit- 
 blossoms in the village, doors were open, bareheaded 
 women chatted over garden gates. All the country 
 sounds were set free again, voices and the barking of 
 dogs, and the honk of motor horns. A hundred little 
 boats rode the satiny waters of Manhasset Bay; 
 old Captain Latimer, sauntering home, lifted his dis 
 reputable old hat to Joe's friends from the Point. 
 
 "I never was glad that I'm going to be rich before," 
 Harriet said softly after awhile. "It didn't make me 
 happier at school, and it never has seemed to count 
 very much since. But Joe's so ambitious, that I'm 
 glad now for Joe. He can travel, and after awhile 
 he can write books, as he longs to do." 
 
 Her father glanced at her. She was looking straight 
 ahead, into the feathery green tunnel that was the
 
 130 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 road; her plain, intelligent little face was lighted with 
 the great light of youth and love. He did not answer 
 lier. He thought of the nursery into which he had 
 reverently stepped, nearly twenty years ago, to look 
 at his daughter. And his heart was wrung with an 
 exquisite emotion that was partly joy and partly 
 pain. 
 
 Days went by, and were weeks. It was June, and 
 still the younger Josselyns were domiciled at "Villino 
 dell' Orto," where all the roses were in flower now, and 
 the lawns as green as jade. Still Gibbs was desul 
 torily hunting for the right studio, interrupting this 
 enterprise whenever golf kept him in Wheatley Hills for 
 the day, or when his father planned a two or three days' 
 expedition for them all in the car. 
 
 Outwardly, the life they lived was ideal. The 
 lovely house was at its prettiest now, and Lillian 
 gave luncheon and dinner parties three or four times 
 a" week. She and Ellen motored to tea at the club, 
 and brought the men home after their golf, or de 
 parted in great harmony for lunch or card parties, in 
 the car. Ellen had some dainty new summer gowns, 
 a rough crash with dark blue stripes, a handkerchief 
 linen exquisitely frail and simple, a rose-checked French 
 gingham in which even Lillian and her friends seemed 
 interested. 
 
 But she was not happy. She did not want all these 
 new luxuries and all these new friends; she wanted 
 Gibbs, and she realized that they were daily growing 
 further and further apart. He did not need her now; 
 they had less and less to plan, to discuss, to decide. 
 
 In their first days in America they had gone to their
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 131 
 
 room to talk tirelessly, like children, to compare notes 
 and exchange confidences. But they did this no 
 longer. Gibbs was usually tired of talking on the 
 brief occasions when he and his wife were alone. He 
 talked at breakfast, talked while running into town 
 in the car, met his old friends at noon and talked, 
 came back to Wheatley Hills to be swept into the un 
 ending talk at the club, talked at dinner, and talked 
 far into the night. 
 
 He would greet Ellen carelessly, and dress in silence. 
 His life was full to the brim without her, all these 
 lives were packed full without any particular reference 
 to the claims of husbands and wives. Gibbs thought 
 he was having a glorious time, he was excited, flattered, 
 carried away by popularity. The men welcomed new 
 blood, another rival on the links, another hand at 
 cards, another eligible dinner guest, dancer, and 
 raconteur. The women were all captivated by his 
 unusual appearance, his easy French, his art, and his 
 ambition. They found in his indifference a supreme 
 charm. He did not play their game any more readily 
 than his odd but nice little wife did, but while no man 
 ever dreamed of taking the slightest liberty with 
 domestic, serious, pretty little Mrs. Josselyn, half a 
 dozen women at least would have been glad to be able 
 to speak of Gibbs as a "suitor." 
 
 Lillian lazily called Ellen's attention to it: to the 
 petticoats that always fluttered across Gibbs's path 
 at the club, to the intimate conversations for which 
 traps were eternally laid beneath his wife's very eyes, 
 and Ellen was filled with a sort of sick anger and terror. 
 Anger because she did not want to fight for what was by 
 all rights her own, and terror because sometimes she
 
 132 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 was smitten with the thought that she had nothing 
 with which to hold him, should he try to go. 
 
 She could not be her old self in this environment. 
 She no longer felt like the busy little wife and mother 
 who had so gaily climbed up and down the heights of 
 Mont Saint Etienne, Tommy toddling beside her, 
 Gibbs rushing to the landing to meet her, or to bid her 
 farewell. Surely this was not the same Ellen who 
 went into Yvonne's kitchen and mixed "cornbread 
 Americaine" to the amusement and admiration of the 
 sturdy Lilloise? Had she, only a year or two ago, been 
 able to call cheerfully to Gibbs through a Brittany 
 twilight that he must undress Tommy at once, the 
 bath was waiting, and was it the same Gibbs who had 
 obediently come across high grass under gnarled apple- 
 trees to present her with a warm, nude, dusty Tommy 
 to bathe ? Ah, and there were other times to remember : 
 a night in a French hospital, and Gibbs's shining 
 head against her arm on an immaculate counterpane, 
 and the tiny cry that was so soon to be stilled echoing 
 through the gas-lighted, hot room. 
 
 But at this memory the thick tears would blind 
 Ellen's eyes. She had mourned her baby, her delicate, 
 wistful little Rose, but she looked back at that sorrow 
 now as something sacred, something precious, some 
 thing that had bound Gibbs and herself together more 
 strongly than joy. 
 
 She would go into the nursery at " Villino dell' Orto" 
 and begin to busy herself about Tommy's little person. 
 Was he going to bed ? Let Mother undress him. She 
 would fall into deep musing over the little buttons and 
 straps. 
 
 "I can undress myself, Moth'!" Tommy would
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 133 
 
 protest, wriggling. She would catch the warm, hard 
 little face to hers in a hunger of love. Perhaps the 
 child would glance at her in surprise. 
 
 "Are you crying, Mother? What for?" 
 
 "Indeed, I don't know, Tom!" 
 
 Their first real estrangement came this summer. 
 Not that Ellen and Gibbs, as normal young persons, 
 had not quarrelled before. There had been occasions, 
 in the very early days, when a fancied coldness in his 
 tone, or a letter that Ellen must write to Joe in the 
 hour Gibbs wanted to read to her, had caused them 
 acute wretchedness for hours, or minutes that seemed 
 like hours. And then there had been the day that 
 Gibbs was so rude to the Lanes, innocent callers at 
 the studio, and there had been the awful day he whip 
 ped Tommy, after, as Ellen put it, deliberately goading 
 a baby of less than four years into such a state of 
 excitement that he didn't know whether he was telling 
 the truth or not. 
 
 But this was different. Gibbs had taken a dislike 
 to Joe and he and Ellen could hardly mention Joe with 
 out feeling. Gibbs told Ellen impatiently that Joe 
 was all right, he might be a decent enough fellow and 
 all that, but that he, Gibbs, did not like to have Joe 
 choked down his throat all the time. Josselyn, Senior, 
 was inclined to be hospitable to Ellen's brother, to 
 bring him home to Sunday lunch, or to keep him for 
 dinner after the Saturday tennis. George Lathrop 
 was often at "Villino dell' Orto," and Harriet and Joe 
 naturally drifted together. But Lillian, Ellen divined 
 at once, did not like Joe; Joe had absolutely nothing 
 to contribute to Lillian's life, and Ellen suspected that
 
 134 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 Lillian, in her languid and indirect manner, had in 
 fluenced Gibbs without his knowing it. 
 
 One hot evening late in June Ellen went upstairs 
 tired and exasperated after a wasted day. She had 
 motored to Huntington with Lillian for a luncheon 
 and bridge party, and had been talking and eating and 
 laughing all day. Now her skin felt dry and hot, 
 her head ached, and she was experiencing the exhaus 
 tion of a suddenly lessened tension. She had stopped 
 at the nursery to find Lizzie alone and sulky. Mr. 
 Latimer had not yet brought Tommy back'm. Yes'm, 
 it was quarter past six. 
 
 Ellen went on to her own room to find Gibbs flung 
 across the bed in one of the heavy naps with which he 
 sometimes recruited his forces for the evening's de 
 mands. He rolled over when she came in, and lay 
 there blinking and staring between yawns at the ceiling. 
 
 "Time is it?" he asked presently, and when she told 
 him he added: "Damn a seven o'clock dinner any 
 way! My head feels rotten!" 
 
 "You smoke too much!" Ellen suggested dis 
 passionately. 
 
 He himself had often admitted it, and also admitted 
 that he could not drink as steadily as the other men. 
 But he scowled at this reminder. The truth was that 
 late hours, rich food, hot weather, alcoholic stimulants, 
 and the unnatural life they were leading were bad for 
 them both, and any pretext would serve in these days 
 for a quarrel. 
 
 "Where's Tom?" Gibbs now asked. Ellen knew 
 that he knew, and that he had deliberately selected a 
 question that would imply a criticism of her manage 
 ment.
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 135 
 
 "Joe's coming over to dinner, Gibbs, with the 
 Lathrops. And he isn't to dress, you know, for they've 
 been out in the boat all afternoon. So I said not to 
 bother to get Tommy home before seven, he can have 
 a simple dinner and pop into bed as soon as he gets 
 here." 
 
 Gibbs was now sitting on the edge of the bed with 
 his silver hair in a mop over his flushed face, and his 
 head in his hands. 
 
 "I must say I don't approve of this constant up 
 setting of Tom's routine!" he observed. 
 
 Ellen, now at her dressing table, with the stiff lines 
 of a silk robe falling about her, flushed in her turn. 
 
 "Last night you kept him up until quarter of eight," 
 she answered lightly. She scored here, for Lillian had 
 had friends for a later dinner the day before and had 
 captured Tommy, and made him bring down his 
 violin. The child had been reluctant to play the 
 simple little airs he knew, and Gibbs's paternal author 
 ity had been needed, and the threat of a whipping. 
 Ellen had been excruciatingly uncomfortable during 
 this scene, and had presently escaped with Tommy 
 upstairs, almost as near tears as the child was. 
 
 "You simply said that to be nasty," Gibbs re 
 marked with some heat. "You know the child is out 
 too late, you know that no sensible mother would allow 
 a child of six to go off in a yacht, and yet you deliber 
 ately permit 
 
 "There was nothing deliberate about it, Gibbs! 
 Tommy and I went over to see Aunt Elsie this morn 
 ing, in the small car. And Joe was home, and asked 
 to keep him. You know perfectly well " 
 
 "I know perfectly well that any crazy thing that Joe
 
 136 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 proposes appeals to you! Anything to show me how 
 absolutely indifferent you are to my wishes ! " Gibbs's 
 tone was bitter; he walked to his dresser, and gloomily 
 began to jerk open the drawers. Ellen, frightened, 
 began to feel that their idle anger had carried them too 
 far. 
 
 "Gibbs, don't talk like that!" she said, in a changed 
 tone, a tone more distressed than angry. Ordinarily, 
 the faint indication of a desire to conciliate would have 
 softened Gibbs, but he was still in the prickly discom 
 fort of awakening after a daytime sleep, and he an 
 swered bitingly: 
 
 "Oh, don't let anything I say count! I'm not Joe, of 
 course!" And as Ellen was silent, with hurt tears in 
 her eyes, he added grumblingly: "If George Lathrop 
 wants Joe for a son-in-law, just because his daughter 
 has set her heart on him, and if you want to see your 
 brother every day, and three times a day well and 
 good! All I say is: I'm done!" 
 
 "It's Lillian that has set you against Joe!" Ellen 
 burst out angrily. "I know the way she talks about 
 him, in that pleasant, amused voice of hers! She's 
 made you think he was countryfied and stupid and 
 slow just because he's never fallen in love with her " 
 
 "That's enough!" Gibbs said, in a stern voice. 
 Ellen, even as she spoke, had had a feeling that it was 
 more than enough. She stopped speaking, ashamed 
 and sulky, and went on with her hairdressing. There 
 was a silence in the room for perhaps two minutes, and 
 then Gibbs added with cold disapproval: "After all 
 Lillian has done for you treating you absolutely like a 
 sister !" 
 
 Then again there was a pause, broken this time by
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 137 
 
 the entry of Joe and Tommy from the nursery through 
 the bathroom. Joe was in white flannels, and looked 
 his best. He was burned brown by the afternoon on 
 the water, and there was a pleasant new gravity and 
 thoughtfulness in his manner that Ellen liked. She 
 had noticed it before to-day, but just now it seemed 
 especially marked. 
 
 Tommy had had his supper on the yacht, it appeared. 
 He was theoretically anxious to be allowed to stay up, 
 actually his tired, sunburned little lids were falling 
 over his eyes. Ellen welcomed her little brother almost 
 as warmly as she did her son. She put her arms about 
 Joe's neck, and the silk sleeves slipped up to the shoul 
 ders. She knew Gibbs particularly resented Joe's 
 manner of coming and going informally to and from 
 their rooms, but she could not be unkind to Joe to 
 please Gibbs. 
 
 "If you don't mind, Joe Ellen and I are dressing," 
 Gibbs punished her by saying icily. Joe, in 
 stantly apologetic, withdrew. The Josselyns did not 
 speak to each other for the remainder of the period 
 of dressing, nor, except when it was unavoidable, for 
 several days.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 GIBBS had set up his easel in his father's study, and 
 was keeping his hand in, as he expressed it, by making 
 a pastel sketch of Josselyn, Senior. The study was a 
 small room so cunningly concealed by the mazes of 
 the house that the occupant might be sure of privacy 
 whenever he desired it there. A stairway wound over 
 it, and a deep slope of ceiling gave an odd touch to the 
 room; there was a small fireplace with dogs of filagree 
 Italian iron-work, the handsomest rug in the house 
 was here; an old chest of Spanish make stood beside 
 the fire; a tattered tapestry covered almost an entire 
 wall. The study was lighted at night by several hang 
 ing lamps of brass or iron each one a museum piece, and 
 in the daytime by four small square windows set with 
 green bottle-ends. The curiously panelled walls had 
 been brought entire from England, as had the smoke- 
 darkened mantel. It was a treasure house of every 
 thing the old man held especially dear. Over the fire 
 place were the crossed sword and gun he had carried in 
 the Transvaal, twenty years ago. Set between the 
 teakwood surface of a long narrow table and the crys 
 tal that covered it was a curious scroll, preserved 
 miraculously from the Ming dynasty; on the mantel 
 stood a gentle ivory Virgin that had been washed 
 from some wreck to the coast of Portugal, a tiny 
 figure of superlative beauty and simplicity. 
 
 Ellen loved this room, and sometimes spent a happy 
 
 138
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 139 
 
 evening here, if Gibbs were kept in town by any 
 especial affair at the club, playing cribbage with hef 
 faJher-in-law. Lillian, drowsing beside the fire, would 
 listen half-smiling to their war of words and points, 
 open her book, and shut it idly again. She would be 
 quite frankly bored on these occasions, but Ellen 
 loved the quiet and peace, and suspected that the old 
 man was never so happy as in this environment. 
 
 It was his whim never to allow strangers in this 
 room. Ellen, with his permission, had taken Joe 
 there, and marvelled with him over its various contents. 
 Tommy was a privileged visitor, and came and went 
 with royal contempt for restriction. He turned the big 
 key in the Spanish chest, a key half as long as his small 
 arm; the gun was lifted down for him to handle, it was 
 to be his gun some day; he hung over the Chinese 
 scroll in utter fascination. He deeply amused his 
 grandfather by calling it "our room," indeed all the 
 "Villino dell' Orto" was to Tommy now "my house." 
 
 Gibbs painted his father as they who knew him sc 
 often saw him, his silver head fallen slightly forward, 
 his eyes half shut in smiling reverie, his pipe in one 
 fine hand, and the other lying arrested on the open 
 pages of a great book. Lazily done in the spare 
 hours of a few midsummer weeks, it was stamped by 
 the touch of a great artist. Presently Lillian had it 
 carried to the upstairs drawing-room, where all the world 
 might admire it, and Gibbs was more of a lion than 
 ever. 
 
 There was no formal reconciliation between Gibbs 
 and his wife, but after a few days they began to 'speak 
 to each other again. The breach did not entirely heal.
 
 140 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 however, and Ellen felt a change in their relationship 
 from that day. Gibbs went to the city three or four 
 times a week. Sometimes Ellen went with him, and 
 they hunted for a studio together. But the old spirit 
 of comradeship seemed gone. 
 
 He came back from town one day and announced 
 that he had found his atelier, describing a place that 
 sounded near enough to his ideal. But Ellen's heart 
 turned to lead as she heard him. It was not to be a 
 home just a work shop! His home life was still to 
 be here. It was on Fifty-ninth Street, flooded with 
 north light, one enormous room, one tiny room, and a 
 bath, and the rent was twelve hundred a year. 
 
 "And janitor service included," Lillian added un 
 thinkingly. Ellen and Josselyn, Senior, looked at her 
 in surprise, for her tone was not that of question. "I 
 suppose?" she said, quickly glancing at Gibbs, and 
 Ellen saw her colour rise. Instantly she knew, with 
 a shock of almost prostrating jealousy, that Lillian 
 had seen the studio. The older woman had been in 
 town all day, and had picked up Gibbs at the club to 
 bring him home. They had done this before there 
 was no harm in that 
 
 "Certainly!" Gibbs answered smoothly. His col 
 our swept up, too. Ellen felt an agony in her heart that 
 was almost unbearable. He had taken Lillian to see 
 it he had poked about it first with her opening doors, 
 discussing advantages and disadvantages 
 
 There were guests at the table, and she must keep 
 her self-control. Dazedly she laughed and talked, and 
 dazedly she somehow got through the evening. There 
 were six of them, and they played a game of bridge, 
 interspersed with music from the phonograph, with
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 141 
 
 the passing of candy, and the idle discussion of the new 
 magazines. It was midnight when the younger Jos- 
 selyns went upstairs. 
 
 "Gibbs," said Ellen then, from a bursting heart. 
 " Did you take Lillian to see the studio ? " 
 
 She knew him so well; she could see the irresolution 
 in his eyes. Denial? no, he would not lie unneces 
 sarily to her. 
 
 "Yes, I did," he said reluctantly. If she knew him 
 well, he knew her, too. He had been watching Ellen 
 uneasily all evening, he was ready for this. "Yes," 
 he went on innocently. "Do you mind? She came 
 for me at the club, at four, and we had to go right up 
 into that neighbourhood I'm sorry if you mind!" 
 
 "If you thought I wouldn't mind, why didn't you 
 say so straight out?" Ellen demanded. She thought 
 she had him, but Gibbs, hanging his tie on the rack, 
 merely looked thoughtful. 
 
 "If I tell you, will you please not mention it?" he 
 surprised her by asking. "It's this: Dad hates her 
 to go anywhere with any other man, even with me. 
 He's perfectly decent about it in public, and he gives 
 her the deuce in private! He was to be with us to-day 
 you know or she never would have come for me at all 
 she's awfully sweet about it, and as usual, she hum 
 ours him!" 
 
 "She's clever!" Ellen said briefly. If Gibbs did 
 not like this enigmatic answer, he gave no indication of 
 displeasure beyond a faint scowl. He was presently 
 sound asleep, with no further reference to the matter. 
 
 But Ellen, twisting with wretched thoughts, lay 
 awake for hours. At first she mused only upon the 
 bitterness of the simple fact: Gibbs had selected a
 
 142 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 studio without any appeal to the judgment of his wife.' 
 Ah, how different that was from the choosing of the 
 last studio, the blessed little apartment on "Madame 
 la Montaigne": she had been on his arm then, exclaim 
 ing over rents, dimpling on the dark stairs they climbed 
 and climbed and climbed after the concierges! How 
 they had exulted over the boxes from home, over the 
 placing of every chair and rug, and how they had sallied 
 forth, hungry and tired, to be fed and soothed and 
 amused by the city of romance and beauty! 
 
 These thoughts were sad enough, and tears began to 
 creep down Ellen's cheeks, and her head to ache with 
 her efforts at self-control. But presently a fresh 
 thought came, and the tears dried, and Ellen's heart 
 began to beat hard again with agony and fear. 
 
 Lillian had gone into town the night before, Tuesday 
 night, to dine and spend the night with friends, and 
 Gibbs and his father were to take the car in, on 
 Wednesday morning, and meet her for lunch. Ellen had 
 been originally included in this plan, but had excused 
 herself because Tommy's nurse was not well, and his 
 mother was enjoying a monopoly of his care for a few 
 days. And on Wednesday morning Josselyn, Senior, 
 had asked Gibbs to go to the city without him, he had 
 really preferred the idle country day with Ellen and 
 Tommy. He had telephoned Lillian at her friend's 
 hotel that Gibbs had the car, if she wanted it she was 
 to telephone Gibbs at the club. Now Ellen writhed 
 with the sudden conviction that they had met in the 
 morning, and lunched together, and hunted for studios 
 all afternoon. 
 
 She dared not ask him: it was to ask him to confess 
 to a lie. More than that, it was to kill her confidence
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 143 
 
 in him with one blow. But Ellen never knew a mo 
 ment's ease after that. She looked at Lillian's beauti 
 ful, sphinxlike face the next day, vainly trying to read it. 
 Her heart began to beat suffocatingly when her father- 
 in-law chanced to ask his wife, at luncheon, how she 
 had spent the previous day. Was it mere accident 
 that took Lillian's splendid eyes to Gibbs's before she 
 answered? She had shopped with Mildred, and had 
 seen her off at one o'clock, and had had a sort of 
 luncheon-tea all by herself. 
 
 "You should have come straight home; that was a 
 tiring visit," the old man said. Lillian smiled at him 
 affectionately for her only answer. Ellen felt that 
 she never appreciated the safety and the power of 
 silence. 
 
 "You had no trouble getting hold of the car?'* 
 Josselyn, Senior, pursued suddenly. 
 
 "No." Again she glanced at Gibbs, again was 
 silent. Gibbs was the next speaker, with a cheerful 
 and general inquiry: 
 
 "Who's doing what this afternoon?" 
 
 The studio was formally opened in September, with 
 a tea. The artist's pretty, blue-eyed little wife was 
 present on this occasion, suitably, nay, charmingly* 
 dressed, chatting with neglected guests, keeping a 
 watchful eye upon tea-cups, playing her part well. 
 His father was also there, a handsome and dignified 
 figure, erect, white-haired, obviously full of pride in his" 
 son. And the little, dark-haired boy was there, for a 
 few minutes, keeping close to the musicians, amusing 
 the ladies with his pretty French. 
 
 But it was his beautiful young stepmother who
 
 144 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 shared with Gibbs Josselyn the interest of his guests, 
 who was with him the romantic and fascinating centre 
 of attraction. Lillian was at her loveliest, radiant and 
 smiling, the mysterious and astonishing perfection of 
 her face enhanced by the Juliet-like little cap of pearls 
 that held her glorious hair in place, and by the rich 
 colours of her gown. She wore a marvellous garment 
 of old brocade, in which fruity colours were mingled 
 with gold and silver threads, and from her shoulders 
 a filmy black overgarment floated loose, caught with 
 a bracelet of pearls at either wrist, and weighted 
 loosely at its hem by dull embroideries in pearls. 
 Lillian said that she had had this robe for years without 
 an opportunity to wear it; this was her opportunity, 
 and she made the most of it. Anything more lovely 
 than the picture she made in it, even heartsick Ellen had 
 to admit she could not imagine. 
 
 Wherever Lillian moved, the crowd swayed with 
 her, and in it was always the silver head, and the tall, 
 trimly-built figure of the hero of the hour. Her rich, 
 amused voice, with its undercurrents of mystery, of 
 suggestion, was the foundation of the conversation. 
 And when she turned to Gibbs, as she was con 
 stantly turning, and asked him a simple question and 
 received his answering monosyllable, it would have 
 been an obtuse observer indeed who did not instantly 
 perceive the thrilling current of awakening passion 
 that ran between the two. His lightest word to her 
 was fraught with it, his most fleeting glance betrayed 
 it. At the end of the long three hours, when the guests 
 had lingered out, one by one, and she stood by the fire 
 place, tired, drooping, superb, barely raising her eyes 
 as she spoke to him, they might have been alone in the
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 145 
 
 world. What did he say as he bent toward her, what 
 did his smiling eyes say ? 
 
 Ellen did not know, or care. The words were noth 
 ing, the look was nothing, it was the trembling intensity 
 with which they charged them that ate into her soul 
 like acid upon a plate. None of them was sane now, 
 Ellen perhaps the least of the three. She was burning 
 with an agony of jealousy and doubt and anger far 
 more painful than any actual fire would have been. 
 She was conscious of Gibbs and Lillian every instant 
 of the day. 
 
 They were not often alone together, after all. A 
 moment in the long drawing room, before dinner, a 
 few sentences murmured in her ear as Gibbs crossed 
 the tennis court at Lillian's side, perhaps a stolen tea- 
 hour once a week in the city; this was the most. Even 
 for this there must be endless contriving and tireless 
 intrigue. Ellen could not tell what was suspicion, 
 what fact, what was mere innocent chance, and what 
 was deliberate arrangement. 
 
 Sometimes, watching, watching, watching, forlorn 
 and lonely, she longed to tear aside the veil of kindness 
 and happiness in which her life was wrapped, and fling 
 herself sobbing upon her husband. 
 
 "Gibbs, Gibbs, my darling! How much of it is 
 true how much of it is my wretched imagination? 
 Have you let yourself come to care for her have you 
 forgotten me? I am your life I am your past and 
 present I alone! Let us leave all this behind us and 
 go somewhere where we may be poor again, and you 
 shall paint, and I will mend and cook, and all the old 
 joy will come back to us again!" 
 
 She dared not say it. What woman ever did dare?
 
 146 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 She had lost so much, she dared not risk more. Ellen 
 never had had much self-confidence, she lost it all now. 
 She became afraid. Lillian could take Gibbs's love 
 away from her, perhaps Lillian could make him leave 
 her and Tommy completely. Perhaps Lillian wanted 
 more than his passing admiration. Well, and if so, 
 what could a tearful, disheartened, crushed little Ellen 
 do? 
 
 Sometimes, in her misery, it would seem to her that 
 her reason must give way. The blow had been too 
 sharp and too sudden. Why, they had reached 
 America only a few months ago, and he had been all 
 her own then, he had spoiled her, and idolized her, and 
 told her all his joys and sorrows. And now she felt 
 that they hardly spoke the same tongue. 
 
 She would take Tommy for long walks through the 
 sweet country lanes, and come back with her arms full 
 of goldenrod and the first red leaves. And while she 
 walked she would be busy trying to persuade herself 
 that it had all been a sad dream. Gibbs had perhaps 
 fancied Lillian for a few weeks in the summer, but it 
 was over now. It had waned, it was dead, he was 
 turning back to her again. She was sure of it. 
 
 And then would come the hour of dressing for dinner, 
 with a kindly and abstracted Gibbs, and the dinner 
 hour itself, when Ellen was silent, and the old man 
 pleasantly talkative, and when Lillian and Gibbs, 
 barely addressing each other, were wrapped in a quiver 
 ing zone of thrilling communion. Ah, she could not 
 
 bear it she could not bear it ! She was hardly 
 
 conscious of what she said or did, as courage and hope 
 died out of her heart, and the familiar torture re 
 commenced.
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 147 
 
 Gibbs was entirely unconscious of her suffering, 
 because he was almost unconscious of her existence. 
 He had never forgotten his wife for his business or his 
 art, as many man do, but in the intensity of his new 
 passion Ellen was completely lost to him. So might 
 a man feel if he were suddenly stretched upon the rack. 
 
 Gibbs knew that Ellen was there, just as Tommy 
 and Lizzie and his father were there, in the house at 
 Wheatley Hills, but his senses responded to nothing 
 but Lillian. He talked to his father, to Lizzie, to Ellen, 
 and he read books to Tommy and even played with 
 the child, but all the time his veins ran fire, and all the 
 time his mind was busy anticipating the next moment 
 he might have alone with her, or remembering the last. 
 The words she had said she said so little the touch of 
 her satin-smooth hand, the look in the sombre, lifted 
 eyes, these were his food, his drink, his waking and his 
 sleeping. She had told him of her girlhood, of her 
 loveless marriage that yet she had managed to make 
 honorable and happy, of her utter loneliness. In 
 broken phrases exquisitely significant she had told him 
 of the joy of his coming. All this had not been given 
 him at once, but in a few words by the moondial one 
 evening, and a few more murmured at the fireside the 
 next night, while Ellen was idly turning and trying 
 music at the piano, and the old man sat reading under 
 the lamp. Tiny snatches of confidence, infinitely dear, 
 and Gibbs might have said entirely innocent! 
 
 A moment came when he had her in his arms. Only 
 a moment, but it left its scar on them both. They 
 were in the studio, Lillian and her husband had called 
 to bring him home, and Lillian had run up the stairs, 
 and come in upon him in the dusk. His subject, one
 
 148 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 of the winter's prospective debutantes, had gone away 
 with her maid, and he was alone. Lillian, with her 
 bright hair trimly covered by her motor-hat, and her 
 figure lost in the folds of a loose, soft, mustard-coloured 
 coat, had come close to him, had stood staring at the 
 picture with her mysterious eyes. 
 
 "Gibbs it's too wonderful!" 
 
 "Like it?" Gibbs asked, trying to seem indiffer 
 ent to her praise. 
 
 "What you might have done what you might 
 have done in a different environment!" Lillian said,' 
 as if to herself. "To tie you down to domesticities 
 you!" 
 
 The soft, deep voice died away into silence. It was 
 twilight in the studio, the end of a wonderful Indian 
 summer day was dying in the park. A cooler breeze 
 than the city had known for many hours drifted in 
 through the open studio windows, faintly the strains of 
 a hurdy-gurdy came gaily from the street: "Where 
 the River Shannon's Flowing " 
 
 Gibbs was perhaps a little tired. The day had been 
 long and hot and dirty. He glanced at Lillian, all 
 fragrance and freshness, ready to whirl him away into 
 another world of greenness and silence and beauty. 
 Her frail white blouse was open at the throat, a faint 
 perfume disengaged itself from her, and, through his 
 sleeve, he felt the delicious warmth of the hand she had 
 laid, as if unconsciously, upon his arm. 
 
 Suddenly he put his arms about her, crushed her to 
 him, and kissed her hungrily. She did not resist him, 
 but brushed her lovely face aside, so that his second kiss 
 fell on her white temple, where the golden-brown hair 
 was swept back, He felt her breast rise in a quick
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 149 
 
 
 
 breath against his heart, and the fingers on his arm 
 tightened. 
 
 When, after a dizzy moment, they stood facing 
 each other, breathing hard, and still with fingers locked, 
 she seemed as confused as he. She did not smile, there 
 was a half-frightened, half-questioning look in her 
 magnificent eyes. 
 
 "I'm sorry!" Gibbs said, in a whisper. "I'm 
 awfully sorry!" 
 
 Lillian did not speak. She released her hands, and 
 went slowly toward the door. Gibbs remained stand 
 ing where he was, motionless. 
 
 At the door she hesitated, her back toward him in 
 its loose coat of mustard colour. Suddenly she turned, 
 and over her shoulder gave him a swift, half-sad, half- 
 mischievous smile. Then she was gone. 
 
 A vista seemed to open before Gibbs with that 
 smile. For days he saw nothing else, for days there 
 rang in his head only a bewildered question. 
 
 After this episode Lillian quite pointedly avoided 
 him. She was seriously trying to get her thoughts in 
 order. She was bewildered herself. Lillian had begun 
 her flirtation with Gibbs just as she began a flirtation 
 with every other eligible man. Her way with no two of 
 them was the same, but she rarely failed. Upon such 
 men as Joe and George she wasted no time. Honest, 
 simple, blue-eyed Ellen might have them unchallenged, 
 and might discuss with them the proper culture of holly 
 hocks, and the weather, and Tommy's latest precocity. 
 But Gibbs had been marked for her steel from the 
 moment when her eyes had found his silver head next; 
 to Ellen's, on the steamer deck.
 
 150 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 She had won him with the oldest and simplest 
 method. Lillian might have said that there are many 
 tools for the opening of a man's heart, but flattery is 
 the handle that fits them all. She had flattered him 
 so steadily yet so subtly that before many weeks Gibbs 
 had come unconsciously to hunger for the sweetness 
 of her glances and her words, had known that no least 
 charm or gift of his was unappreciated. She had told 
 him that there were beauties in his hand, in the crisp 
 curve of the silver hair from his forehead, she had 
 said that there was sometimes a look in his eyes that 
 made a little boy of him again. She had a hundred 
 names for him; he was "her firebrand," "her hawk," 
 he "frightened" her, he was "cruel" to her. Some 
 times she would thrill him from head to heels by raising 
 piteous eyes to his face, and half-murmuring, half- 
 whispering: 
 
 "Don't don't look at me so, to-day, Gibbs. 
 I'm sad enough without that terrible look of yours. 
 It makes me a naughty child again, Gibbs I'm afraid 
 of myself when your eyes say things like that!" 
 
