The Breton Mills — Chapter XII, XIII

The Brenton Mills
By Charles J. Bellamy
Copyrighted by the Author, and published by arrangement with him
Chapter XII
A New Galatea
Bertha rose from her chair slowly like one in a dream and looked long and earnestly at Philip as he came towards her.  There was a read spot on either cheek, and her eyes seemed preternaturally large and bright.  At first he fancied it was out of joy at seeing him.  Then she smiled as if she had not thought of it before, but with a strange gentleness that was intensely pathetic.
"You don't come as often as you used, but you have always been very good and kind to me, Phillip," She said vaguely as if rehearsing the virtues of the departed.
His heart came into his throat and he could not speak.  Was this her coming back to him? It was more like a funeral.  She motioned him to sit near her, and then she stared and seemed to listen.
"Have I been very cold and hard with you, Philip, when you wanted me to love you?" She laid her hot fingers on his hand, but her eyes wandered lingeringly around the pallor walls. 
"It is nothing, my own sweetheart" he answered her anxiously, "only say you love me now."
She did not seem to hear  him.  "I must have made you suffer.  I did not understand, you know, what it all meant."
She had taken his hand, and bent over towards him with a troubled look on her face.  She rested on hand on his shoulder, and her lips almost touched his forehead.
"Do you forgive me?" she said softley and yet her voice was as dispassionate as an angel's whisper. 
"Why there is nothing to forgive," Philip answered, his words of love frozen on his lips, there was something so terrible in the mysterious mood that was upon her. "But do you remember," he added with a forced smile, "what you promised for to-morrow."
"To-morrow?" she drew back from him fearfully, "to-morrow," she repeated as if the word had some strange mystery in it.  "have I promised you anything for to-morrow."
It was not Bertha Ellingsworth at all, as he had known her, it was rather as he had dreamed she might. be.  In the commonest of women are elements of character, germs of emotions, that in their height and fused together can glorify her to a creature of resistless power and dignity, with holy fire shining in her face.  It is the sleeping goddess, men worship in woman for worship is the truest form of love, and when that worship is lost, that part of love for which a man would make a hero of himself, and rise above every groveling taint in his nature, is lost too.  A woman may sin and not repent; she may seem as shallow as the surf on the shining sand just before its ebb, but so long as a man believes in the goddess in her, he waits on her folly, he strives to gild over her sin, in ennobling reverence for her possibilities. 
"Why, to-morrow was the day you promised to let me talk of -"
"I rememberer." She drew back from him, and clasped her white hands for a moment over her forehead "and have you been thinking a great deal of it?"
"Why not to-night, Bertha," he begged in sudden fervor.
But she started to her feat like one in mortal terror.  "Oh no, not no-night!"
Then she came near him again, and looked down with a new sad smile as he held her hand to his lips.
"You don't mind very much, do you? I am not very much of a woman really," she said wistfully, "if it wasn't for the habit. you have fallen into."
Then she glanced at the clock on the mantel that has presided at so many sweet interviews between these two. 
"Aren't you going to the labor meeting, it must be begun before this?"
Her. voice had changed, there was a sharp and uneasy tone in it that brought Philip to his feet.
"I didn't know there was any," he repeated stolidly.
"I must have been mistaken then," she looked troubled.
How fortunate that she should know.  Well he might as well go and attend to his father's business. Bertha had nothing for him that did not break his heart.
She followed him to the door.
"How sad the moonlight is. I am afraid of it," she said as she held out her hand to him.
He did not see it, but stood looking out into the still night, the moonlight making his face show wan and set as if that moment he was crushing forever the dearest hope of his life.
