lr»5f\ 
 
 wmmm 
 
 
 
 1 » ^^^^H 
 
 ^B^ 
 
 
 
 itit**^ 
 
 •%;?# 
 
 \; 
 
library of 
 ^0 UniDersiti, of Xlotth Carolina 
 
 C O I. L E C T I O X OF 
 
 NORTH CAROLIXIAXA 
 
 K X D O ^\' E D B Y 
 
 JOHN SPRUNT HILL 
 
 of the class of 1889 
 
 I' 
 
UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL 
 
 000 
 
 7475028 
 
 24 
 
 G817> Eeake_ 
 
 P3^ 
 
 This BOOK may be kept out TWO WEEKS 
 ONLY, and is subject to a fine of FIVE 
 CENTS a day thereafter. It was taken out on 
 :he day indicated below: 
 
 LI 
 
The Darlingtons 
 
The Darlingtons 
 
 By 
 Elmore Elliott Peake 
 
 New York 
 
 McClure, Phillip ^ Co. 
 
 igoo 
 
Copyright^ igoo 
 By McClure, Phillips & Co. 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 First impression, September, 1900 
 Second impress! on, October, 1900 
 Third impression, November, 1900 
 Fourth impression, December, 1900 
 
 MANHATTAN PRESS 
 
To Mr Mother 
 
Contents 
 
 Chapter Page 
 
 I. The Penalty of Oratory i 
 
 II. An Uncanonical Confession 13 
 
 III. Some Mutual Diplomacy 22 
 
 IV. A Benevolent Conspiracy 33 
 
 V. A Clerical Intervention 40 
 
 VI. The Problem of Justice 53 
 
 VII. The Corporate Soul 61 
 
 VIII. The Tug of Conscience 70 
 
 IX. Mother and Daughter 76 
 
 X. A Phantom of the Night 88 
 
 XL The Trail of the Phantom loi 
 
 XII. ** Because I Love Him!" 114 
 
 XIII. The Problem's Solution 129 
 
 XIV. The Woman of Business 136 
 
 XV. Tickets and Chrysanthemums 152 
 
 XVI. A Matter of Horsemanship 165 
 
 XVII. Pro's and Con's 174 
 
 XVIII. Kaltenborn's Flock 188 
 
 XIX. Ancestral and Other Secrets 204 
 
 XX. The Leaven Works 220 
 
 XXI. A Dangerous Prescription 241 
 
 XXIL The "Speed" Party 258 
 
 XXIII. The New Engine's Mettle 275 
 
viii Contents 
 
 Chapter Page 
 
 XXIV. A Drowning Man's Straw 294 
 
 XXV. Where Forgiveness is Divine 315 
 
 XXVI. The Evangelist 322 
 
 XXVII. The Test of Friendship 337 
 
 XXVIII. A Providential Intervention 346 
 
 XXIX. Untying a Knot 358 
 
 XXX. The Serpent's Cunning 369 
 
 XXXI. Reaping the Whirlwind 379 
 
 XXXII. Aftermath 389 
 
 XXXIII. The Paternal Heart 400 
 
 XXXIV. The First Battle 409 
 
The Darlingtons 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE PENALTY OF ORATORY 
 
 " The wealth, beauty, and fashion of Ashboro " — to 
 quote from the Ashboro Intelligejicer of the following 
 week — were assembled in the new general-office build- 
 ing of the High Point, Rankelman, Ashboro, and South- 
 ern Railroad. The tessellated ground-floor, set apart 
 for station purposes, but not yet cut up into waiting- 
 rooms, ticket-office, and baggage-room, presented a 
 long, clean sweep from one end of the building to 
 the other. Here the guests came to a comparative 
 rest after flocking through the general offices upstairs, 
 which had been thrown open to the public through the 
 courtesy of President Darlington. These rooms were 
 mostly bare as yet, but the potentialities stored up in 
 them as the heart of the H. P., R., A., and S. system, 
 limited to one hundred and two miles though that 
 system was, made them interesting. In the train- 
 despatcher's office, however, the telegraph instruments 
 were already busily clicking, and the three or four young 
 operators, hedged off by a neat railing from the curious 
 throng, calmly smoked their cob pipes as they fingered 
 their keys. 
 
The Darlingtons 
 
 By eight o'clock the ground-floor was full of people — 
 altogether too full for dancing, some of the young women 
 anxiously observed. A temporary platform had been 
 erected at one end of the room. One side of this was 
 occupied by the Ashboro band ; the other, by a group 
 of sedate, prosperous-looking, middle-aged men, mostly 
 portly and mostly bald. This group comprised the 
 president and the directors of the road, the Mayor and 
 the common council of Ashboro, and a few other 
 prominent citizens. 
 
 After a ratthng number by the band, a brief address 
 by the Mayor, and another rattling number by the band, 
 a neatly dressed, handsome man, with a strikingly firm 
 and graceful carriage, side whiskers, and keen black eyes, 
 — they were really brown, — advanced to the front of 
 the platform, with one hand hanging easily by the thumb 
 from his vest pocket. He might have been fifty or 
 more, but there was a delusively youthful air about his 
 pleasant face, well-groomed person, and scrupulous at- 
 tire. His appearance created a storm of applause, and 
 a stranger might readily have guessed that the speaker 
 was C. A. Darlington, president of the H. P., R., A., 
 and S. Railroad. 
 
 " Friends and fellow-citizens," he began, in a voice 
 not very loud or very clear, but very convincing, " I 
 am going to take you all into my confidence to-night. 
 I beheve you are worthy of it. I believe the pubhc is 
 generally worthy of confidence ; I believe it can be 
 trusted. And as this railroad is run in the interests of 
 all you people (laughter), I don't see why you should n't 
 know some things. That is why I invited you all here 
 to-night — not simply to eat and dance and have a 
 good time. But I am not going to talk long, and you 
 
The Penalty of Oratory 3 
 
 girls who are tapping the floor with your feet can soon 
 throw yourselves into the arms of Terpsichore." 
 
 After a pause, in which his face dropped some of its 
 levity, though his eyes never ceased their twinkling, he 
 continued : " You all know what your town was before 
 I built this road, ten years ago. You all know what 
 any town is, in this day and age, without a raikoad. 
 It 's like a man who can't read or write. No matter 
 what its natural advantages are, without a railroad they 
 all go for nothing. But I am not going to say that I 
 bailt this road out of philanthropy. I built it to make 
 money. I have made money ; I expect to make more. 
 No man in this town ever saw me make a poor mouth, 
 or heard me complain of hard times. I don't do it. 
 But I believe I can truthfully say that you people have 
 shared in that prosperity. Every year we have given 
 you better service than the year before, and nearly every 
 year there has been some reduction in freight rates. I 
 think you will all admit that." He turned and looked 
 at the group on the platform, and the Mayor nodded 
 his head affirmatively. "Yet there has been some 
 criticism. People have called it a family affair. They 
 say that I am the president, and my son the traffic- 
 manager, and my daughter the auditor and comptroller. 
 Well, so we are ; but if I thought that anybody else could 
 do the work of my son and daughter better than they do 
 it, for the same money, I 'd turn them off to-morrow." 
 
 This raised another laugh, followed by a turning of 
 heads and craning of necks. Evidently the traffic- 
 manager and the fair auditor were in the crowd. 
 
 " I see some of you don't beheve that," continued 
 the speaker, with his shrewd sparkle ; *' but I would. 
 I am able to do it. Most of you know that I hold a 
 
The Darlingtons 
 
 controlling interest in the stock of the H. P., R., A., and 
 S. Railroad. I can make or unmake any official. But 
 ask any of these gentlemen here who hold stock if they 
 want to sell. If they do want to sell, ask them how 
 much higher their figure is than what they bought at. 
 Another thing. You have only one railroad, which 
 some people claim is as bad as a man's having only 
 one leg. Sometimes it is, I '11 admit. But we can't 
 help that ; we can't build another railroad for you ; and 
 if we did, you would be just as badly off as you are now. 
 But we can do this : we can make another railroad 
 unnecessary, and we will. We want to give you just as 
 good service as though there were fifty competing lines 
 running into Ashboro. If your freight does n't come 
 through on time, let us know; let the traffic-manager 
 know; and if he doesn't give you satisfaction, let me 
 know. I 'm always in my office. If our conductors 
 are not polite, or if our engineers don't haul you as fast 
 as you want to go, go to the ticket-office and get your 
 money back. (More laughter.) If the ticket- agent gives 
 it back, you can have it. 
 
 '• One word about this building. It was built by 
 Ashboro contractors and Ashboro labor, as far as pos- 
 sible. Not a dollar went out of town that I could keep 
 in. There is not another city of six thousand inhabitants 
 in the United States that has such a station as you are 
 going to have. Why, you can entertain your city friends 
 in these waiting-rooms when they are done. Some of 
 the stockholders thought such a station was too good 
 for you ; but I told them that I did n't think anything 
 on earth was too good for the people of Ashboro, and 
 they soon saw it in that light, too." 
 
 This sly reference to the notorious manner in which 
 
The Penalty of Oratory 5 
 
 he had ridden rough-shod over the minority of the 
 stockholders, in the matter of expenditures on the new 
 building, produced a broad smile, participated in by 
 the stockholders themselves. 
 
 ^^As a matter of fact, though," the president con- 
 tinued, "it is a httle finer than the Ashboro business 
 will warrant, and High Point and Rankelman are both 
 crying now for new stations. I suppose they will have 
 to have them some day. But I don't think they will 
 ever get one like this. That 's all I have to say, I 
 believe ; and I hope you will go ahead now and enjoy 
 yourselves. Some of us old fellows who can't drink 
 coffee after twelve o'clock noon and sleep any that 
 night will pull out early ; but you young ones that want 
 more room to dance in won't complain about that. 
 The band here is engaged till sunrise, if you want it 
 that long ; and if you want it longer than that, come up 
 to the house and wake me up." 
 
 The president made a short bow, and turned away, 
 his thumb still in his vest pocket. Three cheers were 
 proposed by the Mayor, and given with a good will. 
 Then some one called out, " Traffic-manager ! " and 
 three cheers were given for him. They were acknowl- 
 edged from the floor by a smooth-faced, clean-looking, 
 stylish young fellow, whose blue eyes and light hair 
 would scarcely have marked him as a son of the presi- 
 dent. He arose with a httle self-consciousness, bowed 
 gravely, and sat down again. 
 
 " Auditor ! Auditor ! " next called a voice. Three 
 more cheers, fairly deafening, rent the air. The auditor, 
 a young woman with the fair hair of a Swedish prin* 
 cess, arose with a laugh, bowed gracefully, and sank out 
 of sight again. 
 
6 The Darlingtons 
 
 " Speech ! Speech ! " shouted some one, and in- 
 stantly the whole assembly took up the cry. The 
 laughter died out of the auditor's eyes, and she shot a 
 quick, startled glance at her companion. 
 
 " You will have to ! " said the other, grimly. 
 
 For an instant the auditor dropped her steady gray 
 eyes to the floor, as if trying to think of something to 
 say. For an instant longer she bit her under lip, and 
 then she promptly rose, her hands folded simply before 
 her, her cheeks of a slightly heightened color. 
 
 " Platform ! Platform ! " cried some insatiable one, 
 and the thoughtless crowd echoed the request. The 
 victim, courageously accepting the inevitable, extricated 
 herself from the perfumed, rustling mesh around her by 
 a sinuous turn or two of her supple figure, and firmly 
 marched toward the platform down the aisle that opened 
 up for her. 
 
 She could not have been more than twenty-two, but 
 something about her subtly suggested power. Her 
 beautiful head, weighted with its mass of tawny hair, 
 was inclined modestly forward ; but one could not 
 escape the thought that it could lift high on occasion. 
 Her eyes were directed straight ahead in a thoroughly 
 businesslike, impersonal way, yet in their depths there 
 lurked an amused, half-quizzical light, as if she had 
 views of her own about such an honor as this. Her 
 square chin denoted determination, but it at the same 
 time guaranteed the perpetual absence of peevishness, 
 while a womanly sweetness and charity hovered around 
 her lips. Moreover, her presence breathed life and 
 health. As she threaded the narrow, crooked passage, 
 there was a lovableness, a good-fellowship, in the 
 very sinuosity of her movements ; and dignified, even 
 
The Penalty of Oratory 7 
 
 queenly, as was her bearing, still there escaped from her 
 a hint of suppressed animal spirits. 
 
 The steps to the platform were blocked with men and 
 boys, five rows deep, who slowly loosened up to make 
 way for Miss DarHngton. But she did not wait. She 
 whispered something in one man's ear, and he quickly 
 rose and placed his chair close to the platform. Gath- 
 ering her skirts in her hand with a swift, sweeping motion, 
 she stepped lightly on to the chair, and thence to the 
 platform, with a grace and modesty unimpeachable. 
 She faced the audience as coolly as her father had 
 faced it, save for a little stiffness around the lips, and 
 a very little defiance in her eyes, which may have 
 sprung from fright. 
 
 " My friends," she began, in a clear, boyish tenor 
 that penetrated to the farthest corner of the big room, 
 " I am not an orator." She paused. Simple and con- 
 ventional as were the words, there were a sturdiness 
 and an honesty in her tones that instantly captivated 
 the fancy of her audience. Doubtless, also, the cour- 
 age required of a woman to suddenly face such an 
 assemblage with tranquillity won the sympathy and 
 admiration of more than one. As a consequence, 
 when the girl leaned slightly forward, before resuming, 
 with a half confidential air, which was as eloquent as it 
 was unstudied, her hearers sympathetically met her half- 
 way, as it were, by their perfect silence. 
 
 *' I don't know that I have anything to say," she con- 
 tinued, simply, but with dignity, " except to thank you 
 for this honor, and to say that I am glad to see so many 
 of you here to-night in response to our public invitation. 
 It is a rather dehcate subject to touch upon, but your 
 presence seems to me to indicate that there is not 
 
8 The Darlingtons 
 
 very much hard feeling, in spite of what has been 
 sometimes said, between the railroad and the people. 
 I am sure that we, the officials of the road, have never 
 intentionally injured any one of you ; and I don't be- 
 lieve that many of you have ever intentionally injured 
 us — except me, when you made me get up here to- 
 night to speak. 
 
 '' My father has said about all there is to say from the 
 railroad's point of view — and of course that is my point 
 of view," she added, smiling. " Yet not exclusively so, 
 I trust. It is quite necessary for us to take a look at 
 things now and then from other people's point of view. 
 My father told the simple truth when he said that the 
 railroad had been run in the interests of the people, for 
 their interests are ours. We always try to remember 
 that — not from philanthropic motives, as my father told 
 you, but as a business policy. 
 
 " I don't know what more I can say. Personally, I 
 shall always try to be pleasant with any of you who may 
 have business with me ; and if I receive any vouchers 
 for a refund of ticket money, on account of conductors' 
 ill behavior or slow trains, as my father hinted, I shall 
 promptly O. K. them. I shall be especially guarded in 
 my official behavior now that I have learned that the axe 
 of discharge is hanging over my head the same as over 
 any other employe's. Up to ten minutes ago I had 
 supposed that I had wheedled my father into giving me 
 my position. It seems that I was mistaken. But if I 
 should unwittingly offend the president, and thus 
 jeopardize my position, I herewith bespeak in my be- 
 half the good offices of the other stockholders of the 
 road and the public in general. In return I shall be 
 happy to do everything in my power, officially and per- 
 
The Penalty of Oratory 9 
 
 sonally, for your welfare and — and happiness." For a 
 moment she stood silent, in just the least embarrass- 
 ment, though her clear blue eyes never faltered. Then 
 she added, with a slight flush, as if conscious of an anti- 
 climax in her ending, " I don't know that I can close 
 with a more pleasing promise than that, and I wish you 
 all enjoyment during the rest of the evening." She 
 retreated a step, and bowed low ; whereupon the 
 assembly responded with long applause. 
 
 When Carol Darlington entered her room, about two 
 o'clock in the morning, she found her younger sister, 
 Ruth, there, swathed in a flannel robe and buried in the 
 depths of a big leather chair before the grate fire, with 
 a book in her hand. 
 
 '' Go to bed, Babe," said Carol, with the authority of 
 a five years' seniority. She threw her long tan coat 
 across a chair, and mechanically pressed her heavy 
 coils of hair up from her neck, after which she stood 
 warming her hands. 
 
 " I 'm not sleepy. Let me stay until you undress," 
 answered Ruth, with the air of one announcing her in- 
 tentions rather than begging a favor. " Your speech 
 was lovely, sis." 
 
 "Get out ! " said Carol, without Hfting her eyes. 
 
 ''I heard lots of comphments," continued Ruth, en- 
 thusiastically. " Old man Taylor said that, if his daugh- 
 ters could speak like that off-hand, he 'd send them off 
 to college to-morrow." 
 
 "The old miser! " said Carol, scornfully. 
 
 '' Well, they are pluggy," ventured Ruth, in the old 
 man's defence. 
 
 " Pluggy 1 " Carol lifted her eyes admonishingly. 
 
lo The Darlingtons 
 
 " Scrubby," corrected Ruth. 
 
 "So is their father — and their mother." 
 
 " Were n't you scared ? " asked the other, after a 
 pause. 
 
 " Stiff," said Carol. 
 
 " You did n't look it," declared Ruth, admiringly. 
 
 " Did n't I ? " asked Carol, in a tone which implied 
 that she was very well aware of that fact. 
 
 Ruth stole a wondering glance at her sister's haughty 
 profile. Something had evidently gone wrong at the 
 ball. Carol's lips were very straight now, without that 
 lovable droop ; her chin was set hard, and the blue 
 eyes had turned to gray. Ruth was mightily curious, 
 but the most she dared do was to prolong the conver- 
 sation in the hope that Carol might see fit to confess. 
 " Papa was a regular whale, wasn't he ? " she exclaimed, 
 as though the thought had just struck her. 
 
 Carol's eyes again flashed reproof at this bit of slang, 
 and then she burst into a laugh. " Papa is a first-class 
 hypocrite," said she. " He spread around more honey 
 there to-night than he has handled in ten years before. 
 You can imagine it was n't any fun for him. He would 
 sooner have been whipped." She sank down on the 
 arm of the chair, and shook with laughter. 
 
 " Didn^t he spread it on thick? " cried Ruth. 
 
 "And so sweet and smiling that sugar wouldn't 
 have melted in his mouth," added Carol, husky from 
 mirth. 
 
 " And never took his thumb out of his vest pocket 
 the whole time ! " shrieked Ruth. 
 
 " As though he was afraid somebody might steal his 
 watch ! " 
 
 Convulsed with laughter, Carol let herself sink down 
 
The Penalty of Oratory 1 1 
 
 on top of Ruth, threatening that young lady, who was 
 also convulsed, with suffocation. 
 
 "And not — not ten minutes after — after he had 
 said this was the happiest hour of his life — " gasped 
 Ruth. 
 
 " Oh, he did n't say that /" whimpered Carol, weakly. 
 
 " — I heard him tell old man Briggs that he — that 
 he — that he — could n't — " 
 
 "Well, choke!" said Carol, as Ruth gave alarming 
 evidence of doing that thing. 
 
 a — that he couldn't get out of that confoimded 
 hubbub too quick ! '^ 
 
 For a moment perfect silence reigned, — the delusive 
 silence that interlards a very young baby's blasts of 
 temper, when breath is at a premium. The mass of 
 hair and dress-stuff in the big chair shook for a few 
 seconds, the two heads rolled around helplessly, and 
 then shriek after shriek of hysterical laughter filled the 
 room. 
 
 "We'll wake the house," said Carol, sobering up. 
 She rose, and pressed her aching sides. "You must 
 go to bed." 
 
 " All right," said Ruth, promptly jumping up, as 
 though she knew just how far she could safely resist 
 her sisters will. "Say, what did you think of Rose 
 Blumenthal's costume?" she asked. 
 
 It was a shrewd guess. Carol stopped in the middle 
 of unbinding her hair, and looked haughty again. " I 
 thought it was downright vulgar," said she, emphatically. 
 " I would n't go to the most exclusive ball ever given in 
 this town in such a gown. People don't wear them 
 here. And to go down there to that pubhc affair, 
 where every Tom, Dick, and Harry could come, in 
 
12 The Darlingtons 
 
 that costume, I think, was simply abominable. I think 
 Lucy was a little ashamed of her city friend, for once. 
 And then Rose had the effrontery to tell me that so 
 many long sleeves and high necks reminded her of her 
 school-girl days. I had a notion to tell her that they 
 reminded me of a saving sense of propriety." 
 
 "I suppose she said that just to let herself down 
 easily," said Ruth, shrewdly. " She must have felt 
 out of place.'^ 
 
 " I should think so." 
 
 " What did Cash Winter say about her? " 
 
 " He did n't say anything/' answered Carol. " Why 
 should he?" 
 
 ^' He danced with her three times," said Ruth, vaguely. 
 
 " That was a very good reason why he should not say 
 anything. He danced three times with me, but I hope 
 he did n't go off and talk about me." 
 
 " He could n't. He did, though," she added, brightly. 
 Her sister wilfully refused to ask what had been said, 
 upon which Ruth continued, " He told me you were the 
 best dancer on the floor." 
 
 " Knowing, very likely, that you would come straight 
 to me with it," said Carol, carelessly, but softening. 
 
 " That 's mean," said Ruth, stoutly. " And he 's so 
 good to you." 
 
 ''^Well, if it's mean, I take it back. It is mean. 
 Cash is not a flatterer. Trot, now ! I am deathly tired. 
 Dancing is beginning to pall on me." 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 AN UNCANONICAL CONFESSOR 
 
 Carol did not go to bed at once, in spite of her fatigue. 
 The big chair and the ruddy glow of the cannel-coal 
 fire tempted her ; and shpping into a dressing-gown, 
 she sat down for a minute, late as it was. She thought 
 of their new building, and wondered if, after all, as some 
 of the stockholders held, it wasn't too good for the 
 business ; she wondered if it was not, as had been 
 charged, a pet project of her father's. She smiled as 
 she called to mind her father's caustic denunciation of 
 the stockholders' penny-wise-pound-foolish policy, but 
 wondered if he had not, in his ambition, somewhat 
 deceived himself Still, he ought to know. He had 
 had to do with railroads all his Hfe. She wondered next 
 just how she should arrange her new office. There 
 should be nothing womanish about it, she resolved. 
 It should be just as business-like as any man would 
 have had it. A little later, following out her career, 
 she was picturing herself a gray-haired woman, the 
 president of the road. Her father would be very proud 
 of her, and she smiled until she recalled that he would 
 very likely be dead by that time. This brought her 
 back to the present. 
 
 Miss Blumenthal's daring costume next occupied her 
 mind. The dark-haired young Jewess had certainly 
 
14 The Darlingtons 
 
 looked magnificent. Her arms and neck were superb ; 
 nobody could deny that. Cash Winter ^ad said some- 
 thing about the young woman, indirectly. As he passed 
 Carol on the floor he had made some joking remark 
 about the children of Israel. The import of it she did 
 not quite catch, and for reasons of her own she did not 
 care to ask him to repeat it, though he had walked home 
 with her ; but she had taken his words to be quasi- 
 complimentary. She wondered if he had failed to 
 detect the incongruity of the young Jewess's costume. 
 Men, she knew, were often incredibly insensible to such 
 things. After a moment, she slowly pushed her loose 
 sleeve up toward her shoulder, baring her own firm, 
 white arm. She looked a moment, and then pulled 
 the sleeve down again, rather quickly, and with a slight 
 flush. She had bared that arm many a time in ball- 
 rooms, before scores of people, without flushing ; but 
 it had not been then with the thought of rivaling 
 another's charms. 
 
 After she got to bed, the sandman held aloof. She 
 got to thinking about her brother Herbert, and wonder- 
 ing where he could be, for he had left the ball before 
 herself. He had a habit of lingering at Elsie Clifford's 
 house, but he could hardly be doing that now, at such 
 an hour. Then she was dimly conscious of hearing the 
 front door softly close. She had half forgotten it, when 
 there came a tap on her door. 
 
 " What is it ? " she asked, softly, knowing it must be 
 her brother. 
 
 "May I come in?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 He slipped in, and closed the door gently. " Asleep ? " 
 he asked. 
 
An Uncanonical Confessor 15 
 
 "Yes," said she, playfully. 
 
 "I want to talk to you awhile," said he, advancing to 
 the side of the bed. '^ I could n't sleep now if I went 
 to bed.'' 
 
 " If you can't sleep, by all means work off your in- 
 somnia in here," said she, with her light mockery. 
 
 " Don't you want to listen?" he asked, halting in the 
 dull light of the fire, with his hand on the electric bulb. 
 
 "Of course, foolishness," she answered, and he 
 snapped on the light, revealing his sister buried to 
 the throat in the bed-clothes. With her head snug- 
 gled into a nest in the pillow, and the loose short hairs 
 around her ears floating down over her cheek, she 
 looked up at him with a cozy gleam in her eyes. His 
 face, as the lamp-light fell on it, showed flushed and 
 excited ; and though he looked very fine and hand- 
 some, Carol's expression changed. 
 
 '' Bert, you have n't been — down town ? " she asked, 
 soberly. 
 
 " No, no," said he, hastily. 
 
 " Forgive me, brother," she said. '^ But where on 
 earth ^ave you. been? You haven't been keeping that 
 girl up till this hour? " she asked, severely. 
 
 " Yes, I have," he answered, without the least remorse. 
 
 " O woman ! Surely thou art made of the long-suf- 
 fering stuff that angels are ! " she declaimed. " Bert 
 Darhngton, you are a monster ! Do you know what 
 time her grandfather insists on having breakfast ? Six- 
 thirty ! Three and a half hours hence I Elsie is too 
 easy. She ought to have dismissed you at the door." 
 
 "Carol,'* said Bert, abruptly, "Elsie has promised 
 to become my wife ! " 
 
 He looked at his sister with an expression that was 
 
1 6 The Darlingtons 
 
 almost appealing in its intensity. She took the matter 
 more coolly, and her blue eyes, though a httle rounder 
 now, shone up from the pillow with the tranquillity of 
 twin stars. Then she freed her arms from the covers, 
 and held out both hands to Herbert with a smile. 
 " I wish you both, brother, all the happiness in the 
 
 world." 
 
 "Are you surprised?" he asked, soberly. 
 " Why should I be surprised?" she asked back, with 
 a vein of subtle tenderness in her voice. " I think you 
 the best man in the world, and Elsie the best woman. 
 Besides," she added, with her bantering smile, "a. 
 woman 'would promise a man almost anything at three 
 A. M. when she has to get up at six." 
 
 Bert smiled a httle, but said gravely, *' Don't joke, 
 Carol. I 'm in no mood for it now." 
 
 His sister dropped her lashes thoughtfully, but she 
 still insisted on not taking matters too seriously, and a 
 little shadowy smile still played around the corners of 
 her pretty mouth. Her brother watched her closely, 
 still retaining her hands in his. 
 
 ''Well, Bert, Elsie will make a sister that I shall 
 never be 'ashamed of," said Carol, after a moment. 
 
 " She will make a sister that you can always be proud 
 of," said Bert, impetuously. "I won't say a word 
 about her nobility — you know how noble she is — but 
 there is n't a girl in this town that could carry herself 
 with more grace in any conceivable situation than Elsie 
 — unless it 's yourself. She will be an ornament to any 
 society. Yet she is as domestic and simple-hearted 
 and true as she can be, and that is what counts. And 
 she's as tender and affectionate as a baby." He 
 paused, as if to allow Carol to corroborate these sen- 
 
An Uncanonical Confessor 17 
 
 timents; but as she said nothing, he added, in a 
 slightly altered tone, " We 've decided to keep our 
 engagement a secret for a while." 
 
 " Is that the reason you told me?" she asked, look- 
 ing up with a whimsical glance. 
 
 " I could n't help it," he confessed, boyishly. ^'I had 
 to tell somebody. I could n't have slept a wink to- 
 night if I hadn't." 
 
 Carol smiled again, perhaps with a trifle of superior- 
 ity, though Bert was two years her senior, and cast a 
 droll glance at the Japanese clock above the fireplace. 
 ''As it is, you will now have time for two or three 
 winks," she said, slyly. 
 
 " I will tell her to-morrow that I told you," con- 
 tinued Bert, too full of the subject to heed her joke. 
 '* Then I want you to go up there and talk it over with 
 her. A good deal of our happiness depends on you, in 
 some ways, Carol," he added, with the anxious look which 
 had clouded his face several times before. "It isn't 
 going to be all smooth sailing for us. If I were n't " — 
 He broke off abruptly. Whatever was in his mind 
 was evidently also in Carol's. It was also evidently 
 something too obvious for either of them to pretend to 
 overlook ; yet Carol would not acknowledge it by meet- 
 ing his eye just then. " I can't feel that I have done 
 wrong, Carol," he continued, earnestly. " I walked 
 home on air to-night. I never felt so much of a man 
 before as I have since winning her love. I never felt in 
 all my life so good and so strong before ; and I thank 
 God for his goodness in giving me such a woman to 
 love, and care for, and live for. I can't fall again, 
 sister," he ran on, with tremulous eagerness. " Some- 
 thing tells me that I can't. It would be too cruel. 
 
 2 
 
1 8 The Darlingtons 
 
 But if I do, Carol, — if I ever, by my brutal appetite, 
 bring shame and sorrow on that dear, devoted head, I 
 hope that God will strike me dead." 
 
 He was very solemn now, even tragic. His sister, 
 none too easily impressed, looked up at him with 
 glistening eyes. 
 
 " I don't myself see how you can ever fall again now, 
 brother," she said in a voice of low, rich melody. 
 " You have so much to live for. And I don't believe 
 you will fall. In spite of all the past, I have faith in 
 you. I believe the turning-point has come. But, 
 brother dear," she added, tightening her grasp upon 
 his hands, " if you think the struggle is over, you will 
 be disappointed. You can't always float with your head 
 in the clouds, as it is now. But you can always be 
 brave and true to yourself — and to her. It is not an 
 impossible thing. Thousands of men do as much every 
 day, and you can. And when you are tempted, as 
 assuredly you will be, you will now have more strength 
 to overcome the temptation." 
 
 Bert rose from the bed rather quickly, and with his 
 hands in his pockets and his eyes on the floor, paced to 
 and fro for some moments, with a dark, brooding face. 
 Then he sat down again, with a manly smile. " Sis, we 
 won't mar this happy night with such thoughts. We 
 won't cross the bridge until we come to it. I wish you 
 could have seen Elsie to-night when I asked her to marry 
 me. Of course, she had expected it. She knew that I 
 loved her. She must have decided it all in advance. 
 But when I took her hands in mine and asked her to 
 become my wife, she just nodded her head a little, and 
 laid it on my shoulder, and whispered, ' Go home, 
 dear.' Then she began to cry.' 
 
 V 
 
An Uncanonical Confessor 19 
 
 Carol had listened with a calm, judicial face, but at 
 this point her eyes, in spite of herself, grew misty ; and 
 when Bert, lifted out of himself, as it were, by her deli- 
 cate sympathy, added, " Great as it was to me, Carol, 
 what must it have been to her ? " the tears fairly trembled 
 on her lashes. 
 
 " I don't know, brother," answered Carol, smiling and 
 brushing the drops away, " whether it could be much 
 greater." 
 
 "Yes, it could," said Bert, positively. " 'Love is of 
 man's life a thing apart ; ' t is woman's whole existence.' " 
 
 ^' Some men and some women," said Carol, quali- 
 fyingly. 
 
 " She 's one of them," said Bert. " And I Ve been 
 thinking, sitting here, that while I, a man, could not go 
 to sleep without telling you all this, she 's up there with- 
 out a soul in all the word to open her heart to." 
 
 '' She could tell her grandmother, I suppose," said 
 Carol. 
 
 "No," said Bert, with some embarrassment. ''Our 
 engagement is to be kept a secret for a while from even 
 her." 
 
 *'Why?" asked Carol, gravely. 
 
 ** Because old man Clifford has no faith in me," 
 answered Bert, hurriedly. 
 
 For a moment Carol's eyes flashed, but as Bert's head 
 drooped in shame and humility, she gave him a loving, 
 sorrowful glance. " You have held out six months now," 
 she said, softly. 
 
 " Yes, but we '11 wait a little longer," answered Bert, 
 patiently. '^ I want to win him over if I can. If I can't, 
 I'll take her without his permission. But that's a poor 
 way to start our married life ; and, meanwhile, she would 
 
20 The Darlingtons 
 
 have to bear the brunt of his displeasure. When we do 
 tell him, we '11 have it fixed so that he can't bother her 
 very long, if he sees fit to try it. But he has been good 
 to her, in his way, and I want his permission if I can 
 get it." 
 
 "Yes, that is much better," said Carol, wisely. 
 
 Bert smoothed away at the coverHd with his hand, at 
 first preoccupiedly, but finally with as much purpose as 
 though something momentous depended upon his mak- 
 ing a good job of it. Evidently something further was 
 on his mind, and Carol watched him curiously. Suddenly 
 he pressed both his hands to his face and exclaimed 
 brokenly, " Carol, she 's the dearest, sweetest, noblest 
 woman that ever lived, and I am not fit for her." 
 
 " Don't disparage yourself too much," said Carol, 
 with her worldly-wise smoothness, but with a great deal 
 of tenderness in addition. " Elsie is probably doing the 
 same thing this minute, unless she 's sound asleep. It 's 
 a way right-minded young people have under these cir- 
 cumstances. If you are not fit, make yourself fit. That 's 
 what she will do." 
 
 ^' I never saw her look as beautiful as she did to-night," 
 said Bert, after a Httle, recovering himself. ''Do you 
 know, her type of beauty is my ideal." 
 
 *' Quite likely," said Carol, with a glint of humor. 
 "There are young men, though, who are quite as fond 
 of the blue-eyed, light-haired type." 
 
 '^ You are jealous, sis," said Bert, smiling and kissing 
 her good-night. " Not a word to father or mother or 
 Ruth, yet," he added. He turned out the light, but 
 still lingered, and at the door he asked, with some hesi- 
 tation, " Carol, is there anything between you and Cash? " 
 
 "What's coming now?" she asked, alertly. 
 
An Uncanonical Confessor 21 
 
 " Is there ? " he repeated. 
 
 '^ No," she answered. 
 
 "Is there Hkely to be?" 
 
 " Forecasting the future is ahvays a deHcate task," 
 answered Carol, without the slightest embarrassment in 
 her voice. " But in this case 1 can do it with the great- 
 est confidence. There is not." 
 
 '' I am glad of it," said Bert, promptly. 
 
 "Why?" she asked tartly. 
 
 " Not that I censure you for letting him come here, 
 as a friend, or mean to impugn your taste. Not that he 
 is n't as good as most of the fellows, or better. But, my 
 dear, he is not good enough for you." 
 
 ^' Have you and Elsie been talking this over?" asked 
 Carol, sharply. 
 
 ''No, on my honor, no," answered Herbert. 
 
 *'Well, I thank you, brother," said Carol, with mock 
 humility. 
 
 " He could never satisfy you, Carol. You would grow 
 tired of him in six months." 
 
 " Herbert, I never suspected such penetration in you," 
 she declared, ironically. 
 
 " When you marry, you want a mental Samson to 
 keep you straight," added Bert ; and Carol fancied he 
 was now smiling. 
 
 '^ Cash could hardly pose as a Samson, I suppose," 
 she answered. " He has n't hair enough, for one thing. 
 Have you any such character in mind for me ? " 
 
 " No," he laughed, " but I '11 keep my eye open." 
 
 " Do so," said Carol, sleepily. '' Meanwhile, if you 
 have no objection, I '11 close mine for an hour or two. 
 Good-night." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 SOME MUTUAL DIPLOMACY 
 
 Carol got down in the morning a little after half-past 
 eight, the Darlingtons' breakfast hour, and found the 
 others already at table. Her dark woollen gown gave 
 her a rather subdued appearance, yet she showed to 
 better advantage, after her dissipation, than either Ruth 
 or her brother, both of whom looked rather washed 
 out. 
 
 " Papa, I congratulate you on your effort last night," 
 said Carol, stopping behind her father's chair. " I 
 wanted to do it last night, only I missed you in the 
 hubbub." Ruth snickered, but the others of course 
 failed to see the point. 
 
 " You liked it, did you ? " asked her father, laying 
 down his paper. " Your mother thought it was a little 
 egotistical." 
 
 "Why, mamma ! " exclaimed Carol, laughing. "Just 
 as though papa could be." 
 
 Mr. Darlington smiled in his shrewd, non-committal 
 way, like a man used to this kind of thing, and seemed 
 to enjoy it. Mrs. Darlington, a robust, healthy-looking 
 woman, who had by no means relinquished all her 
 youthful charms, said quietly : " I said, Charles, that 
 some people might think it egotistical. But I did not. 
 I suppose that, no matter what you might have said, 
 somebody would misconstrue it." 
 
Some Mutual Diplomacy 23 
 
 ^'Who cares, mamma?" said Ruth, in a voice fla- 
 vored with buckwheat cakes and maple syrup. 
 
 " You thought I was a litde cynical, though, Winny," 
 returned Darlington. 
 
 "No," answered his wife, "only a litde insincere — a 
 little too adulatory." 
 
 "If papa was adulatory, what was Carol?" asked 
 Ruth, mischievously. 
 
 " That 's what, Ruth," said her father, with a favoring 
 smile at his champion. 
 
 "You must all remember that papa had stolen my 
 thunder," laughed Carol. " That is, not foreseeing any 
 need of it myself, I had given it to him." 
 
 "I don't know," answered Darlington, dissentingly. 
 " I don't remember of especially asking you for any 
 pointers for that speech." 
 
 " Papa Darlington ! " exclaimed Carol, astounded, or 
 affecting to be ; and even Ruth, her father's self-elected 
 champion, burst into a delighted laugh at this piece of 
 unblushing mendacity ; for it was a matter of family 
 knowledge that Carol had helped her father in a way 
 with his speech, just as she helped him in a way with 
 almost every affair of the railroad. 
 
 " Well, now, what did you tell me ? Be specific ! " 
 blustered Darlington, but with a twinkle that betrayed 
 his cause. 
 
 " What did n't I tell you? " retorted Carol. " I sus- 
 pect you have some of those notes I made for you in 
 your coat pocket now." 
 
 " Notes ! " scoffed her father ; " merely some old 
 letters." 
 
 " Suppose you show them, papa, just to convince 
 her," suggested R,uth, with a sly glance at Carol. 
 
24 The Darlingtons 
 
 " I would," said Darlington, lightly, " only there 's 
 one or two of those letters that I should n't want your 
 mother to see." 
 
 " I saw Willie Stymist trying to report your speech 
 in short-hand last night," said Carol, more seriously. 
 " For the I?ttelligencer^ I suppose. He *s working there 
 now. If your speech survives that ordeal, it is likely 
 to go down to posterity." 
 
 " Willie Stymist ! " repeated her father, not just 
 pleased. " I did n't see him there. I guess he 
 was n't reporting my speech." 
 
 " Yes, he was," said Herbert, conclusively. 
 
 " I don't know what he wanted to do that for," said 
 Mr. Darlington, uncomfortably. 
 
 " He probably wanted it for the paper, papa," said 
 Carol, sweetly, " as I remarked before. Unless he 
 wanted it as an example of exquisite English," she 
 added, teasingly. " I wonder if he reported mine ? " 
 
 "Oh, certainly — and for the same purpose," ob- 
 served Ruth, ironically. 
 
 " I am sure Carol did very well under the circum- 
 stances," said Mrs. Darlington, who always took a joke 
 too seriously. " Everybody spoke of how cool and 
 self-possessed she was. I believe she was even cooler 
 than her father." She glanced half-playfully at her 
 husband, but for some reason or other he had fallen 
 into a brown study, and took no notice of this remark. 
 
 "She *s always cool enough," said Ruth. 
 
 ''I didn't feel exactly cool, though, mamma," said 
 Carol, ignoring Ruth's thrust. " And I 'm afraid it 
 wasn't much of a speech." 
 
 " It was n't much of an occasion, my dear," answered 
 her mother. 
 
Some Mutual Diplomacy 25 
 
 Mr. Darlington continued to confine himself silently 
 to his plate, while the others indulged in an irregular 
 cross-fire about the happenings of the night before, not 
 missing Rose Blumenthal's costume, in which Bert, to 
 the disgust of his sisters, saw nothing out of the way. 
 Finally Mrs. Darlington said, " Herbert, you are not 
 eating much this morning." 
 
 " I am not hungry," he answered, briefly, quickly 
 taking a sip of coffee. Certainly his face turned red, 
 but nobody seemed to notice it except Carol, who 
 smiled with a knowingness that Bert considered almost 
 a breach of confidence. He frowned blackly at her, 
 when he had a chance, and she partly straightened 
 her face. 
 
 "What time did you get in, anyway, last night?" 
 asked Carol, quizzically. 
 
 *' About half-past two," he murmured. 
 
 "What did Elsie think of the affair — the ball?" she 
 continued, with an impish gleam in her eye. 
 
 " She enjoyed it, I think," he answered, stiffly. 
 
 " I did n't know," said his sister, innocently. " It was 
 so public. I thought you and she left rather early." 
 
 " It was nearly two when we left, " he answered, giv- 
 ing her another admonishing glare. ''I shouldn't call 
 it very early." 
 
 Before going down to the office, Carol walked out to 
 the stable — a building that many people might have 
 envied for a home — and let herself into one of the 
 box-stalls, which was occupied by a white-footed, white- 
 nosed sorrel mare. The animal gave a whinny of rec- 
 ognition at the sound of the girl's footsteps, and thrust 
 her nose affectionately forward. Carol patted the glossy 
 neck, and rubbed her own cheek against the mare's. 
 
26 The Darlingtons 
 
 a 
 
 Well, Footsy girl ! " she exclaimed, in a petting 
 voice. "Do you love me this morning? How much 
 do you love me this morning? Quick ! How many 
 bushels?" The mare slowly struck the floor ten times 
 with her hoof. " Only ten bushels ! Now kiss me ! " 
 She held up her hand, and the mare thrust out her 
 tongue twice or thrice and licked the white surface pre- 
 sented. " Tom ! How is Whitefoot's hoof this morn- 
 ing?" she called to the hostler. She bent to see for 
 herself, but the light was rather dim. She laid her 
 hand upon the fetlock, and the well-trained animal 
 instantly raised her hoof. 
 
 " It 's better, ma 'am," said the hostler, appearing at 
 the door. " That verdigris is fetchin' her around. 
 The only trouble is the roads is so hard she breaks it 
 out again as fast as it heals." 
 
 " Well, I won't exercise her for a day or two," said 
 the girl, with a farewell pat. " It wouldn't hurt, Tom, 
 to shut that window at night, after this. It 's cold." 
 
 Her father was waiting at the gate for her, puffing 
 away on his Havana. Herbert, as usual, had gone 
 ahead. The new general-office building, a little gem 
 of Venetian architecture, two stories high only, sparkled 
 in the bright sunlight at the foot of the hill, a block and 
 a half distant. Mr. Darlington's eyes sparkled fondly 
 back upon the building, just as they had every morning 
 from the time the walls had gone up. 
 
 " Pretty smooth, Carol ! " said he, admiringly. 
 
 " Pretty smooth, papa ! " she answered, adopting his 
 slang. 
 
