As he went out into the street again a great sense of weariness came over him. He had lived—how many years had he lived!—in experience since he left the university at half past five o'clock? How little his past life looked to him as he surveyed it from the height he had just climbed. Life! Life was not all basket-ball, and football, and dances, and fellowships, and frats. and honors! Life was full of sorrow, and bounded on every hand by death! The walk from where he was up to the university looked like an impossibility. There was a store up in the next block where he was known. He could get a check cashed and ride.

He found himself studying the faces of the people in the car in a new light. Were they all acquainted with sorrow? Yes, there were more or less lines of hardship, or anxiety, or disappointment on all the older faces. And the younger ones! Did all their bright smiles and eagerness have to be frozen on their lips by grief some day? When you came to think of it life was a terrible thing! Take that girl now, Miss Brentwood—Miss R.B. Brentwood the address had been. The name her brother had called her fitted better, "Bonnie." What would life mean to her now?

It occurred to him to wonder if there would be any such sorrow and emptiness of life for any one if he were gone. The fellows would feel badly, of course. There would be speeches and resolutions, a lot of black drapery, and all that sort of thing in college, but what did that amount to? His father? Oh yes, of course he would feel it some, but he had been separated from his father for years, except for brief visits in vacations. His father had married a young wife and there were three young children. No, his father would not miss him much!

He swung off the car in front of the university and entered the dormitory at last, too engrossed in his strange new thoughts to remember that he had had no supper.

"Hello, Court! Where the deuce have you been? We've looked everywhere for you. You didn't come to the dining-hall! What's wrong with you? Come in here!"

It was Tennelly who hauled him into Bill Ward's room and thumped him into a big leather study-chair.

"Why, man, you're all in! Give an account of yourself!" he said, tossing his hat over to Bill Ward, and pulling away at his mackinaw.

"P'raps he's in love!" suggested Pat from the couch where he was puffing away at his pipe.

"P'raps he's flunked his Greek exam.," suggested Bill Ward, with a grin.

"He looks as if he'd seen a ghost!" said Tennelly, eying him critically.

"Cut it out, boys," said Courtland, with a weary smile. "I've seen enough. Wittemore's called home. His mother's dying. I went an errand for him down in some of his slums and on the way back I just saw a little kid get killed. Pretty little kid, too, with long curls!"

"Good night nurse!" said Pat from his couch. "Say, that is going some!"

"Ferget it!" ejaculated Bill Ward, coming to his feet. "Had your supper yet, Court?"

Courtland shook his head.

"Well, just you sit still there while I run down to the pie-shop and see what I can get."

Bill seized his cap and mackinaw and went roaring off down the hall. Courtland's eyes were closed. He hadn't felt so tired since he left the hospital. His mind was still grappling with the questions that his last two hours had flung at him to be answered.

Pat sat up and put away his pipe. He made silent motions to Tennelly, and the two picked up the unresisting Courtland and laid him on the couch. Pat's face was unusually sober as he gently put a pillow under his friend's head. Courtland opened his eyes and smiled.

"Thanks, old man," he said, and gripped his hand understandingly. There was something in Pat's face he had never noticed there before. As he dropped his eyelids shut he had an odd sense that Pat and Tennelly and the Presence were all taking care of him. A sick fancy of worn-out nerves, of course, but pleasant all the same.

Down the hall a nasal voice twanged at the telephone, shouting each answer as though to make the whole dormitory hear. Then loud steps, a thump on the door as it was flung open:

"Court here? A girl on the 'phone wants you, Court. Says her name is Miss Gila Dare."



CHAPTER VII

The messenger had imitated Gila Dare's petulant childish accent to perfection. At another time the three young men would have shouted over it. Now they looked at one another in silence.

"Sha'n't I go and get a message for you, Court?" asked Tennelly. For Courtland's face was ashen gray, and the memory of it lying in the hospital was too recent for him not to feel anxious about his friend. He had only been permitted to return to college so quickly under strict orders not to overdo.

"No, I guess I'll go," said Courtland, indifferently, rising as he spoke.

They listened anxiously to his tones as he conversed over the 'phone.

"Hello!... Yes!... Yes!... Oh! Good evening!... Yes.... Yes.... No-o-o—it won't be possible!... No, I've just come in and I'm pretty well 'all in.' I have a lot of studying yet to do to-night. This is exam. week, you know.... No, I'm afraid not to-morrow night either.... No, there wouldn't be a chance till the end of the week, anyway.... Why, yes, I think I could by that time, perhaps—Friday night? I'll let you know.... Thank you. Good-by!"

The listeners looked from one to the other knowingly. This was not the tone of one who had "fallen" very far for a girl. They knew the signs. He had actually been indifferent! Gila Dare had not conquered him so easily as Bill Ward had thought she would. And the strange thing about it was that there was something in the atmosphere that night that made them feel they weren't so very sorry. Somehow Courtland seemed unusually close and dear to them just then. For the moment they seemed to have perceived something fine and high in his mood that held them in awe. They did not "kid" him when he came back to them, as they would ordinarily have done. They received him gravely, talking together about the examination on the morrow, as if they had scarcely noticed his going.

Bill Ward came back presently with his arms laden with bundles. He looked keenly at the tired face on the couch, but whistled a merry tune to let on he had not noticed anything amiss.

"Got a great spread this time," he declared, setting forth his spoils on two chairs alongside the couch. "Hot oyster stew! Sit by, fellows! Cooky wrapped it up in newspapers to keep it from getting cold. There's bowls and spoons in the basket. Nelly, get 'em out! Here, Pat, take that bundle out from under my arm. That's celery and crackers. Here's a pail of hot coffee with cream and sugar all mixed. Lookout, Pat! That's jelly-roll and chocolate eclairs! Don't mash it, you chump! Why didn't you come with me?"

It was pleasant to lie there in that warm, comfortable room with the familiar sights all around, the pennants, the pictures, the wild arrangements of photographs and trophies, and hear the fellows talking of homely things; to be fed with food that made him begin to feel like himself again; to have their kindly fellowship all about him like a protection.

They were grand fellows, each one of them; full of faults, too, but true at heart. Life-friends he knew, for there was a cord binding their four hearts together with a little tenderer tie than bound them to any of the other fellows. They had been together all the four years, and if all went well, and Bill Ward didn't flunk anything more, they would all four go out into the world as men together at the end of that year.

He lay looking at them quietly as they talked, telling little foolish jokes, laughing immoderately, asking one another anxiously about a tough question in the exam. that morning, and what the prospects were for good marks for them all. It was all so familiar and beloved! So different from those last three hours amid suffering and sorrow! It was all so natural and happy, as if there were no sorrow in the world. As if this life would never end! But he hadn't yet got over that feeling of the Presence in the room with them, standing somewhere behind Pat and Tennelly. He liked to feel the consciousness of it in the back of his mind. What would the fellows say if he should try to tell them about it? They would think he was crazy. He had a feeling that he would like to be the means of making them understand.

He told them gradually about Wittemore; not as he might have told them directly after seeing him off, nor quite as he had expected to tell them. It was a little more full; it gave them a little kinder, keener insight into a character that they had hitherto almost entirely condemned and ignored. They did not laugh! It was a revelation to them. They listened with respect for the student who had gone to his mother's dying bed. They had all been long enough away from their own mothers to have come to feel the worth of a mother quite touchingly. Moreover, they perceived that Courtland had seen more in Wittemore than they had ever seen. He had a side, it appeared, that was wholly unselfish, almost heroic in a way. They had never suspected him of it before. His long, horse-like face, with the little light china-blue eyes always anxious and startled, appeared to their imaginations with a new appeal. When he returned they would be kinder to him.

"Poor old Abner!" said Tennelly, thoughtfully. "Who would have thought it! Carrying medicine to an old bedridden crone! And was going to stick to his job even when his mother was dying! He's got some stuff in him, after all, if he hasn't much sense!"

Courtland was led to go on talking about the old woman, picturing in a few words the room where she lay, the pitifully few comforts, the inch of candle, the tea without sugar or milk, the butterless toast! He told it quite simply, utterly unaware, that he had told how he had made the toast. They listened without comment as to one who had been set apart to a duty undesirable but greatly to be admired. They listened as to one who had passed through a great experience like being shut up in a mine for days, or passing unharmed through a polar expedition or a lonely desert wandering.

Afterward he spoke again about the child, telling briefly how he was killed. He barely mentioned the sister, and he told nothing whatever of his own part in it all. They looked at him curiously, as if they would read between the lines, for they saw he was deeply stirred, but they asked nothing. Presently they all fell to studying, Courtland with the rest, for the morrow's work was important.

They made him stay on the couch and swung the light around where he could see. They broke into song or jokes now and then as was their wont, but over it all was a hush and a quiet sympathy that each one felt, and none more deeply than Courtland. There had never been a time during his college life when he had felt so keenly and so finely bound to his companions as this night; when he went at last to his own room across the hall, he looked about on its comforts and luxuries with a kind of wonder that he had been selected for all this, while that poor woman down in the tenement had to live with bare walls and not even a whole candle! His pleasant room seemed so satisfying! And there was that girl alone in her tiny room with so little about her to make life easy, and her beautiful dead lying stricken before her eyes! He could not get away from the thought of her when he lay down to rest, and in his dreams her face of sorrow haunted him.

