for three months after this i had nothing but letters from sylvia. she proved to be an excellent letter-writer, full of verve and colour. i would not say that she poured out her soul to me, but she gave me glimpses of her states of mind, and the progress of her domestic drama.

first, she described the place to which she had come; a ravishing spot, where any woman ought to be happy. it was a little island, fringed with a border of cocoanut-palms, which rustled and whispered day and night in the breeze. it was covered with tropical foliage, and there was a long, rambling bungalow, with screened “galleries,” and a beach of hard white sand in front. the water was blue, dazzling with sunshine, and dotted with distant green islands; all of it, air, water, and islands, were warm. “i don’t realize till i get here,” she said, “i am never really happy in the north. i wrap myself against the assaults of a cruel enemy. but here i am at home; i cast off my furs, i stretch out my arms, i bloom. i believe i shall quite cease to think for a while—i shall forget all storms and troubles, and bask on the sand like a lizard.

“and the water! mary, you cannot imagine such water; why should it be blue on top, and green when you look down into it? i have a little skiff of my own in which i drift, and i have been happy for hours, studying the bottom; you see every colour of the rainbow, and all as clear as in an aquarium. i have been fishing, too, and have caught a tarpon. that is supposed to be a great adventure, and it really is quite thrilling to feel the monstrous creature struggling with you—though, of course, my arms soon gave out, and i had to turn him over to my husband. this is one of the famous fishing-grounds of the world, and i am glad of that, because it will keep the men happy while i enjoy the sunshine.

“i have discovered a fascinating diversion,” she wrote, in a second letter. “i make them take me in the launch to one of the loneliest of the keys; they go off to fish, and i have the whole day to myself, and am as happy as a child on a picnic! i roam the beach, i take off my shoes and stockings—there are no newspaper reporters snapping pictures. i dare not go far in, for there are huge black creatures with dangerous stinging tails; they rush away in a cloud of sand when i approach, but the thought of stepping upon one by accident is terrifying. however, i let the little wavelets wash round my toes, and i try to grab little fish, and i pick up lovely shells; and then i go on, and i see a huge turtle waddling to the water, and i dash up, and would stop him if i dared, and then i find his eggs—such an adventure!

“i am the prey of strange appetites and cravings. i have a delicious luncheon with me, but suddenly the one thing in the world i want to eat is turtle-eggs. i have no matches with me, and i do not know how to build a fire like the indians, so i have to hide the eggs back in the sand until to-morrow. i hope the turtle does not move them—and that i have not lost my craving in the meantime!

“then i go exploring inland. these islands were once the haunts of pirates, so i may imagine all sorts of romantic things. what i find are lemon-trees. i do not know if they are wild, or if the key was once cultivated; the lemons are huge in size, and nearly all skin, but the flavour is delicious. turtle-eggs with wild lemon-juice! and then i go on and come to a mangrove-swamp—dark and forbidding, a grisly place; you imagine the trees are in torment, with limbs and roots tangled like writhing serpents. i tiptoe in a little way, and then get frightened, and run back to the beach.

“i see on the sand a mysterious little yellow creature, running like the wind; i make a dash, and get between him and his hole; and so he stands, crouching on guard, staring at me, and i at him. he is some sort of crab, but he stands on two legs like a caricature of a man; he has two big weapons upraised for battle, and staring black eyes stuck out on long tubes. he is an uncanny thing to look at; but then suddenly the idea comes, how do i seem to him? i realize that he is alive; a tiny mite of hunger for life, of fear and resolution. i think, how lonely he must be! and i want to tell him that i love him, and would not hurt him for the world; but i have no way to make him understand me, and all i can do is to go away and leave him. i go, thinking what a strange place the world is, with so many living things, each shut away apart by himself, unable to understand the others or make the others understand him. this is what is called philosophy, is it not? tell me some books where these things are explained....

“i am reading all you sent me. when i grew tired of exploring the key, i lay down in the shade of a palm-tree, and read—guess what? ‘number five john street’! so all this loveliness vanished, and i was back in the world’s nightmare. an extraordinary book! i decided that it would be good for my husband, so i read him a few paragraphs; but i found that it only irritated him. he wants me to rest, he says—he can’t see why i’ve come away to the florida keys to read about the slums of london.

“my hope of gradually influencing his mind has led to a rather appalling discovery—that he has the same intention as regards me! he too has brought a selection of books, and reads to me a few pages every day, and explains what they mean. he calls this resting! i am no match for him, of course—i never realized more keenly the worthlessness of my education. but i see in a general way where his arguments tend—that life is something that has grown, and is not in the power of men to change; but even if he could convince me of this, i should not find it a source of joy. i have a feeling always that if you were here, you would know something to answer.

“the truth is that i am so pained by the conflict between us that i cannot argue at all. i find myself wondering what our marriage would have been like if we had discovered that we had the same ideas and interests. there are days and nights at a time when i tell myself that i ought to believe what my husband believes, that i ought never have allowed myself to think of anything else. but that really won’t do as a life-programme; i tried it years ago with my dear mother and father. did i ever tell you that my mother is firmly convinced in her heart that i am to suffer eternally in a real hell of fire because i do not believe certain things about the bible? she still has visions of it—though not so bad since she turned me over to a husband!

“now it is my husband who is worried about my ideas. he is reading a book by burke, a well-known old writer. the book deals with english history, which i don’t know much about, but i see that it resents modern changes, and the whole spirit of change. and mary, why can’t i feel that way? i really ought to love those old and stately things, i ought to be reverent to the past; i was brought up that way. sometimes i tremble when i realize how very flippant and cynical i am. i seem to see the wrong side of everything, so that i couldn’t believe in it if i wanted to!”

2. her letters were full of the wonders of nature about her. there was a snow-white egret who made his home upon her island; she watched his fishing operations, and meant to find his nest, so as to watch his young. the men made a trip into the everglades, and brought back wonder-tales of flocks of flamingoes making scarlet clouds in the sky, huge colonies of birds’ nests crowded like a city. they had brought home a young one, which screamed all day to be stuffed with fish.

a cousin of sylvia’s, harley chilton, had come to visit her. he had taken van tuiver on hunting-trips during the latter’s courtship days, and now was a good fishing-companion. he was not allowed to discover the state of affairs between sylvia and her husband, but he saw his cousin reading serious books, and his contribution to the problem was to tell her that she would get wrinkles in her face, and that even her feet would grow big, like those of the ladies in new england.

also, there was the young physician who kept watch over sylvia’s health; a dapper little man with pink and white complexion, and a brown moustache from which he could not keep his fingers. he had a bungalow to himself, but sometimes he went along on the launch-trips, and sylvia thought she observed wrinkles of amusement round his eyes whenever she differed from her husband on the subject of burke. she suspected this young man of not telling all his ideas to his multi-millionaire patients, and she was entertained by the prospect of probing him.

then came mrs. varina tuis; who since the tragic cutting of her own domestic knot, had given her life to the service of the happier members of the castleman line. she was now to be companion and counsellor to sylvia; and on the very day of her arrival she discovered the chasm that was yawning in her niece’s life.

“it’s wonderful,” wrote sylvia, “the intuition of the castleman women. we were in the launch, passing one of the viaducts of the new railroad, and aunt varina exclaimed, ‘what a wonderful piece of work!’ ‘yes,’ put in my husband, ‘but don’t let sylvia hear you say it.’ ‘why not?’ she asked; and he replied, ‘she’ll tell you how many hours a day the poor dagoes have to work.’ that was all; but i saw aunt varina give a quick glance at me, and i saw that she was not fooled by my efforts to make conversation. it was rather horrid of douglas, for he knows that i love these old people, and do not want them to know about my trouble. but it is characteristic of him—when he is annoyed he seldom tries to spare others.

“as soon as we were alone, aunt varina began, ‘sylvia, my dear, what does it mean? what have you done to worry your husband?’

“you would be entertained if i could remember the conversation. i tried to dodge the trouble by answering off-hand, ‘douglas had eaten too many turtle-eggs for luncheon ‘—this being a man-like thing, that any dear old lady would understand. but she was too shrewd. i had to explain to her that i was learning to think, and this sent her into a perfect panic.

“‘you actually mean, my child, that you are thinking about subjects to which your husband objects, and you refuse to stop when he asks you to? surely you must know that he has some good reason for objecting.’

“‘i suppose so,’ i said, ‘but he has not made that reason clear to me; and certainly i have a right—’

“she would not hear any more than that. ‘right, sylvia? right? are you claiming the right to drive your husband from you?’

“‘but surely i can’t regulate all my thinking by the fear of driving my husband from me!’

“‘sylvia, you take my breath away. where did you get such ideas?’

“‘but answer me, aunt varina—can i?’

“‘what thinking is as important to a woman as thinking how to please a good, kind husband? what would become of her family if she no longer tried to do this?’

“so you see, we opened up a large subject. i know you consider me a backward person, and you may be interested to learn that there are some to whom i seem a terrifying rebel. picture poor aunt varina, her old face full of concern, repeating over and over, ‘my child, my child, i hope i have come in time! don’t scorn the advice of a woman who has paid bitterly for her mistakes. you have a good husband, a man who loves you devotedly; you are one of the most fortunate of women—now do not throw your happiness away!’

“‘aunt varina,’ i said (i forget if i ever told you that her husband gambled and drank, and finally committed suicide) ‘aunt varina, do you really believe that every man is so anxious to get away from his wife that it must take her whole stock of energy, her skill in diplomacy, to keep him?’

“‘sylvia,’ she answered, ‘you put things so strangely, you use such horribly crude language, i don’t know how to talk to you!’ (that must be your fault, mary. i never heard such a charge before.) ‘i can only tell you this—that the wife who permits herself to think about other things than her duty to her husband and her children is taking a frightful risk. she is playing with fire, sylvia—she will realize too late what it means to set aside the wisdom of her sex, the experience of other women for ages and ages!’

“so there you are, mary! i am studying another unwritten book, the maxims of aunt varina!

“she has found the remedy for my troubles, the cure for my disease of thought—i am to sew! i tell her that i have more clothes than i can wear in a dozen seasons, and she answers, in an awesome voice, ‘there is the little stranger!’ when i point out that the little stranger will be expected to have a ‘layette’ costing many thousands of dollars, she replies, ‘they will surely permit him to wear some of the things his mother’s hands have made.’ so, behold me, seated on the gallery, learning fancy stitches—and with kautsky on the social revolution hidden away in the bottom of my sewing-bag!”

3. the weeks passed. the legislature at albany adjourned, without regard to our wishes; and so, like the patient spider whose web is destroyed, we set to work upon a new one. so much money must be raised, so many articles must be written, so many speeches delivered, so many people seized upon and harried and wrought to a state of mind where they were dangerous to the future career of legislators. such is the process of social reform under the private property régime; a process which the pure and simple reformers imagine we shall tolerate for ever—god save us!

sylvia asked me for the news, and i told it to her—how we had failed, and what we had to do next. so pretty soon there came by registered mail a little box, in which i found a diamond ring. “i cannot ask him for money just now,” she explained, “but here is something that has been mine from girlhood. it cost about four hundred dollars—this for your guidance in selling it. not a day passes that i do not see many times that much wasted; so take it for the cause.” queen isabella and her jewels!

in this letter she told me of a talk she had had with her husband on the “woman-problem.” she had thought at first that it was going to prove a helpful talk—he had been in a fairer mood than she was usually able to induce. “he evaded some of my questions,” she explained, “but i don’t think it was deliberate; it is simply the evasive attitude of mind which the whole world takes. he says he does not think that women are inferior to men, only that they are different; the mistake is for them to try to become like men. it is the old proposition of ‘charm,’ you see. i put that to him, and he admitted that he did like to be ‘charmed.’

“i said, ‘you wouldn’t, if you knew as much about the process as i do.’

“‘why not?’ he asked.

“‘because, it’s not an honest process. it’s not a straight way for one sex to deal with the other.’

“he asked what i meant by that; but then, remembering the cautions of my great-aunt, i laughed. ‘if you are going to compel me to use the process, you can hardly expect me to tell you the secret of it.’

“‘then there’s no use trying to talk,’ he said.

“‘ah, but there is!’ i exclaimed. ‘you admit that i have ‘charm’—dozens of other men admitted it. and so it ought to count for something if i declare that i know it’s not an honest thing—that it depends upon trickery, and appeals to the worst qualities in a man. for instance, his vanity. “flatter him,” lady dee used to say. “he’ll swallow it.” and he will—i never knew a man to refuse a compliment in my life. his love of domination. “if you want anything, make him think that he wants it!” his egotism. she had a bitter saying—i can hear the very tones of her voice: “when in doubt, talk about him.” that is what is called “charm”!’

“‘i don’t seem to feel it,’ he said.

“’ no, because now you are behind the scenes. but when you were in front, you felt it, you can’t deny. and you would feel it again, any time i chose to use it. but i want to know if there is not some honest way a woman can interest a man. the question really comes to this—can a man love a woman for what she really is?’

“‘i should say,’ he said, ‘that it depends upon the woman.’

“i admitted this was a plausible answer. ‘but you loved me, when i made myself a mystery to you. but now that i am honest with you, you have made it clear that you don’t like it, that you won’t have it. and that is the problem that women have to face. it is a fact that the women of our family have always ruled the men; but they’ve done it by indirection—nobody ever thought seriously of “women’s rights” in castleman county. but you see, women have rights; and somehow or other they will fool the men, or else the men must give up the idea that they are the superior sex, and have the right, or the ability, to rule women.’

“then i saw how little he had followed me. ‘there has to be a head to the family,’ he said.

“i answered, ‘there have been cases in history of a king and queen ruling together, and getting along very well. why not the same thing in a family?’

“‘that’s all right, so far as the things of the family are concerned. but such affairs as business and politics are in the sphere of men; and women cannot meddle in them without losing their best qualities as women.’

“and so there we were. i won’t repeat his arguments, for doubtless you have read enough anti-suffrage literature. the thing i noticed was that if i was very tactful and patient, i could apparently carry him along with me; but when the matter came up again, i would discover that he was back where he had been before. a woman must accept the guidance of a man; she must take the man’s word for the things that he understands. ‘but suppose the man is wrong?’ i said; and there we stopped—there we shall stop always, i begin to fear. i agree with him that woman should obey man—so long as man is right!”