 " How would it do to have some genuine electric 
 lights in that string of cars, set in behind some way, and 
 turned on at night? '' he asked, pausing and glancing at 
 
Some Mutual Diplomacy 27 
 
 the bas-relief work of locomotive and cars, just above 
 the second-story windows. 
 
 " I don't know. I never thought of it. We might 
 talk it over," said Carol. This was one of her ways of 
 checking his extravagance. 
 
 They did not go into the new building, but walked 
 on down to the old office-building, a block further. 
 Here Carol stopped, but Mr. Darlington, after seeing 
 that the moving of the furniture to the new building was 
 under way, strolled on down-town. 
 
 He, like his son, was a well-dressed man. He had 
 that intangible thing called style, which no tailor can 
 either give or take away. One felt it as quickly as 
 one entered his presence. One recognized it in the 
 simple drawing-on of his glove, in the angle at which he 
 carried his cane. It was suggested even by the motion 
 of his coat-tails as he walked. So upright was his bear- 
 ing that one would not have suspected him of being, as 
 he was, an inch shorter than his son. One might have 
 called him soldierly had it not been for a kind of springy 
 jauntiness in his carriage. His vest line was deflected 
 outward in a graceful, prosperity-suggesting curve, but 
 he was not fat or paunchy. 
 
 Handsome he was, too. His black hair and side- 
 whiskers were without a streak of gray. His skin was 
 white and smooth, even on his chin, where it had been 
 shaved over for years. His dark-brown, oblong eyes 
 were perpetually laughing, which led some people into 
 the mistake that he was always laughing. But the most 
 striking feature by all odds about his face was his nose, 
 which was as white, smooth, and exquisitely chiselled as 
 a thing in marble. 
 
 In younger days, before he married the beautiful 
 
28 The Darlingtons 
 
 Winifred Colton, Charles Darlington was considered a 
 ladies' man, and it must be said that he had not entirely 
 outlived the distinction at the age of fifty-five. A pretty 
 face always distracted him — at this period of life in a 
 discreet, perfectly correct way ; even in a paternal way, 
 if the face was young. If his wife ever noticed this 
 trait — and who can doubt that she did ? — she had too 
 much wisdom and too much confidence in him ever to 
 comment on it. That he ever abused this confidence, 
 nobody ever hinted. With men, he was reasonably 
 popular. He loved the pleasures of life ; and, without 
 ever sinking into excesses, he knew how to make him- 
 self a boon companion. In his jaunting around the 
 country with railroad men, his appearance in a private 
 car was always a signal for fun. It is not probable that 
 his associates took him very seriously, except in the 
 matter of his unquestionable ability to " run a railroad 
 up to the handle," to use his own expression. 
 
 He liked to bluster, and sometimes he obstinately in- 
 sisted on standing by his blusterings. Yet if handled 
 properly, no man was more tractable, as every member 
 of his family happily knew. His disposition was natu- 
 rally obliging. In his heart he was very sensitive to the 
 good-will of others. He had a quiet, self-disparaging 
 way of granting favors that was peculiarly winning ; and 
 though the keener-eyed saw that he thought himself a 
 pretty good fellow therefor, they never seemed to think 
 less of him for it. 
 
 Yet, with it all, Charles Darlington was cold-blooded. 
 Toward suffering, in himself or others, he was prone to 
 assume an almost stoical indifference. He was inclined 
 to laugh cynically at the barbs of fortune, whether they 
 pricked his own skin or his neighbor's. In matters of 
 
Some Mutual Diplomacy 29 
 
 affection he was undemonstrative, even in the bosom of 
 his family, and he and his children ceaselessly plied 
 one another with harmless jokes. Every member of 
 that family, however, he loved dearly and rejoiced in ; 
 and, like everybody else, he at times apparently abro- 
 gated all the rules of his being, and exhibited a tender- 
 ness as pleasing as it was unexpected. 
 
 He turned in at the Intelligencer office, and mounted 
 to the editor's room. "Nichols," said he, twirhng his 
 cane and puffing vigorously at his cigar, "I've been 
 thinking of running a time-table in the Intelligejicer 
 and the other papers along the road. Of course, people 
 living on the road know the schedules ; we don't run 
 so many trains that they can't remember them ; but 
 I believe a time-table in the papers would be a great 
 convenience to travelHng-men and strangers generally." 
 
 "It undoubtedly would," assented the editor, running 
 his fingers through his thick hair. " It undoubtedly 
 would. In fact, Mr. Darlington," he continued, with 
 the air of a man throwing open his soul to the light 
 of day, " I was thinking of that very thing myself the 
 other day. It would be a great convenience." 
 
 " It 's business," said the president, conclusively. 
 " Of course, if people are going to ride, they have got 
 to ride on our line ; but as I said last night, in my 
 speech," — he paused a second, — "I want to give our 
 people the same conveniences that I 'd give them if 
 there were fifty competing railroads running in here. 
 But I '11 talk it over with Bert and Carol, and let you 
 know later. Three heads are better than one. About 
 those conductors' report-cards — did Carol say anything 
 to you about them ? We 've got out a new form, you 
 know. Or, rather, she has. Never mind about look- 
 
30 The Darlingtons 
 
 ing it up. If she has n't ordered them yet, she will. 
 No hurry, anyway." 
 
 He waded around the paper-littered room, blowing 
 smoke at the woodcut politicians on the walls, and stop- 
 ping to poke a wrinkled map with his cane. 
 
 " Mr. Darhngton," said the editor, adopting a tone 
 that the other instinctively recognized as foreign to 
 business, " that daughter of yours is a wonder." 
 
 " How 's that, Nichols?" asked the president, geni- 
 ally, without turning from the map. 
 
 " The way she spoke last night, in that off-hand way. 
 My wife said that if she had been called on that way, 
 she would have fainted. And ninety-nine women out 
 of a hundred would, too." 
 
 ^' Well, Carol is cool,"' said the magnate, modestly, 
 " She always was. You can generally count on her 
 doing the right thing about the right time." 
 
 *' I guess she comes by it honestly," said Nichols, 
 with brazen flattery. " I don't know that anybody 
 carried off their part last night better than you did 
 yours." 
 
 Darhngton cleared his throat and readjusted his glossy 
 hat, by way of acknowledging the compliment, and said 
 disparagingly : " It was nothing. Merely a matter of 
 business with me. I had something to say, and I said 
 it. That was all." Then, after a pause, " By the way, 
 Nichols, I thought I saw young Willie Stymist making a 
 short-hand report of my speech last night." Upon be- 
 ing assured that such was the fact, he continued, bending 
 forward significantly, "Leave that out, Nichols. It's 
 mere slush, mere rot, simply the promptings of the mo- 
 ment. Good enough for the occasion, to mix in with the 
 music, and all that. But it was entirely informal, and 
 
Some Mutual Diplomacy 31 
 
 while I flatter myself that it sounded all right, it was n't 
 meant for cold type. It ain't worth your while to set it 
 up. Just leave that part out, Nichols, and send around 
 to my office, and I '11 give you some figures on 
 the building to take its place. They '11 read a good 
 deal better. Something substantial, you know. That 
 other stuff was mere balderdash — the effusions of the 
 moment." 
 
 " Mr. Darlington, if you will allow me," said the edi- 
 tor, impressively, " I '11 disagree with you there. It was 
 not balderdash by any means. It was a shrewd, politic, 
 skilful appeal to the people to lay aside their prejudices 
 against a corporation. It was just what the people 
 need ; just what I Ve been preaching in these columns 
 for years ; and it did good, lots of good. I heard 
 twenty comments on it last night, and as many more 
 this morning. You surprised the people, in a way, 
 Mr. Darlington ; you showed them a side of your char- 
 acter that they are not familiar with, and never would 
 get familiar with any other way. That speech ought to 
 go out to the people that did n't hear it. But, of course, 
 if you don't want it to go in, it won't go in. The boys 
 are working on it now, but that makes no difference. 
 If you say the word, out she comes. But I assure you, 
 sir, as a man in the habit of feeling the public pulse, 
 that it will have weight and do good." 
 
 " Well, I guess you better cut it out," said the offi- 
 cial, hesitating. 
 
 " All right, sir," said Nichols, uncomplainingly ; "but 
 I '11 tell you plainly, Mr. Darlington, I 'd sooner cut out 
 all the rest of the story than that." 
 
 The president was in deep doubt, standing his 
 straightest, and blinking at the editor through a cloud 
 
32 , The Darlingtons 
 
 of rich, blue smoke. *' Well, let it go in, then, as long 
 as it 's set up," said he. ^' I don't know as it makes any 
 difference, one way or the other. Only, I thought it 
 was a little — just a trifle — well, persofial.''* 
 
 *'Not at all," said the editor, reassuringly. ''When 
 a man of your prominence speaks, the people want him 
 to be personal. You get down to their level then, as 
 it were, and it flatters them. No, sir, you could n't have 
 made a better speech if you had taken a month to pre- 
 pare it in." 
 
 " I would have got more meat in it, Nichols," said 
 the president, blandly. "Maybe too much. Maybe 
 what I gave them was the best thing for the occasion, 
 after all. At least, I thought so at the time. You can 
 let it go in, anyway." 
 
 He let himself down the unswept stairs with some 
 dignity. The complacent look on his face was undis- 
 turbed by the thought that all his talk about time-tables 
 and report-cards was only a blind to cover his approach 
 to his speech. 
 
 Upon reaching the new building again, he saw Carol 
 standing upon the platform, with her hands in her 
 jacket pockets, — the morning was a little frosty, — evi- 
 dently superintending a painter who was on his knees 
 before the waiting-room door. The man wore that 
 grieved expression which the humblest of the sex will 
 adopt when subjected to the orders of a woman. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 A BENEVOLENT CONSPIRACY 
 
 *' What 's up ? " demanded Darlington, briskly. 
 
 *' Nothing — only I'm having these signs changed 
 with some regard to the Enghsh language," answered 
 the girl, without Hfting her eyes from her kneeling 
 victim. 
 
 '^ What 's the matter with Genfs ? " asked her father, 
 bullyingly, but with a subtle undertone of deference. 
 Carol had overruled him so often in spelling, grammar, 
 and kindred matters that it was discreet to approach 
 her cautiously. 
 
 *' Gents are all right in their place, but this waiting- 
 room is likely to be used by a few gentleme?i from time 
 to time. And as 'Men' includes both 'gents' and 
 * gentlemen/ we '11 have it so that nobody will feel 
 excluded." 
 
 The president snorted scornfully, but she denied him 
 the satisfaction of looking up, and he went on : " You 
 are too fine-haired for me. Pretty soon you will be 
 firing agents for leaving commas out of their reports. 
 Why," said he, warming up, '' you can ride from Maine 
 to California, and not see a single waiting-room sign 
 painted ' Men.' " 
 
 " Oh, no, you can't, papa," she denied, suavely. " A 
 few of them are painted in that way. And in a few years 
 
 .3 
 
34 The Darlingtons 
 
 you can take the same ride, and not see one painted 
 ' Gents.' " 
 
 " They do mostly paint 'em ' Gents,' though, nowa- 
 days, miss," ventured the painter, pausing on the initial 
 letter, as though he had hopes of the president's victory 
 yet. Carol deigned no answer to this last, and her 
 father said, caustically, " I don't suppose you have got 
 any fault to find with the other one, have 5'ou ? " 
 
 *' Yes, sir," said she, with a keen laugh at his surprise. 
 
 '' What's the matter with Ladies V he demanded 
 stoutly, but feeling the ground slipping from beneath his 
 feet. 
 
 " ' Ladies ' are all right, too ; but if you reserve that 
 waiting-room for ladies only, a good many women will 
 have to stand out here under the shed, or affiliate with 
 the ' gents ' in this room. As only a small percentage 
 of women are ladies, and as all ladies are women, why 
 not make your waiting-room for ' Women,' and give the 
 fair sex equal hospitality with the men? " 
 
 Darlington snorted at this hair-splitting, and even the 
 abject painter allowed himself a sickly, half-fledged grin. 
 But the tall, firmly planted girl, with the well-braced 
 shoulders and the calm blue eye, lorded it over them 
 both, and had her own way. As her father walked off, 
 vanquished, but with his crest high, Carol touched her 
 handkerchief to her hps to hide a smile. She would 
 have smiled more could she have seen her father an 
 hour or two later, when one of his associates at the 
 Business Men's Club dropped in. 
 
 "I been lookin' over your place, Charhe," sighed the 
 gentleman, as he dropped into the easiest chair avail- 
 able, for he was rather fat. "I like everything about 
 the shootin' match, except one thing. Don't it strike 
 
A Benevolent Conspiracy 35 
 
 you, Charlie, that them names down on the waitin'- 
 room doors is just a little common? Sound kind of 
 flat, don't they — 'Men ' and ' Women ' ? Might offend 
 some of your highfalutin customers, might n't they, 
 especially the ladies ? " 
 
 The president leaned back in his most effective, most 
 expansive manner. " The only trouble with you, Andy, 
 is that you are not up on English," said he, with an 
 affable smile. Thereupon he repeated Carol's argument 
 in favor of the new lettering with a fidehty which con- 
 vinced his hearer that Charlie Darlington had more 
 book-learning than most people gave him credit for. 
 
 Pending the arrival of the heavier furniture from the 
 old office, Carol got her new quarters into shape. In 
 her hostihty to any decorations that might be con- 
 temptuously condemned as feminine frailties, she ad- 
 mitted no pictures, dearly as she loved them, except 
 those of a commercial suggestion. On one side- of the 
 room hung an ocean liner ; opposite, a mechanical 
 drawing in black-and-white of a locomotive. Besides 
 these, were maps, a blue print of the road, and a Rocky 
 Mountain scene, the last redeemed for commercialism 
 by a train of cars crawling over a winding, spiderlike 
 trestlework. She had struggled a little over the admis- 
 sion of plants and sash curtains. Neither her father 
 nor Herbert had them, but she had seen them in other 
 offices, and at last she had given in to her longing. 
 
 She left about noon for a half-holiday, — she could do 
 no work until her cabinets and desk came over, — 
 entirely unconscious of the fact that a woman's eyes 
 were reflected in the harmonious blending of the bloom- 
 ing plants, and that a woman's subtle touch was visible 
 in every fold of the sash curtains, as well as in the care- 
 
36 The Darlingtons 
 
 ful disposition of every rug. And it is barely possible 
 that Carol's heart would not have throbbed so happily, 
 as she flew along behind Whitefoot, had she known that 
 Tommy Scrutcheons, general utility boy around the 
 building, was standing at that moment in the centre of 
 her office, with a cigarette in his mouth, saying to a 
 fellow-incorrigible, as he glanced contemptuously about, 
 ^' Dis is where the gal hangs out. Looks more like a 
 parlor than a office." 
 
 In the morning Carol dropped into her old office 
 for the last time, to see that nothing had been over- 
 looked by the draymen. To her astonishment and 
 vexation, she found that her desk and file-cases had not 
 yet been moved. She hurried over to the new build- 
 ing, ran up the stairs, — nobody was looking, — and 
 flounced into her father's office. 
 
 " Papa ! " she exclaimed, indignantly. "They have n't 
 moved my desk or file-cases yet. I gave up all yester- 
 day afternoon, so that they could get them over, and 
 now it will be noon before I can do anything." 
 
 "Haven't they moved your stuff yet?" asked her 
 father, gruffly, balancing back in his chair. "That's 
 a nice note. That man Webb is n't worth the powder 
 and shot to blow him into kingdom come. I '11 have 
 that stuff over here in just ten minutes, by the watch." 
 He left the room for a minute, presumably to give the 
 order. When he returned, he asked, " What do you 
 think of the place?" glancing with justifiable pride 
 around the handsomely furnished apartment. 
 
 "It's simply grand!" said Carol, forgetting her 
 troubles in her admiration. "Did the stockholders 
 say you could have that new file-case ? Oh, dear ! " 
 she exclaimed, despairingly. " And Bert has new chairs 
 
A Benevolent Conspiracy 37 
 
 and a settee ! I have the shabbiest old office in the 
 building, and I ought to have the best." 
 
 " I don't see anything shabby about your furniture,'' 
 said the president, complacently lighting a fresh cigar. 
 •' The next supply-man I can work for a desk for you, 
 I '11 do it. Let 's take a look at your place, anyway, 
 and see what you need. Let 's see first, though, how 
 Bert has got his new stuff arranged." 
 
 "Very poorly," said Carol, a moment. later, with a 
 critical sun/ey of the traffic-m.anager's private office, 
 though that official himself was present. '- What have 
 you got all your chairs on one side of the room for, in 
 a straight row, like a jury-box?" she asked of him. 
 " That moss-green settee looks hideous against those 
 curtains. Pull it over here. That is a thousand times 
 better. It 's a lovely shade," she added, fondHng the 
 plush with a yearning light in her eyes, which caused 
 her father to wink at Herbert. " I feel real jealous, 
 papa. I asked for a settee months ago, and you said 
 the stockholders would n't stand it. They never stand 
 anything, for me. You always have to ' work ' a supply- 
 man. Well, let 's get out of here. I feel decidedly out 
 of place amid this luxury." 
 
 She halted the president and the traffic-manager at 
 her door with some trepidation. " I don't know whether 
 you will like the arrangement of my plants or not, but — " 
 
 " Plants ! " snorted her father. 
 
 " Plants ! " echoed Bert, but with a glance that as- 
 sured Carol of his allegiance. 
 
 " Yes, sir, plants ! " said she, looking her father 
 stoutly in the eye. "I suppose you could ride from 
 Maine to California without seeing one of those in a 
 railroad office." She wanted to prepare them for the 
 
38 The Darlingtons 
 
 sash curtains, but her heart failed her, and she recklessly 
 threw the door open and led the way in. 
 
 The first thing that struck her eye was a magnificent 
 ash file-case_, glittering with oil and burnished brass. 
 The next was a massive walnut desk of antique style, 
 with carved legs strong enough to support a house. 
 The next was a dark-green upholstered davenport. 
 
 "Bert," said her father sternly, before Carol had 
 time to more than gasp, " that hare-brained drayman 
 has made a mistake. I saw these things in the freight- 
 house yesterday afternoon myself, and they were tagged 
 for High Point. He has got them mixed up with the 
 new furniture for your room and mine, and this accounts 
 for his not bringing over Carol's stuff." 
 
 But the daughter knew her father too well ; besides, 
 she had seen a paper sticking out of the new desk, 
 indicating that the contents of the old one had been 
 transferred thereto. She threw her arms around her 
 father's neck, and gave him a kiss on each cheek. 
 "A thousand thanks, papa. You are an angel." 
 
 " I got them cheap," said Darlington, disparagingly, 
 thrusting his hands into his pockets. But Carol was 
 hovering lovingly over the new desk, and paid no 
 attention. " Bert ! " he continued, mysteriously beckon- 
 ing his son over to the window. He began to pinch 
 the dainty sash curtains experimentally between his 
 thumb and finger. '' Good stuff, eh ! Wash well ! 
 Nice thing to catch the dust ! Shut out your light 
 nicely on a cloudy day ! Look fine in fly time ! " 
 
 " Oh, I don't care what you say now^'' cried Carol, 
 happily. " You can both be just as mean as you want 
 to, and I '11 forgive you. Don't you think they look 
 rather womanish? And do you think you could see 
 
A Benevolent Conspiracy 39 
 
 any of those, papa, between Maine and California? 
 Do you, or don't you?" 
 
 Her father laughed scornfully, but Bert said, " Your 
 
 room is all right, sis." 
 
 "There is only one thing this room lacks," said 
 Darlington, soberly. 
 
 " What is that? " asked Carol, attentively. 
 
 " Spittoons." 
 
 Carol's nostrils inflated contemptuously, as though his 
 objection was too absurd to be seriously answered. 
 
 " Yes, sir," continued her father, seriously. " A man 
 talking business in this country never feels at home 
 unless he' s got a spittoon in sight. There is something 
 cheerful and homelike about it that draws a man out. 
 I can remember when old Cap Carruthers got a neat 
 streak on — about the time the doctors put him on a 
 short allowance of tobacco — and ordered spittoons off 
 the line from one end to the other. Well, in just three 
 years the A. T. and S. S. was in the hands of receivers. 
 They could n't do business without them." 
 
 " Cuspidors or receivers ? " asked Carol, mischievously. 
 
 " Cuspidors, of course." 
 
 "What kind do you think is most conducive to the 
 prosperity of a railroad, brown earthenware or flowered 
 china?" 
 
 " Well, china shows the dirt, and earthenware is hard 
 to see after dark," he answered with a twinkle. "To 
 my mind nothing beats a tub full of sawdust." 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 « 
 
 A CLERICAL INTERVENTION 
 
 In conformity with habits formed long before they even 
 
 knew of the existence of Ashboro, the Darhngtons 
 
 lunched at one o'clock and dined at six. This, of 
 
 course, was in open defiance of the custom in Ashboro, 
 
 but the Darlingtons were not noted as respecters of 
 
 customs. One day after luncheon, a week or two after 
 
 the occupancy of the new building, Carol slowly chmbed 
 
 the oiled stairs to her office. She was tired. Her 
 
 monthly statement of waybills and abstracts had not 
 
 balanced, and, it seemed, would not. For three days 
 
 her little force of clerks had been busily checking the 
 
 yellow tissue press-copies of the waybills, in search of | 
 
 the error, and verifying the station-agents' figures on 
 
 their abstracts ; and all that morning she herself had jj 
 
 pored over big sheets full of small figures. The same 
 
 big sheets were yet on her desk unconquered. It was, j 
 
 therefore, with a slight sense of irritability that she dis- i 
 
 covered a stranger in her office, evidently waiting for | 
 
 her. 
 
 The man was large, yet so compact and well-propor- 
 tioned that he suggested strength rather than size. He 
 wore a black Prince Albert coat, buttoned snugly over 
 an athletic chest. His face — a full, smooth oval — 
 was of a ruddy, healthy hue. His reddish-brown hair, 
 which was rather thin, was parted near the centre, at the 
 
A Clerical Intervention 41 
 
 top of a high, fine forehead. Beneath this prominent 
 forehead was a yet more striking feature, — a pair of 
 large, round, blue eyes, boyishly clear and innocent, 
 yet containing an indescribable something which would 
 have deterred any but a very rash person from presum- 
 ing too far upon their boyishness and innocence. 
 Aloreover, there was a characteristic turn about his chin 
 and mouth which suggested tenacity, if not indeed 
 pugnacity. 
 
 Who the man was, or what he wanted, Carol had not 
 the least idea, though she fancied that he might possibly 
 be a lawyer from some neighboring town. If he was a 
 lawyer, he probably had a claim against the railroad, 
 which might account for that slightly pugnacious look. 
 As Carol unbuttoned and removed her jacket, after 
 saluting the stranger, she half smiled. A great many 
 pugnacious people found their way into her office from 
 time to time, and she had learned pretty well how to 
 hold her own with them. She had no especial liking 
 for such people, but there was something rather whole- 
 some and refreshing about this man's sturdy bearing; 
 and the prospect of a little tilt with him was not at all 
 distasteful to her. 
 
 " What can I do for you? " asked Carol, as she sat 
 down at her desk. 
 
 " You are Miss Darlington, I believe. My name is 
 Kaltenborn," said the stranger, in a round, full voice. 
 " I come here, Miss Darlington, in the interest of Mrs. 
 Burbanks, whose son Johnnie, as you doubtless know, 
 was killed on your road some time ago.'' 
 
 *' Yes, shr," said Carol, promptly. " He fell from the 
 roof of a box-car while intoxicated." Her tone was 
 significant. 
 
42 The Darlingtons 
 
 Kaltenborn was seated at the other side of the wide 
 table, with one arm resting upon it. He quietly let his 
 azure eyes float across the intervening space. They met 
 hers squarely, and the gauntlet was down. 
 
 "Just as he might have fallen from any kind of a 
 roof," said he, with a smile to indicate that he caught 
 her meaning. 
 
 " Except that he was trying to set the brake with a 
 broomstick — an infraction of one of our most inflexible 
 rules," added Carol. 
 
 " I am convinced that his death was owing to his 
 own negligence," continued Kaltenborn, pleasantly but 
 seriously, "and that the railroad company was in no 
 wise responsible. That, of course, relieves it of any 
 legal obligations in the way of damages. I am sorry 
 that Mrs. Burbanks can't see it in that way, too ; but 
 she is a woman, and — I beg your pardon! " said he 
 pausing. 
 
 " Go on ! " said Carol, laughing. 
 
 ^' Mrs. Burbanks has appealed to you for a pension — 
 so far without success. She has also, perhaps, made 
 threats, which people who are no friends of hers have 
 brought to your ears. How much the threats of that 
 ignorant woman amount to, you know as well as I." 
 
 " Unless she falls into the hands of some pettifogging 
 lawyer," suggested Carol, pointedly. 
 
 " I am not here to carry out those threats," he 
 returned. " I simply want to bring about an accommo- 
 dation, if that is possible. I don't base her claim for 
 consideration at your hands on the faithfulness or effi- 
 ciency of her son's service to your road, for I understand 
 that he was not faithful or efficient. His father, how- 
 ever, was connected with your road from the day your 
 
A Clerical Intervention 43 
 
 first wheel turned, and was a faithful, respected employe 
 until the day he met his death in the courageous dis- 
 charge of his duty. I am here to-day to see if some- 
 thing cannot be done to save his wife and four helpless 
 little ones from public charity. I want to know if there 
 is any possibility of the road granting her a small 
 pension." 
 
 He was pugnacious, sure enough, Carol decided, as 
 he impaled her on his level gaze. She stiffened a little 
 under the operation, and put on her most official air. 
 
 *' That is a matter with which I have nothing to do, 
 Mr. — Kaltenborn," she answered, halting a second over 
 the unusual name. '' My father deals with all such mat- 
 ters personally. He will be back to-night or to-morrow. 
 But it is only fair for me to tell you, before you put your- 
 self to any further trouble, that Johnnie Burbanks met 
 his death while violating two rules of this company ; and 
 were we to allow his mother a pension, it would simply 
 be putting a premium on inefficiency and insubordination 
 in our employes." 
 
 " You don't think it would tempt any of them to 
 get killed, do you, for the sake of a pension for their 
 survivors?" 
 
 " We have discipHne to maintain," said she, quietly. 
 
 " Then it is a matter of policy, I may say, with the 
 company?" 
 
 " Well, yes," she admitted cautiously. 
 
 " It 's a matter of bread and butter with Mrs. Bur- 
 banks," said Kaltenborn. 
 
 Carol flushed, but detected at once the unfairness of 
 the insinuation. " Her lack of bread and butter appeals 
 just as much to me, sir, and to my father, as it does to 
 you," she returned with some spirit. '• Your setting bread 
 
44 The Darlingtons 
 
 and butter against policy would appeal powerfully, no 
 doubt, to a jury," she continued, not doubtin^^ now that 
 he was a lawyer, and rather glad of her remark about 
 pettifoggers. " But you will find it not quite so effective 
 with my father." 
 
 *• I have no doubt of that," he replied, dryly. 
 
 " I mean that policy with us, no matter how slightingly 
 it may be spoken of, means an honest administration 
 of the affairs of this road ; an honest accounting to 
 the people who have intrusted their money in our 
 hands." 
 
 '^ I did not m^ean to insinuate that you are insensible 
 to suffering," said Kaltenborn, so frankly and generously 
 that Carol felt a little ashamed of her warmth. '^ I only 
 meant that Mrs. Burbanks's case is stronger than yours 
 
 in its motive." 
 
 ^' There is some question even about that," she 
 returned with a smile. " You would hardly put physi- 
 cal wants above principle, would you ? And you must 
 not hold us responsible for her poverty." 
 
 " No, I do not do that. She is poor because her natu- 
 ral supporters have been taken away. But you will not 
 deny that death is a heavy penalty for drunkenness or the 
 violation of a rule. And if this youth had fallen from 
 some other roof than that of a box-car, it is not likely 
 he would have been killed. It was your wheels — wheels 
 that were earning your bread and butter — which ground 
 the life out of him and cut off his mother's bread and 
 butter. You could not help that, and those wheels, dan- 
 gerous as they are, are very necessary. But cannot you 
 avert the consequences of their cruel work, in a measure ? 
 Is it not your duty to do so?" 
 
 His honest, fearless eyes repeated the appeal in a 
 
A Clerical Intervention 45 
 
 manner that absolutely forbade any quibble or evasion. 
 She doubted now about his being a lawyer. 
 
 '*If it is," she answered, ''we will do it.'^ 
 
 " I felt sure of that," said he ; ''but I am glad, never- 
 theless, to hear you say it. It is, then, merely a question 
 of determining what your duty is. When Mrs. Burbanks 
 came to me and asked me to make this intercession, I 
 had some difficulty in determining that it was my duty 
 to do so, for I knew the circumstances of her son's death. 
 But after thinking the matter over carefully, I came to 
 the conclusion that something was due her, and I told 
 her so. I told her that I would try to help her. I shall 
 not have tried, in the sense she understands the pledge, 
 until I have exhausted every honorable means. Now, I 
 am aware that you have not the authority, as you just 
 stated, to commit the company to any course in this mat- 
 ter. But I want you to help me. Will you do it ? " 
 
 ^' Why, I will do everything consistent with justice, 
 and loyalty to my father and those I serve, — the other 
 stockholders," said Carol, not just relishing this process. 
 
 "I could not ask more," he answered. " But I want 
 you to look into this case and decide it on its merits, for 
 yourself, first. If you think the pension ought not to be 
 granted, tell your father so plainly, and oppose it to the 
 end. I shall think none the less of you for it. But if 
 you think it ought to be granted, I want you to be just as 
 firm in the other direction. Don't lay the burden of a 
 decision entirely on your father. You are old enough to 
 know that he is not infallible, any more than you or I. 
 He may have certain foibles that you are familiar with ; 
 for instance," — he paused a second, — " his intolerance 
 of insubordination in employes may prejudice him a little 
 against Mrs. Burbanks. He may lose sight of the fact 
 
46 The Darlingtons 
 
 that it is the widow and four little children to whom jus- 
 tice is to be done, and not to Johnnie Burbanks. Will 
 you see, so far as you can, that they get a fair hearing? " 
 
 *'I have promised," said she, stiffly. " I don't know 
 that I shall have much opportunity to talk it over with 
 my father. That is, we have talked it over a good deal, 
 and I don't know that I have anything new to tell him. 
 Who shall I tell him called — that is, in what capacity? " 
 
 " Stephen Kaltenborn, the new pastor of the Methodist 
 Church, of which Mrs. Burbanks is a member." 
 
 "Very well," she answered, stirring some papers on 
 her desk, as if to intimate that the interview was ended. 
 
 He did not take the hint, however ; and, indeed, he 
 looked like a man upon whom a hint would be wasted 
 nine times out of ten, unless he saw fit to accept it. He 
 sat drumming lightly with his fingers and watching her. 
 "I might as well confess to you, Miss Darlington," he 
 said, presently, " that I came here to-day, when I knew 
 that your father was away, because I wanted to speak to 
 you first. I know that this matter has already been 
 brought before your father, and that he has offered Mrs. 
 Burbanks no encouragement." 
 
 " If I am not mistaken, he has flatly refused her," 
 answered Carol, dryly. 
 
 **I did not so understand it," said he, gravely. ''If 
 he has, I hope he may be induced to reconsider his 
 decision. That is what I want you to do for me. I have 
 the most implicit faith in woman. Miss Darlington. I 
 have always believed that, but for her, man would soon 
 sink into his original savagery ; and in those transactions 
 which perhaps require a little more of the milk of human 
 kindness and a little less of worldly calculation, I have 
 always found women invaluable allies." 
 
A Clerical Intervention 47 
 
 " You are very complimentary to our sex/' said Carol, 
 suavely. 
 
 " Merely truthful." 
 
 ''But possibly you mean that we are more easily 
 managed. In that case, you are not so complimentary .'* 
 
 *' To say that women are easily led in the right direc- 
 tion seems to me high praise," he returned. " Preach- 
 ers, in their church work, simply co-operate with this 
 trait in women. And I think that most women like 
 being led, as you call it." 
 
 " I don't like it," said she, emphatically. 
 
 " Not even if you are being led in the right direction?" 
 
 '• No. I like to go it alone. People who Hke to be 
 led are usually weak, I think." 
 
 " Many who dislike to be led are not strong, but 
 wayward," he retorted. "However, I did not come 
 here to lead you," he added, smiling. " I want you to 
 ' go it alone.' I don't want you to be led by any man, 
 not even your father." 
 
 " I hope you don't overrate my influence with my 
 father," said Carol. " He has his own ideas about cer- 
 tain things, and running a railroad is one of them. 
 Moreover," she continued more seriously, "he cannot 
 always do just as he would like in matters of this kind. 
 The railroad is not a philanthropic institution, and the 
 stockholders, like the poor, are always with us." 
 
 "We are not asking for philanthropy," answered 
 Kaltenbom. " All we want is justice — far-seeing, dis- 
 criminating justice, to be sure ; but only justice." 
 
 "I think you will get it," said she, with some re- 
 serve. "Only — we must be the judges." 
 
 When Kaltenborn arose, Carol affected not to see his 
 half-proffered hand. She hardly thought a hand-shake 
 
48 The Darlingtons 
 
 necessary. After he had gone, there was a little frown- 
 ing wrinkle between her brows. She felt piqued. Kal- 
 tenborn had plainly come to her, not as the auditor of 
 the H. P., R., A., and S., but as a woman. She was 
 not ashamed of being a woman, and only resented an 
 appeal to her as such when it implied that women were 
 more manageable than men — more easily hoodwinked, 
 as she construed it. Furthermore, the minister had 
 seemed to make a virtue of extracting from her a prom- 
 ise to do what she would have done in any event, 
 namely, give justice. He had taken advantage of his 
 position as a minister, she suspected, to morally brow- 
 beat her a little. She was sorry now that she had prom- 
 ised to inteiTcne at all ; she had not wanted to promise 
 at the time, but he had manipulated her into a tight 
 place, from which the only decent means of escape was 
 a promise. 
 
 Yet, as she rested her slightly angular chin in her 
 hand and gazed thoughtfully at her plants, she was 
 moved to a little, low laugh, in spite of her vexation. 
 It was rather ridiculous. So this was the Reverend 
 Stephen Kaltenborn. She remembered now to have 
 heard one of their servant girls say what a lovely man 
 her new pastor was. Carol could readily see how such 
 a person as Tilly might make a demigod out of this 
 seraph-eyed, deep-chested, plain-spoken, pertinacious 
 preacher ; and she could readily see how a man with 
 such a flock might fall into the habit of bullying. It 
 was not exactly bullying, though, — his treatment of her, 
 — she admitted. 
 
 Carol knew well enough the obstinate attitude her 
 father had come to hold towards this Burbanks busi- 
 ness. Whatever his original position might have been, 
 
A Clerical Intervention 49 
 
 outside influence, and, as he believed it, intermeddling 
 influence, had driven him to a purely partisan view of 
 the case. He had come to look upon the whole matter 
 simply as a fight, — the railroad against public opinion. 
 Carol had sided with her father, naturally enough, for 
 family loyalty was one of her strongest traits. Yet this 
 very loyalty, in connection with her official position, 
 was slowly bhghting in her some of the most precious 
 qualities of a woman. Charged from birth with too 
 much of her father's cool and calculating nature, she 
 was now going to school to him. Never too tender, she 
 was daily taught that tenderness is too often only an- 
 other name for a weak, if not cowardly, evasion of the 
 sterner issues of life ; not taught in so many words, not, 
 in fact, in any words, but by daily observ^ation of the 
 workings of her father's business principles, — principles 
 that had apparently won the respect of his associates, 
 and had certainly won him a fortune. 
 
 Little manifestations of this development in his daugh- 
 ter caused Mr. Darhngton's eyes to sparkle with fatherly 
 pride. Yet C. A. Darlington was not a bad man. He 
 was regarded as a model father, and his own comfort 
 and interests were ever subservient to those of his 
 children. The dearest wish of his heart was that Her- 
 bert should make a noble, upright, successful man, and 
 that Carol should make a noble, upright woman. Ruth 
 he looked upon as yet in her mother's exclusive charge. 
 But it must not be supposed that this " business " de- 
 velopment of Carol had gone very far yet ; or that she 
 did not often act solely on impulse ; or that she would 
 ever become the person her father was. No tutor, 
 however skilled, however loved by his pupil, could 
 make a man out of a woman. 
 
 4 
 
50 The Darlingtons 
 
 At a quarter of five Carol telephoned to the house for 
 Whitefoot. In the early part of her drive she found 
 herself approaching the Burbankses' home. Just why 
 she had come that way, she could not have said ; it 
 was certainly not to verify the Reverend Kaltenborn's 
 statement of the Burbankses' poverty, for that was a 
 matter of public knowledge. She was not quite cer- 
 tain that she had not come by chance ; yet she was 
 conscious of having had the Burbankses in mind ever 
 since the minister's call. She let the mare walk past 
 the shed-like, battened structure to which the family 
 had sunk since Johnnie's death. Mrs. Burbanks was 
 out in the yard, hanging up a washing. Carol involun- 
 tarily withdrew her eyes from the wretched creature, 
 and glanced down at her own richly clad figure, so 
 warm, so healthy and clean, so well fed and well 
 groomed, enthroned there on the high-backed seat of 
 her stylish trap. It was hard, awfully hard, she said, 
 with a swelling throat. 
 
 But was it her fault? "Is it our fault, Carol?" she 
 could in fancy hear her father ask, as he flourished his 
 smoking Havana, which cost more than Johnnie Bur- 
 banks had ever earned in an hour. The thought 
 comforted her. He who was so good and kind to her 
 and the rest of the family, so free with his money to 
 others, could not be a party to the iniquitous starvation 
 of this helpless woman. If he refused her a pension, 
 it was because he could not conscientiously grant her one. 
 
 Still she was not satisfied, and when she announced 
 to her father that night that Kaltenborn had called, and 
 he answered, without looking up from his paper, " I 
 suppose he tried to open your shell with a text," the 
 words grated on her. 
 
A Clerical Intervention 51 
 
 " He *s coming up to see you to-morrow," said she, 
 seriously. 
 
 " He might as well save his shoe leather," answered 
 Mr. Darlington, shortly. Carol smiled, knowing that his 
 heart was not as hard as his words. 
 
 " It does seem as though that poor woman was hav- 
 ing more than her share of trouble," said Mrs. Darling- 
 ton softly to Carol, after Mr. Darlington had relapsed 
 into silence. " Mrs. Black told me to-day that one ot 
 the children had typhoid fever." 
 
 " Where did you see Mrs. Black ? " asked Carol. 
 
 " She was here collecting for the Ladies' Aid Society." 
 
 "Are they helping Mrs. Burbanks?" 
 
 "No; she won't take charity yet, as she calls it. I 
 guess she 's got a little of the money left yet that Johnnie's 
 lodge paid her, though I presume that was really charity. 
 Johnnie never took any interest in the lodge after the 
 novelty wore off, and he was away behind in his dues." 
 
 Mr. Darlington was not so absorbed in his paper as 
 to be oblivious to this dialogue, for he said, lowering 
 the sheet to his lap, '• I don't want to be harsh, or say 
 anything cruel, but it would be a God's mercy if that 
 child died. It is nothing but a burden on its mother, 
 and what possible future has it, without education or 
 training of any kind ? The chances are, if it grows up 
 in that atmosphere, it will disgrace its mother some 
 day. Poor as she is, I '11 give Mrs. Burbanks credit for 
 always holding her head up." 
 
 " The child is entitled to a fair trial, Charles," said his 
 wife. " She 's such a bright, pretty httle thing." 
 
 ' ' She would have more show if she was ugly and 
 dull," said the husband, resuming his paper. 
 
 "Where did you ever see her, mamma?" asked 
 
52 
 
 The Darlingtons 
 
 Carol. She always wondered how her mother, who 
 never seemed to go anywhere, found out so much 
 about people, especially poor people. 
 
 " We had them all out to the guild supper, a few 
 weeks ago." 
 
 When Carol kissed her mother good-night, she let her 
 lips lie a moment longer than usual. Mrs. Darlington's 
 unobtrusive sympathy for the miserable family had 
 stirred her daughter's heart. In the same measure, her 
 father's indifference had shocked Carol, and slightly re- 
 pelled her. But as she bent to kiss him also, a little 
 displacement of his hair struck her fancy as boyish, 
 as youthfully pure and innocent. She instantly re- 
 pented her momentary hardness toward him, and gave 
 him, too, a kiss of added fervor. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF JUSTICE 
 
 For an hour or more Carol twisted and turned in her 
 bed, deep in the problem of justice ; but the farther 
 she went, the more intricate became the way. Without 
 the polestar of her father's interests, and the stock- 
 holders' — those infinitesimal, but omnipresent stock- 
 holders ! — she lost her reckoning entirely. She tacked 
 this way and that. Championing in her fancy the 
 widow Burbanks, she made out a clear case for her ; 
 deserting to the railroad, she made out a clear case for 
 it. If it were her railroad, she knew what she would 
 do ; she would grant the pension. But again up came 
 the stockholders, flitting through her bewildered brain 
 like uneasy phantoms, with their reduced dividends in 
 their hands. 
 
 She dreamed that these same phantoms held a meet- 
 ing to consider the Burbanks case, only there was a vast 
 amphitheatre full of them, and Mrs. Burbanks's children 
 had multiplied to the number of the old woman's who 
 lived in a shoe. Johnnie Burbanks came back to life to 
 testify that he had always been a sober and efficient em- 
 ploy6. Kaltenborn was there in the form of a giant, 
 with eyes as big as saucers, pleading the widow's cause 
 in a voice of thunder. Finally they all agreed to leave 
 
^4 The Darlingtons 
 
 the decision to Carol, which threw her into such a panic 
 that she woke up. 
 
 In the morning she tried to straighten out the maze 
 of the night; but in her heart, before the great Justiciar, 
 she could not come to a conviction. At last she de- 
 cided, half desperately, and with Kaltenborn's warning 
 ringing in her ears, to leave it with her father. He 
 seemed to be so sure of his ground, so certain of the 
 righteousness of his course ; and she would not oppose 
 him, though Mr. Kaltenborn and a thousand other 
 men should scorn her as weak. 
 
 About three o'clock in the afternoon Darlington stuck 
 his head in at Carol's door. All day she had started 
 nervously at the click of the latch, momentarily expect- 
 ing a summons to the president's private office — and 
 Kaltenborn's presence. Now, when she was beginning 
 to breathe easier, it had come. 
 
 " Your preacher is here," said her father, briefly. 
 ^^Come in." 
 
 " Papa, I don't want to see him," said she, beseech- 
 ingly. " You don't need me." 
 
 " I want you to be there in case he rings in anything 
 about your promises." 
 
 " My promises ! " she gasped. " Did he say I — I 
 had promised something?" 
 
 " No, and I don't want him to. That 's the reason I 
 want you there. Come on.'* 
 
 As they passed the traffic-manager's door Herbert 
 stepped out — by chance, it seemed. 
 
 " For goodness' sake, Bert, are you coming too ? " 
 asked Carol. " He '11 think it 's a family conspiracy," 
 and she laughed foolishly. 
 
 " Who '11 think ? " asked Bert. 
 
The Problem of Justice 55 
 
 « Mr. Kaltenborn." 
 
 ^^ I think I don't care to be present," answered 
 Bert, significantly, turning back. " I '11 see you later, 
 father." 
 