It was not until after the examinations the next afternoon that he realized that he was going to her again; had been going all the time, indeed! Of course he had been but a passing stranger, but she had no one, and he could not let her be in need of a friend. Perhaps—Why, he surely had a responsibility for her when he was the only one who had happened by and there was no one else!

She opened the door at his knock and he was startled by the look of her face, so drawn and white, with great dark circles under her eyes. She had not slept nor wept since he saw her, he felt sure. How long could human frame endure like that? The strain was terrible for one so young and frail. He found himself longing to take her away somewhere out of it all. Yet, of course, there was nothing he could do.

She was full of quiet gratitude for what he had done. She said she knew that without his kind intercession she would have had to pay far more. She had been through it too recently before and understood that such things were expensive. He rejoiced that she judged only by the standards of a small country place, and knew not city prices, and therefore little suspected how very much he had done to smooth her way. He told her of the preacher he had secured that afternoon by telephone—a plain, kindly man who had been recommended by the undertaker. She thanked him again, apathetically, as if she had not the heart to feel anything keenly, but was grateful to him as could be.

"Have you had anything to eat to-day?" he asked, suddenly.

She shook her head. "I could not eat! It would choke me!"

"But you must eat, you know," he said, gently, as if she were a little child. "You cannot bear all this. You will break down."

"Oh, what does that matter now?" she asked, pitifully, with her hand fluttering to her heart again and a wave of anguish passing over her white face.

"But we must live, mustn't we, until we are called to come away?"

He asked the question shyly. He did not understand where the thought or words came from. He was not conscious of evolving them from his own mind.

She looked at him in sad acquiescence. "I know," she said, like a submissive child; "and I'll try, pretty soon. But I can't just yet. It would choke me!"

Even while they were talking a door in the front of the hall opened, and an untidy person with unkempt hair appeared, asking the girl to come into her room and have a bite. When she shook her head the woman said:

"Well, then, child, go out a few minutes and get something. You'll not last the night through at this rate! Go, and I'll stay here until you come back."

Courtland persuaded her at last to come with him down to a little restaurant around the corner and have a cup of tea—just a cup of tea—and with a weary look, as if she thought it was the quickest way to get rid of their kindness, she yielded. He thought he never would forget the look she cast behind her at the little, white, sheet-covered cot as she passed out the door.

It was an odd experience, taking this stranger to supper. He had met all sorts of girls during his young career and had many different experiences, but none like this. Yet he was so filled with sympathy and sorrow for her that it was not embarrassing. She did not seem like an ordinary girl. She was set apart by her sorrow. He ordered the daintiest and most attractive that the plain menu of the little restaurant afforded, but he only succeeded in getting her to eat a few mouthfuls and drink a cup of tea. Nevertheless it did her good. He could see a faint color coming into her cheeks. He spoke of college and his examinations, as if she knew all about him. He thought it might give her a more secure feeling if she knew he was a student at the university. But she took it all as a matter that concerned her not in the least, with that air of aloofness of spirit that showed him he was not touching more than the surface of her being. Her real self was just bearing it to get rid of him and get back to her sorrow alone.

Before he left her he was moved to tell her how he had seen the little child coming out to greet her. He thought perhaps she had not heard those last joyous words of greeting and would want to know.

The light leaped up in her face in a vivid flame for the first time, her eyes shone with the tears that sprang mercifully into them, and her lips trembled. She put out a little cold hand and touched his coat-sleeve:

"Oh, I thank you! That is precious," she said, and, turning aside her head, she wept. It was a relief to see the strained look break and the healing tears flow. He left her then, but he could not get away from the thought of her all night with her sorrow alone. It was as if he had to bear it with her because there was no one else to do so.

When he left her he went and looked up the minister with whom he had made brief arrangements over the telephone the night before. He had to confess to himself that his real object in coming had been to make sure the man was "good enough for the job."

The Rev. John Burns was small, sandy, homely, with kind, twinkling red-brown eyes, a wide mouth, an ugly nose, and freckles; but he had a smile that was cordiality itself, and a great big paw that gripped a real welcome.

Courtland explained that he had come about the funeral. He felt embarrassed because there really wasn't anything to say. He had given all necessary details over the 'phone, but the kind, attentive eyes were sympathetic, and he found himself telling the story of the tragedy. He liked the way the minister received it. It was the way a minister should be to people in their need.

"You are a relative?" asked Burns as Courtland got up to go.

"No." Then he hesitated. For some reason he could not bear to say he was an utter stranger to the lonely girl. "No, only a friend," he finished. "A—a—kind of neighbor!" he added, lamely, trying to explain the situation to himself.

"A sort of a Christ-friend, perhaps?" The kind, red-brown eyes seemed to search into his soul and understand. The homely, freckled face lit with a rare smile.

Courtland gave the man a keen, hungry look. He felt strangely drawn to him and a quick light of brotherhood darted into his eyes. His fingers answered the friendly grasp of the other as they parted, and he went out feeling that somehow there was a man that was different; a man he would like to know better and study carefully. That man must have had some experience! He must know Christ! Had he ever felt the Presence? he wondered. He would like to ask him, but then how would one go about it to talk of a thing like that?

He threw himself into his studies again when he got back to the university, but in spite of himself his mind kept wandering back to strange questions. He wished Wittemore would come back and say his mother was better! It was Wittemore that had started all this queer side-track of philanthropy; that had sent him off to make toast for old women and manage funerals for strange young girls. If Wittemore would get back to his classes and plod off to his slums every day, with his long horse-like face and his scared little apologetic smile, why, perhaps his own mind would assume its normal bent and let him get at his work. And with that he sat down and wrote a letter to Wittemore, brief, sympathetic, inquiring, offering any help that might be required. When it was finished he felt better and studied half the night.

He knew the next morning as soon as he woke up that he would have to go to that funeral. He hated funerals, and this would be a terrible ordeal, he was sure. Such a pitiful little funeral, and he an utter stranger, too! But the necessity presented itself like a command from an unseen force, and he knew that it was required of him—that he would never feel quite satisfied with himself if he shirked it.

Fortunately his examination began at eight o'clock. If he worked fast he could get done in plenty of time, for the hour of the funeral had been set for eleven o'clock.

Tennelly and Pat stood and gazed after him aghast when, on coming out of the class-room where he had taken his examination, he declined their suggestion that they all go down to the river skating for an hour and try to get their blood up after the strain so they could study better after lunch.

"I can't! I'm going to that kid's funeral!" he said, and strode up the stairs with his arms full of books.

"Good night!" said Pat, in dismay.

"Morbid!" ejaculated Tennelly. "Say, Pat, I don't guess we better let him go. He'll come home 'all in' again."

But when they found Bill Ward and went up to try and stop Courtland he had departed by the other door and was half-way down the campus.



CHAPTER VIII

It was all very neat and beautiful in the little, third-story back room. The gas-stove and other things had disappeared behind the calico curtain. Before it stood the small white coffin, with the beautiful boy lying as if he were asleep, the roses strewn about him, and a mass of valley-lilies at his feet. The girl, white and calm, sat beside him, one hand resting across the casket protectingly.

Three or four women from the house had brought in chairs, and some of the neighbors had slipped in shyly, half in sympathy, half in curiosity. The minister was already there, talking in a low tone in the hall with the undertaker.

The girl looked up when Courtland entered and thanked him for the flowers with her eyes. The women huddled in the back of the room watched him curiously and let no flicker of an eyelash pass without notice. They were like hungry birds ready to pounce on any scrap of sentiment or suspicion that might be dropped in their sight. The doctor came stolidly in and went and stood beside the coffin, looking down for a minute as if he were burning remedial incense in his soul, and then turned away with the frank tears running down his tired, honest face. He sat down beside Courtland. The stillness and the strangeness in the bare room were awful. It was only bearable to look toward the peace in the small, white, dead face; for the calm on the face of the sister cut one to the heart.

The minister and the undertaker stepped into the room, and then it seemed to Courtland as if One other entered also. He did not look up to see. He merely had that sense of Another. It stayed with him and relieved the tension in the room.

Then the voice of the minister, clear, gentle, ringing, triumphant, stole through the room, and out into the hall, even down through the landings, where were huddled some of the neighbors come to listen:

"And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me: Write—Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth ... But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.... For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words."

Courtland listened attentively. The words were utterly new to him. If he had heard them before on the few occasions when he had perforce attended funerals, they had never entered into his consciousness. They seemed almost uncannily to answer the desolating questions of his heart. He listened with painful attention. Most remarkable statements!

"But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept!"

He glanced instinctively around where it seemed that the Presence had entered. He could not get away from the feeling that He stood just to the left of the minister there, with bowed head, like a great one whose errand and presence there were about to be explained. It was as if He had come to take the little child away with Him. Courtland remembered the girl's prayer the night the child died: "Go with little Aleck and see that he is not afraid till he gets safe home." He glanced up at her calm, tearless face. She was drinking in the words. They seemed to give strength under her pitiless sorrow.

"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death!"