4. her letters did not all deal with this problem. in spite of the sewing, she found time to read a number of books, and we argued about these. then, too, she had been probing her young doctor, and had made interesting discoveries about him. for one thing, he was full of awe and admiration for her; and her awakening mind found material for speculation in this.

“here is this young man; he thinks he is a scientist, he rather prides himself upon being cold-blooded; yet a cunning woman could twist him round her finger. he had an unhappy love-affair when he was young, so he confided to me; and now, in his need and loneliness, a beautiful woman is transformed into something supernatural in his imagination—she is like a shimmering soap-bubble, that he blows with his own breath. i know that i could never get him to see the real truth about me; i might tell him that i have let myself be tied up in a golden net—but he would only marvel at my spirituality. oh, the women i have seen trading upon the credulity of men! and when i think how i did this myself! if men were wise, they would give us the vote, and a share in the world’s work—anything that would bring us out into the light of day, and break the spell of mystery that hangs round us!

“by the way,” she wrote in another letter, “there will be trouble if you come down here. i was telling dr. perrin about you, and your ideas about fasting, and mental healing, and the rest of your fads. he got very much excited. it seems that he takes his diploma seriously, and he’s not willing to be taught by amateur experiments. he wanted me to take some pills, and i refused, and i think now he blames you for it. he has found a bond of sympathy with my husband, who proves his respect for authority by taking whatever he is told to take. dr. perrin got his medical training here in the south, and i imagine he’s ten or twenty years behind the rest of the medical world. douglas picked him out because he’d met him socially. it makes no difference to me—because i don’t mean to have any doctoring done to me!”

then, on top of these things, would come a cry from her soul. “mary, what will you do if some day you get a letter from me confessing that i am not happy? i dare not say a word to my own people. i am supposed to be at the apex of human triumph, and i have to play that role to keep from hurting them. i know that if my dear old father got an inkling of the truth, it would kill him. my one real solid consolation is that i have helped him, that i have lifted a money-burden from his life; i have done that, i tell myself, over and over; but then i wonder, have i done anything but put the reckoning off? i have given all his other children a new excuse for extravagance, an impulse towards worldliness which they did not need.

“there is my sister celeste, for example. i don’t think i have told you about her. she made her début last fall, and was coming up to new york to stay with me this winter. she had it all arranged in her mind to make a rich marriage; i was to give her the entrée—and now i have been selfish, and thought of my own desires, and gone away. can i say to her, be warned by me, i have made a great match, and it has not brought me happiness? she would not understand, she would say i was foolish. she would say, ‘if i had your luck, i would be happy.’ and the worst of it is, it would be true.

“you see the position i am in with the rest of the children. i cannot say, ‘you are spending too much of papa’s money, it is wrong for you to sign cheques and trust to his carelessness.’ i have had my share of the money, i have lined my own nest. all i can do is to buy dresses and hats for celeste; and know that she will use these to fill her girl-friends with envy, and make scores of other families live beyond their means.”

5. sylvia’s pregnancy was moving to its appointed end. she wrote me beautifully about it, much more frankly and simply than she could have brought herself to talk. she recalled to me my own raptures, and also, my own heartbreak. “mary! mary! i felt the child to-day! such a sensation, i could not have credited it if anyone had told me. i almost fainted. there is something in me that wants to turn back, that is afraid to go on with such experiences. i do not wish to be seized in spite of myself, and made to feel things beyond my control. i wander off down the beach, and hide myself, and cry and cry. i think i could almost pray again.”

and then again, “i am in ecstasy, because i am to bear a child, a child of my own! oh, wonderful, wonderful! but suddenly my ecstasy is shot through with terror, because the father of this child is a man i do not love. there is no use trying to deceive myself—nor you! i must have one human soul with whom i can talk about it as it really is. i do not love him, i never did love him, i never shall love him!

“oh, how could they have all been so mistaken? here is aunt varina—one of those who helped to persuade me into this marriage. she told me that love would come; it seemed to be her idea—my mother had it too—that you had only to submit yourself to a man, to follow and obey him, and love would take possession of your heart. i tried credulously, and it did not happen as they promised. and now, i am to bear him a child; and that will bind us together for ever!

“oh, the despair of it—i do not love the father of my child! i say, the child will be partly his, perhaps more his than mine. it will be like him—it will have this quality and that, the very qualities, perhaps, that are a source of distress to me in the father. so i shall have these things before me day and night, all the rest of my life; i shall have to see them growing and hardening; it will be a perpetual crucifixion of my mother-love. i seek to comfort myself by saying, the child can be trained differently, so that he will not have these qualities. but then i think, no, you cannot train him as you wish. your husband will have rights to the child, rights superior to your own. then i foresee the most dreadful strife between us.

“a shrewd girl-friend once told me that i ought to be better or worse; i ought not to see people’s faults as i do, or else i ought to love people less. and i can see that i ought to have been too good to make this marriage, or else not too good to make the best of it. i know that i might be happy as mrs. douglas van tuiver, if i could think of the worldly advantages, and the fact that my child will inherit them. but instead, i see them as a trap, in which not only ourselves but the child is caught, and from which i cannot save us. oh, what a mistake a woman makes when she marries a man with the idea that she is going to change him! he will not change, he will not have the need of change suggested to him. he wants peace in his home—which means that he wants to be what he is.

“sometimes i can study the situation quite coolly, and as if it didn’t concern me at all. he has required me to subject my mind to his. but he will not be content with a general capitulation; he must have a surrender from each individual soldier, from every rebel hidden in the hills. he tracks them out (my poor, straggling, feeble ideas) and either they take the oath of allegiance, or they are buried where they lie. the process is like the spoiling of a child, i find; the more you give him, the more he wants. and if any little thing is refused, then you see him set out upon a regular campaign to break you down and get it.”

a month or more later she wrote: “poor douglas is getting restless. he has caught every kind of fish there is to catch, and hunted every kind of animal and bird, in and out of season. harley has gone home, and so have our other guests; it would be embarrassing to me to have company now. so douglas has no one but the doctor and myself and my poor aunt. he has spoken several times of our going away; but i do not want to go, and i think i ought to consider my own health at this critical time. it is hot here, but i simply thrive in it—i never felt in better health. so i asked him to go up to new york, or visit somewhere for a while, and let me stay here until my baby is born. does that seem so very unreasonable? it does not to me, but poor aunt varina is in agony about it—i am letting my husband drift away from me!

“i speculate about my lot as a woman; i see the bitterness and the sorrow of my sex through the ages. i have become physically misshapen, so that i am no longer attractive to him. i am no longer active and free, i can no longer go about with him; on the contrary, i am a burden, and he is a man who never tolerated a burden before. what this means is that i have lost the magic hold of sex.

“as a woman it was my business to exert all my energies to maintain it. and i know how i could restore it now; there is young dr. perrin! he does not find me a burden, he would tolerate any deficiencies! and i can see my husband on the alert in an instant, if i become too much absorbed in discussing your health-theories with my handsome young guardian!

“this is one of the recognized methods of keeping your husband; i learned from lady dee all there is to know about it. but i would find the method impossible now, even if my happiness were dependent upon retaining my husband’s love. i should think of the rights of my friend, the little doctor. that is one point to note for the ‘new’ woman, is it not? you may mention it in your next suffrage-speech!

“there are other methods, of course. i have a mind, and i might turn its powers to entertaining him, instead of trying to solve the problems of the universe. but to do this, i should have to believe that it was the one thing in the world for me to do; and i have permitted a doubt of that to gain entrance to my brain! my poor aunt’s exhortations inspire me to efforts to regain the faith of my mothers, but i simply cannot—i cannot! she sits by me with the terror of all the women of all the ages in her eyes. i am losing a man!

“i don’t know if you have ever set out to hold a man—deliberately, i mean. probably you haven’t. that bitter maxim of lady dee’s is the literal truth of it—‘when in doubt, talk about him!’ if you will tactfully and shrewdly keep a man talking about himself, his tastes, his ideas, his work and the importance of it, there is never the least possibility of your boring him. you must not just tamely agree with him, of course; if you hint a difference now and then, and make him convince you, he will find that stimulating; or if you can manage not to be quite convinced, but sweetly open to conviction, he will surely call again. ‘keep him busy every minute,’ lady dee used to say. ‘run away with him now and then—like a spirited horse!’ and she would add, ‘but don’t let him drop the reins!’

“you can have no idea how many women there are in the world deliberately playing such parts. some of them admit it; others just do the thing that is easiest, and would die of horror if they were told what it is. it is the whole of the life of a successful society woman, young or old. pleasing a man! waiting upon his moods, piquing him, flattering him, feeding his vanity—‘charming’ him! that is what aunt varina wants me to do now; if i am not too crude in my description of the process, she has no hesitation in admitting the truth. it is what she tried to do, it is what almost every woman has done who has held a family together and made a home. i was reading jane eyre the other day. there is your woman’s ideal of an imperious and impetuous lover! listen to him, when his mood is on him!—

“i am disposed to be gregarious and communicative to-night; and that is why i sent for you; the fire and the chandelier were not sufficient company for me; nor would pilot have been, for none of these can talk. to-night i am resolved to be at ease; to dismiss what importunes, and recall what pleases. it would please me now to draw you out—to learn more of you—therefore speak!”

6. it was now may, and sylvia’s time was little more than a month off. she had been urging me to come and visit her, but i had refused, knowing that my presence must necessarily be disturbing to both her husband and her aunt. but now she wrote that her husband was going back to new york. “he was staying out of a sense of duty to me,” she said. “but his discontent was so apparent that i had to point out to him that he was doing harm to me as well as to himself.

“i doubt if you will want to come here now. the last of the winter visitors have left. it is really hot, so hot that you cannot get cool by going into the water. yet i am revelling in it; i wear almost nothing, and that white; and even the suspicious dr. perrin cannot but admit that i am thriving; his references to pills are purely formal.

“lately i have not permitted myself to think much about the situation between my husband and myself. i cannot blame him, and i cannot blame myself, and i am trying to keep my peace of mind till my baby is born. i have found myself following half-instinctively the procedure you told me about; i talk to my own subconscious mind, and to the baby—i command them to be well. i whisper to them things that are not so very far from praying; but i don’t think my poor dear mamma would recognize it in its new scientific dress!

“but sometimes i can’t help thinking of the child and its future, and then all of a sudden my heart is ready to break with pity for the child’s father! i have the consciousness that i do not love him, and that he has always known it—and that makes me remorseful. but i told him the truth before we married—he promised to be patient with me till i had learned to love him! now i want to burst into tears and cry aloud, ‘oh, why did you do it? why did i let myself be persuaded into this marriage?’

“i tried to have a talk with him last night, after he had decided to go away. i was full of pity, and a desire to help. i said i wanted him to know that no matter how much we might disagree about some things, i meant to learn to live happily with him. we must find some sort of compromise, for the sake of the child, if not for ourselves; we must not let the child suffer. he answered coldly that there would be no need for the child to suffer, the child would have the best the world could afford. i suggested that there might arise some question as to just what the best was; but to that he said nothing. he went on to rebuke my discontent; had he not given me everything a woman could want? he asked. he was too polite to mention money; but he said that i had leisure and entire freedom from care. i was persisting in assuming cares, while he was doing all in his power to prevent it.

“and that was as far as we got. i gave up the discussion, for we should only have gone the old round over again.

“douglas has taken up a saying that my cousin brought with him: ‘what you don’t know won’t hurt you!’ i think that before he left, harley had begun to suspect that all was not well between my husband and myself, and he felt it necessary to give me a little friendly counsel. he was tactful, and politely vague, but i understood him—my worldly-wise young cousin. i think that saying of his sums up the philosophy that he would teach to all women—‘what you don’t know won’t hurt you!’”

7. a week or so later sylvia wrote me that her husband was in new york. and i waited another week, for good measure, and then one morning dropped in for a call upon claire lepage.

why did i do it? you ask. i had no definite purpose—only a general opposition to the philosophy of cousin harley.

i was ushered into claire’s boudoir, which was still littered with last evening’s apparel. she sat in a dressing-gown with resplendent red roses on it, and brushed the hair out of her eyes, and apologized for not being ready for callers.

“i’ve just had a talking to from larry,” she explained.

“larry?” said i, inquiringly; for claire had always informed me elaborately that van tuiver had been her one departure from propriety, and always would be.

apparently she had now reached a stage in her career where pretences were too much trouble. “i’ve come to the conclusion that i don’t know how to manage men,” she said. “i never can get along with one for any time.”

i remarked that i had had the same experience; though of course i had only tried it once. “tell me,” i said, “who’s larry?”

“there’s his picture.” she reached into a drawer of her dresser.

i saw a handsome blonde gentleman, who looked old enough to know better. “he doesn’t seem especially forbidding,” i said.

“that’s just the trouble—you can never tell about men!”

i noted a date on the picture. “he seems to be an old friend. you never told me about him.”

“he doesn’t like being told about. he has a troublesome wife.”

i winced inwardly, but all i said was, “i see.”

“he’s a stock-broker; and he got ‘squeezed,’ so he says, and it’s made him cross—and careful with his money, too. that’s trying, in a stock-broker, you must admit.” she laughed. “and still he’s just as particular—wants to have his own way in everything, wants to say whom i shall know and where i shall go. i said, ‘i have all the inconveniences of matrimony, and none of the advantages.’”

i made some remark upon the subject of the emancipation of woman; and claire, who was now leaning back in her chair, combing out her long black tresses, smiled at me out of half-closed eyelids. “guess whom he’s objecting to!” she said. and when i pronounced it impossible, she looked portentous. “there are bigger fish in the sea than larry edgewater!”

“and you’ve hooked one?” i asked, innocently.

“well, i don’t mean to give up all my friends.”

i went on casually to talk about my plans for the summer; and a few minutes later, after a lull—“by the way,” remarked claire, “douglas van tuiver is in town.”

“how do you know?”

“i’ve seen him.”

“indeed! where?”

“i got jack taylor to invite me again. you see, when douglas fell in love with his peerless southern beauty, jack predicted he’d get over it even more quickly. now he’s interested in proving he was right.”

i waited a moment, and then asked, carelessly, “is he having any success?”

“i said, ‘douglas, why don’t you come to see me?’ he was in a playful mood. ‘what do you want? a new automobile?’ i answered, ‘i haven’t any automobile, new or old, and you know it. what i want is you. i always loved you—surely i proved that to you.’ ‘what you proved to me was that you were a sort of wild-cat. i’m afraid of you. and anyway, i’m tired of women. i’ll never trust another one.’”