 Carol had mentioned Kaltenborn's visit to Bert also, 
 but he had been very reticent about the pension. She 
 did not half like the way he turned on his heel now. 
 Her father, though, merely gave the retreating traffic- 
 manager a look of amused unconcern. He was used to 
 his son's " sentimentality." 
 
 " Now, papa," whispered Carol, with her hand on the 
 door-knob, "don't swe-e-// / " 
 
 Kaltenborn bowed gravely to Carol, with no reference 
 whatever in his manner to their former interview. Mr. 
 Darlington, before proceeding to business, took a cigar 
 from his drawer and lit it. Carol wondered if that 
 was exactly polite before a preacher, who presumably 
 did not smoke ; but she was glad that her father went 
 no farther in his disregard of conventions. He had 
 once offered a preacher a cigar, and Carol knew it was 
 because he did not like preachers very well. 
 
 " Now, Mr. Kaltenborn," began the president incis- 
 ively, but pleasandy enough, as he leaned back in his 
 swivel-chair, " this case has been up before me until I 
 know it from A to Z. I had thought it was out of the 
 way for all time to come, and that everybody under- 
 stood it that way." 
 
 " Mr. Kaltenborn has just moved to Ashboro," sug- 
 gested Carol. 
 
 " Well, that makes a difference," said her father, in a 
 tone which implied that it did not make a difference. 
 " If you had lived here long, Mr. Kaltenborn, I don't 
 think you would be up here to-day on your present 
 
56 The Darlingtons 
 
 errand. You would have known too much about the 
 case, and about Johnnie Burbanks. But I am glad to 
 welcome you to the town," he continued expansively, 
 as though — as Carol afterwards put it to his face — 
 Ashboro were only a corner of his backyard. "You 
 will find it a good town. You will find that one of 
 the things that make it good is this railroad, and you 
 will find that nine people out of ten think it 's the main 
 thing. You will find that that is so because we have 
 the confidence of the people and always treat them 
 squarely." 
 
 Carol's mouth dimpled at the corners, as she stole a 
 little flushed glance at Kaltenborn, expecting to find 
 him laughing. He was perfectly grave, however. An 
 ordinary observer might even have thought him im- 
 pressed. 
 
 " I intend to be fair in this case," went on Mr. Dar- 
 lington. "As I just said, I have been over the ground 
 a hundred times. I have sifted the evidence and re- 
 sifted it, and came to a conclusion long ago, which 
 conclusion Mrs. Burbanks knows very well. But if 
 you have got any facts to offer that are 7iew, I am will- 
 ing to listen to them." He leaned back much as a 
 man might after challenging another to produce a new 
 planet in the solar system. 
 
 " I don't know that I have any new facts," said Kal- 
 tenborn, leaning forward slightly. " I think the old facts 
 are quite sufficient to justify this widow's claims. In 
 any event, those are the only facts. Mr. DarHngton, 
 you know that railroading is a hazardous business. You 
 know that the mortality among railroad employes is very 
 large — so large that they can with difficulty get Hfe 
 insurance with a reputable company. You know that 
 
The Problem of Justice 57 
 
 on account of this extreme hazard railroad companies 
 sometimes grant a totally disabled employe a pension. 
 In case of death, they sometimes grant the dependents 
 of the deceased a pension. I take it for granted that 
 you admit these facts, and that you can conceive of a 
 case where you yourself would grant a pension." 
 
 "Yes/' answered the president, frankly. 
 
 " I believe that Mrs. Burbanks's case is such a one. 
 Her son may have gotten drunk, and may have used a 
 broomstick to set a brake, and it was doubtless these 
 two infractions of your rules which caused his death. 
 But certainly neither act, nor both combined, would 
 have resulted in his death in a less hazardous occupa- 
 tion. That is, the hazardous work you gave him to do 
 was one of the factors in his death. You are respon- 
 sible for that factor, as you admit by sometimes paying 
 a pension. The fact that he accepted the work with a 
 full knowledge of its hazardous nature does not reUeve 
 you, morally, though it does legally. But all this you 
 admit. Now, as to the other half of the case I hope to 
 make against you," and he smiled a little for the first 
 time, " I need say nothing. I mean the necessity for 
 a pension. You know Mrs. Burbanks's impoverished 
 condition.'* 
 
 " I do, and I feel very sorry for her," said the presi- 
 dent, expelling a cloud of rich smoke with somiC gusto. 
 " I always take great pleasure in helping such people, 
 personally. I would take pleasure in helping Mrs. 
 Burbanks to-day. But you are not asking charity, and 
 Mrs. Burbanks refuses charity, I understand. You are 
 here demanding dues. Well, I am here to tell you, 
 Mr. Kaltenborn, that there are no dues. You speak of 
 railroad pensions. If you know anything about such 
 
58 The Darlingtons 
 
 things, you know that they are rare and given only in 
 cases of special merit — not to drunks, or to their 
 mothers, innocent as those mothers may be. That 
 may seem hard on the mothers, to you ; but it is based 
 on strict justice, as you will see. Johnnie Burbanks 
 lost his hfe through drunkenness and insubordination. 
 If he hadn't been drunk and hadn't used a broom- 
 stick in a brake-wheel, he would have been alive to-day, 
 in spite of his hazardous occupation, which you seem 
 to make a point on. 
 
 ''There is not a railroad in the United States," he 
 continued, '• or an express company, or any other cor- 
 poration, that would grant a pension under those cir- 
 cumstances. There is not a court in the land that 
 would uphold Mrs. Burbanks's claim to a pension, were 
 pensions a matter of legal compulsion. Yet I am willing 
 to admit that conditions are a little different here. We 
 know most of our employes personally, and we perhaps 
 take more interest in them and their families than would 
 be the case with a great railroad. I don't mind telling 
 you," softening his voice a htde, '' that so far as I am 
 concerned, personally, I would willingly give this woman 
 a pension. But it would only be charity, and as presi- 
 dent of this road I cannot, in justice, vote one cent for 
 charity without the consent of every stockholder in it — 
 which I don't think I could get in this case. In strict 
 justice — and that is what you are talking about — I 
 couldn't vote away one cent for charity without the 
 consent of the /leirs of every stockholder. For by so 
 doing I should impose a policy upon this road that we 
 and others after us would be forced by public opinion 
 to adhere to. It isn't a mere matter of one case, or 
 of dollars and cents. It 's a fact that I own most of 
 
The Problem of Justice 59 
 
 the stock of this road, and that when I vote away two 
 cents of all the other stockholders' money, I vote away 
 five cents of my own. But I have n't the right to vote 
 away that two cents without their consent." 
 
 " Suppose you make a little broader application of 
 that principle," interrupted Kaltenborn. "Some of 
 the stockholders, so I understand, were opposed to the 
 erection of such an elaborate building as this. They 
 thought it was throwing money away to gratify your 
 pride. But that did n't prevent your voting the neces- 
 sary appropriation, over their heads." 
 
 " That was an entirely different case, Mr. Kaltenborn," 
 answered the president. " That was merely a difference 
 of judgment. I thought this building was necessary ; 
 they did n't. My interests were greater than theirs, and 
 I carried the day. If I am right, they will gain by it, 
 with me. But this charity business is another matter. 
 I know that I have no right to vote money that way. 
 The amount is small, of course, but when it comes 
 down to a matter of principle, one cent is just as im- 
 portant as one dollar, or a thousand of them, or a mil- 
 lion, for that matter. And there are still others to be 
 considered. I refer to the sober, industrious employes 
 of this road. If any money is to be given away, it 
 ought to go to their survivors ; and every cent voted 
 for such cases as Mrs. Burbanks's, worthy as she herself 
 maybe, is an injustice to some sober, hard-working man 
 who as certainly as our trains run will meet death some 
 day. No, I am very sorry, Mr. Kaltenborn, but I can't 
 take your view of the matter. I have given this matter 
 considerable thought — conscientious thought, as I said 
 before. Johnnie Burbanks was a worthless, inefficient 
 employe who died while drunk on duty, and to pay his 
 
6o The Darlingtons 
 
 dependents a pension would be putting a premium on 
 insubordination and inefficiency." 
 
 The president finished with his brown eyes glistening 
 with earnestness, his white, shapely hand eloquently in 
 the air. Carol, whose cheeks were rosy from interest, 
 heaved a tremulous little sigh of relief. Whatever 
 doubts she may have had of the righteousness of her 
 father's course were removed now. She thought Kalt- 
 enborn also must be convinced, not only of the justice 
 and sincerity of her father, but also of his correct posi- 
 tion. He did not look it, however. His face was set 
 in thought as he slowly turned a glass paper-weight 
 between his fingers, and a tenacious line ran through 
 his hps. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE CORPORATE SOUL 
 
 "You said that Johnnie Burbanks was worthless and 
 insubordinate," Kaltenborn began, as though laying 
 down his premises. 
 
 " He was/' said the president ; " the most worthless 
 employe on the road. He could n't have held his job 
 a day on any other road in the United States." 
 
 " Why did you retain such a worthless employe ? Or 
 why did you hire him in the first place? " asked Kalt- 
 enborn^ penetratingly. " You must have known his 
 character.'* 
 
 "Simply and solely on account of his father's ser- 
 vices," said the president. "He — his father — died 
 in a wreck. He was one of our oldest and most faith- 
 ful employes. We appreciate that kind of service, and 
 are willing to show our appreciation in a substantial 
 way. His boy could n't hold down a job anywhere 
 else, and was out of work, and we took him on." 
 
 ''Then you felt under some obligation to the 
 family ? " 
 
 " Not obligation exactly, though I suppose you 
 might call it that." 
 
 " Then you simply used Johnnie Burbanks as a means 
 of discharging that obligation, if I may so call it," con- 
 tinued Kaltenborn, steadily. 
 
62 The Darlingtons 
 
 "^ That was all," assented the president, but beginning 
 to get wary. 
 
 " You did n't ask the stockholders' permission to do 
 that?" 
 
 " Certainly not," answered Darlington, brusquely. 
 
 " Even though you did n't regard the hiring of that 
 boy as conducive to the interests of the road, as you did 
 the erection of this building?" 
 
 '^ I don't call a meeting of the directors every time we 
 hire a brakeman," returned the president, rather sharply. 
 
 " No, and I should n't think it necessary," continued 
 the preacher, calmly. " I think you had a perfect right 
 to discharge, of your own authority, the railroad's obli- 
 gation to that family by hiring the boy. The means 
 you employed were all right. But now, Mr. Darlington, 
 death, with or without any culpability on your part, has 
 removed that means. Your obligation still remains. 
 Mrs. Burbanks has done nothing to forfeit it. Will you 
 let it lapse merely because she has n't another son to 
 offer you ? Is that your only means of discharging your 
 obligation ? Does it make any difference to her whether 
 the money comes to her from you direct, as a pension, 
 or through her son's hands, as wages ? " 
 
 Carol looked at her father anxiously ; the railroad's 
 case did not seem quite so clear now. Her father 
 twisted around in his chair a Httle, and threw one leg 
 over the arm of it. 
 
 " You forget the extent of the obligation, as you call 
 it," said he, complacently. " It was not perpetual. If 
 you give a beggar twenty-five cents a week for a year, 
 because he stopped a runaway horse for you, you don't 
 have to keep it up to the day of his death, to discharge 
 your obligation." 
 
The Corporate Soul 63 
 
 "If young Burbanks had not been killed, you would 
 still be hiring him, would you not ? " asked Kaltenborn. 
 
 " I don't know," answered the president, stiffly. " He 
 was getting more shiftless every day." 
 
 " But if he had n't got worse, you would still be hiring 
 him?" 
 
 " I don't know. I suppose so," he admitted. " But 
 there is a difference between paying a pension and hir- 
 ing a man. A pension is a clear gift. In hiring a man 
 we get some service, even if he is a poor man. It saves 
 us hiring another one." 
 
 " But you said this man was worthless," interrupted 
 Kaltenborn, dryly. 
 
 " He was," repeated the president, sharply. " But 
 when I say worthless, I don't mean that he could n't set 
 a brake or swing a lantern. He earned some of his 
 wages." 
 
 " About how much ? " 
 
 "■ I don't know," answered Darlington, his crest be- 
 ginning to rise. " I can't split hairs like that." 
 
 "You have some idea." 
 
 "Well, half of them, say." 
 
 " And you paid him how much ? " 
 
 " Thirty dollars a month, I believe." 
 
 "If he earned only half of that, you gave him out- 
 right fifteen dollars every month. In other words, you 
 gave Mrs. Burbanks, through her son, fifteen dollars a 
 month for which the road got no return, and for which 
 you expected no return. She would be satisfied now, 
 Mr. Darlington, with half that much a month as a 
 pension." 
 
 Kaltenborn turned his calm gray eyes from father to 
 daughter ; but railroad stock was away down now, and 
 
64 The Darlingtons 
 
 the auditor was pressing an ivory ruler into the palm of 
 her hand until the pink surface was barred with blood- 
 red lines. 
 
 *' Your logic is good, Mr. Kaltenborn," said the presi- 
 dent, recovering his amiability. " You make a good 
 advocate. You ought to have been a lawyer instead of 
 a preacher. But you are not a railroad president yet. 
 You look too hard in one place. You forget what I 
 said about a precedent. You want me to act in this 
 matter as though it was the only case that would ever 
 come up." 
 
 ^' If it's right to give this pension, as you seem to 
 have just admitted, you ought to be willing to do it 
 regardless of precedents," said Kaltenborn. 
 
 "You don't beheve that, if you will stop to think," 
 returned the president, shrewdly. " Would you do a 
 right if it entailed two wTongs upon you? Would it, 
 in fact, in that case be a right? That 's what I 'm get- 
 ting at." 
 
 " If it 's right to give a pension in this case, it would n't 
 be wrong to give a pension in all future cases of like 
 nature." 
 
 " Certainly not — if the public would only discriminate. 
 Every case would be a like case with them." 
 
 " Were you not establishing a precedent by hiring a 
 worthless man?" pursued the minister. 
 
 "No," answered Darhngton, flatly. "That didn't 
 go on the books ; it is n't a matter of record." 
 
 " It was a voting away of the stockholders' money in 
 pure and simple charity ; as much so as the other would 
 be," persisted Kaltenborn. 
 
 " Well, what would you have had me do ? " demanded 
 the other. " Harden my heart, and let them stifle in 
 
The Corporate Soul 65 
 
 poverty?" The president's question was so patent a 
 dodging of the point that Carol glanced uneasily at 
 Kaltenbom. 
 
 *' No," he said. " Nor would I have you do that 
 now. You did right. You simply exercised that large 
 discretion with which, as president of this road, you are 
 necessarily invested. I would have you exercise the 
 same now. Mr. Darlington," he went on, laying aside, 
 as it were, his clerical habit, and leaning over the desk 
 familiarly, " don't you believe that, if no outsiders had 
 worried you about this pension, and if i\Irs. Burbanks 
 had always been a little more discreet, and a little more 
 grateful, perhaps, for what you have already done for 
 her, you would have granted this pension, not for her 
 son's sake, but for her husband's sake ? " 
 
 " I do not, for the reasons I have stated," said Mr. 
 Darlington ; but his buoyancy was gone, and he looked 
 tired. 
 
 " Don't you think that it ought to have been granted ? " 
 pursued Kaltenbom, with an insinuating smile. 
 
 '^ Certainly not, or I should have granted it," retorted 
 Darlington, sharply, and Carol herself thought Kalten- 
 born's remark a little impudent. 
 
 They talked an hour and a half, going over the same 
 ground again and again. Neither would give way an 
 inch. Kaltenbom made his points in the same quiet, 
 persevering way ; his manner did not once lose its mild- 
 ness, though his words were sometimes merciless. The 
 president maintained his equanimity, too, pretty well, 
 but he looked tired, and his eyes toward the end wore a 
 worried expression. Yet he made no effort arbitrarily to 
 end the interview, and he met Kaltenborn's sallies each 
 time with a patience that rather surprised his daughter. 
 
 5 
 
66 The Darlingtons 
 
 She herself was afloat on a sea of doubt. When her 
 father was talking, she was against a pension ; when 
 Kaltenborn was talking, she was for one ; when neither 
 talked, she was both for and against. But she half be- 
 lieved, as the contest drew to a close, that her father, in 
 his heart, wanted to grant the pension, but was withheld 
 by pride and a desire to maintain his original position. 
 
 At last they seemed to be done. They were as far 
 apart as ever, but everything that could be said had been 
 said and re-said. Suddenly Kaltenborn turned upon 
 Carol with an abruptness that starded her, and asked, 
 " Miss Darlington, what do you think?" 
 
 "I — I — I don't know just what to think," she faltered. 
 " There seems to be so much to be said on both sides. 
 But I think — that is, I am inclined to believe — I should 
 say — " She paused an instant, oscillating between 
 her conflicting thoughts ; a word, a glance, would have 
 swung her decisively one way or the other. Kaltenborn 
 would not give it — his face said as much. Her father, 
 too, looked at her impassively, with a queer light in his 
 eyes. " — I should say that my father is right," she 
 concluded. 
 
 Darlington quietly lowered his' eyes, but with a baffled 
 expression that puzzled his daughter. Then, when it 
 was too late, a terrible suspicion flashed over her. He 
 had wanted her to decide against him ! She saw it all 
 clearly enough, she thought. She saw his stubborn 
 pride fighting against his heart, and possibly — she 
 was loath to admit it — against his sense of justice. 
 She saw him grasping at her as a drowning man grasps 
 at a straw, for her decision against him would have 
 allowed him to grant the pension under protest, as it 
 were ; and then, with a sense of bitter shame, she saw 
 
The Corporate Soul 67 
 
 herself fail him — not in loyalty, but in that spotless 
 integrity to which he had vainly lifted his arms. At 
 the crucial moment she had not been conscious of 
 weakness or vacillation ; but now the conviction that 
 she had been weak bore down upon her with crushing 
 force. 
 
 At her answer Kaltenborn had also simply dropped 
 his eyes, in what was probably nothing more than dis- 
 appointment ; but to Carol's sensitive mood it was 
 scorn, and it cut her to the heart. It angered her, too, 
 for it seemed to imply superior virtue in him. 
 
 " I am very sorry, Air. Kaltenborn, that we can't 
 come to an agreement in this matter," Carol next heard 
 her father saying, " but you see things one way, and we 
 another. I believe you are honest in your convictions ; 
 I ask the same judgment of ours. We look at these 
 things from a different standpoint. Your business is 
 different from ours. You get to looking at things in a 
 different light. You see a good deal of suffering, and 
 your sympathy becomes enlarged until possibly you 
 sometimes mistake mercy for justice." 
 
 " Not in this case," said Kaltenborn, coldly, as he 
 rose. *'And I have lived too long to come into a 
 railroad president's office with a case of sympathy." 
 
 " That is all right," answered Mr. Darlington, with a 
 meekness that surprised Carol. " Sympathy goes further 
 in this office than you may suspect. I have a good deal 
 of sympathy for this woman, and " — he drew a twenty- 
 dollar note from his vest-pocket — " if you choose, you 
 may give her that with my compliments." He tossed 
 the bill toward Kaltenborn. 
 
 Kaltenborn buttoned up his coat, and took up his 
 hat. "Well, the case is now out of my hands — and 
 
68 The Darlingtons 
 
 yours/' he said. " I hope that your conscience is as 
 clear as mine. I pledged myself to use my influence 
 in this matter, and I believe you will admit that I have 
 done it, to the utmost. Good-afternoon." 
 
 "You have forgotten your bill, I guess," said the 
 president, in an assumed tone of carelessness. 
 
 " I did not forget it,'' answered Kaltenborn, pausing 
 with the air of a man who has a disagreeable duty to 
 perform. " I left it. Mrs. Burbanks has not as yet 
 asked for charity. She will no doubt have to accept 
 it soon, but I cannot advise her to take your money. 
 I will see, though, that she gets its equivalent." And 
 he passed out. 
 
 " Confound his impudence ! " growled the president 
 deep in his throat, puffing ferociously at his cigar. He 
 took two or three turns up and down the room, furtively 
 glancing at his daughter, who was still toying abstract- 
 edly with the paper-knife. " What did he mean by 
 saying that the case was out of his hands, and ours? 
 Going to sue ? " 
 
 " He could n't mean that," answered Carol, preoccu- 
 piedly, but she did not say what she thought he had 
 meant. She suspected that Kaltenborn referred to an 
 Arbitrator who never makes mistakes, and she had 
 an idea that her father, too, suspected as much. 
 
 " Nine preachers out of ten can't give anybody but 
 themselves credit for conscientiousness," Mr. Darlington 
 continued, complainingly ; and again he plunged, neck- 
 deep, into that subject which he had just assured Kalten- 
 born he had thought closed for all time. He threshed 
 the well-beaten straw with vigorous strokes, as though 
 he fully expected yet to beat out a goodly measure of 
 grain from the empty heads. Carol knew well enough 
 
The Corporate Soul 69 
 
 what he wanted; he wanted her to play Kaltenborn, 
 his antagonist, and courteously allow herself to be 
 routed at the proper moment, — a man of straw, to be 
 knocked down with conscience-soothing blows. It was 
 a role that she had dutifully played many times in the 
 past, but to-day she had no heart for the comedy. It 
 was too much like tragedy. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE TUG OF CONSCIENCE 
 
 Carol's ride that afternoon behind Whitefoot was any- 
 thing but pleasurable. She drove at once into the 
 country, and chose the least frequented road she knew 
 — hardly more than a weedy lane. The town was 
 hateful to her just then. Ordinarily, the busy world, 
 seen through her alert, practical eyes, seemed throbbing 
 with pleasure and prosperity. But to-day she felt so 
 lonely that she cried behind her veil, all to herself 
 She was not thinking particularly of Mrs. Burbanks 
 either, unless, indeed, it was to dislike her as the in- 
 direct cause of her troubles. 
 
 For the first time in her life she beheld her father as 
 a fallen angel. For the first time in her life an unnam- 
 able something stood between her and him ; and in the 
 yellow, chilly sunshine of that late autumn afternoon, it 
 seemed to her that this something could never, never 
 be removed. The thought caused her another little 
 spasm of anguish. She had seen her father untrue to 
 himself, and he had seen that she saw it. 
 
 For years she had noted his little foibles, had humored 
 them, loved them, and played on them. But what she 
 had seen to-day was not so innocent. She tried to 
 think of it as being so ; she tried to think of it as only 
 a little foolish pride, — not a commendable thing, to 
 
The Tug of Conscience 71 
 
 be sure, yet excusable. But that haggard look in his 
 eyes — she was sure now that it was haggard — branded 
 her excuses as lies ; and she knew that he had been 
 troubled, even as she had been troubled, with thoughts 
 of the destitute widow and her children which would 
 not down. 
 
 Dinner was a rather gloomy function that day at the 
 Darlingtons'. Neither Carol nor her father had much 
 to say. After the meal, he took his paper, and retired 
 to his study, instead of reading in the sitting-room, as 
 usual. Mrs. Darlington waited until he had gone, and 
 then asked Carol, in what the latter thought a ridicu- 
 lously profound tone, what had been decided about 
 Mrs. Burbanks. 
 
 " As I understand it, mamma," answered Carol, 
 rather sharply, " that matter was decided some weeks 
 ago. The interview to-day was merely a courtesy on 
 papa's part. She is to get no pension." 
 
 Mrs. Darlington said nothing. She had outgrown 
 the folly of opposing her husband when once his mind 
 was made up. But Ruth spoke up warmly : " I don't 
 care, Carol ; I don't think it would hurt papa any to 
 give them a pension, with Mr. Burbanks and Johnnie 
 both dead — and killed on our road." 
 
 *' It happens, Ruth, that it is not all your papa's 
 money to give away," said Carol, loftily. 
 
 She went up to her room sadly ruffled ; but she had 
 hardly abandoned herself to her mood when Bert came 
 in — with a funereal air, it struck her. Still, he hghted a 
 cigar, and leaned his tall form against the mantel-piece 
 quite comfortably. " What did you and father do about 
 that Burbanks business?" he asked, almost the first 
 thing. 
 
72 The Darlingtons 
 
 '* We simply stood by our former decision," answered 
 Carol. She thought he might have asked such a simple 
 question at the table. 
 
 " Father is dead wrong about that," said Bert, bluntly. 
 
 "Why is he dead wrong, Mr. Wiseman? " she asked 
 ironically. 
 
 '•Because he is bucking public sentiment, for one 
 thing," said he ; "and because I believe we are duty- 
 bound to keep that woman out of the poor-house. 
 It 's a fair and square case for a pension, if there ever 
 was one." 
 
 " Why did n't you come in there, then, to-day, and 
 say so?" 
 
 " I have said it — more than once," answered Her- 
 bert, with a shrug. '^ But when father wants to, he can 
 be as obstinate as any intelligent man I ever saw." 
 
 " Bert, he is 7iot obstinate ! " protested Carol, indig- 
 nantly. 
 
 " It 's true/' conceded Bert, " that anybody can ap- 
 proach him, and he '11 listen, and be governed by reason, 
 too. But when he gets started on the wrong tack, there 
 is no swinging him. For instance, those rear signals on 
 passenger trains." 
 
 They both smiled at recollection of the incident, in 
 which their father had insisted on certain colored lan- 
 terns being used, and had turned a deaf ear to the 
 protests of every employ^ on the road, of the other 
 officials, of the directors, and of everybody else. 
 
 " He was obstinate that time," admitted Carol, laugh- 
 ing. '^ But do you suppose for one minute, Bert," she 
 continued, reproachfully, "that papa would keep that 
 woman out of anything that he honestly thought was 
 due her?" 
 
The Tug of Conscience 73 
 
 " Of course not," answered Bert, and Carol fervently 
 wished she could have had his simple faith. " But he 's 
 been pulled and hauled until he does n't know where he 
 stands. Then, on top of it all, comes this preacher. 
 It ^s a wonder he did n't toss him out of the window." 
 
 ''Have you seen the preacher?" asked Carol, drolly. 
 
 " No. Why ? " 
 
 " I thought not. If you had, you would n't wonder in 
 that way." 
 
 "Big?" asked Bert, smiling. 
 
 *' He isn't so big," said she ; *' but, as old Bill Blue 
 used to say, * pow'ful firm, pow'ful firm.' " 
 
 *' Poor old Bill ! " murmured Bert, reminiscently, 
 sending a cloud of smoke down toward the fire. " I 
 saw his wife over at Rankelman the other day. She 
 looks blacker than ever." After a pause he continued. 
 " No, I honestly believe, sis, that if they had given 
 father time, if they had n't jumped on him so hard, he 
 would have granted that pension. He doesn't believe 
 that, of course. He has been bullied so long that all he 
 can see is the railroad's side. I hope not, but I believe 
 he will live to regret his decision in this case." 
 
 Carol winced, but answered pointedly : " And yet 
 to-day you backed out of it, and shed your responsibil- 
 ity gracefully enough." 
 
 Bert flushed a little. " It may have looked so," he 
 said ; " but I was n't going in there to agree with father, 
 and how would it have looked for me, an official of the 
 road and his own son, to go in there and fight him 
 before an outsider and in the outsider's interest? " 
 
 " You would n't come because it was n't dignified, but 
 you left it all to me," said Carol, with considerable feel- 
 ing, " just as though / did n't have any dignity. And 
 
74 The Darlingtons 
 
 you knew, Bert, that I — that I agreed with papa. And 
 then, when we did the very best we knew, and tried — 
 and tried to be just to everybody, you and mamma and 
 Ruth all act as though papa and I were — dishonest ! " 
 The sob that had choked her utterance now came forth, 
 and abruptly bursting into tears, she turned and threw 
 herself face downward across the bed. 
 
 Bert stood in silent surprise a moment ; then, with a 
 smile, he walked across the room, and sat down beside 
 her. " Confound it, sis ! " he exclaimed, " I did n't 
 say any such thing, or think such a thing. Neither did 
 Ruth nor mother. I did n't blame you, anyhow." 
 
 ^' I am just as bad as papa," she sobbed. 
 
 '' Neither of you is bad," protested Bert. " That 's 
 all nonsense. It 's all nonsense for you to be crying, 
 too. I can't believe that father is right in this matter, 
 and I have told him so. But nobody is imputing any 
 sinister motive to him, or to you, or to anybody else. 
 You are too sensitive all of a sudden. Don't you 
 think it would be a good idea for you to apologize to 
 your brother for such unkindness?" 
 
 He laughed, and leaned over, and playfully pulled 
 her hands away from her face. After a moment, she sat 
 up, and pushed the hair out of her eyes, and laughed, a 
 little shamefacedly. 
 
 " Forgive me, brother. You know I did n't mean 
 anything. But I feel so bad about this thing. I 'm 
 afraid maybe papa is n't right, and I 'm afraid that may- 
 be I have n't been as honest with him as I might have 
 been." She wanted to tell Bert of the momentous in- 
 stant when Kaltenborn had appealed to her, but she 
 was afraid of doing her father an injustice. " It is n't an 
 easy matter to decide, Bert ; and if it were put to you 
 
The Tug of Conscience 75 
 
 as it was put to papa, you *d think a long time. It 's 
 easy enough to settle these things until something de- 
 pends upon your decision. Then it is n't so easy. If 
 papa was n't so conscientious, he could have settled it 
 one way or the other long ago, and saved himself lots of 
 worry. There 's more to be said on both sides than I 
 ever dreamt of before to-day. I thought I knew all about 
 it, but — men are natural debaters, I beheve. A woman 
 would never think of all those things." 
 
 *' Of course not," said her brother, teasingly. 
 
 " But I think she would decide as justly," she quali- 
 fied ; " only, she would go at it differently." 
 
 At that moment a maid announced Mr. Cash Winter 
 below. 
 
 " I wish he had come at any other time,'' said Carol, 
 rising, and looking into the glass of her dressing-table. 
 " My complexion is a fright now, thanks to Mrs. Bur- 
 banks. How do my eyes look at a distance?" swing- 
 ing around. 
 
 "All right," said Bert, vaguely, snapping his watch. 
 " I think I "11 go down town." 
 
 ^^ Are you sure it's down?" she asked, as she touched 
 her flushed cheeks with a powdered chamois-skin. 
 
 " Yes. Elsie 's at choir practice to-night. I may call 
 for her." 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 MOTHER AND DAUGHTER 
 
 Carol Darlington's complexion was what may be 
 called a composite. She had her father's pearly, trans- 
 parent skin, but beneath this her robust English mother 
 had laid a ruddy background. This inlaid coloring was 
 always visible in Carol's face, — delicate, distant, and sub- 
 dued ; but under excitement or exercise or exposure to 
 the wind, the under hue surged to the front, permeating 
 the pearly enamel with a ruddy glow. This refreshing 
 effect Carol was pleased to denounce as '' blowzy," and 
 it was this blowziness that she was now trying to subdue 
 with powder. 
 
 When she descended to the music-room, where she 
 knew she would find Winter, Bert was standing in the 
 centre of the room, with his hat and overcoat on, dis- 
 cussing a foot-ball score with Winter. The latter was 
 seated at the piano, lightly touching the keys while he 
 talked. He was a perfectly pressed, perfectly starched 
 young man of thirty or thereabouts, with a shrewd and 
 kindly, if somewhat worldly, face. His mild, well-bred 
 eyes were without depth; his hair was light in color, 
 and rather thin ; his face v/as bloodless, and suggestive 
 of weak affections. 
 
 Carol saluted her visitor familiarly, and as soon as 
 Bert had gone, sank languidly into a chair close to the 
 fire. " Play something, Cash," said she. 
 
Mother and Daughter j^ 
 
 He played half a dozen somethings of a light and 
 popular nature, one or two of which he accompanied 
 with his voice. Then he left the piano, and dropped 
 into an easy-chair. 
 
 "You play something," he said. 
 
 She lazily told him that he did n't want her to play 
 anything. He insisted, quite as lazily, that he did. 
 She finally got up, looked leisurely through her rack for 
 some music, failed to find it, and started to play from 
 memory. It was a very informal time. Carol made a 
 mistake, and stopped in the middle of the composition 
 to practise the difficult part a little — without apology 
 and without embarrassment. Then she came back to 
 her chair, and began to talk about horses. 
 
 Winter listened to her remarks on Whitefoot's cracked 
 hoof as attentively as though she were setting up a new 
 theory of light or heat. He suggested several good 
 remedies, and mentioned their effect on his horses' 
 hoofs. Carol had tried most of them, and found them 
 failures, she said. Next, Winter told her of a horse he 
 had seen that day, a trotter, with a record of 2.20. He 
 suggested that Carol should buy him ; but she shook her 
 head, and said she did not have the money, and that 
 her father thought the stable already too full of horses. 
 
 However, she asked for a description of the horse 
 and the name of the owner. When Winter gave her the 
 name of a farmer, she said she might drive out that way. 
 
 He asked next about the new switch tlie railroad 
 company was laying, and censured it as being too circui- 
 tous. He sketched a diagram of the H. P., R., A., and S. 
 tracks on the back of an envelope, and showed her how, 
 by connecting two other switches, forty rods of track 
 could be saved. 
 
78 The Darlingtons 
 
 " I know," said Carol, listlessly. " We thought of 
 that, too ; but we need the new switch to make up 
 trains on, anyhow. It will save building a siding." 
 
 She in turn asked about the improvements on the 
 Ashboro Inn, of which hotel Winter was owner and 
 manager, and he launched out on that theme for per- 
 haps the hundredth time with her. The dimensions, 
 finishing, wall-paper, and hard-wood floors of the hotel 
 were about as familiar to her as to him. When he came 
 to an end, Carol's Hds were drooping drowsily. 
 
 " I 'm half sick fo-night, Cash," said she, apologetically. 
 
 " Sick or lazy? " he asked, in a matter-of-fact tone. 
 
 " No, really, I feel bad." 
 
 " I feel sick myself," said he, rather vaguely. 
 
 " Mine is over- work," Carol explained, with a flicker 
 of humor. 
 
 " That 's what the doctors diagnose mine." 
 
 A pause followed. 
 
 " I have been re-hearing the Burbanks case again," 
 said Carol presently. 
 
 " I thought that was settled.'" 
 
 " So did I," she returned. 
 
 " I should think your father would leave ' not at home ' 
 orders with the office boy for her representatives." 
 
 '• Papa is too conscientious for that," answered Carol. 
 
 W^inter gave her a half-quizzical glance, to ascertain, 
 apparently, if she really meant it. Evidently she did. 
 
 ^' Who 's handling her case ? " he asked. 
 
 " She has a new advocate now, — the Rev. Stephen 
 Kaltenborn, of the M. E. Church. Know him?" she 
 asked roguishly. Presumably Cash's clerical acquaint- 
 ances were not numerous. 
 
 " Yes, I do. He stopped at the hotel a day or two 
 
Mother and Daughter 79 
 
 when he first came here. Preachers generally board 
 around among their parishioners, I believe, till they get 
 settled. He does n't look much like a preacher. I 
 sized him up, when he came in, for the advance agent 
 of the new woollen works, — or something hke that." 
 
 " Oh, Cash ! " she murmured, half in protest, half in 
 merriment. " Don't you think he 's sincere ? " 
 
 " He may be sincere enough. I did n't see anything 
 to the contrary. But there 's nothing clerical about him. 
 I never talked with him any. He 's a taciturn kind of 
 a fellow, and one that I *d hate to make mad. What 
 kind of a talk does he put up ? " 
 
 " Good talk ; he argues like a lawyer." 
 "And still he lost his case," he smiled. 
 " Yes," said Carol, after a pause. 
 "Your father is right about it," said Cash, briskly. 
 *' Anybody of sense ought to see that ; and yet you 'd be 
 surprised to hear the people that score him for the stand 
 he has taken." 
 
 Carol wanted to ask who, but she did not suppose 
 that Winter would care to tell tales ; so she answered, 
 defiantly, '^ I think he can stand it. They 'd abuse him 
 whichever course he took. If he granted the pension, 
 there would be talk about his overruling the stockholders, 
 just as there was in the case of the new building. I 
 notice the stockholders are keeping pretty quiet about 
 this pension. They are quite willing to let papa 
 shoulder the responsibility." 
 
 When Winter left, about ten o'clock, Carol followed 
 him to the door, where he lit a cigar. Then she gave 
 him a slim, mobile hand, with a simple, " Come again, 
 Cash ! " and walked back to the sitting-room, stopping 
 to touch up her hair before the glass in the hall-tree. 
 
8o The Darlingtons 
 
 " What an intellectual time Cash and I always have ! " 
 she murmured, smiling at herself in the glass. But her 
 face quickly sobered. Some joking remark of Bert's 
 about Cash's mental limitations had come to her mind 
 with unpleasant force. 
 
 In the sitting-room, Ruth sat absorbed in a book. 
 Mrs. Darlington was crocheting a man's necktie, — a 
 kind of domestic work then in vogue. She was not 
 much of a reader. Winifred Colton had been a girl of 
 striking beauty ; and even now, at forty-seven, the 
 mother of three living children and two dead ones, she 
 was a woman who would command a second glance any- 
 where. Her complexion was yet as fresh as a girl's. 
 She was undeniably plump, and this plumpness was 
 perhaps unduly emphasized now by the loose gown she 
 wore ; but in street or dress costume, rigorously stripped 
 of every flounce and ruffle, and fitted with adroit snug- 
 ness, she exhibited a queenly grace. Her hand was 
 almost as small and soft as when Charles DarHngton 
 sued for it. 
 
 For years none of the family had been able to inveigle 
 Mrs. Darlington on to a set of scales, but there was a story 
 in the domestic circle to the effect that she weighed a few 
 pounds more than her husband. The truth of this she 
 strenuously denied, but always with a queer little blinking 
 of the eyes and a guilty flush that belied her words. 
 When the automatic penny-weigher was first set up in the 
 waiting room of the H. R,R.,A.,andS., Herbert removed 
 the plate which explained the character of the machine, 
 and lured his mother on to the platform under promise 
 of telling her fortune. However, as the long pointer 
 swept around the face of the dial, its real office flashed 
 upon Mrs. Darlington, and she stepped off the platform 
 
Mother and Daughter 8i 
 
 with a little cry, just as the pointer trembled over i6o. 
 She declared afterward that it had already come to a 
 stop, but she could never be induced to prove her 
 statement. 
 
 When Winnie Colton married Charles Darlington, she 
 disappointed those friends who had predicted a plain 
 husband for her on the popular theory that beautiful 
 women always marry plain men. She probably also dis- 
 appointed, by her choice, other friends, and in a more 
 essential way. Her marriage took place long before a 
 railroad presidency loomed on young Darlington's hori- 
 zon. He was then chief clerk to the car accountant of 
 a Southern railroad, at a salary of twelve hundred a year 
 Before that — and not very long before, either — he had 
 been a telegraph operator in the general offices of the 
 same road, at sixty dollars a month. Before that, he had 
 been successively an apprentice in the shops, a railroad 
 news-agent, a fireman, a brakeman, a supply conductor, 
 and a station agent. 
 
 In view of these and other scraps of young Darling- 
 ton's history, the value of Winifred's match was a mooted 
 question among her friends. Some saw beneath the 
 handsome exterior of the young man a sterling worth 
 destined to carry him to the front j others — the greater 
 number, perhaps — saw in him a restless, capricious 
 spirit, impatient of the ordinary slow approach of honors 
 and destined to send him flying hither and thither in a 
 vain pursuit of fortune, dragging his devoted young wife 
 with him, and leaving her ever without a home. 
 
 Both sets of prophets agreed, however, that Winifred 
 Colton was just the woman to handle Charles Darhngton. 
 This opinion may or may not have had a distant and 
 wholly unobjectionable reference to Darlington^s widely 
 
 6 
 
82 The Darlingtons 
 
 recognized popularity with the ladies, and to a certain 
 catholicity of heart in him which made him the victim 
 of every woman in distress — especially if she was 
 pretty. 
 
 With rare amiability, Darhngton brought to pass the 
 predictions of everybody. He did drag his wife from 
 one end of the continent to the other, and back again ; 
 but whether his course was east or west, north or south, 
 it was always upward. This partly compensated his 
 wife for the rough jostling she received, for the ever- 
 present uncertainty, for the frequent snapping of ties, 
 and the periodical immersion into a community of 
 strangers. 
 
 But the compensation was only partial. The few 
 hundreds a year ■ — later, the few thousands — which her 
 husband added to his salary by these successive changes 
 did not reconcile her fully to the loss of a home she had 
 begun to love. The added comforts and luxuries these 
 hundreds and thousands bought never soothed the heart- 
 ache of the long, lonely days, when Charles was busy at 
 the ofhce. 
 
 Once, when they were living in Cincinnati, Mr. Dar- 
 lington came home to their six o'clock dinner in great 
 haste, with the announcement of a '' deal " on hand, — a 
 word his young wife was beginning to dread. This deal, 
 he said, would take him back to the office that night, and 
 might result in their moving to Kansas City within a few 
 weeks. They were then living in a beautiful cottage on 
 Walnut Hills, around which nest of a twelvemonth the 
 tendrils of the young wife's heart had just begun to wrap 
 themselves, after their last rude disruption in Washing- 
 ton, D. C. Herbert was then two years old. Carol had 
 not yet come, but was expected. That night, as the 
 
Mother and Daughter 83 
 
 young wife and mother stitched away at the little filmy 
 garments which have been baptized in so much of 
 woman's heart-blood, her tears flowed fast and free, until 
 at last she could no longer see to work. With a little 
 gasp, she dropped the fabrics to the floor, threw herself 
 desperately upon a couch, and abandoned herself to a 
 tempest of grief. 
 
 She cried until her bosom was sore ; then, long before 
 her belated husband came home, she bathed the redness 
 of her eyes away, combed her hair anew, and put on the 
 gown that he most admired. She met him at the door, 
 long after midnight, with a kiss. Encircling his neck with 
 her arms, bare half-way to the elbows, she said, " Forgive 
 me, husband, for not saying at dinner that I was glad you 
 might get a better position. I am. And I am so proud 
 of you." But the hope she had been harboring in her 
 breast took wings when he informed her that he had 
 accepted the office of traffic-manager of the Kansas and 
 Western Railway, and that they would move in two 
 weeks. She could not help laying her head upon his 
 bosom for a little cry. 
 
 In time, though, she became able to subordinate this 
 home-love to her pride in her husband's success. Another 
 and, as it might seem, a merely trifling circumstance 
 caused her more trouble in the end. She could not 
 accustom herself to the fact that her husband had been 
 born to the legacy of feminine admiration ; such admira- 
 tion as society is always ready to bestow upon certain 
 favored mortals ; an admiraton which society has a 
 perfect right to give, and which the favored mortal 
 has a perfect right to receive. Mrs. Darlington, 
 though, doubted the latter right. Her husband was 
 all the world to her, and it was intolerable pain for 
 
84 The Darlingtons 
 
 her to think that she was not all the world to him. 
 Therefore, in the beginning of her wifehood, while her 
 spirits were yet as high as a colt's, she chafed a good 
 deal at this circumstance, innocent as her husband was 
 in the matter. Sharp words passed between them at 
 times, followed on her part by scalding tears in solitude 
 and miserable hours of loneHness and remorse. But he, 
 instead of getting angry, usually laughed at her foolish- 
 ness, and kissed away her tears, and promised never to 
 do it again, without knowing just what he had done. 
 Naturally, he always did it again. 
 