Then he heard a broken voice coming, it seemed a long way to his ears.
"Oh, Philip, aren't you going to kiss me good good-night?" 
His passion he had thought crushed came over him in a storm.  He gathered her yielding form in his arms as if he never would loose her again, and kissed her trembling answering lips a dozen times, and her wet anxious eyes.
Bertha, I will not go," he whispered hurriedly. "I can not leave you thus."
But she had gently released herself form his embrace. She tried to smile at him though her tears.
"No, no, you must go." Still he hesitated till a strange eagerness came into the blue eyes. "No, no, you must go.  Good-bye, Philip."
As he went down the steps and out of the gate, the chill  of the last expression in her eyes hung about his heart.  Then he stopped and looked about.  She had closed the door, but something white fluttered on the step.  It was her handkerchief, with the perfume she always used in its delicate folds.  He carried it to his face - it was almost as if he touched her.  He stood hesitating a moment -- a moment big with issues to them both.  He remembered her tender woods and the rare caresses she had for him; he forgot the undertone that had so painfully interpreted them.  It was as if he had tasted of some priceless vintage of wine.  He would return in an hour and taste again.  Ah, he had waited patiently for the moment when this woman of stainless marble would turn to flesh!  And now his foolish heart. counted all its harsh lessons for nothing, but beat high with triumph.  "To-morrow."  She understood him, then, but how modest and timid she was; to-morrow would be for them both the brightest day of their lives.  But she was startled at herself now, no wonder, at the revelation of the depths of such a heart. She wanted a little time to calm herself; to get wonted to the new woman that looked out of her eyes. 
He had made up his mind, and the moon went under a black cloud for anger.  But it was only for an hour: then he would come back.
Market-hall was crowded, and Curran was speaking at a pitch of impassioned eloquence beyond anything Philip had ever heard.
"What overwhelms you is your own energies fused into weapons of deadly warfare; it is their cunning which turns your myriad hands against yourselves.  Where else can they find the force to vanquish you?  The rich are but few.  Whose hands but yours are strong and numerous enough to carry out their plans? The longer you submit, the stronger they entrench themselves with your flesh and blood.  Every week some new trade or profession is invented to make respected and steady some new discovered method of living out of the poor; every month some new law is passed that interests of the money power."
He passed for a moment and then went on with more bitterness.  "Every month the upper classes grow more indifferent to the foundation on which they rest-of throbbing, agonizing human flesh.  Not satisfied with the terrible natural distinction between wealth and poverty, they invent codes of manners and devise elaborate systems of what they mincingly call etiquette. Marriage with the poor is inexcusable. Even familiarity with inferiors – a great breach of “propriety” they call it. They ask not, is a man honest and true hearted, is he kind, but is he wealthy, or did he ever soil his hands with work? Not is a women beautiful, is she modest? These are of little account; but is she well, that is richly, connected? If her father cheats others she may be admitted to their circles, if he is unfortunate enough to be cheated, never. Ah the shame of it, that makes no account of hundreds of millions of human creatures of untainted blood, of unclouded intellects, only as mere beasts of burden; to deny them social privileges, and whip the boldest of them back into the darkness of ignorance and contempt. All the lights of knowledge must burn for the few alone, all the soft influences of culture, and the elevating pleasures from art and genius are for those few alone.” He folded his arms over his broad chest and threw back his head in one of his grandest gestures.