“about the same conclusion as you’ve come to regarding men,” i remarked.

“‘douglas,’ i said, ‘come and see me, and we’ll talk over old times. you may trust me, i swear i’ll not tell a living soul.’ ‘you’ve been consoling yourself with someone else,’ he said. but i knew he was only guessing. he was seeking for something that would worry me, and he said, ‘you’re drinking too much. people that drink can’t be trusted.’ ‘you know,’ i replied, ‘i didn’t drink too much when i was with you. i’m not drinking as much as you are, right now.’ he answered, ‘i’ve been off on a desert island for god knows how many months, and i’m celebrating my escape.’ ‘well,’ i answered, ‘let me help celebrate!’”

“what did he say to that?”

claire resumed the combing of her silken hair, and smiled a slow smile at me. “‘you may trust me, douglas,’ i said. ‘i swear i’ll not tell a living soul!’”

“of course,” i remarked, appreciatively, “that means he said he’d come!”

“i haven’t told you!” was the reply.

8. i knew that i had only to wait for claire to tell me the rest of the story. but her mind went off on another tack. “sylvia’s going to have a baby,” she remarked, suddenly.

“that ought to please her husband,” i said.

“you can see him beginning to swell with paternal pride!—so jack said. he sent for a bottle of some famous kind of champagne that he has, to celebrate the new ‘millionaire baby.’ (they used to call douglas that, once upon a time.) before they got through, they had made it triplets. jack says douglas is the one man in new york who can afford them.”

“your friend jack seems to be what they call a wag,” i commented.

“it isn’t everybody that douglas will let carry on with him like that. he takes himself seriously, as a rule. and he expects to take the new baby seriously.”

“it generally binds a man tighter to his wife, don’t you think?”

i watched her closely, and saw her smile at my naiveté. “no,” she said, “i don’t. it leaves them restless. it’s a bore all round.”

i did not dispute her authority; she ought to know her husbands, i thought.

she was facing the mirror, putting up her hair; and in the midst of the operation she laughed. “all that evening, while we were having a jolly time at jack taylor’s, larry was here waiting.”

“then no wonder you had a row!” i said.

“he hadn’t told me he was coming. and was i to sit here all night alone? it’s always the same—i never knew a man who really in his heart was willing for you to have any friends, or any sort of good time without him.”

“perhaps,” i replied, “he’s afraid you mightn’t be true to him.” i meant this for a jest, of the sort that claire and her friends would appreciate. little did i foresee where it was to lead us!

i remember how once on the farm my husband had a lot of dynamite, blasting out stumps; and my emotions when i discovered the children innocently playing with a stick of it. something like these children i seem now to myself, looking back on this visit to claire, and our talk.

“you know,” she observed, without smiling, “larry’s got a bee in his hat. i’ve seen men who were jealous, and kept watch over women, but never one that was obsessed like him.”

“what’s it about?”

“he’s been reading a book about diseases, and he tells me tales about what may happen to me, and what may happen to him. when you’ve listened a while, you can see microbes crawling all over the walls of the room.”

“well——” i began.

“i was sick of his lecturing, so i said, ‘larry, you’ll have to do like me—have everything there is, and get over it, and then you won’t need to worry.’”

i sat still, staring at her; i think i must have stopped breathing. at the end of an eternity, i said, “you’ve not really had any of these diseases, claire?”

“who hasn’t?” she countered.

again there was a pause. “you know,” i observed, “some of them are dangerous——”

“oh, of course,” she answered, lightly. “there’s one that makes your nose fall in and your hair fall out—but you haven’t seen anything like that happening to me!”

“but there’s another,” i hinted—“one that’s much more common.” and when she did not take the hint, i continued, “also it’s more serious than people generally realize.”

she shrugged her shoulders. “what of it? men bring you these things, and it’s part of the game. so what’s the use of bothering?”

9. there was a long silence; i had to have time to decide what course to take. there was so much that i wanted to get from her, and so much that i wanted to hide from her!

“i don’t want to bore you, claire,” i began, finally, “but really this is a matter of importance to you. you see, i’ve been reading up on the subject as well as larry. the doctors have been making new discoveries. they used to think this was just a local infection, like a cold, but now they find it’s a blood disease, and has the gravest consequences. for one thing, it causes most of the surgical operations that have to be performed on women.”

“maybe so,” she said, still indifferent. “i’ve had two operations. but it’s ancient history now.”

“you mayn’t have reached the end yet,” i persisted. “people suppose they are cured of gonorrhea, when really it’s only suppressed, and is liable to break out again at any time.”

“yes, i knew. that’s some of the information larry had been making love to me with.”

“it may get into the joints and cause rheumatism; it may cause neuralgia; it’s been known to affect the heart. also it causes two-thirds of all the blindness in infants——”

and suddenly claire laughed. “that’s sylvia castleman’s lookout it seems to me!”

“oh! oh!” i whispered, losing my self-control.

“what’s the matter?” she asked, and i noticed that her voice had become sharp.

“do you really mean what you’ve just implied?”

“that mrs. douglas van tuiver may have to pay something for what she has done to me? well, what of it?” and suddenly claire flew into a passion, as she always did when our talk came to her rival. “why shouldn’t she take chances the same as the rest of us? why should i have it and she get off?”

i fought for my composure. after a pause, i said: “it’s not a thing we want anybody to have, claire. we don’t want anybody to take such a chance. the girl ought to have been told.”

“told? do you imagine she would have given up her great catch?”

“she might have, how can you be sure? anyhow, she should have had the chance.”

there was a long silence. i was so shaken that it was hard for me to find words. “as a matter of fact,” said claire, grimly, “i thought of warning her myself. there’d have been some excitement at least! you remember—when they came out of church. you helped to stop me!”

“it would have been too late then,” i heard myself saying.

“well,” she exclaimed, with fresh excitement, “it’s miss sylvia’s turn now! we’ll see if she’s such a grand lady that she can’t get my diseases!”

i could no longer contain myself. “claire,” i cried, “you are talking like a devil!”

she picked up a powder-puff, and began to use it diligently. “i know,” she said—and i saw her burning eyes in the glass—“you can’t fool me. you’ve tried to be kind, but you despise me in your heart. you think i’m as bad as any woman of the street. very well then, i speak for my class, and i tell you, this is where we prove our humanity. they throw us out, but you see we get back in!”

“my dear woman,” i said, “you don’t understand. you’d not feel as you do, if you knew that the person to pay the penalty might be an innocent little child.”

“their child! yes, it’s too bad if there has to be anything the matter with the little prince! but i might as well tell you the truth—i’ve had that in mind all along. i didn’t know just what would happen, or how—i don’t believe anybody does, the doctors who pretend to are just faking you. but i knew douglas was rotten, and maybe his children would be rotten, and they’d all of them suffer. that was one of the things that kept me from interfering and smashing him up.”

i was speechless now, and claire, watching me, laughed. “you look as if you’d had no idea of it. don’t you know that i told you at the time?”

“you told me at the time!”

“i suppose, you didn’t understand. i’m apt to talk french when i’m excited. we have a saying: ‘the wedding present which the mistress leaves in the basket of the bride.’ that was pretty near telling, wasn’t it?”

“yes,” i said, in a low voice.

and the other, after watching me for a moment more, went on: “you think i’m revengeful, don’t you? well, i used to reproach myself with this, and i tried to fight it down; but the time comes when you want people to pay for what they take from you. let me tell you something that i never told to anyone, that i never expected to tell. you see me drinking and going to the devil; you hear me talking the care-free talk of my world, but in the beginning i was really in love with douglas van tuiver, and i wanted his child. i wanted it so that it was an ache to me. and yet, what chance did i have? i’d have been the joke of his set for ever if i’d breathed it; i’d have been laughed out of the town. i even tried at one time to trap him—to get his child in spite of him, but i found that the surgeons had cut me up, and i could never have a child. so i have to make the best of it—i have to agree with my friends that it’s a good thing, it saves me trouble! but she comes along, and she has what i wanted, and all the world thinks it wonderful and sublime. she’s a beautiful young mother! what’s she ever done in her life that she has everything, and i go without? you may spend your time shedding tears over her and what may happen to her but for my part, i say this—let her take her chances! let her take her chances with the other women in the world—the women she’s too good and too pure to know anything about!”

10. i came out of claire’s house, sick with horror. not since the time when i had read my poor nephew’s letter had i been so shaken. why had i not thought long ago of questioning claire about these matters. how could i have left sylvia all this time exposed to peril?

the greatest danger was to her child at the time of birth. i figured up, according to the last letter i had received; there was about ten days yet, and so i felt some relief. i thought first of sending a telegram, but reflected that it would be difficult, not merely to tell her what to do in a telegram, but to explain to her afterwards why i had chosen this extraordinary method. i recollected that in her last letter she had mentioned the name of the surgeon who was coming from new york to attend her during her confinement. obviously the thing for me to do was to see this surgeon.

“well, madame?” he said, when i was seated in his inner office.

he was a tall, elderly man, immaculately groomed, and formal and precise in his manner. “dr. overton,” i began, “my friend, mrs. douglas van tuiver writes me that you are going to florida shortly.”

“that is correct,” he said.

“i have come to see you about a delicate matter. i presume i need hardly say that i am relying upon the seal of professional secrecy.”

i saw his gaze become suddenly fixed. “certainly, madame,” he said.

“i am taking this course because mrs. van tuiver is a very dear friend of mine, and i am concerned about her welfare. it has recently come to my knowledge that she has become exposed to infection by a venereal disease.”

he would hardly have started more if i had struck him. “hey?” he cried, forgetting his manners.

“it would not help you any,” i said, “if i were to go into details about this unfortunate matter. suffice it to say that my information is positive and precise—that it could hardly be more so.”

there was a long silence. he sat with eyes rivetted upon me. “what is this disease?” he demanded, at last.

i named it, and then again there was a pause. “how long has this—this possibility of infection existed?”

“ever since her marriage, nearly eighteen months ago.”

that told him a good part of the story. i felt his look boring me through. was i a mad woman? or some new kind of blackmailer? or, was i, possibly, a claire? i was grateful for my forty-cent bonnet and my forty-seven years.

“naturally,” he said at length, “this information startles me.”

“when you have thought it over,” i responded, “you will realise that no possible motive could bring me here but concern for the welfare of my friend.”

he took a few moments to consider. “that may be true, madame, but let me add that when you say you know this——”

he stopped. “i mean that i know it,” i said, and stopped in turn.

“has mrs. van tuiver herself any idea of this situation?”

“none whatever. on the contrary, she was assured before her marriage that no such possibility existed.”

again i felt him looking through me, but i left him to make what he could of my information. “doctor,” i continued, “i presume there is no need to point out to a man in your position the seriousness of this matter, both to the mother and to the child.”

“certainly there is not.”

“i assume that you are familiar with the precautions that have to be taken with regard to the eyes of the child?”

“certainly, madame.” this with just a touch of hauteur, and then, suddenly: “are you by any chance a nurse?”

“no,” i replied, “but many years ago i was forced by tragedy in my own family to realise the seriousness of the venereal peril. so when i learned this fact about my friend, my first thought was that you should be informed of it. i trust that you will appreciate my position.”

“certainly, madame, certainly,” he made haste to say. “you are quite right, and you may rest assured that everything will be done that our best knowledge directs. i only regret that the information did not come to me sooner.”

“it only came to me about an hour ago,” i said, as i rose to leave. “the blame, therefore, must rest upon another person.”

i needed to say no more. he bowed me politely out, and i walked down the street, and realised that i was restless and wretched. i wandered at random for a while, trying to think what else i could do, for my own peace of mind, if not for sylvia’s welfare. i found myself inventing one worry after another. dr. overton had not said just when he was going, and suppose she were to need someone at once? or suppose something were to happen to him—if he were to be killed upon the long train-journey? i was like a mother who has had a terrible dream about her child—she must rush and fling her arms about the child. i realised that i wanted to see sylvia!

she had begged me to come; and i was worn out and had been urged by the office to take a rest. suddenly i bolted into a store, and telephoned the railroad station about trains to southern florida. i hailed a taxi-cab, rode to my home post-haste, and flung a few of my belongings into a bag and the waiting cab sped with me to the ferry. in little more than two hours after claire had told me the dreadful tidings, i was speeding on my way to sylvia.