 But there came a time, after the billing-and-cooing 
 season of their mated life had waned, when her husband's 
 popularity with other women bothered Mrs. Darlington 
 no more. She learned to believe what she had always 
 known — that her husband's fidelity to her was a rock 
 upon which she could rest in security. She divided his 
 smiles and his amiability and his compliments with other 
 women ; but his love was hers alone. As time went on, 
 he less often kissed her, less often told her that he loved 
 her, but she took it all for granted. If her heart was 
 hungry at times, as it doubtless was, for a manifesta- 
 tion of his love in the old way, she comforted herself 
 with the thought that her husband was only as other 
 men are. 
 
 Before her first child was born, she had many a lonely 
 hour. The Darlingtons lived in hotels a great deal. The 
 first three or four months in a new town were usually 
 spent in a hotel, while Darlington was looking for a suit- 
 able home. About this home he was as fastidious as 
 though he intended to end his days there. Frequently 
 he bought a place, and went to work to remodel it, which 
 meant several months more of hotel life. 
 
Mother and Daughter 85 
 
 Meanwhile, they picked up their acquaintances as they 
 could. Darlington's position was always an honorable 
 one, but naturally it could not give him an entrance on 
 short notice into the best society, for his work took him 
 to large cities only — railroad centres — and the society 
 of large cities is always incrusted, properly enough, with 
 a hard shell. The Darhngtons, therefore, associated 
 largely with railroad officials and their families. It was 
 a promiscuous society at the best, without traditions or 
 the homogeneity which comes from traditions, and was 
 always changing, just as the Darlingtons themselves 
 were. 
 
 It was a " railroad " society, strictly. Success in 
 railroading gave an entry into it ; ex-brakemen, ex- 
 mechanics, ex-agents figured in it under sonorous titles, 
 after the manner of Charles Darhngton himself. But, 
 unfortunately, these self-made men had not all picked 
 up the social graces of Charles Darlington, nor had 
 they picked up such a wife as his. They were likely 
 to talk " railroad " of an evening, and to yawn a good 
 deal when any other subject was brought up. It was 
 not a society, therefore, in which Mrs. Darlington 
 found great pleasure, and she probably appeared in it 
 less often than was her privilege ; certainly less often 
 than her husband. Consequently, when she did go out, 
 she found that her husband knew the officials and their 
 wives a great deal better than she knew them, — a fact 
 not especially gratifying to her. 
 
 With her babies, though, there came a change. 
 Maternity was strong in her, and she willingly sunk her 
 life in her little ones. Darlington sometimes complained 
 that she gave them too much of her time. He loved 
 them, too, in his way, but their heads were nearly level 
 
86 The Darlingtons 
 
 with his shoulders before he fully awoke to his father- 
 hood. He then devoted himself to them with the same 
 ardor which characterized him in business. He took 
 on the new hfe which children bring to their parents as 
 their greatest, highest gift. He loved to study their 
 different temperaments, and to make glowing prophecies 
 based thereon. 
 
 Without discriminating against the others, he espe- 
 cially loved Carol. Her little shrewdnesses and girlish 
 cynicisms, her early practicahty, delighted him. From 
 the time she was fifteen, he had always talked, only 
 half-jestingly, of making a railroad president out of her 
 some day. In hke manner the mother had turned to 
 Herbert, a manly, affectionate boy, not as keen as might 
 be, but with a heart as soft as a woman's, and an unas- 
 sailable honesty. Here in Ashboro, where they were 
 presumably settled for life, these same parental prefer- 
 ences continued to prevail, and were understood and 
 returned by the respective children without any unlovely 
 partisanship in the family. 
 
 The adolescence and maturity of the children wrought 
 one other change in the parents. The caresses and 
 Httle womanly dotings which Mrs. Darlington once 
 lavished on her husband were now lavished on her 
 only son, who seemed to need them more, and to care 
 for them more. At least, he repaid them in kind, which 
 Charles Darlington did not. Yet Mrs. Darlington's 
 allegiance to her husband never wavered. She was 
 as ready as ever to praise him, soothe him, cheer him ; 
 she Hstened to his " schemes " — when he confided 
 them to her instead of to Carol — as sympathetically 
 as though his ambition were but the counterpart of 
 hers j she was as proud of him as ever j and compared 
 
Mother and Daughter 87 
 
 him with other women's husbands only to be still 
 prouder. 
 
 This steady, unimpassioned love of a middle-aged 
 woman, which neither asks reward nor expects it, which 
 is given as a flower gives its fragrance, is perhaps the 
 divinest thing this side of heaven. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 A PHANTOM OF THE NIGHT 
 
 '' I don't know whether your father will like this shade 
 of red or not," observed Mrs. Darlington, holding the 
 tie out for Carol's inspection. " It's pretty bright." 
 
 *' When did you ever know anything to be too bright 
 for papa ? " asked Carol, looking off the newspaper she 
 had picked up. "Where is he to-night? '' 
 
 " Is n't there a directors' meeting ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, I had forgotten. There is some trouble 
 about the right-of-way of the new switch. Old Mrs. 
 Eldridge owns a little triangular plat of ground next to 
 Smithson's warehouse, and the new track cuts off the 
 point of it. She won't sell or rent perpetually for any 
 reasonable sum, and I suppose we '11 have to start con- 
 demnation proceedings. The part we want is too narrow 
 to build a lemonade-stand on, and is utterly useless to 
 her. If there was ever a case where old age is a 
 stumbling-block in the path of progress, as Mr. Whitson 
 said last Sunday, that is it." 
 
 Ruth lifted her eyes from her book, and flashed Carol 
 a glance of hearty sympathy. Mrs. Darlington answered, 
 after a pause : " She does seem to get on the wrong 
 side of everything ; but I presume she thinks she 's 
 right. She 's old, and lives up there all alone, and I 
 think she fancies everybody is trying to cheat her out 
 
A Phantom of the Night 89 
 
 of her money. Her own children have, and that 's 
 enough to embitter anybody." 
 
 " Oh, she has cause enough for her crankiness, I 
 suppose,'^ answered Carol, with a slight yawn. " But 
 that doesn't make it any less annoying. I think she 
 could qualify perfectly for the Better Dead Club.'' 
 
 '' I would n't speak in that way, though," said her 
 mother. 
 
 " It is n't kind — or very ladyhke, I suppose," ad- 
 mitted Carol, laying down her paper and watching her 
 mother work. " But she 's such a stingy, unpleasant, 
 shrewish old person that I can't think of her with 
 patience." 
 
 " I wonder what John is doing now," said Mrs. 
 Darlington, presently. 
 
 '' I understand he is going to get married," answered 
 Carol, with a sarcastic smile. '^ He 's out of work, and 
 he can't bleed his mother any longer ; so I suppose he 
 has to do something." 
 
 " I feel sorry for the girl," put in Ruth. 
 
 " I don't," said Carol, decidedly. 
 
 "Who is she?" asked Mrs. Darlington. 
 
 " I don't know ; some girl in Huxford. She must 
 know what he is, and I think she is marrying him on 
 account of his prospects. John will inherit about fifty 
 thousand, if the old lady does n't cut him off." 
 
 " I feel still sorrier for her, if that 's the case," said 
 Mrs. Darlington. " If she loved him, she could put up 
 with his weaknesses, in a way. But if she 's marrying 
 for money — " She paused to observe her work, and 
 did not finish the sentence. " I wonder if I have n't 
 got this too narrow, after all," said she, comparing her 
 work with one of Mr. Darlington's ready-made ties. 
 
90 The Darlingtons 
 
 Carol glanced at it, but said nothing. She was not 
 an authority on fancy-work. 
 
 " Hold it up, mamma," said Ruth, from her book. 
 " That 's all right. They tie easier when they are 
 narrow." 
 
 For a few minutes the silence was broken only by 
 the ticking of the clock and the charring of the coal in 
 the grate. Ruth was again buried in her book. Carol's 
 eyes floated over the paper, stopping at a headline 
 here and there ; but her mind continually reverted to 
 Mrs. Burbanks's case. Her conscience did not prick 
 her so sharply now, but her thoughts had a melancholy 
 tinge. Kaltenborn's expression at her grand fiasco, 
 as she chose to think it, also irritated her in the 
 recollection. 
 
 " Has Cash's sister come yet?" asked Mrs. Darling- 
 ton. She put the question without pausing in her 
 work, but there was a subtle change in her voice which 
 the years had taught Carol to recognize as indicating 
 disapprobation. 
 
 " I don't know," she answered. " I suppose not. 
 He did n't say anything about it." 
 
 '•' Shall you call on her? " 
 
 Ruth, for all her oblivion, raised her head, and gave 
 Carol a sly, comical look. 
 
 " Why, certainly, mamma," answered Carol. '' Why 
 should n't I ? It would n't be very complimentary to 
 Cash if I didn't." 
 
 '' Of course, if you are invited up, you will have to 
 go," admitted Mrs. Darhngton. 
 
 *•' I shall have to go whether I 'm invited or not, 
 mamma. It's just as incumbent upon me to call, 
 under the circumstances, as though I had been invited." 
 
A Phantom of the Night 91 
 
 " I don't like your running up to that hotel, that 's 
 all," answered her mother. 
 
 " I won't run there much/' said Carol. 
 
 " It would be a poor return for Cash's attentions if 
 you did n't go there while his sister is here," said Ruth, 
 with a roguish look. She knew just about how welcome 
 Mr. Winter's attentions were to her sister, and she 
 knew also the effect this remark would have on her 
 mother, who had lived twenty-seven years in a joking 
 family without learning how to take a joke. 
 
 " I fancy Carol has made him about all the return 
 she makes other young men who call here," spoke up 
 Mrs. Darlington. 
 
 " You must be getting a good deal of sense out of 
 that book, Ruth," observed Carol, dryly. 
 
 " I don't know whether that 's enough or not, 
 mamma," said Ruth, ignoring Carol's thrust. 
 
 "Ruth, will you stop?" demanded Carol, authori- 
 tatively. 
 
 Ruth turned to her book with a smile, and Mrs. 
 Darlington also was silent. Again the only sound 
 in the room was the palpitations of the nervous little 
 clock that squatted on a highly ornamental bracket fixed 
 to the wall. Outside all was still save for the soft 
 respirations of the new electric-light plant, which ran 
 till twelve o'clock. From where Carol sat she could 
 see two or three illuminated v/indows in the office- 
 building, where the directors were holding their late 
 session. With these exceptions, the town was asleep. 
 
 Yet not quite. A faint, distant halloo floated into the 
 room. The girls kept on reading, but Mrs. Darlington's 
 fingers came to a rest. She lifted her head in a listen- 
 ing attitude, and then glanced at Carol. The latter 
 
92 The Darlingtons 
 
 not looking up, the mother resumed her work after a 
 moment, but still retained an attentive posture. 
 
 Soon the halloo was repeated, this time nearer, and 
 more like a cry of distress. Mrs. Darlington threw 
 up her head, like an alarmed deer, her back rigidly 
 straight, her eyes gleaming. The girls still read on. 
 Their mother glanced from one to the other, and their 
 tranquil mien again reassured her, for she relaxed a 
 little. But as she did so the cry was once more re- 
 peated, still nearer, three times in close succession. 
 
 '' Carol, did you hear that?" demanded Mrs. Dar- 
 lington, quickly. 
 
 "Yes. It's probably a crowd of boys," answered 
 Carol, carelessly, but she shifted the paper to hide her 
 face, which had suddenly grown as white as marble. 
 Ruth also looked up, alarmed, Mrs. Darlington laid 
 her work down hurriedly, and noiselessly slipped into 
 the front room, where the windows commanded a view 
 of the sloping street leading down toward the business 
 part of the town. 
 
 For a moment all was quiet again, and the color was 
 beginning to return to Carol's face when a series of 
 fierce yells, not a block away, rent the air. They 
 apparently proceeded from a man crazy drunk. Mrs. 
 Darlington suddenly re-appeared in the doorway, with 
 a white face. ''Carol!" she moaned, sinking into a 
 chair, with her hands pressed tightly against her face. 
 
 Carol quickly rose, retaining her paper in her hand. 
 She was still pale to the lips, but they were set firmly, 
 and her eyes shone with determination. At this de- 
 monstration on her sister's part, Ruth dropped her 
 book to the floor, and sprang up, with a lively terror on 
 her face. 
 
A Phantom of the Night 93 
 
 li 
 
 Stay right where you are ! " commanded Carol of 
 the girl. '' I can take care of him, mamma. Don't 
 fret ! " 
 
 She drew to the sliding-doors connecting with the 
 front room, and also those opening into the hall j then 
 leaning against the latter, she waited, with her hands 
 tightly clasped together. Mrs. Darlington did not 
 change her stricken, bowed attitude ; she might have 
 been in prayer. Ruth began to sob. Carol glanced 
 from one to the other, but at that moment she was 
 far above grief herself. She was strung for sterner 
 work. 
 
 The cries outside, as they slowly approached nearer 
 and nearer, grew more like those of a maniac than of a 
 drunken man. They were not mere incoherent sounds. 
 The most piteous pleadings, the most awful threats, 
 and blood-curdling blasphemies followed one another 
 with furious vehemence. There was no break in the 
 breathless harangue ; the torrent flowed steadily, though 
 sometimes sinking to unintelligible mutterings, some- 
 times rising to shrieks of impotent rage. Then the 
 noise of scuffling feet on the sidewalk became audible 
 to the motionless hsteners inside, and the sounds of 
 conflict — grunts, sharp exclamations, labored breath- 
 ing, and muffled blows. 
 
 The hideous commotion halted directly in front of 
 the house for a moment, and next the trampling was 
 transferred from the public board-walk to the Darling- 
 tons' tiled walk. Next it struck the front steps, where 
 it raged worse than ever for a little, and then suddenly 
 subsided. 
 
 " I wish your father was here I " murmured Mrs. 
 Darlington, helplessly. 
 
94 The Darlingtons 
 
 Without answering, Carol opened the door she had 
 been leaning against, stepped out into the hall, and 
 closed the door behind her. Upon reaching the double 
 front doors, she stood irresolute and afraid for a 
 moment, with her hand upon the knob. Then she 
 threw the doors wide open, letting a broad flood of 
 light out into the night. 
 
 Ashboro's one public night-watchman, uniformed at 
 the expense of the H. P., R., A., and S., stood on the 
 doorstep, panting, with the perspiration running down 
 his face. His cap was jammed over his eyes. He 
 held, in a grip of iron, tight against his huge chest, a 
 struggling, kicking, screaming, biting, hatless, coatless 
 thing. The latter's hair streamed down over his 
 forehead into a pair of wild, maniacal eyes, giving him 
 somewhat the appearance of an idiot. His clothes, 
 such as were left upon him, were ripped and torn and 
 shredded until he bore a vague resemblance to a rag- 
 bag. None but an intimate would have recognized in 
 this uncouth and terrifying wretch the neat, manly, 
 soft-spoken Herbert DarHngton. 
 
 "I will take him," said Carol, firmly. 
 
 "He's pretty bad to-night, Miss Darl'n'ton," gasped 
 the policeman, doubtfully eyeing the slender arms she 
 extended. 
 
 *' I will take him/' Carol repeated. 
 
 After another moment of hesitation, the officer cau- 
 tiously released his victim. He had no sooner done so 
 than the unfortunate youth, recognizing neither home 
 nor sister in his delirium, aimed a blow at Carol which, 
 had it struck her fairly, would have felled her to the 
 floor. His aim was poor, however, and she received 
 only a glancing touch on the shoulder, yet heavy enough 
 
A Phantom of the Night 95 
 
 to make her reel and strike the wall. With a cry of ex- 
 ecration, the burly officer sprang forward, and again 
 pinned Herbert's arms to his side. 
 
 "Can you carry him upstairs, Mr. Ryan?'^ asked 
 Carol, still calm. 
 
 " I 've done it more than once," he answered, with 
 pardonable pride. But before the feat was accom- 
 plished this time, the banisters bore more than one dent 
 and scratch. Carol led the way down the hall, threw 
 open the door to Bert's room, and flashed on the elec- 
 tric light. Promptly, and without direction from Carol, 
 the officer threw his captive upon the bed by main 
 force, and coolly deposited his own huge bulk across 
 the prostrate man's knees. With one hand he pin- 
 ioned Bert's wrists together upon his chest ; the other 
 he closed with no gentle pressure around his throat, 
 shutting off the appalling noise. Then, and then only, 
 did the miserable victim cease his revilings, while he 
 still glared at his captor with the glittering, vengeful 
 eyes of a throttled brute. 
 
 Carol made no remonstrance against these heroic 
 measures. As cool as her brawny coadjutor himself, 
 she stepped back and opened the drawer of a chiffonier. 
 After a moment she advanced with a little shining in- 
 strument between the fingers and thumb of her right 
 hand. Bert's shirt-sleeves were so torn that there was 
 no need to push them up to get at the flesh of his fore- 
 arm. With fingers that trembled slightly, she inserted 
 the needle-like point of the hypodermic syringe under 
 his skin, and gave the piston a steady, slow pressure 
 with her thumb, sending the benumbing morphine into 
 his wildly coursing blood. 
 
 It was ten minutes, though, before the officer re- 
 
96 The Darlingtons 
 
 moved his weight from Bert's knees, and another five 
 before he released his grip. In the meantime he talked, 
 not with forced volubility, on some irrelevant theme, 
 but with well-timed pauses, on the matter in hand. He 
 told Carol where he had found Bert — in sole posses- 
 sion of a low grog-shop, from which the youth had ex- 
 pelled proprietor and customers. He kindly estimated 
 for her the damages Bert had done there, including a 
 plate-glass front next door; and thought they would 
 not be more than half of what they had been the time 
 before. He compared Bert's case vvith similar cases 
 he had known or heard of, and said that it beat his 
 time ; he could not understand these periodical — 
 spells. He could understand easy enough how a man 
 could take a drink every day, or twenty times a day. 
 He had done it himself, once. But this other ! 
 
 Carol stood at the foot of the bed, leaning lightly 
 against it, and watched the drug do its subtle work. 
 Her pallor had given way to a feverish flush. She list- 
 ened in an abstracted way to the policeman's ramblings, 
 but was conscious of being soothed by his strong, vi- 
 brant voice. When Bert's lids had slowly closed in the 
 unnatural slumber produced by the opiate, she got a 
 blanket and spread it over him. The burly blue-coat 
 meanwhile, standing aside, made a pretence of adjust- 
 ing his tie, which had gotten askew in the affray, and of 
 brushing some dust from his sleeves. He also be- 
 thought him to take off his cap, which he did, expos- 
 ing a bald spot on the top of his head, though his hair 
 curled thickly elsewhere. 
 
 " Well, I guess that 's all," said he, cheerfully, as they 
 stepped out into the hall. 
 
 "Yes, I guess that's all," answered Carol. When 
 
A Phantom of the Night 97 
 
 they reached the front door, she gave him her hand, 
 and said, with a little grateful smile, *' Good-night, Mr. 
 Ryan!" As his thick hand closed around her slim 
 fingers and his head came down in a heavy bow, there 
 could be little doubt about his having been compensated 
 for his pains. 
 
 Carol went back to the sitting-room, and sat down 
 beside her mother, who was staring into the fire with 
 tearless, vacant eyes. The daughter took her hand, but 
 said nothing. There was nothing to say. All that could 
 be said had been already said, over and over again, for 
 Bert had been brought home in this sad plight many 
 times before. Yet the shock was unusually severe to- 
 night. He had held out for six months this time, — 
 the longest he had ever gone since his first fall ; and 
 the family had begun to believe that at last he had 
 downed his old enemy for good. Only a few nights be- 
 fore, Mrs. Darlington had returned thanks, in her bed- 
 side prayer, for the strength which had been allowed 
 Herbert in the months gone by. And now — 
 
 She could not bear to carry her retrospection further. 
 Yet in that moment of family shame and disgrace, her love 
 and sympathy went out most strongly to the unfortunate 
 author himself of all the evil. She knew that the chas- 
 tener Remorse was even then heating his cruel though 
 beneficent irons, to burn once more the already scari- 
 fied bosom of her dear boy. She knew how those irons 
 would hurt as his flesh shrivelled under the consuming 
 touch ; and she knew how he would set his teeth, in 
 his solitude, and bear his fearful punishment like a 
 man. 
 
 While a student at Princeton, on a lark in New York 
 City, Bert Darlington took his first drink. The spree 
 
 7 
 
98 The Darlingtons 
 
 which followed amazed and terrified his companions. 
 The gentle youth suddenly became an irresponsible, 
 destructive, homicidal maniac. He danced, shouted, 
 and swore ; he broke the water pitcher over the head 
 of one of his comrades, and hurled the bowl at another ; 
 he smashed pictures, punched out the window-hghts, 
 threw bedding and furniture out of the hotel window 
 into the street below, and finally, in a most appalling 
 fit of frenzy, bhndly gashed the walls with his knife. 
 
 His companions, scarcely tipsy themselves — for 
 little had been drunk — fled in terror, locking the door 
 behind them. For an hour the imprisoned youth ren- 
 dered the night hideous with his infuriated yells ; then, 
 finishing the whiskey his friends had left behind, he fell 
 into a stupor. He was saved from a night in jail only 
 by the solemn asseverations of his companions to a 
 policeman that he was suffering from a temporary fit of 
 insanity, to which, they alleged, he was subject. 
 
 Thus sprang into being, in a moment as it were, the 
 devil which henceforth was to give Herbert Darlington 
 no peace ; which was to degrade him at will ; which, 
 with a wave of its ugly cloven hoof, was to make of him 
 a destructive, murderous, unnatural fiend, knowing no 
 restraint, and sparing neither friendship, innocence, 
 purity, nor the sacred ties of blood, — a devil which 
 had since stalked through the Darhngton household 
 day and night, sat at table with their guests, and held a 
 place in the family circle ; which threatened, at last, its 
 tortured victim's life. 
 
 Bert's next " drunk " — so people called it — followed 
 four months later. In the intervening time he had 
 not tasted a drop of liquor, or craved it. The same 
 excesses marked this spree that had marked his first 
 
A Phantom of the Night 99 
 
 one, and he was expelled from college. Since that 
 time, at periods from one to five months apart, he had 
 continued to fall. Violence did not always appear in 
 the first stages. Sometimes there was a preliminary 
 mood of cunning, when he dissembled, with no motive 
 whatever, and with an art that he never knew in his sober 
 moments. Again, though rarely, this preliminary mood 
 was convivial. He would then wander around singing 
 and making speeches, sometimes straying far out mto 
 the country, either alone or with the first companion 
 that presented himself. 
 
 His recoveries were accompanied by the most excru- 
 ciating mental sufferings. Sometimes he took to his 
 bed ; when the attack was less severe, he had been 
 known to walk the floor of his room for twelve hours at 
 a stretch. He once told an intimate he did not believe 
 he would be punished in the hereafter for his drinking, 
 because he did not believe that God would put a man 
 in hell twice for the same sin. Some people were im- 
 pressed by this remark — it leaked out in some way — 
 and were fond of repeating it whenever Bert's lapses 
 from sobriety were under discussion ; others regarded 
 it merely as a weakness. Doubtless he was weak, 
 somewhere. 
 
 The anguish of remorse was always followed by a 
 deep melancholy, lasting several weeks. During these 
 periods he excluded himself from the society of all save 
 a few chosen friends. To these few he had, on several 
 occasions, hinted at suicide ; but as one attack followed 
 another with no such disastrous consequences, this dark 
 threat came to be classed with his other weaknesses. 
 With these exceptions, Bert was cheerful and happy ; 
 and in spite of his many failures to overcome his ab- 
 
lOO The Darlingtons 
 
 normal appetite, he never lost faith in himself for any 
 length of time. 
 
 Just what effect his great weakness had on his social 
 position, it is hard to say. Youth, a winning personaHty, 
 an accomplished and beautiful sister, a respected family, 
 and wealth are social props not easily knocked from 
 under one. Most people doubtless beheved that he 
 would never reform ; most mothers had doubtless warned 
 their daughters against him — possibly with a sigh of 
 regret. Certainly old man Clifford had warned his 
 grand-daughter, Elsie, against him. 
 
 But Bert Darlington was a pleasant fellow — pleasant 
 to talk with, and pleasant to waltz with. It was pleas- 
 ant to ride behind his blooded horses ; it was pleasant, 
 in company with a crowd of young people, to glide over 
 the rails of the H. P., R., A., and S., in the president's 
 private car, with a supper or a theatre party at the other 
 end of the route ; it was pleasant to be invited to the 
 ■Darlington home. And pleasant things are not re- 
 nounced by society without a powerful motive. All 
 said and done, whatever the parental pillow-talk may 
 have been about Bert in those homes containing mar- 
 riageable daughters, his social position was envied by 
 most of the young men in Ashboro. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE TRAIL OF THE PHANTOM 
 
 " Did you cover him up ? " asked Mrs. Darlington, in a 
 voice tremulously tender. 
 
 " Yes," answered Carol. Her voice sounded strangely 
 apathetic in comparison with her mother's ; and it was 
 apathetic, in fact, just then. Carol's was one of those 
 natures which the first fires of tribulation and the first 
 hammer-strokes of destiny only harden. 
 
 " Oh, child, it seems too bad ! " exclaimed the mother, 
 with a little whimper. " It seems as if all the poor boy's 
 struggles and all my prayers — " She broke off, and bit 
 her lip, while her face worked spasmodically. 
 
 " It is too bad ! " said Carol passionately, her deli- 
 cate nostrils inflating after the manner of her father's. 
 " But what is done can't be undone. You are not to 
 blame, and I am not to blame. We didn't drink the 
 vile poison, and we have done all we could to keep Bert 
 from drinking it. I sympathize with him — just as 
 much as you do ; but I am not going to let his weak- 
 ness pull me down. I am not going to accept the 
 shame and disgrace. I am not going to worry myself 
 into an early grave, or mope around the house like a 
 ghost, or — or lose any sleep.'^ 
 
 " He can't help it either, dear," said Mrs. Darlington, 
 very tenderly. '' He suffers more than we do. You 
 know that he does n't want to disgrace us all, or ruin 
 
102 The Darlingtons 
 
 his health, or make such a — " Her words were again 
 lost in the fulness of her heart. 
 
 '^ I know that he can't help it," answered Carol, 
 more charitably. " But if he can't, who can ? We 
 can't. We have done all we could. And if Bert is go- 
 ing to — to ruin himself for hfe — if it 's got to come to 
 that — I am not going to let it ruin me too. And you 
 sha'n't let it ruin you, mamma. He won't be the first 
 man that has done it, or the last. It is not a world- 
 catastrophe that we must bow before. People won't 
 let us excuse it on any such grounds. They — " She 
 closed her hps on her mounting indignation. 
 
 " God's ways are inscrutable," said Mrs. Darling- 
 ton, after a little silence. "I never could understand 
 why an innocent child should be born with such an 
 appetite." 
 
 "I wouldn't blame God, mamma," said Carol. 
 
 Ruth shook her head at her sister with a deprecatory 
 frown, and Carol relapsed into a silence which was not 
 broken for some time. 
 
 " You had better go to bed, girls," said Mrs. DarHng- 
 ton at last, looking up with dull, sick eyes. 
 
 '^ All right, though I don't know what for," answered 
 Carol, obediently rising. 
 
 "You said you weren't going to lose any sleep," 
 said Ruth, with a faint smile. 
 
 "I say lots of things. Good-night." Carol bent 
 and gave her mother a kiss. 
 
 " Good-night, Carol. You must try to sleep, dear. 
 You won't be fit for work to-morrow if you don't." 
 
 "Good-night, mamma dear," said Ruth, and Carol 
 noted with a pang how much softer her sister's face was 
 than her own must have been. 
 
The Trail of the Phantom 103 
 
 *' Good-night, Ruth," said her mother. "Don't 
 leave your window up too far to-night. It will be 
 colder before morning. And you had better put an 
 extra blanket on your bed." 
 
 " Mamma can't see these things just as you do, sis," 
 said Ruth, as she and Carol ascended the broad stair- 
 case, side by side. "There's no use arguing with her, 
 especially at a time like this." 
 
 '•Yes, ma'am," said Carol, with mock humihty. But 
 after she was ready for bed she put on a pair of slippers 
 and a loose gown, and went noiselessly downstairs 
 again. Her mother had apparently not moved, and 
 still sat looking into the fire. Carol fumbled around 
 the table, the mantel-piece, and the secretary, as if 
 hunting for something, until her mother looked up, 
 and asked, "What is it, Carol?" 
 
 "Nothing — only I thought I had left my little 
 scissors down here. Never mind, mamma !" said she, 
 as her mother made a motion to rise. " They must 
 be upstairs. Good-night once more." The girl's lithe 
 figure bent over the back of her mother's chair, the 
 two bronze heads again came together, and this time 
 they lingered longer and more lovingly, it seemed, than 
 before. ''Now you go to bed," said Carol, playfully 
 patting one of her mother's cheeks, and holding her 
 own downy cheek against the other. 
 
 " I think I '11 wait until your father comes," answered 
 Mrs. Darlington. " He can't be much longer. I could n't 
 sleep anyhow till he comes. Probably we had better 
 have breakfast a little later in the morning. Good-night. 
 Just look in and see how Ruth's windows are. She has 
 a little cold." 
 
 If C. A. Darlington could have seen Carol playing 
 
 ^ 
 
104 The Darlingtons 
 
 through this little scene, — thrilled with love and touched 
 with remorse for her unfeeling remarks about her brother, 
 and yet reined up by a pride that would not let her bow 
 her head and openly beg her mother's forgiveness, — he 
 would have seen the re-incarnation, in fairer form, of his 
 own proud spirit. Her hunting for those scissors that 
 were never lost, and her stopping, as though incidentally, 
 to kiss her mother a second good-night, were but another 
 form of the half-atonement he himself had made many 
 a time in the past. 
 
 Carol went upstairs a second time, feeling better, 
 though not satisfied. She knew. After glancing at 
 Ruth's windows, she stepped into Bert's room to look 
 after the ventilation there. His deathlike, breathless, 
 dreamless sleep had held him motionless. His hands 
 lay on his chest just where the grip of the officer had 
 left them, and the blanket she had thrown over him 
 lay as unruffled as a shroud. His face, naturally so 
 fair, was dark and sodden. His hair, still straggling 
 over his forehead, gave him an unnatural, low-browed 
 appearance. 
 
 Taking a comb from the dressing-table, Carol combed 
 out the still form's tangled hair, and parted it in the 
 middle, and brushed it to glossy smoothness. This simple 
 change made a wonderful improvement. Locked as he 
 was in the immovable embrace of the drug, he now had 
 a childish, innocent expression. Four or five purple 
 places and as many scratches on his face completed the 
 effect, just as though he might have received them in 
 rough, boyish play. Carol bent over and kissed one of 
 the bruises ; then kneeling by the bedside, with her face 
 on his pillow, she let her long-suppressed grief have its 
 way. 
 
The Trail of the Phantom 105 
 
 Charles Darlington came home about half-past twelve. 
 He let himself in with a night-key, and came down the 
 hall with a light, brisk step. It was his usual step, with 
 something added, and his wife instinctively knew that 
 everything had gone well at the directors' meeting. 
 
 *' Hello ! You up yet? " he exclaimed cheerily, as he 
 stepped into the room, his inevitable cigar in his mouth. 
 "About bed-time, isn't it?" 
 
 " I thought I 'd wait for you," answered his wife. 
 
 *' Where 's the Tribune? ^^ he asked, shuffling the 
 papers about on the stand, and frowning good-naturedly 
 at their dates. '' I suppose Carol *s lugged it off upstairs. 
 No — take it all back. I want to just glance it over for 
 a minute." 
 
 As he unfolded and folded the paper to get at the first 
 page, the crow's-feet around his eyes deepened into a 
 smile. "You knew Clint Windom's nephew was here 
 from Cincinnati, did n't you — Black 's his name ? He 's 
 in the creamery business ; owns a dozen or more cream* 
 eries around the country, and was thinking, so Clint said, 
 of starting one here. He even went so far as to look up 
 a location, and his eye fell on that little piece of land 
 next to Smithson's warehouse, that old lady Eldridge 
 owns. I don't know as you know just where it is." 
 
 "The one there's some trouble about, in connection 
 with the new switch?" said Mrs. Darlington, dreading to 
 make her revelation. 
 
 " There was some trouble," said Darlington, genially. 
 " Black went up to see her, and told her what he wanted 
 the land for. The old lady is n't in her dotage yet, and 
 seemed to think that he did n't want it for creamery pur- 
 poses. I don't know whether she knew he was CHnt's 
 nephew or not. Anyway, she held out for eighteen 
 
io6 The Darlingtons 
 
 hundred, the same price she asked us for it. It *s worth 
 about eight hundred. Well, they haggled along for sev- 
 eral days, and finally this young fellow, Black, went to 
 her, and told her that the deal was off; that he could n't 
 take the ground at any price, as he understood the rail- 
 road had decided to run its new switch around the other 
 way, in by Ford's. We did talk about it, you know. 
 Well, that piece of land has been a white elephant on the 
 old lady's hands for some years, and that scared her. She 
 dropped to a thousand in one break, and closed the deal 
 at nine hundred. To-night Clint walked in and threw 
 the deed on the table, and told us we could have the 
 land for nine-fifty, — the fifty to pay Black for his trouble. 
 So the switch will go in by Smithson's, after all." 
 
 Darlington waited for his wife to say something ; she 
 usually did say something about these " deals " that could 
 not be measured with a perfectly straight yardstick. But 
 to his surprise, and possibly gratification, she said nothing 
 this time. While he was debating with himself whether 
 he had better make the transaction a little clearer to her 
 or not, she said, " Charles, Bert is sick again." 
 
 Darlington stiffened a little, like a man who had been 
 suddenly impaled on a lance, and looked sharply at his 
 wife. Then he lifted his paper with a quick gesture, 
 looked at it with a dark brow, and as quickly lowered it 
 again. 
 
 " You mean he 's drunk," said he, stung into harsh- 
 ness. She made no answer, and his bright eyes flitted 
 restlessly about for a moment. It was evident that he 
 too was suffering, in his way. 
 
 " Who took care of him ? " he asked. 
 
 " Carol did. And the officer." 
 
 "Ryan?" 
 
The Trail of the Phantom 107 
 
 **Yes." 
 
 " How bad was he ? " he asked, after another pause. 
 
 For answer Mrs. Darlington suddenly placed her elbow 
 on the table, opposite him, and clasped her hand tightly 
 over her eyes, the muscles of her face working nervously. 
 Even in that crucial moment Darlington noticed that it 
 was still a beautiful hand. He looked at her gravely, 
 and after a while, as she continued to struggle silently 
 with her emotion, his face softened. 
 
 " It don't do any good to cry, Winnie," said he, with 
 a kind of brisk tenderness. " It don't do any good to 
 do anything that I know of," he added, bitterly. " He 
 has everything under the sun to live for that any boy 
 ever had, and if that won't keep him straight — " He 
 broke off hopelessly. 
 
 " He held out so long this time," she murmured 
 huskily. 
 
 *• Yes, " assented DarHngton. " Which is a very good 
 reason why he should have held out still longer — for all 
 time. If he overcame his appetite once, he can do it 
 again, if he will. But I know how it is with Bert. After 
 a fight or two, he lets down. After the thing gets a little 
 dull in his memory, and his remorse is gone, and people 
 have about forgotten it, he begins to think it was n't so 
 bad, after all. I know it," he repeated, emphatically, as 
 his wife incredulously shook her head. " I have watched 
 the thing time and again. I — When that boy was 
 born," he exclaimed, in a transport of grief, " I httle 
 thought that you were adding a drunkard to the 
 world!" 
 
 ''Oh, Charles, he isn't a drunkard!" cried Mrs. 
 Darlington, in her anguish. 
 
 '* That 's just what //^thinks, Winnie," said DarHngton, 
 
io8 The Darlingtons 
 
 sternly. " He deludes himself with the belief that he is 
 suffering from a disease. He fancies he is the victim of 
 a monstrous appetite that no human power can cope 
 with. He tells himself that his case is different from any 
 other ever known. He believes that other people think 
 that way too, and will excuse him on that ground. There 's 
 just where the trouble comes in, and as long as he pal- 
 hates his offence by such reasoning, he will continue to 
 fall, as sure as there is a God in heaven. 
 
 " I don't doubt that he has an abnormal appetite, as 
 the term goes," he continued, more temperately, after 
 this burst. " I know where he got it. He got it through 
 me, from his grandfather, though I was never tipsy in my 
 life, and never cared a fig for all the liquor ever made. 
 I am willing to make every allowance for that. It was 
 born in him, and he could n't help it. But the same 
 thing has been born in thousands of other men, and they 
 have overcome it. What others have done, he ought to 
 be able to do. If he can't, there is something wrong 
 with him. And I tell you, Winnie," he continued, 
 grimly, " this getting crazy drunk every few months will 
 put him down, in the end, just as effectually as though 
 he lay in the gutters every night. The only difference 
 is, the agony will be drawn out. How long do you sup- 
 pose he could hold a job anywhere else ? How long do 
 you suppose / would tolerate such conduct in any other 
 employe of the road? Not one minute ! " 
 
 "I know it, I know it," she answered piteously. 
 " But what can we do ? What can he do ? He tries, 
 Charles, he tries so hard. He suffers more than we do. 
 You know that. He suffers on his own account and on 
 ours. It seems to strike him down without one moment's 
 warning. He was never in better spirits than to-night, 
 
The Trail of the Phantom 109 
 
 and no power can make me believe that he had a thought 
 of taking a drink then." 
 
 " I don 't know what we can do," answered her hus- 
 band, gloomily. " God knows I have done everything a 
 father could do. I have talked with him, pleaded with 
 him, reasoned with him. If he goes to the dogs, I can 't 
 help it." 
 
 " I have sometimes thought if we could get him into 
 the church," Mrs. Darlington began, and then paused. 
 Darlington's face was as impassive as an Indian's. 
 
 " The church is a good thing, for some people," said 
 he, briefly. " But it does n't furnish backbone." 
 
 " If we could get him in," she continued, with a faint 
 note of hope, " he would be committed to a different 
 hfe. He would be pledged before others to overcome 
 his weakness ; and outside of the real good it would do 
 him, — the change of heart he would get, — it would be 
 a moral support." 
 
 "More so than his family?" her husband asked, 
 sceptically. 
 
 " He would have both then," she answered. " And 
 I believe, Charles," she added, looking at him most 
 earnestly, yet with a certain timidity, "that Christ's 
 promises are not in vain. I believe that He will help 
 those who give themselves fully and unreservedly to him, 
 and will lend them a strength that they have not in 
 themselves." 
 
 " Well, I 'm willing to try it," said Darlington, not 
 unkindly. " I am willing to try anything that holds out 
 hope, no matter how remote." 
 
 He had absolutely no faith in the saving power of the 
 church for himself, but he had suspected more than once 
 that it might be able to do something for Bert. He 
 
 ,/ 
 
1 10 The Darlingtons 
 
 knew that the church did a good deal for some people. 
 He had his own way of explaining that good, to be sure — ' 
 a way that the doctors of the church would have been very 
 loath to accept ; and he knew that it would never work 
 in that way in his case. But this was neither here nor 
 there with regard to Bert, as he willingly acknowledged. 
 
 '•'Will you help me, Charlie? " Mrs. Darlington asked. 
 It was the first time she had called him CharHe for years. 
 That and the girlish timidity with which she made the 
 request carried him back to the days of her young 
 wifehood. 
 
 " Now look here, Winifred," he began, tenderly, 
 *'you know I can't do that. You know it would be 
 mere hypocrisy for me to teach religion to Bert, when I 
 am not in the church myself. He would — " 
 
 " You could be in yourself," she interrupted, sweetly. 
 
 " No, I could n't," he answered, kindly but firmly. 
 " Not believing as I do. You know all about that. But 
 you go ahead. You are in, and you can do it conscien- 
 tiously. And it may do him good — I don't know. 
 All men are not built ahke. What is of no use to me 
 may be of great use to him, and it won't do any harm 
 to try it, anyway." 
 
 " I have tried it," said she, plaintively. 
 
 " Well, try again. Don't let a few failures discourage 
 you. And Carol will help you. She is in." 
 
 " Yes, she 's in," assented Mrs. Darlington, slowly. 
 
 " And she 's as good as any that are in/' her husband 
 added, as if denying her doubtful tone. 
 
 " Yes, she 's good," she repeated, tenderly. 
 
 "You get her to help you," he said again, encourag- 
 ingly. ** She can get Bert into the church if anybody 
 
 can." 
 
The Trail of the Phantom 1 1 1 
 
 " It is n't only a question of getting him i;^," ven- 
 tured Mrs. Darlington, "but of a change of heart — a 
 conversion." 
 
 " Well, Carol can help you in that, too, can't she ? '* 
 
 "Yes, I think she can," Mrs. Darhngton returned, 
 very slowly. After a moment she added, " Carol is not 
 as spiritual as Ruth is, I 'm afraid ; and she is n't the 
 church-worker that Ruth will be." 
 
 Darlington said nothing. At another time he might 
 have argued the matter of Carol's spirituality. After a 
 silence of some length, he said, "Well, let 's go to bed." 
 
 ^' You go," said she, drawing her chair a little nearer 
 the fire. " I will be up after a little." 
 
 He made a motion to remonstrate, but evidently 
 thought better of it, and bending over the back of her 
 chair, he kissed her good-night, — a little mark of affec- 
 tion that he too often dispensed with. 
 
 She sat there alone in the fire-light for two hours, 
 with no company but the busy little clock. About 
 three, she noiselessly replenished the fire. Shortly 
 afterward she dropped off into a doze, but immediately 
 awoke with a start. Evidently she had been dreaming. 
 This process she repeated until she would not allow 
 her lids to close again. Aside from the clock and the 
 soft charring of the cannel coal, the only sounds were 
 those mysterious noises that float about big houses in 
 the dead of night. Then came a more familiar noise, 
 like shuffling footsteps. Looking up, she saw her hus- 
 band, in dressing-gown and slippers, standing in the 
 doorway. 
 
 " Winnie, you must come to bed," said he. " It 's 
 after three, and you will simply be sick to-morrow. And 
 I can't get to sleep without you." 
 
112 The Darlingtons 
 
 " All right," said she, obediently. " Go on up, and 
 I '11 be right along." 
 
 She followed him almost immediately, but before she 
 went into her own room she stepped into Bert's. He 
 had not moved since Carol left him, evidently. She 
 tucked the blanket around him tighter, kissed him on 
 the forehead, lowered the sash a little, and softly closed 
 his door. 
 
 ^' Is that you, mamma ? " came Carol's voice, through 
 her open door. 
 
 " Yes. Are n't you asleep ? " 
 
 " Have n't you been to bed ? " came the voice again, 
 reprovingly. 
 
 " Yes, dear, I am just going," the mother answered. 
 The next moment she was at Carol's bedside. " Are 
 your covers all right? " she asked, feeling around Carol's 
 shoulders in the dark. 
 
 '' It 's your covers that are worrying me," answered 
 Carol. 
 
 " Good-night." 
 