“And how have they earned the right to call themselves mankind, to drink alone at the fountains of knowledge and inspiring beauty, with never a share of the millions sweating under the burdens their white hands have put upon them? No carpets of priceless web are too fine for the lovely woman’s feet, rubies not rare enough for their jewels. Music beats out its heavenly harmonies for them alone, with its treasured meaning of uncounted centuries. Painting ravishes their eyes alone with pictured realms of inspired fancy. Literature scrapes and cringes before them with its stores of wisdom. Deserved! God himself, in the full glory of his omnipotence, would not outrage his creatures thus and yet they are our creates and we suffer it.”

Then he threw out his arms and came forward to the edge of the platform, for one last personal appeal. A hundred that could not understand all he said, thrilled in vague revolt under his irresistible magnetic force.

“Your bodies, whose only pleasure is sleeping, whose only gratification is to still the day recurring necessary hunger, your bodies could enjoy every luxury and beauty, ah, and the common Christian comforts would be sweetest luxuries to you, which have palled on the sated senses of the rich. Your minds and souls could grow find and broad and calm, in the education their pampered children scoff at; and the world progresses more in a year, than in centuries before, And you are a thousand to one; the joys and comforts, the blessed possibilities of a thousand lives, against the insensate greed of one man for more, and more he cannot eat, or drink, or enjoy. It is his madness, but they do not confine such as he, who sets the world back ten years for one he lives. But when he opens his great vault to-morrow and sits down to count his ill gotten gains of the yesterday, let his heart sink within him; he has refused his workmen the common rights of humanity, and they will leave his mills to rot in idleness.”

He took his hat from the table and strode down the isle amid the excited applause of his audience, and went out, not even once looking back. An awkward silence followed, but it was several moments more before Philip braced himself to do what perhaps was his duty. His father depended on him, and besides it was a terrible conflict, when labor and capital came to open battle; it ought to be averted. Every eye was fixed on him as he made his way forward; not one there but believed he was their friend. Had he not put on the fire escapes out of his own money in spite of his father? Many a whisper of commendation brought an answer of hearty good feeling. One or two of the women in the galleries actually said hew as handsome.

“My friends,” he began, but somehow did not care to lift his eyes to meet the kind look in the trustful eyes, “I don’t think there is any occasion, I mean friends -”

What did he mean, he knew better than they what occasion there was. How dare he ask them to wait and hope for when he had a corporation a heart for mercy? He knew better than they, that to-morrow would be the last day when a strike would be likely of any effect. They might defeat his father’s scheme if nothing else, a scheme that would make them servants no longer of a man, but of a pitiless business principle.

He looked about the room at last; he read alright the confidence in the eyes of the company. He believed he might make them wait, but had he a right to ask it? Here were a thousand souls in the mills, impatient at injustice, as they thought it; he could offer them no hope, not one straw; his hands would be fore tied after to-morrow. Had he a right to restrain them?

“Friends, I know not what to advise you, since I am so weak to help you.” He sat down and a cheer rang loud and hearty to the roof, but he felt himself in an agonizing position. On the great questions at issue between the employers and the workman, the rich and the poor, his mind was slow in coming to a conclusion. He admitted most that even Curran said, while he listened , but what then, how to help it, was the question he ever asked himself. Surely nobody was profited by flying in the face of great economical laws. But then what were laws, and what were fallacies. Well, if he did not know what was right, could he not follow his father’s urgent wishes? Was he making a generous return for the love his father had lavished on him, if he should disobey him now? Well then if he told them all he knew, it might be fair for him to ask them to submit one more day, but what arguments had he in that case for them? As he sat there his vivid imagination pictured the corporation in operation. Some little injustice was being done, and he mentions it to the overseer. “Them’s orders, you must see the superintendent.” He could see it all so plainly. He knocks at the superintendent’s door and is received with the attention due to the chief stockholder’s son; he sees his bland smiling face, strange but familiar, his sleek well paid smile. He speaks of the rule which perhaps works to rob some particular set of hands, wholly without their fault. “But I have no authority to change it, though it does seem hard, better see the agent.” Philip imagines his discouraged step, as he makes his way to the agent to be referred to a set of indifferent directors, who “really know nothing about the matter, but I do not feel like running against the interests of the stockholders.” There would be no responsible human being to listen to the cries of the poor, who contributed their eager portion of the air and sunlight and all their hopes and joy or rest, to be woven, no doubt, into the matchless fabric of the Breton Mills.

While Philip sat trying to grasp his duty of that moment, he became conscious that it was very still, and no one seemed disposed to follow him. Not a few impatient faces were turned askance towards him. Well, they were afraid of him; no wonder, if they knew what was passing in his thoughts. He rose and crossed the room to go out, but almost at the door he hesitated. He must say something.

“Perhaps it is not all quite as plain as you think. If by higher wages or shorter hours you made the profit on the mills smaller, are you not afraid other mills would leave us behind, being able to sell cheaper, or else the capital invested go elsewhere where it can make more profit? Now you get small wages for long hours, but in the other cases you might lose work altogether?” Then he looked anxiously around and added hurriedly, “Mind, I don’t say do this or that; I will not ask anything of you/ But if there is a loss it will be on you.”