Courtland heard the words with a shock of relief. Here had he been under the depression of death—death everywhere and always! threatening every life and every project of earth! And now this confident sentence looking toward a time when death should be no more! It came as something utterly new and original that there would be a time when no one should, ever fear death again because death would be put out of existence! He had to look at it and face it as something to be recognized and thought out, a thing that was presenting itself for him to believe; as if the Christ Himself were having it read just for him alone to hear; as if those huddled curious women and the tearful doctor, and the calm-faced girl were not there at all, only Christ and the little dead child waiting to walk into another, realer life, and Courtland, there on the threshold of another world to learn a great truth.

"But some will say, How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?"

Courtland looked up, startled. The very thought that was dawning in his mind! The child, presently to lie under the ground and return to dust! How could there be a resurrection of that little body after years, perhaps? How could there be hope for that wide-eyed sister with the sorrowful soul?

"Thou fool, that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain."

He listened through the wonderful nature-picture, dimly understanding the reasoning; on to the words:

"So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body."

He looked at the child lying there among the lilies, those spirituelle blossoms so ethereal and perfect that they almost seem to have a soul. Was that the thought, then? The little child laid under the earth like the bulb of the lily, to see corruption and decay, would come forth, even as the spirit of the lilies came up out of the darkness and mold and decay of their tomb under-ground, and burst into the glory of their beautiful blossoms, the perfection of what the ugly brown bulb was meant to be. All the possibilities come to perfection! no accident or stain of sin to mar the glorified character! a perfect soul in a perfect, glorified body!

The wonder of the thought swelled within him, and sent a thrill through him with the minister's voice as he read:

"So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory. O death where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!"

If Courtland had been asked before he came there whether he believed in a resurrection he might have given a doubtful answer. During the four years of his college life he had passed through various stages of unbelief along with a good many of his fellow-students. With them he had made out a sort of philosophy of life which he supposed he believed. It was founded partly upon what he wanted to believe and partly upon what he could not believe, because he had never been able to reason it out. Up to this time even his experience with the Presence had not touched this philosophy of his which he had constructed like a fancy scaffolding inside of which he expected to fashion his life. The Presence and his partial surrender to its influence had been a matter of the heart, and until now it had not occurred to him that his allegiance to the Christ was incompatible with his former philosophy. The doctrine of the resurrection suddenly stood before him as something that must be accepted along with the Christ, or the Christ was not the Christ! Christ was the resurrection if He was at all! Christ had to be that, had to have conquered death, or He would not have been the Christ; He would not have been God humanized for the understanding of men unless He could do God-like things. He was not God if He could not conquer death. He would not be a man's Christ if He could not come to man in his darkest hour and conquer his greatest enemy; put Himself up against death and come out victorious!

A great fact had been revealed to Courtland: There was a resurrection of the dead, and Christ was the hope of that resurrection! It was as if he had just met Christ face to face and heard Him say so; had it all explained to him fully and satisfactorily. He doubted if he could tell the professor in the Biblical Literature class how, because perhaps he hadn't seen the Christ that way; but others understood! That white, strained face of the girl was not hopeless. There was the light of a great hope in her eyes; they could see afar off over the loneliness of the years that were to be, up to the time when she should meet the little brother again, glorified, perfected, stainless!

It suddenly came to Courtland to think how Stephen Marshall would look with that glorified body. The last glimpse he had had of him standing above the burning pit of the theater with the halo of flames about his head had given him a vision. A great gladness came up within him that some day he would surely see Stephen Marshall again, grasp his hand, make him know how he repented his own negative part in the persecution that had led him to his death; make him understand how in dying he had left a path of glory behind and given life to Paul Courtland.

In the prayer that followed the minister seemed as though he were talking with dear familiarity to One whom he knew well. The young man, listening, marveled that any dared come so near, and found himself longing for such assurance and comradeship.

They took the casket out to a quiet place beyond the city, where the little body might rest until the sister wished to take it away.

As they stood upon that bleak hillside, dotted over with white tombstones, the looming city in the distance off at the right, Courtland recognized the group of spreading buildings that belonged to-his university. He marveled at the closeness of life and death in this world. Out there the busy city, everybody tired and hustling to get, to learn, to enjoy; out here everybody lying quiet, like the corn of wheat in the ground, waiting for the resurrection time, the call of God to come forth in beauty! What a difference it would make in the working, and getting, and hustling, and learning, and enjoying if everybody remembered how near the lying-quiet time might be! How unready some might be to lie down and feel that it was all over! How much difference it must make what one had done with the time over there in the city, when the stopping time came! How much better it would be if one could live remembering the Presence, always being aware of its nearness! To live Christ! What would that mean? Was he ready to surrender a thought like that?

The minister, it appeared, had a very urgent call in another direction. He must take a trolley that passed the gate of the cemetery and go off at once. It fell to Courtland to look after the girl, for the doctor had not been able to leave his practice to take the long ride to the cemetery. She, it seemed, did not hear what they said, nor care who went with her.

Courtland led her to the carriage and put her in. "I suppose you will want to go directly back to the house?" he said.

She turned to him as if she were coming out of a trance. She caught her breath and gave him one wild, beseeching look, crying out with something like a sob: "Oh, how can I ever go back to that room now?" And then her breath seemed suddenly to leave her and she fell back against the seat as if she were lifeless.

He sprang in beside her, took her in his arms, resting her head against his shoulder, loosened her coat about her throat, and chafed her cold hands, drawing the robes closely about her slender shoulders, but she lay there white and without a sign, of life. He thought he never had seen anything so ghastly white as her face.

The driver came around and offered a bottle of brandy. They forced a few drops between her teeth, and after a moment there came a faint flutter of her eyelids. She came to herself for just an instant, looked about her, realized her sorrow once more, and dropped off into oblivion again.

"She's in a bad way!" murmured the driver, looking worried. "I guess we'd better get her somewheres. I don't want to have no responsibility. My chief's gone back to the city, and the other man's gone across the to West Side. I reckon we'd better go on and stop at some hospital if she don't come to pretty soon."

The driver vanished and the carriage started at a rapid pace. Courtland sat supporting his silent charge in growing alarm, alternately chafing her hands and trying to force more brandy between her set lips. He was relieved when at last the carriage stopped again and he recognized the stone buildings of one of the city's great hospitals.



CHAPTER IX

When Courtland got back to the university the afternoon examination had been in progress almost half an hour. With a brief explanation to the professor, he settled to his belated work regardless of Bill Ward's anxious glances from the back of the room and Pat's lifted eyebrows from the other side. He knew he had yet to meet those three beloved antagonists. He seemed to have progressed through eons of experience since he talked with them last night. The intricate questions of the examination on political science over which he was trying faithfully to work seemed paltry beside the great facts of life and death.

He had remained at the hospital until the girl came out of her long swoon and the doctor said she was better, but the thought of her white face was continually before him. When he closed his eyes for a moment to think how to phrase some answer in his paper he would see that still, beautiful face as it lay on his shoulder in the carriage. It had filled him with awe to think that he, a stranger, was her only friend in that great city, and she might be dying! Somehow he could not cast her off as a common stranger.

He had arranged that she should be placed in a small private room at a moderate cost, and paid for a week in advance. The cost was a mere trifle to Courtland. The new overcoat he had meant to buy this week would more than cover the cost. Besides, if he needed more than his ample allowance his father was always quite ready to advance what he wanted. But the strange thing about all this was that, having paid to put the girl where she would be perfectly comfortable and be well taken care of, he could not cast her off and forget her. His responsibility seemed to be doubled with everything he did for her. Between the problems of deep state perplexities and intrigues was ever the perplexity about that girl and how she was going to live all alone with her tragedy—or tragedies—for it was apparent from the little hints she had dropped that the death of the small brother was only the climax of quite a series of sorrows that had come to her young life. And yet she, with all that sorrow compassing her about, could still believe in the Christ and call upon Him in her trouble! There was a kind of triumphant feeling in his heart when he reached that conclusion.

He lay on the couch in Tennelly's room that night after supper and tried to think it out, while the other three clattered away about their marks and held an indignation meeting over the way Pat was getting black-listed by all the professors just when he was trying so hard. He didn't know the fellows were keeping it up to get his mind away from the funeral. He was thinking about that girl.

The doctor had told him that she was very much run down. It looked as if the process had been going on for some time. Her heart action was not all it should be, and there were symptoms of lack of nutrition. What she needed was rest, utter rest. Sleep if possible most of the time for at least a week, with, careful feeding every two or three hours, and after that a quiet, cheerful place with plenty of fresh air and sunshine and more sleep; no anxiety, and nothing to call on the exhausted energies for action or hurry.

Now how was a state of things like that to be brought about for a person who had no home, no friends, no money, and no time to lie idle? Moreover, how could there be any cheerful spot in the wide world for a little girl who had passed through the fire as she had done?

Presently he went out to the drug-store and telephoned to the hospital. They said she had had only one more slight turn of unconsciousness, but had rallied from it quickly and was resting quietly now. They hoped she would have a good night.

Then he went back to his room and thought about her some more. He had an important English examination the next day, one in which he especially wanted to do well; yet try as he would to concentrate on Wells and Shaw, that girl and what was going to become of her would get in between him and his book.