 It was no longer play-acting for Gibbs, although 
 there was no real tragedy in it for him yet, there was 
 nothing but excitement and suspense, and thrilled 
 anticipation. He did not definitely plan any future 
 for their love; perhaps he did not even call it love. He 
 was carried off his feet by the atmosphere of adulation 
 in which he was floating, and Lillian's extraordinary 
 physical charm had bound him tightly in her toils. 
 Again like a man on a rack, he was conscious of no 
 future, no past, it was all present. His thoughts went 
 no further than the tea-hour, when he might find her 
 in the long drawing room, or than the approacning
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 151 
 
 evening, when she would sit, superbly silent and lovely, 
 at the dinner table, listening, smiling, and occasionally 
 bringing the full glory of her eyes to meet his. 
 
 With Lillian, too, the game had progressed beyond 
 its calmly defined limits. She was absolutely incap 
 able of love, as she herself knew. She had never 
 loved any human being but herself in all her life, al 
 though she had cultivated in herself many of the soft 
 and endearing appearances of love. The sex sense, 
 also, was strong in her, she had more than her share of 
 unfailing instinct in this respect, and perhaps the only 
 times when she was truly happy were when she knew 
 herself to be drawing steadily toward her some new 
 admirer. For this end she dressed and studied and 
 preserved her beauty, for this end she went about from 
 lecture to concert, from tea to dinner. The world 
 was full of possibilities along her especial line of con 
 quest, and Lillian drifted like an octopus on soft tides, 
 and laid her gentle tentacles upon whatever she desired. 
 
 She loved the preliminaries, the first full, innocent 
 look into a man's eyes, the first significant phrase that 
 brought to his consciousness the startling knowledge: 
 "Why, I am I, and you are you!" She knew the pre 
 texts by which he would manage to send her a first 
 note: she knew just what to say and what to imply in 
 her first answer, and that he would keep it, and read it a 
 hundred times. 
 
 To have her handsome son-in-law at her feet was a 
 delicious experience for Lillian. Like Gibbs himself, 
 she was always conscious of the exquisite setting af 
 forded by the "Villino dell' Orto," and of the dramatic 
 elements of the situation. But of late there had been 
 a new possibility in her thoughts.
 
 153 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 She had been intensely surprised at the experience o! 
 Gibbs's studio tea. He had sent out perhaps a hundred 
 and fifty invitations, and Lillian, working over the list 
 of guests with Ellen and himself on a summer morning, 
 had been astonished at his self-confidence. She had 
 not known that he could claim so many of the city's 
 distinguished men and women as his friends. Her 
 own social experiences had been marked with extraor 
 dinary successes, the Josselyn name had been a powerful 
 "Open, Sesame," but she knew in her own soul that 
 there had been failures, too, snubs and coldnesses, 
 there were persons who never had accepted the second 
 Mrs. Josselyn, and who never would. 
 
 She said to herself that Gibbs's so-called friends would 
 not come to his tea; but they did come, and their atti 
 tude of affectionate admiration toward him was not 
 lost upon Lillian. 
 
 Hitherto her position as the wife of a prominent and 
 rich man had satisfied her. She had never outlived 
 her first sense of triumph in achieving it. Only a year 
 or two before she had assured Lindsay Pepper that she 
 was not inclined to change it for any charms that youth 
 and love could offer. But now she perceived new 
 heights. Gibbs Josselyn's wife would have the world 
 at her feet. 
 
 Lillian concerned herself with no details. She left 
 those to others. She simply dwelt upon the thought: 
 Gibbs Josselyn's wife would have the world at her feet. 
 
 She was noticeably kind to Ellen in these days. With 
 a sort of dreamy gentleness she would come to lay her 
 hand about Ellen's shoulders, to admire the flowers 
 the younger woman was arranging, or she would pat
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 153 
 
 the chair next to her chair on the terrace, and when 
 Ellen took it, she would devote herself to the making of 
 congenial plans for the day. Ellen was helpless. She 
 would look wistfully, eagerly, into Lillian's eyes; could 
 there be duplicity there, could there be cruelty there? 
 
 ". . . and then Tom and I will meet you at the 
 gallery," the rich voice would be saying. 
 
 "But, Lillian, why not all lunch together?" 
 
 "Oh, we'll let you and Gibbs have your lunch alone: 
 men like to have their wives to themselves sometimes!" 
 How innocent, how sisterly, the amused look she would 
 give Ellen as she said it. Ellen might go upstairs 
 vaguely heartened. 
 
 But eventually the cruel apprehensions shut down 
 upon her again. She came to hate the splendid house, 
 to feel that some menace to her and to hers was con 
 cealed in the dark, orderly rooms, that the perfect 
 service was not a service of love, but of hate. The 
 beds that were mysteriously made, the meals that 
 were mysteriously prepared, the letters that some 
 unseen hand laid upon her table, the gowns that the 
 always-invisible Keno brushed and mended and laid 
 upon her bed -these things began to stifle her! 
 
 Ellen had another trouble in these days. This was 
 a trouble real and vital enough, for it touched Joe. 
 She had taken the sisterly liberty, on a wet October 
 Sunday, to ask him if he and Harriet were still good 
 friends. 
 
 "Harriet isn't well, Joe. And her father said some 
 thing, last week, about taking her to England for the 
 winter. You you know how I feel about her? I 
 would be so sorry to have things go wrong just because
 
 154 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 you hadn't the courage ' her voice faltered ner 
 vously. "It isn't the money, is it, Joe?" she added. 
 
 He did not answer. He was standing by the fireplace 
 looking sombrely down at the blazing logs. Tommy 
 had been with them, his violin was on the piano, and 
 Ellen still sat on the piano bench, ( her hands idle in 
 her lap, her anxious eyes on her brother. 
 
 "So often it's just the little things that go wrong, 
 Joe," she said. "And then years later people say, 
 'If only I'd realized that that was my opportunity 
 and that it wasn't coming back!' " 
 
 "It's not that " Joe began huskily, and was 
 
 silent. Ellen waited expectantly, his gravity troubled 
 her. Surely there was nothing seriously wrong? 
 Perhaps Joe had discovered the secret that Harriet had 
 kept from him: that as her mother's heiress she was 
 far richer than her father was. But no, Joe cared too 
 little for money, either way, to let so mythical a thing 
 as a great fortune influence him. 
 
 She looked at his troubled face anxiously, waiting in 
 some perplexity to hear him speak. 
 
 "Ellen," he said suddenly, and somewhat awk 
 wardly, "I'll tell you about it. I'm I'm engaged to 
 another girl!" 
 
 "You what . ? " his sister asked, blankly. 
 
 "I'm trying to tell you that there's another girl 
 a girl who well, she has a right ! " 
 
 He flushed like a girl himself as he spoke, and avoided 
 her eyes. Scarlet leaped to Ellen's cheeks, and she felt 
 her mouth turn dry. 
 
 "Joe! What are you saying! Joe you can't 
 mean " 
 
 "Yes yes yes!" he answered, with a sort of fever-
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 155 
 
 ish shame. "I do mean that! I'm ashamed to look 
 at you, Ellen but it's true." 
 
 His boyish, rough head went suddenly down on his 
 arm which was resting on the mantel. Ellen stood 
 looking at him, horror and incredulity in her eyes. 
 For a few minutes there was utter silence, in the music 
 room. Then in a sorrowful whisper Ellen said, as if 
 to herself: 
 
 "Joe! My little brother!" 
 
 Standing at the low mantel, Joe did not move, and 
 again there was silence. Again Ellen broke it. 
 
 "I always thought it was Harriet," she said sadly, 
 "and I think Harriet did, too!" 
 
 "It always was Harriet," Joe said violently. "This 
 this other thing never had anything to do with that! 
 I've always loved Harriet, always will! There isn't 
 an hour of the day that I'm not thinking of her, think 
 ing what it would mean to have her for my wife! 
 Her father's always been a father to me, Ellen, I 
 couldn't love my own father more! He's counting 
 on it, I know that. He talks to me about what he 
 wants done with the place about her and her mother 
 I'm not blind! I know what it means. And then 
 I think of the other my God, I haven't been able to 
 sleep nights, thinking!" 
 
 "Who is she?" Ellen asked sharply, after a pause. 
 
 "She's just a just a girl in the village," he answered, 
 rousing himself from dark musing. "You never met 
 her they've only lived there two years. It was 
 before I ever thought of marrying any one, Harriet 
 was in college, you were in France it isn't very easy to 
 explain it to you.' I knew it wasn't real love, all the 
 time and yet I couldn't end it all, somehow !" .,:
 
 156 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 "Was it real with her?" Ellen asked, as he hesi-* 
 tated. Joe flushed deeply. 
 
 "I guess so!" he answered, embarrassed. 
 
 "She she wasn't that sort of a girl?" Ellen asked. 
 
 "Oh, my God, no ! She hadn't ever had another man 
 friend she wasn't ever allowed to go to the village 
 dances, even! She she was a good little girl." Joe 
 sank his head on his arms again. 
 
 "You didn't promise marriage, Joe?" Ellen, who 
 was thinking hard, asked anxiously. 
 
 "What do you think I am!" he answered, impatiently. 
 "Of course I asked her to marry me!" 
 
 Ellen flushed with shame. She had no previous 
 knowledge by which to gauge this affair; she had no 
 idea of the rules. Vague memories of situations in 
 novels drifted through her mind; they all seemed hide 
 ous, remote, they seemed to have nothing to do with 
 her good, honest, splendid little brother. 
 
 "And she wouldn't?" she asked, uncertainly. 
 
 "She she didn't want to talk about it at all. We 
 never talked about it. I suppose that sounds odd, but 
 it's true. She said that she would never drag me down 
 or something like that! The the thing was that 
 when she learned that when I told her that it was 
 Harriet then that was the end, for her. I don't 
 think she ever wanted to see me again. She she 
 acted a little crazy!" 
 
 "Oh, poor child!" Ellen said, wincing at the thought. 
 ''She didn't know about Harriet, then?" 
 
 "Well, yes, she did all along, in a way. But she 
 seemed to think that we belonged to each other 
 in a way " 
 
 Ellen had dropped into a chair, her eyes were sombre.
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 157 
 
 "Joe she will spoil your life!" 
 
 "Has," he amended simply. 
 
 "For this little village girl," Ellen summarized 
 bitterly, in a whisper, "you may lose the woman you 
 really love your whole future ! Joe Joe Joe ! How 
 could you?" 
 
 The man was miserably silent. After a moment 
 Ellen spoke again: 
 
 "Who knows about it, Joe?" 
 
 "Her mother knows. Nobody else! The mother 
 is a decent sort, the only decent one in the family. 
 She hasn't been unkind to her. Poor girl, nobody could 
 make her feel any worse!" 
 
 "Oh, dear !" Ellen's tone was utterly discouraged 
 and despairing. 
 
 "She says that she can never marry now," Joe pur 
 sued, gloomily, "says she could never look a daughter 
 of her own in the face and tell her! My God, I don't 
 know what to do about it! I've walked the floor, 
 thinking of it, many and many a night!" 
 
 Ellen looked up with sudden hope. 
 
 "But how do you know that she was good, Joe? 
 Mightn't she be just telling you so Her voice 
 
 lost confidence at his look. "No?" she said, subsid 
 ing. 
 
 "She's not that kind!" 
 
 "Well," Ellen said, feebly, "if she doesn't want you 
 to marry her; if you've offered, and she has refused 
 I don't see that you can do anything more about it! 
 It isn't even as if you had met Harriet afterward 
 you always knew, and always loved, Harriet, and you 
 you owe something to Harriet!" 
 
 "I owed, something to Harriet," Joe admitted, heavily.
 
 158 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 "You mean that you can't ask Harriet, now?" 
 Ellen said, with quick concern and disappointment. 
 
 "Well, can I?" 
 
 "No, I suppose not!" she conceded, unwillingly. 
 "She would have to know!" For a moment she pon 
 dered, with a thoughtful face, then suddenly she 
 brightened. "Joe!" she said, "why don't you go and 
 tell George the whole story? He's so broadminded 
 and he loves you both loves us all! If he wanted to 
 take Harriet abroad again, to have some time elapse, 
 at least he'd understand why you couldn't ask her 
 now." 
 
 "I I thought of that!" Joe said, somewhat sharing 
 her confidence. 
 
 "Perhaps he'd think it best never to tell Harriet 
 at all," Ellen mused, half-aloud. "There must be 
 thousands of men who never tell their wives something 
 like that." 
 
 "Wouldn't you mind that?" Joe asked, giving her a 
 shrewd glance. 
 
 "I? Oh, I don't know. But, Joe," his sister pro 
 tested quickly. "It's all wrong, anyway. Whatever 
 we decide, someone's going to be unhappy!" And she 
 fell to thinking, her mind still shocked and confused, 
 her breath coming fast. She felt the utter tensity of 
 the situation; it might mean Joe's misery or happiness 
 for life. 
 
 "Joe, dear, I'm sorry!" she said suddenly, coming to 
 his side to lay her arm about his shoulder. "I think I'm 
 sorrier than I ever was before in my life. I wish it 
 might never have been, Joe! I'm sorry for this other 
 girl, too; but there's no way of saving her, anyway, 
 It's the one thing women can't do, and no matter how
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 159 
 
 hard you try to patch it up, women have got to 
 pay the full price. If she grew up in the village, she 
 must have known what she was throwing away. 
 Dearest boy, I hope I'm advising you rightly. But 
 I think you must do what's best for Harriet, now. She 
 loves you, and you and George must decide how much 
 she shall know. I think he'll forgive you. Men - 
 men feel differently from women about that!" 
 
 "Just telling you has made me feel happier than I 
 have for weeks, Ellen!" he said with a long boyish 
 breath of relief. She kissed him, in her grave, motherly 
 fashion, on the forehead, and sighed deeply, with 
 her arms still locked about his neck. 
 
 "Will you look at the lovers ? "Lillian's good-humoured 
 voice said, from the doorway. She and Gibbs were 
 standing there, Gibbs with impatient and disapproving 
 eyes. But Ellen was too full of the thought of Joe's 
 tragedy to notice him. 
 
 "I've been hearing Joe's confession!" she said, ner 
 vously smiling. 
 
 "And I feel as lighthearted as What's-her-name walk 
 ing home beneath the murmuring pines and the hem 
 locks!" Joe said. 
 
 Ellen knew that his tone was happier than his mood. 
 Yet confession had relieved him of the burden. She 
 bore it now; it was a weight against her heart for many 
 days.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE first heavy rainstorm of the season came early 
 in November, upon a certain Wednesday afternoon. 
 Indian summer was all over now, autumn was gone 
 with its blaze of leaves. Branches about the "Villino 
 dell' Orto" were bare, and the earth under them was 
 packed with the sodden masses that had been a glory 
 of red and gold a few weeks before. In the still, thin 
 air, smoke from wood and leaf fires rose like incense 
 over Wheatley Hills, the mornings were darker, and 
 now for several days the air had been cold, and the 
 sky hung low and dark. Wakening on this particular 
 morning, Ellen, whose constant vigils were beginning 
 to tell upon her health, said to herself wearily that it 
 would be Thanksgiving in two weeks, and wondered 
 where the day would find her. Aunt Elsie had sug 
 gested that she and Tommy come to Port Washington 
 for the noonday dinner, going back to Wheatley Hills 
 for the more formal event of the evening. Gibbs, when 
 she mentioned it this morning, approved the idea, say 
 ing that he wanted her to do what pleased her best, 
 and he knew that she would really prefer the home day 
 to the long, five-hour strain of "Parsifal," to which 
 he and his father and Lillian meant to go, at the 
 Metropolitan. Ellen's face darkened visibly. 
 
 "But if you prefer the opera, why come with us!" 
 Gibbs hastened to say, politely. 
 
 His wife did not answer. She did not believe that his 
 
 160
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 161 
 
 father, who was not very well, would go to the opera. 
 He had expressed a positive dislike for German opera. 
 But Gibbs would buy a third seat, and on Thanks 
 giving morning there would be the usual hideous pre 
 tence of his and Lillian's regret, their offer to give the 
 whole thing up, their departure together in the car 
 
 But there was nothing to say. She was dressed now, 
 and Tommy had come leaping into the room, spilling 
 a box of tacks as he came, and shouting gaily that Lizzie 
 said it felt like snow! 
 
 "If you're going to that dinner to-night, Gibbs, do 
 you want me to pack anything?" 
 
 "Oh, no, thanks! I've everything at the studio. 
 I think I'll come back late, I'll go in the roadster. I 
 hate to keep Torrens in town loafing about waiting for 
 me, even if Dad and Lillian don't want the big car!" 
 
 "Lillian's going to that dinner at the Plaza Mrs. 
 Wallace. Your father begged off, but she says she has 
 to go," Ellen reminded him. 
 
 "Oh, so she is ! And she stays overnight, doesn't she ? 
 Well, if Dad doesn't need the car, I may keep Torrens 
 in then, and drive out after the dinner. I could just 
 as well stay at the studio: I have to be in town to 
 morrow but we'll see. Don't worry if I'm not here. 
 Come on, Tom, we're all ready!" 
 
 Ellen followed them downstairs, her heart dark with 
 suspicions well in keeping with the foreboding sky and 
 the cold, dull air. When the plans for the day were 
 discussed at the breakfast table, she listened, her tragic 
 gaze moving from her husband's face to Lillian's serene 
 face. 
 
 "I wish I could go into town when you do, Gibbs," 
 Lillian said indifferently, giving Tommy the cherry
 
 162 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 from her grapefruit, "but I'm not going until late, and 
 Im furious at having to go in at all. I hate the Wallaces, 
 I'm worried about your father's cold, and altogether 
 my dolly is stuffed with sawdust!" 
 
 "I suppose we could be rude to them again?" the 
 old man said doubtfully. 
 
 "I suppose we couldn't!" she answered, smiling. 
 "No, and I wouldn't have you go in with that cold, 
 either! I'll go in about five, and stay at the Plaza, and 
 have a really nice time, so don't give it another thought! 
 You have to go this morning, Gibbs?" 
 
 "Now!" he answered, rising. "I'm painting a lovely 
 society lady, weight three hundred, and a moustache!" 
 
 Tommy laughed gaily, danced with his father to the 
 door, and watched until the roadster disappeared down 
 the drive. 
 
 The day wore on. At eleven o'clock Lillian, whose 
 woman was shampooing her hair, wandered, with all its 
 glory spread loose over her shoulders, to Ellen's door. 
 
 "Snow, Ellen!" 
 
 Ellen had been writing, but had stopped, and was 
 staring blindly ahead of her through tear-filmed eyes. 
 She was glad she did not have to face Lillian as she 
 looked out of the window. 
 
 "So it is!" she managed to say huskily. 
 
 Lillian wandered on, stood in the bathroom door, 
 where Lizzie was working mittens and warm woollen 
 wraps upon the excited Tommy. When she turned 
 back into Ellen's room the younger woman had en 
 tirely recovered her self-control. 
 
 While they lunched, snowflakes fluttered softly down 
 from a leaden sky. A wind began to whistle about 
 the corners of the house. Outside there was great
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 163 
 
 emptiness, an appalling silence. Ellen forced herself 
 to settle down with her father-in-law in the study 
 after lunch; the old man seemed supremely happy as 
 she opened "Jean Christophe." He was established 
 in his great chair by the fire, with a plaid over his 
 knees, and interrupted the reading now and then to 
 congratulate himself upon having escaped the necessity 
 of going out that night. But Lillian seemed as restless 
 and nervous as Ellen did. 
 
 At four o'clock she came in to say good-bye, exquis 
 ite in her furs, and Ellen suddenly decided to try to 
 walk herself into a better frame of mind. She saw 
 Torre^ walking about the big car, as she went down the 
 drive, and presently it passed her, and she waved to 
 Lillian in farewell. 
 
 It was bitterly cold, and a strong wind was blowing. 
 The snow fell fitfully: the storm was coming, but it 
 was not yet fairly under way. Ellen, usually normal 
 and sensible enough, felt a sense of impending horror 
 close upon her. She did not want to go back to that 
 dreadful house, where selfishness, and deceit, and cruelty 
 flourished. 
 
 But she did go back, and sent her wet shoes down 
 stairs by Keno, and slowly got herself into something 
 warm. She went to the study, where just before dinner 
 Josselyn, Senior, joined her. Ellen was almost frantic 
 now with undefined nervousness, her hands were icy cold, 
 her face burned, and when one of the maids dropped 
 a spoon at dinner she gave a sharp little cry. She 
 and her father-in-law were alone at the stately meal. 
 
 "Here comes the storm!" he said pleasantly, as a 
 wild assault of wind drove violently against the win 
 dows.
 
 164 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 "Oh, I wish Gibbs were here!" ;Ellen exclaimed, 
 with suddenly watering eyes. "Here or that I were 
 anywhere in the world, with him!" her heart added. 
 She had never been frightened when they were to 
 gether, storms that had rocked the old studio in Paris 
 had only seemed to emphasize their delicious safety 
 and warmth beside its fire. And there had been 
 a day when he and she were caught in a storm, in 
 Brittany, and had been drenched and blown, and 
 overtaken by the darkness; how she had laughed as he 
 fumbled with big, protecting hands at the collar of her 
 loose cape, and kissed her wet and rosy face! 
 
 And to-night where was he, while she went silent 
 and heavy-hearted about this house of shadows and 
 menaces ? The thought tormented her like a gnawing 
 pain. Where was he? Who was enjoying the smile 
 she loved so well, the accents of that wonderful voice? 
 She was not beautiful, as Lillian was, she was thin 
 and nervous, and alien to this atmosphere, but she 
 was his wife, after all she was the same Ellen who had 
 talked with him there at the yacht club, in her pink 
 dress, and given him the freshness and the glory of her 
 youth. 
 
 "Oh, I could be pretty again!" she mused, beside 
 the study fire. "I could be gay again! But not here 
 not here!'* 
 
 Her book lay idle in her lap, and after awhile, glanc 
 ing toward him, she saw that her father-in-law was 
 dreaming, too. 
 
 "I'm a little worried about Lillian!" he said, as their 
 eyes met. "I'm afraid they had a bad trip!" And 
 the finely groomed old hand was stretched for the 
 telephone. She heard him call the Plaza Hotel, and ask
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 165 
 
 for Mrs. Bainbridge Wallace. Ellen watched him with 
 a sort of fascination. 
 
 " She's not with the Wallaces," he said, in a puzzled 
 tone; "that's odd. They say she telephoned at about 
 six o'clock that she could not reach the city, and was 
 staying with a friend." 
 
 Ellen's face was deathly white. 
 
 "They're together!" she whispered. And with a 
 gesture as primitive as it was unconscious she wound 
 her hands together, and pressed them to her face. 
 "They're at the studio together!" she muttered, 
 blindly beginning to pace the room. "Oh, Gibbs 
 Gibbs !" 
 
 The old man stared at her for a moment in utter 
 bewilderment. Then the slow blood of age crept 
 slowly into his colourless cheek, a hundred half- 
 forgotten episodes rallied to support the new suspicion. 
 His gallantry, his courtesy, his untiring animation and 
 geniality were a deliberately adopted philosophy. He 
 had not been Lillian's husband for eight years without 
 perceiving the real woman beneath the soft and lovely 
 surface. He felt for her at times the angry contempt 
 of a genuine nature forced to treaty with what is false. 
 But her arts had seemed to him so patent, so pitifully 
 childish and apparent, that he had never dreamed 
 
 No, he had never dreamed of Gibbs! And as the 
 thing burst upon him, suddenly confirmed by much 
 that he had seen and heard without understanding, in 
 the last few weeks, he knew what a fool he had been not 
 to foresee exactly this. 
 
 "You think they " he began, clearing his throat. 
 Ellen, recalled to herself in the midst of her frenzy, 
 looked with quick concern upon his suddenly aged face.
 
 166 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 "Oh, I don't know!" she said, more quietly. "1 
 don't know anything! But I I've been thinking 
 about it all day! They may be dining together, and 
 then they will come home late. It seemed to me 
 
 that they were planning it " She stopped her 
 
 restless walk, and came to the side of his chair and 
 knelt down beside it with the endearing penitence 
 of a passionate child. "I may be wrong!" she 
 stammered eagerly, "Lillian may be somewhere else 
 Gibbs may be at the club dinner! But they do 
 meet they do write each other," Ellen went on with 
 trembling lips, and a shaken voice, "and he has changed 
 to me, I don't count with him any more he's for 
 gotten he's forgotten !" 
 
 She burst into bitter crying, and the old man fum 
 bled for his handkerchief, and pressed it against her 
 cheek, as she hid her eyes on his shoulder. 
 
 After a few moments she freed herself, and went 
 back to her own chair, where she dried her eyes, and 
 managed a watery smile, but did not speak. She 
 felt shaken and exhausted; yet the relief of speaking 
 at last had seemed to lift a weight from her soul. 
 
 "I blame myself for this, Ellen," Josselyn, Senior, 
 said presently, in some agitation. He got up, took his 
 pipe from the mantel, filled it, and laid it irresolutely 
 aside. "Well!" he said briskly, "I will think about 
 this, my dear, and we will decide what to do. We will 
 take it in time. We will take it in time." And 
 now he lighted the pipe, his tone resolute. "It's 
 nearly eleven o'clock, Ellen, and time for you to go to 
 
 bed. To-morrow " 
 
 They lingered for a moment over their good-nights, 
 and he laid his hand on her shoulder.
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 167 
 
 "One thing more, Ellen. Will you forgive him?" 
 Her quick tears came again. Her voice thickened. 
 "I I love him. There's nothing to forgive!" 
 Her father-in-law stared down at her from his 
 greater height as if he saw something admirable in the 
 honest, earnest little face, and the wet blue eyes. 
 
 "You are a good woman, Ellen," he said. "Gibbs's 
 mother was just such another! You shall have him 
 back, my dear, and this will all be forgotten. It's the 
 fault of the times, Ellen but no harm has been done, 
 yet. I'll think about it I have been talking of 
 going to England, and Lillian seems to want to go. 
 She's like a child: she forgets. Only tell me again 
 that you'll forgive him, Ellen, and be happy again!" 
 
 Ellen went up to bed comforted, and undressed 
 while she dreamed of a new life for herself and Gibbs. 
 They would take the little apartment that adjoined 
 the studio, they would be alone again, the old happy 
 atmosphere would be recreated. He loved her, -under 
 all this new madness 
 
 Ellen saw herself in her mirror; her cheeks burning, 
 her eyes starry, her loosened cloud of hair framing her 
 thoughtful face. Hope came back, confidence came 
 back, a dimple deepened in her cheek. It was all her 
 foolish suspicion, after all. Gibbs had been at the 
 dinner, and would come home on the midnight train, 
 and turn the electric lights full in her eyes while he 
 gave her a yawning account of the speeches, and tore 
 off his white tie. And Lillian had been she did not 
 care where Lillian had been! 
 
 But when she had jumped into bed, and midnight 
 struck, and one o'clock, and two o'clock, and he did
 
 168 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 not come, the anger and doubt returned in double 
 force. The storm was still racketing about the house. 
 Ellen felt cold under her thick blankets. She tossed 
 and turned, locked her arms under her head and stared 
 into the dark, turned and tossed again. 
 
 Her father-in-law had disposed of the matter simply 
 and sanely. But suppose she was right, suppose 
 Lillian and Gibbs had really thrown all honour to the 
 winds, were really together to-night, then what? 
 How could she how could any wife, forgive that? 
 To have his father take away the danger, as she might 
 take matches away from Tommy, proved nothing for 
 him, and solved nothing for her. 
 
 And if he and Lillian did not choose to be separated, 
 if their passion had carried them far beyond any plans 
 that she and his father might make ? 
 
 The clock struck three; struck four. Ellen felt as 
 if she would never sleep again. 
 
 The next morning she surprised Lizzie and Tommy 
 at their early breakfast; she was going into the city. 
 The world was mantled with snow, but the sun had 
 just risen, and Louis, the lad who assisted Torrens, 
 had the little service car at the door, and was confident 
 that he could get Mrs. Josselyn as far as the station. 
 
 Just as Ellen was leaving, her father-in-law, also 
 cloaked and gloved, came downstairs. Their heavy 
 eyes met. 
 
 "I don't know why I'm going, or what I'm going to 
 do," Ellen said, "I've got to go to the studio and see 
 if they if he's there. I didn't sleep all night." 
 
 "I'll go with you," he said quickly. "I saw Louis 
 come to the door, and I thought you must be going
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 169 
 
 to town. I'll go, too. Lillian's car may really have 
 gotten into trouble 
 
 "Or he may have been foolish enough to try to come 
 out in the roadster," Ellen added. They went down 
 the scraped steps together; not another word was 
 exchanged on the drive to the train. It was an early 
 train: commuters were stamping on the snow-tracked 
 platform. Ellen placed herself at a window, and 
 stared blindly out, making no attempt to entertain 
 her companion, who rattled his newspaper with a great 
 show of interest. 
 
 The world glittered under the risen sun. Smoke 
 rose straight from a hundred chimneys into the clear 
 air. Ellen saw a woman with a shawl tied over her 
 head, feeding chickens; another woman kissed two 
 bundle-like babies at a gate. The little woman in 
 front of her, in the warm train, was consulting an in 
 significant-looking, kindly little man about a Christmas 
 list. "The children will go out of their senses when 
 they see it!" Ellen heard her say. 
 
 Then they were in the big station; in a taxi-cab. 
 The streets, where languid gangs of men were shovelling 
 snow, went by. Forty-second: Fiftieth: Fifty-ninth. 
 They were at^the door. 
 
 "You have some explanation of this early trip for 
 Gibbs?" her father-in-law asked suddenly in the lift. 
 She turned to him tortured eyes. 
 
 "Oh, yes toothache," she answered breathlessly, 
 abstractedly. 
 
 A second later, outside the studio door, she caught 
 his arm. They stood a moment transfixed. They 
 could hear Gibbs's full, unmistakable voice. A woman's 
 laugh Lillian's rare laugh, sounded in answer.
 
 170 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 Instantly Ellen's companion flung open the door. 
 
 Gibbs and Lillian were alone in the studio. Gibbs, 
 in his painting apron, was busy with the wooden screws 
 and cogs that adjusted his big easel. Lillian, bare 
 headed and wearing a splendid robe of Chinese green, 
 was beside the fire; coffee and rolls were on the little 
 table before her; she was enjoying her breakfast.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 ON A cold clear morning more than a week later 
 Ellen Josselyn came through the garden of the "Villino 
 dell' Orto" with a few late, short-stemmed roses in her 
 hands. Her face was rosy from a long tramp in the 
 bracing, icy air, and her eyes, if serious, wore a con 
 tented expression that was new. 
 
 Ellen had passed through several phases of violent 
 emotion in the past ten days, like everyone else in the 
 house she had been undergoing tremendous mental 
 adjustments. But more sensible or more adaptable 
 than the others, she had disciplined herself to accept 
 the new order of things. Ellen had the advantage of 
 some preparation, whereas the events of the memorable 
 Wednesday had fallen upon the others like a thunder 
 bolt. She had suspected, doubted, and dreaded, for 
 many heartsick days and weeks before the crisis came, 
 and now, while they all suffered in their separate ways 
 from the shock, Ellen even experienced a desperate 
 satisfaction. It was over: Gibbs loved her no longer, 
 and he knew that she knew it. 
 
 For a few days the repetition of this fact gave her an 
 empty, vague feeling, and a sensation of fatigue. She 
 was always tired, and her head felt always confused. 
 Gibbs loved her no longer. 
 
 Well, what next, then? She had faced terrible things 
 before. The old leather harness, for instance, and the 
 feverish days of pain in the old dining room, by the 
 
 171
 
 172 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 air-tight stove. And later winter days, in Paris now, 
 when she had roused in the night to listen for the baby's 
 uneven breathing and had wakened to remember that 
 the crib was gone, that Rose was gone Rose was 
 gone! 
 
 And now she must keep sane, and face these new, 
 strange things. Gibbs, her own husband, loved an 
 other woman more than his wife, and Joe, the little 
 brother whose simple, sturdy integrity had seemed 
 to her to shine in so brilliant a contrast to this life of 
 hypocrisies and affectations, Joe had caused misery 
 and harm, and must take a tarnished record into his 
 new life as a husband. 
 
 Brooding on these things day and night, yet Ellen 
 forced herself to a certain desperate courage. She 
 dressed herself in her usual scrupulous, quaint way, 
 she made herself walk and read, and enter into Tommy's 
 life. She met Gibbs's stern and moody unresponsive- 
 ness with tranquil gravity, with his father alone she was 
 more like her old sunshiny self. Lillian and Ellen 
 barely spoke to each other, except for the unavoidable 
 civilities whose omission would have caused talk among 
 the servants. 
 
 Josselyn, Senior, had somewhat withdrawn into him 
 self since the trip to the studio, and had asked his wife 
 to cancel all engagements for a week or two. Lillian 
 amiably obeyed, and after that the silence and chill 
 of hidden anger and suppressed' fear fell upon the 
 "Villino dell' Orto." Once George Lathrop came to 
 dinner, and for a few hours the shadow lifted, and now 
 and then Joe came in, perceiving that something was 
 v/rong, but assuming, as they were all assuming,
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 173 
 
 that everything was normal and pleasant between the 
 Josselyns. Otherwise they were alone. 
 