When he left the hall he felt like walking about a little while, to calm his mind. He chose the route that would lead past the little tenement house where they had fed him with cold potatoes. It was only a month ago. He looked in though the windows. The sick woman yet lay on the sofa, the same soiled plaid shawl for her coverlet; there was the same bare deal table, and a pair of dingy chairs before it. The desolation made his heart sick. Then he looked up at the windows of the attic chamber where he had slept that other night. IT was all dark, but he imagined the glaring white walls, with the queer little block of a looking-glass hanging there, and the backless wooden chair that had to serve for a wash-stand, then there was his low bed, and the girl’s shawl for his counterpane. What great things he had dreamed, that night, he should do for the new cause that had fired his heart, new to him, but old as civilization. He turned away with a pain in his heart, a pain for the wrongs of the millions of sons of toil, who have never come into their inheritance. He turned up the road that led to his own home on the ill; he could see the gleam of right light from his father’s study, where with his smooth-faced lawyer, he was perfecting his plans for the morrow. And then he seemed to hear his own words, and his own tone as he had spoken in the meeting, echoing oddly in his ear. Had he undutifully sacrificed his father to his help, and would it be from his fault, the strike he feared would come to-morrow? Could his father point his trembling fingers at him, when the mills should stop, and the prospective stockholders decline the investment to-morrow, and say, “My own son is to blame. With one word he could have prevented it.”

Then Philip turned his back to the lights that seemed to reproach him intolerably, and walked slowly down the hill again. Ah! What fear for capital, it always shifts its burden upon labor.

A woman’s form came quickly out of a shadow, and laid a hand on his arm. It was Jane Graves, with a shawl over her head, servant-girl fashion, but was it the ghastly effect of the moonlight on her face that made it so pale?

“Wasn’t you at Miss Ellingsworth’s this evening?”

“Why, yes,” he looked at her in astonishment, “and I was just going there again.”

“I didn’t know but she might be with you. I was at my father’s, and when I came back, I couldn't find her, and her hat and shawl were gone.”

“She has gone out with her father, perhaps,” suggested Philip, startled more by her manner than her words.

“But he has been up at Mr. Breton’s all the evening. And you know she never goes out alone.”

“When was it?” Jane Graves stopped short, and when he had told her, a quick, involuntary cry escaped her lips, and after that he had almost to run to keep up with her.

Now and then he tried to laugh at the terrors this foolish servant had put in his mind. But could it be Bertha had taken another evening walk? She was too beautiful for the exposures of common life; mankind was much to weak to be tempted by such delicious loveliness as hers. Was heaven envious of such happiness as he had expected in their reconciliation? Why not strike him, then, and not her? Why, it must have been she had tried to overtake him, to call him back. “Hurry faster,” he muttered, catching the girl’s arm roughly.

CHAPTER XIII

Class prejudice

But the house looked so sedate, and altogether respectable, that it seemed impossible but that everything was as usual inside. The door stood invitingly open, as it should on such a balmy summer evening, the light streaming bountifully out on the walk. A catastrophe surly would have left some sign, some fatal mark somewhere to curdle one’s blood from afar. How foolish of this black-eyed made and him, to rush at the top of their speed, in agony of suspense, only to find Bertha sitting at the parlor table, mild eyed and serene as he had used to know her. She had only stepped across the street perhaps.

How she would wonder to see him hurrying in his unreasonable fear, into her presence, into her presence, but he would pour into her ears such a torrent of words of love, that she would bless him a thousand times that he had to come back, and their happiness would date from to-night. Perhaps she had tender confidences for him, too, of how wonderfully she had grown into the love he had longed for, and she would whisper to him that the few weeks of estrangement had been a blessing of God for her, and he need never again complain of the coldness of her love. Life is not so serious and tragical an affair as one sometimes thinks; things don’t always plunge into the ruin they are pointed towards.

By the time Philip stepped into the door, he had fully discounted his expected relief; indeed, had almost persuaded himself that he had had no misgivings, there seemed so little sense in misgivings.