It was after ten o'clock when he sauntered down the hall and stood in Stephen Marshall's room for a few minutes, as he was getting the habit of doing every night. The peace of it and the uplift that that room always gave him were soothing to his soul. If he had known a little more about the Christ to whose allegiance he had declared himself he might have knelt and asked for guidance; but as yet he had not so much as heard of a promise to the man who "abides," and "asks what he will." Nevertheless, when he entered that room his mind took on the attitude of prayer and he felt that somehow the Presence got close to him, so that questions that had perplexed him were made clear.

As he stood that night looking about the plain walls, his eyes fell upon that picture of Stephen Marshall's mother. A mother! Ah! if there were a mother somewhere to whom that girl could go! Some one who would understand her; be gentle and tender with her; love her, as he should think a real mother would do—what a difference that would make!

He began to think over all the women he knew—all the mothers. There were not so many of them. Some of the professors' wives who had sons and daughters of their own? Well, they might be all well enough for their own sons and daughters, but there wasn't one who seemed likely to want to behave in a very motherly way to a stranger like his waif of a girl. They were nice to the students, polite and kind to the extent of one tea or reception apiece a year, but that was about the limit.

Well, there was Tennelly's mother! Dignified, white-haired, beautiful, dominant in her home and clubs, charming to her guests; but—he could just fancy how she would raise her lorgnette and look "Bonnie" Brentwood over. There would be no room in that grand house for a girl like Bonnie. Bonnie! How the name suited her! He had a strange protective feeling about that girl, not as if she were like the other girls he knew; perhaps it was a sort of a "Christ-brother" feeling, as the minister had suggested. But to go on with the list of mothers—wasn't there one anywhere to whom he could appeal? Gila's mother? Pah! That painted, purple image of a mother! Her own daughter needed to find a real mother somewhere. She couldn't mother a stranger! Mothers! Why weren't there enough real ones to go around? If he had only had a mother, a real one, himself, who had lived, she would have been one to whom he could have told Bonnie's story, and she would have understood!

He looked into the pictured eyes on the wall and an idea came to him. It was like an answer to prayer. Stephen Marshall's mother! Why hadn't he thought of her before? She was that kind of a mother of course, or Stephen Marshall would not have been the man he was! If the Bonnie girl could only get to her for a little while! But would she take her? Would she understand? Or might she be too overcome with her own loss to have been able to rally to life again? He looked into the strong motherly face and was sure not.

He would write to her. He would put it to the test whether there was a mother in the world or not. He went back to his room, and wrote her a long letter, red-hot from the depths of his heart; a letter such as he might have written to his own mother if he had ever known her, but such as certainly he had never written to any woman before. He wrote:

DEAR MOTHER OF STEPHEN MARSHALL:

I know you are a real mother because Stephen was what he was. And now I am going to let you prove it by coming to you with something that needs a mother's help.

There is a little girl—I should think she must be about nineteen or twenty years old—lying in the hospital, worn out with hard work and sorrow. She has recently lost her father and mother, and had brought her little five-year-old brother to the city a couple of weeks ago. They were living in a very small room, boarding themselves, she working all day somewhere down-town. Two days ago, as she was coming home in the trolley, her little brother, crossing the street to meet her, was knocked down and killed by a passing automobile. We buried him to-day, and the girl fainted dead away on the way back from the cemetery and only recovered consciousness when we got her to the hospital. The doctor says she has exhausted her vitality and needs to sleep for a week and be fed up; and then she ought to go to some cheerful place where she can just rest for a while and have fresh air and sunshine and good, plain, nourishing food.

Now she hasn't a friend in the city. I know from the few little things she has told me that there isn't any one in the world she will feel free to turn to. She isn't the kind of girl who will accept charity. She's refined, reserved, independent, and all that, you know. There's another thing, too—she prays to your Stephen's Christ—that's why I dared write to you about it.

You see, I'm an entire stranger to her. I just happened along when the kid was killed and had to stick around and help; that's how I came to know. Of course she hasn't any idea of all this, and I haven't any real business with it, but I can't see leaving her in a hole this way; and there's no one else to do anything.

You wonder why I didn't find a mother nearer by, but I haven't any living of my own, except a stepmother, who wouldn't understand, and all the other mothers I know wouldn't qualify for the job any better. I've been looking at your picture and I think you would.

What I thought of is this (if it doesn't strike you that way maybe you can think of some other way): I'm pretty well fixed for money, and I've got a lump that I've been intending to use for a new automobile; but my old car is plenty good enough for another year, and I'd like to pay that girl's board awhile till she gets rested and strong and sort of cheered up. I thought perhaps you'd see your way clear to write a letter and say you'd like her to visit you—you're lonesome or Something. I don't know how a real mother would fix that up, but I guess you do.

Of course the girl mustn't know I have a thing to do with it except that I told you about her. She'd be up in the air in a minute. She wouldn't stand for me doing anything for her. She's that kind.

I'm sending a check of two hundred dollars right now because I thought, in case you see a way to take up with my suggestion, you might send her money enough for the journey. I don't believe she's got any. We can fix it up about the board any way you say. Don't hesitate to tell me just how much it is worth. I don't need the money for anything. But whatever's done has got to be done mighty quick or she'll go back to work again, and she won't last three days if she does. She looks as if a breath would blow her away. I'm sending this special delivery to hurry things. Her address is Miss R.B. Brentwood, Good Samaritan Hospital. The kid called her "Bonnie." I don't know what her whole name is.

So now you have the whole story, and it's up to you to decide. Maybe you think I've got a lot of crust to propose this, and maybe you won't see it this way, but I've had the nerve because Stephen Marshall's life and Stephen Marshall's death have made me believe in Stephen Marshall's Christ and Stephen Marshall's mother.

I am, very respectfully, PAUL COURTLAND.

He mailed the letter that night and then studied hard till three o'clock in the morning.

The next morning's mail brought him a dainty little note from Gila's mother, inviting him to a quiet family dinner with them on Friday evening. He frowned when he read it. He didn't care for the large, painted person, but perhaps there was more good in her than he knew. He would have to go and find out. It might even be that she would be a help in case Stephen Marshall's mother did not pan out.



CHAPTER X

Mother Marshall stood by the kitchen window, with her cheek against a boy's old soft felt hat, and she looked out into the gathering dusk for Father. The hat was so old and worn that its original shape and color were scarcely distinguishable, and there was one spot where Mother Marshall's tears had washed some of the grime away into deeper stains about it. It was only on days when Father was off to town on errands that she allowed herself the momentary weakness of tears.

So she had stood in former years looking out into the dusk for her son to come whistling home from school. So she had stood the day the awful news of his fiery death had come, while Father sat in his rush-bottomed chair and groaned. She had laid her cheek against that old felt hat and comforted herself with the thought of her boy, her splendid boy, who had lived his short life so intensely and wonderfully. When she felt that old scratchy felt against her cheek it somehow brought back the memory of his strong young shoulder, where she used to lay her head sometimes when she felt tired and he would fold her in his arms and brush her forehead with his lips and pat her shoulder. The neighbors sometimes wondered why she kept that old felt hat hanging there, just as when Stephen was alive among them, but Mother Marshall never said anything about it; she just kept it there, and it comforted her to feel it; one of those little homely, tangible things that our poor souls have to tether to sometimes when we lose the vision and get faint-hearted. Mother Marshall wasn't morbid one bit. She always looked on the bright side of everything; and she had had much joy in her son as he was growing up. She had seen him strong of body, strong of soul, keen of mind. He had won the scholarship of the whole Northwest to the big Eastern university. It had been hard to pack him up and have him go away so far, where she couldn't hope to see him soon, where she couldn't listen for his whistle coming home at night, where he couldn't even come back for Sunday and sit in the old pew in church with them. But those things had to come. It was the only way he could grow and fulfil his part of God's plan. And so she put away her tears till he was gone, and kept them for the old felt hat when Father was out about the farm. And then when the news came that Stephen had graduated so soon, gone up higher to God's eternal university to live and work among the great, even then her soul had been big enough to see the glory of it behind the sorrow, and say with trembling, conquering lips: "I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord!"

That was the kind of nerve that blessed little Mother Marshall was built with, and it was only in such times as these, when Father had gone to town and stayed a little later than usual, that the tears in her heart got the better of her and she laid her face against the old felt hat.

Down the road in the gloom moved a dark speck. It couldn't be Father, for he had gone in the machine—the nice, comfortable little car that Stephen had made them get before he went away to college, because he said that Father needed to have things easier now. Father would be in the machine, and by this time the lights would be lit. Father was very careful always about lighting up when it grew dusk. He had a great horror of accidents to other people. Not that he was afraid for himself, no indeed. Father was a man! The kind of a man to be the father of a Stephen!