 Lillian was bewildered and made a little uneasy by 
 the suddenness with which this change in atmosphere 
 had come about, because, as she told herself a dozen 
 times a day, nothing had happened, after all. When 
 Tom and Ellen had so abruptly entered the studio, 
 on that eventful Wednesday morning, she had been 
 ready with her laughing explanation of her presence 
 there, and she had seen that they accepted it. Lillian( 
 was not the woman to be caught unprepared in such a 
 .situation. 
 
 The smiling greeting with which she had risen to 
 meet them: "Ah, now you've spoiled it all!" was 
 daunting in its bright sincerity. She had had a kiss for 
 her husband, she had had an arm about Ellen as she 
 elucidated: "Tom, darling, we've been scheming and 
 scheming for a chance to get my picture painted for 
 your birthday what bad luck brought you in to-day?" 
 
 And Gibbs had promptly and concernedly followed 
 her lead. 
 
 "And how'd you get in, Dad? The car broke down 
 with Lillian yesterday on the Great Neck hill Torrens 
 got it as far as the service station did he telephone 
 you?" 
 
 "And I had to telephone the Wallaces," Lillian added, 
 wide-eyed, "and Tom, I simply invited myself to stay 
 with old Mrs. Pepper at Great Neck all night. I 
 didn't telephone you because I had this date for an 
 early sitting with Gibbs." 
 
 "Take a look at it!" Gibbs said, at the easel. "Aw 
 fully rough now, of course! It's just laid in." The 
 old man, studying the canvas, nodded.
 
 174 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 "Still, you've caught it!" he said. "Car broke 
 down, eh?" 
 
 "No, it was the skidding," Lillian, at her husband's 
 side, also looking at the portrait, explained. "The 
 road was simply lined with cars, Tom. It was snowing 
 hard, you know, and I got terribly nervous. Finally 
 Torrens gave it up, too. He's been talking about the 
 brake, you know, and he was as nervous as I." 
 
 She was smiling, eager, garrulous for Lillian. 
 
 "So I thought this was my chance to pay a little 
 attention to Mrs. Pepper. We were going to have her 
 over at the house, Tom, you know, and we never did ! 
 And Lindsay was there, I thought he had gone to 
 Washington, but he was there, and he had to make an 
 early start for town this morning, so it all fitted in!" 
 
 Thus Lillian, readily and innocently. Gibbs, ap 
 parently indifferent to the conversation, was squinting 
 at his canvas, rubbing the wet paint with a tentative 
 finger. The old man stood staring at the picture, too, 
 with unseeing eyes. He was heartsick at finding him 
 self, his years and his dignity, forced into this hideous 
 role. He knew now that he was being deceived, if not 
 in actual fact, in the underlying motive so much more 
 important than the fact. He knew what simplicity 
 and ingenuousness from Lillian meant. And standing 
 there in the pleasant winter brightness of the studio, 
 with the fire snapping gaily behind him, and his wife's 
 soft hand on his arm, his heart burned with anger and 
 shame. 
 
 Ellen had not spoken at all. She stood like a woman 
 of wood beside the fire. Marie, the shrivelled little 
 janitor's wife, hobbling in, piped a query as to whether 
 "Madame Geebs" would have some coffee, too. Ellen
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 175 
 
 gave her merely a dumb shake of the head for negative. 
 She was afraid she was going to faint. She felt broken, 
 dazed, struck to the heart. It was all a bad dream, 
 Lillian so pleasantly talkative, Gibbs scowling at his 
 work, her father-in-law gallantly struggling to regain his 
 composure after the sudden revulsion of feeling, and 
 herself silent, sick, helpless. Fool that she had been 
 to think that she could convict them! What was she 
 to gain, even supposing the worst to be true, and herself 
 successful in forcing them to confess it! Had the 
 painter, with his clever, bronzed face and his mop of 
 silver hair, ever been anything to her except a cruel 
 and alien figure? Had she ever rested her black head 
 against that loosely hanging linen smock, and felt the 
 delicious strength of that big arm about her? 
 
 He was angry now, she said to herself, but it did not 
 seem important. It was too late for anger of his to 
 concern her. 
 
 Like a scene in a play, Torrens arrived. He came 
 upstairs to say he had just brought the car from Great 
 Neck. He was full of the accident, concerned to know 
 how Gibbs had managed the small car. 
 
 " Roads is filled with cars, Mr. Josselyn. You didn't 
 attempt to get out to Wheatley Hills last night? I 
 never seen the roads so bad " 
 
 "Mr. Pepper managed to get through this morning," 
 Lillian said. Her husband turned to the chauffeur with 
 directions. Gibbs somewhat awkwardly sauntered 
 over to stand beside his wife. In all her own distress 
 she felt a pang of pity that Gibbs should be ashamed 
 and embarrassed. 
 
 "It must have been a heavy snow, down there," he 
 offered.
 
 176 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 She raised heavy eyes. Her voice was lifeless. 
 
 "It was a stormy night. And and I had a tooth 
 ache." 
 
 Lillian, joining them, was all sympathy. It was 
 arranged that Ellen should go at once to her dentist, 
 and Josselyn, Senior, might finish his paper by the studio 
 fire while the second sitting went on. 
 
 "And you must be tremendously surprised when you 
 get the picture, on your birthday!" Lillian said play 
 fully. 
 
 Thus began the farce they were still playing. They 
 had all come home together in the car, after a lunch at 
 Sherry's where more than one envious outsider noticed 
 the four handsome Josselyns laughing and chatting 
 together. Gibbs had been full of concern for his wife, 
 and had seen that she was comfortably tucked into 
 bed when she got home. He had gotten her books, 
 magazines, he had brought Tommy in for good-nights, 
 and talked cheerfully to his wife, while he undressed 
 the child by the fire. And Ellen, watching him, had 
 been afraid that she would suddenly scream out, and 
 go mad. 
 
 She loved him so she loved him so her big, clever, 
 masterful Gibbs! She had loved him since the hour 
 they met, and she could not unlove him now. She 
 longed, with unceasing hunger gnawing at her heart, 
 to have him her own again, to have his laughter, his 
 confidences, his moods all for her. Ellen was not 
 proud. She had told him a thousand times, in their 
 happy years, that her life and her being were bound up 
 in him; she could not change because he had changed. 
 
 Tommy 'sprayers were said Tommy's good-night kiss
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 177 
 
 given and all the while she knew she knew that Gibbs 
 was longing, longing to get downstairs, to meet Lillian 
 for the one minute, for just the necessary second, that 
 should reassure them both, that should equip them for 
 fresh play-acting. 
 
 And she knew he was not happy, that he never could 
 be happy again in the old way nor in the new way, 
 either! As surely as the day would come when Lillian 
 would give herself to him; and Ellen said feverishly to 
 herself that it might already have been so surely 
 would the day come when he would read that cold and 
 cruel heart of hers aright, and would shudder away 
 from it in utter sickness of soul. 
 
 There had been a difference in Ellen since that morn 
 ing in the studio, a calmness and a desperate resignation. 
 And the expected reproaches from Gibbs had never 
 come, rather he had seemed to try to soothe and reassure 
 her. Such an attitude a month ago might have saved 
 them all, but Ellen was past that now. She baffled 
 and shocked him by the depth of her despair. 
 
 To his father, too, the whole world was changed. 
 Josselyn, Senior, had aged ten years in this week. His 
 pride was pierced in a vital spot. He had liked his 
 position as elder in this houseful of brilliant young per 
 sons; he had admired Gibbs, Lillian, and Ellen, in their 
 separate spheres, and had liked nothing so much as to 
 make them happy, to be the power that could indulge 
 and please them untiringly. 
 
 Now accepting their ready explanations in the same 
 spirit that Ellen did, he was awakened from the fool's 
 dream. He saw himself an old man, gulled and blinded, 
 put off with empty caresses. He saw himself bringing 
 untold suffering upon Ellen by his sentimental dream
 
 178 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 of having the younger family beneath his rooftree. 
 He saw her life ruined, his boy's life ruined, his own old 
 age dishonoured. Of Lillian he thought little : for many 
 years he had realized that whoever might pay for his 
 second wife's delinquencies, it would not be his second 
 wife. There was no punishing Lillian; her heart was 
 like a mirror that could give her back only a reflection 
 of her own charms. 
 
 And yet, of them all, during this strange week, it was 
 Lillian who was really enduring the severest mental 
 discomfort. For Lillian, discomfort of any sort was 
 new, and she tried a hundred times to writhe away from 
 her apprehensive thoughts. 
 
 For although it had been perfectly true that Lillian 
 on the night of the storm had gone to seek unexpected 
 hospitality from old Mrs. Pepper at Great Neck, the 
 fact she had successfully concealed from her husband 
 was that Mrs. Pepper at this time had been making a 
 long visit to her daughter in Montreal. Lindsay 
 Pepper, keeping bachelor quarters with his Japanese 
 boy, had welcomed her, and Lillian, resting and warm 
 ing herself by his fire, after her adventures, had assured 
 him gaily that he must find her a chaperone before 
 dinner-time, or somehow, anyhow, she must get back 
 to Tom, and the " Villino dell' Orto." 
 
 While Ellen, restless and suffering, had been wander^ 
 ing about the house at Wheatley Hills, and while 
 Gibbs, thinking perhaps of Lillian's coming in the 
 morning, had been dressing for his dull dinner at the 
 club, Lillian had been experiencing her own uneasiness, 
 too. Lindsay's devotion to her she had never ques 
 tioned; it was one of the elements in her life with which 
 her fancy liked to play, but she realized now that
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 179 
 
 she had never truly estimated its depth and its 
 power. 
 
 The storm was gathering in fury, and the friends 
 to whom Lindsay was duly telephoning, one after 
 another, regarded his gay suggestion of "getting to 
 gether for a party" as something little less than mad. 
 Finally, he had to face her ruefully with the simple 
 summary: "Nothing doing!" 
 
 There was left them the alternative of struggling out 
 into the storm, fighting their way for more than a 
 bitter mile to the station, getting into the city by eight 
 o'clock, when Lillian, wet and blown, might still join 
 the party at the Plaza, leaving Lindsay to dine and 
 amuse himself otherwise as his fancy dictated. And 
 had Lillian foreseen the events of the following morning, 
 she would certainly have adopted this course at any 
 sacrifice. 
 
 But his house was delightfully warm, and Kioto's 
 dinner was already dispensing a delicious odour. No 
 one need ever know that his mother had not chaper 
 oned this affair, the Japanese was discretion's self, and 
 Lillian was no girl to be fluttered by a touch of the 
 unexpected. More, she began to enjoy the almost 
 forgotten emotion of terrified pleasure, the situation 
 was full of theatrical beauty, and she herself was the 
 leading woman. She borrowed a richly embroidered 
 mandarin coat which Pepper sometimes wore about 
 the house, and came downstairs a vision of marvellous 
 beauty. It was not only pleasantly exciting; it was 
 the easiest thing to do. And Lillian, above all things, 
 loved ease. 
 
 And then had come the early trip into town, for 
 Lindsay was leaving for Montreal, to bring his mother
 
 180 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 home, and Lillian had to keep her engagement with 
 Gibbs. Lindsay was all devotion; this attitude, in fact, 
 was the one element in the matter of which Lillian had 
 taken no account. He alarmed her with the vehe 
 mence of his affection, and made her nervous and un 
 certain. She had supposed that he would leave her 
 at the studio door, but instead he came upstairs, and 
 the two men talked together a few minutes. 
 
 During this time Lillian experienced exquisite uneasi 
 ness. Gibbs showed a disconcerting familiarity with 
 old Mrs. Pepper's movements. When had she gotten 
 back? How did she find Montreal? 
 
 "I didn't know you knew old Mrs. Pepper so well?" 
 Lillian said, when Lindsay was gone. 
 
 "Oh, I see her sometimes, watching the tennis," he 
 answered carelessly. "Now take your wraps off, and 
 I'll have Marie bring you in some coffee!" Her big 
 fur coat in his arms, he caught up her bare hand. 
 "No ring?" he smiled. 
 
 For he was painting her in a dull green robe, and the 
 big jade ring she frequently wore was an excellent bit of 
 colour in the picture. 
 
 If she had had the quickness to say that she had left 
 it at home! But Lillian was not quick at best, and just 
 now she was tired and confused. She had left it on 
 the washstand in the bathroom next to Mrs. Pepper's 
 room; she remembered its exact position, and she said 
 that she would write Mrs. Pepper at once, and ask her 
 to return it. 
 
 "Well, run along, and get into your rig!" Gibbs 
 said unsuspiciously. But when she had disappeared 
 into the little model's room, and when Marie had 
 brought in the coffee, and when he had loitered about
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 181 
 
 waiting idly, and still she did not come, he picked up 
 the telephone book. As well to settle the matter 
 quickly: the delay of a few hours might mean that the 
 ring was swept carelessly away and lost. 
 
 And so it was Gibbs's turn to have his castle of 
 dreams fall about him in ashes. When Lillian came 
 innocently back from the model-room, eager for the 
 exquisite hour they had both been anticipating for 
 days, he saw for the first time the woman she really was. 
 
 "Your ring's all right," he said presently. "I 
 telephoned. The Jap said he'd found it." 
 
 Her eyes flew to his face. She saw what he knew, 
 and her colour faded a little. 
 
 "Gibbs," she said quickly and breathlessly. "You 
 know how it happened I wanted to tell you all 
 about it, anyway. But Lindsay asked me not to. 
 You see, it was storming horribly " 
 
 Beautiful, eager, in her green robe, she poured out 
 the story as she had arranged and adapted it in the 
 night. And slowly mixing the colours on his palette, 
 not meeting her eyes, Gibbs listened. There was a 
 certain shade of yellow-brown that would always 
 speak to him of this hideous moment, with its blare of 
 brassy truth, and its taste of ashes. When she ended, 
 with a wide-eyed, innocent appeal, he smiled, and still 
 with averted eyes, he nodded. " Blame you ? No-o-o, 
 I don't blame you, Lillian!" he said gently, after a 
 silence. 
 
 "But smile at me, Gibbs," she said, with an uneasy 
 laugh and a rather uncertain resumption of her old 
 confident manner. "Or I'll have to come over there 
 and make you smile!"
 
 182 JOSSELYN'S WIFF 
 
 Before he could speak again the door was opened 
 by her husband. 
 
 She knew that in the moment he had realized her 
 deception about Lindsay Pepper she had come close to 
 losing Gibbs. She felt a contempt for the weakness in 
 herself that had permitted her to risk the love of the 
 man she really desired for the old admirer who had 
 lost, by contrast with the new, any power to stir her. 
 But Lillian could not think that Gibbs would not 
 return to her. He was hurt, he was sore and angry 
 now, but she had still, as a weapon, their dangerous pro 
 pinquity and she had still the disturbing and aDoealing 
 beauty he had found irresistible. 
 
 So Lillian played her game safely, and bided her 
 time. This storm would blow over, as other storms 
 had. She would need only a little patience, she would 
 need caution. Patience and watchfulness were among 
 Lillian's virtues. 
 
 But Gibbs knew that it was all over. He had made 
 a fool of himself, for her, he had told himself that it was 
 only a pretty and exciting game. He had lived in the 
 light of those dark and magnificent eyes, he had 
 thrilled to the touch of her smooth, warm hand. 
 
 That he had never actually been false to Ellen was 
 of small comfort to him now. The house of cards had 
 fallen about him through no heroic measure of his 
 own. He had placed himself in an undignified, in a 
 ridiculous position, he had let her deceive him with 
 the rest. 
 
 And with the revelation that she had, from sheer 
 good-natured laziness, placed herself under Lindsay 
 Pepper's roof for the night, and with the bitter thought 
 that Lindsay's coarse devotion meant quite as much
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 183 
 
 to her insatiable appetite for admiration as did his 
 own exquisitely expressed friendship, Gibbs's wakening 
 had come. 
 
 He could not bear to look at her now, to speak to 
 her. He fell into a mood of angry silence; his father's 
 attitude of watchfulness, Ellen's voiceless question and 
 reproach, and Lillian's tireless efforts to reestablish 
 the old order of things, alike infuriated him.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 As ELLEN came in with her roses, the big clock in the 
 hall began to chime in a leisurely manner, and, glancing 
 at it, she saw that it was twelve o'clock. Long after 
 ward Ellen Josselyn thought of that moment, and of 
 the events that would stamp themselves on her heart 
 and brain before the clock chimed for another noon 
 day. But at the time she only reflected that luncheon 
 was in half an hour, and she was muddy and dis 
 hevelled: she would put the roses in the study, and 
 fly upstairs to brush and change. Very often she car 
 ried flowers into the study: the maids were not allowed 
 to enter the room, and the old man liked to find traces 
 of his daughter-in-law's affection waiting there. 
 
 More than that, Ellen thought, Tommy was fre 
 quently to be found there at this hour, setting up his 
 grandfather's chessmen, wasting large sheets of paper 
 with his ruler and pencils, operating the little ivory 
 stork that lighted cigarettes, burning incense in the 
 tiny Cantonese out of whose open mouth thick fumes 
 presently poured, and in general enjoying himself 
 almost as much as did the grandfather who superin 
 tended these operations. A picture of them together 
 was in Ellen's mind as she opened the door, and she 
 half-smiled in anticipation. 
 
 But only Lizzie was in the study. She was standing, 
 pale and staring, by the table, facing the door. She 
 gave a little cry, helpless and forlorn, as Ellen came in. 
 
 184
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 185 
 
 Ellen's eyes flashed to her limp fingers, which lay about 
 the beautiful shining body of a revolver on the table. 
 
 Before the little cry, half-protest and half-whine, had 
 died away, Ellen had sprung at her, wrenched the ter 
 rible thing free, and flung it back into its place in the 
 drawer, pushed her own body against the drawer to 
 close it, and caught Lizzie by the shoulders, forcing 
 the girl to face her. While they stood there, panting, 
 the shadow of death lifted itself slowly from the room. 
 The fire crackled, the sunlight, pouring through green 
 bottle-ends, fell peacefully upon the soft tones of rugs 
 and leather chairs. 
 
 "Lizzie my child!" Ellen said, in a sharp whis 
 per. "What were you doing? What were you going 
 to do?" 
 
 No need to answer. Lizzie attempted none. She 
 hung her head: her breath came on childish dry sobs. 
 
 Ellen's thoughts raced. There was only one expla 
 nation of this: Lizzie was "in trouble." Ellen had 
 noticed tear-stains about the pretty eyes more than 
 once. She remembered now that Lizzie's mother, a 
 village woman, had come all the way to Wheatley 
 Hills one day, in a plumber's delivery van, to hold a 
 mysterious but violent conversation with the girl, 
 who had cried bitterly. Afterward, she had explained 
 to Ellen that Ma wanted her to get married, and Ellen 
 had wisely observed that she was right not to take 
 that step until she felt ready for it. 
 
 So that was it. This gentle, conscientious little 
 woman had been carrying that burden in her heart. 
 
 Ellen made the girl sit down on the great seat by the 
 fire, and sat down herself beside her. She kept one 
 kindly hand on Lizzie's shoulder, and fixed anxious
 
 186 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 eyes upon the tear-wet, sullen face. The older woman 
 still felt herself to be frightened and shaken, but her 
 tone was as quiet as she could make it. 
 
 "Lizzie my dear! That was a wicked thing to do. 
 Can't you tell me about it ? You know Tommy loves 
 you, and I love you. Tell me " 
 
 The tone entirely melted poor Lizzie, whose breast 
 began to heave painfully. Ellen thrust her handker 
 chief into the girl's hand, and Lizzie sobbed unrebuked, 
 wrenching her whole body in her grief, and making 
 stifled sounds like a person strangling. 
 
 "It's about that man your mother wanted you to 
 marry?" Ellen suggested, after awhile, her arm still 
 about Lizzie's shoulders. The girl nodded without 
 looking up. "And Lizzie, should you marry him?" 
 Ellen ventured. 
 
 "I love him!" Lizzie answered, in a choked and 
 angry voice, after a shamed pause. 
 
 "You love him You poor child ! And he wants 
 
 to marry you ? " 
 
 "He says he will." Lizzie had writhed about so that 
 her back was almost turned to Ellen, who had to bend 
 forward to catch a glimpse of the flushed face and in 
 flamed eyes. 
 
 "And don't you think you would be happier," 
 Ellen pursued sweetly, "don't you think you would be 
 happier, if he loves you, and you " 
 
 "He don't love me," Lizzie interrupted sullenly. 
 
 "But you said " 
 
 "I said he'd marry me!" 
 
 The blood came to Ellen's face, and she sat back, 
 feeling a little sick. She had read of the old tragedy a 
 thousand times, but how much more poignant was this
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 187 
 
 first encounter with it, this sickening realization of 
 what it means to the woman to sue! She had loved, 
 and she had given, and now it was his royal preroga 
 tive to lift her up, and make her "honest," or to drive 
 her to self-murder. Ah, life was hard enough for the 
 Ellens, who keep a man's respect, but lose his love. 
 But for the Lizzies ! 
 
 " Lizzie," she asked timidly. "Are you youVe 
 not ?" 
 
 Lizzie had dried her swollen eyes, and their misery 
 was turned toward Ellen. 
 
 "No, ma'am," she answered, with returning self- 
 control, "if there was a baby coming, I'd marry him 
 to-morrow. But he he's a good man, Mrs. Josselyn, 
 and he'd never be anything but shamed and kept down 
 by a girl like me. And we done what we done like 
 children might do something wrong," poor Lizzie added, 
 with her eyes brimming again, "and all the time he was 
 in love with another lady I knew he was, but he didn't 
 know himself how he had come to think about her 
 and so when we when we said we wouldn't see each 
 other no more, I thought that it was all over and 
 done with except for the way I felt. But but 
 Ma guessed it, and she was awful mean to me," the 
 girl said simply, "and nothing ever seemed right again. 
 I didn't want to go with any of the other boys, and I 
 kep* feeling what if I should marry some day, and 
 have a little girl " 
 
 She began to cry again softly. Ellen, whose face 
 had grown ashen, sat staring at her blindly. Her 
 heart was pounding: her brain in a whirl. She had 
 heard those terms before Lizzie had been Aunt Elsie's 
 maid through an illness last winter
 
 188 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 "When was this, Lizzie?" she asked, clearing her 
 throat. 
 
 "Last winter, Mrs. Josselyn." 
 
 "Look at me," Ellen said, after a pause. "Look at 
 me, Lizzie. Was it Joe ? Was it Mr. Latimer ? " 
 
 She saw the answer in Lizzie's eyes before the girl 
 said quickly: 
 
 "No, ma'am! Oh, no, ma'am!" 
 
 Ellen could smile sadly as she shook her head. 
 
 "He told me about it, Lizzie. He told me all about 
 it, but he didn't say it was you. I'm so sorry. I'm so 
 desperately sorry. You you do love him ? " 
 
 "Oh, my God, how could I help it?" the girl an 
 swered, with sudden violence. "I had never worked 
 before, Mrs. Josselyn, and at home it was trouble 
 trouble trouble! My father drinks and my sister's 
 husband drinks I've seen him hit her a few days 
 before her children come! And your aunt was so good 
 to me, and the Captain treated me like I was his grand 
 daughter, and everything was so pleasant and warm. 
 And Joe always anxious for me to get enough to eat, 
 and helping me with kindling and all, and one night 
 tying up my finger where I'd cut it, and sometimes 
 he'd kiss me, you know, and tell me I looked nice! 
 And then one night he wasn't coming home, and the 
 Captain wanted some tobacco, and I run up street for it, 
 after supper, and when I come back my feet were all 
 sopping, and after I'd undressed, I come down in a 
 wrapper, to get warm ' 
 
 Ellen could see the old Main Street house. Her eyes 
 were shining. 
 
 "I've done that a thousand times!" she said, half- 
 aloud.
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 189 
 
 "And Joe come in," pursued Lizzie, "it was after 
 nine, but he hadn't had his supper. And him and me 
 went out and got something to eat 
 
 Her voice fell. Ellen did not speak. 
 
 "He's going to marry Miss Lathrop," Lizzie said 
 presently. "But that can't stop me loving him, and 
 remembering how he'd laugh when we was building the 
 breakfast fire and how I felt about him! I thought 
 then we might get married, although I always knew it 
 wouldn't be right for Joe and she's rich, and all that, 
 and and of course he loves her " 
 
 She stopped speaking, staring drearily ahead of her. 
 Ellen was silent, too. But she kept one warm friendly 
 little hand tight over Lizzie's hand, and in her troubled 
 face there was no hint of reproach. 
 
 "You say he loves her," she said thoughtfully after 
 awhile, "I think he does, too, in a way. But he has 
 been most unhappy about this, Lizzie; I've seen it, 
 only I didn't understand. He has been worried and 
 uncertain we've all been wondering what was on 
 his mind. And I didn't understand. I thought it was 
 some reckless girl I suppose it's always this way. 
 Only I never thought of you, Lizzie, so quiet and good 
 and unselfish no, don't begin to cry again. I didn't 
 mean that unkindly. I blame myself I blame my 
 self " 
 
 Thus Ellen, reaching for some guiding principle 
 through all these mazes. 
 
 "Well! Someone will come in and find us here," she 
 said, with sudden decision. "Go upstairs and bathe 
 your eyes, Lizzie, and get Tommy ready for lunch. 
 And don't worry, I'm going to think it all out!" 
 
 Comforted, the girl escaped, and Ellen ate her lunch
 
 190 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 in thoughtful mood, and afterward walked with Tommy 
 to the station a mile away. She said nothing to any one 
 at the house, but when they were on the road, she told 
 Tommy that they were going to meet Uncle Joe. 
 
 "How 'j'know he was comin'?" Tommy demanded. 
 
 "I telephoned him, dear." Ellen was excited: she 
 trotted Tom's small legs along in a spirited fashion. 
 Joe, descending from the train, complimented them 
 upon their cheeks. 
 
 "Of course you don't understand," Ellen echoed his 
 greeting as she kissed him. "But I'll explain, Joe. I 
 didn't bring the car because I want to talk to you, by 
 myself. Trot ahead there, Tom. It's about Lizzie, Joe." 
 
 His honest, kind eyes flew to hers consciously. 
 
 "She told you?" " 
 
 "She was going to kill herself, Joe." 
 
 He walked along at her side for ten paces without 
 speaking. 
 
 "My God my God!" he said then, under his 
 breath. And after another silence he said suddenly 
 and firmly: "I'm sorry, Ellen. I know how you and 
 Gibbs will feel. But I can't stand it any longer. 
 Perhaps other men can do it: I can't. I'm going away 
 get a job somewhere and she's going with me. It's 
 the only way, for me. She's a better woman than I 
 am a man, because she gave herself where she loved. 
 I thought I'd cut everything, and get out for awhile, 
 but now I see that this is the way out. I'll go, and I'll 
 take Lizzie. We'll go now. I'll make it up to Lizzie, 
 somehow!" 
 
 "Oh, Joe, I love you!" Ellen said, tears and laughter 
 in her voice. "I think that's the only way out! I 
 know that you'll be glad some day."
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 191 
 
 Half an hour later she sent Lizzie out to the gate on 
 some pretext, and Lizzie did not come back for almost 
 two hours. When she did come, Ellen was playing 
 with Tommy, and Tommy's stone blocks, on the nur 
 sery table. 
 
 "Mrs. Josselyn," Lizzie said, coming close to her, 
 and laying one hand on Ellen's arm, "I hope God will 
 make up to you what you done for me. I don't deserve 
 you should treat me like this but I'll never forget it! 
 Mrs. Josselyn, we've been talking and he's just gone 
 down to get the four o'clock train and he says we 
 are to be married. And if God helps me if God helps 
 me I'll make him the best wife !" 
 
 And Lizzie, turning her back suddenly, began to cry 
 again. But Ellen knew that these were tears of joy. 
 Her own mood was the more sober of the two as she 
 went slowly to her own room. The right thing is not 
 always the easy thing, she mused apprehensively. 
 
 Now she must face Gibbs with this extraordinary 
 news. And Gibbs, intolerant of Joe always, would 
 find in this a complete confirmation of his poor opinion 
 of the younger man. George Lathrop's dearest dream 
 shattered, Harriet and a fortune flung aside, and Joe 
 and a village girl, ungrammatical and unlettered, off 
 to be married; the summary was disheartening indeed. 
 And yet under all her uneasiness Ellen's heart was sing 
 ing with the joy of a decision wisely made, and a hard 
 step bravely taken. 
 
 She left Lizzie tremulously smiling, and building 
 Tommy such a tower as never had gladdened his eyes 
 before, and went downstairs to the study. Her father- 
 in-law was alone there, dreaming over a fire and a book, 
 and smiled as she came in. Lillian had gone off with
 
 192 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 Mabel Pointdexter for dinner, he explained, and would 
 be there all night. Ellen, seating herself, seemed to 
 feel a certain lightening in the atmosphere with Lillian's 
 departure. Presently Gibbs came in, silent and gloomy, 
 to find them having tea. He declined Ellen's brief, 
 civil offer with equal brevity and cold civility. He 
 answered his father's questions, delivered dryly, with 
 patient monosyllables, and followed his wife upstairs 
 to make himself presentable for the informal dinner. 
 
 In their room, Ellen nervously broached the subject 
 of Lizzie. He was surprised, but his comments amazed 
 her with their mildness, and be brought a pang of 
 strange, unfamiliar pleasure to her heart by his final 
 summary: 
 
 "I think you did right. Joe's not the first man who 
 has made a fool of himself, but they may hit it off, after 
 all. She's just as apt to make him a good wife as that 
 empty-headed little Harriet. I respect him for doing 
 it." 
 
 Ellen, sitting at her dressing table, felt a wave of 
 happiness, almost weakening in its intensity, pass over 
 her. To have him approve her again to have the ice 
 of the past months show the least break 
 
 He was sitting by the fire. Now, glancing at him 
 through her mirror, she saw him drop his head into his 
 hands. 
 
 "Money!" she heard him say moodily. "What good 
 would it do him? What good has it done any of us? 
 I wish to God we had never come here! I wish to God 
 we had stayed in Paris!" 
 
 Why did they go downstairs earlier than usual that 
 night ? Ellen never could remember. She remembered
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 193 
 
 that they had not dressed, and that at about six o'clock 
 she was following Gibbs down the wide, open stairway, 
 when his father came across the lower hall toward them. 
 The old man held the evening paper that Gibbs had 
 brought from the city, in his hand, Ellen, on the landing, 
 stopped short, aghast at the dark, angry suffusion of 
 blood in his face. 
 
 "Look here just a minute, will you, Gibbs?" his 
 father said in a shaking voice. His effort to control it 
 gave it almost the effect of a shriek. Gibbs ran down 
 the last stairs, and joined him at once, bending over 
 the paper as his father brought it to his attention. 
 Ellen, standing where she was, and looking down upon 
 them, felt herself beginning to tremble. 
 
 Gibbs read the indicated lines and faced his father. 
 He seemed to tower over the old man. 
 
 "Well, what about it?'* he asked at length, after a 
 frightful silence. The two were measuring each other 
 like wrestlers, Gibbs's eyes hard and angry, his father's 
 look the soul of all that was suspicious and revengeful. 
 
 Ellen did not hear the old man's answer, which came 
 in a quick, furious undertone, nor what he said again, 
 after Gibbs had made an ugly response. Their faces 
 were close together, and they looked straight into each 
 other's eyes as they spoke. The sound of their tense, 
 harsh voices, in this beautiful hall of so many perfect 
 silences seemed to Ellen full of sudden terror and 
 menace. 
 
 "You're telling a deliberate falsehood!" she heard 
 the old man snarl, and something was added to which 
 Gibbs answered, in a measured, grating voice: "You 
 shall not say that! By God, no man shall say that 
 to me!"
 
 194 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 And suddenly the dignified custom of the years 
 dropped from both, and they were like two hairy deni 
 zens of some primeval forest ready to spring and rend. 
 The storm had come so suddenly, and from so clear a 
 sky, that Ellen had had no time to run for help, no 
 time to think. She stood where she was, one hand 
 gripping the carved dark wood of the rail, the other 
 pressed against her heart. 
 
 "Oh, don't!" she whispered, unheard. "Oh, what 
 Is it?" 
 
 She caught the words ". . . you hound . . . 
 you liar! Betraying your own father . . . lying 
 your way out of it like a common . . ."! and then 
 everything was unintelligible again until Gibbs, hoarse 
 with passion, shouted suddenly: 
 
 " I'll stop you, by God ! I'll kill you before I'll listen 
 to you! . . . I'll stop you . . .!" 
 
 "Oh, no, Gibbs!" she half-sobbed, from the landing, 
 seeing the threatening gesture. In the same instant 
 the old man groped blindly for an ivory scimetar that 
 lay on the hall table, a beautiful thing supposedly a 
 book-knife, but measuring some two feet in length, and 
 very heavy. 
 