But he did not find the blue-eyed woman he loved at her parlor table. He looked for a crochet needle or a square of canvas, which might show the marks of recent work; but the round table was in perfect order. The little book-shaped card basket stood near the bronze base of the drop lamp. A large red morocco bound volume, called “The Dresden Gallery,” was tilted up a little by a blue and gold book of Swinburne’s poems, on which it had been laid. The graceful carved book-rack was full, all but one space the volume of poems might have fitted into.

“Just as I arranged it after tea, said Jane Graves, moving uneasily about.

“For heaven’s sake be still,” he exclaimed. He stepped out into the hall.

“Why, here is her shawl,” he said, with a lightened heart.

“It is her heavy shawl that is gone,” the girl looked peculiarly at him when she added almost under her breath, “the one she takes on evening drives.”

Philip shot a glance of sudden intelligence at her, and terrible suggestions and recollections came crowding their hateful meanings upon him. The mad blood seemed congesting about his heart, and yet for his face blazed like fire. “Good God!” he shouted hoarsely, “if you dare to breathe it, I will choke the envious life out of you.” Then he caught the bell knob at the door and rang it fiercely, and then again, before its echoes had ceased, and again and again.

“And is there another fire, your honor?”

The broad-faced chambermaid had come up from the kitchen, and stood with arms a-kimbo, trying to make her rich Irish voice heard above the sounding gong.

“Do you know where your mistress is?”

“No-a; if she be not inside, indade.”

“Didn’t she go over to a neighbor’s somewhere?” questioned Philip, eagerly.

“Not that I knows on, sir”

“Has anybody been here? Didn’t you tend door, you ninny!”

“The bell didn’t ring till now, sir; but lave me think a bit,” and the women rubbed her head meditatively.

“Quick,” cried Philip, between hope and fear.

“Don’t scare me, sir, or I can’t do nothink.”

He moved his feet restlessly on the inlaid hall floor; and he had bowed his head as if studying the artist’s design; but it was for fear he should catch some terrible significance in Jane Graves’ black eyes. He could hear her dress rustle; he knew she was looking at him. Waiting for him to lift his face; but he would not have met her eyes at the moment for all the world.

“Yis, there was a rumblin’ team come up, and I thought I hearn a man come to the dure and thin go back; but the bell didn’t ring, sir, and I didn’t make no count on it. No sir, I hevn’t hearn missus movin’ roun’ sence, and I knows she be all over the house before.”

The creature’s tongue was unloosed and she kept on talking, but Philip had bounded up the broad stairs and thrown open the door of the room he thought was Bertha’s.

In another moment the gas blazed up to the ceiling and he stood, wild-eyed, looking from aide to side as if he thought to find a heart-breaking story written all over the gold papered walls, then his eyes became fixed on the black walnut bureau with its long mirror coming down though the centre. On the marble slab at the foot of the mirror he saw a satin covered handkerchief case; and pinned into it -

In three steps he had clutched a little perfumed note, with a ribbon fastened on it as if for a signal, a delicate bow of white ribbon. Mr. Ellingsworth’s name was written on it. It was all here, and yet he hesitated a moment as a man would hesitate to cut off a maimed and poisoned limb. And it was almost unconsciously at last that his nervous fingers tore the note open and let the bit of white ribbon flutter to the floor. He seemed to read very slowly and the flush faded from his face and left it vary calm. There could be nothing very thrillingly written there surely. But every line and curve was branded forever on his heart.

 "I have gone with Curran. I knew I could not stand your reproaches, but I can only be happy with the man I love. Society will disown me. He is more to me than them all. BERTHA." 

He crushed the bit of paper in his hand, and looked up to see Jane Graves standing in the doorway, pale as death. Beside her stood the red- cheeked chambermaid, speechless again, this time with astonishment to see the young man make so free in her mistress' chamber. 

" Gone with Curran, oh yes, it is all written out. Well, that is a joke ; a man who don't wear cuffs, and Bertha loves him ! Why, I never could dress to suit her." And he threw himself into a chair, and burst into convulsions of laughter till the tears came.  "Well, there may be something else," and he stepped jauntily up to the bureau again. 