 About six o'clock in the morning, just at break of 
 day, and before the earliest servant in the Darlington 
 household was astir, Mrs. Darlington slipped from her 
 sleepless bed, and again looked into Herbert's room. 
 He was pacing the floor in his stocking-feet and tattered 
 shirt-sleeves, with his hands in his pockets. In the dim, 
 chilly light he presented a wild and haggard picture. He 
 looked stooped and hollow-chested, and his eyes were 
 the washed-out gray of an octogenarian's. At sight of 
 his mother he paused, and then folded her to his bosom. 
 
 *' Oh, mother — mother — mother ! " he moaned. 
 
 " My poor, poor, poor little boy ! " she murmured. 
 
 They stood motionless and silent for a moment, and 
 
The Trail of the Phantom 1 1 3 
 
 then she slipped from his arms, and turned down his 
 bed, and got out his gown. 
 
 " Now you must go to bed and to sleep," said she, 
 cheerily. 
 
 "I wish I could sleep, mother, — forever ! " he an- 
 swered, desperately. 
 
 After she had gone he locked his door ; but it was ten 
 o'clock, with the bright sun trying to peep in at his cur- 
 tained windows, before he threw himself upon the bed, 
 exhausted, and fell into a fitful slumber. 
 
CHAPTER XII ' 
 
 " BECAUSE I LOVE HIM ! " 
 
 Bert did not leave his room until summoned to dinner 
 at six o'clock. He then went down dressed with scru- 
 pulous care in a black suit, which, in connection with his 
 pale face and subdued manner, gave him something of 
 a clerical air. No reference whatever was made at the 
 table to the events of the night before. A light and 
 somewhat perfunctory conversation was carried on by 
 the women. Mr. Darlington was silent for the most 
 part, but occasionally exchanged some " shop " remarks 
 with Carol. A question was occasionally referred to 
 Bert by the girls or his mother, which he answered 
 briefly and without hfting his eyes. His expression 
 was rather haughty, but it was plain enough that he was 
 suffering. 
 
 Finally Mr. Darlington said in his off-hand way, " Old 
 Miller was in to-day, Bert, to see about two car-loads of 
 lime that are hung up somewhere along the line. I told 
 him he would have to come in to-morrow and see you. 
 Know anything about it?" His manner and tone con- 
 veyed perhaps the slightest reflection on Bert's absence 
 from the office. But Bert's nerves were in a very bad 
 condition, and he answered sharply, — 
 
 " I told him yesterday that there had been a mistake 
 in the biUing, and that the cars had been dropped out 
 
" Because I Love Him ! " 115 
 
 at Rankelman. They probably came in on ^6 this 
 afternoon." 
 
 '' All right," said his father, suavely. 
 
 " It seems to me it would be an economical move to 
 make a change in the High Point agency," observed 
 Carol. " That man Avery's careless re-billing costs the 
 road more than his salary." 
 
 " I don't think it was Avery's fault," Bert answered, 
 shortly. " The cars were consigned by the Western 
 Lime and Salt Company, and I have n't a doubt that 
 the error lies with them. They have made the same 
 mistake before, consigning stuff to Miller's branch yard 
 in Rankelman instead of sending it here." 
 
 " I should sooner think it was Avery's fault," returned 
 Carol. 
 
 " Avery is as good an agent as we have," answered 
 Bert. " The trouble with him is, he 's over-worked. 
 He 's short of help." 
 
 *' He 'd have help enough, if he hired the right kind," 
 said Mr. Darlington, with an air of finality. 
 
 Bert, however, did not so accept it. " What 's his 
 pay-roll a month, Carol ? " he asked. 
 
 ^' About four hundred and ninety dollars," she an- 
 swered, after a moment's thought. 
 
 " And what was it three years ago ? " 
 
 " I don't know. That was before my time." 
 
 " It was about the same, for there has been no change 
 in the number of men in that office since I can remem- 
 ber. Yet the re-billing there has increased in the last 
 three years fully fifty per cent." 
 
 " He ought to ask for more help, then,'* said the 
 president, lightly. 
 
 ''We ought to give it to him if he needs it," said 
 
ii6 The Darllngtons 
 
 Carol. " It 's our loss, not his. But if an agent needs 
 help and is too timid to ask for it, it does n't seem to 
 me that he 's the man for the place." 
 
 " If he needs help, we will give it to him," returned 
 her father. " There is no use in talking about a new 
 man there. Avery is the most popular man in High 
 Point, and can smooth more ruffled fur in an hour than 
 any two men I know of. Further, he 's been with the 
 road too long to be dropped." 
 
 With this the discussion ended. Bert got up from 
 the table a little before the others, and returned to his 
 room. He emerged again about eight o'clock, and left 
 the house. As he walked slowly up street, into the 
 residence part of the town, he met several people whom 
 he knew ; but as they were not readily recognizable in 
 the dark, he used that as an excuse for not speaking. 
 In the middle of the third block above his home, he 
 turned in where a plain, two-story house stood back 
 some distance from the street, from which it was 
 screened by a tangle of shrubbery. A hght shone from 
 the front windows, which might have indicated that he 
 was expected. The quickness with svhich his ring was 
 answered was also significant. 
 
 Elsie Clifford came to the door. At her low, happy, 
 " Hello, Bert ! " accompanied by both her outstretched 
 hands, the gloom lifted from his face. She had not 
 heard ! But the respite was only momentary, and as he 
 followed her into the parlor, darkness again settled over 
 him. 
 
 An aged couple sat in the adjoining room, half-hidden 
 by a pair of old-fashioned portieres. The old lady was 
 busily knitting close to a hght on the centre-table ; the 
 old man sat drowsing, with his feet on the fender of the 
 
■A 
 
 
 " Because I Love Him ! " 117 
 
 ^Pi 
 
 base-burner, his hands clasped before him. Neither of ^ 
 
 them looked up at the young man's entrance ; which ^"\^^ ' *'^'. 
 
 might have had no significance — for the young people "'^^-.. 
 
 were hardly in the old people's presence — had not 
 
 Elsie slipped up to Bert, and resting one hand upon /r^'-^' / 
 
 his shoulder in an endearing way, whispered something 
 
 in his ear. ,,^^ 
 
 He at once stepped to the portieres and respectfully . \. 
 saluted the venerable couple. Mrs. Clifford answered /^I^ >>. 
 with a bright little nod and smile, as though she were '^ "^^ 
 
 more than willing to meet any advances ; but the old ' ( 
 man only returned a stiff " Good-evening, sir ! " scarcely 
 turning his head. Darlington flushed, and Elsie bit her 
 lip and looked pained. 
 
 For an hour the young people carried on a fragment 
 ary and unsatisfactory conversation. Not a sound came 
 from the sitting-room, and everything said in the parlor 
 must have been distinctly audible to the grandparents. 
 Bert obviously chafed under the restraint, and to relieve 
 this in a measure Elsie brought out some samples of 
 dress goods she had received from the city. She asked 
 him to pick out what he thought the prettiest pattern. 
 He did so with the quickness of a woman. Her choice 
 had fallen on another pattern, but after some discussion 
 and hesitation and comparison, she decided to order 
 from the piece he had chosen. 
 
 About nine o'clock the old people turned down the 
 lamp and went off to bed. Elsie was softly playing on 
 the piano at the moment. She gave Bert a gratified 
 smile over her shoulder, but kept on playing until she 
 heard the bedroom door upstairs close with a bang 
 that indicated finality. Bert by this time was standing 
 by Elsie's side. She jumped up and took his hands in 
 
1 1 8 The Darlingtons 
 
 hers. Holding them straight down by his side, she 
 tip-toed a little, and hghtly kissed him. 
 
 " How are you, dear?" she asked, as if he had just 
 come. 
 
 As she stood, her eyes were about even with his chin. 
 Very remarkable eyes they were, too. Splintered points 
 of light shot hither and thither in their midnight depths. 
 Their size and roundness, and their peculiar fixity of 
 gaze, gave them a wide-open, alert appearance, not 
 exactly pleasant at first to most people, — it was too 
 hysterical, they said, — but very likely to grow upon 
 one, as Bert Darlington had found. Indeed, to most 
 people who knew her well, Elsie Clifford's unusual eyes 
 were her finest charm. Her mouth was of a part with 
 her eyes, drooping sensitively at the corners, and con- 
 stantly playing under her emotions. 
 
 " I am not very well," answered Bert. 
 
 " Is that why you did n't stop after choir practice for 
 me last night ? '' she asked, with playful incredulity. 
 
 " Yes, that 's the reason," said he, soberly. 
 
 " Why, you are not sick, Bert, — are you ? " she asked, 
 seriously. 
 
 " I am. Sick at heart," he answered, a ghostly smile 
 flickering over his face. He pressed her head to his 
 shoulder, so that the searching, alarmed eyes could not 
 look into his face, and said, wearily, " I fell again last 
 night.'* 
 
 She stiffened in his arms at first, and then, for what 
 seemed a long time, did not move or speak. At last 
 she slowly removed his arms, and sat down a little way 
 off, with her back toward him. She dropped her head 
 upon her hand, and she might have been either silently 
 crying or only thinking. 
 
"Because I Love Him 1 119 
 
 Darlington also sank into a chair, languidly and 
 wearily. He attempted no defence, for all defence had 
 long since been exhausted. He did not even attempt 
 to soothe her. All he could do was to suffer, and let 
 her suffer. He rocked gently, with his eyes upon her 
 stricken figure, as an assassin might look at the victim 
 of his knife. Never had he loved her more ; never had 
 he felt a profounder pity for her ; never had he felt a 
 profounder disgust for himself. 
 
 After a while, though, this extreme self-loathing 
 passed. She sat so long and so still that the thought 
 came over him once, in his morbid condition, that she 
 might be dead. But this fear soon passed, and after a 
 moment he said, in a low tone, " Elsie ! " 
 
 She made no answer, and he waited five minutes. 
 
 " Elsie 1 " he repeated. Still no answer, and again he 
 waited. 
 
 " Can 't you say something — even if it is only to tell 
 me to go?" 
 
 " Let me think," said she, without moving. 
 
 He waited ten minutes more, perhaps, — it seemed 
 an hour, — and then said, rising : " Elsie, please speak. 
 I can stand anything better than this terrible silence. I 
 can't stand that ; and if you must think, I '11 go home 
 and let you think alone." 
 
 " Go," said she. 
 
 But he did not, and no power could have made 
 him do so. He waited again, and when a second 
 time he could stand it no longer — when it seemed as 
 if he must cry out from sheer nervousness — he went 
 over to her, laid his hand upon her shoulder, and 
 said, appealingly, — 
 
 " For Heaven's sake, Elsie, say something ! " 
 
I20 The Darlingtons 
 
 " Don't touch me ! " she commanded. *' Sit down 
 and let me think. I want to think." 
 
 The deepest abasement has its bottom, and Bert had 
 reached the bottom of his. The manner in which she 
 flung off his hand cut him to the quick, and stalking 
 haughtily back to his chair, he said angrily : " Think it 
 over from now till to-morrow morning. I won't disturb 
 you again." 
 
 It seemed as though she was going to take his ad- 
 vice, for she made no further movement. He ht a cigar, 
 and smoked fast and furiously, keeping a hot coal glow- 
 ing that spoiled the fragrance of the weed, though he 
 was in no condition to be fastidious. When the cigar 
 was finished — in about ten minutes — he lit another one. 
 This was about half consumed when Elsie arose. Her 
 eyes were hot and dry, her face was white and drawoi. 
 
 " Grandfather said once that you would probably kill 
 your wife in a fit of drunken insanity," she began, in an 
 unnaturally hard tone, and paused. 
 
 " He may be right," answered Bert, gloomily. 
 
 " He said that you once tried to kill the bar-tender in 
 the Hollenbeck House, and that you would have done 
 so if help had not arrived." 
 
 " They say I did," he assented, dully. 
 
 ^' Because he had refused you a drink," she continued. 
 
 '' Yes." 
 
 '* When he was trying to save you from further degra- 
 dation." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " When you are that way you don't know anybody, 
 grandfather says." 
 
 Bert made no answer. 
 
 ** Is it true ? " she asked. 
 
"Because I Love Him!" 121 
 
 *'Yes." 
 
 '^ Suppose I were your wife, and you were to come 
 home that way, and I should refuse you a drink. What 
 would you do ? '^ 
 
 '' Oh, I don't know," he groaned. '' But I would not 
 hurt you. I could not hurt yoic. Not a woman, and 
 one I loved." 
 
 " Did n't you ever hurt a woman, or attempt to ? " 
 she asked, her severity relenting a little. 
 
 ''Yes," he answered, desperately. 
 
 " She was n't a woman, either, was she ? Only a girl, 
 was n't she ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 *' If you would try to hurt one woman, would n't you 
 try to hurt another? If you are so far lost, at these 
 times, as to forget manliness, and even common human- 
 ity, would n't you forget everything else — even love ? " 
 
 " I don't know," he murmured, hopelessly. 
 
 Another period of silence followed, during which Elsie 
 studied his half-averted face with eyes so earnest, so 
 penetrating, that their gaze might have reached his soul. 
 
 " If you were a woman, would you marry such a man 
 as you have confessed yourself to be ? " she asked. 
 
 *' That is hard ! " he protested. 
 
 ^' Hard ! " she exclaimed, with a note of indignation. 
 " It 's a question that /must answer." 
 
 " I would not," said he, quickly, in answer. 
 
 *' And you would not ask me to do anything you 
 would not do yourself ? " 
 
 *' No, no ! " he exclaimed in his misery. 
 
 " Then you are wilHng to release me from any en- 
 gagements I have made ? " Her eyes filled with a saint- 
 ly compassion. 
 
122 The Darlingtons 
 
 *'Not willing, but in justice I must." 
 
 She was silent again, composed, sad, and subdued. 
 
 "Do you think I ought to trust you again?" she 
 asked, gently. 
 
 ^' No," said he, uncompromisingly. 
 
 " Do you think, if I did, that I should meet with the 
 same disappointments that I have in the past?" 
 
 " Elsie, I don't know," said he, brokenly. " I have 
 exhausted promises. I have sworn by everything I hold 
 sacred to be strong, and yet I have been weak. I can't 
 make any more promises. I wo7i'f make any more. It 
 would simply be mockery." 
 
 " Do you mean you are not going to try any more?" 
 she asked, in a low, frightened tone. 
 
 " No, I am going to try. But I am not going to 
 make any more promises, for they bind you as well as 
 me. You are free, Elsie, free as — " A lump in his 
 throat choked off the rest. She looked at him with a 
 great love in her eyes, but still maintained her impas- 
 siveness. 
 
 '* If I should try you again, do you think I could re- 
 tain my self-respect? " she asked, very kindly. " Is n't 
 there a point where love becomes mere infatuation, and 
 as such is shameless ? Dare a woman marry a man out 
 of pity, either for him or herself?" 
 
 " No," said he, emphatically. " If you did that, you 
 would be doing me as much injustice as yourself. But 
 as to losing your self-respect — I am not so sure about 
 that. If a man were all right except for one weakness, 
 I don't see where your self-respect would suffer by wait- 
 ing for him to overcome that weakness. The Bible says 
 it is divine to forgive, and your waiting for a man would 
 in a sense be forgiveness. I don't see how it could 
 
'* Because I Love Him!'* 123 
 
 hurt your self-respect. But self-respect is n't the only 
 thing to be considered," he added, gloomily. 
 
 Without warning, Elsie pressed her handkerchief to 
 her face and began to cry, softly, almost noiselessly. 
 Bert watched her with his own eyes moist. 
 
 " I thought of this plan," he began, hesitatingly, 
 after a pause. " We will let things stand as they are 
 now, — you released from all your obligations, and I 
 released from mine. I make no promises ; you make 
 nothing contingent on any performance of mine. We 
 are both free. But if at the end of a year I have 
 lived a sober life, and if you are then still — still of the^ 
 same mind — " 
 
 " If I love you, say," she broke in, sobbingly. 
 
 " — if you still love me, perhaps you would feel 
 assured then of my ability to overcome this terrible 
 habit. Mind, I don't ask you to wait. You can leave 
 town, if you want to, and go back to the hospital and 
 nurse ; but if you should wait — " 
 
 He could add nothing. Her answer was a long time 
 coming, but it fully satisfied him when it did come. " I 
 will wait," she said. " If you can hold out one year, 
 you can hold out forever. And if you ca7i, I know you 
 will. Be strong, Herbert," she admonished, with a 
 trembling voice, " for your sisters' sake, for your parents' 
 sake, for my sake. Don't let such a miserable thing as 
 whiskey dash all your hopes to the ground. You have 
 so much to live for. I will pray for you, dear, and I 
 have faith that it will help you ; and you must pray for 
 yourself. Pray with faith, and it will help you as it has 
 helped so many others." 
 
 At the door he paused with her fingers in one 
 hand. 
 
1 24 The Darlingtons 
 
 " Have I the right, now, under the new agreement?" 
 he asked with a wan smile. 
 
 " You made it, Bert," she said, as if he ought to know ; 
 and his heart sank with love at her coy demeanor. The 
 interpretation he put upon the agreement evidently 
 pleased her, though she flushed a little, and said, " Now 
 gO; dear." 
 
 Elsie went upstairs, and sat down in a low chair with 
 a leather writing-case on her lap. She wrote busily in 
 her diary for ten minutes, and then went to bed, leaving 
 her candle, which it was her whim to use instead of a 
 lamp, on a chair close at hand. For an hour she lay 
 on her back wide awake. Then she suddenly blew out 
 the candle, turned over on her side, and went to sleep. 
 She had decided to keep her grandparents no longer in 
 ignorance of her true relations with Bert Darhngton. 
 She had decided, further, to tell them at once of his last 
 spree. Report of the latter would come to their ears, 
 anyhow, in the course of time. 
 
 The atmosphere of the breakfast-table was not en- 
 couraging. Her grandfather was unusually glum, and 
 complained of not having slept well. He said some- 
 thing also about having heard the front door slam in the 
 middle of the night, and Elsie did not think it necessary 
 to explain that Bert had left before eleven o'clock, and 
 that the front door had not slammed then. In spite of 
 the unfavorable conditions, however, she waited for a 
 period of silence, and then, in a tremulous voice, she 
 told the old folks all. 
 
 A dead, ominous silence followed, in which the girl 
 could hear her heart beat. Mrs. Clifford, whose exist- 
 ence had long since been lost in that of her husband, 
 
.«o 
 
 ''Because I Love Him! *' 125 
 
 waited in timidity for his fiat, giving Elsie little won- 
 dering, reproachful glances. Mr. Clifford, however, 
 maintained a portentous calm for some moments, and 
 continued to eat, with his eyes upon his plate. At last 
 he shot an abrupt glance at Elsie. 
 
 " Is n't it customary, in such matters, for the young 
 man to ask the permission of the young woman's guar- 
 dian, before he marries her out of hand?" he asked, 
 caustically. 
 
 " I suppose he will when the time comes," she said, 
 conciliatingly. " As matters stand now — " 
 
 '' He will never get it ! " thundered the old man, his 
 anger suddenly bursting forth. " Never will I turn my 
 son's child over to that young reprobate ! Never will I 
 deliver her a sacrifice to a homicidal maniac ! Marry 
 him, if you will," he ended, threateningly, ^'but let it be 
 known to the world to be against your grandmother's 
 wishes and mine." 
 
 " Then it must be so," Elsie answered, softly. 
 
 *' Oh, Elsie, I am afraid you will be unhappy ! " ex- 
 claimed her grandmother. 
 
 ** She can comfort herself with the thought that she 
 isn't the first," said Mr. Clifford, dryly. "And she 
 won't be the last. Girls have married against the wishes 
 of their parents ever since marriage was an institution, 
 and I suppose they will until it goes out of date — and 
 it probably will soon, at this rate. If you will make 
 your own bed, don't grumble at having to lie on it. We 
 have done our best by you. We warned you against 
 that man the first night he ever called. We might have 
 set our foot down positively on his coming here then, 
 but we did not. We might set it down now on this 
 marriage, but we will not. We will not be arbitrary. 
 
 / 
 
 ^'■' 
 
126 The Darlingtons 
 
 Marry him, if you will, but with the full knowledge that 
 it is against the wishes of those who have always had 
 your welfare at heart." 
 
 " I don't want to go against you, grandpa, " answered 
 Elsie, plaintively, *' you and grandmother. But in this 
 matter I must be judge. I know you have my interests 
 at heart, but I know Bert better than you do, and what 
 he is capable of. I know that he is as true a man as 
 ever lived, and good enough, with that one exception, 
 for the best woman that ever lived. I know that what 
 you say about his drinking is true, and I will never marry 
 him until he has overcome that weakness beyond a doubt." 
 
 "When will you know that?" asked her grandfather, 
 astutely. 
 
 " When he has stopped for a year," she answered. 
 
 "And after you have given him yourself, what will 
 you bribe him with for another year ? " 
 
 " Now, Henry ! " exclaimed his wife at this thrust. 
 Elsie did not answer, but her eyes suddenly filled with 
 tears, and her lips twitched. 
 
 " Do you know what people will say about your 
 marriage ? " continued the old man, but in a more 
 kindly, argumentative tone. "They will say you mar- 
 ried him for his money, and wTre willing to put up 
 with his drinking for that." 
 
 " I don't care what they say," she answered, swallow- 
 ing a hard place in her throat. 
 
 The old man was about to add something, when 
 Elsie suddenly dropped her knife and fork, and hurried 
 from the room. 
 
 "You are too hard on her, Henry," said Mrs. Clif- 
 ford, sympathetically. " She has feehngs on this sub- 
 ject that you can't understand." 
 
"Because I Love Him!'* 127 
 
 " It 's all a pack of nonsense, " answered Mr. Clifford, 
 impatiently. " I 'm doing it all for her good. It 's the 
 only way to bring her to her senses." 
 
 " I don't know as it 's the way to bring her to her 
 senses," returned his wife. 
 
 When the old man had taken his hat and stick for 
 his usual morning walk, Mrs. Clifford went to the foot 
 of the stairs, and called up to Elsie. No answer com- 
 ing after repeated calls, the old lady slowly climbed the 
 stairs and went into Elsie's room. The girl was lying 
 on the bed, her wet face buried in the. pillow. 
 
 ''You mustn't cry so, dear," said the grandmother, 
 soothingly. " And you must n't think your grandfather 
 harsh, because he means it all for the best. It 's only 
 his way, and he loves you just as much as I do, but he 
 thinks you are taking a very wrong step. I do, myself, 
 dear. Just think of all the misery that drunkards have 
 made in this world, and think of the poor girls who 
 have died of broken hearts. They all persuaded them- 
 selves first, just as you have, that it would n't be so in 
 their case. They all thought that some special provi- 
 dence or good luck would take care of themP 
 
 "You don't need to argue that way, grandma," 
 answered Elsie, brokenly, but with spirit. " I know all 
 that, and I shall never marry him until he has stopped, 
 and until I know that he has stopped." 
 
 "Suppose you wait a year, and he fails to stop," 
 suggested the old lady. Elsie made no answer, and 
 her grandmother continued : " It will be harder to break 
 off then than ever. The longer he comes here, the 
 more he becomes a part of your life. You may go on 
 this way giving him probations for years, only to find 
 in the end that his case is hopeless. A girl has her 
 
128 The Darlingtons 
 
 future to think of," she added, practically. "I don't 
 like to appear mercenary, but you have reached a mar- 
 riageable age, and — " She paused at an impatient 
 movement from her granddaughter, and took another 
 tack. "If he does stop, you don't know for how long 
 it will be. It is a fearful risk. For all you know, and 
 for all he knows, he might get drunk on your wedding 
 day. Taking all this into consideration, daughter, why 
 should you subject yourself to such a terrible hazard?" 
 
 " Because I love him ! " cried the girl, passionately. 
 
 And the woman, septuagenarian though she was, was 
 silent. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE problem's SOLUTION 
 
 Mrs. Burbanks's pension lay between Carol and her 
 father for the next few days like an impassable barrier. 
 With her brother's fall and the consequent suffering of 
 the whole family still fresh in her mind, Carol was un- 
 usually tender and susceptible ; and this estrangement 
 from her father, impalpable and unacknowledged though 
 it was, pained her sharply. Yet, put herself in her 
 father's place as she might, shuffle the facts as she 
 would, she could not escape the conclusion that an in- 
 justice was being done, and she believed in her heart 
 that her father knew it too. As often as she got to this 
 point, she felt like crying. Her allegiance to her father 
 was very dear to her, and some subtle, evil force seemed 
 now to be breaking that allegiance strand by strand. 
 
 Whether Darlington was conscious of doing an injus- 
 tice or not, something was evidently out of harmony in 
 him. He smoked more than usual — and he always 
 smoked too much ; he was taciturn to a degree that 
 excited his wife's comment ; and he was more or less 
 irritable. 
 
 For two or three days Carol had resisted her better 
 angel's promptings to open the Burbanks case once 
 more with her father, and make a clean breast of her con- 
 flicting thoughts. One afternoon, while dictating to the 
 
 9 
 
130 The Darlingtons 
 
 young girl who acted as her stenographer, the call came 
 again in unmistakable terms. She had been unusually 
 keen and cheerful that morning ; but in a flash, as it 
 were, the office seemed to grow cold and cheerless, her 
 spirits sank, and she lost all heart for her work. Her 
 inoffensive stenographer became almost odious to her, 
 and then the Burbanks pension smote her like the 
 memory of a crime. She dismissed her stenographer 
 abruptly, and with tears of vexation laid her head on 
 the desk. It was one of her first " battles royal " with 
 conscience. It did not last long, for she quickly rose 
 and walked into her father's office. 
 
 " Papa," she began, abruptly, " I think we ought to 
 pay that pension, and Bert thinks so too. I have 
 thought it all over, and I believe we ought to pay it." 
 
 "What pension ? " asked her father, suavely, affecting 
 not to notice her agitation. 
 
 ^'Mrs. Burbanks's," said she. 
 
 " How did you happen to think of that again ? " he 
 asked, curiously. "Seen Kaltenborn?" 
 
 " I have thought of little else since we had the matter 
 up before," she answered, impetuously. " I don't know 
 why I did n't say so, but it seemed to me then that we 
 were doing her an injustice, and it has seemed more so 
 ever since. I don't want to meddle with what belongs 
 to your department, but it seems to me that this belongs 
 to every department, and involves the whole future and 
 welfare of the road. But whether it does or does not, 
 papa, I had to tell you what I thought." 
 
 "Well, you know my rule," said Darlington, seriously. 
 " I am no dictator. I beheve that two heads are 
 better than one, every time. And though / don't 
 believe that pension ought to be paid, as I have often 
 
The Problem's Solution i 3 1 
 
 said — that is, that justice requires it to be paid — still 
 if you and Bert believe it ought to be paid, why, I am 
 overruled, and that 's all there is to it, and it will be 
 paid." 
 
 "But don't you honestly think, papa," she began, in 
 a voice rich with feeling, " that it ought to be paid ? " 
 
 " It does n't make any difference what I think, Carol," 
 he answered, gently. '•' When I gave you children 
 your respective offices, I accepted you as counsellors. 
 I gave you my confidence, and asked for yours. The 
 property is as much yours as it is mine — some day it 
 will be all yours — yours and Bert's and the rest. If 
 you and Bert think that pension ought to be paid, it 
 shall be paid, and that 's the end of it." 
 
 Carol wrung her hands, wavering under the responsi- 
 bihty now that the step was before her. " I don't want 
 you to do it just because I say so, papa," she said, 
 tremulously. " I don't want you to put it all on meP 
 
 " Bert says so, does n't he ? " asked Mr. Darlington. 
 
 " He thinks so, and he said so when I asked him 
 about it, and I know he feels as strongly about it as I 
 do. But — " 
 
 "But what?" 
 
 "If he hasn't said anything to you about it — if he 
 has n't thought enough about it to say something to 
 you, I don't want you to assume that you are over- 
 ruled." 
 
 " Suppose you call Bert in," he suggested, quietly. 
 
 When Bert had been called, and the matter had 
 been stated to him, he answered with a confidence that 
 won his sister's heart, — 
 
 "I think, father, that it ought to be paid. I have 
 always thought so, and I always shall. I not only think 
 
132 The Darlingtons 
 
 it is just, but I think it is expedient. I think that by 
 paying it the road will be money ahead in the long run. 
 I think that it will create a better feeling among the 
 employes and with the public." 
 
 "And you, Carol?" asked her father, formally, as 
 though in a directors' meeting. 
 
 " I say, pay it." 
 
 "Then pay it we will," said Mr. Darlington, con- 
 clusively, and turned to his desk as though the interview 
 were over. 
 
 Carol lingered after Bert had gone. Now that the 
 deed was done, she did not feel as happy about it as 
 she had expected to feel. 
 
 *'You don't care, papa, — do you — much?" she 
 asked, hesitatingly. 
 
 " Care ! Why should I care ? " But there was a 
 slight intonation of injury in his voice. " I don't pro- 
 fess to be infallible. You and Bert ought to have just 
 as good heads as mine. At least, I give you credit for 
 it, and there are two of you, and only one of me." 
 
 " I don't think our two, though, are as good as your 
 one, as a general thing," she answered, with an affec- 
 tionate smile. " But this time, papa, I think it was a 
 question of heart, maybe, as much as of head, and for 
 that reason I feel that Bert and I are right. I wish 
 I could make you feel that way, too," she ended, 
 plaintively. 
 
 The president laid down his pen again, and slowly 
 swung around in his chair. " My dear," he began, 
 impressively, "there are two sides to every question. 
 There is usually a good deal of right and a good deal 
 of wrong on both sides. But the side that has one 
 grain more of right than the other, is the right side, 
 
The Problem's Solution 133 
 
 and the side we ought to decide for. A grain, though, 
 is hard to weigh, and not many of us have scales fitted 
 for the work ; so the only thing to do is to accept the 
 weight of the greatest number of scales. When they 
 say that the voice of the people is the voice of God, 
 they mean the most people. The other day Mr. Kal ten- 
 born said a good many true things. So did I. You 
 believed most of what I said, and most of what he 
 said, but you think now that he said more true things 
 than I said. Maybe he did. And if you think so, and 
 he thinks so, and Bert thinks so, we 've got to say so, 
 and act accordingly. But you see that I, myself, am 
 not in a position to see it that way — could n't if I 
 wanted to. I am biased. I have been pointing in a 
 different way from Kaltenbom ever since I first saw 
 the hght. But don't for one minute suppose that I 
 think any the less of you and Bert for what you believe. 
 You can't help what you believe any more than I can 
 help what I believe. And I don't think any the less of 
 your judgment, either. I am just as likely to be wrong 
 as you are. In fact, as I said before, the chances are 
 against me in this case, for you are two to one." 
 
 Carol listened with thoughtful eyes. She arose, not 
 just satisfied, apparently ; nevertheless, she gave her 
 father a tender, half-apologetic, caressing look, and 
 said, — 
 
 " Papa, I 'm awfully selfish ! I want to have my own 
 way without paying for it. I want to ride you down, 
 and then have you say you like it and think I ought 
 to have done it. I would n't do it either, if I were 
 you." 
 
 She walked slowly toward the door, pausing to glance 
 aimlessly at a letter lying on the table. A little further 
 
I 34 The Darlingtons 
 
 on she picked a scrap of paper up from the floor. As 
 she dropped it in the waste-basket, she moved a paper- 
 weight an inch or two, and then glanced out of the 
 window. She seemed loath to go — loath to leave her 
 father unconvinced. He watched her curiously until 
 her hand was finally on the door-knob. 
 
 "There's this, Carol," said he, as though continuing 
 the conversation, and she stopped. " The machinery 
 of the world is not so nicely adjusted yet but that 
 friction is bound to occur now and then. There is a 
 kind of world-wide injustice at work somewhere that 
 nobody in particular is responsible for. You may say 
 that is why Mrs. Burbanks and others are poor. Some- 
 times we seem to be helpless to correct this injustice. 
 I have tried in this matter to be just to the interests 
 intrusted to me, and yet it may be that that very justice 
 involved injustice to somebody else — to Mrs. Bur- 
 banks. Of the two — the railroad and her — she is 
 the least able to stand injustice. Looking at it in that 
 light, if I had this thing all to do over again, from the 
 beginning, and know what I know now," he continued, 
 qualifying minutely, "I should decide as you have." 
 
 " I am so glad, papa ! " exclaimed Carol, with beam- 
 ing eyes. 
 
 She walked back to her room with a musing smile on 
 her face. She knew just what that admission had cost 
 her father. It made her happy, too, for it reinstated 
 him in her unquestioning confidence, and called for 
 her loyalty once more. When the stenographer re- 
 entered, at Carol's ring, she glanced curiously and 
 wonderingly at the now glowing face of the fair official, 
 so recently clouded over. 
 
 Carol buttoned herself into her jacket after office 
 
The Problem's Solution 135 
 
 hours, peeped into the glass, tucked her hair back in 
 one place, pulled it out in another, and then sallied out 
 into the street. After reaching her home she kept on 
 for three or four blocks, turned once or twice, and finally 
 came to a halt on the doorstep of a little ivy-covered, 
 stuccoed cottage. The walls were yellow with age and 
 blotched with dampness ; the windows were small, high, 
 and deeply set; the door was surrounded by old- 
 fashioned marginal lights. But altogether the place 
 had a cozy, home-like appearance. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE WOMAN OF BUSINESS 
 
 The Rev. Stephen Kaltenborn roomed and boarded in 
 this house, and the object of Carol's call was to inform 
 him of the railroad's action on j\Irs. Burbanks's pension. 
 But after she had been shown into a dark little parlor 
 by the old lady who answered her ring, she half regretted 
 her coming. It did not seem so urgent then as it had 
 seemed an hour before that the Rev. Mr. Kaltenborn 
 should know that the H. P., R., A., and S. had done 
 justice. Indeed, in her revulsion of feeling — a revul- 
 sion which seemed quickened by the closeness of the 
 little unaired room and an odor of furniture polish — 
 Carol felt as if her errand was almost quixotic. More- 
 over, the fact that she had come in person when she 
 might have written gave her now, in the ebb of her 
 enthusiasm, a sense of vexation. 
 
 Yet her visit was really official, and in no wise a viola- 
 tion of any social convention j and, furthermore, a verbal 
 communication of her news had some advantages over 
 a written one. One of these advantages was the oppor- 
 tunity given Carol to set her father right in Kaltenborn's 
 eyes, and it was just this thought which had moved her 
 to come in person. But as she stood waiting before 
 the fire, it seemed to her, in her changed mood, that 
 any defence of her father was uncalled for and beneath 
 her dignity. 
 
The Woman of Business i 37 
 
 Therefore, when Kaltenborn entered, buttoned to the 
 throat in his Prince Albert, Carol's manner was conspic- 
 uously reserved. He seemed not to notice this, though, 
 — he had a way of not noticing unpleasant things, 
 Carol fancied guiltily, — and shook hands with her, 
 gravely enough, and asked her to sit down. This she 
 had previously decided not to do, but there was some- 
 thing subtly authoritative about his invitation, so that it 
 could not be decHned without a show of resistance, as 
 it were. Hence Carol sank down tentatively upon the 
 edge of a chair, somewhat with the appearance of a bird 
 momentarily alighting. 
 
 She briefly told him that the railroad had decided to 
 give Mrs. Burbanks a pension of one hundred dollars a 
 year. Kaltenborn did not seem as glad as Carol had 
 fancied her news would make him, and she half believed 
 he was revenging himself for her reserved manner. His 
 remarkable eyes merely brightened a Httle, and he 
 thanked her as calmly as though the granting of the 
 pension had been a matter of course. Carol could 
 have bitten her lip in vexation as she compared his 
 unruffled demeanor with her tears and heart-burnings 
 over the subject. 
 
 On the other hand, though, Kaltenborn manifested 
 no sense of triumph whatever, and in his comments 
 tactfully avoided the personal equation. He spoke 
 touchingly of Mrs. Burbanks's fortitude in her poverty, 
 but obviously with no aim at effect. From Mrs. Bur- 
 banks's case to his relations with his parishioners gener- 
 ally was but a step, and on this subject he discoursed in 
 the simplest, frankest manner imaginable. His language 
 was good, his words flowed smoothly, and there was 
 something very pleasing in his round, mellow tones, — 
 
138 The Darlingtons 
 
 something indicative of reserved power. Almost against 
 her will, Carol found herself becoming interested ; the 
 half-rebellious spirit within her died away, and she took 
 a firmer position upon her chair. Finally, after a pause 
 in the conversation, Kaltenborn looked at Carol in a 
 distinctly personal way. 
 
 " If I may ask, how long have you been connected 
 with the road. Miss DarHngton?" 
 
 " About two years — ever since I came back from 
 school. But before I went away to school I always 
 loved to be around the offices." 
 
 " Then you like the work." 
 
 "Very much." 
 
 " About a year ago," said Kaltenborn, with a curious 
 smile, " I read in a New York paper an account of a 
 rather wonderful young woman who was auditor of a 
 railroad." 
 
 Carol flushed slightly, but said nothing. 
 
 " The article was illustrated with the young woman's 
 picture, but I don't believe I should have recognized 
 you from it," he continued. " If I remember, the story 
 gave your methods of work in detail, and characterized 
 them as unique. It also named the colors you affected 
 in dress, and your favorite author, and favorite flower. 
 I forget what they were. I think, too, that it gave a 
 list of your social accomplishments, and mentioned your 
 hours of rising and retiring, and also a favorite horse of 
 yours. Doubtless you saw the article yourself." 
 
 " Yes," confessed Carol, laughing, " and I must ad- 
 mit having that clipping tucked away with some of my 
 other keepsakes. I don't know why, though," she 
 added, frankly, " for I have never shown it to any one. 
 When I first saw the paper, down at Whiting's, folded 
 
The Woman of Business 139 
 
 so that my picture showed, I was half ashamed of my- 
 self. I did n't hear the last of the matter from my 
 father for six months." 
 
 " Then you were interviewed ? "' smiled Kaltenborn. 
 
 " I suppose you would call it that," she said. " At 
 least a young man came into my office, and gave me 
 his card, and said he was representing a New York 
 daily. At first I supposed he wanted to write the road 
 up. It is a rather unusual road, in some ways, you 
 know. We talked only a few minutes, and I did n't tell 
 him one-quarter of what he put in. From the way he 
 made me talk in that article people must have thought 
 I was a grand egotist." She broke out into a little 
 laugh at the recollection. " To think of your having 
 read that ! " she added, curiously. 
 
 " And doubtless he bribed the photographer for your 
 picture," said Kaltenborn, amiably. 
 
 " No," she laughed again, " I weakly gave him that. 
 My father was responsible for that. I did n't really 
 want to give it, but my father said I might as well be 
 hung for a sheep as a lamb." 
 
 " Don't you get tired of going down to the office 
 every day, regularly, whether you feel like it or not ? " 
 asked Kaltenborn, thoughtfully, after a moment. 
 
 " No. I have my bad days, of course." 
 
 *' I suppose the distinction it confers upon you is 
 some compensation," he observed, with a touch of 
 humor. 
 
 ^' I presume so," she admitted, smiling. 
 
 " And you like the contact it gives you with a 
 world that most women know nothing of — the business 
 world ? " 
 
 '' I do," she returned. She suspected that this cate- 
 
140 The Darlingtons 
 
 chism was being made in a critical rather than an in- 
 quisitive spirit; and she was not surprised, therefore, 
 when he asked, — 
 
 " Don't you ever feel that contact with men in a purely 
 business way, where chivalry can have no part, takes 
 something away from you — disillusions you^ as it 
 were? " 
 
 "My experience is," she returned, promptly, "that 
 very few men lay aside their chivalry with a woman 
 even in business." 
 
 " Well, even at that, don't you feel sometimes as 
 though you were steering your bark through dangerous 
 rapids, when you might be floating on placid waters ? " 
 
 " I can't say that I ever have," she answered. " If 
 I had, I should have landed, or gotten back into placid 
 waters, for I don't think my spirit is adventurous.". 
 
 Kaltenborn smiled approvingly. " I am glad to hear 
 you say that," he said. " Don't let your business spoil 
 you, if you must be in business. It has spoiled many a 
 man, and, so far as I have observed, it is doubly fatal to 
 women. Don't make the mistake of thinking you have 
 to be one person in the office and another at home or 
 in society. Business is one of the most heavily laden 
 scapegoats on earth. The multitude of little meannesses 
 done in the name of business — the number of soul- 
 shrivelling bargains driven, is astounding, if one only 
 stops to think. Legality seems to be the test of justice 
 — as though laws were perfect ! But something more 
 than even justice is required in business. Don't you 
 know that you could run that raikoad all your life and 
 never do one unjust deed, and yet die with a soul 
 warped out of all semblance to the grand thing God 
 meant it to be?" 
 
The Woman of Business 141 
 
 "Oh, I know it," said Carol, not just relishing his 
 preaching. *' But I think being in the office has done 
 me good. I think it has broadened me. I think a 
 little business experience would help every woman. 
 You learn that it does n't pay to stick too much for 
 trifles, where larger things are involved. I will give you 
 men credit for having a kind of immensity about you 
 that we women have n't." 
 
 "If that were only all that women learn in busi- 
 ness ! " he exclaimed, regretfully. 
 
 " I see that you don't approve of women being in 
 business," she laughed. 
 
 " I don't," he answered, slowly, after a second. " I 
 believe that woman has a higher, holier work than grind- 
 ing out dividends on investments. I have been preach- 
 ing to you," he interpolated, with a half smile. " So I 
 will now use a parable, with your permission." He 
 leaned back in his chair, and folded his hands in a cozy 
 way. Under this influence Carol herself settled more 
 comfortably into her chair, and prepared to listen. 
 
 " My father," he began, " once owned a beautiful 
 Arabian mare. She ran away once, unfortunately, and 
 was never safe to drive again ; in fact, she could not be 
 driven at all, but would make a dash the moment her 
 head was turned loose. A horse-trainer, after trying 
 everything else, thought she might be cured by break- 
 ing her spirit, as he called it, and to that end she was 
 hitched to a stone wagon, with three heavy draught- 
 horses. Untrained to the work, the mare fretted herself 
 continually ; she made many an impatient plunge that 
 never budged the load an inch, and after it was started 
 she was always wasting her strength by trying to go 
 too fast. Altogether she probably gave about half the 
 
142 The Darlingtons 
 
 service of an ordinary draught-horse. Her wonderful 
 speed, her spirit and endurance, which would have kept 
 her going on the track until she dropped dead, and 
 which were the result of generations of careful breeding, 
 all went for nothing. She left no track record behind, 
 and did nothing to develop further those characteristics 
 she possessed to such a high degree. At last she threw 
 herself and broke her leg, and had to be shot."' 
 
 '^ Oh, dear ! " exclaimed Miss Darlington, thinking 
 more of the horse than of the parable. 
 
 " A woman in business always reminds me of that 
 mare," Kaltenborn went on. " Her unfortunate running 
 away may be likened to the misfortunes which usually 
 force women into business. The rest of the analogy is 
 plain." 
 
 " Well ! " exclaimed Miss Darlington, drawing a long 
 breath, but looking very hopeful, " if I believed the 
 cases were analogous, I should n't rest until my resigna- 
 tion was in. But I think you take us business women 
 too seriously," she added, lightly. "You men have a 
 habit of doing that wherever women are concerned. 
 We don't take ourselves very seriously, I believe, — in 
 business, you know. We are just masquerading, most 
 of us. I '11 admit we like to scare you men a little. 
 And of course, once in a while one of us does go wrong, 
 and makes up her mind that marriage is a failure, and 
 all that. But not often.'* She looked at him whimsical- 
 ly out of her shrewd eyes. 
 