11. from a train-window i had once beheld a cross-section of america from west to east; now i beheld another from north to south. in the afternoon were the farms and country-homes of new jersey; and then in the morning endless wastes of wilderness, and straggling fields of young corn and tobacco; turpentine forests, with half-stripped negroes working, and a procession of “depots,” with lanky men chewing tobacco, and negroes basking in the blazing sun. then another night, and there was the pageant of florida: palmettos, and other trees of which one had seen pictures in the geography books; stretches of vine-tangled swamps, where one looked for alligators; orange-groves in blossom, and gardens full of flowers beyond imagining. every hour, of course, it got hotter; i was not, like sylvia, used to it, and whenever the train stopped i sat by the open window, mopping the perspiration from my face.

we were due at miami in the afternoon; but there was a freight-train off the track ahead of us, and so for three hours i sat chafing with impatience, worrying the conductor with futile questions. i had to make connections at miami with a train which ran to the last point on the mainland, where the construction-work over the keys was going forward. and if i missed that last train, i would have to wait in miami till morning. i had better wait there, anyhow, the conductor argued; but i insisted that my friends, to whom i had telegraphed two days before, would meet me with a launch and take me to their place that night.

we got in half an hour late for the other train; but this was the south, i discovered, and they had waited for us. i shifted my bag and myself across the platform, and we moved on. but then another problem arose; we were running into a storm. it came with great suddenness; one minute all was still, with a golden sunset, and the next it was so dark that i could barely see the palm-trees, bent over, swaying madly—like people with arms stretched out, crying in distress. i could hear the roaring of the wind above that of the train, and i asked the conductor in consternation if this could be a hurricane. it was not the season for hurricanes, he replied; but it was “some storm, all right,” and i would not find any boat to take me to the keys until it was over.

it was absurd of me to be nervous, i kept telling myself; but there was something in me that cried out to be there, to be there! i got out of the train, facing what i refrain from calling a hurricane out of deference to local authority. it was all i could do to keep from being blown across the station-platform, and i was drenched with the spray and bewildered by the roaring of the waves that beat against the pier beyond. inside the station, i questioned the agent. the launch of the van tuivers had not been in that day; if it had been on the way, it must have sought shelter somewhere. my telegram to mrs. van tuiver had been received two days before, and delivered by a boatman whom they employed for that purpose. presumably, therefore, i would be met. i asked how long this gale was apt to last; the answer was from one to three days.

then i asked about shelter for the night. this was a “jumping-off” place, said the agent, with barracks and shanties for a construction-gang; there were saloons, and what was called a hotel, but it wouldn’t do for a lady. i pleaded that i was not fastidious—being anxious to nullify the effect which the name van tuiver had produced. but the agent would have it that the place was unfit for even a western farmer’s wife; and as i was not anxious to take the chance of being blown overboard in the darkness, i spent the night on one of the benches in the station. i lay, listening to the incredible clamour of wind and waves, feeling the building quiver, and wondering if each gust might not blow it away.

i was out at dawn, the force of the wind having abated somewhat by that time. i saw before me a waste of angry foam-strewn water, with no sign of any craft upon it. late in the morning came the big steamer which ran to key west, in connection with the railroad; it made a difficult landing, and i interviewed the captain, with the idea of bribing him to take me to my destination. but he had his schedule, which neither storms nor the name of van tuiver could alter. besides, he pointed out, he could not land me at their place, as his vessel drew too much water to get anywhere near; and if he landed me elsewhere, i should be no better off, “if your friends are expecting you, they’ll come here,” he said, “and their launch can travel when nothing else can.”

to pass the time i went to inspect the viaduct of the railway-to-be. the first stretch was completed, a long series of concrete arches, running out, apparently, into the open sea. it was one of the engineering wonders of the world, but i fear i did not appreciate it. towards mid-afternoon i made out a speck of a boat over the water, and my friend, the station-agent, remarked, “there’s your launch.”

i expressed my amazement that they should have ventured out in such weather. i had had in mind the kind of tiny open craft that one hears making day and night hideous at summer-resorts; but when the “merman” drew near, i realized afresh what it was to be the guest of a multi-millionaire. she was about fifty feet long, a vision of polished brass and shining, new-varnished cedar. she rammed her shoulder into the waves and flung them contemptuously to one side; her cabin was tight, dry as the saloon of a liner.

three men emerged on deck to assist in the difficult process of making a landing. one of them sprang to the dock, and confronting me, inquired if i was mrs. abbott. he explained that they had set out to meet me the previous afternoon, but had had to take refuge behind one of the keys.

“how is mrs. van tuiver?” i asked, quickly.

“she is well.”

“i don’t suppose—the baby——” i hinted.

“no, ma’am, not yet,” said the man; and after that i felt interested in what he had to say about the storm and its effects. we could return at once, it seemed, if i did not mind being pitched about.

“how long does it take?” i asked.

“three hours, in weather like this. it’s about fifty miles.”

“but then it will be dark,” i objected.

“that won’t matter, ma’am—we have plenty of light of our own. we shan’t have trouble, unless the wind rises, and there’s a chain of keys all the way, where we can get shelter if it does. the worst you have to fear is spending a night on board.”

i reflected that i could not well be more uncomfortable than i had been the previous night, so i voted for a start. there was mail and some supplies to be put on board; then i made a spring for the deck, as it surged up towards me on a rising wave, and in a moment more the cabin-door had shut behind me, and i was safe and snug, in the midst of leather and mahogany and electric-lighted magnificence. through the heavy double windows i saw the dock swing round behind us, and saw the torrents of green spray sweep over us and past. i grasped at the seat to keep myself from being thrown forward, and then grasped behind, to keep from going in that direction. i had a series of sensations as of an elevator stopping suddenly—and then i draw the curtains of the “merman’s” cabin, and invite the reader to pass by. this is sylvia’s story, and not mine, and it is of no interest what happened to me during that trip. i will only remind the reader that i had lived my life in the far west, and there were some things i could not have foreseen.

12. “we are there, ma’am,” i heard one of the boatmen say, and i realised vaguely that the pitching had ceased. he helped me to sit up, and i saw the search-light of the craft sweeping the shore of an island. “it passes off ‘most as quick as it comes, ma’am,” added my supporter, and for this i murmured feeble thanks.

we came to a little bay, where the power was shut off, and we glided towards the shore. there was a boat-house, a sort of miniature dry-dock, with a gate which closed behind us. i had visions of sylvia waiting to meet me, but apparently our arrival had not been noted, and for this i was grateful. there were seats in the boat-house, and i sank into one, and asked the man to wait a few minutes while i recovered myself. when i got up and went to the house, what i found made me quickly forget that i had such a thing as a body.

there was a bright moon, i remember, and i could see the long, low bungalow, with windows gleaming through the palm-trees. a woman’s figure emerged from the house and came down the white shell-path to meet me. my heart leaped. my beloved!

but then i saw it was the english maid, whom i had come to know in new york; i saw, too, that her face was alight with excitement. “oh, my lady!” she cried. “the baby’s come!”

it was like a blow in the face. “what?” i gasped.

“came early this morning. a girl.”

“but—i thought it wasn’t till next week!”

“i know, but it’s here. in that terrible storm, when we thought the house was going to be washed away! oh, my lady, it’s the loveliest baby!”

i had presence of mind enough to try to hide my dismay. the semi-darkness was a fortunate thing for me. “how is the mother?” i asked.

“splendid. she’s asleep now.”

“and the child?”

“oh! such a dear you never saw!”

“and it’s all right?”

“it’s just the living image of its mother! you shall see!”

we moved towards the house, slowly, while i got my thoughts together. “dr. perrin is here?” i asked.

“yes. he’s gone to his place to sleep.”

“and the nurse?”

“she’s with the child. come this way.”

we went softly up the steps of the veranda. all the rooms opened upon it, and we entered one of them, and by the dim-shaded light i saw a white-clad woman bending over a crib. “miss lyman, this is mrs. abbott,” said the maid.

the nurse straightened up. “oh! so you got here! and just at the right time!”

“god grant it may be so!” i thought to myself. “so this is the child!” i said, and bent over the crib. the nurse turned up the light for me.

it is the form in which the miracle of life becomes most apparent to us, and dull indeed must be he who can encounter it without being stirred to the depths. to see, not merely new life come into the world, but life which has been made by ourselves, or by those we love—life that is a mirror and copy of something dear to us! to see this tiny mite of warm and living flesh, and to see that it was sylvia! to trace each beloved lineament, so much alike, and yet so different—half a portrait and half a caricature, half sublime and half ludicrous! the comical little imitation of her nose, with each dear little curve, with even a remainder of the tiny groove underneath the tip, and the tiny corresponding dimple underneath the chin! the soft silken fuzz which was some day to be sylvia’s golden glory! the delicate, sensitive lips, which were some day to quiver with feeling! i gazed at them and saw them moving, i saw the breast moving—and a wave of emotion swept over me, and the tears half-blinded me as i knelt.

but i could not forget the reason for my coming. it meant little that the child was alive and seemingly well; i was not dealing with a disease which, like syphilis, starves and deforms in the very womb. the little one was asleep, but i moved the light so as to examine its eyelids. then i turned to the nurse and asked: “miss lyman, doesn’t it seem to you the eyelids are a trifle inflamed?”

“why, i hadn’t noticed it,” she answered.

“were the eyes washed?” i inquired.

“i washed the baby, of course—”

“i mean the eyes especially. the doctor didn’t drop anything into them?”

“i don’t think he considered it necessary.”

“it’s an important precaution,” i replied; “there are always possibilities of infection.”

“possibly,” said the other. “but you know, we did not expect this. dr. overton was to be here in three or four days.”

“dr. perrin is asleep?” i asked.

“yes. he was up all last night.”

“i think i will have to ask you to waken him,” i said.

“is it as serious as that?” she inquired, anxiously, having sensed some of the emotion i was trying to conceal.

“it might be very serious,” i said. “i really ought to have a talk with the doctor.”

13. the nurse went out, and i drew up a chair and sat by the crib, watching the infant go back to sleep. i was glad to be alone, to have a chance to get myself together. but suddenly i heard a rustle of skirts in the doorway behind me, and turned and saw a white-clad figure; an elderly gentlewoman, slender and fragile, grey-haired and rather pale, wearing a soft dressing-gown. aunt varina!

i rose. “this must be mrs. abbott,” she said. oh, these soft, caressing southern voices, that cling to each syllable as a lover to a hand at parting.

she was a very prim and stately little lady, and i think she did not intend to shake hands; but i felt pretty certain that under her coating of formality, she was eager for a chance to rhapsodize. “oh, what a lovely child!” i cried; and instantly she melted.

“you have seen our babe!” she exclaimed; and i could not help smiling. a few months ago, “the little stranger,” and now “our babe”!

she bent over the cradle, with her dear old sentimental, romantic soul in her eyes. for a minute or two she quite forgot me; then, looking up, she murmured, “it is as wonderful to me as if it were my own!”

“all of us who love sylvia feel that,” i responded.

she rose, and suddenly remembering hospitality, asked me as to my present needs. then she said, “i must go and see to sending some telegrams.”

“telegrams?” i inquired.

“yes. think what this news will mean to dear douglas! and to major castleman!”

“you haven’t informed them?”

“we couldn’t send any smaller boat on account of the storm. we must telegraph dr. overton also, you understand.”

“to tell him not to come?” i ventured. “but don’t you think, mrs. tuis, that he may wish to come anyhow?”

“why should he wish that?”

“i’m not sure, but—i think he might.” how i longed for a little of sylvia’s skill in social lying! “every newly-born infant ought to be examined by a specialist, you know; there may be a particular régime, a diet for the mother—one cannot say.”

“dr. perrin didn’t consider it necessary.”

“i am going to have a talk with dr. perrin at once,” i said.

i saw a troubled look in her eyes. “you don’t mean you think there’s anything the matter?”

“no—no,” i lied. “but i’m sure you ought to wait before you have the launch go. please do.”

“if you insist,” she said. i read bewilderment in her manner, and just a touch of resentment. was it not presumptuous of me, a stranger, and one—well, possibly not altogether a lady? she groped for words; and the ones that came were: “dear douglas must not be kept waiting.”

i was too polite to offer the suggestion that “dear douglas” might be finding ways to amuse himself. the next moment i heard steps approaching on the veranda, and turned to meet the nurse with the doctor.

14. “how do you do, mrs. abbott?” said dr. perrin. he was in his dressing-gown, and had a newly-awakened look. i started to apologize, but he replied, “it’s pleasant to see a new face in our solitude. two new faces!”

that was behaving well, i thought, for a man who had been routed out of sleep. i tried to meet his mood. “dr. perrin, mrs. van tuiver tells me that you object to amateur physicians. but perhaps you won’t mind regarding me as a midwife. i have three children of my own, and i’ve had to help bring others into the world.”

“all right,” he smiled. “we’ll consider you qualified. what is the matter?”

“i wanted to ask you about the child’s eyes. it is a wise precaution to drop some nitrate of silver into them, to provide against possible infection.”

i waited for my answer. “there have been no signs of any sort of infection in this case,” he said, at last.

“perhaps not. but it is not necessary to wait, in such a matter. you have not taken the precaution?”

“no, madam.”

“you have some of the drug, of course?”

again there was a pause. “no, madam, i fear that i have not.”

i winced, involuntarily. i could not hide my distress. “dr. perrin,” i exclaimed, “you came to attend a confinement case, and you omitted to provide something so essential!”

there was nothing left of the little man’s affability now. “in the first place,” he said, “i must remind you that i did not come to attend a confinement case. i came to look after mrs. van tuiver’s condition up to the time of confinement.”

“but you knew there would always be the possibility of an accident!”

“yes, to be sure.”

“and you didn’t have any nitrate of silver!”

“madam,” he said, stiffly, “there is no use for this drug except in one contingency.”

“i know,” i cried, “but it is an important precaution. it is the practice to use it in all maternity hospitals.”

“madam, i have visited hospitals, and i think i know something of what the practice is.”

so there we were, at a deadlock. there was silence for a space.

“would you mind sending for the drug?” i asked, at last.

“i presume,” he said, with hauteur, “it will do no harm to have it on hand.”

i was aware of an elderly lady watching us, with consternation written upon every sentimental feature. “dr. perrin,” i said, “if mrs. tuis will pardon me, i think i ought to speak with you alone.” the nurse hastily withdrew; and i saw the elderly lady draw herself up with terrible dignity—and then suddenly quail, and turn and follow the nurse.

i told the little man what i knew. after he had had time to get over his consternation, he said that fortunately there did not seem to be any sign of trouble.

“there does seem so to me,” i replied. “it may be only my imagination, but i think the eyelids are inflamed.”

i held the baby for him, while he made an examination. he admitted that there seemed to be ground for uneasiness. his professional dignity was now gone, and he was only too glad to be human.

“dr. perrin,” i said, “there is only one thing we can do—to get some nitrate of silver at the earliest possible moment. fortunately, the launch is here.”

“i will have it start at once,” he said. “it will have to go to key west.”

“and how long will that take?”

“it depends upon the sea. in good weather it takes us eight hours to go and return.” i could not repress a shudder. the child might be blind in eight hours!

but there was no time to be wasted in foreboding. “about dr. overton,” i said. “don’t you think he had better come?” but i ventured to add the hint that mr. van tuiver would hardly wish expense to be considered in such an emergency; and in the end, i persuaded the doctor not merely to telegraph for the great surgeon, but to ask a hospital in atlanta to send the nearest eye-specialist by the first train.

we called back mrs. tuis, and i apologized abjectly for my presumption, and dr. perrin announced that he thought he ought to see dr. overton, and another doctor as well. i saw fear leap into aunt varina’s eyes. “oh, what is it?” she cried. “what is the matter with our babe?”

i helped the doctor to answer polite nothings to all her questions. “oh, the poor, dear lady!” i thought to myself. the poor, dear lady! what a tearing away of veils and sentimental bandages was written in her book of fate for that night!

15. i find myself lingering over these preliminaries, dreading the plunge into the rest of my story. we spent our time hovering over the child’s crib, and in two or three hours the little eyelids had become so inflamed that there could no longer be any doubt what was happening. we applied alternate hot and cold cloths; we washed the eyes in a solution of boric acid, and later, in our desperation, with bluestone. but we were dealing with the virulent gonococcus, and we neither expected nor obtained much result from these measures. in a couple of hours more the eyes were beginning to exude pus, and the poor infant was wailing in torment.