" Certainly, a jewel box with my name on it ; oh ! to be sure, our engagement ring." He held it up to catch the sparkle of the solitaire diamond. " Yes, yes, a very proper and delicate spirit. I wasn't mistaken in Bertha, she always had a nice sense of propriety." 

He came a little unsteadily toward the two women. Jane Graves was pale and still as death, with her two little hands pressed tightly upon her bosom. Philip wondered impatiently what was the matter with the girl. If he could treat the whole wretched business like a huge joke, what the deuce was the use of her playing tragedy queen over it ? What child's play life's solemnest woes and failures are, after all a man's dread of them ! It is mixing up flesh and blood with them, spoils their grand effects ; men and women are only fit for the cheapest kind of low
comedy. How it must amuse the immortal gallery gods, when a man attempts to sustain the tragedy 
pitch in his experiences. If one can only get the true point of view, there is no such thing as a noble situation, a glorious victory or a desperate dilemma. The dignity of sorrow is a ridiculous misnomer. Everything is only more or less funny according to its pretentiousness — for example the astonishing denouement of his love episode. 

Now Norah the chambermaid, with a face like a pumpkin, and eyes that stuck out like saucers, say 
of the cheap blue kind, was a suitable lay figure for such an occasion. 

" Why here, Norah, this is really a very good diamond. I bought it for the best, permit me to present it to you. Bertha, your late mistress I mean — was a large woman, no doubt you can wear it over your little finger. Consider it as a reminder of this charming evening. Ah, let me put it on, you are not used to jewels — thus. Now, my love, you may run down stairs and show your pretty present.'' 

He turned his strangely bright eyes to the wall at the foot of Bertha's bed. 

'' My picture, too. How the girl's heart must have glowed night and morning over it." He took it down and held it before him a moment. 

'' A foolish face," he muttered between his teeth, the wild merriment fading out of his features. He bent and laid the picture glass upwards on the floor, then he ground it viciously beneath the heel of his boot, and walked away without deigning to cast another look at it. 

Bertha's pure bed, which her graceful form had pressed so many years — an inscrutable awe crept over him ; it seemed impious to look, he fell on his knees and buried his hot face in the pillow where he fancied her head had rested. 

" Oh, my lost darling, my lost Bertha, you have taken all the joy and hope of my life with you," and his slight frame shook with tearless sobs, like the death throes of a breaking heart. 

Then he rose in bitterness of soul to his feet. Was there no way to drown the deep settled pain about his breast ? Were there no other women in the world? He had heard times enough, there was no salve for a broken heart so quick and sure as an 
other woman's kisses. 

He almost stumbled over Jane Graves, who lay across the threshold in a dead faint. It was but the work of a moment to bend over her, and lift her in his arms. But he would not let her lie on Bertha's bed, no, not to save her life, and he bore her through the hall to another chamber. It was a slight girlish form he held and need not have been so unpleasant a burden. But he laid her down on the first rest- 
ing place he could find, and lifted her feet with delicate gentleness on the bed. He removed the high pillows from under her head, so that she could breathe more easily, and, true gentleman that he was, covered her pretty feet and ankles with some light wrap. 

A green tinted cologne bottle stood near by and he bethought himself to dash the cool contents into her face, and felt quite a doctor's surprise to see any good result follow his ministrations. The banished blood stole slowly back into her olive cheeks. He bent over her and lifted her shapely little hands, as dainty as a princess', and tried to arrange them in some graceful position. She would know how to do 
it the instant she opened her eyes ; he could think of nothing only as she had stood at the door of Bertha's room ; so he crossed her hands lightly over her bosom that was beginning to pant in returning consciousness. How pretty she was ; if her lips were a little full that was a very pardonable fault. 