 Then suddenly it was all over. Silence fell in the 
 hall, and cutting through it Ellen heard the gasp of a 
 maid. Torrens and some of the girls had come running 
 in. 
 
 Gibbs, with an ugly sneering smile on his lips, stum 
 bled back, clearing with his hand a flowing skin-wound 
 in his forehead. His face, under the trickling red, was 
 ghastly. The old man, steadying himself with one 
 hand on the table, stood panting and staring wildly 
 at him.
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 195 
 
 "By God, you ought to be killed . . . my 
 mother's name . . . a fight like this !" Gibbs spoke 
 thickly, his breast heaving. "If any other man had 
 said that . 
 
 "You get out of my house!" the old man answered, 
 in a quivering whisper. "Get out of my house do 
 you hear?" 
 
 "I'll get out of your house! "his son answered bitterly. 
 As he strode toward the big closet the maids murmured 
 and drew back from him. "I'll get out and I'll take 
 my wife and child to-morrow!" he said surlily. 
 
 "Gibbs, dear!" Ellen had run down the stairs, and 
 was clinging to his arm. "Gibbs, dear, it's your father! 
 Don't speak so!" 
 
 He took her hand from his arm, but not roughly, 
 and for a moment looked at her vaguely. He had 
 taken an overcoat from the closet, and had his cap in 
 his hand. 
 
 "Gibbs, you'll come back!" she begged urgently 
 as he turned toward the door. "When you're cooler, 
 Gibbs you mustn't quarrel with your father 
 
 She saw that in the whirl of his passion he could not 
 hear her, or could not understand her. But at the 
 door he seemed suddenly to notice Torrens, and he 
 turned back. 
 
 "Here's your chauffeur," he said bitingly, to his 
 father. "Why don't you ask him where your wife 
 was that night ? Why don't you ask him whether he 
 left her in Great Neck, or whether she took a train 
 for the city? You remember the night of the storm, 
 Torrens: where did you leave Mrs. Josselyn that 
 night?" 
 
 "I took her to Mrs. Pepper's house in Great Neck,
 
 196 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 sir," the man said, eager and uneasy, "Before we 
 laid the car up, we went there, sir." 
 
 Gibbs gave one last look at his father, shrugged his 
 shoulders, and was gone. The noise of the slamming 
 heavy door died away, and there was silence. The 
 maids stood grouped together at the dining-room door, 
 their eyes terrified. Josselyn, Senior, was still keeping 
 one fine old hand on the table for support, his eyes 
 fixed unseeingly upon a spot on the floor a few feet 
 away, his head hanging. 
 
 Ellen was the first to move. She gave the maids 
 a quick look that dismissed them, and went to put her 
 arm about the old man's shoulders. 
 
 "Come into the study," she commanded him, as if 
 he had been Tommy. She was trembling herself 
 and her heart was beating violently. This burst of 
 primitive fury, this rending of all the careful structure 
 of years, had left her shaken and shocked. "Smiles 
 and politeness and explanations for years," thought 
 Ellen, "and then suddenly this!" 
 
 The old man sank into a chair by the fire and leaned 
 wearily back with closed eyes. For a while they were 
 silent: Ellen, watching her father-in-law anxiously, 
 saw that he was breathing more evenly, and gradually 
 regaining his self-control. 
 
 "I struck him, Ellen I struck him!" he said sud 
 denly, resting his head in his hands, and his elbows on 
 his knees. He looked old, and strangely broken. "I 
 saw it in that accursed paper," he went on, "that 
 Lindsay Pepper and his mother had gotten back yes 
 terday from visiting the sister, in Montreal. And it all 
 came over me in a flash I thought he and Lillian 
 had made the lie up between them."
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 197 
 
 "But you remember that Torrens, that very morning 
 in the studio, said that he had just come in from Great 
 Neck," she said soothingly. 
 
 "I'd forgotten it!" he answered, stricken. 
 
 "I know how Gibbs feels about Lillian," Ellen 
 said gravely, in a low tone. "But Gibbs wouldn't do 
 that! Oh, no, I know he wouldn't!" she added, half 
 to herself. And as he gave her a miserable look, every 
 thing that was sane and motherly in her came to the 
 surface. "Now, let's not worry about it," she said 
 cheerfully. "Gibbs was too angry to be reasonable, 
 but I begged him to come back, and I know that as 
 soon as he's worn off some of his temper, he will. Then 
 you can explain it to him: it isn't," Ellen added in 
 nocently, "it isn't as if he hadn't rather lost his head 
 over Lillian, you know, he has something to blame him 
 self for there!" 
 
 "You've known it all along," Josselyn, Senior, com 
 mented thoughtfully, with a shrewd look. 
 
 "Oh, yes! I've seen it." 
 
 "And how much does he care about her, do you 
 think?" 
 
 Ellen flushed, and managed a smile, before she 
 answered bravely: 
 
 "Oh, she fascinated him, I think, from the first. 
 I don't know Her voice dropped wearily. " He'll 
 
 come back, and he'll be sorry for this quarrel," she 
 added, after a silence. "And you'll forgive him, won't 
 you?" 
 
 "I struck him," the old man repeated sombrely. 
 "I don't know how I ever came to do a thing like that. 
 Yes yes," he added sadly. "We must make it up 
 my boy and I. I never should have brought you
 
 198 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 both here a man is dull a/bout such things. Welll 
 We'll make it up: and you and he shall start fresh 
 somewhere " 
 
 "Dinner, Mrs. Josselyn," said Florence in the door 
 way, rather timidly, breaking a few minutes of silence 
 in the study. 
 
 "I think I'll not dine " the old man began quickly. 
 
 But Ellen went to him with a smile. 
 
 "Indeed you'll dine!" she decreed. "And, Florence, 
 go see if Tommy has had his dinner. If he has not, 
 tell Lizzie I said he might dine with us. You'll feel 
 very differently," she said to her father-in-law, as they 
 went toward the dining room, "when you've had some 
 hot soup, and perhaps Gibbs will come back in time 
 for some coffee!" 
 
 Tommy came rioting down the stairs, explaining 
 that he had had some dinner, but would like some 
 more, and the three shared the meal with great se 
 renity. Indeed to Ellen the air seemed clearer for the 
 storm, or perhaps it was the pleasant absence of 
 Lillian; and Lillian's perfumed and smiling insincerities. 
 
 After dinner she and Tommy went with Josselyn, 
 Senior, into the study, and even after Tommy was in 
 bed Ellen ran down again for a few friendly words of 
 good-night. She pleaded a headache as an excuse for 
 going upstairs almost immediately after the little boy, 
 but as a matter of fact, it was excitement rather than 
 distress that made Ellen long for the quiet of her own 
 fire to-night. 
 
 When Lizzie had gone to bed, Ellen sat on, thinking. 
 Lizzie came in, to stand beside the fireplace, and 
 talk to her, half-shamed, half-shy, but yet with a cer 
 tain great happiness in her face. And as Ellen drew
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 199 
 
 from her the story of the sordid home, the drink and 
 dirt and laziness, the unwelcome babies, the lack of 
 courage, self-control, kindness, of everything that 
 makes life worth while, she marvelled at the world 
 that could accept Lillian, and cast Lizzie out as a 
 sinner. 
 
 She had a book, but she could not read it. Thoughts 
 of the long day would interpose themselves between her 
 and the page. Now she was talking to Lizzie again, 
 now walking through the wet roads to meet Joe. 
 And Gibbs had not been unfavourable, had even been 
 negatively approving, of their marriage. Lizzie, Joe's 
 wife! It was a strange turn of events. And yet it 
 seemed to give Ellen back her little brother again. 
 She had vaguely visualized that injured village girl, had 
 made her a coarse girl, perfumed, rouged, and loud of 
 voice. She was glad to dismiss this girl from her 
 thoughts forever, and put grieving, patient, silent little 
 Lizzie in her place. He could not ask a truer and kinder 
 and more devoted wife. And it was right, after all. 
 There was not much to fear from that course. 
 
 And then she remembered the quarrel, herself inno 
 cently following Gibbs downstairs, and being arrested 
 on the landing by the frightening, rough voices. How 
 strange they had sounded, how hideously alarming this 
 unexplained and sudden animosity! 
 
 "Now we will go away," Ellen thought, in deep 
 satisfaction. For even though Gibbs became recon 
 ciled to his father, he would no longer live in the 
 " Villino dell' Orto." He would take Ellen and Tommy 
 to some little apartment a sunny kitchen and the 
 old hilarious breakfasts 
 
 Ten o'clock. Ellen roused herself from a golden
 
 SOO JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 dream, and began to prepare for bed. She stepped 
 into the next room for a good-night look at Tommy. 
 Lizzie, in the narrow bed beside his short, square bed, 
 was asleep, too, her relaxed little sensitive face wearing 
 a smile as childish as Tommy's own. Before she got 
 into her own bed, Ellen put out her lights, and stood 
 at the window, looking out at the dark, cold night. 
 
 It was sharply clear, the stars shining coldly. 
 Against the bare shrubs at an angle of the house she 
 could see the dull green light that filtered from the 
 bottle-end windows of the study, and far across the 
 hills there was another light, the country club, where 
 Gibbs perhaps had dined. Ellen left a shaded light 
 for him; before the clock struck eleven she was sound 
 asleep. 
 
 Yet she was too tired and excited to sleep deeply, 
 and it seemed to her that she had been waking and toss 
 ing a long time when a slight but definite sound awak 
 ened her, and she sat up in bed. The night light was 
 still burning, and the fire had been coaxed into fresh 
 life. It was after two o'clock. Gibbs, still dressed, 
 was sitting staring at the coals. 
 
 "Gibbs!" she said bewilderedly. 
 
 He got up, and as he came to the side of the bed she 
 saw that his hair was tossed about in disorder, and his 
 face strangely pale. The cut on his forehead looked 
 ugly and swollen, and his manner was agitated and 
 stern. 
 
 "Look here, Ellen," he said quickly. "We get out 
 of here to-morrow morning, do you understand ? I'm 
 done with this house. I'll not stay here an unnecessary 
 hour, do you see?"
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 201 
 
 "Why, certainly, dear, I'll go anywhere whatever 
 you say!" she said soothingly. For a few minutes he 
 stood looking at her gloomily, then his face softened. 
 
 "You're a good little thing, Ellen!" he said gruffly. 
 The quick tears sprang to her eyes as he turned away; 
 she saw him through the glittering haze of them. He 
 did not speak again, as he undressed, and Ellen, leaving 
 all talk of reconciliation and all planning until the 
 morning, and with a lighter heart than she had had for 
 many weeks, fell asleep again.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 ELLEN awakened to find Gibbs swiftly packing. His 
 manner discouraged any attempt she might have made 
 to soften him; far better to give him his way while this 
 unfamiliar and terrifying mood lasted. She went into 
 the nursery and found Lizzie packing, too, she and 
 Tommy had had breakfast, and the child was wild 
 with excitement. They were going to Dad's studio, 
 and Marie was going to cook for them, and they were 
 going to get an apartment somewhere near. Ellen, 
 dressed, went back to Gibbs. 
 
 "Aren't you going to eat any breakfast, dear?" 
 
 "No, thank you!" 
 
 "Gibbs but you'll say good-bye to your father?" 
 
 He made no answer, strapping shirts into the lid of 
 his suitcase. 
 
 "What train do we take, Gibbs?" 
 
 "I'll start in the roadster just as soon as you're ready. 
 We take Tommy, and Lizzie can follow by train." 
 
 "I'll wait and have breakfast with you, in the 
 studio," Ellen said, opening her own bureau drawers, 
 and thoughtfully selecting linen. 
 
 "I ask you as a favour to go down and get some 
 thing to eat!" he answered sharply. 
 
 Instantly she obeyed. But passing him, she laid 
 her hand pleadingly on his arm, and he put his arms 
 about her. 
 
 "Don't be cross with me, Gibbs! I'm so sorry " 
 
 202
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 203 
 
 "Cross with you!" he echoed penitently. "Who 
 could be cross with you! No, but I'm nervous, Ellen 
 I won't be happy until we get away! Just help me 
 out, all you can 
 
 "I will!" she answered. And her heart sang as she 
 went downstairs. In an hour she and Tommy and 
 Gibbs would be in the car, speeding away from this 
 unnatural atmosphere. Gibbs would not be reconciled 
 now, but after a few quiet days he would forget his 
 present anger, she knew. And she would say good-bye 
 to her father-in-law, and beg him to be patient with 
 Gibbs. She ate her fruit, and drank a cup of coffee, 
 shaking her head as Florence came in with an omelette. 
 
 "Nothing more, Florence. Has Mr. Josselyn had his 
 breakfast yet?" 
 
 "No, Mrs. Josselyn. He is in the study, I think. 
 At least Mollie said she saw the light there when she 
 started the breakfast fire, before sunrise." 
 
 "So early?" Ellen got up. "He must have had a 
 bad night," she added. "Hasn't he rung for any 
 coffee?" 
 
 "No, Mrs. Josselyn. You know he doesn't like the 
 girls to interrupt him there, so Katie didn't go in 
 
 "I know he doesn't," Ellen smiled. "But he doesn't 
 mind me!" And turning over in her mind the exact 
 phrases with which she meant to bid him good-bye, she 
 went to the study. 
 
 Sunlight was coming in through the bottle-green 
 windows now, but the lights were lighted, and gave a 
 garish look to the place. Cold ashes had drifted to 
 the hearth. The air was stale and dull. Ellen felt 
 her breath taken away with a swift impulse of fear. 
 Her father-in-law was sitting by the fireplace in his
 
 204 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 favourite chair. He did not turn as she came in, and 
 she spoke to him, using the name he liked, from her: 
 
 " Dad ? Dad aren't you well ? " 
 
 Her voice died into silence. She went to his side, 
 and touched his arm. Then she knew that he was dead. 
 
 "He's fainted, that's all!" she said aloud. But her 
 own voice frightened her and she stood there for a few 
 minutes, rooted to the spot with horror and shock, star 
 ing at the fallen gray head and the still hands. Then 
 she backed slowly from the room, and ran wildly back 
 to the dining room. 
 
 " Florence Mr. Josselyn is very ill he's telephone 
 for Doctor Cutter, will you? And and telephone for 
 Mr. Lathrop I'm going up to get Mr. Gibbs " 
 
 "My God, Mrs. Josselyn, oughtn't we get him to 
 bed?" 
 
 Florence, a sensible gray-haired woman of fifty, 
 had her arm about Ellen now, and was holding a glass 
 of ice-water to her lips. 
 
 "No no use!" Ellen whispered, staring at her. 
 "He's dead, Florence!" 
 
 "It's his heart," Florence said, pale herself. Ellen 
 ran on her way upstairs. 
 
 "Gibbs," she said, at his side, "your father we 
 found him in his chair he's I think he's dead 
 Gibbs " 
 
 "Good God!" he said violently. He pushed her 
 aside as he ran to the door. Ellen stood still for a 
 moment in the centre of the room. Then she called 
 Lizzie. 
 
 "Lizzie," she said, quivering, "a terrible thing has 
 happened. Mr. Josselyn's father has dropped dead. 
 I want you to keep Tommy in the nursery all morning.
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 205 
 
 We'll have the doctor here other people and I don't 
 want him to know. He can play on his porch " 
 
 "Depend on me, Mrs. Josselyn," Lizzie said quietly. 
 "Well, the poor old man, God rest him!" 
 
 "It was the quarrel it was the quarrel and Gibbs 
 will never forgive himself!" Ellen said to herself, as she 
 went slowly downstairs again. 
 
 The whole house was in confusion now. Gibbs and 
 Torrens were bending over the dreadful figure in the 
 chair by the study fire, Florence hovered near them, 
 Keno and one or two of the other maids were grouped 
 fearfully near the door. 
 
 As Ellen came in Torrens straightened himself, and 
 looked at Gibbs. 
 
 "That wasn't heart failure, Mr. Josselyn," he said 
 quietly, "he's shot himself right through the heart 
 look here, sir." 
 
 One of the girls gave a hysterical scream, and Ellen 
 cried out: "Oh, no oh, no, why should he do that!" 
 
 But her eyes, and the eyes of everyone else in the 
 room, went swiftly to Gibbs; the son whose bitter quarrel 
 with him had broken the old man's heart. 
 
 "Get these girls out of the room, Ellen," Gibbs said 
 briefly. "And have them fix my father's bed, Florence; 
 we're going to get him upstairs." He turned sharply 
 to Torrens. "What did you say?" 
 
 "I say that I don't think we had better touch him, 
 sir," the man answered. "We'll have the coroner here, 
 sir, and he'll want to find things like they are " 
 
 "I guess you're right," Gibbs said, after a pause, 
 staring at him dully. "I guess you're right. We'U 
 have to have the coroner who is the coroner, and 
 where is he, do you know?"
 
 206 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 "Mineola," quavered one of the maids. 
 
 "Yes, that's right," Torrens approved. 
 
 "I can telephone for him, sir," Florence offered. 
 
 "I suppose you had better," Gibbs said. "And tele 
 phone for Mr. Lathrop, at Sands Point." 
 
 "We did telephone George," Ellen told him quickly, 
 "he is on his way." 
 
 "Do you know where to telephone Mrs. Josselyn?" 
 Florence asked respectfully. 
 
 Ellen and Gibbs looked at each other. It was the 
 first time they had thought of Lillian. 
 
 "Yes, telephone her at Mrs. Pointdexter's ' 
 
 Ellen said hesitatingly. "Perhaps I had better do 
 that. Had Torrens better go for her? It isn't very far. 
 I'll telephone and tell Mrs. Pointdexter to prepare her 
 somehow." 
 
 Immediately activities of all sorts commenced. 
 Torrens went off on his errand, Florence went to the 
 telephone, and the maids scattered. Gibbs seemed 
 dazed; Ellen kept herself in his neighbourhood. Florence 
 came back from the telephone for advice: the coroner 
 had asked if they had seen the revolver with which 
 Mr. Josselyn had killed himself, sir. 
 
 Gibbs roused himself. Ellen saw him brace himself 
 to go into the room of horror again. She went with 
 him. Presently Gibbs himself went to tell the waiting 
 coroner, at the telephone, that they did not seem able 
 to find the weapon. 
 
 "What did he say?" Ellen asked him. 
 
 "Said he was coming over," Gibbs answered with 
 weary indifference. 
 
 Presently George came in, breathing cold air, pulling 
 off his thick gloves, and full of sympathetic distress
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 207 
 
 With him came Joe, silent, full of sympathy. Ellen 
 felt them both towers of strength. In an incredibly 
 short time other men arrived, old Doctor Cutter, and 
 Corrigan, the coroner, a stout, cheerful-looking man, 
 the sheriff and his deputies. The lower hall, Ellen 
 noticed, was tracked with the mud of boots. It was 
 all like a dream. In all the strangeness, Ellen heard 
 Keno saying that the cleaner was there, did Ellen 
 know which coat Mrs. Josselyn meant to have cleaned? 
 and Ellen thought that was strange, too. Lillian 
 would wear black now; Ellen would wear black; every 
 thing was changed. And yet the cleaner called as 
 usual. 
 
 George came to her, where she sat forlornly in the 
 hall, and told her to go upstairs. 
 
 "Have a fire," he said kindly, "and let Tommy come 
 in and play. Try not to let the thing scare you " 
 
 "Does Lillian know?" Ellen asked. 
 
 "Lillian is on her way here; she'll come upstairs, too," 
 George said. "Now go on up, dear. This will only 
 distress you." 
 
 Ellen obeyed. She and Tommy and Lizzie shared 
 her fire, and while Ellen read the adventures of Sinbad 
 the Sailor, Lizzie put the room in order, and unpacked 
 all the clothes that Gibbs had so swiftly packed a few 
 hours ago. 
 
 After awhile Keno came in to ask her to come to 
 Lillian's room, and Ellen found Lillian there, with the 
 sympathetic Mrs. Pointdexter in attendance. Lillian 
 was lying by the fire, robed in white. She turned aside 
 her head, as Ellen came in, and burst into tears. After 
 a moment she regained her composure, but while the 
 other women murmured together, she did not speak.
 
 208 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 Now and then she touched her eyes with a folded hand 
 kerchief. 
 
 "I don't think Lillian'II live through it," Mrs. 
 Pointdexter said presently, with watering eyes. 
 
 "Yes, I will yes, I will," Lillian said bravely. 
 " Because I know that is what he would want me to do ! " 
 
 Ellen escaped as soon as she decently could. In the 
 hall she met Sophy, one of the upstairs maids. 
 
 "Is there anything I could get for you, Mrs. Josse- 
 lyn?" the girl asked sympathetically. "I'm going in 
 to Landmann's for some clothes and hats " 
 
 Ellen glanced at the carefully written list. "Very 
 simple, but smart" Lillian had underlined. An impulse 
 of utter revolt smote her. 
 
 But she said nothing for a moment. Then she mildly 
 asked Sophy to use her own judgment. Since life 
 was what it was there must be funerals: and at funerals 
 the family must be decently craped and veiled. 
 
 About ten o'clock George came to her room, and 
 carefully closed the door behind him. 
 
 "This matter begins to look rather serious, Ellen," 
 he said, his face very grave. 
 
 "You can't find the pistol?" she asked quickly. 
 
 "Oh, yes, we found it it was in the wastebasket 
 on the other side the room. Corrigan says that he could 
 n't have possibly " He paused. "They've sent for 
 
 Dan Ryan." 
 
 "Ryan?" Ellen asked, puzzled. 
 
 "The District Attorney," George said quietly. 
 
 "Then that's " she began, with whitening lips. 
 
 Her voice stopped. 
 
 "That's murder," George Lathrop finished. "Any- 
 v way, these fellows say so. They may be wrong, I
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 209 
 
 hope to God they are! But it's going to be something 
 of a strain where could you send the boy and his 
 nurse? They'd better not be in the house." 
 
 "To Port Washington Aunt Elsie's. I'll send 
 them at once!" she promised, trying to collect her 
 senses. 
 
 "That's right. And pull yourself together, Ellen." 
 
 He patted her shoulder affectionately and left the 
 room. Ellen turned to the window and stood there a 
 moment, struggling to control her nerves. There was 
 a tightening sensation in her throat, her lips were dry, 
 and her hands ice cold. As she stared out across the 
 bare garden and clipped hedges, a motor-car wheeled 
 into the pebbled drive and stopped at the door. Four 
 men stepped from the automobile. Instinctively Ellen 
 knew that among them was the District Attorney. 
 
 She turned giddy a moment, her senses swimming. 
 
 "I mustn't give way like this," she told herself 
 sharply, sinking into a chair, and making a desperate 
 attempt to compose herself. 
 
 Half an hour later, when George Lathrop knocked 
 again on her door, she was still sitting there. 
 
 "Is Lizzie here?" he asked. "Ryan has come. 
 He wants to talk to her. I told him about the boy 
 and your wish to get him away. He understands and 
 is quite willing. He'll get Lizzie's deposition and then 
 she may go." 
 
 Ellen rose bravely and went toward the nursery. 
 
 "This is all a formality, my dear," George said 
 kindly. "We'll have to have all the maids in, Torrens 
 and the rest. The coroner must have a verdict, you 
 know. We won't keep Lizzie long. And, Ellen, 
 Ryan will question you later, you know. I'll be right
 
 210 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 there. And let me advise you, my dear. Don't talk 
 fast; think a moment before you answer and be sure of 
 what you say don't try to keep anything back. No 
 matter where the conversation seems to lead, tell the 
 sober, careful truth/' 
 
 "George!" Ellen said in sudden terror, "they'll 
 find out that Gibbs and his father had a terrible quarrel 
 yesterday you must have noticed the cut on his fore 
 head " 
 
 "They know all about that!" he answered sooth 
 ingly. "They'll know everything, sooner or later. 
 So just go straight ahead, and tell them the story just 
 as you would tell me " 
 
 "But a wife isn't expected to testify against her 
 husband," she said, half wild with apprehension. The 
 man looked at her silently for a moment. 
 
 "Do you realize the situation that we are facing, 
 Ellen?" he asked, with deadly gravity. "Do you 
 realize the danger of your insinuation that your telling 
 the simple truth would be construed into testimony 
 against Gibbs?" 
 
 She looked at him, breathing hard. 
 
 "I see!" she said, in a whisper. "George, I'll put 
 everything out of my mind I promise you! I'll try 
 to be sensible. But, George they won't they 
 can't- 
 
 He did not speak, but his look silenced her. 
 
 "You want Lizzie, don't you?" she said composedly, 
 after a moment. "I'll send her out. And meanwhile, 
 I'll be packing the baby's things, arid send them away 
 directly." 
 
 "Excellent!" he said. "Then we can get hold of 
 Lizzie again if we need her."
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 211 
 
 "I'll telephone Aunt Elsie," Ellen added thought 
 fully. She went into the nursery where Lizzie had 
 been reading to Tommy and sent the girl out. 
 
 Lizzie was downstairs not more than fifteen minutes. 
 Ellen looked fearfully at her face when she came up. 
 
 "It wasn't anything," Lizzie said, in a low tone, 
 over her packing. "He just asked me a few questions, 
 and how I knew there was a pistol in that drawer 
 and whether I had heard anything about Mr. Josselyn 
 and his father fighting he spoke kind enough, and 
 a young fellow there wrote it down. I said I hadn't 
 been downstairs until after they had their trouble 
 
 "Listen," said Tommy, rushing in from the other 
 room, and insinuating his person into his mother's 
 lap," Will you tell Aunt Elsie that I can go down 
 on the ice?" 
 
 "You be a good boy for Lizzie, dearest," Ellen 
 said, kissing him. "And you'll keep him absolutely by 
 himself, Lizzie ?" she asked. "I don't want him to hear 
 any talk of this." Ellen sighed in sick foreboding. 
 There would be talk enough! She had his luncheon and 
 Lizzie's brought upstairs, and saw them off at one o'clock. 
 Gibbs came up for a moment, looking white, and 
 Tommy gave his parents frantic hugs for good-bye. 
 Ellen breathed easier when the little boy was out of 
 the atmosphere of death and mystery.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 " JUST tell me simply and fully all about yesterday," 
 said the District Attorney pleasantly. Ellen, facing 
 him across the big table in the library, smiled ner 
 vously in answer to his encouraging smile. The 
 library seemed full of men: some writing, some watch 
 ing her. Doctor Cutter was there, and George Lathrop. 
 The air was thick with the odour of strong cigars, and 
 also the smell of trays of coffee and sandwiches that 
 had been taken away a short time before. Ellen had 
 heard one of the men order them as unconcernedly as 
 if he were in a restaurant. 
 
 She began shakily, gaining confidence as she went on. 
 They were all kind to her; they even infused a sort of 
 brightness into the air. Occasionally she was inter 
 rupted, but the questions were unexpectedly few and 
 brief. 
 
 "Just a minute there, Mrs. Josselyn. About that 
 revolver. You came into the study and found the 
 girl looking at it?" 
 
 "She had it in her hand." 
 
 "Raised in the air?" 
 
 "Oh, no, lying idly on the table. She was fright 
 ened when I came in. I threw it in the drawer, and 
 shut the drawer." 
 
 "She didn't go back to that room again?" 
 
 "I am sure she did not. She has told you it was 
 a a quarrel with her fiance with my brother, in 
 
 212
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 213 
 
 fact, that made her desperate. I sent for my brother, 
 and they were were reconciled." 
 
 "She couldn't have gone downstairs after dinner?" 
 
 "I know she did not. We were talking until late 
 until after ten o'clock, and when she went back to the 
 nursery she left the door open. She spoke to me 
 again while she was brushing her hair. And at eleven 
 I went to look at my son and I saw her asleep." 
 
 "You had not suspected her attachment to your 
 brother?" 
 
 "No, sir. She had been my aunt's helper, and it 
 began then." 
 
 Ellen went on with her recital. She fixed her eyes on 
 a small bronze paper weight on the desk and tried to 
 speak as distinctly and as deliberately as possible, 
 striving, at the same time, to give her recollections of 
 the events of the terrible day in proper sequence. 
 When she finished there was a tense stillness in the 
 room. 
 
 It was broken by the crackle of a sheet of paper on 
 which Ryan had made some notes while she had been 
 speaking and which he now began to study carefully. 
 George rose and filled a glass with water and brought 
 it to her. There was a general stir among the room's 
 occupants; a sibilant murmur was audible. 
 
 "Now, Mrs. Josselyn, there are some questions I 
 should like to ask you." Ryan laid down his notes 
 and cleared his throat. "I want you to go back to 
 the scene of the quarrel. At the time you were stand 
 ing on the landing and you saw and heard everything 
 that was done and said. Did you know what the 
 quarrel was about ? " 
 
 "Not then. No, sir."
 
 214 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 "Not then I see. -But later you did?" 
 
 "Later my father-in-law told me that it was because 
 he had seen the item in the paper." 
 
 "The item, yes we have that here. But you saw 
 the two men fight? yes. And now tell me, did you 
 hear your husband say anything in that fight? Begin 
 at the beginning " 
 
 "They talked so low and so fast " Ellen said, 
 
 beginning to tremble, "I couldn't hear it all. But I 
 heard Mr. Josselyn call out: 'That's a deliberate false 
 hood!' and then my husband said that he could not 
 say that to him 
 
 "Didn't he say Til kill you if you say that again?" 
 Ryan suggested. 
 
 "I don't think he said that. I couldn't say " 
 
 "Exactly," Ryan said. "You were excited and 
 frightened by this noise, and naturally you only got 
 a vague impression of it." He glanced at a paper be 
 fore him. "Go on, Mrs. Josselyn, you saw the blow 
 struck?" 
 
 "Yes, sir. I saw Mr. Josselyn reach for the paper- 
 cutter, and I screamed, I think." 
 
 "Why did he reach for it? What had his son said ?" 
 
 "He said Til stop you !'" Ellen began, and was 
 
 silent. 
 
 "He was terribly excited and angry," Ryan said 
 quietly, not looking at her, "and he shouted, Til stop 
 you!' What else?" 
 
 Ellen glanced at George. 
 
 "Why, they were speaking both together and so 
 fast " she began. 
 
 "What did he say that made you call out, 'Oh, no, 
 Gibbsl' or 'Oh, don't, Gibbs'!" Ryan asked.
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 215 
 
 "He said something about a lie," Ellen stam 
 mered, "he said he would he said his father was 
 saying things that weren't so and that he would kill 
 him if he went on 
 
 "I see!" Ryan said quietly, glancing toward the 
 stenographer a moment. He paused, pursing his lips. 
 "Well, go on. You said something about the senti 
 mental attachment your husband had conceived for 
 his stepmother. Did that worry you very much?" 
 
 "It made me unhappy, a little," Ellen said simply. 
 " But I never thought anything was wrong. I told my 
 father-in-law last night that there was nothing wrong," 
 she added eagerly. " I told him that we would all for 
 get it, and that he must not feel too badly about it." 
 
 "Tell us again what happened after your husband 
 rushed out?" the District Attorney said. She re 
 peated her story, attempting to use the same language; 
 she had quieted the old man, dined with him and her 
 son, taken Tommy up to bed, come back to say good 
 night at about eight o'clock, and talked for an hour or 
 more with Lizzie, and then sat reading until she retired 
 at eleven. And she had then seen the study light 
 shining on the corner of the house. 
 
 "So that your father-in-law was up at that time," 
 Ryan said. "Now then, you say you went to sleep. 
 When were you awakened, and by what ? " 
 
 "I waked up, and found my husband sitting by the 
 fire," Ellen said. "It was two o'clock." 
 
 "It was two o'clock. And you and he had a talk?" 
 
 "No, we didn't talk. He said that he was going to 
 leave the house in the morning, and I agreed. But 
 We didn't say anything more." 
 
 "How did his manner impress you, Mrs. Josselyn?"
 
 216 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 Ellen looked at George again. 
 
 "I theught he was still terribly shaken over his 
 quarrel with his father," she said. 
 
 "He did seem shaken and excited?" 
 
 "Yes. I thought he did." 
 
 "You didn't tell him that you had quieted his father, 
 and that you and the little boy had cheered him up so 
 that he was quite himself at dinner?" 
 
 "No, sir." 
 
 "Why didn't you, Mrs. Josselyn?" 
 
 "Why, I thought I thought he would be less trou 
 bled in the morning, and that I would try to that I 
 would talk to him then." 
 
 "You would try to will you tell us what you started 
 to say?" 
 
 "Well I would try to to reconcile them, I sup 
 pose." 
 
 Ryan took off his glasses and polished them with a 
 large silk handkerchief, looking at them the while. 
 
 "That is, you thought that he was still angry rather 
 than sorry?" he asked. 
 
 "No I can't say that I thought that," Ellen said, 
 attempting to speak firmly. 
 
 The glasses went on again and Ryan looked at her. 
 
 "You had good news for him, you know," he re 
 minded her kindly. "You had to tell him that his 
 father was sorry for the trouble and willing to forgive 
 and forget. Wouldn't it be natural to suppose that 
 such news would be welcome to a man who was bitterly 
 repentant for his anger?" 
 