“oh, what can it be? tell me what is the matter?” cried mrs. tuis. she sought to catch the child in her arms, and when i quickly prevented her, she turned upon me in anger. “what do you mean?”

“the child must be quiet,” i said.

“but i wish to comfort it!” and when i still insisted, she burst out wildly: “what right have you?”

“mrs. tuis,” i said, gently, “it is possible the infant may have a very serious infection. if so, you would be apt to catch it.”

she answered with a hysterical cry: “my precious innocent! do you think that i would be afraid of anything it could have?”

“you may not be afraid, but we are. we should have to take care of you, and one case is more than enough.”

suddenly she clutched me by the arm. “tell me what this awful thing is! i demand to know!”

“mrs. tuis,” said the doctor, interfering, “we are not yet sure what the trouble is, we only wish to take precautions. it is really imperative that you should not handle this child or even go near it. there is nothing you can possibly do.”

she was willing to take orders from him; he spoke the same dialect as herself, and with the same quaint stateliness. a charming little southern gentleman—i could realise how douglas van tuiver had “picked him out for his social qualities.” in the old-fashioned southern medical college where he had got his training, i suppose they had taught him the old-fashioned idea of gonorrhea. now he was acquiring our extravagant modern notions in the grim school of experience!

it was necessary to put the nurse on her guard as to the risks we were running. we should have had concave glasses to protect our eyes, and we spent part of our time washing our hands in bichloride solution.

“mrs. abbott, what is it?” whispered the woman.

“it has a long name,” i replied—“opthalmia neonatorum.”

“and what has caused it?”

“the original cause,” i responded, “is a man.” i was not sure if that was according to the ethics of the situation, but the words came.

before long the infected eye-sockets were two red and yellow masses of inflammation, and the infant was screaming like one of the damned. we had to bind up its eyes; i was tempted to ask the doctor to give it an opiate for fear lest it should scream itself into convulsions. then as poor mrs. tuis was pacing the floor, wringing her hands and sobbing hysterically, dr. perrin took me to one side and said: “i think she will have to be told.”

the poor, poor lady!

“she might as well understand now as later,” he continued. “she will have to help keep the situation from the mother.”

“yes,” i said, faintly; and then, “who shall tell her?”

“i think,” suggested the doctor, “she might prefer to be told by a woman.”

so i shut my lips together and took the distracted lady gently by the arm and led her to the door. we stole like two criminals down the veranda, and along the path to the beach, and near the boathouse we stopped, and i began.

“mrs. tuis, you may remember a circumstance which your niece mentioned to me—that just before her marriage she urged you to have certain inquiries made as to mr. van tuiver’s health, his fitness for marriage?”

never shall i forget her face at that moment. “sylvia told you that!”

“the inquiries were made,” i went on, “but not carefully enough, it seems. now you behold the consequence of this negligence.”

i saw her blank stare. i added: “the one to pay for it is the child.”

“you—you mean—” she stammered, her voice hardly a whisper. “oh—it is impossible!” then, with a flare of indignation: “do you realise what you are implying—that mr. van tuiver—”

“there is no question of implying,” i said, quietly. “it is the facts we have to face now, and you will have to help us to face them.”

she cowered and swayed before me, hiding her face in her hands. i heard her sobbing and murmuring incoherent cries to her god. i took the poor lady’s hand, and bore with her as long as i could, until, being at the end of my patience with prudery and purity and chivalry, and all the rest of the highfalutin romanticism of the south, i said: “mrs tuis, it is necessary that you should get yourself together. you have a serious duty before you—that you owe both to sylvia and her child.”

“what is it?” she whispered. the word “duty” had motive power for her.

“at all hazards, sylvia must be kept in ignorance of the calamity for the present. if she were to learn of it it would quite possibly throw her into a fever, and cost her life or the child’s. you must not make any sound that she can hear, and you must not go near her until you have completely mastered your emotions.”

“very well,” she murmured. she was really a brave little body, but i, not knowing her, and thinking only of the peril, was cruel in hammering things into her consciousness. finally, i left her, seated upon the steps of the deserted boat-house, rocking back and forth and sobbing softly to herself—one of the most pitiful figures it has ever been my fortune to encounter in my pilgrimage through a world of sentimentality and incompetence.

16. i went back to the house, and because we feared the sounds of the infant’s crying might carry, we hung blankets before the doors and windows of the room, and sat in the hot enclosure, shuddering, silent, grey with fear. after an hour or two, mrs. tuis rejoined us, stealing in and seating herself at one side of the room, staring from one to another of us with wide eyes of fright.

by the time the first signs of dawn appeared, the infant had cried itself into a state of exhaustion. the faint light that got into the room revealed the three of us, listening to the pitiful whimpering. i was faint with weakness, but i had to make an effort and face the worst ordeal of all. there came a tapping at the door—the maid, to say that sylvia was awake and had heard of my arrival and wished to see me. i might have put off our meeting for a while, on the plea of exhaustion, but i preferred to have it over with, and braced myself and went slowly to her room.

in the doorway i paused for an instant to gaze at her. she was exquisite, lying there with the flush of sleep still upon her, and the ecstasy of her great achievement in her face. i fled to her, and we caught each other in our arms. “oh, mary, mary! i’m so glad you’ve come!” and then: “oh, mary, isn’t it the loveliest baby!”

“perfectly glorious!” i exclaimed.

“oh, i’m so happy—so happy as i never dreamed! i’ve no words to tell you about it.”

“you don’t need any words—i’ve been through it,” i said.

“oh, but she’s so beautiful! tell me, honestly, isn’t that really so?”

“my dear,” i said, “she is like you.”

“mary,” she went on, half whispering, “i think it solves all my problems—all that i wrote you about. i don’t believe i shall ever be unhappy again. i can’t believe that such a thing has really happened—that i’ve been given such a treasure. and she’s my own! i can watch her little body grow and help to make it strong and beautiful! i can help mould her little mind—see it opening up, one chamber of wonder after another! i can teach her all the things i have had to grope so to get!”

“yes,” i said, trying to speak with conviction. i added, hastily: “i’m glad you don’t find motherhood disappointing.”

“oh, it’s a miracle!” she exclaimed. “a woman who could be dissatisfied with anything afterwards would be an ingrate!” she paused, then added: “mary, now she’s here in flesh, i feel she’ll be a bond between douglas and me. he must see her rights, her claim upon life, as he couldn’t see mine.”

i assented gravely. so that was the thing she was thinking most about—a bond between her husband and herself! a moment later the nurse appeared in the doorway, and sylvia set up a cry: “my baby! where’s my baby? i want to see my baby!”

“sylvia, dear,” i said, “there’s something about the baby that has to be explained.”

instantly she was alert. “what is the matter?”

i laughed. “nothing, dear, that amounts to anything. but the little one’s eyes are inflamed—that is to say, the lids. it’s something that happens to newly-born infants.”

“well, then?” she said.

“nothing, only the doctor’s had to put some salve on them, and they don’t look very pretty.”

“i don’t mind that, if it’s all right.”

“but we’ve had to put a bandage over them, and it looks forbidding. also the child is apt to cry.”

“i must see her at once!” she exclaimed.

“just now she’s asleep, so don’t make us disturb her.”

“but how long will this last?”

“not very long. meantime you must be sensible and not mind. it’s something i made the doctor do, and you mustn’t blame me, or i’ll be sorry i came to you.”

“you dear thing,” she said, and put her hand in mine. and then, suddenly: “why did you take it into your head to come, all of a sudden?”

“don’t ask me,” i smiled. “i have no excuse. i just got homesick and had to see you.”

“it’s perfectly wonderful that you should be here now,” she declared. “but you look badly. are you tired?”

“yes, dear,” i said. (such a difficult person to deceive!) “to tell the truth, i’m pretty nearly done up. you see, i was caught in the storm, and i was desperately sea-sick.”

“why, you poor dear! why didn’t you go to sleep?”

“i didn’t want to sleep. i was too much excited by everything. i came to see one sylvia and i found two!”

“isn’t it absurd,” she cried, “how she looks like me? oh, i want to see her again. how long will it be before i can have her?”

“my dear,” i said, “you mustn’t worry—”

“oh, don’t mind me, i’m just playing. i’m so happy, i want to squeeze her in my arms all the time. just think, mary, they won’t let me nurse her, yet—a whole day now! can that be right?”

“nature will take care of that,” i said.

“yes, but how can you be sure what nature means? maybe it’s what the child is crying about, and it’s the crying that makes its eyes red.”

i felt a sudden spasm grip my heart. “no, dear, no,” i said, hastily. “you must let dr. perrin attend to these things, for i’ve just had to interfere with his arrangements, and he’ll be getting cross pretty soon.”

“oh,” she cried with laughter in her eyes, “you’ve had a scene with him? i knew you would! he’s so quaint and old-fashioned!”

“yes,” i said, “and he talks exactly like your aunt.”

“oh! you’ve met her too! i’m missing all the fun!”

i had a sudden inspiration—one that i was proud of. “my dear girl,” i said, “maybe you call it fun!” and i looked really agitated.

“why, what’s the matter?” she cried.

“what could you expect?” i asked. “i fear, my dear sylvia, i’ve shocked your aunt beyond all hope.”

“what have you done?”

“i’ve talked about things i’d no business to—i’ve bossed the learned doctor—and i’m sure aunt varina has guessed i’m not a lady.”

“oh, tell me about it!” cried sylvia, full of delight.

but i could not keep up the game any longer. “not now, dear,” i said. “it’s a long story, and i really am exhausted. i must go and get some rest.”

i rose, and she caught my hand, whispering: “i shall be happy, mary! i shall be really happy now!” and then i turned and fled, and when i was out of sight of the doorway, i literally ran. at the other end of the veranda i sank down upon the steps, and wept softly to myself.

17. the launch arrived, bringing the nitrate of silver. a solution was dropped into the baby’s eyes, and then we could do nothing but wait. i might have lain down and really tried to rest; but the maid came again, with the announcement that sylvia was asking for her aunt. excuses would have tended to excite her suspicions; so poor mrs. tuis had to take her turn at facing the ordeal, and i had to drill and coach her for it. i had a vision of the poor lady going in to her niece, and suddenly collapsing. then there would begin a cross-examination, and sylvia would worm out the truth, and we might have a case of puerperal fever on our hands.

this i explained afresh to mrs. tuis, having taken her into her own room and closed the door for that purpose. she clutched me with her shaking hands and whispered, “oh, mrs. abbott, you will never let sylvia find out what caused this trouble?”

i drew on my reserve supply of patience, and answered, “what i shall let her find out in the end, i don’t know. we shall be guided by circumstances, and this is no time to discuss the matter. the point is now to make sure that you can go in and stay with her, and not let her get an idea there’s anything wrong.”

“oh, but you know how sylvia reads people!” she cried, in sudden dismay.

“i’ve fixed it for you,” i said. “i’ve provided something you can be agitated about.”

“what is that?”

“it’s me.” then, seeing her look of bewilderment, “you must tell her that i’ve affronted you, mrs. tuis; i’ve outraged your sense of propriety. you’re indignant with me and you don’t see how you can remain in the house with me—”

“why, mrs. abbott!” she exclaimed, in horror.

“you know it’s truth to some extent,” i said.

the good lady drew herself up. “mrs. abbott, don’t tell me that i have been so rude—”

“dear mrs. tuis,” i laughed, “don’t stop to apologize just now. you have not been lacking in courtesy, but i know how i must seem to you. i am a socialist. i have a raw, western accent, and my hands are big—i’ve lived on a farm all my life, and done my own work, and even plowed sometimes. i have no idea of the charms and graces of life that are everything to you. what is more than that, i am forward, and thrust my opinions upon other people—”

she simply could not hear me. she was a-tremble with a new excitement. worse even than opthalmia neonatorum was plain speaking to a guest! “mrs. abbott, you humiliate me!”

then i spoke harshly, seeing that i would actually have to shock her. “i assure you, mrs. tuis, that if you don’t feel that way about me, it’s simply because you don’t know the truth. it is not possible that you would consider me a proper person to visit sylvia. i don’t believe in your religion; i don’t believe in anything that you would call religion, and i argue about it at the least provocation. i deliver violent harangues on street-corners, and have been arrested during a strike. i believe in woman’s suffrage, i even argue in approval of window-smashing. i believe that women ought to earn their own living, and be independent and free from any man’s control. i am a divorced woman—i left my husband because i wasn’t happy with him, what’s more, i believe that any woman has a right to do the same—i’m liable to teach such ideas to sylvia, and to urge her to follow them.”

the poor lady’s eyes were wide and large. “so you see,” i exclaimed, “you really couldn’t approve of me! tell her all this; she knows it already, but she will be horrified, because i have let you and the doctor find it out!”

whereupon mrs. tuis started to ascend the pedestal of her dignity. “mrs. abbott, this may be your idea of a jest——”

“now come,” i cried, “let me help you fix your hair, and put on just a wee bit of powder—not enough to be noticed, you understand——”

i took her to the wash-stand, and poured out some cold water for her, and saw her bathe her eyes and face, and dry them, and braid her thin grey hair. while with a powder puff i was trying deftly to conceal the ravages of the night’s crying, the dear lady turned to me, and whispered in a trembling voice, “mrs. abbott, you really don’t mean that dreadful thing you said just now?”

“which dreadful thing, mrs. tuis?”

“that you would tell sylvia it could possibly be right for her to leave her husband?”