It was very odd her fainting out of sympathy with his sufferings. Not impossibly the little maid might have a soft spot in her heart for him. A sudden mad thought warmed his blood ; why not wait till she opened her eyes, this charming little girl, and then, swear to her that he loved her. What was love then that such a pretty face and form as this should not have it ? She was no cold woman : her kisses and 
endearments — but his eyes had grown cold and hard while he looked at her. If she were a Cleopatra she could be nothing to him, her kisses would only stifle 
him with their passion ; her clinging soft arms about his neck would only strangle him. He knew to his sorrow what it was to love, and no pretty sham, no 
matter how its voluptuous artifices made his hot blood surge through his veins, could still for one moment the immortal longing it only mocked. She moved a little as she lay ; and he started and went out. 

The girl's eyes opened slowly on the rich blue lambrequins, and the rare frescoing of the room. She vaguely wondered for one delicious moment if 
she awoke some rich gentleman's wife, and her old life of poverty was past forever. Why, she was in Mr. Ellingsworth's bed chamber; how came she here ? And her hair was wet ; and the ruffles on her neck were damp— it was cologne. Then she remembered everything, and rose from the august couch she had unworthily pressed. She laid back the great pillows and tried to smooth out the outlines of her form on the spotless counterpane, and then made her way down stairs. The house was so still it frightened her; it was as if everybody in the world had died while she lay in her faint. The hall below was empty too, and the outer door shut. As she passed she brushed against Bertha's light shawl, the one that had relieved Philip Breton's fears when he saw it. She opened the parlor door ; she felt as if she must find somebody to ease the tension of her nerves. 

Mr. Ellingsworth sat with his head bowed on his hands ; he knew it all ; his home was desolated, his pride outraged. At the noise he uncovered his face for a moment and looked up ; and the cruel light falling on his distressed face revealed the marks  of age his tranquil course of life and selfish and complacent philosophy had so long softened and covered. He saw the graceful figure of his maid in a pretty attitude of hesitation on his pleasure. He was alone in the world but for her, deserted in his own home only for her. 

"Come here, Jennie," he said in a broken voice. 

She came into the room, and a few steps toward him. Then she stopped. Her face was almost as pale as when she fainted, but her black eyes shone with unusual feverish brilliancy. 

" Give me your hand, dear." 

The girl started, and half turned as if to escape. Then strange thoughts darted through her brain. A warm, red flush mounted from her neck, and spread 
itself in tingling waves of shame to the very roots of her black hair. She came up to him, and reached out her little hand. He pressed it gently, then he laid it against his cheek. Her heart bounded in sudden revolt, but she controlled herself with an effort of sheer will, and did not move, but her startled eyes sought the floor. And so this was her proud master. But what harm if he wanted to be foolish and sentimental ? it was no matter to anybody now, no one cared for her unkissed lips. 

" Jennie," he said at last, ''come nearer to me." 

And she kneeled by his chair, in a sudden impulse she dared not define, not yet. She put her Other hand in his, and lifted her dark, wet eyes to his face. But the cold man of philosophy and subtle analysis was transfigured, and she was suddenly afraid of the spirit she had evoked. The next moment he looked in sudden terror at her face, in which reckless daring and maidenly timidity were blended into the most bewitching and tantalizing of effects. Then he bent down to the upturned face, that never flinched, and in another instant he held in his arms her form that seemed to shrink only that he must clasp her the closer. 

" Will you be my wife, Jennie ? I never loved a woman as I do you. Will you be my wife, Jennie ?'' 

'' Yes," whispered the red lips that never once turned away from his thick raining kisses. 

In Bertha Ellingsworth's own parlor, it was; with her mother's face looking down from the painted canvas, in the room where the daughter of the house had so coldly entertained the heir of the Breton Mills. Ah ! yes, and where she had taught Curran, the prophet of the poor, to love her, and she the very essence of the spirit he taught them to hate. But how her proud face would wince now ! If she were only 
here ! Her father, the haughtiest of men, to everybody in the great world beneath him cold as an iceberg, they said, arrogant as any duke of courtly circle, could it be he praying, with hot breath, the love and the hand of his servant maid ! Could it be he holding her so fondly in his arms, where he might have gathered coy dames of the stateliest rank, lavishing honeyed words and mad endearments on his poor servant girl, whose only nice dress it was he was crushing so recklessly ! Ah ! it was worth the cost, if she had to tear her heart out, for all that wealth can buy will be hers. 