The speck grew larger. It made a chugging noise. It was one of those horrible motor-cycles. Mother Marshall hated them, though she had never revealed the fact. Stephen had wanted one, had said he intended to get one with the first money he earned after he came out of college, but she had hoped in her heart they would go out of fashion by that time and there would be something less fiendish-looking to take their place. They always looked to her as if they were headed straight for destruction, and the person on them seemed as if he were going to the devil and didn't care. She secretly hated the idea of Stephen ever sitting upon one of them, flying through space. But now he was gone beyond all such fears. He had wings, and there were no dangers where he was. All danger and fear was over for him. She had never wanted either of her men to know the inward quakings of her soul over each new risk as Stephen began to grow up. She wanted to be worthy to be the mother and wife of noblemen, and fears were not for such; so she hid them and struggled against them in secret.

The motor-cycle came on like a comet now, and turned thundering in at the big gate. A sudden alarm filled Mother Marshall's soul. Had something happened to Father? That was the only terrible thing left in life to happen now. An accident! And this boy had come to prepare her for the worst? She had the kitchen door wide open even before the boy had stopped his machine and set it on its mysterious feet.

"Sp'c'l d'liv'ry!" fizzed the boy, handing her a fat envelope, a book, and the stub of a pencil. "Si'n'eer!" indicating a line on the book.

She managed to write her name in cramped characters, but her hand was trembling so she could hardly form the letters. A wild idea that perhaps they had discovered somehow that Stephen had escaped death in some miraculous manner flitted through her brain and out again, controlled by her strong common sense. Such notions always came to people after death had taken their loved ones—frenzied hopes for miracles! Stephen had been dead for four months now. There could be no such possibility, of course.

Just to calm herself she went and opened the slide of the range and shoved the tea-kettle a little farther on so it would begin to boil, before she opened that fat letter. She lit the lamp, too, put it on the supper-table, and changed the position of the bread-plate, covering it nicely with a fringed napkin so the bread wouldn't get dry. Everything must be ready when Father got back. Then she went and sat down with her gold spectacles and tore open that envelope.

She was so absorbed in the letter that she failed for the first time since they got the car to hear its pleasant purr as it came down the road, and the big head-lights sent their rays out cheerfully without any one at the kitchen window to see. Father was getting worried that the kitchen door didn't fly open as he drew in beside the big flag-stone, when Mother suddenly came flying out with her face all smiles and eagerness. He hadn't seen her look that way since Stephen went away.

She had left a trail of letter all the way from her big chair to the door, and she held the envelope in her hand. She rushed out and buried her face in his rough coat-collar:

"Oh, Father! I've been so worried about you!" she declared, joyfully, but she didn't look worried a bit.

Father looked down at her tenderly and patted her plump shoulder. "Had a flat tire and had to stop, and get her pumped up," he explained, "and then the man found a place wanted patching. He took a little longer than I expected. I was afraid you would worry."

"Well, hurry in," she said, eagerly. "Supper's all ready and I've got a letter to read to you."

It went without saying that if Mother liked a thing in that home Father would, too. His sun rose and set in Mother, and they had lived together so long and harmoniously that the thoughts of one were the reflection of the other. It didn't matter which, you asked about a thing, you were sure to get the same opinion as if you had asked the other. It wasn't that one gave way to the other; it was just that they had the same habits of thought and decision, the same principles to go by. So when, after she had passed the hot johnny-cake, seen to it that Father had the biggest pork chop and the mealiest potato, and given him his cup of coffee creamed and sugared just right, Mother got out the letter with the university crest and began to read. She had no fears that Father would not agree with her about it. She read eagerly, sure of his sympathy in her pleasure; sure he would think it was nice of Stephen's friend to write to her and pick her out as a real mother, saying all those pleasant things about her; sure he would be proud that she, with all the women they had in the East, should have so brought up a boy that a stranger knew she was a real mother. She had no fear that Father would frown and declare they couldn't be bothered with a stranger around, that it would cost a lot and Mother needed to rest. She knew he would be touched at once with the poor, lonely girl's position, and want to do anything in his power to help her. She knew he would be ready to fall right in with anything she should suggest. And, true to her conviction, Father's eyes lighted with tenderness as she read, watched her proudly and nodded in strong affirmation at the phrases touching her ability as mother.

"That's right, Mother, you'll qualify for a job as mother better 'n any woman I ever saw!" said Father, heartily, as he reached for another helping of butter.

His face kindled with interest as the letter went on with its proposition, but he shook his head when it came to the money part, interrupting her:

"I don't like that idea, Mother; we don't keep boarders, and we're plenty able to invite company for as long as we like. Besides, it don't seem just the right thing for that young feller to be paying her board. She wouldn't like it if she knew it. If she was our daughter we wouldn't want her to be put in that position, though it's very kind of him of course—"

"Of course!" said Mother, breathlessly. "He couldn't very well ask us, you know, without saying something like that, especially as he doesn't know us, except by hearsay, at all."

"Of course," agreed Father; "but then, equally of course we won't let it stand that way. You can send that young feller back his check, and tell him to get his new ottymobeel. He won't be young but once, and I reckon a young feller of that kind won't get any harm from his ottymobeels, no matter how many he has of 'em. You can see by his letter he ain't spoiled yet, and if he's got hold of Steve's idea of things he'll find plenty of use for his money, doing good where there ain't a young woman about that is bound to object to being took care of by a young man she don't know and don't belong to. However, I guess you can say that, Mother, without offending him. Tell him we'll take care of the money part. Tell him we're real glad to get a daughter. You're sure, Mother, it won't be hard for you to have a stranger around in Steve's place?"

"No, I like it," said Mother, with a smile, brushing away a bright tear that burst out unawares. "I like it 'hard,' as Steve used to say! Do you know, Father, what I've been thinking—what I thought right away when I read that letter? I thought, suppose that girl was the one Stephen would have loved and wanted to marry if he had lived. And suppose he had brought her home here, what a fuss we would have made about her, and all! And I'd just have loved to fix up the house and make it look pleasant for her and love her as if she were my own daughter."

Father's eyes were moist, too. "H'm! Yes!" he said, trying to clear his throat. "I guess she'd be com'ny for you, too, Mother, when I have to go to town, and she'd help around with the work some when she got better."

"I've been thinking," said Mother. "I've always thought I'd like to fix up the spare room. I read in my magazine how to fix up a young girl's room when she comes home from college, and I'd like to fix it like that if there's time. You paint the furniture white, and have two sets of curtains, pink and white, and little shelves for her books. Do you think we could do it?"

"Why, sure!" said Father. He was so pleased to see Mother interested like this that he was fairly trembling. She had been so still and quiet and wistful ever since the news came about Stephen. "Why, sure! Get some pretty wall-paper, too, while you're 'bout it. S'posen you and I take a run to town again in the morning and pick it out. Then you can pick your curtains and paint, too, and get Jed Lewis to come in the afternoon and put on the first coat. How about calling him up on the 'phone right now and asking him about it? I'm real glad we've got that 'phone. It'll come in handy now."

Mother's eyes glistened. The 'phone was another thing Stephen insisted upon before he left home. They hadn't used it half a dozen times except when the telegrams came, but they hadn't the heart to have it disconnected, because Stephen had taken so much pride in having it put in. He said he didn't like his mother left alone in the house without a chance to call a neighbor or send for the doctor.

"Come to think of it, hadn't you better send a telegram to that chap to-night? You know we can 'phone it down to the town office. He'll maybe be worried how you're going to take that letter. Tell him he's struck the right party, all right, and you're on the job writing that little girl a letter to-night that'll make her welcome and no mistake. But tell him we'll finance this operation ourselves, and he can save the ottymobeel for the next case that comes along—words to that effect you know, Mother."

The supper things were shoved back and the telephone brought into requisition. They called up Jed Lewis first before he went to bed, and got his reluctant promise that he would be on hand at two o'clock the next afternoon. They had to tell him they were expecting company or he might not have been there for a week in spite of his promise.

It took nearly an hour to reduce the telegram to ten words, but at last they settled on:

Bonnie welcome. Am writing you both to-night. No money necessary.

(Signed) STEPHEN'S MOTHER AND FATHER.

The letters were happy achievements of brevity, for it was getting late, and Mother Marshall realized that they must be up early in the morning to get all that shopping done before two o'clock.

First the letter to Bonnie, written in a cramped, laborious hand:

DEAR LITTLE GIRL:

You don't know me, but I've heard about you from a sort of neighbor of yours. I'm just a lonely mother whose only son has gone home to heaven. I've heard all about your sorrow and loneliness, and I've taken a notion that maybe you would like to come and visit me for a little while and help cheer me up. Maybe we can comfort each other a little bit, and, anyhow, I want you to come.

Father and I are fixing up your room for you, just as we would if you were our own daughter coming home from college. For you see we've quite made up our minds you will come, and Father wants you just as much as I do. We are sending you mileage, and a check to get any little things you may need for the journey, because, of course, we wouldn't want to put you to expense to come all this long way just to please two lonely old people. It's enough for you that you are willing to come, and we're so glad about it that it almost seems as if the birds must be singing and the spring flowers going to bloom for you, even though it is only the middle of winter.

Don't wait to get any fixings. Just come as you are. We're plain folks.

Father says be sure you get a good, comfortable berth in the sleeper, and have your trunk checked right through. If you've got any other things besides your trunk, have them sent right along by freight. It's better to have your things here where you can look after them than stored away off there.