 '' Then you don't expect to be an auditor always," he 
 said, smiling. 
 
 " I did n't say that," she retorted — rather prettily. 
 '' I don't know what I expect." 
 
 " Don't you expect to be married ? " 
 
The Woman of Business 143 
 
 "I don't know about that, either. I belong to the 
 sex which stands and waits," she added, subtly. 
 
 " I don't imagine that you would have to stand and 
 wait very long," he ventured with his dry humor. 
 
 *' That would depend somewhat, I presume, upon 
 what I was waiting for," she returned, gracefully. 
 
 Her swinging, fresh, whole-souled manner, coupled 
 with the humor that shimmered in her eyes and nest- 
 led in the corners of her mouth, compelled Kalten- 
 born's admiration, and he openly acknowledged it with 
 a smile. 
 
 " Those things usually adjust themselves, don't you 
 think ? " he asked with grave drollery. 
 
 " Not always," she ventured. 
 
 "No, not always,'' he admitted, looking at her steadi- 
 ly. He evidently concluded that she might have had 
 something personal in mind, for he added, " I have 
 never married myself for the reason that I have never 
 found the right woman standing and waiting. But that 's 
 my fault, I suppose, not the women's." 
 
 " That 's gallant, I am sure," she said, " But I should 
 think," she continued, daringly, "that a wife would be 
 almost a necessity to a preacher." 
 
 '' She is. A preacher needs three things primarily : a 
 wife, a hbrary, and a pulpit lamp," said Kaltenborn, 
 drolly. 
 
 He was certainly improving, and Carol laughed. 
 " That 's a rather doubtful compliment, but I cannot 
 doubt your intent. You don't mean, though, of course, 
 that a minister should marry just to get an assistant, no 
 matter how valuable she might be." 
 
 "I suspect they sometimes do," he answered, quite 
 calmly. 
 
144 The Darlingtons 
 
 *• Why, Mr. Kaltenborn ! " she exclaimed. " Vou 
 would n't ? " 
 
 " No, I would n't. But, conversely, I should feel it 
 my duty not to marry any woman who would not prove 
 a good assistant." 
 
 *^ Would n't that be about the same thing?" asked 
 Carol, doubtfully. 
 
 ''How?" he asked. 
 
 " If you married a woman just because she could 
 assist you, that would be wrong, of course, — as we just 
 said." 
 
 ^'Yes." 
 
 " And if you refused to marry her just because she 
 could no^ assist you, would n't that be wrong too? " 
 
 '^How?" 
 
 ''Why," she exclaimed at his provoking calm, "be- 
 cause you love her and she loves you. All requirements 
 for a happy marriage have been met. That 's just such 
 a marriage as we say is made in heaven. You don't 
 mean to say it would be right to break it off just be- 
 cause you happened to be a preacher and she hap- 
 pened to know nothing about theology?" 
 
 "Theology isn't — " 
 
 " Well, then," she broke in, anticipating his objection, 
 "just because she was n't much of a hand at visiting the 
 sick, or leading prayer-meetings, or doing anything of 
 that sort. Preaching is nothing but a business, in the 
 sense we are considering it." She paused for any ob- 
 jection to her classification, but he answered, — 
 
 " That 's all. But I should n't advise any man to 
 marry a woman who could n't help him in his busi- 
 ness." 
 
 *' Oh, that 's absurd, Mr. Kaltenborn, — pardon me ! " 
 
The Woman of Business 145 
 
 she exclaimed, thoroughly in earnest. " Suppose a man 
 were an astronomer ! What on earth could a woman 
 know about that business ? " 
 
 " She could be of considerable help, without knowing 
 anything about the business," he answered. " Let me 
 put my principle a httle differently. I would n't advise 
 any man to marry a woman who would be a detriment 
 to his business. And if she was n't a help, I fancy 
 she 'd be a detriment. There 's no neutral ground. I 
 would n't advise it, because such a woman would impair 
 a man's usefulness. Life is a unit ; a man is a whole 
 man, not part husband and part astronomer; and a 
 woman marries the astronomer as much as she marries 
 the lover. More, she 's likely to find out before she 
 gets through." 
 
 Carol looked into the fire a little dolefully, and was 
 silent for a moment. " It seems to me that is a kind of 
 man's view," she complained. " It does n't take the 
 woman into account at alL'^ 
 
 ** Why, yes, it does," said Kaltenborn, sympathetically 
 regarding her sober face. " If a man's usefulness is 
 impaired by his wife, — if she is out of sympathy with his 
 work, — it is very likely to make him unhappy; and he 
 will inevitably visit that unhappiness upon her, in turn. 
 My rule would save her from that fate. Besides, the rule 
 works both ways. I should advise no woman to marry 
 a man who would interfere with her work, — and she 
 need n't be in an office to have a work.'* 
 
 '' Well, I don't know," she exclaimed, favoring him 
 with a little unsatisfied grimace, and patting her knee 
 with her pocket-book. *' I 'm out of arguments, but I 
 can't beheve that. Suppose a man loved a woman so 
 that he could n't do without her — if that is n't too 
 
 10 
 
146 The Darlingtons 
 
 romantic for you," she interjected, in lighter vein. " Sup- 
 pose he could n't do his work without her, though he 
 knew he could n't do it as well with her as he had done 
 it before he met her ! " 
 
 " That 's a pretty bad case," answered Kaltenborn, his 
 lazy eyes lighting. " I think marriage would probably be 
 the best thing for him, provided he could n't get a new 
 backbone somewhere.'*' 
 
 " You don't think much of that kind of a man, I see." 
 
 " No, not much," he smiled. 
 
 " But it 's the kind of woman that you men all want, 
 — one that thinks you are the only real desirable thing 
 in the world." 
 
 '' Not quite that bad," he protested. 
 
 She arose with a laugh, and said, with an air of chid- 
 ing : " I 'm afraid 5'ou are cold-blooded. I used to 
 think I was, but I "m — I 'm tropical by the side of you." 
 
 As she passed out of the gate, though, she said to 
 herself that he was far from cold-blooded. In fact, she 
 suspected that he had a hot head that was capable of 
 getting him into any amount of trouble. He had ideas 
 of his own, too, which usually means more or less trouble 
 ahead, she reflected. So pronouncedly were these ideas 
 his own that she fancied some people would call him a 
 crank. 
 
 Kaltenborn did not at once return to his study, but sat 
 looking into the fire, with his lips slightly pursed. A faint 
 essence hung in the air. It was not perfume. At least, 
 if it was, — and in sober sense he knew it was, — it had 
 been individualized by the alchemy of Carol DarHngton's 
 person. It was no longer violet, or crab-apple blossom, 
 or whatever else it might once have been. It was s/itr. 
 
 Ten years before, a woman like Carol Darlington, he 
 
The Woman of Business 147 
 
 reflected, would have stirred him wonderfully. He might 
 possibly have wanted to marry her, for in those days he 
 was looking for a wife. But now, — he smiled half 
 sadly. In the quiet and solitude of that little dark parlor he 
 could warm up this girl's image in his fancy, and quicken 
 his pulse a trifle. But she herself, in the flesh, had not 
 been able to do it ; nay, should she return at that mom- 
 ent, her presence would rout his pleasing fancy. That 
 was why he smiled half sadly, and called himself a 
 dreamer. 
 
 A dark object on the floor, close to the chair Miss 
 Darlington had occupied, finally attracted his attention. 
 It was her glove ! He looked at it for some time, coldly 
 and philosophically, before he picked it up and laid it 
 across his knee. It still retained the shape of the deli- 
 cate hand of the wearer. The thumb, though, was a 
 little out of joint, and he straightened that. Next he 
 laid his own broad, thick hand alongside the dainty 
 pattern, and over it, and on it. Then he smiled. 
 
 How much of woman's story her glove tells ! How it 
 hints of velvety skin, of exquisitely moulded members, of 
 fragile bones I How it clings to one's hand, and shrinks, 
 and folds itself together so modestly ! He slipped two 
 of his fingers into the glove. They seemed to fill the 
 space her whole hand would occupy, and he smfled still 
 again, — not sadly this time, but tenderly. Then he 
 withdrew his fingers, as though they were guilty of prof- 
 anation, and smoothed their trace away. 
 
 The door-latch clicked, and the Rev. Mr. Kaltenborn 
 hastily concealed the glove in the inside pocket of his 
 Prince Albert, in a rather unclerical way, and looked up 
 at the intruder with a mild, questioning face. It was 
 Mrs. Hicks, his landlady and a member of his flock. 
 
148 The Darlingtons 
 
 "That was Miss Darl'n'ton that was just here, wasn't 
 it ? " she asked, with a slight cough which seemed 
 affected. She sank into the chair recently occupied by 
 Kaltenborn's visitor, and smoothed out her apron with 
 well-feigned carelessness. 
 
 '* It was," answered Kaltenborn, dryly. 
 
 " I thought so, but I was n't sure. I ain't seen much 
 of her of late years. She 's been away to school, and 
 since she come back, she 's shut up in that office a good 
 deal of the time. I guess she 's pretty faithful at that." 
 
 ''I believe so," answered Kaltenborn, blankly. 
 
 *'It 's a wonder she didn't drive up. You seen that 
 horse of her'n, ain't you? They say it cost fifteen hun- 
 dred dollars. It don't seem, though, that a horse could 
 be worth that much. And if it was, it don't seem as 
 though anybody could be foolish enough to pay that 
 much fur it." 
 
 " They do, though," observed Kaltenborn, without 
 attempting to straighten out her economics. 
 
 "They race him on the track every fair time," she 
 continued, affably. " They did this last fall, just before 
 you came, and he won considerable money, I 'm told." 
 
 Kaltenborn said nothing to this, and after a moment 
 she ventured : '^ It never seemed right to me for people 
 who belong to a church, and profess to be Christians, to 
 be racin' horses for money. Still, I always held, and 
 always will, that the Episcopalian church, takin' it through 
 and through, ain't but little better than a side-show. 
 They give card-parties and dancin'-parties right in their 
 house, too," — she, presumably, meant the Darlingtons, 
 — " and I understand that Carol lets some of the young 
 men smoke that go there to see her. Effie Vincent, that 
 used to work there, told me that herself. ' T ain't to be 
 
The Woman of Business 149 
 
 wondered at either, the way her father smokes. I never 
 seen that man in my Hfe without a cigar in his mouth. 
 You 've heard about her brother Bert, ain't you ? " 
 
 Kaltenborn had not, and he was forced to listen to a 
 detailed and somewhat fanciful account of Herbert Dar- 
 lington's sins against sobriety. Again he refrained from 
 comment ; but not so much this time to express his dis- 
 approbation of the old woman's gossip as because he 
 felt saddened. He was thinking of the trial a dissolute 
 brother — for such he pictured Bert, from Mrs. Hicks's 
 account — must be to such a proud, high-spirited girl 
 as Carol Darlington. 
 
 " I suppose they find their justification," continued 
 Mrs. Hicks, impartially. " But it 's different from the 
 way /was taught to serve the Lord. And when they 
 take their father's private car, and carry a party of young 
 people over to High Point, a hundred miles away, on 
 prayer-meetifig nighty to see an opera, with a lot of 
 shameless hussies in tights, I say there ain"t no au- 
 thority in my Bible for it." 
 
 She raised her head challengingly, and the hatred she 
 bore the DarKngtons shone venomously from her eyes. 
 Doubtless, too, she instinctively recognized in the man 
 before her, preacher though he was, a toleration of these 
 things which stirred her jealousy. 
 
 "I know they was in tights, — the actresses, — fori 
 seen the disgustin" pictures myself in Will Harrison^s 
 barber-shop ; and though I never meddled over-much 
 with Mr. Hicks's business when he was with me, if he 'd 
 'a' been alive then, I '11 warrant he 'd have never shaved 
 again in Will Hairison's shop, which he did for twelve 
 years steady, barrin' the last six months, when he was 
 too weak to get out." 
 
150 The Darlingtons 
 
 Kaltenborn seemed embarrassed for a moment, at the 
 close of this harangue, and looked as though he would 
 like to still maintain his silence. However, he said : 
 " I, of course, advise against theatre-going, for the dis- 
 cipline of our church forbids it. As to the essential 
 wrong in it, I am not prepared to say. Some plays are 
 good, I am convinced, while I am just as thoroughly 
 convinced that others are bad. As to the violation of 
 conscience, that is largely a matter of education — of 
 early training and environment." 
 
 " Mr. Collins put it stronger than that. He preached 
 a sermon on it the next Sunday night." (Mr. ColHns 
 was Kaltenborn's predecessor. ) " He announced his 
 subject in the paper that week, and the house was 
 packed. I guess Carol Darl'n'ton's ears must have 
 burned that night. She did n't carry off any of our 
 young people, of course, for they don't move in her set ; 
 but Mr. Collins said, in the beginning, that he was there 
 to preach to all men. Of course the lnteUige7icer did n't 
 publish a word of it ; old Nichols is bound body and 
 soul to C. A. Darl'n'ton, because they 're both Republi- 
 cans, and he gets their printin'. But the Visitor, over 
 at Munson, published a column of it. They say Mr. 
 Darl'n'ton openly threatened to slap Mr. Collins's face ; 
 but Mr. Collins went right down to his office, and he 
 denied every word of it. I won't say that he did say it, 
 but Mr. Collins told me himself that he never heard 
 such blasphemous language from a gentleman in his life. 
 Yet people profess to respect the Darl'n'tons. I don't 
 know why it is, unless it 's because they 're so handy 
 with their money. That don't influence me. I never 
 say nothin' against them, of course. They go their 
 way, and I go mine, and I s'pose we 're both satisfied. 
 
The Woman of Business 151 
 
 But I can't help thi?ikm\ And they ain't stingy — I 
 will say that for them. I suppose Carol brought you a 
 five-hundred-dollar check for the poor, or sunthin','' 
 she added, artfully, with a mirthless chuckle at her joke. 
 
 " No," said Kaltenborn, rising, determined not to 
 satisfy her curiosity. 
 
 At that moment it struck him that, if Miss Darlington 
 should return for her glove, it would place him in a 
 rather delicate situation. The thought may have hast- 
 ened his departure for his study. As he walked down 
 the hall, and his mind reverted to his conversation with 
 the young woman about wives and their capacity for 
 helping their husbands, he fancied himself introducing 
 Miss Darlington to Mrs. Hicks as his wife and co- 
 laborer. The picture provoked a smile. 
 
 The next day he walked down to the H. P., R., A., 
 and S. offices, with Miss Darlington's glove in his 
 pocket. At the foot of the stairs he halted and turned 
 half-way round, as though in doubt. While he was 
 standing thus, Tommy Scrutcheons, the office-boy, came 
 down the stairs. 
 
 "Take that up to Miss Darhngton, please," said 
 Kaltenborn. 
 
 Without a word the boy took the glove, turned 
 around, and whistled his way back upstairs, tossing 
 Carol's property from one dirty hand to the other, over 
 his shoulder, after the manner of a juggler. Kalten- 
 born watched him until he disappeared, and then strode 
 away. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 TICKETS AND CHRYSANTHEMUMS 
 
 Carol briefly announced at the dinner-table, with some 
 inward trepidation, that she had notified Mr. Kaltenborn 
 personally of their action on the pension. 
 
 *' Could n't you have dropped him a letter?" her 
 father asked, carelessly. 
 
 " I could/' she answered, " but my notification was n't 
 exactly ofificial — and I was up that way." 
 
 " What were you doing up there ? " asked Ruth, idly. 
 
 " I don't want him to get the idea that we are anx- 
 ious about it, that 's all/'' said Mr. DarHngton, before 
 Carol had to answer Ruth's query, and with that the 
 subject was dropped. 
 
 Carol and three girl friends — one of whom was Miss 
 Blumenthal, she of the daring costume at the public 
 reception and the guest of one of the girls — took a 
 drive into the country a few days later. For the ex- 
 cursion Carol used the family carriage and a pair of 
 powerful blacks, which, from their uncertain temper, 
 had been dubbed "Nip" and "Tuck." Nobody ever 
 drove the iron-mouthed creatures except Carol and 
 Herbert, for Mr. Darlington was no lover of horses, and 
 Mrs. Darlington was afraid of them. Carol was really 
 the only one who found any pleasure in handling the pair. 
 
 i 
 
Tickets and Chrysanthemums 153 
 
 Their tremendous power, with its element of danger, 
 fascinated her; and it was her delight to swing them 
 around corners, or guide them safely through the tangle 
 of farmers' teams in Main Street on a Saturday after- 
 noon, or to bring them up prancing and snorting when 
 they grew too high-spirited. Neither Bert nor her 
 father, when either happened to be with her on such 
 occasions, ever thought of offering her any assistance. 
 She would have resented it if they had. 
 
 The drive ended with an inspection of the H. P., R., 
 A., and S. shops. The master mechanic himself, after 
 calling a shopman to watch the horses, led the way ; and 
 the girls trooped along behind, daintily screening their 
 dresses from the omnipresent grease and oil, and tip- 
 toeing around castings, through steel filings and mould- 
 ing-sand. From the shops they walked over to the 
 round-house, half a block away. A locomotive had just 
 been housed and was still under steam. Two wipers 
 were at work upon her, while a portly man in overalls, 
 with a tight-fitting cap drawn over his closely cropped 
 head, stood by, pipe in mouth, and watched them work. 
 
 "May I run her out to the tank and back, Mr. 
 Reagan? " asked Carol, with a venturesome light in her 
 eyes. 
 
 " I don't know why you should n't, Miss Darhngton, 
 as long as your paw ain't around," answered the en- 
 gineer, with a good-natured smile ; and, one after an- 
 other, he swung the young women to the high step of 
 the cab. 
 
 " My ! I never knew how big an engine was be- 
 fore ! " exclaimed Miss Blumenthal, looking with awe at 
 the end of the boiler, with its intricacy of cocks, water- 
 glasses, and levers. " No wonder it can pull. Do you 
 
154 The Darlingtons 
 
 know how to work all those thmgs? Have you ever run 
 one before?" she demanded of Carol, doubtfully. 
 
 " Well, once or twice," answered Carol, boastfully, as 
 she climbed up on the engineer's leather-covered seat, 
 and tucked her skirts out of harm's way. Two of the 
 girls mounted excitedly and half-fearfully to the fire- 
 man's seat. 
 
 " Well, for goodness' sake, don't let it get away ! " 
 exclaimed Miss Blumenthal, who preferred to stand, 
 presumably in case it became necessary to jump. 
 
 "A locomotive is a she, Rose, not an it,'' explained 
 Carol, with a covert laugh, as she threw forward the 
 reverse lever. 
 
 " An Amazon, then," retorted Rose, with bated 
 breath and sparkling eyes, as Carol laid a gloved hand 
 upon the throttle and cautiously pulled it partly open. 
 With sharp, long-drawn hisses — Carol had opened the 
 cylinder-cocks — the ponderous machine jarred forward 
 at a snail's pace, rumbled over the quaking turn-table, 
 quickened its speed a trifle, — Miss Blumenthal gasped, 
 — and then slowed down and stopped at the water-tank, 
 a few rods further on. Carol reversed the lever dexter- 
 ously, turned in the steam again, and they started back. 
 
 " I have n't breathed since I got up there ! " declared 
 Miss Dane, as Reagan lifted her down. 
 
 " I was deathly afraid a spring or something would 
 break, and let all the steam out, or in, or whatever 
 makes it go, and send us all to destruction ! " cried Miss 
 Blumenthal. " I mean, whatever makes her go," she 
 corrected, slyly. 
 
 " You girls must have lots of faith in me," complained 
 Carol. " And you would all make fine men, especially 
 engineers. Imagine yourselves in that cab at midnight; 
 
Tickets and Chrysanthemums 155 
 
 — a driving rain — chances for a washout — pitchy 
 dark — able to see about forty feet ahead — three or 
 four hundred souls behind you, all in your hands — and 
 nothing between you and death except a score or more 
 of forty-dollar-a-month switchmen, who may or may not 
 be sober ! " She turned and gave the engineer a kind 
 of fraternal glance. 
 
 He nodded approval. " I could n't tell the story 
 better myself/' he answered. 
 
 When Carol was again in the carriage, pulling on the 
 mouths of Nip and Tuck, she said, laughing : " Reagan 
 looked immensely heroic under that panegyric of mine, 
 and he is ; but as a matter of fact, he 's a poor engineer. 
 He worked in the shops too long. He 's too much of 
 a mechanic. He knows too much about the delicate 
 parts of a locomotive, and he won't ptish her. If he 
 ever gets behind time, he '11 stay there, nine times out 
 of ten, to the end of the run. You see, he knows the 
 delicate parts of an engine ; he 's afraid something will 
 break. If he had never been in the shops, he would n't 
 have that fear ; and to be a good engineer, you Ve got to 
 take chances on something breaking." 
 
 "How do you know so much about it, my dear?'' 
 demanded Rose, pertly. 
 
 "Because my papa has told me!" laughed Carol, 
 with a grimace. 
 
 As the carriage rumbled down a smooth, shady street, 
 Carol saw ahead on the sidewalk a man who attracted 
 her attention, not so much by his size as by the mus- 
 cularity of his movements. She almost immediately 
 recognized the figure as Kaltenborn's. He was coming 
 toward them, plowing along with the momentum, ap- 
 parently, of a steamboat. She was conscious, for per- 
 
156 The Darlingtons 
 
 haps the twentieth time in her brief acquaintance with 
 him, of noting that he did not look Hke a preacher, 
 or indeed any other professional man. There was a 
 lack of suavity. Nor did he look like a merchant — 
 there was a lack of spruceness, or deference, or some- 
 thing else. He looked like a man interested in mining- 
 stock, she fancied, — smiling at the idea, — or canals, or 
 something else that she had only the haziest knowledge of. 
 
 She was just on the point of bowing to him when one 
 of the horses stumbled, and she was conscious an 
 instant later of having turned her eyes from Kaltenborn 
 without acknowledging his unmistakable glance of recog- 
 nition. At the same instant the wind whisked her 
 handkerchief off her lap and out of the carriage. She 
 saw Kaltenborn leave the sidewalk, and a moment later 
 he came deliberately up with the handkerchief in his 
 hand. Carol half turned, with an exclamation of thanks 
 on her lips, — a little more profuse than she would have 
 made it under other circumstances, — and partly extended 
 her hand. Kaltenborn seemed not to notice the move- 
 ment, for he lifted his hat and placed the handkerchief 
 in the hands of Miss Blumenthal, who occupied the 
 back seat. She exclaimed, with her ready vdvacity, 
 " Oh, thank you, sir ! You are very kind ! " 
 
 Carol was ashamed of her childishness, but for some 
 reason she felt vexed at Kaltenborn's oversight, and she 
 gave the horses a sharp cluck that sent them dancing on. 
 
 " Who is he ? '' asked Rose, coquettishly. " I have 
 never seen him before. If I had met him in Berlin, 1 
 should have set him down, off-hand, for a German baron." 
 
 " He 's a preacher,*' answered Carol, her good-humor 
 not quite recovered. *'\Vhat is there baronial about 
 him?" 
 
Tickets and Chrysanthemums 157 
 
 '^Why," cried Rose, "that Bismarckian valor, those 
 blood-and-iron eyes, and that sublime indifference. We 
 did n't move him any more than a bevy of tots out with 
 their nurses." 
 
 After letting the girls out at their respective places, 
 Carol walked the horses homeward. The thought had 
 crossed her mind that possibly there had been some 
 method in Kaltenborn's returning her handkerchief to 
 Miss Blumenthal. She wondered if he had been absurd 
 enough to take offence at her apparent slight. She 
 smiled at the idea. No one who knew her, no one in 
 her " set," would have dreamed of doubting her breeding 
 so easily ; but this man with his revolutionary notions ! 
 Well, he did not know her, was all she would allow her- 
 self to think — except that very likely he was of a sensi- 
 tive nature. Altogether, she was sorry the thing had 
 happened. But it really did not matter. She might 
 not meet him again for months, if ever, except in the 
 street. Still, she would rather have his good than his ill 
 opinion. 
 
 She did meet him again, though, a week later. One 
 of her ticket-checkers, a young woman who lived out 
 five miles on the line, and rode to and from her work 
 daily on the cars, had been sick for several weeks. 
 Her reports and tickets were in such shape, necessarily, 
 that none of the other checkers could straighten them 
 out. The first of the month approaching, when Carol's 
 tabulated statements of the month's business were due, 
 she one afternoon ordered the whole mass of accumu- 
 lated material bundled up, and drove out to Clifton in 
 a single-seated buggy drawn by the two blacks. No 
 stretches of sand could retard the77i, which was hardly 
 the case with Whitefoot. 
 
158 The Darlingtons 
 
 She found the girl sitting up, close to a stove, and 
 carefully wrapped against any possible draughts. She 
 might have shivered at her visitor's entrance, for Carol 
 swept into the stuffy sick-room like a puff of fresh air, 
 with her tawny hair, blown around her temples, looking 
 a shade lighter by contrast with her wind-flushed cheeks. 
 
 She dropped her bundle of tickets on the floor just 
 inside the door, as she entered, and sat down. The 
 closeness of the room at once oppressed her, and she 
 began to unbutton her jacket. The mother of the girl 
 stood back timidly, half-awed, even before she knew who 
 Carol was, by that indefinable possession which marked 
 the visitor as belonging to another world. When the 
 girl introduced the two, the older woman extended a 
 thin, toil-worn hand, in a hesitating way, and glanced 
 at her daughter, — apparently to ascertain the propriety 
 of the act. 
 
 " I am glad to see you up, Lizzie," said Carol, cor- 
 dially. " Have you been very sick ? " 
 
 " I 'm a great deal better, thank you," answered the 
 girl, with a flush of pleasure on her pale face. " I hope 
 to go to work Monday. The doctor says I ought not, 
 for another week ; but I know, if I get to work, I '11 im- 
 prove faster. I 'm so restless here all day." 
 
 ^' She 's been frettin' about losin' her place, if she 
 stayed away too long," interrupted the mother, with a 
 smile meant to express the absurdity of such fretting. 
 " But I told her she need n't worry about that. Her 
 father worked too long for the road for Mr. Darl'n'ton 
 to turn her off for a spell of sickness." 
 
 The convalescent shot a warning glance at her mother 
 ■ — which the latter seemed to be entirely prepared for — 
 and hastened to explain, with another flush, — 
 
Tickets and Chrysanthemums 159 
 
 *' I don't know as I worried about that so much. I 
 guess I 'm not very patient. But everything seemed to 
 wear on my nerves so, and I hate to think of my work 
 getting behind, with the reports coming on." 
 
 " You get your mind off those reports," said Carol, 
 practically. " You must n't go out before you are well. 
 There is nothing gained by tliat, you know. A relapse 
 in the case of grip is very bad, they say, and no doubt 
 it 's grip you have." 
 
 " That 's just what I 've been tellin' her, Miss 
 Darl'n'ton," broke in the mother again, with an air of 
 triumph. '' Go out a week too soon, and then come 
 back for a month. I told her you 'd understand that, 
 and would n't expect her back before she was well and 
 strong again. But she would have it — " 
 
 " Yes, I know," interrupted the daughter, as if fearful 
 of another indiscretion on the part of her mother. " I 
 keep worrying about my work when I know I ought n't 
 to, but somehow I can't help it." 
 
 ''' I can sympathize with you there," said Carol, drop- 
 ping her eyes, with a shifting movement, to the bundle 
 of tickets, which Lizzie's mother had been furtively 
 eyeing. "When I'm sick, — which is not very often, 
 I 'm thankful to say, — I am doing my work night and 
 day." 
 
 " There 's been so much grip out this way, this fall," 
 said Lizzie's mother ; '• and we 've had one death," she 
 added, impressively. " Mr. Hatch's little girl. The 
 third death in the family in two years. Maybe you 
 know him. They used to live in town." 
 
 Carol shook her head, and said " No,'' and Lizzie 
 began, as if doubting Miss Darlington's interest in 
 Clifton affairs : " It 's very kind of you to call, Miss 
 
i6o The Darlingtons 
 
 Darlington. It 's so lonesome out here, shut up in 
 the house, especially in the fall. Everything is so 
 melancholy then, anyway, — to me. There 's no com- 
 pany here whatever. I used to think I 'd like to be 
 agent here, after father died, but I don't beheve I could 
 stand it now — after going to town every day for so long." 
 
 " There 's worse holes than Clifton, Lizzie," said her 
 mother, reprovingly, — a statement which Carol rather 
 doubted. " Still, I will say," she added, in extenuation 
 of her daughter's remark, "that there's nobody here 
 that we care much to associate with. We don't have 
 much in common with these people, Lizzie working in 
 town, and us both goin' to church there." This last 
 with a touch of pride. " There 's few enough here 
 that go to church anywhere, for that matter," she added. 
 
 A mild light shone from Carol's eyes which might 
 possibly have become a smile under other circumstances. 
 "I can see how that is," she said. After a momentary 
 pause she added : " Lizzie, I bundled up your tickets 
 before I came out, and brought them along. I thought 
 perhaps, if you could straighten them out with me, the 
 other girls could go on with the work, and the reports 
 would n't be delayed very much, after all. But if you 
 don't feel like it, you must say so." 
 
 " Oh, no ! " exclaimed the girl, with an eager glance 
 toward the bundle. " Leave them here, and I '11 fix 
 them up alone. I 'd sooner do it than not. It will be 
 a relief to have something to do, and to know that my 
 work is not getting behind. I thought once of writing 
 to you and asking you to do that very thing," she con- 
 tinued, happily, ^^but I was afraid you wouldn't like to 
 have the tickets go out of the office." 
 
 " So long as you take good care of them, and grab 
 
Tickets and Chrysanthemums i6i 
 
 them the first thing in case of fire," laughed Caro!. " I 
 brought a bottle of red ink along, too, and your red-ink 
 pen. I forgot tabulating blanks, but you can rule up 
 any paper for that. Or I '11 send them out in the morn- 
 ing on No. 12. That will be best," she added, defi- 
 nitely, the thought striking her that paper might not be 
 as plentiful in that household as in her own. " In the 
 meantime, you can be sorting the tickets and getting 
 ready." 
 
 When the ticket question had been disposed of, and 
 while Carol was waiting a decent length of time before 
 rising, Lizzie's mother asked, — 
 
 *' Did you meet Mr. Kaltenborn coming out, Miss 
 Darl'n'ton ? " 
 
 "Mr. who?" asked Carol, though she had heard 
 distinctly. 
 
 " Kaltenborn," said Lizzie. " He *s our new minister. 
 You know we attend the Methodist Church. He left 
 here just before you came." 
 
 "No, I didn't meet him," answered Carol. ''Per- 
 haps he took the other road. I came out the hay- 
 meadow road. It 's better driving, I think." 
 
 " He walked," explained Lizzie, with a laugh, though 
 it was plain that this divulging of their pastor's lowly 
 means of travel humihated the older woman. " I never 
 saw such a man to walk," Lizzie ran on, perhaps to 
 soothe her mother's pride. ^' He walks out here in a 
 little over an hour. Sometimes he drives, and some- 
 times he comes on the train, but in fine weather, he says, 
 he prefers to walk." 
 
 " He says it 's a rehef from studyin' so much/' added 
 the motherj sedately. 
 
 "He brought me those," said Lizzie, pointing with a 
 
 II 
 
1 62 The Darlingtons 
 
 glow of pride and pleasure to a cluster of chrysan- 
 themums in a vase on the table. 
 
 " Oh, how beautiful ! " exclaimed Carol. " And how 
 thoughtful," she added, quite sure that the flowers had 
 come from a greenhouse. " And I brought tickets ! " 
 she exclaimed, self-accusingly. 
 
 "I wouldn't want him to hear me say it/' began 
 Lizzie, " for it was very, very kind in him to bring them, 
 but I beHeve the tickets v/ill do me more good than the 
 flowers. But I appreciate them just as much," she 
 added, conscientiously. 
 
 "Of course you do!" said Carol. "Which you 
 can't say of the tickets. But how do you like Mr. 
 Kaltenborn as a minister?" 
 
 " I think he ^s lovely ! " answered the girl, enthusi- 
 astically, her earlier timidity all gone. "And I guess 
 most of the other members do. At first, I did n't. He 
 seemed at first to be — well, I don't know — kind of 
 cross, don't you know. Not that, either, but — well, 
 unfeehng and arbitrary. But he 's just the opposite. 
 He 's as kind and thoughtful as he can be. Of course, 
 there are a few who don't like him," she added, truth- 
 fully, 
 
 "Some sore-heads," contemptuously interposed her 
 mother, who was also growing bolder. 
 
 ''Well, some of the older people," qualified Lizzie* 
 " some who wanted Mr. Collins returned. They don't 
 think Mr. Kaltenborn is spiritual enough. They say 
 he preaches too much about this life, and not enough 
 about the life hereafter. He does, for that matter. 
 That is, he says that if people know how to live, they 
 will know how to die. He says * Thy kingdom come,* 
 in the Lord's prayer, means for us to bring the heavenly 
 
Tickets and Chrysanthemums 163 
 
 kingdom to earth, and not to wait till we die to get to 
 it. He is all the time saying that it is not only people's 
 right, but their duty, to be cheerful and happy, and to 
 get the most they can out of hfe. You know there are 
 some people who think that 's pretty near heresy," she 
 added, with a quaint little learned look, while her eyes 
 gleamed at her own daring handling of the subject. 
 "That is, I suppose they really beheve that we ought 
 to be happy here, but they don't think it ought to be 
 preached. They think a preacher's business is to talk 
 about the other world. But I don't ! " she exclaimed, 
 emphatically. " And most young people don't. He 's 
 very popular with the young people." 
 
 " Even though he won't let them dance ! " smiled 
 Carol. 
 
 "Well, the discipline forbids that, you know," said 
 Lizzie, more soberly, and Carol felt that any jests along 
 this line would be out of order. So she added, humor- 
 ously, — 
 
 " I can just fancy Mr. Kaltenborn — I have met him 
 once or twice — at loggerheads with some of those 
 strait-laced old fellows. If it ever comes to a battle, I 
 imagine it will be something royal," she laughed. 
 
 " It has once already — in a stewards' meeting ! " 
 exclaimed Lizzie, with the exultation of a partisan. 
 " Old Eldridge Betts got up and told Mr. Kaltenborn 
 that he would have to stop ladling out that worldly 
 slush, or he would n't pay another dollar of quarterage." 
 
 ^^ Rot, he said, Lizzie," corrected the mother, demurely. 
 
 " Well, something like that ; and Mr. Kaltenborn got 
 up, pretty red in the face, they say, and told old Eld- 
 ridge that as long as he was in the pulpit he would ladle 
 out what he saw fit ; and that he 'd ladle it out free of 
 
164 The Darlingtons 
 
 charge, if any dissenting members did n*t see fit to keep 
 their pledges in the way of quarterage ; and that when 
 the majority of the members of the church got tired of 
 his brand of — I don't know what he called it — he'd 
 step down and out — and not before." 
 
 Carol laughed again, with genuine enjoyment ; and 
 after listening to a few more instances of the inharmonies 
 in the Methodist Church, she took her departure. 
 
 ^ 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 A MATTER OF HORSEMANSHIP 
 
 When Carol was seated in the buggy again, the " marsh " 
 road — the one Kaltenborn must have taken — stretched 
 straight away before her. The other and better road — 
 the one over which she had come — lay behind. She 
 lifted the lines aimlessly, and the horses, after a moment 
 of sagacious hesitation, went straight ahead down the 
 marsh road. Had they turned around, Carol would 
 have let them go that way, she told herself. 
 
 The day was a perfect type of Indian summer — 
 blue atmosphere, warm sunshine, painted fohage. The 
 goldenrod flaunted its plumes along the roadside ; the 
 fields had a brown, demure, rested look, as though their 
 work was done, and well done, and they were waiting 
 to be put to sleep under their blankets of snow. Here 
 and there a crow winged its labored flight across a field 
 of corn ; the sleeping woods were occasionally wakened 
 by the harsh scream of a jay ; a red squirrel scurried 
 across the road ; a gopher reared its little body rigidly 
 in the air from the withered grass in a fence-corner, its 
 tiny paws folded humanlike upon its breast, its beautiful 
 eyes glistening with a mixture of audacity and fear. 
 
 All this Carol saw, and tried to love — and failed. 
 She recalled with pleasure the days when she used to 
 go nutting, but they seemed a long way back, a part of 
 
1 66 The Darlingtons 
 
 the irreclaimable past ; and she did not feel as sorry 
 over it as she wished she might. She was quite willing 
 to be a child of the town. 
 
 During these meditations Kaltenborn was more or 
 less in her mind, and she half-unconsciously scanned 
 the road ahead for a sight of him. It was fifteen 
 minutes, though, before he came into view. There 
 was no mistaking then that broad back and that stride. 
 As she passed him at almost a walk, she called out, 
 cheerily, — 
 
 '^ Mr. Kaltenborn, I have heard all about your con- 
 stitutionals. I sha'n't ask you to ride, because I know 
 you would refuse.'^ 
 
 " But I would n't ! " he called back, instantly ; and 
 Carol, with a laugh, pulled the horses to a stand-still. 
 She retained the whip side, and Kaltenborn climbed in 
 on the left. 
 
 " Who has been telling you about my constitutionals ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 " Oh, one of those Httle birds that are such incor- 
 rigible tell-tales," she answered, gaily. " It also told me 
 of your habit of carrying clusters of chrysanthemums 
 about," she added, with a side glance. 
 
 " Good works cannot be hid," he commented, with 
 a smile. '"You have evidently been out to Mrs. Car- 
 son's too." 
 
 " Yes. Lizzie is one of my clerks, you know." 
 
 "One of your most loyal ones, too," he returned. 
 " I should be almost afraid to have any one entertain of 
 me the opinion she has of you." 
 
 " I suppose I must n't ask what it is," she returned, 
 lightly, but her face flushed deeply with pleasure. 
 
 " I don't know that I should tell you, if you did." 
 
A Matter of Horsemanship 167 
 
 '^Why should you be afraid — if you won't tell me 
 her opinion? " 
 
 " I should be afraid of doing something to destroy 
 her faith," he replied. 
 
 The flush still lingered on Carol's cheek, and het 
 lashes drooped. '• I am afraid her faith is not founded 
 on a rock," she said. 
 
 "I think she has reasons for it," said Kaltenborn, 
 confidently. " She admires your cleverness. She thinks 
 you have a wonderful head to be able to do a man's 
 work ; and your sitting in directors' meetings, and mak- 
 ing reports and suggestions, excites little less than awe 
 in her. I was going to say I wished you could have 
 heard her describe one particular directors' meeting, 
 when you had her there for some purpose or other — to 
 help you find the different documents quickly, I believe." 
 
 "I remember," said Carol. ''We were organizing 
 the statistical department." 
 
 " That was it. But I 'm afraid that, if you had heard 
 her, it would have been too much of a strain on your 
 modesty." He paused, and Carol smiled a little. " But, 
 after all," he continued more gravely, "do you know 
 what makes her admire you most — what makes her 
 /ove you ? It is because she has never heard you say a 
 cross word to a clerk." 
 
 *^ I never have," said Carol, simply. " I have never 
 had occasion to say one to her. She 's a very faithful 
 and a very efficient worker." 
 
 "I'm glad you called on her," pursued Kaltenborn, 
 after a moment. " Your call will do her more good 
 than ten from somebody else. She was worrying a little 
 over her work, too, and I think possibly about her posi- 
 tion. I understand she has been sick a good deal." 
 
i68 The Darlingtons 
 
 *^She has," answered Carol, ''but she needn't worry 
 about her jDOsition. She 's another Johnnie Burbanks, 
 in one respect," she smiled. " Her father was agent at 
 CHfton from the time the road was built until his death." 
 
 " I wanted to tell her about Johnnie Burbanks," he 
 interpolated. " A little of the inside history, you know." 
 
 Carol looked down under the horses' swiftly moving 
 feet at the white road sweeping under them in dizzy, 
 wavering lines. There was some inside history in that 
 case which she was glad Kaltenborn did not know. 
 
 " I have one little confession to make to you, Mr. 
 Kaltenborn/' she spoke up, with a queer smile. " My 
 visit to-day was not wholly disinterested. In fact, it was 
 wholly interested. I went out there to get Lizzie's work 
 straightened out, and took her a bundle of tickets and 
 blanks. So you see," she concluded, archly, '^ that your 
 commending remarks about my calling were coals of 
 fire on my head." 
 
 Kaltenborn glanced at the shapely head upon which 
 he had unconsciously been heaping hot embers, and 
 smiled faintly. '' You would n't have gone except for 
 the work?" he asked. 
 
 " I had not gone," she answered, evasively. 
 
 " Did you ever go to see her before when she was 
 sick — without tickets ? " 
 
 "Just once." 
 
 " You talked to her this time — asked about her im- 
 provement — wished her well — told her not to worry 
 about her work? " 
 
 *' Oh, yes. I am not entirely hardened." 
 
 " You saw that it pleased her and did her good?" 
 
 "Yes," she admitted. 
 
 "And it gave you a sense of pleasure?" 
 
A Matter of Horsemanship 169 
 
 ^' Yes." 
 
 '^ And you are glad now that you went ? " 
 
 ** Oh, yes," she still assented, now smiling broadly. 
 
 '' So glad that you may be tempted to renew the 
 pleasure some time, either by going there or to some 
 other sick-room?" 
 
 " 1 don't know, Mr. Kaltenborn," she answered, 
 frankly. " I 'm ashamed to confess it, but I don't like 
 to visit the sick. The stuffy rooms, and the smell of 
 medicine, and the muffled door-bells, and the tip-toeing 
 about and whispering simply take the gimp out of me. 
 It gives me the horrors. Of course, Lizzie is not that 
 sick. And I don't mean my friends. It 's different 
 with them, and of course I do visit them. I can talk 
 to them. But to go and visit people that I don't know, 
 and don't have anything in common with, and ask them 
 how they are, and offer consolation " — she flashed him 
 a glance — '' I simply can't do it. I feel like a hypo- 
 crite, and I imagine all the time that they are resenting 
 it. I don't suppose they are, though I know I should ; 
 but it simply is n't in me to palaver over people in that 
 way," she concluded, earnestly. 
 
 " I don't know that I would have you palaver, exact- 
 ly," answered Kaltenborn. 
 
 Carol burst into a quick laugh. '^ I didn't mean pala- 
 ver either — that's one of papa's words," she explained, 
 with a shght blush. " But I mean to — well, I don't 
 know; papa would say 'slosh around,' and that really 
 about expresses it." She laughed again, a httle discon- 
 certedly, and looked at Kaltenborn appealingly. 
 
 *' You don't even have to ' slosh around,' " said Kal- 
 tenborn, laughing quietly. " When you go into the 
 humblest sick-room, I would not have you lay aside one 
 
170 The Darlingtons 
 
 jot or tittle of anything that your advantages have given 
 you. Carry your ideals in with you — just as you do to 
 your friends. Never fear but you will be understood, 
 and will confer a benefit." 
 
 " I don't know," answered Carol, doubtfully. '' Don't 
 you think one is likely to be thought priggish?" 
 
 " Not once in a hundred times," he rephed, decidedly. 
 
 " Well, you ought to know," she returned, but still 
 unconvinced, as he could see. *' Do you know, I 'm a 
 little afraid of real poor people." 
 