She nestles her burning face on his shoulder, and tempts him to new caresses and new words of folly, that he may not remember yet what a strange thing it is he is doing ; that he may not think of repenting until his enthralled senses shall let him forget everything: else, rather than this sweet hour. She will now be able to comfort and restore her dying mother, give her tired father rest, and show them both that there is such a thing as happiness in life, even for them. Her wildest dreams are realized. She will be one of the rich and the great, whom the rest of the world bow down to. She will make her husband's — yes, this man is to be her husband, why should she be ashamed with him — she will make his friends all envy him his beautiful wife, and as for their faded, fashionable women, with limp backs, and bloodless veins, how it will please her to study the signs of jealousy on their listless faces. And Bertha Ellingsworth's proud, false heart will ache with shame over the low-born woman whom her father has made his wife. Curran had scorned her now she could scorn the woman he had preferred to her, and with wealth, how countless the means of revenge ! The poor can only kill, if they hate, the rich can torture and crucify alive. 

"Has the train gone for the west?" asked a breathless voice at the Lockout station. 

'' It's thirty minutes behind its time," growled the ticket agent. It was Philip Breton, who went back to the post to tie his horse more securely. "Poor Joe, poor old boy," the big white horse seemed more like to fall dead in his tracks than to try to 
break away. '' A pretty hard gallop, wasn't it, Joe, your breath will come easier in a minute, old horse." 

His time was precious, but he lingered in an uncontrollable terror of what he had come so far to see. He had thought he wanted to make sure. There might be some mistake in the note, or even now, if she had changed her mind — but it was all folly, he saw it now. He had forgotten all reason in one wild longing to see Bertha again. But what was the use of harrowing up his soul with new pictures he would pray God in vain to wipe out of his memory ? But he had come so far, perhaps it would do no harm to look at her once more, and who knows? strange things have happened in this world. He had turned and was walking along the platform, toward the 
ladies' waiting-room. He glanced up the long stretch of straight track and saw in the distance the headlight of the engine, which seemed to him a pitiless 
monster, hastening on to seize his daring and bear her to some hopeless region of eternal night. He must hurry. Who knows ? it might be fate had kept her rescue till this moment, and meant him to save her. He pushed the waiting-room door open. The seats appeared all vacant and expectant ; a big russet apple had been dropped on one of them by some interrupted traveler, and in another place the carpet upholstery was specked with the white litter of a cracker and cheese luncheon. The whole atmosphere was too commonplace for a pair of runaway 
lovers. Philip took two or three steps into the room, but it was only as he turned to go back, that he saw the settees were not quite deserted. 

It was a group for a painter's loftiest genius, but the artist must have a faith in love, such as the world have learned to scoff. The figure of the man may embody strength and dignity, in unconscious perfection, it is bent now in a beautiful protective attitude toward the woman whose head rests on his shoulder. Her lips are parted to reveal the pearly gleam of her white teeth, but she does not smile. She has golden hair like a crown sitting well down on the broad forehead, and there is the tint of red gold in her cheeks like a perpetual glow of sunset. But what painter can catch the holy tenderness in the eyes that drink in her unsullied beauty, the  breathless wonder, the rapt mystery in his softened face? What inspired brush can picture the quiver of the long golden lashes against her cheek, and then the dreamy stirring of the eyelids that now open wide, so his impassioned gaze may thrill the liquid depths of blue. Let the artist fix then forever if he can — the smile that ripples at last over her fascinated face, a smile of trust too perfect for shame. 

What was that sound so like a human sob, that startled the lovers from each other's arms ? Why, it almost made them sob for sympathy, as if it came from a broken heart. Who ever heard the wind moan like that, so short and sharp it was ? But it must have been the wind, for they were quite alone. 
 

[TO BE CONTINUED]

Kirk's

White cloud

floating soap is the choice

[illegible]

THE ANN ARBOR

SAVINGS BANK

Ann Arbor Michigan

[illegible]

Fire insurance

Christian Mack

[illegible]

BOILERS

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