We're so happy about your coming we can't seem to wait till we hear what time you start, so please send a telegram as soon as you get this, saying when the doctor will let you come, and don't disappoint us for anything.

Lovingly, your friend, RACHEL MARSHALL.

The letter to Courtland was more brief, but just as expressive:

MR. PAUL COURTLAND:

DEAR FRIEND.—You're a dear boy and I'm proud that my son had you for a friend.

(When Courtland read that letter he winced at that sentence and saw himself once more standing in the hall in front of Stephen Marshall's room, holding the garments of those who persecuted him.)

I have written Bonnie Brentwood, telling her how much we want her, and I am going to town in the morning to get some things to fix up a pretty room for her. I thank you for thinking I was a good mother. Father and I are both quite proud about it. We are very lonely and are glad to have a daughter for as long as she will stay. But, anyway, if we hadn't wanted her, we could not have said no when you asked for Christ's sake. Father says we are returning the check because we want to do this for Bonnie ourselves; then there won't be anything to cover up. Father says if you have begun this way you will find plenty of ways to spend that money for Christ and let us look after this one little girl. We've sent her mileage and some money, and we're going to try to make her happy. And some day we would be very happy if you would come out and visit us. I should like to know you for my dear Stephen's sake. You are a dear boy, and I want to know you better. I am glad you have found our Christ. Father thinks so too. Thank you for thinking I would understand.

Lovingly, MOTHER MARSHALL.

But after all that excitement Mother Marshall could not sleep. She lay quietly beside Father in the old four-poster and planned all about that room. She must get Sam Carpenter to put in some little shelves each side of the windows, and a wide locker between for a window-seat, and she would make some pillows like those in the magazine pictures. She pictured how the girl would look, a dozen times, and what she would say, and once her heart was seized with fear that she had not made her letter cordial enough. She went over the words of the young man's letter as well as she could remember them, and let her heart soar and be glad that Stephen had touched one life and left it better for his being in the university that little time.

Once she stirred restlessly, and Father put out his hand and touched her in alarm:

"What's the matter, Rachel? Aren't you sleeping?"

"Father, I believe we'll have to get a new rug for that room."

"Sure!" said Father, relaxing sleepily.

"Gray, with pink rosebuds, soft and thick," she whispered.

"Sure! pink, with gray rosebuds," murmured Father as he dropped off again.

They made very little of breakfast the next morning; they were both too excited about getting off early; and Mother Marshall forgot to caution Father about going at too high speed. If she suspected that he was running a little faster than usual she winked at it, for she was anxious to get to the stores as soon as possible. She had arisen early to read over the article in the magazine again, and she knew to a nicety just how much pink and white she would need for the curtains and cushions. She had it in the back of her mind that she meant to get little brass handles and keyholes for the bureau also. She was like a child who was getting ready for a new doll.

It was not until they were on their way back home again, with packages all about their feet, and an eager light in their faces, that an idea suddenly came to both of them—an idea so chilling that the eagerness went out of their eyes for a moment, and the old, patient, sweet look of sorrow came back. It was Mother Marshall who put it into words:

"You don't suppose, Seth," she appealed—she always called him Seth in times of crisis—"you don't suppose that perhaps she mightn't want to come, after all!"

"Well, I was thinking, Rachel," he said, tenderly, "we'd best not be getting too set on it. But, anyhow, we'd be ready for some one else. You know Stevie always wanted you to have things fixed nice and fancy. But you fix it up. I guess she's coming. I really do think she must be coming! We'll just pray about it and then we'll leave it there!"

And so with peace in their faces they arrived at home, just five minutes before the painter was due, and unloaded their packages. Father lifted out the big roll of soft, velvety carpeting, gray as a cloud, with moss roses scattered over it. He was proud to think he could buy things like this for Mother. Of course now they had no need to save and scrimp for Stephen the way they had done during the years; so it was well to make the rest of the way as bright for Mother as he could. And this "Bonnie" girl! If she would only come, what a bright, happy thing it would be in their desolated home!

But suppose she shouldn't come?



CHAPTER XI

The telegram reached Courtland Friday evening, just as he was going to the Dare dinner, and filled him with an almost childish delight. Not for a long time had he had anything as nice as that happen; not even when he made Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year had he been so filled with exultation. It was like having a fairy-tale come true. To think there had really been a woman in the world who would respond in that cordial way to a call from the great unknown!

He presented himself in his most sparkling mood at the house where he was to dine. There was nothing at all blue about him. His eyes fairly danced with pleasure and his smile was rare. Gila looked and drooped her eyes demurely. She thought the sparkle was all for her, and her little wicked heart gave a throb of exultant joy.

Mrs. Dare was no longer a large, purple person. She was in full evening dress, explaining that she and her husband had an engagement at the opera after dinner. She resembled the fat dough people that the cook used to fashion for him in his youth. Her pudgy arms so reminded him of those shapeless cooky arms that he found himself fascinated by the thought as he watched her moving her bejeweled hands among the trinkets at her end of the glittering table. Her gown, what there was of it, was of black gauze emblazoned with dartling sequins of deep blue. An aigret in her hair twinkled knowingly above her coarse, painted face. Courtland, as he studied her more closely, rejoiced that the telegram had arrived before he left the dormitory, for he never could have had the courage to come to this plump-shouldered lady seeking refuge for his refined little Bonnie girl.

The father of the family was a little wisp of a man with a nervous laugh and a high, thin voice. There were kind lines around his mouth and eyes, indulgent lines—not self-indulgent, either, and insomuch they were noble—but there was a weakness about the face that showed he was ruled by others to a large extent. He said, "Yes, my dear!" quite obediently when his wife ordered him affably around. There was a cunning look in his eye that might explain the general impression current that he knew how to turn a dollar to his own account.

It occurred to Courtland to wonder what would happen if he should suddenly ask Mr. Dare what he thought of Christ, or if he believed in the resurrection. He could quite imagine they would look aghast as if he had spoken of something impolite. One couldn't think of Mrs. Dare in a resurrection, she would seem so out of place, so sort of unclothed for the occasion, in those fat, doughy arms with her glittering jet shoulder-straps. He realized that all these thoughts that raced through his head were but fantasies occasioned no doubt by his own highly wrought nervous condition, but they kept crowding in and bringing the mirth to his eyes. How, for instance, would Mother Marshall and Mother Dare hit it off if they should happen together in the same heaven?

Gila was all in white, from the tip of her pearly shoulders down to the tip of her pearl-beaded slippers—white and demure. Her skin looked even more pearly than when she wore the brilliant red-velvet gown. It had a pure, dazzling whiteness, different from most skins. It perplexed him. It did not look like flesh, but more like some ethereal substance meant for angels. He drew a breath of satisfaction that there was not even a flush upon it to-night. No painting there at least! He was not master of the rare arts that skins are subject to in these days. He knew artificial whiteness only when it was glaring and floury. This pearly paleness was exquisite, delicious; and in contrast the great dark eyes, lifted pansy-like for an instant and then down-drooped beneath those wonderful, long curling lashes, were almost startling in their beauty. The hair was simply arranged with a plain narrow band of black velvet around the white temples, and the soft loops of cloudy darkness drawn out on her cheeks in her own fantastic way. There was an attempt at demureness in the gown; soft folds of pure transparent nothing seemed to shelter what they could not hide, and more such folds drooped over the lovely arms to the elbows. Surely, surely, this was loveliness undefiled. The words of Peer Gynt came floating back disconnectedly, more as a puzzled question in his mind than as they stand in the story:

"Is your psalm-book in your 'kerchief? Do you glance adown your apron? Do you hold your mother's skirt-fold? Speak!"

But he only looked at her admiringly, and talked on about the college games, making himself agreeable to every one, and winning more and more the lifted pansy-eyes.

When dinner was over they drifted informally into a large white-and-gold reception-room, with inhospitable chairs and settees whose satin slipperiness offered no inducements to sit down. There were gold-lacquered tables and a curious concert-grand piano, also gold inlaid with mother-of-pearl cupids and flowers. Everything was most elaborate. Gila, in her soft transparencies, looked like a wraith amid it all. The young man chose to think she was too rare and fine for a place so ornate.

Presently the fat cooky arms of the mother were enfolded in a gorgeous blue-plush evening cloak beloaded with handsome black fur; and with many bows and kindly words the little husband toddled off beside her, reminding Courtland of a big cinnamon bear and a little black-and-tan dog he had once seen together in a show.

Gila stood bewitchingly childish in the great gold room, and shyly asked if he would like to go to the library, where it was cozier. The red light glowed across the hall, and he turned from it with a shudder of remembrance. The glow seemed to beat upon his nerves like something striking his eyeballs.

"I'd like to hear you play, if you will," he answered, wondering in his heart if, after all, a dolled-up instrument like that was really meant to be played upon.

Gila pouted. She did not want to play, but she would not seem to refuse the challenge. She went to the piano and rippled off a brilliant waltz or two, just to show him she could do it, played Humoresque, and a few little catchy melodies that were in the popular ear just then, and then, whirling on the gilded stool, she lifted her big eyes to him:

"I don't like it in here," she said, with a little shiver, as a child might do; "let's go into the library by the fire. It's pleasanter there to talk."