18. in the course of the day we received word that dr. gibson, the specialist for whom we had telegraphed, was on his way. the boat which brought his message took back a letter from dr. perrin to douglas van tuiver, acquainting him with the calamity which had befallen. we had talked it over and agreed that there was nothing to be gained by telegraphing the information. we did not wish any hint of the child’s illness to leak into the newspapers.

i did not envy the great man the hour when he read that letter; although i knew that the doctor had not failed to assure him that the victim of his misdeeds should be kept in ignorance. already the little man had begun to drop hints to me on this subject. unfortunate accidents happened, which were not always to be blamed upon the husband, nor was it a thing to contemplate lightly, the breaking up of a family. i gave a non-committal answer, and changed the subject by asking the doctor not to mention my presence in the household. if by any chance van tuiver were to carry his sorrows to claire, i did not want my name brought up.

we managed to prevent sylvia’s seeing the child that day and night, and the next morning came the specialist. he held out no hope of saving any remnant of the sight, but the child might be so fortunate as to escape disfigurement—it did not appear that the eyeballs were destroyed, as happens generally in these cases. this bit of consolation i still have: that little elaine, who sits by me as i write, has left in her pupils a faint trace of the soft red-brown—just enough to remind us of what we have lost, and keep fresh in our minds the memory of these sorrows. if i wish to see what her eyes might have been, i look above my head to the portrait of sylvia’s noble ancestress, a copy made by a “tramp artist” in castleman county, and left with me by sylvia.

there was the question of the care of the mother—the efforts to stay the ravages of the germ in the tissues broken and weakened by the strain of child-birth. we had to invent excuses for the presence of the new doctor—and yet others for the presence of dr. overton, who came a day later. and then the problem of the nourishing of the child. it would be a calamity to have to put it upon the bottle, but on the other hand, there were many precautions necessary to keep the infection from spreading.

i remember vividly the first time that the infant was fed: all of us gathered round, with matter-of-course professional air, as if these elaborate hygienic ceremonies were the universal custom when newly-born infants first taste their mothers’ milk. standing in the background, i saw sylvia start with dismay, as she noted how pale and thin the poor little one had become. it was hunger that caused the whimpering, so the nurse declared, busying herself in the meantime to keep the tiny hands from the mother’s face. the latter sank back and closed her eyes—nothing, it seemed, could prevail over the ecstasy of that first marvellous sensation, but afterwards she asked that i might stay with her, and as soon as the others were gone, she unmasked the batteries of her suspicion upon me. “mary! what in the world has happened to my baby?”

so began a new stage in the campaign of lying. “it’s nothing, nothing. just some infection. it happens frequently.”

“but what is the cause of it?”

“we can’t tell. it may be a dozen things. there are so many possible sources of infection about a birth. it’s not a very sanitary thing, you know.”

“mary! look me in the face!”

“yes, dear?”

“you’re not deceiving me?”

“how do you mean?”

“i mean—it’s not really something serious? all these doctors—this mystery—this vagueness!”

“it was your husband, my dear sylvia, who sent the doctors—it was his stupid man’s way of being attentive.” (this at aunt varina’s suggestion—the very subtle lady!).

“mary, i’m worried. my baby looks so badly, and i feel something is wrong.”

“my dear sylvia,” i chided, “if you worry about it you will simply be harming the child. your milk may go wrong.”

“oh, that’s just it! that’s why you would not tell me the truth!”

we persuade ourselves that there are certain circumstances under which lying is necessary, but always when we come to the lies we find them an insult to the soul. each day i perceived that i was getting in deeper—and each day i watched aunt varina and the doctor busied to push me deeper yet.

there had come a telegram from douglas van tuiver to dr. perrin, revealing the matter which stood first in that gentleman’s mind. “i expect no failure in your supply of the necessary tact.” by this vagueness we perceived that he too was trusting no secrets to telegraph operators. yet for us it was explicit and illuminative. it recalled the tone of quiet authority i had noted in his dealings with his chauffeur, and it sent me off by myself for a while to shake my fist at all husbands.

19. mrs. tuis, of course, had no need of any warning from the head of the house. the voice of her ancestors guided her in all such emergencies. the dear lady had got to know me quite well, at the more or less continuous dramatic rehearsals we conducted; and now and then her trembling hands would seek to fasten me in the chains of decency. “mrs. abbott, think what a scandal there would be if mrs. douglas van tuiver were to break with her husband!”

“yes, my dear mrs. tuis-but on the other hand, think what might happen if she were kept in ignorance in this matter. she might bear another child.”

i got a new realization of the chasms that lay between us. “who are we,” she whispered, “to interfere in these sacred matters? it is of souls, mrs. abbot, and not bodies, that the kingdom of heaven is made.”

i took a minute or so to get my breath, and then i said, “what generally happens in these cases is that god afflicts the woman with permanent barrenness.”

the old lady bowed her head, and i saw the tears falling into her lap. “my poor sylvia!” she moaned, only half aloud.

there was a silence; i too almost wept. and finally, aunt varina looked up at me, her faded eyes full of pleading. “it is hard for me to understand such ideas as yours. you must tell me-can you really believe that it would help sylvia to know this-this dreadful secret?”

“it would help her in many ways,” i said. “she will be more careful of her health-she will follow the doctor’s orders—-”

how quickly came the reply! “i will stay with her, and see that she does that! i will be with her day and night.”

“but are you going to keep the secret from those who attend her? her maid—the child’s nurses—everyone who might by any chance use the same towel, or a wash-basin, or a drinking-glass?”

“surely you exaggerate the danger! if that were true, more people would meet with these accidents!”

“the doctors,” i said, “estimate that about ten per cent. of cases of this disease are innocently acquired.”

“oh, these modern doctors!” she cried. “i never heard of such ideas!”

i could not help smiling. “my dear mrs. tuis, what do you imagine you know about the prevalence of gonorrhea? consider just one fact—that i heard a college professor state publicly that in his opinion eighty-five per cent. of the men students at his university were infected with some venereal disease. and that is the pick of our young manhood—the sons of our aristocracy!”

“oh, that can’t be!” she exclaimed. “people would know of it!

“who are ‘people’? the boys in your family know of it—if you could get them to tell you. my two sons studied at a state university, and they would bring me home what they heard—the gossip, the slang, the horrible obscenity. fourteen fellows in one dormitory using the same bathroom—and on the wall you saw a row of fourteen syringes! and they told that on themselves, it was the joke of the campus. they call the disease a ‘dose’; and a man’s not supposed to be worthy the respect of his fellows until he’s had his ‘dose’—the sensible thing is to get several, till he can’t get any more. they think it’s ‘no worse than a bad cold’; that’s the idea they get from the ‘clap-doctors,’ and the women of the street who educate our sons in sex matters.”

“oh, spare me, spare me!” cried mrs. tuis. “i beg you not to force these horrible details upon me!”

“that is what is going on among our boys,” i said. “the castleman boys, the chilton boys! it’s going on in every fraternity house, every ‘prep school’ dormitory in america. and the parents refuse to know, just as you do!”

“but what could i possibly do, mrs. abbott?”

“i don’t know, mrs. tuis. what i am going to do is to teach the young girls.”

she whispered, aghast, “you would rob the young girls of their innocence. why, with their souls full of these ideas their faces would soon be as hard—oh, you horrify me!”

“my daughter’s face is not hard,” i said. “and i taught her. stop and think, mrs. tuis—ten thousand blind children every year! a hundred thousand women under the surgeon’s knife! millions of women going to pieces with slowly creeping diseases of which they never hear the names! i say, let us cry this from the housetops, until every woman knows—and until every man knows that she knows, and that unless he can prove that he is clean he will lose her! that is the remedy, mrs. tuis!”

poor dear lady! i got up and went away, leaving her there, with clenched hands and trembling lips. i suppose i seemed to her like the mad women who were just then rising up to horrify the respectability of england—a phenomenon of nature too portentous to be comprehended, or even to be contemplated, by a gentlewoman of the south!

20. there came in due course a couple of letters from douglas van tuiver. the one to aunt varina, which was shown to me, was vague and cautious—as if the writer were uncertain how much this worthy lady knew. he merely mentioned that sylvia was to be spared every particle of “painful knowledge.” he would wait in great anxiety, but he would not come, because any change in his plans might set her to questioning.

the letter to dr. perrin was not shown to me; but i judged that it must have contained more strenuous injunctions. or had aunt varina by any chance got up the courage to warn the young doctor against me? his hints, at any rate, became more pointed. he desired me to realize how awkward it would be for him, if sylvia were to learn the truth; it would be impossible to convince mr. van tuiver that this knowledge had not come from the physician in charge.

“but, dr. perrin,” i objected, “it was i who brought the information to you! and mr. van tuiver knows that i am a radical woman; he would not expect me to be ignorant of such matters.”

“mrs. abbott,” was the response, “it is a grave matter to destroy the possibility of happiness of a young married couple.”

however i might dispute his theories, in practice i was doing what he asked. but each day i was finding the task more difficult; each day it became more apparent that sylvia was ceasing to believe me. i realized at last, with a sickening kind of fright, that she knew i was hiding something from her. because she knew me, and knew that i would not do such a thing lightly, she was terrified. she would lie there, gazing at me, with a dumb fear in her eyes—and i would go on asseverating blindly, like an unsuccessful actor before a jeering audience.

a dozen times she made an effort to break through the barricade of falsehood; and a dozen times i drove her back, all but crying to her, “no, no! don’t ask me!” until at last, late one night, she caught my hand and clung to it in a grip i could not break. “mary! mary! you must tell me the truth!”

“dear girl—” i began.

“listen!” she cried. “i know you are deceiving me! i know why—because i’ll make myself ill. but it won’t do any longer; it’s preying on me, mary—i’ve taken to imagining things. so you must tell me the truth!”

i sat, avoiding her eyes, beaten; and in the pause i could feel her hands shaking. “mary, what is it? is my baby going to die?”

“no, dear, indeed no!” i cried.

“then what?”

“sylvia,” i began, as quietly as i could, “the truth is not as bad as you imagine—”

“tell me what it is!”

“but it is bad, sylvia. and you must be brave. you must be, for your baby’s sake.”

“make haste!” she cried.

“the baby,” i said, “may be blind.”

“blind!” there we sat, gazing into each other’s eyes, like two statues of women. but the grasp of her hand tightened, until even my big fist was hurt. “blind!” she whispered again.

“sylvia,” i rushed on, “it isn’t so bad as it might be! think—if you had lost her altogether!”

“blind!”

“you will have her always; and you can do things for her—take care of her. they do wonders for the blind nowadays—and you have the means; to do everything. really, you know, blind children are not unhappy—some of them are happier than other children, i think. they haven’t so much to miss. think—”

“wait, wait,” she whispered; and again there was silence, and i clung to her cold hands.

“sylvia,” i said, at last, “you have a newly-born infant to nurse, and its very life depends upon your health now. you cannot let yourself grieve.”

“no,” she responded. “no. but, mary, what caused this?”

so there was the end of my spell of truth-telling. “i don’t know, dear. nobody knows. there might be a thousand things—”

“was it born blind?”

“no.”

“then was it the doctor’s fault?”

“no, it was nobody’s fault. think of the thousands and tens of thousands of babies that become blind! it’s a dreadful accident that happens.” so i went on—possessed with a dread that had been with me for days, that had kept me awake for hours in the night: had i, in any of my talks with sylvia about venereal disease, mentioned blindness in infants as one of the consequences? i could not rememher; but now was the time i would find out!

she lay there, immovable, like a woman who had died in grief; until at last i flung my arms about her and whispered, “sylvia! sylvia! please cry!”

“i can’t cry!” she whispered, and her voice sounded hard.

so, after a space, i said, “then, dear, i think i will have to make you laugh.”

“laugh, mary?”

“yes-i will tell you about the quarrel between aunt varina and myself. you know what times we’ve been having-how i shocked the poor lady?”

she was looking at me, but her eyes were not seeing me. “yes, mary,” she said, in the same dead tone.

“well, that was a game we made for you. it was very funny!”

“funny?”

“yes! because i really did shock her-though we started out just to give you something else to think about!”

and then suddenly i saw the healing tears begin to come. she could not weep for her own grief-but she could weep because of what she knew we two had had to suffer for her!

21. i went out and told the others what i had done; and mrs. tuis rushed in to her niece and they wept in each other’s arms, and mrs. tuis explained all the mysteries of life by her formula, “the will of the lord.”

later on came dr. perrin, and it was touching to see how sylvia treated him. she had, it appeared, conceived the idea that the calamity must be due to some blunder on his part, and then she had reflected that he was young, and that chance had thrown upon him a responsibility for which he had not bargained. he must be reproaching himself bitterly, so she had to persuade him that it was really not so bad as we were making it-that a blind child was a great joy to a mother’s soul-in some ways even a greater joy than a perfectly sound child, because it appealed so to her protective instinct! i had called sylvia a shameless payer of compliments, and now i went away by myself and wept.

yet it was true in a way. when the infant was brought in to be nursed again, how she clung to it, a very picture of the sheltering and protecting instinct of motherhood! she knew the worst now—her mind was free, and she could partake of what happiness was allowed her. the child was hers to love and care for, and she would find ways to atone to it for the harshness of fate.

so little by little we got our existence upon a working basis. we lived a peaceful, routine life, to the music of cocoanut-palms rustling in the warm breezes which blew incessantly off the mexican gulf. aunt varina had, for the time, her undisputed way with the family; her niece reclined upon the veranda in true southern lady fashion, and was read aloud to from books of indisputable respectability. i remember aunt varina selected the “idylls of the king,” and they two were in a mood to shed tears over these solemn, sorrowful tales. so it came that the little one got her name, after a pale and unhappy heroine.

i remember the long discussions of this point, the family-lore which aunt varina brought forth. it did not seem to her quite the thing to call a blind child after a member of one’s family. something strange, romantic, wistful—yes, elaine was the name! mrs. tuis, it transpired, had already baptised the infant, in the midst of the agonies and alarms of its illness. she had called it “sylvia,” and now she was tremulously uncertain whether this counted—whether perhaps the higher powers might object to having to alter their records. but in the end a clergyman came out from key west and heard aunt varina’s confession, and gravely concluded that the error might be corrected by a formal ceremony. how strange it all seemed to me—being carried back two or three hundred years in the world’s history! but i gave no sign of what was going on in my rebellious mind.