 " I perceive that," he answered, dryly. 
 
 They were approaching a threshing-machine at work 
 in a barnyard close to the road, and Nip and Tuck 
 began to quiver. Carol tightened her lines, and took 
 out the whip. As they came abreast the noisy machine 
 the horses lunged violently to one side, and broke into 
 a run. Bracing herself against the iron foot-rest, Carol 
 directed the powerful animals as best she could, without 
 wasting too much strength in trying to check them pre- 
 maturely. At the same time she worked upon them 
 with her voice. 
 
 Her face was lively with a daring pleasure rather than 
 fear. The road at this point and for some distance be- 
 yond was bordered with a level, grassy stretch, and 
 along this the horses plunged for several rods. Then 
 Carol got them back into the road again, where she 
 kept them without great difficulty. But her efforts to 
 stop them were unavaiKng. Her strength, multiphed 
 many times though it was by bit and rein, was but a 
 puny force with which to oppose the broad-haunched, 
 great-muscled, and now thoroughly frightened animals 
 in front of her. Still she persisted courageously, with 
 set hps, in sawing their mouths 
 
A Matter of Horsemanship 171 
 
 Kaltenborn sat perfectly still, with one arm over the 
 back of the seat, in the position he had occupied when 
 the horses took alarm. He had either perfect confi- 
 dence in Carol's horsemanship or a knowledge of her 
 sensitiveness on that subject and a willingness to humor 
 it at the risk of broken bones. Even when Carol's 
 bosom began to heave from her violent exertions, he 
 made no motion to help her. Once he drew his hat a 
 little tighter on his head, for their speed was creating a 
 stiff breeze. 
 
 " My arms are getting very tired ! " she gasped at last. 
 
 Kaltenborn, with an inscrutable expression, instantly 
 reached for the Hnes, grasping them well in front of her 
 hands. As his powerful figure stiffened, the horses' 
 necks doubled, and their speed instantly slackened, 
 with a shock. But careful not to put too much strain 
 on the harness, he let them run a Httle longer, until 
 their fright gave way to the intolerable pain in their 
 mouths from the drawn bits, and they came down to a 
 quivering, nervous prancing. Kaltenborn held the lines 
 a little longer, that Carol's arms might have a further 
 rest. He could see that she was still much more cha- 
 grined than frightened. 
 
 " That's the first time they ever got the best of me," 
 she said, with a laugh which failed to conceal her pique. 
 " I suppose if I had been alone, I could have stopped 
 them, as a matter of necessity. But I cried for quarter, 
 and I'll admit it. Yet I have driven horses all my Hfe, 
 and I never saw one yet that I was afraid of. I 'm the 
 only one in the family who cares to drive these, and 
 both Bert and papa are pretty good horsemen. I used 
 to drive a span of broncos when I was seventeen — and 
 you know what broncos are. Yet I never had an acci- 
 
172 The Darlingtons 
 
 dent, nor, before, anything as nearly approaching one as 
 this to-day." She bit her Hp a little to hide its trem- 
 bling — to Kaltenborn's amazement. 
 
 " The most important lesson a horseman learns is 
 that any horse can run away with any driver, if he 
 makes up his mind to do it," he returned, soothingly. 
 
 *' I know that/' she said, humbly. '^ But they did n't 
 run with you." 
 
 " Others have," he replied, " and possibly I 'm a little 
 stronger than you," he added, smihng. 
 
 " You know that handhng horses is not a matter of 
 strength," she said, reproachfully. 
 
 " Sometimes it is. It was at the stage when I took 
 hold." 
 
 " I should never have let them reach that stage," she 
 returned, ruefully. "You have driven before." 
 
 ^^Yes." 
 
 " Do you keep a horse now ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 *' I should think you would be lost without one," she 
 exclaimed, glad to get off the subject of runaways. " 1 
 believe I should miss our horses more than anything 
 else we have, even the piano." 
 
 *' I miss mine," he said, and there was a note of re- 
 gret in his voice which arrested her attention. But he 
 carried the theme no further, and began to talk about 
 something else than horses. 
 
 When he got down in front of Mrs. Hicks's, Carol said, 
 with some embarrassment, " Please don't say anything 
 about this — the runaway. If mamma found it out, 
 she would never be easy again with m.e out behind 
 Nip and Tuck. And — I don't want anybody else to 
 know it. I 'm ashamed of it ! " 
 
A Matter of Horsemanship 173 
 
 iC 
 
 My lips are sealed/* Kaltenborn answered, with a 
 comprehensive smile. 
 
 ^'There's one thing I should like to know," she be- 
 gan, hesitatingly, and paused in slight confusion. " Why 
 did you make me ask for help, Mr. Kaltenborn ? " 
 
 Again that inscrutable expression came over his face, 
 and it made her uncomfortable. " Because I was n't 
 sure until then that you needed help." 
 
 "Was that the only reason?" she asked, doubtfully. 
 
 '^What other reason could there be?" he asked, 
 evasively. 
 
 " Well," she observed, humbly, " if you had taken the 
 lines unbidden, it would n't have been quite so humili- 
 ating to me. I shouldn't have had to confess my 
 helplessness." 
 
 '* Confession is said to be good for the soul," he re- 
 turned, with a twinkle in his eye. 
 
 *' I was quite sure that you thought so," she answered, 
 quickly, as she lifted the hnes. ''Good-bye.^ 
 
 }) 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 pro's and con's 
 
 At the dinner-table Ruth asked, " Who was that man 
 you had out riding, Carol? " Her intonation turned all 
 eyes on Carol. 
 
 "That was a German nobleman," answered Carol, 
 coolly. "Didn't he look like one?" 
 
 *' I never saw a German nobleman," answered Ruth, 
 shortly. " Who was he ? " 
 
 " A German nobleman, I tell you, a baron, or some- 
 thing of the kind," answered Carol, provokingly. Pos- 
 sibly she was also trying to cover the least embarrass- 
 ment. 
 
 Ruth tossed her head. " I thought he was some 
 kind of a foreign specimen," she said, sarcastically, " and 
 I judged from his complexion that he hailed from a 
 land where there is no pubHc sentiment against beer." 
 Kaltenborn was certainly ruddy, but Ruth was just as 
 certainly drawing on her imagination now. 
 
 " Ruth," interposed Mrs. Darlington, " your language 
 at times is a little pronounced for a young girl. Tell 
 her who you were with, Carol." 
 
 " A German nobleman who is at present studying 
 American customs incognito, under the alias of Stephen 
 Kaltenborn. He has even gone so far as to palm him- 
 self off on the Methodist Church here as a minister of 
 the gospel." 
 
Pro's and Con's 175 
 
 Ruth, still unconciliated, asked scathingly, " Did he 
 talk religion to you ? " 
 
 " To hear you talk, Babe, one would think I was a 
 pagan, instead of a member in good standing of the 
 Episcopal Church," said Carol, sweetly. 
 
 Mr. Darlington glanced up with his humorous twinkle. 
 '^ Helping him with his pastoral calls ? " he asked. 
 
 " She was probably giving him a few pointers on 
 dancing and card-playing," suggested Bert. " We may 
 look for a fulmination against these vices next Sunday 
 night, a la Collins." 
 
 Carol waited until their witticisms were spent, and 
 then explained how Kaltenborn happened to be riding 
 with her. 
 
 " I hear he 's a very different man from Mr. CoHins," 
 said Mrs. Darlington. " He addressed the Ladies' Aid 
 Society last week, and gave a very sensible talk. He 
 has evidently given systematic charities a good deal of 
 thought." 
 
 " Mamma will be having him around to dinner next," 
 suggested Ruth, saucily. " If that little Jap were only 
 here now, and those two Chaldeans that worked mamma 
 for ten dollars, we could have a lively little dinner-party, 
 with Mr. Kaltenborn as guest of honor." Her roguish 
 face at the moment was the picture of her father's, 
 softened by youth and sex, for she was also dark. A 
 general laugh followed this shot at Mrs. Darlington's 
 recognized weakness for any charlatan approaching her 
 in the name of religion. Bert, however, gave her a 
 sympathetic smile, in addition. 
 
 " I think it would be perfectly proper to have him 
 here for dinner some day," she said, defensively. " He 's 
 a stranger here, comparatively, and I think it would be 
 
ii 
 
 176 The Darlingtons 
 
 a nice thing to let him know that he has the sympathy 
 and good wishes of some people outside his own 
 church." 
 
 " Have him around, then," said Darlington. '^ If I 'm 
 any judge of human nature, he 'd enjoy a quiet httle 
 smoke out of sight of his parishioners.." 
 
 " I suspect you are no judge, then, Charles," returned 
 Mrs. Darlington, quietly. 
 
 "I don't doubt he has smoked," remarked Bert. 
 " Where do you imagine he was educated ? " he asked, 
 knowingly. 
 
 " Where ? " asked Carol, curiously. 
 
 ''Heidelberg," said Bert. 
 What Heidelberg ? " demanded Carol, sceptically. 
 Heidelberg, Germany." 
 
 '' Who told you ? " she asked, still incredulous. 
 
 " The gentleman himself." 
 
 "Then he was probably born in Germany," said 
 Carol, thinking of Rose Blumenthal's German baron. 
 
 " No, in this country," answered her brother. 
 
 " Where do you suppose he got the money ? " she 
 asked, having in mind also what Kaltenborn had said 
 about once owning horses. 
 
 ''I didn't ask him," Bert returned, facetiously. 
 
 " Probably by fighting grasping corporations," sug- 
 gested Mr. Darlington, at which Carol flushed slightly. 
 
 " His church may possibly have sent him," said Mrs. 
 Darlington. " I know they help to educate their poor 
 young men." 
 
 *' I guess they don't send many of them to Europe," 
 observed Darlington. 
 
 When Carol went to her room to write some letters, 
 later in the evening, Bert followed her. The bond be- 
 
Pro's and Con's 177 
 
 tvveen these two was strong. Bert was as different from 
 his father as one of the same blood could well be. He 
 utterly lacked his father's shrewdness and many other of 
 those business qualities which appealed so vividly to 
 Carol's imagination. Yet she never regarded Bert's 
 capacity lightly. His popularity, in the first place, im- 
 pressed her ; his dignity was superior to his father's, 
 more substantial and genuine ; and he was possessed of 
 a conscientiousness in even the most trivial matters that 
 sometimes made his elder sister blush for herself. 
 
 Bert, in return, held his sister's intellect in unbounded 
 admiration. Her very subserviency to the expedient — 
 perhaps the weakest point about her, and utterly op- 
 posed to Bert's simple nature — was regarded by him 
 as an unmistakable mark of her superiority. He wor- 
 shipped it as tact, and something hopelessly out of his 
 reach. 
 
 Carol wrote, and Bert smoked and read, neither 
 speaking for some moments. Finally Carol paused, 
 and drumming on her teeth with her penholder, asked, 
 casually, " Is that true about Mr. Kaltenborn going to 
 Heidelberg?" 
 
 Bert nodded yes. 
 
 " Then he must have had money once," she returned, 
 conclusively. 
 
 " Not necessarily. He may have worked and saved 
 enough money to go to Germany. He 's been preach- 
 ing only a short time, and he must be thirty-five or 
 forty." 
 
 "He isn't forty," she observed. ''I wonder who or 
 what his family is." 
 
 " I don't know," answered Bert, without much in- 
 terest, and without lifting his eyes from his book. 
 
 12 
 
178 The Darlingtons 
 
 Carol wrote on for another minnte. "Where did 
 you meet him ? " she asked. 
 
 " I don't know — Fillingham's drug-store." 
 
 " When ? " 
 
 "Two or three weeks ago." 
 
 " You never said anything about it.'' 
 
 " Was it so important ? " he asked, smiling. 
 
 Carol turned to her writing again, after this warn- 
 ing, but Bert went on of his own accord. " There 
 was a crowd of us in the back part of the store when 
 Kaltenborn came in, and Bert Benson introduced him 
 around, with a kind of a smirk on his face as though it 
 were a joke." 
 
 " I 'm not surprised," said Carol, contemptuously. 
 " Nothing that young gentleman does surprises me any 
 
 more." 
 
 " When the crowd started, a minute later, to go up 
 to the club to play pool, Benson asked Kaltenborn if 
 he wouldn't go too." 
 
 Carol turned in her chair, and looked at her brother 
 sharply. There was no doubt of his earnestness. 
 "What did he say?" she asked, indignantly. 
 
 " He refused, of course, — very graciously, though, 
 and we walked up home together." 
 
 For a moment Carol's eyes gleamed hotly, but shortly 
 grew softer. " What do the boys think of him ? ''' she 
 asked. 
 
 " I have n't heard them say. They probably don't 
 see much of him." 
 
 " Did he tell you then about going to Heidelberg ? " 
 she asked. 
 
 " Yes. He mentioned a duel he fought there." Bert 
 looked up with a grin as he said it. 
 
Pro's and Con's 179 
 
 " A duel ! " exclaimed Carol, again swinging in her 
 chair. " You are yarning, Bert ! " 
 
 *' Honor bright. The next time you see him close, 
 you look for a little scar on his right temple. He came 
 within an ace, he said, of losing his eye." 
 
 " How in the world did he ever happen to do such a 
 thing as fight a duel — a minister of the gospel?" she 
 asked, with a little shudder at Bert's reference to the eye. 
 
 " I don't know that he was a minister then, or even 
 thought of being one. In fact, come to think, I know 
 he was n't, for he was only twenty-two then." 
 
 Carol nibbled the end of the penholder a minute, 
 thoughtfully. " How did he happen to tell you about it 'i " 
 
 " I don't know. The fellows had been talking about 
 French duels before we left the drug-store. Cash said 
 something about seeing one when he was in Paris, and 
 Kaltenborn and I continued the talk." 
 
 Carol turned back to the table, and wrote on for a few 
 minutes, with a clear, Hquid light in her eyes, which 
 seemed to indicate that she was carrying on two mental 
 processes at the same time, — one for herself, the other 
 for her correspondent. 
 
 " Did he tell it as though, — in a boastful way, — as 
 though he wanted you to know that, while he was a 
 preacher, he was no tenderfoot ? " she asked, finally. 
 
 " it did n't strike me so," Bert answered, and with that 
 the subject was dropped. After a little Bert rose and 
 stretched himself. He was not much of a reader, nor 
 were any of the Darlingtons, for that matter, except pos- 
 sibly Ruth. '' I think 1 11 go up and see Elsie a minute," 
 he yawned. 
 
 Carol gave a short, taunting laugh. " A minute ! Why 
 don't you say you are going to spend the evening ? Elsie 
 
i8o The Darlingtons 
 
 would be delighted to see you apologizing here with your 
 minutes and your yawns." 
 
 ** I am not going to spend the evening," answered 
 Bert, briefly. " I am going to lodge about nine." 
 
 " What on earth do you people find to talk about ? '' 
 asked Carol, half in earnest. 
 
 " We generally speculate on what you and Cash Winter 
 talk about," answered Bert, dryly. 
 
 " You are improving, brother," said Carol, acknowl- 
 edging the point of his wit with a smile. She added, 
 with a touch of seriousness, though, " Cash was here last 
 a week ago last Wednesday night. He may be here 
 again this week, and he may not." 
 
 Bert was standing behind her. Dropping the remains 
 of his cigarette into a bronze ash-tray, which, by reason 
 of Bert's social habits, was a necessary adjunct to Carol's 
 furniture, he laid his hands upon her shoulders, and said, 
 knowingly, '^ You won't break your heart if he is n't." 
 
 " No-o," she admitted, slowly, doubtful about encour- 
 aging this form of brotherly guardianship. 
 
 After a moment he murmured, *' I nearly broke her 
 heart, sis, the last time." It was the first allusion between 
 them to his recent fall. 
 
 *' Such things do break hearts sometimes," she 
 answered, gently but firmly. '' Remember that ! " 
 
 Mrs. Darlington was not a woman of much originality, 
 but when she did conceive a project she was slow to 
 rehnquish it. Consequently Kaltenborn received, not 
 many days later, an invitation to dine at the Darlingtons'. 
 Carol fancied that he might not accept it. He was 
 sensitive, for one thing, she had discovered, and he might 
 regard the invitation as a form of patronage. Moreover, 
 
Pro's and Con's i8i 
 
 she was doubtful of the impression her father had left 
 upon Kaltenborn in the interview about the pension. 
 Above all, if Kaltenborn was at all familiar with the history 
 of his predecessors in the Ashboro pastorate, and had any 
 idea of following their precedents, he would certainly 
 avoid any social connection with the Darhngtons ; for it 
 was undeniable that the Methodist preachers of Ashboro 
 and the railroad, — that is to say, the Darlingtons, — 
 had never yet succeeded in maintaining perfect amity 
 between themselves for any length of time. Whatever 
 the causes of this hostility, — the occasional conflicts 
 between employer and employed, the natural friction 
 between aristocracy and democracy, or a worldliness on 
 the part of the Darlingtons and an over-zealousness on 
 the part of the Methodists, — President Darlington had 
 come to look with suspicion upon every Methodist 
 preacher sent to Ashboro, and every Methodist preacher 
 sent to Ashboro had come, after very little leaning on the 
 pillars of his church, to look with suspicion upon President 
 Darlington. 
 
 Carol was therefore particularly pleased when Kalten- 
 born's note of acceptance arrived ; and when he himself 
 arrived, dressed in his inevitable Prince Albert, she 
 received him with perhaps more warmth than the length 
 of their acquaintance or the occasion made necessary. 
 Kaltenborn was not the man, though, to take advantage 
 of any such fortuitous circumstance, and he returned 
 Carol's greeting with a dignified graciousness not differ- 
 ing radically from his manner on that day when Carol 
 had tried to freeze him in Mrs. Hicks's parlor. 
 
 At the table he was much the same, Carol noted with 
 a little amused admiration. He talked seriously, he 
 accepted or refused dishes seriously, he ate seriously. 
 
I 82 The Darlingtons 
 
 Yet there was no suggestion of gloom or asceticism in 
 his seriousness. He expressed himself with a precision 
 and conscientiousness that were refreshing. If he agreed 
 with any one, that one was very sure he meant it, for he 
 disagreed with unconventional freedom and frankness. 
 If a subject was too light to interest him, he kept still. 
 This peculiarity, which might of itself have proved tedious 
 at a dinner, was fully offset by the genuineness of his 
 sympathy in all matters not trifling. With it all, he 
 was not devoid of humor of a quiet, subtle kind. He 
 seldom laughed, and even his smiles were not broad ; 
 but they lit his face with a radiance that attested their 
 sincerity. 
 
 Carol had feared that he might prove a "crank." 
 But he did not. Not once did he fall into any intem- 
 perance of thought or speech. Nor did he press his 
 opinions. If he disagreed, he put himself upon record, 
 and that was all. The conversation, at the table and 
 afterward, covered a wide range of topics. Mr. Dar- 
 lington talked " shop " with his usual freedom and vivac- 
 ity, but Kaltenborn did not introduce religion. 
 
 After dinner, Mr. Darlington got out his customary 
 cigar. Ruth gave Carol a significant glance, and Carol 
 passed it on to her father, which, according to the family 
 code, might be interpreted that he should at least excuse 
 himself, and possibly retire to the study. Mr. Darlington 
 balanced his cigar between his fingers a moment before 
 lighting it, in fine defiance of all this prudery. 
 
 "1 don't suppose you smoke, Mr. Kaltenborn," he 
 began, breezily, — with an extra touch, in fact, for his 
 daughters' benefit. ' ' I suppose you know that I do, 
 and if it 's not offensive to you, I '11 light up." 
 
 " It won't bother me in the least," said Kaltenborn. 
 
Pro's and Con's 183 
 
 " On the contrary, I enjoy the smell of a cigar. There 's 
 a healthy, antiseptic suggestion about it." 
 
 '' It has always seemed to me," returned Mr. Darling- 
 ton, svvellingly, as he settled comfortably into his chair, 
 and sent a cloud of smoke ceilingward, " that preachers 
 deprive themselves of a great deal of innocent pleasure 
 by abstaining from the use of tobacco. Why do they do 
 it ? Of course, I know why some of them do it. Some 
 of them rank tobacco along with whiskey and opium — 
 and dynamite. But why do the intelligent, hberal-minded 
 ones usually refrain from using it? Why do you 
 yourself? " 
 
 Kaltenborn smiled in acknowledgment of his host's 
 complimentary innuendo. " I suppose because they 
 beheve that one man's meat is another man's poison. I 
 used to smoke, and did until I entered the ministry. I 
 don't think it ever hurt me any, broadly speaking. Yet 
 I think there were days when I smoked too much, and 
 felt a little sluggish from it or nervous. But I beheve 
 there are some people that tobacco, in the smallest 
 quantity, hurts. And if a preacher smokes publicly, such 
 people may be encouraged in the practice, especially if 
 they are young." 
 
 " Why not smoke privately^ then? " asked Darlington, 
 with another complacent exhalation. 
 
 " Well, the Methodist Church practically forbids smok- 
 ing by its ministers, for one thing. A young man who 
 smokes cannot be admitted to the ministry now. Aside 
 from that, I don't believe a man can smoke in private 
 without being detected sooner or later ; and if he could, 
 I don't believe he could do it without a loss of self- 
 respect." 
 
 ^' Even though he sees no harm in it, and only does it 
 
184 The Darlingtons 
 
 privately on account of a lot of narrow-minded cranks?" 
 asked Darlington, incredulously. 
 
 " Yes, even though he believes all that. There is 
 something hurtful in a clandestine act, whatever the 
 motive. And it 's a question with me whether any clan- 
 destine act is justifiable from the highest moral point of 
 view. Moreover, smoking, I think, is a useless and an 
 expensive habit." 
 
 " How about coffee-drinking ? " said Mr. Darlington, 
 with the quiet air of a man propounding a poser. 
 
 " Undoubtedly a great many people would be better 
 off without coffee," answered Kaltenborn, laughing. 
 
 ''But you drink it?" 
 
 " Yes, I do. But you will admit yourself that there 
 is a difference between coffee and tobacco." 
 
 ''Can't see it — from our point of argument," said 
 Darlington, obstinately. 
 
 " There is a difference, nevertheless," pursued Kal- 
 tenborn. " It is not as expensive a habit, to begin with, 
 — a thing to be considered by most people ; and while 
 we hear of a ' coffee drunkard ' now and then, I don't 
 think coffee is likely to get the hold on one that tobacco 
 gets. And it is used by both sexes, and is not so 
 generally condemned." 
 
 " I can't see a bit more sense in your being re- 
 quired to give up tobacco than coffee," insisted 
 Darlington. 
 
 " He does, but he won't admit it, Mr. Kaltenborn," 
 interposed Ruth, with a venturesome laugh. 
 
 "No, I don't," said her father, positively. "When 
 you get right down to it, in the light of reason, every 
 objection that applies to smoking appHes to drinking 
 coffee." 
 
Pro's and Con's 185 
 
 " How about mince-pieS; Mr. Kaltenborn ? " asked 
 Carol, to divert the gentlemen from their argument. 
 
 " I plead guilty again," he answered. 
 
 " Knowing that they are proverbially indigestible ! " 
 she exclaimed, jocosely. 
 
 " Knowing that they are proverbially good," he an- 
 swered. Then assuming a more serious expression, and 
 turning to Mr. Darlington again, he continued : " This 
 matter of smoking or not smoking is to be setded by 
 every man individually. If he sees no harm in smoking, 
 moral or physical, to himself, or to any one else by 
 force of example, let him go ahead and smoke. If it 's 
 a question with him, I should advise him, in order to be 
 on the safe side, to refrain. There comes a time in the 
 lives of most of us when we view our actions in their 
 relation to others as well as to ourselves. If you see a 
 young lad slowly paralyzing his energies with tobacco, 
 planting seeds of misery for himself and for his children 
 and his children's children, you can't walk up to him 
 with a rich Havana in your mouth, and make him be- 
 lieve that smoking is wrong. You may be consistent ; 
 it may be that you did n't smoke until you were mature, 
 and that you don't smoke to excess, and that smoking 
 in moderation does n't hurt you. But that boy will 
 never make those distinctions." 
 
 Darlington rolled his cigar comfortably between his 
 teeth to offset this uncomfortable doctrine. "There 
 are some people, IMr. Kaltenborn," he answered, " who 
 are weak, inherently weak, and are bound to go to the 
 dogs in any case, no matter how closely they are 
 guarded. I believe that these temptations have a pur- 
 pose. They're a test; it's a kind of weeding out of 
 the garden of humanity — a survival of the fittest. The 
 
I 86 The Darlingtons 
 
 people that survive these temptations have proved their 
 worthiness." 
 
 The first example that came to Kaltenborn's mind 
 was Darlington's own son. He knew well enough that 
 Darlington did not put his theory into practice by set- 
 ting a decanter of whiskey on his sideboard. He knew, 
 on the contrary, that such a thing had sat there until 
 Bert developed his weakness, and not a day after that. 
 But of course he could say none of this, and no one else 
 seemed to be thinking of it except possibly Mrs. Dar- 
 lington. She was looking at Kaltenborn with earnest, 
 thoughtful eyes, and he felt instinctively that what he 
 had said had met with her approval. 
 
 Carol accompanied Kaltenborn to the door when he 
 left. When they were alone, she said, laughing, but half 
 in earnest, " I suppose I have not reached the proper 
 stage yet, but I don't know that I have ever given up 
 anything simply for the sake of others — anything 
 special." 
 
 ^'Didn't you give up a little false pride once for Mrs. 
 Burbanks's sake ? " he asked, looking her squarely in the 
 eye. She flushed ; and without giving her time to an- 
 swer, he extended his hand and said good-night. 
 
 As Carol undressed she wondered casually what Kal- 
 tenborn thought of her and her family. She was very 
 proud of her family ; proud of its social position, its 
 intelligence, even its wealth, because that represented 
 industry and brains. She was very proud of herself 
 for much the same reasons. She knew, without offen- 
 sive vanity, that she was shrewder than most women ; 
 she knew that she satisfactorily filled a responsible 
 position. But she doubted seriously that Kaltenborn 
 understood and appreciated all these facts. They cer- 
 
Pro's and Con's 187 
 
 tainly had failed to impress him much, and she was 
 disposed to feel a little piqued at his independence, 
 for it was manifestly not assumed. But, after all, this 
 pique was very foolish, she told herself. Kaltenborn 
 was only an eccentric preacher, with but half an eve, 
 probably, for anything outside the church. He could 
 not be a very fine preacher, either, for the Ashboro 
 Methodist Church was certainly not a choice appoint- 
 ment. Doubtless the salary was very small, too. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 KALTENBORN'S FLOCK 
 
 A FEW days after Kaltenborn dined at the Darling- 
 tons', a young woman presented herself at Carol's desk 
 bearing a note from him. It read : " This young woman 
 is soliciting money to transport three orphan children to 
 relatives on the Pacific Coast. If you will give her a 
 dollar or two, you will be lending a helping hand to the 
 helpless." 
 
 Smiling at this characteristic note, Carol took her 
 purse from a drawer, and gave the young woman two 
 dollars. " May I ask how much Mr. Kaltenborn gave ? " 
 she asked, the question being suggested by the young 
 woman's writing down Carol's name on a list, with the 
 amount of her contribution opposite. 
 
 " Five dollars," answered the young woman, with a 
 peculiar smile. It seemed to Carol that there was 
 something unfavorable to her in that smile, and she 
 traced it to the difference between her contribution and 
 Kaltenborn's — a difference magnified several times by 
 the difference in their material prosperity. Hiding her 
 feelings, though, she immediately made her contribution 
 ten dollars, saying lightly, " If he gave fiv^e, I think 
 I can give ten." 
 
 At the same time she felt vexed at Kaltenborn for 
 asking her for only a dollar or two when he himself had 
 
Kaltenborn's Flock 189 
 
 given five. It looked a little affected, though it was not 
 supposable that he had intended she should know what 
 he had given. The next time she met him she jestingly 
 accused him of having small faith in her charity. 
 
 " I knew you would give whatever sum I named/' 
 Kaltenborn explained. " Hence I did n't feel at hberty 
 to name a very large sum. It would have smacked of 
 extortion." He smiled. 
 
 " Why name any sum ? " she asked. 
 
 "That would have been extortion too," he answered. 
 " You would have immediately assumed that I had sent 
 that young woman to you with a hint that you were a 
 gold mine, and you would have lived up to that assump- 
 tion, whether you wanted to or not, — being a young 
 woman of considerable pride, — and would probably 
 have given her a ten-dollar note." 
 
 "That's just what I did give her," she answered, 
 triumphantly. 
 
 "I 'm sorry," said he, briefly. 
 
 She looked at him with surprise tinged with vexation. 
 " Why should you be ? " she asked. " You are not 
 treating me fairly," she complained, forcing a playfulness. 
 " If you had had faith in me and my charity, you would 
 have known that I should be as glad to give as you 
 were." 
 
 " I believe you would lend your pocketbook to a case 
 of suffering as quickly as any one I know of. But 
 people's ideas of what constitutes a case of suffering 
 differ." 
 
 " In other words, I am too case-hardened to see any- 
 thing pathetic in three little children left orphans, 
 twenty-five hundred miles from their nearest relative,'^ 
 she said, sarcastically. " Really, Mr. Kaltenborn ! " 
 
I go The Darlingtons 
 
 " Is n't that a little strong ? " he asked, pleasantly. 
 
 *' Is n't it true ? " she retorted. 
 
 " One might see a great deal of pathos in such a case, 
 and yet not feel called upon to give very liberally. You 
 might have regarded it as a case for some of the organ- 
 ized charities to which you doubtless subscribe, or for 
 the county. But what 's the use of arguing, when I am 
 prepared to put your charity to a test, right now ! " He 
 smiled significantly. 
 
 " Go ahead ! " she said, defiantly. " I 'm worked up 
 now to where I 'd give away the half of my kingdom." 
 
 "There is to be an entertainment at our church a 
 week from to-night, for the benefit of superannuated 
 preachers. They constitute our Grand Army, you 
 know, — the boys who went to the front in pioneer days, 
 — and we Ve got to take care of them now. There 
 will be singing and speaking and instrumental music, all 
 by members of our church or Sunday-school. I feel 
 that if I could get an outsider to take part, it would 
 materially increase the receipts, — especially such an 
 outsider as you, if you will allow me to say it. I under- 
 stand that you have quite a reputation as an elocutionist. 
 Will you help us out ? " 
 
 Carol dropped her eyes, and described the segment 
 of a circle with her toe. They were standing upon the 
 steps of the railroad building. 
 
 " That is a test, Mr. Kaltenborn," she answered, 
 frankly, lifting her head and photographing him with her 
 full blue eye. " I used to read a good deal, it 's true, 
 but for a year I have refused every request. It got to 
 be too much of a draft upon my time. There was 
 nothing in the way of entertainments, especially by the 
 churches, that I was not asked to take part in. You 
 
Kaltenborn's Flock 191 
 
 have no idea how conscienceless people are about those 
 things." He said nothing as she paused, and she con- 
 tinued : " I don't know what to say. I wish you had 
 asked anything else. I would sooner give you in cash 
 ten times the amount my presence will add to your 
 receipts." She looked at him suggestively. 
 
 "I can't take it," he said, shortly. 
 
 "Why not, if I prefer to give it?" 
 
 " If the work is as repugnant to you as that, I don't 
 want you to do it, or do anything in Heu of it." 
 
 "It's just that repugnant;" said Carol, in a matter-of- 
 fact tone. 
 
 "Then you don't want to do it?" 
 
 " I certainly don't want to," she returned, with a 
 puzzled laugh. 
 
 "Then you won't?" 
 
 "No, I will," she answered emphatically. "Princi- 
 pally for the reason that I don't want to, I suppose," 
 she added, to cut off any compliments. " Have you 
 any choice in the way of a selection ? " she asked, almost 
 brusquely. 
 
 " None," he answered. " Anything suitable for a 
 mixed audience of a religious character," he added, but 
 whether as an explanation or a fling at her brusqueness 
 she was not sure. 
 
 Carol wanted very much to say something rude, 
 especially if it could be also something witty ; but she 
 curbed her lawless spirit, and bade him good-afternoon 
 in a very civil tone. What Kaltenborn thought of the 
 affair was not apparent ; but as she walked away, with 
 possibly an augmented dignity, a smile so shrewd and 
 knowing came over his face that one would never have 
 charged him with blundering. 
 
192 The Darlingtons 
 
 Kaltenborn met Miss Darlington at the horse-block 
 in front of the church on the night of the entertainment, 
 and helped her down from the landau, which had been 
 driven over by Tom, the hostler. She wore a long 
 riding- coat which fell to her heels and hid the white 
 gown beneath, except in front, where the coat flared 
 open. The garment, with its great pearl buttons — 
 larger than doll-saucers — undoubtedly set Carol's tall 
 figure off to advantage. Kaltenborn was not insensible 
 to this; but if he had been, the eyes of the bystanders, 
 as he led Miss Darlington in, would have apprised him 
 of it. The women especially stared at her. 
 
 When Carol emerged from the improvised dressing- 
 room downstairs, Kaltenborn was again within hailing 
 distance. Her cheeks were a delicious, soft, downy 
 red — from the ride, Kaltenborn supposed ; her eyes 
 were crystalline with high spirits and amiability, and she 
 gave Kaltenborn her hand with an unmistakable mani- 
 festation of good-will and fellow-feeling. 
 
 Kaltenborn led her upstairs to a seat in one of the 
 "amen" corners, which had been set aside for the per- 
 formers. From here she had a good view of the 
 audience. About a third, or more, she fancied, were 
 children. The adults were for the most part plain work- 
 ing-people, some of whom she recognized as employes 
 of the road. They had a freshly washed and brushed 
 and dressed appearance, and sat primly upright in their 
 seats, and whispered little, as though at a devotional 
 service. The men were a serious, manly looking lot ; 
 the women generally looked thin and nervous and 
 sallow and overworked, and there were not many pretty 
 faces among even the younger ones. Among them sat 
 Lizzie Carson and her mother. 
 
Kaltenborn's Flock 193 
 
 In the centre of the room she saw, somewhat to her 
 surprise, a bevy of her girl friends. Their presence 
 vaguely displeased her. Decorous as they were, they 
 were plainly out for a lark ; they expected to be amused, 
 and were on the lookout for novelties. They scrutinized 
 every new-comer, not boldly or impolitely, but with a 
 zest that was unmistakable. As a result the group was 
 somewhat conspicuous for its whispering and craning of 
 necks ; and the people in front of them and on either 
 side looked self-conscious and uncomfortable, and a 
 little hostile. Carol saw some of the girls trying to catch 
 her eye. She refused to see them, but she felt that she 
 was being identified with them by more than one. She 
 probably was. 
 
 The programme, up to Carol's number — she was 
 reserved, it seemed, as a ^our de force — was worse 
 than mediocre. The numbers were announced, in the 
 absence of a printed programme, by a young woman in 
 spectacles, who seemed to have considerable difficulty 
 in seeing even with this artificial aid ; for she stumbled 
 over the names of those taking part, and most wofully 
 mangled with her tongue the foreign composers and the 
 titles of their compositions. 
 
 There were not many of the latter, however. Most 
 of the music was democratically American, and was 
 applauded with democratic indiscrimination. One song, 
 of eight or nine eight-line stanzas, which, as music, was 
 beneath contempt, and which set forth a most harrowing 
 tale of broken faith, was received with vociferous mani- 
 festations of pleasure ; and the young miss who sang it 
 walked demurely back to the platform again, and sang 
 the whole lugubrious epic through once more, to the 
 whining accompaniment of a cabinet-organ. 
 
 13 
 
1 94 The Darlingtons 
 
 A little bullet-headed boy, who came up, bobbed his 
 head, galloped through a comic quatrain, bobbed his 
 head again, and disappeared, also elicited a roar of 
 applause. He was funny, though, and Carol herself 
 laughed. A chorus of Sunday-school tots, with their 
 dolls in their arms, were also pleasing. Their crimped 
 and ribboned hair, their spick-and-span white dresses, 
 with their ruffles and frills and embroideries, their 
 new creaking shoes, all hinted of parental pride and 
 prosperit}\ 
 
 But, for the most part, the progi-amme was dreary 
 enough to Carol. Embarrassed, awkward girls, too old 
 to be innocent, too young to be artful, ground their way 
 through prosy lengths of verse. Other young girls 
 played simple compositions on the organ, or sang stir- 
 ring ballads in a most unstirring manner. A few half- 
 grown boys, some looking sheepish, others impish, lent 
 their assistance. Some of these went through their 
 " pieces " without a break ; some had to be prompted. 
 Others, who forgot and had no prompters, floundered 
 around a while, and either went back a few lines and 
 thus gained enough momentum to carry them over 
 the rough spot, or collapsed entirely. 
 
 If Carol had had any doubts about being reserved as 
 a tour de force, they were certainly expelled when she 
 mounted the platform, ^^.n expectant rustle passed 
 over the crowded house ; and the hush which followed 
 as she held her tall, commanding figure in poise for a 
 moment before beginning, was more flattering than the 
 loudest applause. 
 
 She had intended to read a selection from " Evange- 
 line ; " but after looking over her audience, and hsten- 
 ing to the other recitations, and noting the applause 
 
Kaltenborn's Flock 195 
 
 they elicited, she had changed her mind and substituted 
 " A New Lochinvar." Just before she opened her hps 
 to begin, however, she caught sight of Kaltenborn. He 
 was leaning easily back, with his arm over the seat, his 
 steady gray-blue eyes fixed upon her with intelligent 
 expectation. He looked less austere than usual, in the 
 church though he was, — more like a man who had 
 tasted and enjoyed the good things of the world. And 
 Carol fancied, in the second allowed her for fancy, that 
 perhaps her compliance in reading for him had some- 
 thing to do with that softened expression. 
 
 In that same second her substitution of Carleton's 
 jingling lines for " Evangeline " seemed like an un- 
 worthy, almost cowardly, pandering to popularity, and 
 like treachery to herself, her art, and — Kaltenborn. 
 Therefore she began abruptly the story of the Acadian 
 maid, and told it with a grace, fervor, and power that 
 perhaps she had never commanded before. 
 
 She did not care much for the burst of applause which 
 followed, and which continued until she had responded 
 with a short encore, though it seemed to justify a remark 
 Kaltenborn had once made to her, — that no matter how 
 common a man is, he enjoys something uncommon. 
 But she would have given a good deal to know if Kal- 
 tenborn himself appreciated the art in her work, or had 
 an adequate conception of the weary days and weeks 
 she had spent in acquiring that art. He came up after 
 the entertainment, and gave her his hand in congratula- 
 tion, and said, with sincere pleasure in his voice, " It 
 came up to my expectations ; and I expected much." 
 
 '^I don't know why you should, though," she re- 
 turned, archly evading his compliment, but at the same 
 time compensating him with that confiding glance which 
 
196 The Darlingtons 
 
 women bestow only upon those men whom they have 
 learned to trust. 
 
 " Because I have learned that whatever you do, you 
 do well/' he answered. She allowed her pleasure to 
 shine softly from her eyes. 
 
 A luncheon, with coffee, was to be served in the 
 church parlors in the basement below, by one of the 
 Sunday-school classes, in honor of the performers and 
 their friends and families. Kaltenborn insisted on 
 Carol's remaining. He seemed to have so set his 
 heart on it that she consented, reluctantly, and went 
 downstairs with a good deal of curiosity and not a little 
 perturbation. She had not forgotten her excoriation by 
 a former pastor of these same people for carrying a 
 party of young people to the opera at High Point. 
 
 She fancied, after she got downstairs, that the people 
 had not forgotten it either. They seemed to treat her 
 stiffly ; they talked htde, and she found herself com- 
 pelled to take the initiative every time. As Kalten- 
 born introduced them to her, they shook hands, or 
 bowed, and then fell back, sometimes after exchang- 
 ing a few words, sometimes without. Some of them 
 Carol already knew ; some of them she felt almost as 
 though she knew — she had seen them so often, in the 
 street and elsewhere, or had heard their names men- 
 tioned so often. There were two young women, also, 
 whom she had met once at some gathering. But there 
 was not one there whom she was in the habit of meet- 
 ing socially, and the great majority were strangers, 
 though their faces and names were more or less familiar. 
 Hence Carol felt out of place. She felt as though she 
 was being stared at and privately discussed. She 
 caught more than one eye fixed on her gown — which 
 
Kaltenborn's Flock 197 
 
 was cut low in the neck — and a great many persons 
 seemed to be interested in the dressing of her hair. 
 The children stared at her openly and shamelessly. 
 
 As she sat at table next to Kaltenborn, she tried to 
 appear oblivious of all this attention and to keep up a 
 connected conversation. But the attempt was a flat 
 failure. The inhospitable air chilled her, and before 
 the luncheon was over she had grown silent and self- 
 conscious. 
 
 The truth is, Carol Darlington, with all her force of 
 character and all her independence among her asso- 
 ciates and all her impatience of convention, was ex- 
 quisitely sensitive to the opinion of the ''other half." 
 To use her own words, she was '^afraid of the poor." 
 She was afraid of being thought priggish, afraid that 
 they resented her superior birth and social position, 
 and yet afraid that they would resent any attempt to 
 conceal such superiority. As a matter of fact, most of 
 what she thought stiffness in Kaltenborn's parishioners 
 was merely deference, awkwardly paid. Or, at the 
 worst, it was thought only to be fine manners. Their 
 very silence was a tribute to her superiority ; and their 
 coming up, shaking hands, and falling back, in a per- 
 fectly cold-blooded way, was exactly the treatment they 
 would have given a queen. 
 
 Kaltenborn talked serenely on, apparently not notic- 
 ing her distraitness, and eating quite heartily, Carol 
 noticed. When the people began to go, he walked to 
 the door with Carol. For some reason the landau had 
 failed to return. Kaltenborn offered to send for it, or 
 to get her another conveyance ; but she said that she 
 would just as soon walk, if he would be good enough to 
 go with her. 
 
198 The Darlingtons 
 
 As soon as they were alone, Kaltenborn's conversa- 
 tional mood seemed to desert him ; and Carol could 
 not, for the Hfe of her, think of anything to say that 
 would not sound forced. They therefore walked along 
 in silence. At her door he shook hands with her, and 
 thanked her for her assistance. Still he lingered before 
 saying good-night ; and when the fact of lingering could 
 no longer be concealed, he said, in a tone not so care- 
 less as he aimed to make it, — 
 
 " You have seen my people, talked with them, and 
 broken bread with them. What do you think of 
 them ? '^ 
 
 *^I didn't talk much," she answered, with a little 
 evasive laugh, at the same time giving him a half- 
 regretful glance. 
 
 "Well, you saw them," he insisted. "What do you 
 think of them ? " 
 
 " Mr. Kaltenborn," she exclaimed, with a catching 
 of her breath, " I dare not fell you." 
 
 Kaltenborn looked at her without surprise, but said 
 quietly, " I can't imagine what you dare think that you 
 dare not tell." 
 
 " I don't suppose I ought even to think it," she said, 
 apologetically. 
 
 Another pause followed, in which Kaltenborn looked 
 persistently away from her. 
 
 " You pity me," he said, abruptly. 
 
 "Why should I pity you, Mr. Kaltenborn?" she 
 asked, with a slight start at the closeness of his shot. 
 
 "You should not," he returned, brusquely. 
 
 " I have not intimated that I do," she said, gently. 
 