Courtland hesitated. "Look here," said he, frankly, "Wouldn't you just as soon sit somewhere else? I don't like that red light of yours. It gets on my nerves. I don't like to see you in it. It makes you look—well—something different from what I believe you really are. I like a plain, honest white light."

Gila gave him one swift, wondering glance and walked laughingly over to the library door. "Oh, is that all?" she said, and, touching a button, she switched off the big red table-lamp and switched on what seemed like a thousand little tapers concealed softly about the ceiling.

"There!" she cried, half mockingly. "You can have as much light as you like, and when you get tired of that we can cut them all off and sit in the firelight." She touched another button and let him see the room in the soft dim shadows and rich glow of the fire. Then she turned the full light on again and entered the room, dropping into one big leather chair at the side of the fireplace and indicating another big chair on the opposite side. She had no notion of sitting near him or of luring him to her side to-night. She had read him aright. Hers was the demure part to play, the reserved, shy maiden, the innocent, child-like, womanly woman. She would play it, but she would humble him! So she had vowed with her little white teeth set in her red lips as she stood before her dressing-table mirror that night when he had fled from her red room and her.

Well pleased, with a sigh of relief he dropped into the chair and sat watching her, talking idly, as one who is feeling his way to a pleasant intimacy of whose nature he is not quite sure. She was very sweet and sympathetic about the examinations, told how she hated them herself and thought they ought to be abolished; said he was a wonder, that her cousin had told her he was a regular shark, and yet he hadn't let himself be spoiled by it, either. She flattered him gently with that deference a girl can pay to a man which makes her appear like an angel of light, and fixes him for any confidence in the world he has to give. She sat so quietly, with big eyes lifted now and then, talking earnestly and appreciatively of fine and noble things, that all his best thoughts about her were confirmed. He watched her, thinking what a lovely, lovable woman she was, what gentle sympathy and keen appreciation of really fine qualities she showed, child even though she seemed to be! He studied her, thinking what a friend she might be to that other poor girl in her loneliness and sorrow if she only would. He didn't know that he was yielding again to the lure that the red light had made the last time he was there. He didn't realize that, red light or white light, he was being led on. He only knew that it was a pleasure to talk to her, to be near her, to feel her sympathy; and that something had unlocked the innermost depths of his heart, the place he usually kept to himself, even away from the fellows. He had never quite opened it to a human being before. Tennelly had come nearer to getting a glimpse than any one. But now he was really going to open it, for he had at last found another human being who could understand and appreciate.

"May I shut off the bright light and sit in the firelight?" he asked, and Gila acquiesced sweetly. It was just what she had been leading up to, but she did not move from her reticent yet sympathetic position in the retired depths of the great chair, where she knew the shadows and the glow of the fire would play on her face and show her sweet, serious pose.

"I want to tell you about a girl I have met this week."

A chill fell upon Gila, but she did not show it, she never even flickered those long lashes. Another girl! How dared he! The little white teeth set down sharply on the little red tongue out of sight, but the sweet, sympathetic mouth in the glow of the firelight remained placid.

"Yes?" The inflection, the lifted lashes, the whole attitude, was perfect. He plunged ahead.

"You are so very wonderful yourself that I am sure you will appreciate and understand her, and I think you are just the friend she needs."

Gila stiffened in her chair and turned her face nicely to the glow of the fire, so he could just see her lovely profile.

"She is all alone in the city—"

"Oh!" broke forth Gila in almost childish dismay. "Not even a chaperon?"

Courtland stopped, bewildered. Then he laughed indulgently. "She didn't have any use for a chaperon, child," he said, as if he were a great deal older than she. "She came here with her little brother to earn their living."

"Oh, she had a brother, then!" sighed Gila with evident relief.

It occurred to Courtland to be a bit pleased that Gila was so particular about the conventionalities. He had heard it rumored more than once that her own conduct overstepped the most lenient of rules. That must have been a mistake. It was a relief to know it from her own lips. But he explained, gently:

"The little brother was killed on Monday night," he said, gravely. "Just run down in cold blood by a passing automobile."

"How perfectly dreadful!" shuddered Gila, shrinking back into the depths of the chair. "But you know you mustn't believe a story like that! Poor people are always getting up such tales about rich people's automobiles. It isn't true at all. No chauffeur would do a thing like that! The children just run out and get in the way of the cars to tantalize the drivers. I've seen them myself. Why, our chauffeur has been arrested three or four times and charged with running over children and dogs, when it wasn't his fault at all; the people were just trying to get some money out of us! I don't suppose the little child was run over. It was probably his own fault."

"Yes, he was run over," said Courtland, gently. "I saw it myself! I was standing on the curbstone when the boy—he was a beautiful little fellow with long golden curls—rushed out to meet his sister, calling out to her, and the automobile came whirring by without a sign of a horn, and crushed him down just like a broken lily. He never lifted his head nor made a motion again, and the automobile never even slowed up to see—just shot ahead and was gone."

Gila was still for a minute. She had no words to meet a situation like this. "Oh, well," she said, "I suppose he is better off, and the girl is, too. How could she take care of a child in the city alone, and do any work? Besides, children are an awful torment, and very likely he would have turned out bad. Boys usually do. What did you want me to do for her? Get her a position as a maid?"

There was something almost flippant in her tone. Strange that Courtland did not recognize it. But the firelight, the white gown, the pure profile, the down-drooped lashes had done for him once more what the red light had done before—taken him out of his normal senses and made him see a Gila that was not really there: soft, sweet, tender, womanly. The words, though they did not satisfy him, merely meant that she had not yet understood what he wanted, and was striving hard to find out.

"No," he said, gently. "I want you to go and see her. She is sick and in the hospital. She needs a friend, a real girl friend, such as you could be if you would."

Gila answered in her slow, pretty drawl: "Why, I hate hospitals! I wouldn't even go to see mama when she had an operation on her neck last winter, because I hate the odors they have around. But I'll go if you want me to. Of course I won't promise how much good I'll do. Girls of that stamp don't want to be helped, you know. They think they know it all, and they are usually most insulting. But I'll see what I can do. I don't mind giving her something. I've three evening dresses that I perfectly hate, and one of them I've never had on but once. She might get a position to act somewhere or sing in a cafe if she had good clothes."

Courtland hastened earnestly to impress her with the fact that Miss Brentwood was a refined girl of good family, and that it would be an insult to offer her second-hand clothing; but when he gave it up and yielded to Gila's plea that he drop these horrid, gloomy subjects and talk about something cheerful, he had a feeling of failure. Perhaps he ought not to have told Gila, after all. She simply couldn't understand the other girl because she had never dreamed of such a situation.

If he could have seen his gentle Gila a couple of hours later, standing before her mirror again and setting those little sharp teeth into her red lip, the ugly frown between her angry eyes; if he could have heard her low-muttered words, and, worse still, guessed her thoughts about himself and that other girl—he certainly would have gone out and gnashed his teeth in despair. If he could have known what was to come of his request to Gila Dare he would have rung up the hospital and had Miss Brentwood moved to another one in hot haste, or, better still, have taken strenuous measures to prevent that visit. But instead of that he read Mother Marshall's telegram over again, and lay down to forget Gila Dare utterly, and think pleasant thoughts about the Marshalls.



CHAPTER XII

Gila Dare, in her very most startling costume, lavishly plastered with costly fur, and high-laced, French-heeled boots, came tripping down her father's steps to the limousine. She carried a dangling little trick of a hand-bag and a muff big enough for a rug. Her two eyes looked forth from the rim of the low-squashed, bandage-like fur hat like the eyes of a small, sly mouse that was about to nibble somebody else's cheese.

By her side a logy youth, with small, blue fish-eyes fixed adoringly on her, sauntered protectingly. She wore a large bunch of pale-yellow orchids, evidently his gift, and was paying for them with her glances. One knew by the excited flush on the young man's face that he had rarely been paid so well. His eyes took on a glint of intelligence, one might almost say of hope, and he smiled egregiously, egotistically. His assurance grew with each step he took. As he opened the door of the luxurious car for her he wore an attitude of one who might possibly be a fiance. Her little mouse-eyes—you wouldn't have dreamed they could ever be large and wistful, nor innocent, either—twinkled pleasurably. She was playing her usual game and playing it well. It was the game for which she was rapidly becoming notorious, young as she was.

"Oh, now, Chaw-! Ree-ally! Why, I never dreamed it was that bad! But you mustn't, you know! I never gave you permission!"

The chauffeur, sitting stolidly in his uniform, awaiting the word to move, wondered idly what she was up to now. He was used to seeing the game played all around him day after day, as if he were a stick or a stone, or one of the metal trappings of the car.

"Chawley" Hathaway looked unutterable things, and the little mouse-eyes looked back unutterable things, with that lingering, just-too-long-for-pardoning glance that a certain kind of men and women employ when they want to loiter near the danger-line and toy with vital things. An impressive hand-clasp, another long, languishing look, just a shade longer this time; then he closed the door, lifted his hat at the mouse-eyed goddess, and the limousine swept away. They had parted as if something momentous had occurred, and both knew in their hearts that neither had meant anything at all except to play with fire for an instant, like children sporting at lighting a border of forest that has a heart of true homes in its keeping.

