John took it, and even as his hand grasped the sheet of paper he began to turn over in his mind a way out of this dilemma. As he finished reading it his mind was made up. He returned it to Will with a shrug of his shoulders and a smile more significant than words. The ashen face of his friend should have warned him.
“I did not intend to humiliate Dora, for men do many like things which never come to the ears of the woman they call wife. Accidentally I learned Miss Clark’s story. I also learned by observation that there were other stories just as piquante. You will thank me when you know all. She is beautiful. What would you have? Am I different from other men who have made like proposals to a fille de joie?”
Scarcely had the words passed his lips when Will was upon him.
“You miserable, lying hound!” he shouted, beside himself with rage and grief. He grasped John by the throat. Again the door opened, and Doctor Lewis ran toward the struggling figures.
“Will! John! are you both mad? Do you want to create a public scandal?” He succeeded in separating them, and then threw himself between them. So they stood panting and glaring at each other like angry beasts.
“Take me out of this, then!” cried Will, “or I won’t answer for myself! Here is your ring!” He took the ring Dora had given him, and threw it at Langley. “I will give you until tonight to get your luggage out of my house. If you are there tomorrow morning, I will shoot you like the cur you are.”
Doctor Lewis drew him from the room. The door closed. Thus they who had been friends for years parted.
John stood there alone in his silent office, looking out on the dreary vista of brick walls and the network of wires, in awful solitude with his thoughts of the past and his blank future. The sun of prosperity had set on him forever—he felt it—knew it. His own hand had wrought his ruin to himself, said his heart and conscience.
XX
Mother-Love
What is it to die?
Longfellow
To leave all disappointment, care and sorrow,
To leave all falsehood, treachery and unkindness,
All ignominy, suffering and despair,
And be at rest forever! O dull heart,
Be of good cheer! When thou shalt cease to beat,
Then shalt thou cease to suffer and complain!
Meantime Sappho had descended from the car at the corner of Arlington and Boylston Streets on that eventful Easter night; she entered the Garden, and impelled by an uncontrollable impulse, walked again through the paths where a few hours before she had known so much happiness. She knew no fear; the darkness concealed her. Again she sat upon the seat where she had passed the brightest moments of her life. A neighboring clock struck one. It was then the first hour of a new day—the dawn for her of fresh misery. A cold, sharp wind struck her with chilling force; she shivered, but still sat there buried in hopeless despair.
Fearful indeed is the plan of existence which rules our mortality. Innocent or guilty, our deeds done in the flesh pursue us with relentless vigor unto the end of life. Sometimes the rough winds of adversity are tempered to the shorn lamb who is not responsible for acts which are forced upon him; God in infinite wisdom and justice remits the severity of our sufferings; but the tracings still remain upon the sands of life—we bind up the wounds—they heal, but the scars remain.
Sappho possessed a brilliant mind and resolute character. If she had been a religious devotee she would have been as devout and as fervid as a disciple of old. If a sinner, the queen of them all. She had strength of will enough for a dozen women, which, if ever started on the wrong road, would be difficult to redirect into the paths of right. She had suffered much in meekness, but now dumb rage awoke her passions. For a time the spirit of revenge held full sway in the outraged heart. Revenge was all she craved; she shivered at the dark thoughts which came to her. “Revenge” whispered the swaying branches of the trees above her head—“revenge” seemed whispered in the chilling winds about her—revenge upon her seducer and upon the man who had dashed the cup of happiness from her lips and most wantonly insulted her in her weakness. Then came the blessed relief of tears—like a flood—they relieved the overcharged brain and saved her reason. She fancied, as she sat there trying to account for the evil that pursued her, that Conscience spoke in condemnation of her neglect of her child. She had felt nothing for the poor waif but repugnance. Her delicate nervous organization was naturally tinged with superstition, and she felt that God had sat in judgment on her willingness to forget her child. “Dost thou question the providences of God? Know that my ways are not the ways of men. A tender soul will be demanded at thy hands in the vast eternity. Who art thou, to question the ways of Infinity? Jesus Christ came into the world under the law. Who art thou, to question the wisdom of the Most High? Lo, there is the field—the life of a child—work for a bounteous harvest.” At length she rose from that seat resolved that come what would she would claim the child and do her duty as his mother in love and training. She would devote her life to him. They would nevermore be separated.
She met no one in her lonely walk through the now-deserted city streets. She was so benumbed by the shock she had received that she would hardly have noticed any insult that might have been directed to her. At length she reached the door of Madam Frances’s house. All