 "I suppose so," Ellen faltered. 
 
 " But that didn't occur to you ? You felt that he was 
 Still too enraged to be approached in that way?"
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 217 
 
 Ellen felt suffocated. The close room, the watching 
 faces, the quiet, merciless voice that probed her very 
 soul, the dark walls with their dignified lining of books, 
 the windows against which snow was beginning to fall 
 softly, all began to waver in black fog before her eyes 
 she felt a hideous sensation of nausea. 
 
 George sprang to her side, and she caught his arm. 
 
 "You're all right, dear!" he said, tenderly, his eyes 
 close to hers. She looked dazedly into them, and 
 spoke in a childish bewildered voice: 
 
 "Yes, I'm all right, George!" 
 
 "Would you like to rest a few minutes, Ellen?" 
 
 "Oh, no, thank you!" she said quickly. And turning 
 back with great dignity to the District Attorney, she 
 answered : " I thought I would not distress my husband 
 with any reference to the matter that night. I thought 
 sleep would do us all good, and make us see things in a 
 better light." 
 
 "That was quite natural," Ryan said mildly. The 
 tension in the library relaxed. "That is all, Mrs. 
 Josselyn." Some of the men rose; there was a little 
 stir and confusion in the room. Ellen went out with 
 George. She turned to him in the hall. 
 
 "Was that all right?" she asked, giddy and uncer 
 tain. He nodded reassuringly. They went into the 
 music room, where Gibbs sat, with Joe and Doctor 
 Cutter. There was a tray there with some food on it, 
 the coffee urn was steaming, and Ellen was glad to have 
 a cup of coffee : it was two o'clock. She felt as if she 
 could never get enough of the scalding, reviving drink, 
 but she would not touch the solids, although Joe brought 
 her cold chicken and salad on a plate, and coaxed her 
 to eat.
 
 218 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 George ate heartily, with great bites, walking about 
 the while, and talking to them all. After a few minutes, 
 however, he said he must go back to the library, and 
 Gibbs went with him. Ellen had sat down close to 
 her husband on the wide davenport, and put her cold 
 little hand into his. He was pale, and looked tired, 
 but there was a new look of peace in his eyes. 
 
 "Poor little old girl,'* he said to her, "I'll get you 
 out of all this, and carry you off to the country some 
 where and make it all up to you!" 
 
 "Of course you understand that this is a sort of pre 
 liminary formality, Gibbs?" George asked him. 
 
 "And after this, does the coroner bring in his ver 
 dict?" Joe added. 
 
 "The coroner and the County detectives have been 
 all over the study," George said. "The circumstance 
 of the pistol being found seventeen feet away from the 
 body, and some other details, are conclusive. Death 
 came from a revolver shot that was fired by some person 
 or persons unknown. Ryan is going at it thoroughly: 
 that's his business. We've had all the maids in, they've 
 all satisfied him of their absolute innocence. Every 
 one of them has an alibi." 
 
 "Then, what's all this?" Ellen asked. 
 
 "This is merely one of the District Attorney's 
 duties of office. He is bound to find out what he can, 
 while the whole matter is fresh." George put down his 
 coffee cup, and threw his crumpled napkin on the tray. 
 "You understand that anything you say now may be 
 used later, Gibbs ? " he said, clearing his throat. 
 
 "Perfectly." 
 
 "They've pretty well satisfied themselves as to the 
 order of events," George continued. "What they'll
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 219 
 
 try to get out of you is that matter of where you were 
 last night?" 
 
 "They asked Lizzie where she was, and they asked 
 me!" Ellen said eagerly. 
 
 "They've asked everyone," George assured her. 
 
 "I can only tell them what I told you this morning, 
 George," Gibbs said calmly. 
 
 George shot him a look, but nodded as if he were 
 satisfied. 
 
 "That's all right. Shall we go?" 
 
 They went off together. 
 
 Time wore slowly on. Ellen and Joe talked for 
 awhile in low tones, the snow lisped against the win 
 dows of the little music room. One of the maids came 
 to say in a hushed voice that the "men" wanted to 
 speak to Mrs. Josselyn, and Ellen went out to talk 
 to the undertaker, who respectfully wished to ask for 
 some information. Already great boxes of flowers 
 had begun to arrive, and motor-cars were wheeling 
 about the drive, making brief stops, wheeling away 
 again. Sophy had come back with Louis, the second 
 chauffeur, and a dozen boxes were piled on Ellen's 
 bed. Before three o'clock the first reporter appeared. 
 
 When Ellen went back to the music room, Joe told 
 her that Lillian had been fainting, and that Doctor 
 Cutter was with her. 
 
 "Did you know that she went off with that man 
 Pepper for dinner last night, Ellen?" he asked. 
 
 "Last night!" Ellen echoed, amazed. 
 
 "Yes, it seems that she wanted to see Pepper, or he 
 wanted to see her she just used the Pointdexter 
 invitation as a blind. They went off somewhere for
 
 220 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 dinner, the 'Wayside Inn,' it was, and then he took her 
 to Mrs. Pointdexter's house, about twelve." 
 
 "How did you know this, Joe?" 
 
 "It's Lillian's alibi: she told Ryan the whole thing. 
 Cutter was telling me. It seems that they were there 
 until the place was actually closing, talking. Ryan 
 has sent for the fellow who runs the Inn." Joe shook 
 his head, half-smiled. "Gosh, she's lucky!" he ejac 
 ulated. "She's got a dozen people to prove what she 
 did, she wasn't even in the house herself !" 
 
 "Joe!" Ellen said in a whisper. "Where was 
 Gibbs last night?" 
 
 "Oh, don't you worry, Ellen he can clear that up, 
 easy enough! These things always sound scary, 
 
 and then they all smooth right out " Joe's tone 
 
 brightened. "Well! "he said. " Ryan dragged in Mrs. 
 Pointdexter who came over here with Lillian. She 
 had hysterics. Ryan told her that they'd have to 
 have her testimony at the trial!" 
 
 "There'll be a trial, Joe?" 
 
 "I suppose so." 
 
 "But won't they have to have someone suspected, to 
 try?" 
 
 "Yes, I suppose so." 
 
 Ellen began restlessly to pace the floor. 
 
 "Lillian and that man might have come here 
 in the night!" she said feverishly. 
 
 "They'll have to account for every second, old girl, 
 you may be sure of that!" 
 
 "Or it might have been a burglar, Joe?" 
 
 "We-11, they say not. They say that the study was 
 lighted, which would warn any burglar. Then it was 
 absolutely inaccessible by window, there was nothing
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 221 
 
 of value there, and any man might have rifled the 
 house without disturbing the study. But more than 
 that, Mr. Josselyn was quietly seated in his chair, 
 he had made no struggle, you know, he didn't even rise. 
 Ryan made the point that he knew the man or 
 woman who fired that pistol." 
 
 "He knew I" Ellen echoed, with white lips. She 
 buried her face in her hands, her brother saw a violent 
 shudder shake her whole body. Suddenly she looked 
 up at the clock. "Four o'clock!" she said feverishly. 
 "Why doesn't he come out?"
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 "Now we've been questioning the girls in the house, 
 and your stepmother and your wife," Ryan said, 
 casually, arranging papers on the desk before him, 
 and glancing now and then at Gibbs as he did so. 
 "And I think if you will give us your version of this 
 affair, Mr. Josselyn ?" 
 
 "Certainly!" Gibbs said, sitting back in his chair, 
 and folding his arms. As Ellen had felt the unspoken 
 friendliness in the air, so Gibbs was instantly aware of 
 an antagonism; as Ellen had seen that they sheltered 
 and favoured her in their questions, so Gibbs saw that 
 he was not to be spared. The District Attorney, 
 who had sold papers and run errands for a living, 
 twenty-five years ago, when little Gibbs Josselyn was 
 riding his pony, and having his beautiful little suits 
 made to order, was not apt to be over-gentle in his 
 dealings with a rich man's son. This man would 
 inherit a fortune from the silent, waxen hand that lay still 
 upstairs, and if he had had anything to do with the 
 hideous event that had brought him to that fortune, 
 Daniel Ryan was not the man to spare him. 
 
 Gibbs's face was white, and his eyes strained, before 
 the quarrel had been lived and re-lived again. He 
 admitted his admiration of his father's wife, admitted 
 that it had given his own wife and his father some con 
 cern, admitted that the matter had caused a strained 
 relationship between the four. He did not glance 
 
 Ml
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 223 
 
 at George: his eyes were fixed upon his interro 
 gator. 
 
 "So that we finally have these facts to go on," 
 Ryan summarized. "You and your father quarrel 
 about your relationship with this lady, your father 
 strikes you, and you threaten to kill him. You leave 
 the house in anger, and I beg your pardon?" 
 
 "I say that what I said could not be construed into 
 a threat to kill him," Gibbs protested. 
 
 "You mean that you phrased it, Til kill you if 
 you say that again'?" 
 
 "Yes, I I don't think that is quite the same 
 thing. One might be a threat, Mr. Ryan, and the other 
 more of a well, more of a boast, or of a a silencer that 
 should prove effective," George interposed mildly. 
 
 "I see," Ryan said drily. "Well!" he resumed, 
 after a pause, "you leave the house in anger, and on 
 foot. A few hours later, presumably between the hours 
 of nine and ten o'clock, somebody familiar with this 
 house enters the room your father is sitting in; does 
 not alarm him enough to cause him to leave his seat; 
 goes to the table-drawer where he keeps his pistol; 
 takes it out, and deliberately kills him. Afterward 
 throwing the pistol into a basket seventeen feet away. 
 We've cross-questioned the maids, but you can easily 
 see that no servant could do that without instantly 
 alarming him. More than that, he disliked their 
 coming and going, and would have questioned any 
 one who came in. We know that pistol was in the 
 drawer, because your wife saw it there, as late as yes 
 terday morning, in the hands of the girl, Lizzie. Lizzie 
 was talking with your wife at her fire until after ten 
 o'clock, undresses and goes to bed, opening the com-
 
 224 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 municating door between the bathroom and bed 
 rooms you know what they were talking of, and 
 why that girl had nothing in her mind last night but 
 her own happiness! Mrs. Josselyn then sits on by the 
 fire, sees that Lizzie is asleep, goes to bed herself, and 
 sleeps until you awaken her, in what she describes as 
 an excited condition, at two o'clock. Those facts we 
 have. Now perhaps you'll tell us just where you were 
 last night between the hours of eleven minutes past six 
 and two o'clock." 
 
 "I'll tell you as well as I can," Gibbs said simply, 
 "I went first to the club where I sat in the little smoking 
 room for a long time more than an hour. Gettling, 
 the steward there, came and touched me on the arm, 
 and said that it was nearly eight o'clock, and asked me 
 to dine." 
 
 "You had had nothing to eat?*' 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 "Nor to drink?" 
 
 "Yes, I had had a whiskey-and-soda when I went 
 in, and then later another." 
 
 "Ah! And did you drink with your dinner? Go 
 on, please, just as the events transpired." 
 
 "I had two cocktails before my dinner: I was still 
 upset from the talk with my father " 
 
 "The quarrel?" 
 
 "The quarrel, yes. I didn't eat much. I may 
 have eaten something, but I am not sure. I went 
 out " 
 
 "What time was this?" 
 
 "Nine o'clock, I should say. Gettling would re 
 member that, because he followed me out to ask me 
 something about the Hunt Breakfast on Thanksgiving."
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 225 
 
 "Will you get hold of him?" Ryan asked one of his 
 men in an undertone. There was a moment's interrup 
 tion and murmuring. Then Ryan said: "Excuse 
 me. Will you go on?" 
 
 "After that I started walking, without thinking much 
 where I was going," Gibbs said. "It was dark, but not 
 very cold. I walked a long way, and then I saw the 
 lights of the 'Wayside Inn/ We'd been there before, 
 last summer. I went up on the porch, and stood 
 there, looking in." 
 
 "Why didn't you go straight in, Mr. Josselyn?" 
 
 "I don't know. I think I wasn't sure that I wanted 
 to go in." 
 
 "You walk what is it something more than eight 
 miles, in the dark," commented the District Attor 
 ney, "and then you vacillate about going in?" 
 
 "I remember thinking that I was hungry," Gibbs 
 went on. "But they were dancing in there, and I 
 didn't feel much like getting into a dance." 
 
 "But you did go in?" 
 
 "No. I didn't. While I was standing there I 
 recognized I recognized friends at a little table 
 right near the window " 
 
 "Friends? Who were these friends, Mr. Josselyn?" 
 
 "That I'd rather not say, really," Gibbs said, in his 
 old autocratic manner. 
 
 "We've had Lillian's story, Gibbs," George said, in a 
 low tone. Gibbs gave him a quick, startled look: the 
 blood mounted to his face. 
 
 "You saw Mrs. Josselyn and her lover, eh?" said 
 Ryan. 
 
 George saw the muscles of Gibbs's jaw suddenly 
 tighten.
 
 226 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 "I object to that term," he said quietly. 
 
 "We needn't mince words," Ryan said sharply, his 
 eyes narrowing. "'Go on with your story. You went 
 into the bar?" 
 
 "I did not go in at all," Gibbs reiterated. 
 
 "But somebody saw you there?" 
 
 "Not that I know of." 
 
 "And nobody saw you on ^our way there?" 
 
 "Not that I know of." 
 
 "You turned around, and walked back?" 
 
 "I turned around, and walked back." 
 
 " Reaching home " 
 
 "Reaching home at about one o'clock, I think. I 
 sat by the fire in my wife's bedroom for awhile, and 
 she woke up. We had a short conversation, and I 
 told her that I proposed to leave my father's house the 
 next morning. Then I went to bed." 
 
 "One moment, Mr. Josselyn. On that walk back 
 a long walk, you know, for a man alone in the dark, 
 you must have passed through several villages. Didn't 
 it occur to you to stop somewhere else for food ? " 
 
 "I don't remember thinking of food." 
 
 "Yet you thought of food when you reached the 
 'Wayside Inn'?" 
 
 Gibbs was silent. 
 
 "How do you account for the fact that you did that ?" 
 
 "I changed my mind, I suppose." 
 
 "Exactly. You changed your mind. But do you 
 know what caused you to change your mind?" 
 
 Again Gibbs did not speak. 
 
 "I could believe that to a man in your excited con 
 dition the mere sight of the woman he loved dining 
 there with another man might cause a decided change
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 227 
 
 of mind,'* the District Attorney said thoughtfully, 
 making a series of hard little marks with his pencil on 
 the blotter before him, and finally raising his head to 
 look Gibbs straight in the eyes. " But I wish, for your 
 own sake, Mr. Josselyn, that you could find someone 
 to confirm this rather extraordinary story. Eight 
 miles," he added musingly, "well, a man in con 
 dition might walk that far, and decide not to eat any 
 thing, and walk back I used to walk once myself, 
 a good deal. But He pursed his lips and ele 
 
 vated his eyebrows with the shadow of a shrug. "One 
 more thing," he asked, in a dead silence. "You did 
 not tell your wife last night what you had seen?" 
 
 "That I had seen my father's wife dining with Pep 
 per? No." 
 
 "Why didn't you tell her, Mr. Josselyn?" 
 
 "Why it did not occur to me to do so. I never 
 have discussed the matter with her." 
 
 "Tell me just what you mean by 'the matter'?" 
 
 "The the anything that concerned my step 
 mother, I suppose." 
 
 "You quarrel with your father, threaten to kill him, 
 leave his house, over this very man, and then do not 
 consider this fresh evidence of Mrs. Thomas Josselyn's 
 relationship with Pepper of sufficient importance to 
 tell your wife? Didn't it occur to you that here was 
 an absolute refutation of your father's suspicions; 
 suspicions that you knew were shared by your wife?" 
 
 "No, I don't remember thinking that," Gibbs as 
 serted doggedly. 
 
 "You didn't say to yourself: 'Here is an excuse for 
 me and more than an excuse!' You didn't say 'my 
 dear, to show you how innocent I am in this whole
 
 228 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 affair, Lillian or whatever you call her and Pepper 
 were dining together this very evening!" 
 
 Gibbs did not answer. The District Attorney 
 looked at him dispassionately a few minutes. 
 
 "Well!" he said, resuming his brisk manner, "it 
 seems to me that that would have been a natural course, 
 under the circumstances, for a man who had had ex 
 actly your experience. You, on the other hand, pro 
 duce this story only after you have had a conversation 
 with Mrs. Thomas Josselyn, on the morning following the 
 discovery of the murder. Nobody, previous to the 
 murder nobody, previous to the finding of the body, 
 has heard of this this sixteen-mile walk, I believe?'* 
 
 "I have told you that I did not mention it to my 
 wife," Gibbs answered; "I saw no one else." 
 
 "I should like to call your attention to the fact that 
 Mr. Josselyn was unwilling to bring his stepmother's 
 name into this discussion a few minutes ago," George 
 said quietly. "That would seem to me to indicate 
 that there had been no pre-arrangement between them." 
 
 "Exactly," Ryan said, with a sharp look. "Thank 
 you I think that is all. Oh, one moment. When you 
 came home from this walk, you approached the house 
 by the rear road, crossed the field of the adjoining prop 
 erty, entered the gate on the tennis-court, and so came 
 around the west face of the house, to the front door?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "So that, by a really circuitous route, you did not 
 pass the lighted study window?" 
 
 "Accidentally, I did just that." 
 
 "Accidentally, of course. Thank you, Mr. Josselyn." 
 
 Again there was the little stir of men changing posi 
 tion. Gibbs and George went to the desk.
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 229 
 
 "I will make it my business to look up those matters 
 you called to my attention, Mr. Ryan," George said, 
 in a business-like tone, "I'll see Mr. Josselyn's man of 
 business find out if there was anything irregular, 
 any dispute there. There was one point I would like 
 to make before we end this investigation: is it possible 
 that Mr. Josselyn fell asleep in his chair, and was shot 
 in that state?" 
 
 The District Attorney nodded thoughtfully. He had 
 scored steadily, throughout the long day, but he was 
 rasped by the conviction that Gibbs despised him. 
 
 "I will speak to Corrigan about it. That would be 
 an important point, of course." He glanced at the 
 coroner, who had risen, and was standing beside him. 
 
 " Doctor Cutter spoke of that," the man said. " But 
 it is impossible. When we found the body the head 
 was sunk forward, exactly like a man asleep. But the 
 bullet could not have entered the body as it did enter it 
 while it was in that position. Mr. Josselyn was sitting 
 erect when the shot was fired, and his assassin must 
 have engaged him in conversation, holding his own 
 hand, with the revolver in it, barely above the level 
 of the table." 
 
 "I see," George said. He and Ryan fell into a low- 
 toned conversation at one of the windows. All over the 
 room there was the rustle preceding departure. A 
 deputy, a kind-faced man of large build, would remain 
 in the house, the others would return in the morning. 
 
 Presently George and Gibbs went back to the music 
 room, and Ellen took her place at her husband's side 
 again. They talked a little of the funeral, and fell silent. 
 After awhile there was one knock, among a hundred 
 knocks upon the door, to announce Mrs. Pointdexter.
 
 230 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 The lady, pretty and agitated, came in. She was 
 an empty-headed, babbling little woman, with a rather 
 scarred record behind her. She said that it had been 
 a perfectly terrible day for poor Lillian wasn't the 
 whole thing too awful for words? She said that she 
 thought Mr. Josselyn had had some enemy they had 
 never heard of. Lillian had said that she, May Point- 
 dexter, was an angel to stay with her, but, my goodness, 
 wasn't that what friendship was for? 
 
 "I'm going to have some dinner sent up," said the 
 visitor, tenderly. "She hasn't eaten a thing all day! 
 We made her try on some of her things it's terrible, 
 you know, but you have to, and she cried as if her heart 
 would break. She feels so terribly about having been 
 at dinner with Lindsay Pepper: she only went to tell 
 him that his feeling for her worried her husband, and 
 it must stop. We were playing cards, just at twelve 
 o'clock, when they came in. And isn't it strange the 
 way things come out, we had supper, you know, and 
 we were all there talking until after two. Mrs. Jack 
 Swift was there, and Bobby Poett, and Bobby left 
 with Lindsay, and spent the night with him. And 
 when Lindsay and Bobby got to Great Neck, he had 
 to wake up the Jap to fix Bobby's bed so that he can 
 testify that they were there at just half-past two! 
 Lillian told that What's-his-name in the library all 
 about it. But isn't it all simply terrible? I telephoned 
 my husband, and he said 'What do you think?' and I 
 said 'I don't know what to think!'", 
 
 Mrs. Pointdexter flashed her bright, restless eyes 
 from one face to another in turn. Nobody else spoke. 
 
 "Keno kept coming to say that there were reporters 
 downstairs," she went on presently. "But I said that
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 231 
 
 poor Lillian couldn't see a soul. I told them that the 
 Kellogg Galleries had her picture: I suppose every 
 paper will have to have a picture, and you might as 
 well be polite to them! But isn't it all terrible: I 
 don't know when I've had such a shock in my life!" 
 
 "My God, that girl is having an enjoyable time!" 
 George ejaculated sourly, when the visitor had gone 
 upstairs again. 
 
 Ellen looked at him. A dimple appeared in her tired 
 little face, her lips trembled. Then the muscles of her 
 face began to work suddenly, she laughed in a high 
 key, and broke into hysterical weeping, with her head 
 on her husband's shoulder.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 AFTER the quiet funeral, when the Josselyn family 
 had run the gauntlet of a hundred reporters and pho 
 tographers, and were back in the "Villino dell' Orto" 
 again, Joe came upstairs to find his sister. Ellen was 
 in her room; she had taken off her black hat with its 
 crisp, hanging veil, but her soft hair was still crushed 
 from its weight. It was two o'clock, and a low table 
 had been drawn before her fire, and spread with tea- 
 things. 
 
 "Come in, Joe," his sister said, when he knocked. 
 "And will you have some tea?" she added, with a 
 shadow of her old smile. "I know you didn't have 
 any lunch, like the rest of us." 
 
 "How do you feel, dear?" he asked, taking the offered 
 cup. 
 
 "Oh fine!" She blinked back the too-ready tears, 
 and controlled the trembling of her mouth. "T-t-tiring 
 day!" she added, unsteadily. 
 
 "Awful day. Listen, Sis," Joe's tone suddenly 
 changed and became firm, "I want to talk to you about 
 something! Gosh, those are good!" he interrupted 
 himself to say, in reference to the tea-biscuit he was 
 devouring. "Where's Gibbs? Has he had anything 
 to eat?" 
 
 "Why, it was for Gibbs that I asked them to bring 
 this up," Ellen answered. "But before it came, 
 George had called him away. There's so much to 
 
 232
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 233 
 
 attend to so many different things. Joe, did you 
 hear anything more about the Bridgeport position?" 
 
 "Well, that's what I meant to speak to you about, 
 Ellen. I had a letter from this fellow Mainwaring, 
 yesterday. They'll give it to me. In fact, they wanted 
 me to-day : but of course I couldn't go. I can't get there 
 until to-morrow morning." 
 
 "You are going, then, Joe?" 
 
 "I think so." He sighed, rubbed his hair boyishly 
 with his hand. "I saw Harriet," he added suddenly, 
 "and I think she's satisfied to have it this way. Mr. 
 Lathrop was a king about it, and he said that I should 
 stay where I am. But I got this job through him, yon 
 know, and I didn't feel comfortable keeping it now fc 
 when I've been a disappointment and a trouble to you 
 all. So I'll go to Bridgeport." 
 
 "You've never been a trouble and a disappointment 
 to me," Ellen said tenderly. "You're doing a splendid 
 thing " 
 
 "No, I'm not!" he interrupted her gruffly. "Aunt 
 Elsie was telling me this morning that I'm none too 
 good for Lizzie that Lizzie is this and that " 
 
 "Aunt Elsie will feel far fonder of Lizzie than she 
 ever would of any other girl," Ellen smiled. "Of 
 course she doesn't know " 
 
 "Nobody knows!" he interrupted. "Nobody ever 
 will." 
 
 Ellen looked with pity at the clouded face : Joe seemed 
 so young, so much a boy to face these grave realities. 
 
 "So you go to Bridgeport?" 
 
 "Yes," he said, rousing himself from his brooding. 
 "And, Ellen, I think Lizzie and I will be married, and 
 she'll go with me."
 
 234 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 " Married ! " she echoed. " But when, Joe ? " 
 
 "Well " He hesitated. "To-night, I think." 
 
 "To-night!" 
 
 "I guess so." 
 
 "But, dearest boy! Don't you have to have a 
 license and things?" 
 
 "I've got them. Her mother and father will be 
 there, and Aunt Elsie. That's all." 
 
 "But Joe so quickly!" Ellen mused. "After all, 
 perhaps it's the wisest thing," she conceded. "I'll try 
 to-morrow to get someone else for Tommy." 
 
 "I was going to speak to you about that, Sis. Why 
 can't we take Tommy? You'll have your hands 
 full 
 
 She turned deathly white, and leaned back in her 
 chair with closed eyes. 
 
 "I don't mean that!" he exclaimed, quickly. "Ah, 
 pull yourself together, dear old girl!" 
 
 "I know what you meant!" she said, in a whisper. 
 And opening her eyes, she leaned toward him, and 
 laid an icy hand on his hand. "Oh, Joe I know it, 
 I know it!" she exclaimed, in an agony. "Every time 
 I look into his face, I know it's coming and I can't 
 do anything! I can't do anything! Oh, Joe if it 
 comes to that, I can't bear it! I can't go through with 
 it! I can't have them questioning and questioning 
 and that horrible Ryan with his horrible politeness! 
 Joe, you don't know how happy we were in Paris 
 never a cloud we didn't want more money we could 
 have been happy with less! And to have deliberately 
 come back here, to all the wretchedness of this house 
 and now to this ! Joe, you don't know how proud he is 
 it will kill him. And it wasn't anger that Gibbs
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 235 
 
 felt that night not all anger, anyway. It was shame 
 I know him so well! it was shame that part of what 
 his father said was true! He couldn't bear it!" 
 
 Ellen had gotten to her feet : she began to walk about 
 the room, wringing her hands, and pressing her locked 
 fingers against her lips like a person in pain. 
 
 "Oh, I know what you've all been waiting for 
 these days ! " she said, in her whisper of anguish. " I've 
 seen it in George's face I know why you want to take 
 Tommy away from it all! I know that Gibbs has ex 
 pected it: we've been together for three days now, 
 Joe, we've sat for hours, with my hand in his not saying 
 a word." 
 
 She came back to the fireplace. Joe had risen, too, 
 and was watching her with a distressed face. She 
 laid her hands on his shoulders, and looked with wild 
 appeal into his eyes. 
 
 "Joe!" she faltered, almost inaudibly, "I lie awake, 
 at night, racking my brains and there's nobody else! 
 They can't find anybody else! But, Joe, if he did do it 
 if his father, in that cool, smiling way of his " 
 
 "Look here, Ellen!" Joe said bluntly, "Fm sur 
 prised at you. Gibbs is going to depend on you now 
 as he never did in his life before, and here you are skip 
 ping your meals, lying awake nights, and getting hys 
 terical! My God, Sis, you'll do him much more harm 
 than good this way." 
 
 "Yes, I know!" Ellen said quickly. "But, Joe, 
 she added, "I keep thinking that that Ryan will ask 
 me ask me outright what I think, and what can I 
 say? I can't '* 
 
 "Now, listen, Ellen," he interrupted firmly. "In 
 the first place, he never will ask you what you think.
 
 236 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 He'll simply ask you what you did, or said, or heard 
 said: he may not put you on the stand at all. Look 
 how easily they let Lizzie off. He asked her what she 
 was doing with the pistol she said that she had had a 
 quarrel with the young man sjie was engaged to 
 he went right on to the next question. Now just calm 
 down. Take things easily. And you let us have 
 Tommy. Lizzie adores the kid we both do. And 
 he'll be out of the way of the whole thing!" 
 
 "I'll try, Joe," she said humbly. 
 
 "You'll do it, if you try," Joe answered bracingly. 
 "And, Ellen if this thing should come to a trial just 
 put yourself into training. Make yourself eat, go to 
 bed early, read books, keep up your appearance all 
 those things help. If you're well bodily, it goes a long 
 way to keeping well in your mind. Get me?" 
 
 "I get you!" she smiled, a little sadly, as she re 
 turned his kiss. "And you may be married to-night?" 
 
 "Will be!" 
 
 "It seems so strange, Joe." She went with him to 
 the door of her room. "Not what I thought my little 
 brother's wedding day would be!" she said. 
 
 "Nor I," he answered gravely. She thought he 
 looked all a boy as he walked away, and turned at the 
 stairhead to wave his hand to her. 
 
 A few minutes later Gibbs came up, and Ellen lighted 
 the flame under the spirit-lamp, and made him fresh 
 tea. He looked tired and ill, but , he smiled at her 
 gratefully as she gave him the smoking cup. 
 
 "It won't last long now, Ellen," he said, refusing 
 the food she offered him, "but coming back for more 
 tea. "Poor George is down there in a bunch of re-
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 237 
 
 porters: I don't know whether you noticed the way 
 the cameras were lined up when we went out this 
 morning? They're like a pack of wolves.'* 
 
 There was a knock at the door, but he did not seem 
 to hear it. He had dropped his handsome head 
 against the chair-back, and closed his dark, shadow- 
 rimmed eyes. "It will seem good to get out of this, 
 and get the little scout again, and go off out of the 
 range of newspapers and cameras, won't it?" he 
 asked. 
 
 "Oh, Gibbs!" Ellen's utmost resolution was un 
 equal to the task of keeping tears from her eyes. 
 
 "I was thinking we might take the roadster,'* he 
 added, "and go south Florida, maybe, or Atlanta. 
 We wouldn't need anything but the motor-trunk, 
 ,and you could take care of the boy he ought to be 
 dressing himself now!" 
 
 "He does, Gibbs you'd be surprised to see how fast 
 he is learning. He'll be six next month, you know!" 
 Ellen's colour rushed up, the vision of escape from all 
 this horror had set her blood to dancing. The open 
 road again, Gibbs and Tommy, meals here and there 
 and everywhere 
 
 Another knock at the door. Gibbs heard this one, 
 and turned questioning eyes toward it. 
 
 " Stay where you are ! " Ellen commanded. She went 
 to the door. Gibbs heard one whispered word of 
 protest and horror, and got to his feet, the colour 
 draining from his face. He saw George's grave face, 
 and another face or two in the background. In the 
 foreground, their eyes sweeping the room quickly, were 
 two blue-coated officers.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE trial of Thomas Gibbs Josselyn for the murder 
 of his father was naturally the journalistic tidbit 
 of the day. No element of the picturesque and drama 
 tic was lacking, and the features of the suspected man, 
 with his mop of silver hair, the beautiful face of the 
 woman who had caused all this misery, the old vic 
 tim's dignified and handsome person, and the piquant 
 and pathetic little figure of the prisoner's wife all be 
 came familiar visions at millions of breakfast tables. 
 The social standing of the family, the mystery sur 
 rounding the murder, the odd relationship of the man 
 and the two women, all these things were incalculably 
 valuable to city editors everywhere. 
 
 Presently the will of the murdered man was filed, 
 and caused its own sensation. After the bequests to 
 servants and charities, and the gifts to old friends, 
 the widow was to have her handsome allowance, pay 
 able unless she remarried, throughout her life, besides 
 her country home at Wheatley Hills, and all it con 
 tained. To the son certain books and specified silver 
 and jewels were bequeathed, and a moderate sum was to 
 be held in trust for the little grandson. 
 
 All the rest went to the daughter-in-law. More 
 than that, should Lillian remarry, she was to be given 
 a lump sum, the remainder of her fortune to revert to 
 Ellen. Ellen heard it all vaguely: she was not thinking 
 of money in these days. She did not read the papers 
 
 238
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 239 
 
 that shrieked between the two oceans that old Thomas 
 Josselyn had trusted her above his wife or his son. 
 
 She did not know that under all her suavity and poise 
 Lillian was furious, and had threatened to break the 
 will. Dissuaded from this folly, the beautiful widow 
 had been so indiscreet as to drop a hint to Ellen's 
 attorney. 
 
 "Did you know that Lillian said to me that she was 
 surprised that the fact that you benefited so tremen 
 dously by the will had not been thought of as a motive 
 for the tragedy?" George asked her, with a dry 
 smile, one day. 
 
 "Did she say that? She talks a great deal, it seems 
 to me," Ellen answered indifferently. George had 
 come in to the Port Washington house, to discuss some 
 question, and he and she were standing together at the 
 little six-paned front window that looked out into 
 Main Street. For a few moments her eyes idly followed 
 the progress of a lumbering delivery-van down the 
 snowy street, then she turned to him with sudden life 
 in her eyes. "George!" she exclaimed: "is there any 
 chance of their suspecting me! Wouldn't that be a 
 motive ? " 
 
 "Do you mean you want to be suspected, Ellen?" 
 
 "Ah, if they would!" she said feverishly. "Because 
 I know I didn't do it " she added, in a whisper. 
 