Gila swept on in her chariot. The young man with whom she had played was well skilled in the game. He understood her perfectly, as she him. If he got burned sometimes it was "up to him." She meant to take good care of herself.

Around another corner she spied another acquaintance. A word to the automaton on the front seat and the limousine swept up to the curb where he was passing. Gila leaned out with the sweetest bow. She was the condescending lady now; no mouse-eyes in evidence this time; just a beautiful, commanding presence to be obeyed. She would have him ride with her, so he got in.

He was a tall, serious youth with credulous eyes, and she swept his soulful nature as one sweeps the keys of a familiar instrument, drawing forth time-worn melodies that, nevertheless, were new to him. And just because he thrilled under them, and looked in her eyes with startled earnestness, did she like to play upon his soul. It would have been a bore if he had understood, for he was a dull soul, and young—ages young for Gila, though his years numbered two more than hers. She liked to see his eyes kindle and his breath come quick. Some day he would tell her with impassioned words how much he loved her, and she would turn him neatly and comfortably down for a while, till he learned his place and promised not to be troublesome. Then he might join the procession again as long as he would behave. But at present she knew she could sway him as she would, and she touched the orchids at her belt with tender little caressing movements and melting looks. Even before she reached home she knew he would have a box of something rarer or more costly waiting for her, if the city afforded such.

She set him down at his club, quite well satisfied with her few minutes. She was glad it didn't last longer, for it would have grown tiresome; she had had just enough, carried him just far enough on the wave of emotion, to stimulate her own soul.

Sweeping away from the curb again, bowing graciously to two or three other acquaintances who were going in or out of the club building, she gave an order for the hospital and set her face sternly to the duty before her.

A little breeze of expectation preceded her entrance into the hospital, a stir among the attendants about the door. Passing nurses apprized her furs and orchids; young interns took account of her eyes—the mouse-eyes had returned, but they lured with something unspeakable and thrilling in them.

She waited with a nice little superb air that made everybody hurry to serve her, and presently she was shown up to the door of Bonnie Brentwood's room. Her chauffeur had followed, bearing a large pasteboard suit-box which he set down at the door and departed.

"Is this Miss Brentwood's room?" she asked of the nurse who opened the door grudgingly. Her patient had just awakened from a refreshing sleep and she had no notion that this lofty little person had really come to see the quiet, sad-eyed girl who had come there in such shabby little garments. The visitor had made a mistake, of course. The nurse grudgingly admitted that Miss Brentwood roomed there.

"Well, I've brought some things for her," said Gila, indicating the large box at her feet. "You can take it inside and open it."

The nurse opened the door a little wider, looked at the small, imperious personage in fur trappings, and then down at the box. She hesitated a moment in a kind of inward fury, then swung the door a little wider open and stepped back:

"You can set it inside if you wish, or wait till one of the men comes by," she said, coolly, and deliberately walked back in the room and busied herself with the medicine-glasses.

Gila stared at her haughtily a moment, but there wasn't much satisfaction in wasting her glares on that white-linen back, so she stooped and dragged in the box. She came and stood by the bed, staring down apprizingly at the sick girl.

Bonnie Brentwood turned her head wearily and looked up at her with a puzzled, half-annoyed expression. She had paid no heed to the little altercation at the door. Her apathy toward life was great. She was lying on the borderland, looking over and longing to go where all her dear ones had gone. It wearied her inexpressibly that they all would insist on doing things to call her back.

"Is your name Brentwood?" asked Gila, in the sharp, high key so alien to a hospital.

Bonnie recalled her spirit to this world and focused her gaze on the girl as if to try and recall where she had ever met her. Bonnie's abundant hair was spread out over the pillow, as the nurse had just prepared to brush it. It fell in long, rich waves of brightness and fascinating little rings of gold about her face. Gila stared at it jealously, as if it were something that had been stolen from her. Her own hair, cloudy and dreamy, and made much of with all that skill and care could do, was pitiful beside this wonderful gold mane with red and purple shadows in its depths, and ripples and curls at the ends. Wonderful hair!

The face of the girl on the pillow was perfect in form and feature. Regular, delicate, refined, and lovely! Gila knew it would be counted rarely beautiful, and she was furious! How had that upstart of a college boy dared to send her here to see a beauty! What had he meant by it?

By this time the girl on the bed had summoned her soul back to earth for the nonce, and answered in a cool, little tone of distance, as she might have spoken to her employer, perhaps; or, in other circumstances, to the stranger begging for work on her door-sill—Bonnie was a lady anywhere—"Yes, I am Miss Brentwood."

There was no noticeable emphasis on the "Miss," but Gila felt that the pauper had arisen and put herself on the same level with her, and she was furious.

"Well, I've brought you a few things!" declared Gila, in a most offensive tone. "Paul Courtland asked me to come and see what I could do for you." She swung her moleskin trappings about and pointed to the box. "I don't believe in giving money, not often," she declared, with a tilt of her nasty little chin that suddenly seemed to curve out in a hateful, Satanic point, "but I don't mind giving a little lift in other ways to persons who are truly worthy, you know. I've brought you a few evening dresses that I'm done with. It may help you to get a position playing for the movies, perhaps; or if you don't know rag-time, perhaps you might act—they'll take almost anybody, I understand, if they have good clothes. Besides, I'm going to give you an introduction to a girls' employment club. They have a hall and hold dances once a week and you get acquainted. It only costs you ten cents a week and it will give you a place to spend your evenings. If you join that you'll need evening dresses for the dances. Of course I understand some of the girls just go in their street suits, but you stand a great deal better chance of having a good time if you are dressed attractively. And then they say men often go in there evenings to look for a stenographer, or an actor, or some kind of a worker, and they always pick out the prettiest. Dress goes a great way if you use it rightly. Now there's a frock in here—" Gila stooped and untied the cord on the box. "This frock cost a hundred and fifty dollars, and I never wore it but once!"

She held up a tattered blue net adorned with straggling, crushed, artificial rosebuds, its sole pretension to a waist being a couple of straps of silver tissue attached to a couple of rags of blue net. It looked for all the world like a draggled butterfly.

"It's torn in one or two places," pursued Gila's ready tongue, "but it's easily mended. I wore it to a dance and somebody stepped on the hem. I suppose you are good at mending. A girl in your position ought to know how to sew. My maid usually mends things like this with a thread of itself. You can pull one out along the hem, I should think. Then here is a pink satin. It needs cleaning. They don't charge more than two or three dollars—or perhaps you might use gasolene. I had slippers to match, but I couldn't find but one. I brought that along. I thought you might do something with it. They were horribly expensive—made to order, you know. Then this cerise chiffon, all covered with sequins, is really too showy for a girl in your station, but in case you get a chance to act you might need it, and anyhow I never cared for it. It isn't becoming to me. Here's an indigo charmeuse with silver trimmings. I got horribly tired of it, but you will look stunning in it. It might even help you catch a rich husband; who knows! There's half a dozen pairs of white evening gloves! I might have had them cleaned, but if you can use them I can get new ones. And there's a bundle of old silk stockings! They haven't any toes or heels much, but I suppose you can darn them. And of course you can't afford to buy expensive silk stockings!"

One by one Gila had pulled the things out of the box, rattling on about them as if she were selling corn-cure. She was a trifle excited, to be sure, now that she was fairly launched on her philanthropic expedition; also the fact that the two women in the room were absolutely silent and gave no hint of how they were going to take this tide of insults was somewhat disconcerting. However, Gila was not easily disconcerted. She was very angry, and her anger had been growing in force all night. The greatest insult that man could offer her had been heaped upon her by Courtland, and there was no punishment too great to be meted out to the unfortunate innocent who had been the occasion of it. Gila did not care what she said, and she had no fear of any consequences whatever. There had not, so far to her knowledge, lived the man who could not be called back and humbled to her purpose after she had punished him sufficiently for any offense he might knowingly or unknowingly have committed. That she really had begun to admire Courtland, and to desire him in some degree for her own, only added fuel to her fire. This girl whom he had dared to pity should be burned and tortured; she should be insulted and extinguished utterly, so that she would never dare to lift her head again within recognizable distance of Paul Courtland, or she would know the reason why. Paul Courtland was hers—if she chose to have him; let no other girl dare to look at him!

The nurse stood, starched and stern, with growing indignation at the audacity of the stranger. Only the petrification of absolute astonishment, and wonder as to what would happen next, took her off her guard for the moment and prevented her from ousting the young lady from the premises instantly. There was also the magic name of the handsome young gentleman that had been used as password, and the very slight possibility that this might be some rich relative of the lovely young patient that she would not like to have put out. The nurse looked from Bonnie to the visitor in growing wrath and perplexity.

Bonnie lay wide-eyed and amazed, startled bewilderment and growing dignity in her face. Two soft, pink spots of color began to bloom out in her cheeks, and her eyes took on a twinkle of amusement. She was watching the visitor as if she were a passing Punch-and-Judy show come in to play for a moment for her entertainment. She lay and regarded her and her tawdry display of finery with a quiet, disinterested aloofness that was beginning to get on Gila's nerves.