22. dr. overton on his return to new york, sent a special nurse to take charge of sylvia’s case. there was also an infant’s nurse, and both had been taken into the doctor’s confidence. so now there was an elaborate conspiracy—no less than five women and two men, all occupied in keeping a secret from sylvia. it was a thing so contrary to my convictions that i was never free from the burden of it for a moment. was it my duty to tell her?

dr. perrin no longer referred to the matter—i realised that both he and dr. gibson considered the matter settled. was it conceivable that anyone of sound mind could set out, deliberately and in cold blood, to betray such a secret? but i had maintained all my life the right of woman to know the truth, and was i to back down now, at the first test of my convictions?

when the news reached douglas van tuiver that his wife had been informed of the infant’s blindness, there came a telegram saying that he was coming. there was much excitement, of course, and aunt varina came to me, in an attempt to secure a definite pledge of silence. when i refused it, dr. perrin came again, and we fought the matter over for the better part of a day and night.

he was a polite little gentleman, and he did not tell me that my views were those of a fanatic, but he said that no woman could see things in their true proportion, because of her necessary ignorance concerning the nature of men, and the temptations to which they were exposed. i replied that i believed i understood these matters thoroughly, and i went on, quite simply and honestly, to make clear to him that this was so. in the end my pathetically chivalrous little southern gentleman admitted everything i asked. yes, it was true that these evils were ghastly, and that they were increasing, and that women were the worst sufferers from men. there might even be something in my idea that the older women of the community should devote themselves to this service, making themselves race-mothers, and helping, not merely in their homes, but in the schools and churches, to protect and save the future generations. but all that was in the future, he argued, while here was a case which had gone so far that “letting in the light” could only blast the life of two people, making it impossible for a young mother ever again to tolerate the father of her child. i argued that sylvia was not of the hysterical type, but i could not make him agree that it was possible to predict what the attitude of any woman would be. his ideas were based on one peculiar experience he had had—a woman patient who had said to him: “doctor, i know what is the matter with me, but for god’s sake don’t let my husband find out that i know, because then i should feel that my self-respect required me to leave him!”

23. the master-of-the-house was coming! you could feel the quiver of excitement in the air of the place. the boatmen were polishing the brasses of the launch; the yard-man was raking up the dry strips of palm from beneath the cocoanut trees; aunt varina was ordering new supplies, and entering into conspiracies with the cook. the nurses asked me timidly, what was he like, and even dr. gibson, a testy old gentleman who had clashed violently with me on the subject of woman’s suffrage, and had avoided me ever since as a suspicious character, now came and confided his troubles. he had sent home for a trunk, and the graceless express companies had sent it astray. now he was wondering if it was necessary for him to journey to key west and have a suit of dinner clothes made over night. i told him that i had not sent for any party-dresses, and that i expected to meet mr. douglas van tuiver at his dinner-table in plain white linen. his surprise was so great that i suspected the old gentleman of having wondered whether i meant to retire to a “second-table” when the master-of-the-house arrived.

i went away by myself, seething with wrath. who was this great one whom we honoured? was he an inspired poet, a maker of laws, a discoverer of truth? he was the owner of an indefinite number of millions of dollars—that was all, and yet i was expected, because of my awe of him, to abandon the cherished convictions of my lifetime. the situation was one that challenged my fighting blood. this was the hour to prove whether i really meant the things i talked.

on the morning of the day that van tuiver was expected, i went early to aunt varina’s room. she was going in the launch, and was in a state of flustration, occupied in putting on her best false hair. “mrs. tuis,” i said, “i want you to let me go to meet mr. van tuiver instead of you.”

i will not stop to report the good lady’s outcries. i did not care, i said, whether it was proper, nor did i care whether, as she finally hinted, it might not be agreeable to mr. van tuiver. i was sorry to have to thrust myself upon him, but i was determined to go, and would let nothing prevent me. and all at once she yielded, rather surprising me by the suddenness of it. i suppose she concluded that van tuiver was the man to handle me, and the quicker he got at it the better.

it is a trying thing to deal with the rich and great. if you treat them as the rest of the world does, you are a tuft-hunter; if you treat them as the rest of the world pretends to, you are a hypocrite; whereas, if you deal with them truly, it is hard not to seem, even to yourself, a bumptious person. i remember trying to tell myself on the launch-trip that i was not in the least excited; and then, standing on the platform of the railroad station, saying: “how can you expect not to be excited, when even the railroad is excited?”

“will mr. van tuiver’s train be on time?” i asked, of the agent.

“‘specials’ are not often delayed,” he replied, “at least, not mr. van tuiver’s.”

the engine and its two cars drew up, and the traveller stepped out upon the platform, followed by his secretary and his valet. i went forward to meet him. “good morning, mr. van tuiver.”

i saw at once that he did not remember me. “mrs. abbott,” i prompted. “i came to meet you.”

“ah,” he said. he had never got clear whether i was a sewing-woman, or a tutor, or what, and whenever he erred in such matters, it was on the side of caution.

“your wife is doing well,” i said, “and the child as well as could be expected.”

“thank you,” he said. “did no one else come?”

“mrs. tuis was not able,” i said, diplomatically, and we moved towards the launch.

24. he did not offer to help me into the vessel, but i, crude western woman, did not miss the attention. we seated ourselves in the upholstered leather seats in the stern, and when the “luggage” had been stowed aboard, the little vessel swung away from the pier. then i said: “if you will pardon me, mr. van tuiver, i should like to talk with you privately.”

he looked at me for a moment, and then answered, abruptly: “yes, madam.” the secretary rose and went forward.

the whirr of the machinery and the strong breeze made by the boat’s motion, made it certain that no one could hear us, and so i began my attack: “mr. van tuiver, i am a friend of your wife’s. i came here to help her in this crisis, and i came to-day to meet you because it was necessary for someone to talk to you frankly about the situation. you will understand, i presume, that mrs. tuis is not—not very well informed about the matters in question.”

his gaze was fixed intently upon me, but he said not a word. after waiting, i continued: “perhaps you will wonder why your wife’s physicians could not have handled the matter. the reason is, there is a woman’s side to such questions and often it is difficult for men to understand it. if sylvia knew the truth, she could speak for herself; so long as she does not know it, i shall have to take the liberty of speaking for her.”

again there was a pause. he did nothing more than watch me, yet i could feel his affronted maleness rising up for battle. i waited on purpose to compel him to speak.

“may i ask,” he inquired, at last, “what you mean by the ‘truth’ that you refer to?”

“i mean,” i said, “the cause of the infant’s affliction.”

his composure was a thing to wonder at. he did not show by the flicker of an eyelash any sign of uneasiness.

“let me explain one thing,” i continued. “i owe it to dr. perrin to make clear that he had nothing whatever to do with my coming into possession of the secret. in fact, as he will no doubt tell you, i knew it before he did; it is possible that you owe it to me that the infant is not disfigured as well as blind.”

i paused again. “if that be true,” he said, with unshaken formality, “i am obliged to you.” what a man!

i continued: “my one desire and purpose is to protect my friend. so far, the secret has been kept from her. i consented to this, because her very life was at stake, it seemed to us all. but now she is well enough to know, and the question is shall she know. i need hardly tell you that dr. perrin thinks she should not, and that he has been using his influence to persuade me to agree with him; so also has mrs. tuis——”

then i saw the first trace of uncertainty in his eyes. “there was a critical time,” i explained, “when mrs. tuis had to be told. you may be sure, however, that no hint of the truth will be given by her. i am the only person who is troubled with the problem of sylvia’s rights.”

i waited. “may i suggest, mrs.—mrs. abbott—that the protection of mrs. van tuiver’s rights can be safely left to her physicians and her husband?”

“one would wish so, mr. van tuiver, but the medical books are full of evidence that women’s rights frequently need other protection.”

i perceived that he was nearing the end of his patience now. “you make it difficult for me to talk to you,” he said. “i am not accustomed to having my affairs taken out of my hands by strangers.”

“mr. van tuiver,” i replied, “in this most critical matter it is necessary to speak without evasion. before her marriage sylvia made an attempt to safeguard herself in this very matter, and she was not dealt with fairly.”

at last i had made a hole in the mask! his face was crimson as he replied: “madam, your knowledge of my private affairs is most astonishing. may i inquire how you learned these things?”

i did not reply at once, and he repeated the question. i perceived that this was to him the most important matter—his wife’s lack of reserve!

“the problem that concerns us here,” i said, “is whether you are willing to repair the error you made. will you go frankly to your wife and admit your responsibility——”

he broke in, angrily: “madam, the assumption you are making is one i see no reason for permitting.”

“mr. van tuiver,” said i, “i hoped that you would not take that line of argument. i perceive that i have been naive.”

“really, madam!” he replied, with cruel intent, “you have not impressed me so!”

i continued unshaken: “in this conversation it will be necessary to assume that you are responsible for the presence of the disease.”

“in that case,” he replied, haughtily, “i can have no further part in the conversation, and i will ask you to drop it at once.”

i might have taken him at his word and waited, confident that in the end he would have to come and ask for terms. but that would have seemed childish to me, with the grave matters we had to settle. after a minute or two, i said, quietly: “mr. van tuiver, you wish me to believe that previous to your marriage you had always lived a chaste life?”

he was equal to the effort it cost to control himself. he sat examining me with his cold grey eyes. i suppose i must have been as new and monstrous a phenomenon to him as he was to me.

at last, seeing that he would not reply, i said, coldly: “it will help us to get forward if you will give up the idea that it is possible for you to put me off, or to escape this situation.”

“madam,” he cried, suddenly, “come to the point! what is it that you want? money?”

i had thought i was prepared for everything; but this was an aspect of his world which i could hardly have been expected to allow for. i stared at him and then turned from the sight of him. “and to think that sylvia is married to such a man!” i whispered, half to myself.

“mrs. abbott,” he exclaimed, “how can anyone understand what you are driving at?”

but i turned away without answering, and for a long time sat gazing over the water. what was the use of pleading with such a man? what was the use of pouring out one’s soul to him? i would tell sylvia the truth at once, and leave him to her!

25. i heard him again, at last; he was talking to my back, his tone a trifle less aloof. “mrs. abbott, do you realize that i know nothing whatever about you—your character, your purpose, the nature of your hold upon my wife? so what means have i of judging? you threaten me with something that seems to me entirely insane—and what can i make of it? if you wish me to understand you, tell me in plain words what you want.”

i reflected that i was in the world, and must take it as i found it. “i have told you what i want,” i said; “but i will tell you again, if it is necessary. i hoped to persuade you that it was your duty to go to your wife and tell her the truth.”

he took a few moments to make sure of his self-possession. “and would you explain what good you imagine that could do?”

“your wife,” i said, “must be put in position to protect herself in future. there is no means of making sure in such a matter, except to tell her the truth. you love her—and you are a man who has never been accustomed to do without what he wants.”

“great god, woman!” he cried. “don’t you suppose one blind child is enough?”

it was the first human word that he had spoken, and i was grateful for it. “i have already covered that point,” i said, in a low voice. “the medical books are full of painful evidence that several blind children are often not enough. there can be no escaping the necessity—sylvia must know. the only question is, who shall tell her? you must realize that in urging you to be the person, i am thinking of your good as well as hers. i will, of course, not mention that i have had anything to do with persuading you, and so it will seem to her that you have some realization of the wrong you have done her, some desire to atone for it, and to be honourable and fair in your future dealings with her. when she has once been made to realize that you are no more guilty than other men of your class—hat you have done no worse than all of them——

“you imagine she could be made to believe that?” he broke in, impatiently.

“i will undertake to see that she believes it,” i replied.

“you seem to have great confidence in your ability to manage my wife!”

“if you continue to resent my existence,” i answered, gravely, “you will make it impossible for me to help you.”

“pardon me,” he said—but he did not say it cordially.

i went on: “there is much that can be said in your behalf. i realize it is quite possible that you were not wholly to blame when you wrote to bishop chilton that you were fit to marry; i know that you may have believed it—that you might even have found physicians to tell you so. there is wide-spread ignorance on the subject of this disease. men have the idea that the chronic forms of it cannot be communicated to women, and it is difficult to make them realize what modern investigations have proven. you can explain that to sylvia, and i will back you up in it. you were in love with her, you wanted her. go to her now, and admit to her honestly that you have wronged her. beg her to forgive you, and to let you help make the best of the cruel situation that has arisen.”

so i went on, pouring out my soul. and when i had finished, he said, “mrs. abbott, i have listened patiently to your most remarkable proposition. my answer is that i must ask you to withdraw from this intimate matter, which concerns only my wife and myself.”

he was back where we started! trying to sweep aside these grim and terrible realities with the wave of a conventional hand! was this the way he met sylvia’s arguments? i felt moved to tell him what i thought of him.

“you are a proud man, mr. van tuiver—an obstinate man, i fear. it is hard for you to humble yourself to your wife—to admit a crime and beg forgiveness. tell me—is that why you hesitate? is it because you fear you will have to take second place in your family from now on—that you will no longer be able to dominate sylvia? are you afraid of putting into her hands a weapon of self-defence?”

he made no response.

“very well,” i said, at last. “let me tell you, then—i will not help any man to hold such a position in a woman’s life. women have to bear half the burdens of marriage, they pay half, or more than half, the penalties; and so it is necessary that they have a voice in its affairs. until they know the truth, they can never have a voice.”

of course my little lecture on feminism might as well have been delivered to a sphinx. “how stupid you are!” i cried. “don’t you know that some day sylvia must find out the truth for herself?”

this was before the days when newspapers and magazines began to discuss such matters frankly; but still there were hints to be picked up. i had a newspaper-item in my bag—the board of health in a certain city had issued a circular giving instructions for the prevention of blindness in newly-born infants, and discussing the causes thereof; and the united states post office authorities had barred the circular from the mails. i said, “suppose that item had come under sylvia’s eyes; might it not have put her on the track. it was in her newspaper the day before yesterday; and it was only by accident that i got hold of it first. do you suppose that can go on forever?”