 The trial was set for the first week of the new year, 
 And to Gibbs and to Ellen as well, much as she had 
 dreaded it, it came as a relief. She had visited him 
 every day, in his cell at the Mineola jail, and what 
 those visits had cost her, only Ellen knew. 
 
 Every day she must nerve herself afresh to enter into
 
 240 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 the stale, cold air, and pass the clanking doors 
 the watching eyes. She must nerve herself afresh for 
 the sight of him, thin, despondent, dishonoured. 
 She must breathe the suffocating moral atmosphere that 
 surrounds the offenders, the human who is felt by other 
 humans to be dangerous. She must talk to him, and 
 yet not talk of the hideous cloud that pressed so close 
 over him, and the hideous weight on their hearts that 
 made them both afraid they would go mad. 
 
 Physically, he was not uncomfortable. Ellen 
 brought him what she could in the way of comfort. 
 He often told her that he had enjoyed his dinner, 
 that he had slept well. But sometimes they sat for 
 long periods together without speaking. Of what 
 could she speak to him now? Of the free hills under 
 the snows, of the operas they might have been attend 
 ing, of the little son who had been taken away for fear 
 he might hear his father's name? 
 
 She kept him supplied with books, and sometimes 
 made him read aloud to her. George was often with 
 him, full of confidence and courage. 
 
 Empty as they were, these hours at the jail were 
 Ellen's life. Otherwise she was hardly conscious that 
 she lived at all. She sat by the fire with her aunt, in 
 the evening, talking with the busy, kindly woman and 
 the old Captain, but not knowing what she said. 
 She wrote her nightly letter to Joe or Lizzie, with a 
 scalloped kiss for the boy, and went early to bed. 
 Ellen's old bedroom had been turned into a bathroom 
 years ago, and there were electric lights all over the 
 house. But she had her old bed, and her old bureau 
 where she had put the celluloid mirror covered with 
 pink roses and forget-me-nots that Leonard Henshaw
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 41 
 
 had given her one Christmas, years ago. And she 
 had the old painting of a bare-legged little girl with 
 netted hair and scalloped skirt, crossing a rocky creek. 
 Len had married Willa, and their pretty home was up in 
 the "Estates." They had worked and planned for 
 every brick of it. Willa had three lovely children now, 
 and a rattling little motor-car in which she brought 
 them down to market, and sometimes a girl to help her. 
 Ellen did not know it, but Willa had envied Ellen 
 Latimer all her life. 
 
 She rose early, and joined the old people at break 
 fast. Then she aired her room, and made her bed, and 
 by that time the little closed car was at the door, with 
 Torrens at the wheel. Closely veiled, although she 
 was really indifferent to staring eyes and snapping 
 cameras, she slipped into the car, and was on her way 
 to Gibbs. 
 
 Sometimes alone, or with George, she lunched in the 
 neighbourhood of the jail, and went back to it imme 
 diately; sometimes Torrens took her into the city, to 
 slip like a little ghost into the shops, and get something 
 Gibbs wanted, or she fancied he might like. Always 
 she saw her husband twice a day, and was back in 
 Port Washington in time to read the paper to the old 
 Captain before dinner. 
 
 Mary Cutter, the doctor's lovely daughter-in-law, 
 had taken it upon herself to befriend Ellen, and during 
 these terrible days she never failed her. Sometimes 
 she came in her own car, with a fat sweet baby as 
 escort, to take Ellen home from Mineola, and on 
 Christmas Eve she got out at the old house with 
 Ellen, and dined with Captain Latimer and his family,
 
 242 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 and kept them all talking. Later the junior doctor 
 and his boys came for her, leaving a great mass of 
 holly in the house, with a breath of cold, sweet, holiday 
 air. 
 
 And when the trial began, Mary was always at 
 Ellen's side. George called at the Main Street house 
 on the first morning, and Mary met them at the court 
 house. Ellen was extremely nervous, and gave them 
 only absent answers. She was unable to believe that 
 the long-awaited hour had come at last. 
 
 There was already a crowd on the court-house steps: 
 it was a bitter morning, the huddled men and women, 
 and the policemen who were keeping order, smoked 
 at the mouth. George took the two women quickly 
 in at a side door, they had hardly time to be conscious 
 of staring eyes. The bare passages were comfortably 
 warm; a murmured word here and there gave them im 
 mediate entrance to the room where Gibbs was waiting. 
 Ellen and her husband had time only for a few words: 
 confused words of hope and courage. Then George 
 called one of his clerks and bade him take the women 
 to the court-room. 
 
 Ellen had never been in a court-room before, but 
 she said to herself: "That's the jury-box that's the 
 witness stand," even with her first quick glance. 
 
 Reporters were already scribbling at a long, bare 
 table. Several favoured spectators had secured good 
 seats. There were round-backed chairs inside the 
 railing which divided the big room in two. Ellen 
 and Mary were placed in two of these chairs. Mary 
 realized, from the sudden murmur and whisper in 
 the room, that they were identified. Ellen realized 
 nothing.
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 243 
 
 George came in, talking in an undertone with his 
 associate. He nodded reassuringly to Ellen. She 
 hardly saw him, and hardly heard him when he stopped 
 beside her and commented in some distress upon her 
 quick breathing. She assured him that she would be 
 quite herself again presently. When he went away 
 again, and disappeared through one of the doors behind 
 the Judge's bench, she saw Ryan come in. 
 
 He was flushed, smiling, talking emphatically to a 
 man who accompanied him. His hands were full of 
 papers. He had the air of a man who had breakfasted 
 well, and who was full of confidence. Ellen felt a wave 
 of sheer hate shake her. How free he was; how com 
 fortably ready for the day's work! And Gibbs 
 Gibbs would come in between two guards 
 
 "This is merely the panelling of the jury," George 
 had told them, "it may take several days. It's a long, 
 stupid business." 
 
 Long or stupid, it had to do with the Josselyn case, 
 and the seats behind the railing were all packed now. 
 There was some bustling and whispering, and even sub 
 dued laughter. Men continued to move busily back 
 and forth on the platform, and spoke in undertones. 
 Mary saw a newspaper artist squinting as he made a 
 quick sketch of the prisoner's wife. 
 
 With a great stirring and murmuring in the room, 
 Gibbs came in, with a court officer. He was pale, 
 but seemed neither self-conscious nor nervous, as he 
 came quickly to his seat at the end of one of the 
 tables. George was seated at this table, and imme 
 diately leaned toward Gibbs, engaging him for a moment 
 in conversation. Presently Gibbs nodded consent or 
 approval, and leaned back in his chair.
 
 244 JOSSELYN'S TVIFE 
 
 Then he saw Ellen, who was only ten feet away, 
 and who sent him a brave smile. A score of reporters 
 pencilled busily: "Prisoner Smiles at Wife." But 
 Ellen's heart was torn within her. Gibbs, with that 
 little new droop to his broad shoulders, a spectacle foi! 
 this staring roomful! 
 
 Everybody rose, and she rose, too, dizzily. The 
 clock was on the stroke of ten, and His Honour came 
 promptly and quietly through a door at the back, to his 
 large chair. A clerk leaned over him to murmur some 
 message: he nodded quickly; the clerk went out. The 
 case of the State versus Thomas Gibbs Josselyn was 
 called. 
 
 Droning voices rose and fell; Ellen, from tense and 
 jealous attention to every possible talesman, felt 
 her thoughts wander. She looked at Gibbs, who was 
 sitting with folded arms, gravely listening and staring 
 straight ahead of him. She looked wistfully at the 
 Judge, and thought that he had a wise and kind face.. 
 Her eyes fell upon Ryan, and again a sensation of hate 
 made her heart sick. 
 
 George was suddenly upon his feet. Ellen's heart 
 jumped as she heard him rap out some objection. 
 The old Judge, deep in some papers, looked mildly 
 over his glasses. 
 
 "Sustained!" he said mechanically. George, with 
 a contented nod, sat down. Ryan went on questioning 
 the candidate. 
 
 Suddenly there was a rustle of adjournment. The 
 Judge rose and quitted the court-room. Men began to 
 walk in every direction, voices were raised. Ellen was 
 amazed to see that the clock showed the time to be
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 245 
 
 twenty minutes of one. The court emptied quickly, 
 and Ellen and Mary went to the Garden City Hotel, 
 where they had luncheon upstairs, and where George 
 presently joined them. George was reassuring. He 
 said that Gibbs felt a real relief to have the waiting 
 over, and regaled them with tales of juries and judges 
 while they ate. Ellen had the lack of appetite, and 
 the deep thirst, of burning excitement, but she did her 
 best to eat. 
 
 For days the panelling of the jury dragged on, and' 
 the long hours in the court-room were wearisome and 
 uneventful. Then suddenly there was a full jury, 
 and the trial began. Ellen was dazed by the pre 
 liminaries, and the cross-questioning seemed to her 
 singularly irrelevant. Doctors were asserting that 
 Thomas Josselyn had died from the effect of a pistol 
 wound in the breast: there was endless medical testH 
 mony to prove the hour of the murder. George 
 would ask an apparently unimportant question, and 
 nodding, sit down. 'The District Attorney would 
 jump up with another, leading nowhere, as far as 
 Ellen could see. Between George and Ryan there 
 was a running fire of hot words. Ellen was amazed to 
 see them speak civilly to each other the moment 
 Court adjourned. At luncheon she would eagerly ques 
 tion George as to the significance of this point or that. 
 
 "It's all going well," said George the second day. 
 "I'm satisfied that we're gaining ground." 
 
 "I noticed that the Court ruled every time in our 
 favour," Mary said eagerly. George nodded, but Ellen 
 did not know until long afterward that this was an 
 ominous sign.
 
 246 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 "We'll have Florence on the stand this afternoon,"* 
 he said. "To make the point that Mr. Josselyn was 
 so little distressed and apprehensive, after the quarrel, 
 that he talked cheerfully to Ellen here, and Tommy, 
 at dinner!" 
 
 "And so he did!" Ellen said eagerly. 
 
 "Well, we'll go back," George said, rising from the 
 table. "The press men are anxious to have a word with 
 you, Ellen, and I think perhaps you might as well speak 
 to them I'll arrange it. Just as well to have them 
 friendly. All you need say is that you are confident 
 of the outcome something like that. " 
 
 "Anything!" she agreed quickly. And clinging to 
 his arm, she looked up into his face. "George," she 
 said, breathing fast, "I'm frightened now! The the 
 law frightens me. I was looking at Gibbs this morning, 
 and thinking that Torrens and the car were just out 
 side, and that we had all the money in the world, and 
 yet that I couldn't I couldn't go up to him and say: 
 'Come on, Gibbs, let it all go come home with me!' 
 That no power on earth could do that now!" 
 
 "Why, you mustn't let the atmosphere of the Court 
 get on your nerves," he soothed her. "Just say to 
 yourself that those fellows are good enough at heart 
 they're only doing what they're paid to do 
 
 "Not that Ryan!" she shuddered. 
 
 "Ryan? He's a decent enough fellow, Ellen." 
 
 "But, George he's determined to to convict 
 Gibbs!" 
 
 "Well, but that's his business, my dear. He's 
 obliged to take that side." 
 
 "Oh, my God, I think that is terrible!" Ellen said, 
 "I don't see how a decent man could do it!"
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 247 
 
 The trial lasted for only a day less than three weeks. 
 Ellen had moved her place to Gibbs's side, and although 
 they rarely spoke, she knew he was as much comforted 
 as she was by this arrangement. Day after day the 
 papers described the tall, haggard man, with his sombre 
 eyes and silver hair, and the silent, black-clad little 
 wife, always at his side, her blue Irish eyes jealously 
 following every word that was said to convict him or 
 acquit him. 
 
 For two days, cruel and exhausting days, she was on 
 the stand. Mary Cutter and George Lathrop were 
 amazed at the courage and strength she found for the 
 ordeal. She had promised them she would not break 
 down, but she did for a moment, when Tommy's name 
 was mentioned. And perhaps that moment, when the 
 sensitive mouth quivered, and the blue eyes brimmed 
 with tears, was as favourable to Gibbs's cause as any 
 logic or any eloquence could have been. 
 
 For it slowly became evident that no eloquence and 
 no logic could avail in defense of a man, young and rich 
 and handsome, who had turned from this devoted little 
 wife to another woman, who had quarrelled with the 
 generous father who was that other woman's husband, 
 who had threatened and brooded over the quarrel. 
 
 Day after day the net tightened about him. Ellen, 
 listening and watching, sometimes felt as if she were 
 in an oppressive dream. Oh, it could not be Gibbs 
 who was trapped here; it could not be Tommy's father 
 who was the chief figure in one of the sensational murder 
 trials of the day! 
 
 "George I keep thinking if we could only have 
 the trial all over again!" she said feverishly, more than 
 once. "I can't believe that it's gotten gotten so far!"
 
 248 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 "My dear girl, this is only the beginning of the 
 fight!" George would answer cheerfully. But she 
 knew him too well to be heartened by his confident 
 manner. 
 
 On the afternoon before the final summing-up, when 
 all the testimony was in, and it remained only for the 
 prisoner's counsel and the District Attorney to present 
 to the jury their versions of the case, Ellen was spending 
 an hour with Gibbs. As usual, she had come to him 
 after the Court adjourned, forcing herself to speak of 
 the little incidents of the day, and to construe them as 
 encouraging. Gibbs, who usually made some effort 
 to second her in this forlorn bravery, was nervous and 
 despondent to-day, and looked ill. His months of 
 confinement and mental distress had affected his con 
 stitution, and a poor appetite and wakeful nights had 
 added to the misery of his situation. 
 
 "I jump from one extreme to the other, Ellen," he 
 told her. "Sometimes I think they'll bring in a verdict 
 of guilty plain and flat. And it's funny! but I 
 don't worry about the far future, the sentence, you 
 know, and all that. But, by God, I feel that if I have 
 to come back here to this room, and have those accursed 
 men walk me back and forth any longer, I can't I 
 can't bear it ! And then sometimes, I let myself think 
 that all this has impressed them more favourably than 
 we than we fear, you know, and that I'll walk out of 
 the room a free man with my girl on my arm " 
 
 His voice broke, and Ellen burst into bitter sobbing. 
 He put his arms about her, and kissed the top of her 
 soft hair. 
 
 "Look here, dear," he said, after awhile, "I want to
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 249 
 
 talk to you for a few minutes. We don't know what's 
 ahead of us, and I want to say this while I have a chance. 
 To-morrow night we may be separated oh, I know 
 George talks of a new trial, and all that, but I'll feel 
 happier if we've had this talk." 
 
 They sat down on the bed, side by side, and he locked 
 his arm about her. 
 
 "One thing I want to say is this," Gibbs said, slowly, 
 "I wasn't a good husband to you, this last year, but it 
 was only that I was a fool, Ellen. I never was untrue 
 to you even in my thoughts." 
 
 "I know it!" she said fervently, raising her wet eyes 
 to meet his. "Oh, Gibbs, my own sweetheart," she 
 burst out, her eyes brimming again, "what haven't you 
 given me ? a little country girl who never had anything 
 in her life until you came along! Paris, and my boy, 
 and my little girl and your love, Gibbs, that made life 
 seem a miracle to me !" 
 
 "Don't cry, Ellen," he pleaded, and she made herself 
 be calm again. 
 
 "There's one thing more I want to say," Gibbs said. 
 He got up and walked about the little room, Ellen 
 watching him distressedly. Suddenly she got up, and 
 he stopped his restless pacing, and stood looking down 
 at her with a shadow of his old smile. "I want you 
 to remember this," he said, "and when you tell the 
 boy about it, tell him this, too. I've no reason to lie 
 to you, Ellen, and what I'm telling you I say as if I 
 were a a dying man. It may be my last talk with 
 you, and I think I think of that, when I say it. I 
 think of what you have done for me, and of what you 
 are to me. By my mother's memory, Ellen, and by 
 the memory of the little girl we named for her!
 
 250 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 / never fired that shot. I never had my hand on that 
 revolver in my life!" 
 
 For a minute she stared at him without a change of 
 expression. Then he saw an extraordinary look almost 
 of madness come into her eyes, and saw her breast 
 rise with one great breath. She had been ghastly 
 pale to-day, had seemed at the limit of her strength. 
 But now the colour flooded her face. She made an 
 effort to speak, with dry lips, and failed, made a second, 
 and succeeded. 
 
 "Gibbs!" she stammered, in a whisper. "You 
 you!" Her voice failed her, and she made a gesture 
 as if for air, still clinging tightly to his arm, which she 
 had grasped when first he spoke. "You say you 
 
 didn't !" Ellen whispered, with a sudden pitiful 
 
 trembling of her lips. "But, Gibbs but, Gibbs why 
 didn't you tell me so before?" And suddenly she 
 slipped to her knees, and he felt her face, streaming with 
 tears, pressed against his hands. "Oh, my God, I 
 thank Thee!" he heard her sob. "Oh, my God, I thank 
 Thee!" 
 
 A second later she was upon her feet, pressing against 
 him as she clasped his hands, and looked with wet eyes 
 into his face. She was trying to laugh through the 
 sobs that racked her. 
 
 "You didn't do it my darling!" she said, again and 
 again. "You didn't do it I always knew that you 
 didn't!" 
 
 "But, Ellen," he said, holding her tightly, and almost 
 dazed by her vehemence, "you didn't think that I did 
 it, dear?" 
 
 "No, I didn't think so!" she said, sobbing more 
 quietly, and interrupting herself to laugh, and to press
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 251 
 
 her wet face against his for one of her quick kisses. 
 " But, Gibbs, I've thirsted so to have you tell me just 
 that I needed your word to help me! I felt as if I 
 was all alone! Now now it'll all be so different! 
 
 I don't mind anything, now. I " She laughed 
 
 again, broke into quick tears, and buried her face 
 against his shoulder. "I'm so happy!" she sobbed. 
 "L-l-let me cry, Gibbs. I'm crying because I feel s<^ 
 much happier ! " 
 
 Abruptly she stopped. A bewildered look was in 
 her eyes as she drew herself away from him, and faced 
 him, still holding his arms. She stared blankly at 
 him for a moment; then the clear brows met in a puzzled 
 frown. 
 
 " Gibbs," she said, in a whisper, "who did do it?"
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 WHO did do it? The question burned like a fever 
 in Ellen's veins, and her passionate determination to 
 answer it swept all lesser consideration from her mind. 
 George, amazed at her sudden energy and vitality, 
 could only be glad that this unexpected stimulus had 
 come to her at this particular time. Her whole manner 
 changed : her air in the court-room was newly dignified 
 and resolute, and although her devotion to Gibbs had 
 never failed him, she poured into it now so convincing 
 a flood of hope and determination that she could not 
 but affect him. Her attitude to him, George and 
 Mary to a great degree, and the world to a lesser one, 
 found infinitely touching and wonderful. 
 
 She could face anything now. Somebody, other 
 than Gibbs, had fired that shot. And she was Gibbs's 
 wife, and she was free to search, and hunt, and study 
 the strange facts surrounding old Thomas Josselyn's 
 death, until somehow, somewhere, her hand fell upon the 
 thread that should lead her to the truth. Her simple 
 faith that the truth must come to light helped them all. 
 
 It helped her through the dark hours when, still 
 heartsick over the bitter arraignment of the District 
 Attorney, and exhausted after the strain of the last 
 terrible weeks, she and George and Gibbs sat waiting, 
 hour after hour, for the verdict. The five hours had 
 seemed as many years to Ellen, but she never lost her 
 newer, deeper hope for the future. 
 
 252
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 253 
 
 George had warned them what to expect; every event 
 of the trial had warned them. Ellen knew that George 
 was already desperately seeking for some technicality 
 upon which to demand a new trial. 
 
 "If we could find someone who saw Gibbs on that 
 walk that night!" George said. 
 
 " We will ! " Ellen assured him confidently. " Gibbs," 
 she added, tightening the hand that lay over his own, 
 "don't you feel it? Don't you know that you and 
 I will look back at this sometime as a dark, hideous 
 dream? I know it!" 
 
 And yet she had turned dizzy when an officer coming 
 quietly to the door cell announced that the jury had 
 found a verdict. She put her hand on Gibbs's shoulder, 
 and raised her ashen face for his kiss. They had time 
 for no words, even if there had been words to say. 
 Blindly Ellen followed George to the court-room. With 
 quick efficiency the officials were filling their places. 
 The faithful newspaper men, their dinners left to cool, 
 hurried in. 
 
 It was seven o'clock; the cold February dark had 
 closed down hours ago. The court-room was brightly 
 lighted, and warm. His Honour, who had also been 
 dining, came in. He had addressed this same jury 
 in his kind, wise voice five hours ago. After Ryan's 
 furious tones he had seemed all temperance and justice 
 to Ellen. He had advised them that the killing of a 
 human being when committed from a deliberate and 
 premeditated design is murder in the first degree; 
 when committed with design, but without deliberation 
 or premeditation, is murder in the second degree; any 
 other homicide is manslaughter in one of its degrees. 
 These degrees, his cool voice had continued, were two:
 
 254 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 excusable homicide, from accident, or justifiable homi 
 cide, in self-defense. He had charged them that if 
 there was a reasonable doubt as to whether the crime 
 of murder in the first degree had been committed, they 
 were in duty bound to give the prisoner the benefit 
 of that doubt, and to find for murder in the second 
 degree, or manslaughter. 
 
 Now the old man looked benignly over his glasses' 
 at the twelve tired men who filed back into the box. 
 And Ellen looked from face to face with agonized sur 
 mise. 
 
 The blow fell with merciful quickness. It was only 
 a few minutes before the whole thing was over. Gibbs 
 preserved the quiet dignity of manner that had marked 
 him all through the trial. If a sickening fear of the 
 future swept over him he gave no sign of it. He looked 
 with concern toward his wife, but Ellen had mercifully 
 lost consciousness, and had quietly dropped against 
 George's shoulder. 
 
 She recovered immediately, and they saw Gibbu 
 again: a criminal now, convicted of murder in the second 
 degree. All the freedom of their recent intercourse 
 would be ended, she had foreseen that. What else 
 had she foreseen ? The indignities of shaven head and 
 striped clothes, the filth and ugliness of the prison, 
 the locked cell door, the terrible atmosphere that 
 surrounds men for whom there is no place in the green 
 world ! 
 
 But she came up to him smiling. , 
 
 "We expected that, Sweetheart, didn't we? It 
 doesn't matter. You didn't do it, and it will all come 
 right some day. Try not to think of it now think of 
 the time to come. Just lift yourself out of all this "
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 255 
 
 "Oh, we'll make a fight of it!" George added. Im 
 mediately afterward he took Ellen away. 
 
 They went to the Port Washington house, and 
 George came in to talk to her aunt and grandfather. 
 Ellen hardly spoke. She went to the door, to say 
 good-night to him, and thank him. He thought she 
 looked ill. 
 
 But she was in her place in the court-room a few 
 days later when Thomas Gibbs Josselyn was sentenced 
 to penal servitude for the term of his natural life, for 
 the peculiarly atrocious crime of murdering his own 
 father. 
 
 "And somehow, one lives through it all, George," 
 Gibbs said later. He was behind bars now, but aston 
 ishingly serene and strong. He was nervously anxious 
 to have the events of the next week over, when he should 
 be transferred to the big prison. "I want you to take 
 Tommy, and get away from all this, Ellen," he said, 
 firmly. "Write me, and send me pictures " 
 
 "Oh, Gibbs !" she whispered, with a sudden 
 stoppage of breath. 
 
 "Yes, I know," he said quickly, sympathetic for her 
 distress. "But you must remember this. If I can 
 think of you, living quietly somewhere, not too un 
 happy, it's going to brace me. I'm not any better 
 than lots of other fellows who have been up against it, < 
 Ellen. And if, as you say, something new comes to 
 light, why then we'll be glad we faced the music with 
 some some decency, don't you see? Now take her 
 away, George. I don't like her to be here." 
 
 "I have never seen a man change as Gibbs has 
 changed," George said, as they drove home. "I am 
 amazed at him. Always fastidious, exacting, auto-
 
 256 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 cratic he's got a new viewpoint now. Well, now, 
 we've got to do our share. We mustn't lose heart. 
 The game isn't up yet, by a good deal." 
 
 Like Gibbs, Ellen was impatient to have these few 
 days over. She knew that she would be strong to face 
 the hard stretch beyond them, when, alone and dis 
 heartened, she must take up her fight for his liberty 
 and his name. But she could not gauge her present 
 strength for the hideous ordeal of parting with him, 
 and of having Tommy say good-bye to his father. Her 
 soul shrank from the mere thought, and she dreaded a 
 breakdown on her part, or on Gibbs's, that should undo 
 them all. 
 
 Lizzie had written her every day: of the pretty house 
 they had found in Bridgeport, of the walks and talks 
 she had with Tommy, and of Joe and his new work. 
 These letters at first had been ungrammatical, and full 
 of errors in spelling, but presently Ellen noticed a 
 great improvement. Lizzie had hit upon the heroic 
 expedient of asking Joe to correct them for her. Ellen 
 looked for them eagerly. The little stories of Tommy, 
 the assurance that he was well and happy, the pictures 
 of a well-capped and wrapped Tommy playing in a 
 glitter of snow, were an interest for Gibbs as well as 
 herself. 
 
 She tried to visualize the home: Lizzie silent, always 
 busy, Joe coming in tired and hungry, to romp with the 
 inexhaustible nephew. New work, new scenes, a new 
 family, how were these affecting the little brother? 
 Between the lines she could read that the human lives, 
 so suddenly uprooted, had not yet found their new soU 
 kindly.
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 257 
 
 "Joe works almost every evening," wrote Lizzie, in 
 a letter not corrected by Joe, "and he takes Tommy 
 out with him on Sunday. He always asks me will I 
 go, too, but I feel so badly about his having me always 
 to think about that sometimes I don't go. Now that 
 I am married, I can see that I should never have let 
 him talk me into it, for he is lonely here. But perhaps 
 it is partly worry about you, for we can't think of 
 nothing else but that. 
 
 "He eats well, and so does Tommy. And Tommy 
 is so old-fashioned that he is like having a grown person 
 to talk to. I don't know what I would do without him. 
 He says to tell you he made a chocolate custard, and 
 Uncle Joe bought him a bow and arrows." 
 
 Joe never wrote, but both Joe and Lizzie brought 
 Tommy to Port Washington in answer to Ellen's wire 
 a day after the sentence had been pronounced. The 
 child looked rosy and well, and leaped into his mother's 
 arms, instantly distracted from his first embraces by 
 her unfamiliar clothing. 
 
 "Why 'j'buy all black things, Mother?" 
 
 "Because Grandpa is dead, Sweetheart." 
 
 "Grandpa is!" he ejaculated. He pointed to the old 
 Captain in the adjoining room. "There's Grandpa!" 
 
 "Dad's father, Tom. You remember Grandpa 
 Josselyn, with the gold glasses?" 
 
 "Is he dead?" said the child, in a sweet, incurious 
 voice. 
 
 "You start your stumps out here, Tom, and come 
 and eat something!" Aunt Elsie said from the doorway. 
 "It's a long trip, for a child, and lunch or no lunch, I 
 should think you'd both like some milk and ginger 
 bread to stay your stomachs. How are you, Lizzie?"
 
 258 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 i . 
 
 i "Oh, I'm fine!" Lizzie, who looked badly, said 
 
 mildly. 
 
 "Is she really?" Ellen asked, when the old woman 
 had taken Tommy and Lizzie into the kitchen. - "I've 
 been wondering. It seems ages since we talked to 
 gether, Joe. I would have gone to the city, to meet you 
 
 and Tom, but I'm such a target now " She sighed 
 
 wearily. "I hate it all so! But tell me about Lizzie." 
 
 "She's all right." He smiled, ruefully. "She's a 
 sad little thing!" 
 
 "Sad?" 
 
 "Yep. She cries, and she's sorry she's wrecked my 
 life: all that sort of thing." 
 
 "And do you feel your life wrecked, Joe ? " Ellen asked 
 with a great ache at her heart for his quiet, hopeless 
 tone. 
 
 "Oh, no!" he said impatiently and gruffly. "What's 
 the difference, anyway?" 
 
 "Joe," Ellen said hesitatingly. "I'm sorry." 
 
 "I'm sorry for the whole thing," he echoed. "It's 
 a rotten morality that makes a girl feel that there's no 
 going back. No matter how sorry, and how good, she 
 is, there's always the feeling why, Ellen, I know re 
 spectable girls in this town that aren't fit to tie Lizzie's 
 shoes! Girls clever enough to make their bargains in 
 cold blood so much loving for a ring and an income 
 for life! Lizzie's a loving little thing she was starved 
 for someone to really care for she reached out for 
 love the way a scared kid might reach out for a kitten ! 
 And now she'll never feel herself quite like the others "- 
 he gave his sister a dubious smile "she hasn't let me 
 put my arm about her!" he confided. 
 
 "Hasn't!" she echoed, amazed.
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 259 
 
 "No." Joe smiled, got to his feet, and sighed. 
 "It's a fine old world!" he remarked drily. And then 
 with an abrupt change of subject: "I'm so sorry for 
 all this, Sis. I wish to God I could spare you this 
 afternoon. When do we go?" 
 
 "George calls at three," she answered quietly. "I 
 think I can get through it thinking of Gibbs. I'm 
 praying I'm praying that I can! It's the last pull, 
 you know and after this after this I can faint or be 
 sick or do anything else, for awhile!" 
 
 Wearily, she turned to go upstairs with Lizzie and 
 Tommy. Tommy was to lie down and have a favour 
 ite book read to him for an hour: the little boy was pre 
 sumably tired from his trip. Ellen left him when 
 George arrived, and came downstairs. 
 
 George, coming in at the hall door, and Joe, who 
 opened it to him, and Aunt Elsie, who came to the 
 dining-room door to greet him, looked at her in amaze 
 ment and vague alarm. Her face was pale, she was 
 breathing hard, and there was a strange, feverish 
 glitter in her blue eyes; she made a wild gesture that 
 detained them all, and caught George by the wrist. 
 He was instantly given the impression of exhaustion, 
 of desperate determination to say what must be said, 
 before the collapse. 
 
 To Ellen the air seemed suddenly thick and soft: she 
 felt it pressing against her. 
 
 "No wait a minute, Auntie! George and Joe, 
 too come in here don't go!" she stammered. She 
 half-dragged, half-led them into the little parlour. 
 "All stay," she said in a dry whisper. Joe had run 
 for a glass of water, and now knelt beside the chair into 
 which George had put her, and held it to her lips.
 
 260 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 "Thanks, dear," she whispered. Her eyes moved 
 about from face to face, and her lips moved drily. 
 Then suddenly she made a great struggle, as if for 
 air. 
 
 "My God, she's dying!" Mrs. Baldwin exclaimed. 
 But Ellen herself answered her: 
 
 "No, Auntie no, I'm all right!" And tightening 
 one hand on Joe's, and with the other clinging to 
 George, she said at last: "I've found out who did it, 
 George! I know who fired that shot!" 
 
 A silence spread like a fog over the little sitting room. 
 They all looked at her without speaking. 
 
 "I'll tell you about it " Ellen said, after another 
 
 drink of water. "It happened I mean my learning 
 about it half an hour ago. But I didn't dare do 
 anything until George got here." She had so far re 
 covered her composure that she could rise now, and she 
 spoke in an almost normal tone. "George," she said, 
 "I want you to sit here, and Joe and Auntie, will you 
 go into the back room: just behind the curtains, so 
 that you can hear everything?" And, as they be- 
 wilderedly but eagerly obeyed her instructions, she 
 stepped to the hall door, and called "Lizzie!" 
 
 Immediately Lizzie came downstairs, as white as 
 Ellen was, with Tommy clinging to her hand. The 
 little boy came running in to his mother, and Ellen 
 caught him in her arms. 
 
 "Here's Uncle George, dear!" she said. Tommy 
 indifferently felt himself drawn between the man's 
 knees. George looked dazedly at Ellen. "Now, 
 Tom," his mother said casually, "I want you to do 
 something for me. And if you do it nicely, I'm going 
 to read to you for one whole hour to-night!"
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 261 
 
 "Will you really, Moth'?" Tommy asked, his 
 eyes dancing. 
 
 "Yes, I truly will. Tommy, I want you to tell 
 Uncle George about that night at Wheatley Hills, 
 when you came down you know tell him all about 
 it!" 
 
 Tommy was looking at her with a guilty child's doubt 
 of his reception. 
 
 "Grandpa told me to!" he asserted, in self-defense. 
 "I was a captain, and he told me to!" 
 
 George glanced at Ellen : they exchanged one look. 
 
 "I was telling Tommy a little about the reason why 
 we left Wheatley Hills," Ellen explained. "And 
 he told me why he liked Wheatley Hills. Go on, 
 dear." 
 
 Tommy, encircled by George's arm, had his mouth 
 close to the man's ear. He spoke in a half-proud, half- 
 shamed voice. 
 
 "I said I was sorry about Grandpa, because I liked 
 to play in his study! And I said he let me fire his 
 pistol." 
 
 Again the man and woman exchanged a look of 
 consternation. 
 
 "Come! A kid like you couldn't fire a real pistol," 
 George said scorfingly. 
 
 "Well, I did fire it!" Tommy burst out boastfully. 
 "With two fingers on the trigger! I said I was a cap 
 tain and he said I oughtenter be afraid of my gun. I 
 fired it two times. He told me to!" Tommy illus 
 trated with a dramatic gesture. 
 
 Ellen saw George swallow, with a dry throat. She 
 heard him whisper "My God!" 
 
 "But, Tom how's that? You mean to tell me you
 
 262 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 fired the revolver like that about the room ? '' he asked 
 the child. 
 
 "Well-a," Tommy stammered, "it never went off those 
 first two times; it didn't make any noise. And he 
 said 'Good boy, old Tommy!" 
 
 Ellen caught a quick breath. She had heard him 
 call the child that a hundred times. 
 
 "He said, 'Good boy!'" George repeated, "and then 
 you pointed it at him?" 
 
 "No, then he told me about spies. He told me all 
 about them. And then I said, 'If you were a spy, Grand 
 pa, I'd fix you!' And he said, 'All right. I'm a spy. 
 I surrender/ And he said to me I must say, 'Have you 
 
 anything to say for that ," Tommy stumbled, 
 
 "Why he shouldn't be shot, you know," he explained. 
 
 "I see," George said, glancing at Ellen. 
 
 "So I said that, and he said no, he didn't have, and 
 I took the pistol again and shot at him. But that 
 time," Tommy went on serenely, "It did go off! I 
 thought it had burst. And some smoke came out. 
 And Grandpa sat like this " 
 
 He dropped into a chair in terrible verisimilitude to the 
 still form they had found in the study, three months ago. 
 Ellen glanced again at George: he was as pale as she. 
 
 "And then what, Tom?" 
 
 "Then I went over to him, and shook his arm, and he 
 didn't wake up. I thought he was fooling. And I 
 took the pistol and threw it away in the basket. I said: 
 'Grandpa, please wake up!' but he wouldn't. So I ran 
 to the door and called for Lizzie. - 1 called seventy or 
 twenty-five times, I guess." 
 
 "I see. I see, of course, but tell me," said George- 
 "where was Lizzie?"
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 263 
 
 "Why, she was up in Mother's room. I wasn't sure 
 that Grandpa was fooling, though maybe he was. I 
 was afraid purraps I'd hurt him " 
 
 "Then why didn't you run and tell your mother at 
 once if you thought so ? " 
 
 "Well-a, I didn't think I could have hurt him much 
 because he didn't say 'Ouch' or anything," Tommy 
 elucidated cheerfully. "And then I thought maybe 
 Lizzie would be cross at me for getting out of bed." 
 
 "Getting out of bed?" 
 
 "Yes, when I went downstairs. She said she'd tell 
 my father if I did it again. But she was still in 
 Mother's room when I got upstairs, so I got into bed and 
 thought I'd tell her Grandpa wanted to see her when 
 she came back." 
 
 "And why didn't you, Tommy?" 
 
 "I don't remember. I guess I went to sleep." 
 
 "And what made you go downstairs in the first 
 place, Tommy ? " his mother asked, her voice trembling 
 in spite of her effort for control. 
 
 " I couldn't go to sleep because you and Lizzie were 
 talking so loud and Lizzie was crying. I got up to get 
 a drink in the bathroom and I looked out into the hall, 
 the door was open and Grandpa was there and I 
 asked him what he was doing and he said he was sending 
 a telegram 
 
 "Yes, that's perfectly correct," George said. "We 
 found it on the hall table." 
 
 "So then he said 'Come on down and pay me a visit, 
 old scout!' and I went. And Mother told me next day 
 he was sick," Tommy went on pleasantly, as he worked 
 busily with the swivel of George's watch chain, "so 
 purraps that was when he was beginning to feel a little
 
 264 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 bit sick! If I was a spy, and they caught me" Tommy 
 added vaingloriously, "I'd shoot so fast, and my horse 
 would ride so fast, that I'd get away from them, whether 
 they liked it or not! I'd " 
 
 "Listen, Tom," George said. "Down at my place 
 at Sands Point, do you know what I've got? I've got 
 a shaggy little gentleman who came from the Isle of 
 Shetland " 
 
 "A pony!" Tommy whispered, his eyes alight. 
 "Mother, has he really got a pony?" he asked, digging 
 his dark hair into his mother's shoulder, and smiling in 
 bashful delight. 
 
 "I suppose he has," Ellen answered, smiling. 
 
 "And that pony," George said impressively, "will 
 be your pony if you'll do something for me!" 
 
 Tommy glanced at his mother, actually pale with joy. 
 
 "Mother he is going to give me that pony!" he 
 said, on an excited breath. "Oh, Mother, can I have 
 a pony ? He can stay at Hewlett's," he decided swiftly. 
 "Until we can have a little stable built for him! I 
 could build it or if a man came to do some of it, 
 I could help him ! All you need is planks and nails " 
 
 "But how about doing something for me? "George 
 asked. 
 
 "Sure!" said Tommy, in the manlike, careless voice 
 befitting the owner of a pony. "I'll do anything." 
 
 "I want you to come over to Mineola with Mother 
 and me," George said. "And tell all this to a man there 
 a friend of mine all about your grandfather, you 
 know, and the whole thing!" 
 
 "Why?" asked Tommy, round-eyed. 
 
 "That's just what I don't want you to ask, Tommy, 
 and just what I can't very well explain to you. /
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 265 
 
 don't ask you why you want this pony," George said 
 pointedly. "Now this man will ask you lots of ques 
 tions," he went on, " and you must answer them. And 
 if you can't remember anything, just say so." 
 
 "All right!" Tommy agreed indifferently. "Has 
 he got a saddle?" 
 
 "Mother's going to give you a saddle," Ellen prom 
 ised. She called Lizzie. " Lizzie, will you take Tommy 
 upstairs and read to him, and talk about the pony?" 
 she asked, with a significant look. And when they 
 were gone she turned to George, and she and George 
 and Joe stared at each other. 
 
 "That is the most extraordinary thing that has 
 come to me in the entire course of my profession," 
 George said, slowly, as if he had been stunned. "I 
 must get hold of Ryan at once. There's a point or 
 two what do you make of his saying he fired the pistol 
 twice ? " 
 
 "Lizzie's story agrees with that! She had loaded 
 it with only one shell," Ellen supplied quickly. "All 
 the chambers but one were empty!" 
 
 "It was like the old man I could hear his voice," 
 George mused, "'I surrender!' If I can get hold of 
 Ryan! Ellen, could you take the child over there at 
 once?" 
 
 "Anything anywhere ! " Her face clouded. " But, 
 George, they won't take that baby into court they 
 won't cross-examine Tommy ? " 
 
 "No no!" he said, smiling. "He'll simply talk to 
 him, and it will be taken down. You may trust Tommy 
 
 to me. 
 tt 
 
 And, George do you think? is there any hope? 
 Might they really clear Gibbs for a thing like this?"
 
 266 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 He put a hand on her shoulder, as she stood looking 
 fearfully up at him. Ellen never forgot the joy, the 
 tenderness, the sympathy in his eyes. 
 
 "My dear girl my dear girl I think that in a few 
 days Gibbs will walk into this house with you to have 
 dinner with the Captain and Aunt Elsie!" 
 
 The ecstasy of real hope, after the weeks of pretence! 
 The joy of action and hurry after so many days when 
 there had been nothing to do ! It was a lowering winter 
 day, but to Ellen it seemed as if the sun of June were 
 shining. 
 
 She ran upstairs, and while she and Lizzie and 
 Tommy chattered of the pony, her tones sang. She 
 dropped beside her old bed, to bury her burning face 
 and throbbing brain in her arms, and pray. And going 
 past Aunt Elsie's door she saw the old woman on her 
 knees, too, and the grizzled head bent against a gayly 
 coloured "Log Cabin" quilt. Ellen went in, they 
 laughed and wept together. 
 
 "Whatever 'tis, Ellen, you must pray to be resigned, 
 dear! But I hope and trust the good Lord, who knows 
 what's best for us all, has seen fit to lift your burden!" 
 said Aunt Elsie. 
 
 "I keep saying to myself that we'll know in a few 
 hours," Lizzie murmured, tying Tommy's Windsor 
 tie under his firm, round little chin. "Don't put that 
 pencil in your mouth, Tommy, now that your face is 
 all clean!" 
 
 "Lord, you couldn't stand this, sort of strain long!" 
 Joe remarked, when they were all in the Lathrop 
 limousine. 
 
 "Please God we won't have to stand it long," George
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 267 
 
 said, quietly. Ellen, glancing at the face she had 
 grown to love and trust, knew that he was stirred to the 
 deeps of his soul. 
 
 It was a strange drive, over snowy roads, and between 
 bare fields. The trees were leafless, the world hushed 
 under a sky of lead. It was Sunday, and in the villages 
 young people were laughing and talking, as they lounged 
 about station platforms and candy stores. But there 
 was no life on the roads, except when a trolley-car, 
 loaded with visiting women and babies, whined upon its 
 way. 
 
 Tommy talked incessantly, and everybody talked 
 to Tommy with unusual graciousness. Every foot of 
 the eight-mile trip had long ago become drearily fami 
 liar to Ellen, on her daily drives to and fro, but it had 
 never seemed as long as it did to-day. Yet they were 
 not twenty minutes on their way. 
 
 "George," she said, at parting on the court-house 
 steps, "I had better not say anything to Gibbs?" 
 
 "I certainly would," he answered, after a moment's 
 thought. 
 
 "Then then you're pretty sure, George?" 
 
 They exchanged a long look. The man nodded. 
 
 "So sure," he answered, "that I would not take 
 Tommy to see him to-day. I wouldn't have that 
 association in Tommy's mind, it seems to me." 
 
 "Oh, George but I can't believe it!" she said 
 dizzily. "If anything happens now I don't think I 
 can bear it!" 
 
 "I don't think anything will, Ellen," he said in his 
 quiet way. "Lizzie had better come with me, for they 
 might keep us waiting, and I don't want Tommy to be 
 frightened." He gave the child his hand. "Come on,
 
 268 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 Tommy!" he said. "You come with us, Lizzie, will 
 you? By the way, what are you going to name your 
 
 5 
 
 pony r 
 
 Ellen watched them up the steps. Then she turned 
 to Joe, and the hideous atmosphere of the jail enveloped 
 them. Ellen went quickly through the familiar doors 
 and gates. 
 
 "Will you wait here, Joe?" she asked, as they came 
 to a sort of central hallway where a sergeant sat reading 
 at a desk. And with a pathetic little attempt at 
 apology, which he found infinitely touching, she added: 
 "Gibbs will want to see you when he hears the good 
 news if it is good news! But just now he doesn't 
 like to see any one but me." 
 
 She greeted the man at the desk with a quiet sort of 
 dignity that impressed her brother. 
 
 "You haven't got the little boy?" the sergeant asked. 
 
 "No," she said, flustered. "I we thought it better 
 not to bring him!" 
 
 The man looked grave, came about his desk, and 
 said something in a low tone of which Joe only caught 
 the words "to-morrow morning." Ellen answered with 
 a nervous murmur of assent. 
 
 Two young men who were waiting rather ostenta 
 tiously near by came up to her, and she spoke to them 
 with patient courtesy. 
 
 "No, I did not bring the little boy to-day!" Joe heard 
 her say, smiling faintly but with evident distress at the 
 interruption, and turning as she spoke as if to end the 
 conversation. One of the yourig men detained her 
 with an imploring touch of his fingers on her sleeve. 
 
 "Just one moment I'm so sorry to trouble you!" 
 he said, with desperate and reluctant eagerness. "Will
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 269 
 
 you tell me just this one thing did Ryan come here, 
 just now, to meet Mr. Lathrop?" 
 
 She looked at him bewilderedly. 
 
 "Yes I think I may say that!" 
 
 "Did !" both of the young men exclaimed, exulting. 
 "Then then there's some chance of a new trial?'* 
 
 "I really, I couldn't say." Ellen looked about 
 as if for escape. " But if you will wait until I see Mr. 
 Lathrop you've all been so kind ! " she murmured, 
 appealingly. Joe, remembering his own brief newspa 
 per experience, could imagine the excitement with 
 which the press men would await a possible "break" 
 in the famous Josselyn case, as they returned to their 
 waiting. 
 
 Ellen turned, and went hastily away, Joe watching 
 her go : the big jail was very still in the winter afternoon. 
 
 She was familiar with every step of the way, now, 
 the small corridor smelling of cement, the longer corrider 
 beyond, the door of Gibbs's celL It was unlocked for 
 her, she always went inside. 
 
 The first few minutes with him, when she became 
 afresh accustomed to the appalling atmosphere of the 
 jail, were always terrible to Ellen. To-day, as she 
 reached Gibbs, her trembling confidence and new-born 
 hope shrivelled, and she had a sickening sensation of 
 doubt. Could anything anything prevail against the 
 power of these dark walls, this inhuman machine? 
 
 He was sitting on his bed, in the narrow space, and 
 she sat beside him. He looked ill and wretched, and 
 did not rise as she came in, nor move except to raise his 
 haggard eyes. The guard, at the door, walked away. 
 
 "Hello, dear," Gibbs said lifelessly. "Did Tommy 
 
 come r
 
 270 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 "I had an order from the Court that you might come 
 into the sergeant's office to see Tommy," Ellen an 
 swered, trembling so violently that she was hardly 
 conscious of what she was saying. "But, Gibbs, we 
 thought it best not to bring him." 
 
 He nodded, looking down at his clasped hands. 
 Ellen gave the dropped patient head, the beautiful 
 idle fingers, and the whole drooping figure a look of 
 infinite compassion. 
 
 "But you don't ask me why we decided that," she 
 said, in smiling accusation. 
 
 Instead of answering he raised his hand, with her 
 own still resting on it, and she saw her fingers shak 
 ing. 
 
 "Poor little Ellen!" he said tenderly. 
 
 His tone brought tears to her eyes, and she made a 
 quick gesture of impatience. She must not cry now. 
 
 "Gibbs, dear," she said, her tone quivering treach 
 erously. "The reason was, that George thinks he 
 has new evidence." 
 
 "I knew he was trying to find some," Gibbs said 
 wearily. 
 
 "You know, I'm so afraid of going into hysterics, 
 or fainting, or something," Ellen said childishly. 
 "That I want you not to say you don't believe me 
 when I tell you something." 
 
 "George really hopes for a new trial, hey?" Gibbs 
 mused. "This jury was out five hours, Ellen they 
 were five for murder in the first degree, on the first 
 ballot. I I can't see that old George is right in 
 pushing this thing to the wall " 
 
 "Look at me,^dear," Ellen said, taking both his hands. 
 "Look at me. Try to understand what I am saving;.
 
 . JOSSELYN'S WIFE 27* 
 
 We think we think that the the murderer has 
 confessed." 
 
 "You think!" he echoed, his tone suddenly harsh. 
 "What do you mean? Don't you know?" 
 
 "We will know," she said, trembling. "We will 
 know in a little while now. Gibbs, I'll tell you just 
 how it all came about. Lizzie and Joe and Tommy 
 came down from Bridgeport this morning, and it 
 was while I was keeping Tommy quiet for it's a long 
 trip for a child that he suddenly said something 
 about Grandpa. Lizzie and I were not listening 
 exactly, but the words seemed to come back to me 
 as words do, you know, and I said, as quietly as I could, 
 'What did you say Grandpa let you do?' 
 
 "He said 'Fire his revolver!" Ellen's words fell in 
 a tense silence. Gibbs looked at her with awakening 
 eyes. 
 
 "My God my God!" he whispered. 
 
 "Well, we looked at him, and I was so afraid I'd 
 frighten him, or make him self-conscious, that I could 
 hardly get any roice. But Lizzie asked him when 
 this was, and he told us the whole thing. That he had 
 wandered to the top of the stairs in his nightgown, and 
 Grandpa was walking across the lower hall: he had just 
 put a telegram on the hall table, for Torrens to take in 
 the morning, and he called Tom down. Tommy said 
 that he wanted to play with the chessmen, and he 
 opened the table drawer Gibbs, you would be 
 amazed how clearly he told it! He said Grandpa was 
 sitting in that very chair, and Gibbs, he even took the 
 
 attitude ! He said that he saw the pistol, and 
 
 Grandpa said. 'Take it out, Tommy, it's not loaded."' 
 
 "He couldn't possibly have loaded it. dear, with
 
 272 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 Dad looking on. And my father surely wouldn't have 
 had it loaded !" 
 
 "But, Gibbs, Lizzie had loaded it that morning!" 
 
 "God!" Gibbs said again, under his breath. 
 
 "And this part, Gibbs, is so strange! He fired it 
 twice, your father directing him. He fired first at 
 some target over the mantel, and then somewhere 
 else " 
 
 "Couldn't pull the trigger !" Gibbs said breath 
 lessly. 
 
 "Oh, indeed he did! He fired twice, but you see 
 those chambers were empty. And, Gibbs, he says 
 that Grandpa said to him 'Good old Tommy!' You 
 remember how he used to say that? Then they had 
 some talk about soldiers, and finally your father was a 
 spy and the amazing thing is, Gibbs, to hear Tommy 
 tell it every few minutes he would put in something 
 that the testimony had developed, and Lizzie and I 
 would look at each other! I couldn't realize it 
 the importance of it, but I knew George was on his 
 way, and that he would know! Well, and then Tom 
 got frightened, and he tried to rouse your father, and 
 threw the pistol in the basket, and ran out and called 
 for Lizzie. But Lizzie, of course, didn't hear. He 
 wasn't sure whether your father was fooling or not, but 
 the noise of the report had frightened him. He was 
 afraid he'd be scolded for getting out of bed and 
 going downstairs so when he found Lizzie was not in 
 the room, he got into bed and before she came in, he 
 fell asleep. The next day, of course, we carefully kept 
 any of the excitement from him 
 
 "What does George think about it?" 
 
 "Well, I don't know. But he telephoned the Dis~
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 273 
 
 trict Attorney immediately, and Ryan is here now 
 talking to George, and to Tommy. Oh, Gibbs 
 Gibbs!" she broke off feverishly. "It's made me 
 I can't tell you so nervous! I can't tell you " 
 
 "I know!" he interrupted nervously. "We mustn't 
 allow ourselves to think about it !" 
 
 "Could a child Tommy's age testify, Gibbs?" 
 
 "I don't know, dear." 
 
 "And if they believe this, does it mean a new 
 trial?" 
 
 "It might, I don't know." 
 
 "We can only wait." Ellen tightened her fingers 
 on his, and they sat silent. 
 
 A messenger came to the officer at the cell's door 
 who spoke a moment later to Ellen. Would Mrs. 
 Josselyn step into the warden's office a minute, to 
 speak to Mr. Lathrop? Ellen, with one quick flutter 
 of breath, smiled a good-bye to Gibbs, and was gone. 
 
 In the warden's office she found George and the 
 District Attorney. 
 
 "Good afternoon, Mrs. Josselyn," Ryan said. 
 Ellen, smiling faintly, tried to read his rosy, complac 
 ent face. "This is a most extraordinary turn of 
 events," he said. "This little fellow had the secret' 
 up his sleeve all the time, eh?" 
 
 Ellen felt almost faint with the revulsion this change 
 in his manner gave her. Ryan had always been sharp, 
 suspicious, menacing, before. She wanted to ask: 
 "You believe it, then?" but quick intuition told her 
 that that must wait. So she asked instead : 
 
 " Tommy talked, did he? He answered you/ 
 questions ? "
 
 274 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 "He is an extremely intelligent child," Ryan re 
 marked. "Gave his testimony like a little man. 
 Nothing that we could say could shake him." 
 
 "Not that Mr. Ryan was very hard on him," George 
 smiled. "He certainly has the right manner with a 
 child." 
 
 Ellen knew that George never wasted words. She 
 was quick to take her cue. 
 
 "You have children, Mr. Ryan?" 
 
 "I have three three girls." The District Attorney's 
 voice, the voice that she had heard so sharp and harsh, 
 was soft and tender now. 
 
 "This is a smart little fellow of yours," he continued. 
 "We put him through a pretty sharp half-hour. He 
 stuck to it. I I won't deny that I think this changes 
 the entire aspect of affairs, Mrs. Josselyn. I've al 
 ready advised the sheriff to delay the the transfer of 
 Mr. Josselyn." 
 
 "There may be a new trial?" Ellen asked, trembling. 
 For answer Daniel Ryan smiled at her, and there 
 was something so kindly, so reassuring, in that red 
 face, when it smiled, that she felt a melting, a breaking 
 up of coldness and hate, in her heart. Hate changed 
 suddenly to love and fear changed to confidence. Ellen 
 experienced the most poignant of all human emotions. 
 
 "We may not even have it go to trial," George 
 supplied. 
 
 "May nqt?" she echoed, choking. 
 
 "No," Ryan confirmed it. "There is no question 
 for a jury. I don't know of a parallel case," he said 
 thoughtfully. "But I should suppose that it would 
 only be necessary to put this evidence before the 
 Court, with suitable testimony to its genuineness,
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 275 
 
 to have the whole case dismissed!" He turned to the 
 warden. "May we see Mr. Josselyn?" he asked, with 
 the quiet manner of a man making a request sure to be 
 granted. 
 
 "Where is Tom?" Ellen asked, while they waited. 
 
 "We sent him home, with Lizzie. Mr. Ryan asked 
 her not to let him talk about this matter, and you'll 
 see to that, too, Ellen?" 
 
 "We might need him again," Ryan said. 
 
 Gibbs, followed by the inevitable guard, came in, 
 and they turned to him. His silver crest was, as al 
 ways, as smooth as satin, but he looked ill-groomed 
 and haggard; worst of all, he looked beaten. There 
 were lead-coloured circles about his dark, anxious 
 eyes, and his manner had a certain nervous apprehen- 
 siveness that was unlike its old imperial certainty. 
 He had been overpowered, disbelieved, he had been 
 triumphantly convicted of one of the most hideous 
 crimes in the calendar of crime, he faced years 
 twenty interminable years or all the rest of his life 
 of moral and mental degradation, of social ostracism. 
 This brisk, positive District Attorney was master here. 
 
 "Mr. Josselyn," Ryan said, "has your wife in 
 formed you that we have found some most important 
 testimony bearing upon your case?" 
 
 "You regard it so, Mr. Ryan?" Gibbs said lifelessly. 
 
 "I regard it as more than important. I regard it 
 as so vital that I feel free to congratulate you upon it, 
 Mr. Josselyn, upon a miraculous escape from an error 
 of the law. And I hope to God," Ryan added, "that we 
 will soon find means to get you out of here!" 
 
 "I thank you," Gibbs answered briefly. But 
 Ellen saw his lip tremble.
 
 276 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 "Gibbs my dear, dear boy!" George stammered, 
 taking both his hands. 
 
 Ellen had a quick sensation of faintness and nausea. 
 She looked bravely at George, and smiled waveringly. 
 
 "We we mustn't be too sure " she stammered. 
 A moment later the harsh, whitewashed walls and the 
 rodded doors, the warden's desk, and the tall, bare win 
 dows, vanished. She saw them all blur together, like 
 a picture in a bubble, and, like the bubble, suddenly 
 become flecked with widening black spots. Then every 
 thing was black.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 ON A quiet September morning, about a year and a 
 half later, a young man, his pretty wife, and their very 
 small baby, got out of the long train of dusty Pullman 
 coaches at the dry, sleepy little California town of Los 
 Antonios. From the station platform, with eyes 
 eager for new impressions, they looked down the small 
 straggling Main Street, where "The Red Front" 
 dry-goods store, the "Palace Picture Plays," and "The 
 L'Accomodacion" millinery, in their hideous brightness 
 of paint and glass, were scattered among the older 
 adobe buildings, blank-faced buildings, with narrow 
 porches running across the upper floors. There was a 
 small bank, its wooden steps baking in the sunshine, 
 just opposite the station, flanked by two open markets, 
 where figs and sprawling grapes made an unfamiliar 
 note among the tomatoes and peaches. Dusty farm' 
 wagons were tied along the curb, and between them 
 stood occasional motor-cars. To these wagons a 
 burdened man or woman sometimes made approach; 
 various bundles and boxes were stowed away: apples, 
 coiled rope, groceries, a great unwieldy lump from the 
 butcher store, a smoothly wrapped armful from "The 
 Red Front." There was lively coming and going at the 
 post office. It chanced to be a Saturday morning, 
 and Los Antonios was experiencing the busiest business 
 hour of the week. 
 
 After a smiling survey of the scene, during which 
 
 277
 
 278 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 they were apparently entirely unnoticed, the man 
 crossed the street to the bank, and asked a question 
 of the teller. 
 
 "Sure you can: you can fome from here," said that 
 delicate, blond, moustached official pleasantly, "Fome 
 Murphy's Garage, and they'll take you up there. The 
 Josselyns who have the old Perry place, isn't it? Sure, 
 it's about six miles out of town, up in the hills." He 
 meditated a second, and then with a sudden burst of 
 interest he added, "Say, Mrs. Josselyn was in here 
 about a minute ago! Know her car? Her car must 
 be right outside here." 
 
 And he obligingly stepped to the door with the new 
 comer, and looked up and down the street. 
 
 "That's the car," he said, indicating one that had 
 been left empty before the post office door. "If 
 you get in there and wait for Mrs. Josselyn, she'll be 
 right out of somewheres. Visiting here?" 
 
 "I'm just in from New York," said the new arrival, 
 smiling, "I'm her brother." 
 
 "That so ? " The blond teller was pleased. "You'll 
 not get any weather like this there!" he added com 
 placently, going back to his cage. 
 
 Joe went across the street again, and took the baby 
 from its mother's arms. 
 
 "That's Ellen's car, there!" he said, smiling ner 
 vously. Lizzie did not speak. Her cheeks were burn 
 ing with excitement. For four months she and Joe 
 had talked of going to California to see Ellen, but it 
 seemed a mad dream to her still. "I can't believe 
 we're here!" Joe echoed her thought. "In a few 
 minutes we'll see her!" 
 
 "Oh, don't!" Lizzie said faintly. With the baby
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 279 
 
 on one arm, and the big suitcase in his free hand, Joe 
 went to the waiting motor, and Lizzie, carrying the little 
 suitcase, followed. He put his wife and baby in the 
 tonneau, where various packages were already piled, 
 but was too nervous himself to join them there, and 
 walked up and down the sidewalk instead, turning his 
 head whenever a screen-door banged, to look for 
 Ellen. 
 
 Suddenly they saw her, in a doorway ,a hundred 
 feet away, talking to some other marketing woman. 
 The same Ellen, with her blue honest eyes, and her 
 sensitive, sweet mouth, with white-shod feet, and a 
 soft white hat crushed over her dark hair, and a trim 
 little striped gingham gown showing under her loose 
 dust coat. There was some new quality in her face and 
 manner: what was it? responsibility, gravity, tender 
 ness, Joe could not tell. 
 
 He walked up to her, and she raised surprised eyes. 
 
 "Mornin', Mis' Josselyn!" 
 
 The puzzled look in her eyes changed swiftly, and 
 she put her hands out and caught at him vaguely, as 
 if to hold a dream. For a few seconds she held him at 
 arm's length, staring at him amazedly, then with a 
 little sound between laughter and tears she put her 
 arms about him in the old way. 
 
 "Joe Latimer! Joe!" She groped for her handker 
 chief, laughing as she wiped her eyes; tears of joy 
 stood in his own. "But Joe dear, what brings you 
 here! I simply can't believe it! I can't believe my 
 eyes!" she said. 
 
 "Lizzie brought me!" Joe grinned. Ellen dropped 
 his hand to go swiftly to the motor-car. 
 
 "Lizzie!" she echoed radiantly. Her eyes fell upon
 
 280 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 the bundle in Lizzie's arms, across which Lizzie must 
 lean to return her kiss. "But but what!" Ellen 
 stammered. "You you two haven't got a bavy?" 
 
 Joe thought that one moment was worth all the 
 fatigue of the long trip. 
 
 "Haven't we!" he said, as Ellen, standing on the 
 curb, with the precious bundle in her arms, opened 
 the tissues that screened the tiny face, and bent her 
 own cheek against the warm, unresponsive little cheek. 
 
 "And such a tiny one!" she exulted. "But how old 
 is he? And you never wrote me a word!" 
 
 "Well, the truth was, we didn't know it ourselves 
 until most people have got everything ready down to 
 the last safety-pin!" Joe explained. 
 
 "And then I was so sick I didn't reallydream itwould 
 all come out right!" Lizzie added eagerly. "We 
 planned to keep it a secret until it was over. And 
 then Joe got your birthday present, and he said, 'Lizzie, 
 we'll take the baby out to call on Aunt Ellen!'" 
 
 "Well, I have never had such a delicious surprise 
 in my life!" Ellen exclaimed. "You darling!" she 
 crooned to the baby. "What did you name him, Joe?" 
 
 "We thought a good name for him would be Ellen," 
 grinned Joe. It was good to hear her old laugh again, 
 and see the pleasure in her eyes as she glanced from 
 face to face. 
 
 "Named for me? My own tiny niece! Ah, Joe, 
 you make me proud!" She gave the baby back to 
 Lizzie, and stood for a moment, resting her hands on 
 the car door, and still trying to regain her breath after 
 the surprise. "Well, now, I'll take you home! I 
 may have something else to do while I'm in town, but 
 it has gone completely out of my head, if I have!" she
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 281 
 
 said. "Get in front with the baby, Lizzie: then the 
 shield will screen her, and Joe can lean over and talk 
 to us both. I can't wait to get home, to show Gibbs 
 what I've brought with me!" 
 
 Talking of little, inconsequent things, as those who 
 love each other, and who meet after years, always must 
 do at first, they drove through the dusty street, and 
 past flat fields where great oaks threw blots of shade 
 on the shining brown grass, and so climbed a curving 
 road into the hills. From the top, where Ellen stopped 
 the car for a few minutes, they could look down upon 
 the sparkling sapphire of the Pacific, and see the idle 
 creaming waves along the rocky shore. The soft 
 curves of the hills, falling away below them, were clad 
 with scrub pine and cypress now; on flat green meadows 
 by the marshes a dairy farm slept in the sunshine. 
 When the car stood still, they could hear the sleepy, 
 incessant murmur of the ocean. 
 
 Here and there on the slopes a brown bungalow 
 clung, half hidden in trees. Ellen pointed at a sloping 
 roof, halfway between the ridge and the shore. 
 
 "That's the house," she told them. "It belonged to 
 a Mr. Perry, who knew Gibbs, you know, and he loaned 
 it to us at first. But we loved it so we couldn't 
 think of moving away, and a year ago Gibbs bought 
 it." 
 
 "It's the loveliest place I ever saw!" Lizzie said, in an 
 awed tone. 
 
 "It's a wonderful life to me," Ellen admitted 
 thoughtfully. And as she made no motion to start 
 the car, but sat twisted about in her seat, looking down 
 vaguely at the sea, Joe wondered again what that new 
 look in her eyes meant. "We can't get enough of it,"
 
 282 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 she added. "It's all so deliciously simple, and so 
 free: like being children again. It's taken us back to 
 our summers in Brittany. We all sleep out, and 
 sometimes I sleep twelve hours, and get up so wonder 
 fully gay and fresh, just eager for breakfast, and what 
 ever happens to be coming along, exactly like Tommy ! 
 We wander about the garden, or take our lunch down 
 to the shore, and I pick up shells or read to Gibbs 
 and little things seem so big," smiled Ellen, "and the 
 big things don't come our way at all! Gibbs gets his 
 New York paper, six days old, and we have all the 
 magazines, and all the books we want, and now and 
 then, of course, we have company. George and 
 Harriet were here in in July, I think it was. Gibbs's 
 friends are always going and coming through San Fran 
 cisco, and they come down! And we're always pro 
 viding for the day we get bored, by saying that we 
 could go up to the city for a week," she finished cheer 
 fully. "But somehow we don't go!" 
 
 "Lord, what air!" Joe said, with a deep breath. 
 The sweet odour of the pines was drifting through 
 the still warmth. From the dry fields they could 
 hear the shrilling of grasshoppers. 
 
 "Oh, it's marvellous, Joe. December is apt to 
 have days like this, and February is a great month for 
 picnics!" Ellen said, eagerly. "What I wanted to 
 say to you," she added, a little uncertainly, "was I 
 thought I would just tell you " 
 
 They were appalled to hear a sudden thickening in 
 her voice, and to see that her utmost effort could not 
 keep her eyes from watering. 
 
 *'You know that Gibbs hasn't been well, don't you?" 
 she asked, hastily.
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 283 
 
 ''You wrote that he wasn't well, some time ago " 
 
 Joe began hesitatingly. 
 
 "You'll see a change," Ellen added. "And of 
 course you mustn't let him see that you see it." 
 