“now that i am here,” he replied, “i will be glad to relieve you of such responsibilities.”

which naturally made me cross. i drew from my quiver an arrow that i thought would penetrate his skin. “mr. van tuiver,” i said, “a man in your position must always be an object of gossip and scandal. suppose some enemy were to send your wife an anonymous letter? or suppose there were some woman who thought that you had wronged her?”

i stopped. he gave me one keen look—and then again the impenetrable mask! “my wife will have to do as other women in her position do—pay no attention to scandal-mongers of any sort.”

i paused, and then went on: “i believe in marriage. i consider it a sacred thing; i would do anything in my power to protect and preserve a marriage. but i hold that it must be an equal partnership. i would fight to make it that; and wherever i found that it could not be that, i would say it was not marriage, but slavery, and i would fight just as hard to break it. can you not understand that attitude upon a woman’s part?”

he gave no sign that he could understand. but still i would not give up my battle. “mr. van tuiver,” i pleaded, “i am a much older person than you. i have seen a great deal of life—i have seen suffering even worse than yours. and i am trying most earnestly to help you. can you not bring yourself to talk to me frankly? perhaps you have never talked with a woman about such matters—i mean, with a good woman. but i assure you that other men have found it possible, and never regretted the confidence they placed in me.”

i went on to tell him about my own sons, and what i had done for them; i told him of a score of other boys in their class who had come to me, making me a sort of mother-confessor. i do not think that i was entirely deceived by my own eloquence—there was, i am sure, a minute or two when he actually wavered. but then the habits of a precocious life-time reasserted themselves, and he set his lips and told himself that he was douglas van tuiver. such things might happen in raw western colleges, but they were not according to the harvard manner, nor the tradition of life in fifth avenue clubs.

he could not be a boy! he had never had any boyhood, any childhood—he had been a state personage ever since he had known that he was anything. i found myself thinking suddenly of the thin-lipped old family lawyer, who had had much to do with shaping his character, and whom sylvia described to me, sitting at her dinner-table and bewailing the folly of people who “admitted things.” that was what made trouble for family lawyers—not what people did, but what they admitted. how easy it was to ignore impertinent questions! and how few people had the wit to do it!-it seemed as if the shade of the thin-lipped old family lawyer were standing by douglas van tuiver’s side.

in a last desperate effort, i cried, “even suppose that i grant your request, even suppose i agree not to tell sylvia the truth—still the day will come when you will hear from her the point-blank question: ‘is my child blind because of this disease?’ and what will you answer?”

he said, in his cold, measured tones, “i will answer that there are a thousand ways in which the disease can be innocently acquired.”

for a long time there was silence between us. at last he spoke again, and his voice was as emotionless as if we had just met: “do i understand you, madam, that if i reject your advice and refuse to tell my wife what you call the truth, it is your intention to tell her yourself?”

“you understand me correctly,” i replied.

“and may i ask when you intend to carry out this threat?”

“i will wait,” i said, “i will give you every chance to think it over—to consult with the doctors, in case you wish to. i will not take the step without giving you fair notice.”

“for that i am obliged to you,” he said, with a touch of irony; and that was our last word.

26. our island was visible in the distance and i was impatient for the time when i should be free from this man’s presence. but as we drew nearer, i noticed a boat coming out; it proved to be one of the smaller launches heading directly for us. neither van tuiver nor i spoke, but both of us watched it, and he must have been wondering, as i was, what its purpose could be. when it was near enough, i made out that its passengers were dr. perrin and dr. gibson.

we slowed up, and the other boat did the same, and they lay within a few feet of each other. dr. perrin greeted van tuiver, and after introducing the other man, he said: “we came out to have a talk with you. would you be so good as to step into this boat?”

“certainly,” was the reply. the two launches were drawn side by side, and the transfer made; the man who was running the smaller launch stepped into ours—evidently having been instructed in advance.

“you will excuse us please?” said the little doctor to me. the man who had stepped into our launch spoke to the captain of it, and the power was then put on, and we moved away a sufficient distance to be out of hearing. i thought this a strange procedure, but i conjectured that the doctors had become nervous as to what i might have told van tuiver. so i dismissed the matter from my mind, and spent my time reviewing the exciting adventure i had just passed through.

how much impression had i made? it was hard for me to judge such a man. he would pretend to be less concerned than he actually was. but surely he must see that he was in my power, and would have to give way in the end!

there came a hail from the little vessel, and we moved alongside again. “would you kindly step in here with us, mrs. abbott?” said dr. perrin, and when i had done so, he ordered the boatman to move away once more. van tuiver said not a word, but i noted a strained look upon his face, and i thought the others seemed agitated also.

as soon as the other vessel was out of hearing, dr. perrin turned to me and said: “mrs. abbott, we came out to see mr. van tuiver, to warn him of a distressing accident which has just happened. mrs. van tuiver was asleep in her room, and miss lyman and another of the nurses were in the next room. they indiscreetly made some remarks on the subject which we have all been discussing—how much a wife should be told about these matters, and suddenly they discovered mrs. van tuiver standing in the doorway of the room.”

my gaze had turned to douglas van tuiver. “so she knows!” i cried.

“we don’t think that she knows, but she has a suspicion and is trying to find out. she asked to see you.”

“ah, yes!” i said.

“she declared that she wished to see you as soon as you returned—that she would not see anyone else, not even mr. van tuiver. you will understand that this portends trouble for all of us. we judged it necessary to have a consultation about the matter.”

i bowed in assent.

“now, mrs. abbot,” began the little doctor, solemnly, “there is no longer a question of abstract ideas, but of an immediate emergency. we feel that we, as the physicians in charge of the case, have the right to take control of the matter. we do not see——”

“dr. perrin,” i said, “let us come to the point. you want me to spin a new web of deception?”

“we are of the opinion, mrs. abbott, that in such matters the physicians in charge——”

“excuse me,” i said, quickly, “we have been over all this before, and we know that we disagree. has mr. van tuiver told you of the proposition i have just made?”

“you mean for him to go to his wife——”

“yes.”

“he has told us of this, and has offered to do it. we are of the opinion that it would be a grave mistake.”

“it has been three weeks since the birth of the baby,” i said. “surely all danger of fever is past. i will grant you that if it were a question of telling her deliberately, it might be better to put it off for a while. i would have been willing to wait for months, but for the fact that i dreaded something like the present situation. now that it has happened, surely it is best to use our opportunity while all of us are here and can persuade her to take the kindest attitude towards her husband.”

“madam!” broke in dr. gibson. (he was having difficulty in controlling his excitement.) “you are asking us to overstep the bounds of our professional duty. it is not for the physician to decide upon the attitude a wife should take toward her husband.”

“dr. gibson,” i replied, “that is what you propose to do, only you wish to conceal the fact. you would force mrs. van tuiver to accept your opinion of what a wife’s duty is.”

dr. perrin took command once more. “our patient has asked for you, and she looks to you for guidance. you must put aside your own convictions and think of her health. you are the only person who can calm her, and surely it is your duty to do so!”

“i know that i might go in and lie again to my friend, but she knows too much to be deceived for very long. you know what a mind she has—a lawyer’s mind! how can i persuade her that the nurses—why, i do not even know what she heard the nurses say!”

“we have that all written down for you,” put in dr. perrin, quickly.

“you have their recollection of it, no doubt—but suppose they have forgotten some of it? sylvia has not forgotten, you may be sure—every word is burned with fire into her brain. she has put with this everything she ever heard on the subject—the experience of her friend, harriet atkinson-all that i’ve told her in the past about such things——”

“ah!” growled dr. gibson. “that’s it! if you had not meddled in the beginning——”

“now, now!” said the other, soothingly. “you ask me to relieve you of the embarrassment of this matter. i quite agree with mrs. abbott that there is too much ignorance about these things, but she must recognise, i am sure, that this is not the proper moment for enlightening mrs. van tuiver.”

“i do not recognise it at all,” i said. “if her husband will go to her and tell her humbly and truthfully——”

“you are talking madness!” cried the old man, breaking loose again. “she would be hysterical—she would regard him as something loathsome—some kind of criminal——”

“of course she would be shocked,” i said, “but she has the coolest head of anyone i know—i do not think of any man i would trust so fully to take a rational attitude in the end. we can explain to her what extenuating circumstances there are, and she will have to recognise them. she will see that we are considering her rights——”

“her rights!” the old man fairly snorted the words.

“now, now, dr. gibson!” interposed the other. “you asked me——”

“i know! i know! but as the older of the physicians in charge of this case——”

dr. perrin managed to frown him down, and went on trying to placate me. but through the argument i could hear the old man muttering in his collar a kind of double bass pizzicato: “suffragettes! fanatics! hysteria! woman’s rights!”

27. the breeze was feeble, and the sun was blazing hot, but nevertheless i made myself listen patiently for a while. they had said it all to me, over and over again; but it seemed that dr. perrin could not be satisfied until it had been said in douglas van tuiver’s presence.

“dr. perrin,” i exclaimed, “even supposing we make the attempt to deceive her, we have not one plausible statement to make——”

“you are mistaken, mrs. abbott,” said he. “we have the perfectly well-known fact that this disease is often contracted in ways which involve no moral blame. and in this case i believe i am in position to state how the accident happened.”

“what do you mean?”

“i don’t know whether you heard that just before mrs. van tuiver’s confinement, i was called away to one of the other keys to attend a negro-woman. and since this calamity has befallen us, i have realized that i was possibly not as careful in sterilizing my instruments as i might have been. it is of course a dreadful thing for any physician to have to believe——”

he stopped, and there was a long silence. i gazed from one to another of the men. two of them met my gaze; one did not. “he is going to let you say that?” i whispered, at last.

“honour and fairness compel me to say it, mrs. abbott. i believe——”

but i interrupted him. “listen to me, dr. perrin. you are a chivalrous gentleman, and you think you are helping a man in desperate need. but i say that anyone who would permit you to tell such a tale is a contemptible coward!”

“madam,” cried dr. gibson, furiously, “there is a limit even to a woman’s rights!”

a silence followed. at last i resumed, in a low voice, “you gentlemen have your code: you protect the husband—you protect him at all hazards. i could understand this, if he were innocent of the offence in question; i could understand it if there were any possibility of his being innocent. but how can you protect him, when you know that he is guilty?”

“there can be no question of such knowledge!” cried the old doctor.

“i have no idea,” i said, “how much he has admitted to you; but let me remind you of one circumstance, which is known to dr. perrin—that i came to this place with the definite information that symptoms of the disease were to be anticipated. dr. perrin knows that i told that to dr. overton in new york. has he informed you of it?”

there was an awkward interval. i glanced at van tuiver, and i saw that he was leaning forward, staring at me. i thought he was about to speak, when dr. gibson broke in, excitedly, “all this is beside the mark! we have a serious emergency to face, and we are not getting anywhere. as the older of the physicians in charge of this case——”

and he went on to give me a lecture on the subject of authority. he talked for five minutes, ten minutes—i lost all track of the time. i had suddenly begun to picture how i would act and what i would say when i went into sylvia’s room. what a state must sylvia be in, while we sat out here in the blazing mid-day sun, discussing her right to freedom and knowledge!

28. “i have always been positive,” dr. gibson was saying, “but the present discussion has made me more positive than ever. as the older of the physicians in charge of this case, i say most emphatically that the patient shall not be told!”

i could not stand him any longer. “i am going to tell the patient,” i said.

“you shall not tell her!”

“but how will you prevent me?”

“you shall not see her!”

“but she is determined to see me!”

“she will be told that you are not there.”

“and how long do you imagine that that will satisfy her?”

there was a pause. they looked at van tuiver, expecting him to speak. and so i heard once more his cold, deliberate voice. “we have done all we can. there can no longer be any question as to the course to be taken. mrs. abbott will not return to my home.”

“what?” i cried. i stared at him, aghast. “what do you mean?”

“i mean what i say—that you will not be taken back to the island.”

“but where will i be taken?”

“you will be taken to the mainland.”

i stared at the others. no one gave a sign. at last i whispered, “you would dare?”

“you leave us no other alternative,” replied the master.

“you—you will practically kidnap me!” my voice must have been rather wild at that moment.

“you left my home of your own free will. i think i need hardly point out to you that i am not compelled to invite you back to it.”

“and what will sylvia——” i stopped; appalled at the vista the words opened up.

“my wife,” said van tuiver, “will ultimately choose between her husband and her most remarkable acquaintance.”

“and you gentlemen?” i turned to the others. “you would give your sanction to this outrageous action?”

“as the older of the physicians in charge of this case——” began dr. gibson.

i turned to van tuiver again. “when your wife finds out what you have done to me—what will you answer?”

“we will deal with that situation when we come to it.”

“of course,” i said, “you understand that sooner or later i shall get word to her!”

he answered, “we shall assume from now on that you are a mad woman, and shall take our precautions accordingly.”

again there was a silence.

“the launch will return to the mainland,” said van tuiver at last. “it will remain there until mrs. abbott sees fit to go ashore. may i ask if she has sufficient money in her purse to take her to new york?”

i could not help laughing. the thing was so wild—and yet i could see that from their point of view it was the only thing to do. “mrs. abbott is not certain that she is going back to new york,” i replied. “if she does go, it will not be with mr. van tuiver’s money.”

“one thing more,” said dr. perrin. it was the first time he had spoken since van tuiver’s incredible announcement. “i trust, mrs. abbott, that this unfortunate situation may at all costs be concealed from servants, and from the world in general.”

from which i realized how badly i had them frightened. they actually saw me making physical resistance!

“dr. perrin,” i replied, “i am acting in this matter for my friend. i will add this: that i believe that you are letting yourself be overborne, and that you will regret it some day.”

he made no answer. douglas van tuiver put an end to the discussion by rising and signalling the other launch. when it had come alongside, he said to the captain, “mrs. abbott is going back to the railroad. you will take her at once.”

then he waited; i was malicious enough to give him an anxious moment before i rose. dr. perrin offered me his hand; and dr. gibson said, with a smile, “good-bye, mrs. abbott. i’m sorry you can’t stay with us any longer.”

i think it was something to my credit that i was able to play out the game before the boatmen. “i am sorry, too,” i countered. “i am hoping i shall be able to return.”

and then came the real ordeal. “good-bye, mrs. abbott,” said douglas van tuiver, with his stateliest bow; and i managed to answer him!

as i took my seat, he beckoned his secretary. there was a whispered consultation for a minute or two, and then the master returned to the smaller launch with the doctors. he gave the word, and the two vessels set out—one to the key, and the other to the railroad. the secretary went in the one with me!

29. and here ends a certain stage of my story. i have described sylvia as i met her and judged her; and if there be any reader who has been irked by this method, who thinks of me as a crude and pushing person, disposed to meddle in the affairs of others, here is where that reader will have his satisfaction and revenge. for if ever a troublesome puppet was jerked suddenly off the stage—if ever a long-winded orator was effectively snuffed out—i was that puppet and that orator. i stop and think—shall i describe how i paced up and down the pier, respectfully but emphatically watched by the secretary? and all the melodramatic plots i conceived, the muffled oars and the midnight visits to my sylvia? my sense of humour forbids it. for a while now i shall take the hint and stay in the background of this story. i shall tell the experiences of sylvia as sylvia herself told them to me long afterwards; saying no more about my own fate—save that i swallowed my humiliation and took the next train to new york, a far sadder and wiser social-reformer!