 "Ellen, he's not ill? My Lord, and we land down 
 here on you !" Joe exclaimed. 
 
 "No no no!" she protested. "He's up, and all 
 that, and he'll be perfectly delighted to see you! But 
 
 he looks he looks " She lost control of her voice 
 
 again. 
 
 "I should think this climate would build him up 
 again," Lizzie ventured, a little timidly. Joe looked 
 at her gratefully, and Ellen quickly grasped the thread 
 of comfort. 
 
 "Oh, Lizzie, it will they all say it will!" she said 
 eagerly wiping her eyes. But immediately they 
 brimmed again, and the dark head and the crushed 
 white hat went down on the back of the seat; she burst 
 into tears. "Oh, Joe Joe Joe! He's not going to 
 get well!" she sobbed. 
 
 "Ellen!" Joe said, aghast. 
 
 "Oh, I know it," Ellen said presently, lifting her 
 head, and resolutely regaining her self-control. "I 
 know it! I am sure he does, too. I'm sorry to break 
 down this way, but I don't often have a chance," she 
 added penitently, with a watery smile. "I never let 
 him see that that it's killing me, too." 
 
 "But, Ellen, what is it?" Lizzie asked fearfully. 
 
 "Well, he was sick, after that terrible two months, 
 you know," Ellen said, reflectively. "He looked 
 don't you remember how he looked ? " 
 
 "Like a ghost," Joe said. 
 
 "Like a ghost, yes. I wanted to go back to Paris,
 
 284 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 but everything is changed there anyway, and then one 
 day Doctor Cutter said, just casually, 'I'd go some 
 where where it's hot and dry, Ellen. He's been under 
 a terrible mental and physical strain and he's managed 
 to get a heavy cold, and there's a little affection of 
 the lung. Joe, how could I ever dream it was that ! 
 We came to Santa Barbara, and the Perrys wrote us 
 about Los Antonios, and Gibbs did seem better, he ate 
 well, and slept pretty well 
 
 Her voice dropped to utter silence, and they could 
 hear the steady, soft rush of the sea again. Far down, 
 on a crescent of white beach, a thousand gulls rose sud 
 denly from a sandy reef, fluttered about in great curves, 
 and settled again. 
 
 "But after awhile," Ellen presently went on, "I saw 
 that he wasn't gaining I saw that he wasn't gaining! 
 He began to have bad nights, and he didn't eat so 
 
 well ! After awhile I wrote the Santa Barbara 
 
 doctor, and he wrote back that just before we left 
 Gibbs had been in to see him, and that he thought he 
 could not improve upon his instructions then: to sleep 
 in the open air, and live simply, and not catch cold. 
 So Gibbs knows, but he never spoke of that call to 
 me. 
 
 "Lately," she finished, "he has been keeping to his 
 couch a good deal, he doesn't join us in gardening or 
 picnics, as he did last year. Well! I only wanted to 
 warn you. Perhaps it is my own fancy, partly. And, 
 Joe what a year we have had! A whole year of 
 Paradise, nothing but each other, and Tom, music, and 
 books and the garden, and the ocean! It has blotted 
 out all the bitterness wiped out the past. The Perrys 
 called the house 'Arcady,' and we've kept the name
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 285 
 
 at first for convenience with the tradespeople, but now 
 because we know it fits!" 
 
 She started the car down the grade, presently turning 
 in at an opening in a stone wall that was so smothered 
 in vines, so closely surrounded by low, sprawling oaks, 
 and so much in harmony with the colour scheme of 
 greens and browns about it as to be almost invisible. 
 Along the road they followed now garden flowers and 
 trees had been mingled with the native growth: roses 
 climbed into the oak and cypress and pepper trees, 
 nasturtiums blazed against a whitewashed adobe wall. 
 Presently they came to a long lattice buried in sweetpea 
 vines, the bird-like flowers poised as if for flight. 
 
 "Oh, pretty!" Lizzie said, involuntarily. They 
 were close to the house now, and its lower windows 
 were packed about with bloom: bushy marguerites, 
 heliotrope in purple and lavender flower, stock, velvet 
 wallflowers, verbena in purest white and pink, and 
 cream and salmon roses climbing the dark shingles. 
 
 "This is the back of the house," Ellen smiled. 
 "You see my gardener is Japanese, and one of their 
 theories is that because a thing is useful it needn't 
 necessarily be hideous. My dishtowels are blue-and- 
 white poems, and the garbage barrels are fat little green 
 buckets that stand in a little niche of vines. Welcome, 
 you darlings! Give me that angel, Lizzie, I want to 
 show her to Gibbs ! " 
 
 She led them through the wide side hall, where great 
 logs waited in a stone fireplace, and bowls of flowers 
 glowed in a tempered light. Everywhere was sim 
 plicity, space, and beauty, whether the windows pressed 
 close to the oak trees, or gave a wide view of the shining 
 ocean.
 
 286 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 A glass double door gave upon the great front veran 
 da, and here Ellen ran with the baby. 
 
 "I want you to meet Ellen Latimer, Gibbs !" 
 
 It was well that they had been warned of what change 
 they might find in him, for Lizzie caught a quick breath 
 as she saw him, and it required all Joe's presence of 
 mind to go forward and greet him naturally. Fortu 
 nately the surprise and confusion of the meeting covered 
 any awkwardness, and before the laughter and excite 
 ment had died away the newcomers had grown some 
 what used to the altered aspect of the man on the wide 
 couch. 
 
 He was still handsome, Gibbs would always be that. 
 But he was painfully thin, and seemed strangely aged. 
 His dark, splendid eyes shone in a thin face whose 
 temples blazed sometimes with an uneasy colour. The 
 ring he always wore was loose on the fine long hand. 
 His hair was an even silvery white. 
 
 His manner was changed, too. There was a gravity, 
 a sweetness, and a certain heroic serenity about him 
 that seemed to lift them all into the plane of simple 
 endurance and renunciation. Lizzie and Joe knew, 
 as they settled laughing into porch chairs to talk tG 
 him, that Ellen's worst fears were none too grave. 
 
 Like Gibbs himself, they must accept the thing as a 
 finality. There was no dispute. They found themselves 
 suddenly confident and gay, as human beings, forced to 
 accept their own helplessness, usually become. This was 
 in the nature of a catastrophe: it was almost as if they 
 had come to California to find that Gibbs was dead. 
 
 The exquisite hours went on. Below the dark, cool 
 space of the porch the Pacific spread in a glittering
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 287 
 
 band. The little crescent of white sand that was their 
 own beach was bared by a lazily receding tide. The 
 garden odours and the resinous smell of the pines were 
 permeated by the bracing salt breath of the sea. 
 
 Ellen took Lizzie to the guest-house: a room with 
 windows on three sides, a bathroom at the back, and 
 a winding stair going up to the big sleeping-porch 
 above, which was as open as a deck. A path of flat, 
 deeply-embedded stones, with grass sprouting about 
 them, led to the main house. The kitchen was also 
 in a separate little building, and the Chinese cook and 
 his son, who was the house-boy, had their own tiny 
 dwelling smothered in honeysuckle. Everywhere was 
 the same riot of bloom, the same tumbling and crowding 
 of flowers, against the exquisite background of the 
 oaks and the low manzanitas. 
 
 "Little Ellen can sputter and scold here as much as 
 she pleases," Ellen said, putting the baby on the white 
 bed. "I think my gardener's wife will come up from 
 Los Antonios to take care of her. We'll send Adachi 
 in this afternoon." 
 
 "Ellen," her brother said, squaring her about for 
 another kiss in brotherly fashion, "are we butting in?' 1 
 
 "Joe, dear! If you can only be happy here, puttering 
 about with us, it will do us all a world of good ! " 
 
 She looked appealingly straight into his eyes as she 
 said it, but she did not ask him the expected question. 
 Ellen was afraid of the words. 
 
 When Pong, the house-boy, in his plum colour and 
 paie green, came noiselessly to the porch to announce 
 luncheon, Tommy burst in, a sturdy brown Tommy, 
 frantic with excitement at seeing his adored uncle and 
 aunt again. He was with difficulty persuaded to rush
 
 288 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 off and transfer some of the dirt on his hands to a 
 towel, and returned with the centre lock of his bushy 
 hair dampened and combed amid a tousled mass that 
 had not been touched. 
 
 Yet even in Tommy Joe saw the change that a great 
 shadow brings to even the children of a household. 
 He was all tenderness and devotion with his father, 
 and he had a most unchildish fashion of entering into 
 his mother's mood. When the grass under the oaks 
 was barred with straight lines of shadow from the 
 sinking sun, and a lingering twilight fell flat and soft 
 over the ocean, Tommy, like the others, fell silent, 
 his dark head resting against his father's arm, a big 
 book opened on his knees. And when Ellen presently 
 called him, there was none of the usual childish protest. 
 He went in, and they heard Ellen's fingers on the piano, 
 and then the tones of his violin. 
 
 "He plays wonderfully!" Lizzie said, when the 
 simple air died away. 
 
 "He plays well for such a child," Gibbs conceded. 
 "And he loves it, which is half the battle. I hope 
 Ellen will make a musician of him ! " 
 
 Lizzie winced away from the quiet intimation that 
 Ellen alone must control Tommy's destiny, but Joe 
 missed the inference, and said surprisedly: 
 
 "Do you really want him to be a musician?" 
 
 "I think so," Gibbs answered. "A man with tem 
 perament is wretched in any one of the fast-bound 
 professions. Art is a safety-valve; it will make him an 
 exacting mistress!" 
 
 He was silent again; the others knew that he saw 
 the Ellen of the years to come with the growing boy 
 beside her.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 Two or three days later Gibbs proposed a beach 
 luncheon. Ellen, brightly indifferent when he first 
 suggested it, was fired with sudden enthusiasm and 
 delight when it transpired that he himself planned to 
 go, too. 
 
 "Gibbs ! It won't tire you ! " 
 
 "Tire me! Half a mile straight down-hill!" 
 
 "Oh, that's splendid! And it's such a glorious morn 
 ing! And I've chops and I think he has a cake 
 
 Ellen flashed off to the kitchen, where she and Lizzie 
 were presently in the full glory of packing. Lizzie 
 heard her tell Adachi to bring the car down to the 
 ">each at half-past three, but her face was radiant all 
 die while. "Oh, he is better!" she said over and 
 over again, as she buttered bread and trimmed oiled 
 paper. 
 
 They set off in a straggling line: Tommy leaping 
 ahead with his dog, and circling them as senselessly; 
 Gibbs and Joe following, the latter with his tiny daugh 
 ter in his arms. After them came Ellen with a plaid 
 and an umbrella, Lizzie with the two thermos bottles, 
 and Pong with the loaded basket. 
 
 "I have never seen a man as infatuated with a tiny 
 scrap of humanity as Joe is with the baby!" Ellen 
 smiled. "Does it make you jealous, Lizzie?" 
 
 "Oh, Ellen, no!" Lizzie said, horrified. "I didn't 
 realize I don't think he did what the baby was going 
 
 289
 
 290 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 to mean!" she added presently. "The night she was 
 born I'll never forget his face! I had been ill, you 
 know, all the time, and I had thought sometimes that 
 I mightn't live, and that that was the way it was all 
 to end! And then came that fearful pain and be 
 wilderment " 
 
 "I know!" Ellen nodded. 
 
 "And when I suddenly came out of it all, and found 
 there was nothing wrong, but a sweet little girl asleep 
 in a crib, why, it all seemed to clear itself!" Lizzie 
 explained. "And Joe came and sat staring at the baby, 
 and after awhile he said: 'You ought to see her 
 breathe, Lizzie, and the way she works her little 
 fingers!' I laughed and said: 'Didn't you think she 
 was going to breathe?' And he looked at me, sort of 
 puzzled, and said: 'Gosh, Lizzie, I don't know what 
 I thought!'" 
 
 Lizzie laughed merrily, and Ellen laughed with her. 
 
 "But I knew what he meant," Lizzie resumed, 
 "for we both were really amazed to find ourselves well 
 
 and young and at home again, with this darling ! 
 
 And I said to myself, Ellen, that the past was gone. 
 I was Joe's wife, and Ellen's mother, and the happiest 
 and richest woman in the world ! If God forgives us, 
 sometimes I think it's a sin not to forgive ourselves. 
 So if ever I find myself blue, I just think that." 
 
 "And the consequence is, that you don't find your 
 self blue!" Ellen said gaily. 
 
 "Oh, I'm too happy! Joe Lizzie said. She 
 gave Ellen a bride's half-shamed, half-mischievous, 
 smile "Joe is an angel!" announced Lizzie. 
 
 Then they were at the beach, and the centre of a 
 joyous activity. Gibbs was settled, with the plaid,
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 29i 
 
 on a warm curve of rocks, where he pulled his cap over 
 his eyes, and watched them all placidly. Lizzie found 
 another natural chair, where she sank down with her 
 baby, gazing with dreamy content at the glittering 
 water, steeped in the peace that the tugging, busy little 
 lips at her breast seemed to enhance rather than inter 
 rupt. Then little Ellen was settled on the pillows 
 under the umbrella, and Lizzie gaily joined the workers. 
 A hundred times, on this memorably happy day, Ellen 
 found herself watching Lizzie's little white figure, her 
 happy, youthful face. Lizzie was just twenty: what 
 might have been her destiny at twenty ? 
 
 Joe was trimming bamboo sticks to serve as broilers. 
 Enamelled cups were set out upon a smooth rock. The 
 delicious smoke of a driftwood fire began to rise in 
 the still air. The tide was falling, but an occasional 
 great wave came bubbling through the rocks, and 
 caused a joyous panic. Tommy slipped and scrambled 
 about, gathering starfish, sea-urchins, and periwinkles 
 to domicile in a pool. 
 
 The tireless, sweet green water rose and fell; each 
 wave formed an emerald arch of itself before it broke 
 with a long, splitting crash, to rush in, level and in 
 credibly swift, flinging itself upward against impeding 
 rocks, and curving over the white sand. Gibbs watched 
 it in a delicious lull of body and soul. So much of it 
 such splendidly wasted beauty and energy, year after 
 year. How pitiful was even the fullest, even the long 
 est human life, against this glorious miracle that went 
 on year after year throughout the centuries, that had 
 been as old as the world when Padre Junipera Serra 
 walked along these shores. 
 
 Joe clattered near him on the rocks. He tilted the
 
 292 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 cap over his eyes a trifle, and glanced at the absorbed 
 group by the fire. 
 
 "Manage to speak to me alone a minute, sometime, 
 will you, Joe?" Gibbs said. 
 
 Joe, not moving his eyes from the defiant crab 
 that had wedged his little body tightly in a crevice of 
 rock, cleared his throat. 
 
 "Sure!" he answered, gruffly. 
 
 Ellen also had her word alone with Joe. It was 
 after luncheon, when "Lizzie had curled up like a child 
 on a patch of warm sand, and fallen asleep, and Gibbs 
 was apparently dozing. Tommy was wading along the 
 bubbling line of foam, and the baby slept on. 
 
 "Isn't she pretty?" Ellen said, indicating Lizzie. 
 Joe grinned with pride. 
 
 "She's awful cute, Lizzie," he agreed. "She's 
 smart, too; she's as good a cook as Aunt Elsie ever 
 was Auntie says so herself!" 
 
 "How does the old house seem without Grandpa?" 
 Ellen asked. For the old Captain had recently started 
 on a last cruise, under sealed orders. 
 
 "About the same. Old Mrs. Cook lives there now, 
 she and Aunt Elsie are pretty well informed on village 
 topics," Joe answered with a laugh. 
 
 "You knew Harriet and George were here last 
 summer, Joe," Ellen ventured. "Do you ever see 
 Harriet now?" 
 
 "No," he answered indifferently. "She's a queer 
 sort of girl. What's she doing collecting plates!" 
 
 "She has a remarkable china collection," Ellen 
 admitted, laughing at his tone. 
 
 "China collection! What's that for a woman to do!"
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 293 
 
 Joe stretched comfortably in the sun. "Oh, well," 
 he said leniently, "that's all right, if she likes it. Har 
 riet's nice enough, but she's spoiled by too much 
 money. She's entirely different from Lizzie," Joe 
 added seriously; "she didn't have a sensible upbringing, 
 to begin with." 
 
 "Yet you liked her very much once, Joe," Ellen 
 suggested, from the depth of deep amusement and 
 satisfaction. 
 
 " Oh, yes kid love ! I never really loved any one but 
 Lizzie," said Joe. Ellen saw that he really believed it, 
 and with a great sigh of thankfulness she laid one of 
 life's ghosts to rest forever. "I'd like to go down to 
 Los Antonios some day," Joe mused, "and see what sort 
 of opening there might be in well, for instance, in start 
 ing a paper there." 
 
 "But, Joe there'd be no money in that?" Ellen 
 asked, in surprise. 
 
 "There might be a living," he answered. "I 
 haven't said anything to Lizzie, but I talked to Gibbs 
 about it. I'd like to live here, and have a little bun 
 galow, and a bunch of kids, and I think Lizzie'd go 
 crazy! I'm seriously thinking about it. I could have 
 a little jitney, and go back and forth 
 
 '"'You could have a slice of Arcady," Ellen prom 
 ised eagerly; "we've twenty acres here, and there are 
 dozens of house-sites!" 
 
 "We'll see." Joe yawned again, blinking at the 
 sun. "By the way, Ellen," he added, more ani 
 matedly. "You knew that Lillian had remarried?" 
 
 "Just that, through George. Have you heard any 
 thing more? It was Lindsay Pepper, of course." 
 
 "It was Lindsay Pepper. But the strange thing,
 
 294 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 young George Lathrop told me, was that she didn't 
 really want to do it.*' 
 
 "She lost some money by it, under the will, you 
 know." 
 
 "Yes, but not only that. She and the old lady don't 
 hit it off at all well, and all his money comes from his 
 mother. Besides that, Lillian would rather have been 
 a rich widow, you know at all events, she did delib 
 erately try to get out of it." 
 
 "But, Joe, I don't see why she couldn't!" 
 
 "Oh, he had a tremendous hold on her. You see his 
 name was mixed up with hers in the whole business. 
 If she didn't care for him, she never should have been 
 away from home the night of the accident ! I suppose 
 he simply forced her hand. Funny thing," Joe added 
 reminiscently. "When I first met her she had all the 
 cards: beauty, youth, a rich man's wife. Now she's 
 married to a man four years younger than herself, 
 who isn't exactly a teetotaller you know, and whom 
 she supports well, that's coming to her. They run 
 about a good deal, and have a speed car, and all that, 
 but it isn't exactly enviable, somehow." 
 
 "Poor Lillian!" Ellen said thoughtfully. Her eyes 
 went to Gibbs, dozing on the rocks, and a sorrowful 
 look filled them. "I wish I hadn't hated her!" she said 
 softly. 
 
 "You haven't much to regret!" Joe assured her, 
 rolling over for a nap. They did not speak again until 
 the car grated on the sandy road a few feet above 
 them. 
 
 They all saw that the day had tired Gibbs. He was 
 a little stiff as Joe helped him to the car, and there was
 
 fTOSSELYN'S WIFE 295 
 
 an anxious look in Ellen's eyes until she had him 
 established in the spacious, pleasant order of the porch 
 again, and was personally superintending his slow 
 drinking of a glass of milk. Her keen eyes saw the 
 relief with which he lowered his long body into the soft 
 ness and smoothness of the couch, and a terror of self- 
 reproach smote her. 
 
 But he seemed to recover rapidly. Presently he 
 was smiling and listening again in his usual way, and 
 Ellen went off with Lizzie, to share the delight of pre 
 paring the baby for bed, and to talk over little Ellen's 
 last meal of the day. 
 
 Tommy, in a glorious splashing and spattering, was 
 profusely watering the garden, and Joe came over to 
 the couch, and sat down at Gibbs's side. 
 
 "I'm afraid our descending on you this way has been 
 a good deal of "a tax," Joe said regretfully. 
 
 Gibbs had been lying with closed eyes, and the sunken 
 hollows about them rilled Joe with concern. But now 
 he opened them and smiled, and stretched out a hand 
 to clasp Joe's fingers. 
 
 "Always welcome, at any time, dear boy," he said 
 kindly. "But more than ordinarily welcome now. I 
 had thought of sending for you but one puts things off 
 and there's always the danger of alarming Ellen " 
 
 Never had Joe felt the other man's extraordinary 
 charm as he felt it now, when Gibbs Josselyn, at the 
 end of a perfect September day, confided to his care the 
 things he loved best in life. It seemed to Joe that all 
 the world listened to the rich echo of Gibbs's old voice, 
 for he was speaking softly, and making no effort to be 
 heard. Joe had to bend near to catch some of the words. 
 
 "You see, old man, she's going to need you soon.
 
 296 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 And that is why I am glad you really are interested 
 in establishing yourself in Los Antonios. She'll go 
 away, for awhile, but she loves this place and if you 
 and Lizzie and a troop of children are here " 
 
 Tommy was directing a strong stream from his hose 
 straight into the low, spreading branches of an oak, 
 the water surged and dripped among the stiff, thick 
 leaves. From the soaking garden came a wave of 
 scent. Joe, thinking of this talk afterward, always 
 heard through it the subdued rush and tumble of the 
 sea, and saw lines of sunset light streaming through 
 oaks and pepper trees across a California garden. 
 
 "You and Lizzie will look out for her," Gibbs added, 
 after a silence. "And the baby will do more than any 
 one! And I think of her, with books, and her garden, 
 
 and Tommy, and Tommy's music He's an odd 
 
 child, but she understands him, and his mistakes won't 
 be the ordinary mistakes " 
 
 He smiled at Joe, and somehow Joe smiled back, 
 although the younger man felt tears hot behind his 
 eyes. 
 
 "Won't be my mistakes," Gibbs said musingly. 
 "It was all too easy for me. It was always plain sail 
 ing, and that's not not exactly disciplinary, you know. 
 I never cared much about the other fellow's troubles 
 Ellen's the one for that and now, lying here, Joe, for 
 the past few months, it's come to me as a sort of revela 
 tion that even in this I'm having it easy. If I've never 
 had any particular pity for the fellows who haven't 
 enough money, or had sick wives,, or had to sit on an 
 office stool eight hours a day I certainly can't expect 
 the world to stand still with sympathy because one 
 man happens to be going out a little ahead of time!"
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 297 
 
 Joe could find nothing to say, and after a moment 
 Gibbs spoke again, more briskly: 
 
 "Well! There was another thing I wanted to say 
 to you, and I'll say it, and then we needn't take this 
 up again. George Lathrop was here last summer, 
 and we went into this a little. He seemed to feel 
 that we might be making too much of this, and he sent 
 a specialist down from San Francisco Ellen never 
 knew why he came, he happened to have been in 
 Williams with me, and his wife came, and all that. 
 But that's not the point: the thing is that I know how 
 George feels about Ellen, he's always adored her. I 
 mean that he makes a sort of little patron saint of her. 
 Every other woman in his life is judged by Ellen. 
 Now, some day she'll be lonely; Tommy'll need a 
 man's hand, George will be his guardian anyway 
 some day, George will tell her he can't help it what 
 she is to him! And that's where I want you to use 
 your own judgment, Joe. I can't tell her this, of 
 course. And also there's a chance that she may hon 
 estly not want to marry anyone! But if she lets any 
 thought of me 
 
 "You might tell her then," he added, in a low tone, 
 "that the purest and best and sweetest thing in my life 
 was what she gave me that no man ever owed a 
 woman the debt I owe her!" 
 
 The voice stopped. It was twilight now; there was 
 no more sunlight under the oaks, and Tommy and his 
 hose were gone. The ocean moved like molten lead, 
 wrinkling softly into opalescent gray and blue and silver. 
 
 "Well!" Gibbs said briefly. "That's all." 
 
 In the long silence Lizzie slipped out, and buried the 
 glimmer of her white gown in a wide porch chair.
 
 298 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 "If this isn't Heaven!" she breathed, contentedly. 
 A moment later Tommy's little twilight concert began. 
 They could see a pool of warm red light about the piano, 
 in the big sitting room, and Ellen's bent dark head, and 
 the little dark head over her shoulder. 
 
 "There will be a splendid moon to-night," Gibbs 
 told them. 
 
 He and Ellen watched it together, hours later, when 
 Tommy was long in bed, and when Lizzie and Joe had 
 stumbled away, as happily tired and sleepy as the child 
 was. 
 
 Then Ellen sat in her favourite seat, a low hassock 
 beside his couch, so that her arms lightly rested against 
 him, and their ringers were laced. They had no light, 
 and could look across the low, broad rail of the porch, 
 straight into the sleeping garden, and down the sloping 
 sides of the little canon to the sea. Silver moonlight 
 poured in a mysterious flood over the rounded tops of 
 the oak trees, and lay like an enchantment on the dewy 
 roses and wallflowers. The surface of the sea heaved 
 softly, its far-flung horizon seemed floating in ethereal 
 light. 
 
 "Et in Arcadia ego," Ellen said. 
 
 "We've had more than one Arcady, Ellen," her hus 
 band answered. "And this has seemed to me not less 
 perfect, but more perfect, somehow, because it is not 
 to last!" 
 
 He heard the quick rise of her breast, and felt a faint 
 tightening of her fingers. 
 
 "It has seemed right, somehow, to spend this year 
 with you and Tommy, here hasn't it been a perfect 
 year!"
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 299 
 
 "I won't allow you to talk so, Gibbs," she said, de* 
 terminedly, but unsteadily. 
 
 "Just this once!" he answered, and she could tell 
 by his tone that he was smiling. His wonderful smile 
 the smile he had given little snubbed Ellen Latimer, 
 when he drove her to New York in his car! She felt 
 her throat tighten. 
 
 "No formal good-byes," Gibbs said. "Not that! 
 For if you don't know what you are to me, Ellen, what 
 I've felt as you poured all your goodness and sweetness 
 and faith over me " 
 
 With a sudden movement she laid her face against 
 his hand, and he felt that her eyes were wet. 
 
 "Gibbs, please !" 
 
 "Well, I won't. But there's one thing ! When 
 
 Tommy's older, tell him the truth. There's a time in 
 a boy's life when it makes a lasting impression on him 
 to realize that you you can't play with fire. You 
 pay, one way or another. I'm paying this way. 
 There's too much else for a man to do, Ellen too many 
 things need changing for any sane man, or any woman, 
 to go right on into the thirties with the egotism of the 
 teens. And that brings me to the other thing. Some 
 day, if you feel like it, I wish you'd do something for 
 some kid who has gotten himself in wrong with the 
 authorities I don't know exactly how I wonder 
 now, lying here, how I could ever have lived in a big 
 city, and not realized that there are fellows who haven't 
 anything like my natural advantages, and who get up 
 against misunderstandings and misinterpretations " 
 
 "I thought," Ellen said steadily, "that when you 
 are better, if we ever go back, I'd go to Mary Cutter, 
 because she is interested in all that sort of thing, and
 
 300 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 
 
 just follow the cases in some court. One couldn't do 
 much, of course. But there would always be some* 
 thing, a visit to a mother, or perhaps a word here or 
 there " 
 
 "What a little saint you are, Ellen! Just a little 
 inspired saint, that's all!" Gibbs exclaimed. "That's 
 just what I mean. The law is all right, of course. 
 It must be what it is. But I tell you, Ellen, that it's 
 enough to drive the decency and the good out of any 
 man. The coldness, the carelessness, the smells, and 
 dirt " 
 
 "You must forget all about it," she said. "You 
 never did anything to deserve a prison experience 
 it was all a horrible mistake!" 
 
 "It was a mistake from a human standpoint,'* 
 Gibbs conceded thoughtfully, "but I don't know about 
 my record in a higher tribunal. I wonder how many 
 of the fellows serving life terms now ever had an angel 
 for a mother, and a saint for a wife, clothes and friends 
 and warm food from the hour they were born, always 
 
 money to buy prestige and service and preference ! 
 
 Ellen, if I had my life to live over again, do you know 
 what I think it would be? According to the principal 
 that until every other man had it, I didn't want it, 
 and until every other child had it, I didn't want my 
 son to have it whatever it was, travel, clothes, educa 
 tion, toys, everything!" 
 
 "I suppose that's loving your neighbour as yourself," 
 added Ellen's thoughtful voice. 
 
 "Well, you go to old George, and he and Mary 
 
 Cutter will help you find the cases you're after " 
 
 Gibbs was beginning again. But she laid her hand 
 lightly over his lips.
 
 JOSSELYN'S WIFE 301 
 
 "Don't talk that way not as if !" 
 
 Her cheek was laid against his hand again. He put 
 his free hand softly on her head. And even through 
 her thick, dark hair Ellen felt the chill of his fin 
 gers. 
 
 THE END
 
 Therms More to Follow! 
 
 More stories of the sort you like; 
 more, probably, by the author of this 
 one; more than 500 titles all told by 
 writers of world-wide reputation, in 
 the Authors' Alphabetical List which 
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 It is a selected list; every book in it 
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 The Grosset 82 Dunlap list is not only 
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 SEVENTEEN. Illustrated by Arthur^WUliam Brown. 
 
 No one but the creator of Penrod could have portrayed 
 the immortal young people of this story. Its humor is irre 
 sistible and reminiscent of the time when the reader waa 
 Seventeen. 
 
 PENROD. Illustrated by Gordon Grant. 
 
 This is a picture'of a boy's heart, full of the lovable, hu~ 
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 folks. It is a finished, exquisite work. 
 
 PENROD AND SAM. Illustrated by Worth Brehm. 
 
 Like" Penrod" and "Seventeen," this book contains 
 some remarkable phases of real boyhood and some of the best 
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 THE TURMOIL. Illustrated by C. E. Chambers, 
 
 Bibbs Sheridan is a dreamy, imaginative youth, who rfe* 
 volts against his .father's plans for him to be a servitor of 
 big business. The love/of a fine girl turns Bibb's life from 
 failure to success. 
 
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 A story of love and politics, more especially a picture of 
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 THE FLIRT. Illustrated by Clarence F. Underwood. 
 
 The " Flirt," the younger of two sisters, breaks one girl's 
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 of another, leads another to lose his fortune, and in the end 
 marries a stupid and unpromising suitor, leaving the really 
 worthy one to marry her sister. 
 
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 SISTERS. Frontispiece by Frank Street. 
 
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 POOR. DEAR. MARGARET KIRBY. 
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 )OSSELYN'S WIFE. Frontispiece by C. Allan Gilbert. 
 
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 MARTIE, THE UNCONQUERED. 
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 The triumph of a dauntless spirit over adverse conditions. 
 
 THE HEART OF RACHAEL. 
 Frontispiece by Charles E. Chambers. 
 
 An interesting story of divorce and the problems that come 
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 THE STORY OF JULIA PAGE. 
 
 Frontispiece by C. Allan Gilbert. 
 
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 SATURDAY'S CHILD. Frontispiece by F. Graham Cootes. 
 
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 Donald McKay, son of Hector McKay, millionaire him- 
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 THE SCAR 
 
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 THE MARRIAGE OF BARRY WICKLOW 
 
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 WINDS OF THE WORLD 
 
 Jill, a poor little typist, marries the great Henry Sturgess 
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 THE SECOND HONEYMOON 
 
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 THROUGH THE POSTERN GATE 
 
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 THE MISTRESS OF SHENSTONE 
 
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 THE BROKEN HALO 
 
 The story of a young man whose religious belief was 
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 THE FOLLOWING OF THE STAR 
 
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 THE LAMP IN THE DESERT 
 
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 GREATHEART 
 
 The story of a cripple whose deformed body conceals 
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 THE HUNDREDTH CHANCE 
 
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 THE TIDAL WAVE 
 
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 THE ROAD TO UNDERSTANDING 
 
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 OH, MONEY! MONEY! 
 
 Stanley Fulton, a wealthy bachelor, to test the disposi 
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 SIX STAR RANCH 
 
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 DAWN 
 
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 ACROSS THE YEARS 
 
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 THE TANGLED THREADS 
 
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 THE TIE THAT BINDS 
 
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 "STORM COUNTRY" BOOKS BY 
 
 GRACE MILLER WHITE 
 
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 JUDY OF ROGUES' HARBOR 
 
 Judy's untutored ideas of God, her love of wild things, 
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 TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY 
 
 It was as Tess, beautiful, wild, impetuous, that Mary 
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 THE SECRET OF THE STORM COUNTRY 
 
 The sequel to " Tess of the Storm Country," with the 
 same wild background, with its half-gypsy life of the squat 
 ters tempestuous, passionate, brooding. Tess learns the 
 " secret " of her birth and finds happiness and love through 
 her boundless faith in Me. 
 
 FROM THE VALLEY OF THE MISSING 
 
 A haunting story with its scene laid near the country 
 familiar to readers of " Tess of the Storm Country." 
 
 ROSE O' PARADISE 
 
 " Jinny " Singleton, wild, lovely, lonely, but with a pas 
 sionate yearning for music, grows up in the house of Lafe 
 Grandoken, a crippled cobbler of the Storm Country. Her 
 romance is full of power and glory and tenderness. 
 
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