 " You have not said it," he answered, " but you have 
 looked it and acted it." 
 
Kaltenborn's Flock 199 
 
 " This is not justice, Mr. Kaltenborn," she said, with 
 some reserve. *' You have no right to condemn me on 
 any such intangible evidence as that." 
 
 "I am not condemning you," he answered, getting 
 better control of himself, and speaking more evenly. 
 " I speak for the very reason that it would not be just 
 for me to conceal what I have seen so plainly." 
 
 " Suppose I were to tell you, in so many words, that 
 I do not pity you ? " 
 
 " You will not tell me so," he said, decisively. 
 
 " I have no right to pity you," she began, frankly. 
 " I don't know that I do. But I must tell you, in 
 honesty, and at the risk of wounding your pride, that 
 if I were compelled to labor with such people, all my 
 life, to mingle with them socially, to listen to their 
 grievances, and to — to make myself popular with 
 them, I should be the most miserable creature on the 
 face of the earth. I don't think you are," she added, 
 quickly. " And that shows that you are a great deal 
 stronger than I am. But they are so cold, so narrow, 
 so circumscribed in thought and ambition," she con- 
 tinued, plaintively, — " so ignorant, if I must say it, of 
 all the finer and higher things of life." She looked at 
 him with large, compassionate eyes, as though pleading 
 her earnestness in extenuation of her bluntness. 
 
 ^^ Suppose your lot were to be cast among them by 
 choice ?" he asked, half sadly, she thought. 
 
 " I can't conceive of it," she answered, positively ; 
 " — for meP 
 
 *' Can you conceive of your lot falling by choice 
 among the heathen, as a missionary ? " he asked, and 
 she fancied his tone half contemptuous. 
 
 '' Hardly.' 
 
 >j 
 
200 The Darlingtons 
 
 " Can you conceive of yourself as a nurse in a colony 
 of lepers, destined never to see home or friends again, 
 and to die a lingering, repulsive death ? " She did not 
 answer, and he went sternly on : ^^Can you conceive of 
 your lot falling anywhere, by choice, where you would 
 have to give up the pleasures and luxuries of life, or 
 even its comforts, in order that the condition of your 
 fellow-men might be improved ? " 
 
 Again she did not speak, or look up, and he saw that 
 she was hurt. He softened his voice, and continued : 
 *'' My lot is not as hard as any of these. Do you not 
 think so ? " 
 
 " I suppose it is n't," she admitted, drawing her coat 
 more tightly about her. " But could n't some one else 
 do the work as well — or even better than you ? You 
 are so different from these people. You have ideals 
 and aspirations that they never dream of. Are you not 
 doing just what you warned me against the other day 
 when you told about that Arabian mare of your father's 
 on the stone-wagon ? You are fretting and chafing — 
 you must do it, under your hmitations here — when 
 another man, a man like Mr. Collins, your predecessor, 
 who knows nothing better, would fall in with them 
 naturally, without a thought of adjusting himself.'"' 
 
 " If he is no better than they, how much could he 
 uplift them?" he asked. His expression grew tender 
 as he looked into her beautiful, thoughtful face ; his 
 eyes kindled as hei watched her bite her lip ; and the 
 thought that behind those exquisite lineaments lay a 
 soul that had confessed its unfitness for martyrdom 
 gave his heart a wrench. " No," he continued, tearing 
 his glance from her, " the blind must not lead the blind. 
 And you must not pity m.e — if you do. You must 
 
Kaltenborn's Flock 201 
 
 not make a saint out of me. That does me too much 
 honor. My present life is of my choosing. I am thirty- 
 five years old, and I have been in the ministry only a 
 few years. The other years of my life were also spent 
 as I chose to spend them — much as most men spend 
 theirs, with perhaps certain advantages in my favor. I 
 was not happy, though. My discontent drove me to a 
 change, and I am happier now than I was then." 
 
 " How happy is that } " she asked, with a sweet, 
 sympathetic smile. 
 
 " I have the happiness that comes from duty done," 
 he answered. " It is not a leaping, shouting happiness 
 — in my case, at least. My temperament forbids that, 
 I suppose. I take life seriously, — too seriously, I 
 sometimes think. But I feel. Miss DarHngton, every 
 day and every hour, that I am working shoulder to 
 shoulder with God toward the completion of his great 
 world-plan." He paused, not as having finished, but 
 as being overwhelmed with the vastness of his theme. 
 
 Carol listened with half-awed eyes to this announce- 
 ment of co-partnership with God. " And don't you 
 ever have your doubts and discouragements?" she 
 asked, admiringly. 
 
 "Too many times," he answered. "That seems to 
 be a part of our finiteness. Weakness is the name for 
 it. But when the sun seems to have set and darkness 
 is on, the change is in me, I know, not in the world. 
 That is always the same, widely speaking. We speak 
 of the scowls and the smiles of the world, but as a matter 
 of fact, the face of the world is serene. The scowls and 
 smiles are our own.'' 
 
 " But you don't believe, do you, that one has to be 
 a minister in order to be working for God ? " she asked ; 
 
202 The Darlingtons 
 
 and the plaintive solemnity of her tones was sweet 
 music in his ears. 
 
 " No, no," he said. *' But / have to be. People 
 have to be fed and clothed and educated — and hauled 
 on railroad trains," he added, smiling, " and it 's all as 
 necessary, as divine, as caring for their souls. Yet I 
 will confess that it seems to me that the minister's work 
 is the highest. It certainly is the last. He finishes the 
 product, as it were, and turns it over to the Master- 
 workman for approval." 
 
 " It does seem higher," she said, reflectively. 
 
 " I wish I could make you understand just how I feel 
 toward these people in my church," he began, enthusi- 
 astically, as if encouraged by her last remark. " I am 
 not laboring to save them for heaven. I want to make 
 them fit to live. I want to help them out of that nar- 
 rowness which chills you. I want to remove those 
 prejudices with which you are impatient. I want to 
 lift them up, and give them the outlook in life that you 
 have. They have not had the chance you have had ; 
 they have not come into their inheritance. As long as 
 one man in this world is better than another, that other 
 has not got his dues." 
 
 " Education will give them to him in time, I sup- 
 pose," she suggested. 
 
 " I am only an educator. But the education you 
 refer to, at least the higher part of it, is denied so many 
 as yet. We must work to make good that deficiency — 
 you and I," he added, impulsively, " and the rest who 
 have been more fortunate than their brothers. There is 
 a grandeur about the work, once you give yourself over 
 to it, that you must feel to know," he continued, with 
 glowing eyes. " It 's as though you stood with one 
 
Kaltenborn's Flock 203 
 
 hand in God's, and the other in man's." He paused 
 as if he feared his enthusiasm might be carrying him 
 too far, and then said, in an altered voice, " Good-night ! 
 If I want you for another entertainment at our church, 
 I suppose I can have you," he added, shrewdly. 
 
 " If you had asked me that half an hour ago, I should 
 have said no," she answered, while he retained her hand 
 momentarily. " And if you should ask me to-morrow 
 morning, I might say no. My good moods are so 
 terribly ephemeral." 
 
 " But you would say yes now ?" 
 
 " Yes," she answered, simply, and she fancied that 
 with those great, deep, earnest, passionate eyes upon 
 her, she would have said yes to almost anything. " I 
 wish you would come and see me, sometime, Mr. 
 Kaltenborn," she added. 
 
 He may have taken the invitation for an after-thought, 
 or a mere courtesy ; but she had been pondering the 
 matter for several minutes. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 ANCESTRAL AND OTHER SECRETS 
 
 Whatever he may have thought of the sincerity of her 
 invitation, Kaltenborn called on Miss Darhngton two 
 weeks later. Her independence of thought and speech 
 were very pleasing to his own independent nature ; and 
 her self-confidence and hardihood, tinctured with her 
 father's worldhness. in a form softened by her age 
 and sex, were refreshing to his vigorous and original 
 mind. 
 
 But fully as gratifying to him as anything else about 
 Carol — possibly more gratifying, had he been perfectly 
 candid with himself — was a delicate, fleeting deference 
 which she paid to his opinions, no matter how stoutly 
 she contested them openly. So subtle was this homage 
 — an indefinable lighting of her eye, a peculiar move- 
 ment of her brows, a tense, listening attitude, a kind of 
 suspension, as it were, of all her senses save that of 
 hearing — that she seemed unconscious of it herself. 
 It was certainly too intangible to be either openly 
 accepted or rejected by Kaltenborn. Yet he wondered 
 at times if it was not an amiable little trick, a sop 
 thrown to his vanity. 
 
 As often as this suspicion recurred to him, he dis- 
 missed it as unworthy of himself and unjust to her. 
 Why should she cater to his vanitv^ whether she thought 
 
Ancestral and Other Secrets 205 
 
 ill or well of him ? And why, in truth, should she not 
 show him a little deference ? He had seen the world, 
 he had read deeply in both men and books ; and he 
 was doing a work here in Ashboro that not every man 
 could or would do. 
 
 He knew whence his sensitiveness in this matter 
 came. It sprang from his perfect realization of the 
 difference between her social position and his, the 
 difference between their ideas of life, their hopes and 
 ambitions. He knew that she had no real advantage 
 over him in these things, but did she know it ? 
 
 There was one other reason for his hesitating to call 
 on her. Repugnant as the thought was, and squirm 
 under it as he might, he knew there were people in his 
 church who would not countenance any intimacy be- 
 tween their pastor and Carol Darlington. Her race- 
 horse, her opera-going, her dancing, her card-playing, 
 even her private-car parties, and very possibly her 
 acting as auditor of the H. P., R., A., and S. — which 
 some people thought mannish — were things which 
 some of Kaltenborn's members could not overlook, or 
 allow their pastor to overlook. He could easily under- 
 stand this aversion on the part of his people, charming 
 young woman though Carol was ; he could even see 
 that it was inevitable. But this did not make the 
 bonds put upon him chafe any less. 
 
 Carol led Kaltenborn into the music-room, — a cozy 
 place with its grate fire, and her favorite quarters. 
 She introduced a young man sitting on the piano-stool 
 as Mr. Winter, and then drew up another chair to the 
 fire. While her back was thus turned, a shadowy 
 smile, a mixture of amusement and apprehension, 
 flickered over her face. 
 
2o6 The Darlingtons 
 
 Her apprehension was not unreasonable. Winter 
 was suave, graceful, smooth-tongued, discreet, and 
 politic, though withal courageous and honest. Kalten- 
 born was blunt, out-spoken, conscientious to eccentric- 
 ity, and full of unconventional notions. Winter was the 
 proprietor of Ashboro Inn, and as such the owner of a 
 bar. Kaltenborn was a preacher, and as such a public 
 enemy of drink. It might very easily prove difficult to 
 keep two such men on neutral ground. 
 
 Another thing embarrassed Carol a little, though she 
 had a foolish desire to laugh at it, too. A custom of 
 allowing certain favorites to smoke when they came in 
 of an evening had grown up in the Darlington house- 
 hold. Both Mr. Darlington and Bert smoked from 
 cellar to garret, and they had a sociable habit of 
 dropping in on Carol's intimate men friends with cigars 
 in their mouths. If the visitor happened to smoke, — 
 and most of Carol's intimates did, — a cigar was invari- 
 ably pressed upon him. In the course of time, these 
 few young men got to bringing their own cigars, and to 
 lighting them without the sanction of Mr. Darlington's 
 or Bert's presence. Carol had resolved several times to 
 prohibit this custom — she knew it was talked about ; 
 but as she did not take the matter to heart, the prohibi- 
 tion never came. 
 
 Mr. Winter was one of these privileged favorites, and 
 at this moment a half-consumed cigar was sending up 
 a tiny blue spiral of smoke from an ash-tray on the 
 table, v.-here Winter had discreetly deposited it upon 
 Kaltenborn's entrance. However, there was nothing 
 to say ; at least, nothing that Carol cared to say. If 
 Kaltenborn saw anything incongruous in a music-room 
 full of smoke, he did not betray his perception by so 
 
Ancestral and Other Secrets 207 
 
 much as the movement of an ej^elid. This tactfulness 
 was something that Carol could admire, and she sank 
 gracefully down into her chair, and folded her hands 
 before her. 
 
 The men got along smoothly. Cash had never ap- 
 peared to better advantage, Carol thought, and she 
 resolved to tell him later that seriousness was a very 
 becoming role for him. She saw, though, that he was 
 taking his cue from Kaltenborn, and his imitation bore 
 to Kaltenborn's virility about the relation that a painter's 
 canvas bears to a landscape, — all unsightly objects left 
 out, glaring colors subdued, extremes of light and 
 shadow tempered. In short, Winter was just what he 
 always was, though now out of his beaten track, — a 
 gentleman, careful of the feelings of others, with a dis- 
 taste for extremes, and no appetite for an argument. 
 
 Kaltenborn, on the other hand, was rugged and 
 leonine. His landscape, though full of majestic moun- 
 tains, was not without yawning abysses. There were 
 grassy valleys, but also bleak summits, and through 
 the verdure of the slopes, the granite thrust its hard 
 face. 
 
 Carol was afraid of him — she admitted it freely to 
 herself. Here in her presence, he was bitted and 
 reined, as it were. But when he was free ! When 
 he took to his bosom the woman of his choice, if he 
 ever should, and poured forth without reserve his 
 inmost thoughts ! Within him was a volcanic force 
 that no woman could control, she fancied, and this 
 same force would either lift some woman into the clear 
 light above the clouds, or dash her pitilessly to earth. 
 She saw in him, she believed, a constancy that knew 
 no change, but also an iron will, — a helpless, unreason- 
 
2o8 The Darlingtons 
 
 ing devotion to principle that would; without mercy, 
 grind to dust the dearest heart that stood in his way. 
 But now, a guest in her house, these lions were slumber- 
 ing ; and, besides, she was outside the cage — and she 
 hugged the thought close that she was not their trainer. 
 She could now look upon the quiescent lords of brute 
 creation with equanimity, and even give them an occa- 
 sional sly poke — with a good long pole. 
 
 After they had discussed politics, woman's rights, 
 literature, and other subjects. Winter, who was begin- 
 ning to look a little bored, said casually : '' Your name 
 is a familiar one to me, Mr. Kaltenborn, under the 
 slightly modified form of Von Kaltenborn." 
 
 "Where did you ever see it, Cash?" asked Carol, 
 curiously. She had fancied the name about as rare as 
 the man. 
 
 " I don't suppose that Mr. Kaltenborn is even aware 
 of the fact," answered Cash, with a broad smile, "that 
 one of Milwaukee's most famous brewers is Fritz von 
 Kaltenborn. His beer is considered by connoisseurs to 
 be the purest in the United States." 
 
 It seemed to Carol that Cash was taking a poke at 
 the lions on his own account, and with a dangerously 
 short pole ; but this only made the performance more 
 interesting. She glanced mischievously at Kaltenborn. 
 He looked from one to the other, as if to ascertain 
 their intentions, and then answered briefly, but without 
 offence : " Fritz von Kaltenborn is my father." 
 
 The blank faces of his hearers must have convinced 
 him of their innocence. Carol gave a little " Oh ! " 
 and flushed, and glanced at Winter. The situation was 
 delicate for a moment, and Winter extricated himself as 
 gracefully as possible, perhaps, when he remarked, smil- 
 
Ancestral and Other Secrets 209 
 
 ingly, " Well, he makes a good honest brew, Mr. Kal- 
 tenborn. I can testify to that." 
 
 "As honest as any brew can be, I presume," an- 
 swered Kaltenborn, quietly. " Doubtless some brews 
 are more dishonest than others, but they are all dis- 
 honest enough. My father and I hold different opinions 
 about that, of course. But when one sees an employe 
 of a brewery draw thirty or forty or even fifty beer- 
 checks in one day, as I have seen, and sees those 
 checks turned in for as many big glasses of beer in 
 one day, as I have, one begins to suspect that there is 
 something insidiously dishonest about even the honest- 
 est brew, and that those who drink it will soon thirst 
 again." 
 
 Though Winter had unwittingly opened the door of 
 the closet containing the Kaltenborn family skeleton, he 
 had no desire to stand and shamelessly look in, or urge 
 Kaltenborn to rattle its bones. So after making a few 
 admissions about the dishonesty of beer, he skilfully 
 turned tne subject until they were talking about horses. 
 It was the first time during the evening that Cash had 
 taken a stand upon familiar ground, and Carol was per- 
 fectly willing to excuse him, though Kaltenborn could 
 not be expected to know much, if anything, about 
 horses. Still, he might, she reflected, if he was a 
 brewer's son. 
 
 Winter finally asked Kaltenborn if he was anything of 
 a horse fancier. Carol doubted the happiness of such a 
 question to a minister, and a poorly paid one at that, 
 but Kaltenborn answered readily : " I used to be, and 
 am yet, though I don't gratify the fancy any longer." 
 
 "Then you don't see any harm in horse-racing — 
 that is, the racing itself? " 
 
 14 
 
210 The Darlingtons 
 
 "That's a pretty complicated question, Mr. Winter/' 
 answered Kaltenborn, smiling, " and one that I could n't 
 answer satisfactorily in a brief way. If it were not for the 
 cruelty sometimes attending horse-racing, I will say that 
 I don't think the sport itself would prove demoralizing." 
 
 After Winter had gone, Carol said to Kaltenborn, 
 with something like reproach in her eyes, '' Why did 
 you tell us about your father? Don't you know that it 
 may hurt you ? " 
 
 Kaltenborn looked back into the sofdy solicitous eyes 
 with a grateful glance. " Don't you know that I can't 
 help it?" he asked, quaintly. 
 
 " You could." 
 
 ♦'How?" 
 
 "By keeping still." She closed her own handsome 
 mouth firmly to exemplify. 
 
 Kaltenborn looked into the fire. " You would have 
 deceived him?" he asked. 
 
 "I should have deceived him," she answered, firmly. 
 
 " Then you would deceive, would n't you," he re- 
 turned, as though a suspicion had been verified, except 
 that he was half jesting. 
 
 " I believe there are times when the Recording 
 Angel himself makes it convenient to be out for a 
 moment," she answered, earnestly, in spite of her 
 whimsical figure of speech. 
 
 " Would this have been one of the times, do you 
 think .'' " he asked, half ironically. 
 
 " I think this is one of the times when a he would 
 have been the handmaiden of truth." 
 
 "I have heard that handmaidens sometimes deceive 
 their mistresses," he observed, dryly. 
 
 " Without going too deeply into that question," said 
 
Ancestral and Other Secrets 211 
 
 Carols laughing, " you have done just what I could have 
 foretold. You have been guilty, sir, of a super-sensi- 
 tiveness of conscience. You have impaired your use- 
 fulness — no matter how little — by an unreasoning 
 adherence to principle. I am not a liar, and I despise 
 lies and liars ; but I should have lied then — if keeping 
 still would have been lying, and I suppose it would. 
 Why should you put weapons into your enemies* 
 hands ? People will hear of this thing. Mr. Winter 
 will tell it to some one, sooner or later. You made 
 no secret of it, and naturally he won't. Your church 
 will hear of it, and there are people in your church, 
 Mr. Kaltenborn, who will visit the sins of the father 
 upon the son, and think it a Christian merit." 
 
 " Nobody knows that better than I," returned Kal- 
 tenborn, gently. " But, Miss Darlington, I want to tell 
 you this." He sunk his voice until its suppressed 
 power thrilled Carol through and through. " I don't 
 believe that any human being was ever placed in an ex- 
 igency which justified a lie. I don't believe that a he 
 ever yet did good, honest service. And I don't want 
 jyou to believe that it ever did." 
 
 She looked up into his serious eyes quite meekly, and 
 said nothing. He continued, reflectively: ''I don't 
 really regret the chance that made it necessary for me 
 to tell that about my father. The secret was more dan- 
 gerous in my hands than out of them. It has hurt me 
 more already, I am sure, than it ever can again. It 
 was making a coward of me. It was tying my hands. 
 I did n't knovv^ — I don't know now — how many people 
 in this town know that my father is a brewer. It is no 
 secret outside of Ashboro, and some one here may have 
 already heard it. If it 's to be known — and such things 
 
2 1 2 The Darlingtons 
 
 can't be kept a secret indefinitely — I want to know 
 that it is known. Then I can meet the issue squarely. 
 I can't fight in the dark, Miss Darlington, and that 's 
 the only place where I can't." 
 
 " I fear you are spoiling for a fight," she said, coyly 
 reproving him. "But I forgive you. Men have to 
 have a little of that now and then, apparently, or grow 
 stale. But I tell you candidly, if you are going to tell 
 all your secrets, you will have a hard row to hoe. You 
 might begin with me, for practice," she added, 
 piquantly. 
 
 "I will. I told Mr. Winter that I used to own 
 horses. I '11 tell you that I used to race them." 
 
 " Mr. Kaltenboin, I knew it ! " she exclaimed, lean- 
 ing forward with kindling eyes. ^^ The first time I ever 
 saw you, I knew you had n't always been a preacher. 
 I don't mean anything uncomplimentary," she ex- 
 plained, quickly. '' But I knew that you had seen more 
 of the world than most preachers see — at least, more of 
 one side of it. And I did n't think any the less of you 
 for it." 
 
 "lean quite easily believe that," he observed, in- 
 scrutably. 
 
 She looked at him doubtfully, with a twinkle in her 
 eye. " I don't know just how to take that, sir. You 
 mean, I suppose, that as soon as I suspected that you 
 had been worldly, I had a fellow-feeling for you. That 
 is unkind. But — did you ever own any real good 
 horses — as good a horse as Whitefoot, say ? " she 
 asked, curiously. 
 
 " I owned Queen Charlotte from her first year until 
 she burst a blood-vessel at Fairfield," he answered. 
 
 Carol sprang to her feet. " You owned Queen Char- 
 
Ancestral and Other Secrets 2 1 3 
 
 lotte? You are joking, Mr. Kaltenborn ! " she cried, 
 sharply. 
 
 " No," he said, with unmistakable sincerity. 
 
 " Queen Charlotte was a great-aunt of my own dear 
 Whitefoot ! " she exclaimed, enthusiastically. " And you 
 never told me ! Wait a minute ! " She left the room 
 abruptly, and quickly returned with a small, framed pict- 
 ure in her hands. " This is one of my most treasured 
 possessions." She laughed gaily. " Look at it ! Look 
 at your own poor, noble, dead Queen ! " 
 
 Kaltenborn took the picture in his hands with a faint 
 smile, and gazed some time at the long-bodied, clean- 
 Hmbed racer. " She was a queen," he murmured, 
 reminiscently. *' I remember when this very picture 
 was taken. It was at Louisville. I recognize the sheds 
 in the background. I stood within ten feet of her, and 
 held up a handkerchief to catch her eye." 
 
 " I declare, this is a perfect fairy tale, Mr. Kalten- 
 born ! " exclaimed Carol, dehghtedly. 
 
 ^'The day before that mare died," he continued, so- 
 berly, '• I refused twelve thousand dollars for her ; an 
 hour after she died, I gave her to a soap-maker for the 
 hauling. I have thought a thousand times how that 
 typifies the vanities of this world." 
 
 Carol was standing with her hand on the back of his 
 chair, looking over his shoulder at the picture. Her 
 eyes wandered momentarily to his foreshortened profile. 
 
 " The poor, beautiful thing ! " she exclaimed, pity- 
 ingly. She was silent a moment, and then began, 
 haltingly, " Do you know, Mr. Kaltenborn, some people 
 believe that horses go to heaven ? " 
 
 " Barney Mitchell used to say so," he answered, mus- 
 ingly. " He was Queen's driver. The sympathy be- 
 
214 The Darlingtons 
 
 tween him and her was remarkable, and the power he 
 had over her was Httle short of marvellous. It was 
 never more strikingly manifested than in the last race 
 of her Hfe. There were eight other entries. Queen got 
 a bad start, but the pace that she and two other favor- 
 ites set — Witchcraft and Peggy Hubbard — was so ter- 
 rific that the three soon had the track to themselves. 
 When they reached the three-quarter post, Witchcraft 
 and Hubbard were abreast, with Queen two lengths 
 behind. I had hopes, though, until I saw Mitchell drop 
 his whip, — the only time he ever did such a trick in his 
 life, — and then I put up my glasses. Mitchell knew 
 the mare better than I did. By his voice, and by gently 
 patting her haunch with his hand, he forced her to 
 take up the gap between herself and the others. Then 
 he got her abreast of them, and held his place until they 
 were well down the stretch. By this time the mare was 
 in a frenzy, and her eyes glared wildly. A hundred feet 
 from the finish, Barney spoke her name, in a quick, 
 sharp tone. She gave a terrific spurt, and shot under 
 the wire a length ahead of Witchcraft, who got place. 
 As she did so she fell to her knees, and doubled up in a 
 heap from her momentum. Mitchell shot over her head, 
 and landed twenty feet beyond. I supposed she had 
 stumbled ; but as soon as MitcheM had collected his 
 senses and taken one look at her,^e turned away with 
 a face as white as chalk. He knew she was dying, and 
 of all the jockeys and veterinarians that crowded around 
 the fallen horse, he was the only one that did know it. 
 Of course, we all saw it after a little. That scene haunt- 
 ed my memory for days," he added sadly. ''There 
 was an almost human pathos in Queen's eyes as she 
 turned them on the crowd that pushed about her, as 
 
Ancestral and Other Secrets 215 
 
 though she knew she had done her duty, and had no 
 regrets. When a veterinarian announced that she had 
 broken a blood-vessel and could n't live an hour, I saw 
 more than one woman burst into tears. She was a great 
 favorite with women." 
 
 Carol was silent a moment, and then slowly walked 
 over to her chair and sat down. When she looked up 
 and said, in a subdued voice, " I love a good horse and 
 a good race," her eyes were wet. 
 
 "Yet you have only seen the bright side of racing," 
 said Kaltenborn, after a pause, which seemed to be in 
 honor of the dead mare. ''The reverse side of the 
 stage is not more different from its front than the re- 
 verse side of a race-track from its front. If you could 
 see the cut-throats, gamblers, card-sharps, and touts 
 that swarm from one track to another ; the lying, buy- 
 ing, stealing, and intriguing that accompany every race ; 
 the degraded characters that infest the stables ; their 
 profligate, soulless lives, their vulgar display of ill-gotten 
 gains, and the coarseness of thought and speech in the 
 best of them — if you could see all this, you would feel 
 almost sorry for the beautiful, high-spirited animals that 
 have to associate daily and hourly with them. And I am 
 sure, too, that if you had once seen all these things, as I 
 have, it would forevor poison the pleasure you now get 
 from a horse-race, just as it spoils mine." 
 
 " I know, in a vague way, of it all," she said. "That 
 is, I have heard." 
 
 " Yes, as you have heard of the profligacies of ancient 
 Rome or the bestiahty of the Feudal Age. But that is 
 very far from a comprehension of them. " 
 
 At the door she said, with a twinkle, " The next time 
 you come I won't make you talk breweries and horse- 
 
21 6 The Darlingtons 
 
 racing. But it's so few preachers that can talk entertain- 
 ingly on those subjects ! " She paused roguishly, and 
 Kaltenborn punished her temerity by giving her hand 
 an added pressure. 
 
 Carol walked slowly back to the music-room, closed 
 the piano, and then went on into the sitting-room, where 
 the family all happened to be gathered at the moment 
 — Bert smoking, Mr. Darlington buried in his paper, 
 Ruth reading, and Mrs. Darlington picking over a bas- 
 ket of silk yarns. Carol was braced for an onslaught of 
 raillery, for her various encounters with Kaltenborn 
 had become a family joke, and this, his first call, could 
 hardly be passed over. But not a word was said. 
 
 Carol settled down momentarily on a chair before go- 
 ing upstairs, and mentally compared the horse that one 
 of Kaltenborn's parishioners had placed at his disposal 
 with Queen Charlotte. She had smiled more than once 
 at the ambling gait of the former with the rattling 
 vehicle he drew. She never would again, she decided. 
 She would be more likely to cry. The man that could 
 come down from a Queen Charlotte to old Mr. Meeks's 
 family driving-horse for conscience's sake was worthy of 
 tears. 
 
 " No, Bert,'*' began Mr. Darlington, with sanctimoni- 
 ous gravity, " I don't think your views on amusements 
 are just orthodox. They are more Episcopalian than 
 Methodistical. You hold that all innocent amusements 
 are harmless ; we hold that all harmless amusements are 
 innocent." 
 
 Carol instantly saw the game, which Ruth's snickering 
 would have betrayed in any event. She said nothing, 
 and did not look up, though her cheeks slightly red- 
 dened. Bert smiled at his father's drollery^ but refused 
 
Ancestral and Other Secrets 217 
 
 to become a party to it. Ruth^ however, had no such 
 scruples. 
 
 " Still, I don 't just see, sir," she answered, in a 
 mincing tone, "where the harm lies in a game of 
 croquet." 
 
 "Are not the balls round, like a bilHard ball?" de- 
 manded her father. " Do they not roll to and fro over 
 the uneven ground by chance 'i It is the chance ele- 
 ment that damns croquet." 
 
 Carol rose and walked toward the door with well- 
 assumed dignity \ but before she got out of the room 
 her mouth began to twitch with suppressed laughter, 
 and finally she was fairly shaking. Then turning and 
 laying aside all pretence, she said, with a tantalizing 
 gleam in her eyes, " Papa, if you only knew what we 
 did talk about ! " 
 
 "What?" demanded Ruth, instantly dropping farce 
 for reality. 
 
 *' You guess," retorted Carol, and disappeared. 
 
 Meanwhile Kaltenborn walked homeward. It was 
 ten o'clock when he got there, and he had an hour yet 
 to read. Half a dozen books lay on his table. He 
 glanced them over, and found that he had no appetite 
 for any of them. Yet he distinctly remembered laying 
 down Bishop Foster's " Prolegomena " with regret when 
 the hour for him to go to Miss Darlington's had come. 
 He took Emerson out of the case — a favorite that 
 seldom failed to soothe him ; but he soon found him- 
 self turning the pages with his mind miles away. 
 
 Or was it only blocks away ? No, it was not Miss 
 Darlington, he decided. He was wandering in spirit 
 through the great over-furnished halls and rooms of a 
 palace overlooking the green waters of Lake Michigan, 
 
21 8 The Darlingtons 
 
 the place he had once called home, and which his 
 lonely old father yet called home. The picture stirred 
 scarce a tender emotion in his bosom. The great 
 castle-like pile, with its craggy, granite walls, — the 
 model of which stood on the banks of the Rhine, — 
 looked as cold and cheerless, in Kaltenborn's fancy, 
 as the dark vaults in which was stored the beer that 
 built it. He saw, too, in fancy, his father as he had last 
 seen him in the flesh, — a stalwart, vigorous old man, 
 with a face now as hard and grim as an iron mask, his 
 finger pointing to the door, his firm lips saying, " Go, 
 and come no more ! " It was the day Kaltenborn had 
 announced his determination to become a preacher. 
 
 Next, his dream-fairy carried him to Fairfield track 
 again, where Queen Charlotte had died amid the bustle 
 of stable-boys and jockeys, and hard-faced, diamond- 
 decked " bookies," with their glaring shirt-fronts, " loud " 
 ties, and plaid clothes. There was little here to tempt 
 him to linger, and next he was back in his rooms at 
 Heidelberg, a student again. Then, with the speed of 
 thought, he visited successively his law-office, the par- 
 sonage at his former charge, and — the music-room at 
 the Darlingtons', with her. It was Carol, perhaps, after 
 all. Or was it only the life she stood for ? And was there 
 not a life somewhere between the two extremes he had 
 known, in which he might find a place, and be neither 
 cramped nor lost ? 
 
 He tossed the Essays upon the table, and with his 
 hands in his pockets strode gloomily up and down his 
 study. He paused once and looked at the unfinished 
 sermon upon his desk. As he read the last lines over 
 aloud, in a bitter, satirical tone, he laughed half-scorn- 
 fully. They sounded as false and hoUow as a page from 
 
Ancestral and Other Secrets 219 
 
 a melodrama, and seizing the sheets, he made a motion 
 as if to tear them in two. 
 
 " Have I got to fight this battle all over again ? " he 
 asked, savagely. Then, quickly ashamed of his weak- 
 ness, he smiled, and laid the sheets gently down, and 
 murmured, " I have a little touch of poison in my veins 
 to-night, but I '11 throw it off by morning." 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE LEAVEN WORKS 
 
 In the hvo months that followed, Kaltenborn called on 
 Carol a number of times. His visits to her soon be- 
 came the event of the week for him. He fomid him- 
 self looking forward to them ; and his mind often stole 
 away from the sermon under his hand to that cozy 
 room in the Darlington mansion, with its soft chairs, its 
 genial grate-fire, its light, its soothing, hospitable atmos- 
 phere, and its charming mistress. That music-room was 
 the one place in Ashboro where Kaltenborn allowed 
 himself 'co expand ; the one place where he could 
 hft the shroud from his dead past, and lay down for a 
 moment the burdens of his living present. There he 
 was not a preacher, but merely Stephen Kaltenborn. 
 There no oracular significance attached to his words, 
 for no admiring supporters were there to quote them, no 
 malcontents to misinterpret them. In Carol he found 
 an intelligent, if not always an assenting, Hstener, and 
 their amicable tilts were as bracing to him as a draught 
 of mountain air. 
 
 He received, too, as well as gave, and found it in this 
 instance fully as blessed. Through Carol's eyes he 
 looked into a world resembling a good deal the world 
 he had renounced. He saw there much to disapprove, 
 and much to admire. Carol, as a favored child of 
 
The Leaven Works 221 
 
 fortune, vividly typified her little world, at its best and 
 at its worst. She was worldly, but also broad ; perfunc- 
 tory in religion, but tolerant ; lacking sympathy for the 
 ignorant, but herself cultured ; shrinking from poverty, 
 but still charitable. 
 
 Yet, for all this, Kaltenborn soon began to feel vaguely 
 a sense of loss. The morning after an evening at the 
 Darlingtons', his tension was relaxed and his mind 
 vitiated. An effort was required for him to swing back 
 into the routine of his life ; and once back, he found 
 himself weighed down with a most stubborn lethargy. 
 He was assailed at times by an almost unconquerable 
 aversion to his more homely duties, such as visiting the 
 sick and settling differences between his parishioners. 
 He found himself less elated by success, and more dis- 
 couraged by failure. 
 
 The cause was perfectly plain to him. As he had 
 grown more intimate with Carol, she had drawn him 
 further and further into her life, and her pleasures and 
 work and friends and ambitions had more and more 
 taken up their conversation. This, too, not from any 
 choosing of Carol's, or in opposition to Kaltenborn's 
 wishes, but naturally, easily, and almost unconsciously. 
 In the same measure his work and ambitions and 
 pleasures had sunk out of sight, until at last he actually 
 felt diffident about introducing into their conversation 
 anything especially connected with his church. 
 
 A superficiality of thought, too, marked their inter- 
 course, when he came to analyze it in the serenity 
 of his study. That sledge-hammer insistency of argu- 
 ment which he had employed with Carol, when he 
 cared nothing for her favor, had dwindled away to 
 tack-hammer strokes. Not through any indifference of 
 
222 The Darlingtons 
 
 his, but because he had come to believe, through some 
 witchcraft or other, that sledge-hammers were not as 
 genteel a tool to use in a lady's sitting-room as a tack- 
 hammer. Carol, too, had changed. The sharp-pointed 
 javelin and the cleaving battle-axe with which she had 
 once ridden full tilt at Kaltenborn had been laid aside for 
 mere toys of weapons, and their jousting had degen- 
 erated into a dull sham battle. 
 
 As between friends, this kind of intercourse was all 
 right, from some people's point of view. But from 
 Kaltenborn's, it was all wrong. He believed the friend- 
 ship between him and Carol had to be intellectual or 
 nothing. Anything else was impossible ; or, if possible, 
 dangerous, and destined to end in vain regrets. He 
 realized perfectly the gulf between her and him. Be- 
 sides, he never expected to marry ; and if he did marry, 
 his wife must be a woman who could further his chosen 
 work. Carol Darlington was obviously not that woman. 
 He had proved it more than once, not so much to his 
 satisfaction, perhaps, as to his dissatisfaction. She was 
 good, kind, pure, and high-minded ; but the idea of 
 sacrificing her life for others had never taken hold of 
 her, and probably never would. She even regarded 
 such sacrifices as unnecessary and quixotic, and their 
 very discussion seemed to chill and subdue her, when 
 indeed it did not provoke her to impatience. This 
 demonstrating of Carol's unfitness to be his wife had a 
 very questionable fascination for Kaltenborn, and he 
 displayed remarkable ingenuity in devising new tests for 
 her. Indeed, one might have suspected that he was 
 trying to find a test which she could successfully stand. 
 
 Yet the honesty and courage with which she clung to 
 her convictions charmed him. The patience with 
 
The Leaven Works 223 
 
 which she usually let him scathe her philosophy struck 
 him as truly admirable, and her humility under his ap- 
 parent assumption of superiority was an unfailing source 
 of wonder to him. She would sit and listen to him — they 
 were not always superficial — looking into the fire with 
 an incredulous httle smile on her face. Or she would 
 sit in sober thought, or with her brows knit in a puzzled 
 frown. At such moments, as Kaltenborn measured 
 every feature of hers with his eyes, her firm mouth, 
 her determined chin, her chiselled nose, just like her 
 father's, her shrewd, intelligent eyes, her shapely 
 head, with its broad, low brow, his heart sometimes 
 melted with pity to think by how little she had missed 
 greatness. 
 
 " Mr. Kaltenborn, you must think I am an awfully 
 weak woman," said Carol, on one of these occasions. 
 She spoke in a subdued tone, though bending a smile 
 upon him. " You must have a dreadful opinion of my 
 nobility. But, believe me, I could do all those things, if 
 I only thought they were 7iecessary. If I thought it 
 would serve some great end, I believe I could die at 
 the stake as bravely as Joan of Arc died. I could 
 spend all my days in poverty, abject poverty, and be 
 happy, if it were for some one whom I dearly loved. I 
 am as sure of that as I am that I live. Do you believe 
 it?" She gave him a steady, searching gaze, without 
 lifting her head from its thoughtful inclination. 
 
 " I do," he answered. " I never thought you weak." 
 
 "What is my trouble then?" she asked, and there 
 was something half-pathetic in her forced smile. *'I 
 know you believe there is something wrong." 
 
 *' You can't learn that sacrifices are necessary," he 
 answered, earnestly. ''If you could learn that great 
 
224 The Darlingtons 
 
 opportunities are lying every day in your path, awaiting 
 noble, unselfish devotion on your part, regardless of 
 cost, your trouble, trust me, would be gone." 
 
 She gazed thoughtfully at the floor, with a little doubt- 
 ing smile, the plaintiveness of which he had learned to 
 love. "That sounds very familiar, Mr. Kaltenborn, " 
 she said, "but I know you wouldn't talk in that way 
 unless you meant something. Tell me what sacrifice I 
 can make to-morrow that will help some one,'* she con- 
 tinued, lifting her face resolutely, " and I will make it 
 at any cost." 
 
 " I can't tell you," he answered, smiHng at her frank- 
 ness. " It is almost as much of a grace to see these 
 things as to do them. But you keep a sharp eye to- 
 morrow, and see if you don't discover something before 
 twelve o'clock. But don't take it too seriously. Don't 
 regard yourself as a martyr, or become quixotic, and 
 take a wind-mill for a giant. Don't go around mortify- 
 ing your flesh to no good end. The commonest flesh 
 is too good to be mortified without reason, and I some- 
 times think that when it is white and tender it has a 
 special claim for exemption." 
 
 Carol gave him a little wise look, as though this also 
 sounded familiar, but as though she doubted this time 
 whether it meant anything or not. Dropping her head 
 shghtly, as women do under fire of this kind, she said, 
 quietly, and he thought disappointedly, " I didn't sup- 
 pose you ever noticed such things." 
 
 "What, then, in this fair world of God's, did you 
 suppose I would notice ? " he asked, slightly resenting 
 her tone. 
 
 " I did n't just mean what I said," she murmured, 
 begging forgiveness with her soft eyes. 
 
The Leaven Works 225 
 
 " I think God made such things to be noticed," he 
 added. 
 
 " But in silence," she suggested, slyly, glancing up 
 from under her brows as she worked her gown into httle 
 folds over her knee. 
 
 " I fancy you don't mean that either," he returned 
 dryly. 
 
 ''But you do notice them in silence, mostly, — don't 
 you?" she asked, defensively. 
 
 " Whenever that 's possible," he answered, gallantly. 
 
 She was silent for a moment, and then asked, as if 
 suggesting a change of subject, " Is anything impossible 
 with you men ? " 
 
 " Nothing except you women," he returned, refusing 
 to change the subject. 
 
 She slowly traced some imaginary characters on her 
 chair-arm with her forefinger. " That spells ' foolish,' " 
 said she, with a keen smile, "and it means us." 
 
 ^' You are a good speller," he said, with significant 
 gravity. 
 
 When he arose to go, Carol said, " The next time 
 you come, I will report on my efforts to find a sacrifice 
 to-morrow, and this is a token of my earnestness." 
 With just the least self-consciousness, she shpped into 
 his buttonhole a rosebud she had taken from a cluster 
 on the table. " Be careful that you don't crush it with 
 your overcoat," she added, with almost maternal author- 
 ity in her tones. She changed the position of the 
 flower a Httle, as though he were a boy, and he felt a 
 mounting happiness within which was indeed boyish. 
 
 He had just removed his overcoat at Mrs. Hicks's, 
 when the old woman, in her slippers and wrapper, ap- 
 peared in the doorway at the end of the hall. 
 
 15 
 
22 6 The Darlingtons 
 
 "Brother Kaltenborn," she began, in her high, rasp- 
 ing key. " Mrs. Doolittle was took worse to-night, and 
 they think she 's dyin'. Her boy was here for you 
 about an hour ago. I 'd a-sent him for you, but I 
 told him I did n't have the slightest idee where you 
 was. I knew there wa'n't no church-doin's on to- 
 night, and you don't belong to any lodge. I told him 
 you generally left word where you could be found in 
 just sich emergencies as this, but that you'd overlooked 
 it to-night, I guessed. That 's a pretty bud in your coat," 
 she added, her voice falling confidentially. " Guess 
 you must 'a' been around some greenhouse, because 
 them roses don't bloom in everybody's house this time 
 o' year. Put it in water, and it will open by to-morrow 
 mornin'." 
 
 " I '11 go around to Mrs. Doolittle's at once," said 
 Kaltenborn, in his abruptest tone. He was in his 
 overcoat again by this time, and he at once stalked 
 out. As he walked rapidly along, he turned over in his 
 mind the desirability of changing his quarters. This 
 prying into the secret of his occasional absences at 
 night was becoming very irritating to him. 
 
 Carol Darlington undressed that night with a thought- 
 ful, preoccupied expression on her handsome face. 
 Occasionally she smiled a little, but for the most part 
 she was serious. Following a custom of hers, she put 
 on a flannel robe and slippers, drew a fragile, brass- 
 legged table close to the fire, and began a letter. But 
 evidently she had mistaken her mood, for she sat whole 
 minutes with her slim white hand pressed against her 
 flushed cheek, and her eyes lost in reverie. Finally, 
 though, she wrote rapidly for a time. The writing ran, — 
 
The Leaven Works 227 
 
 " He is a character that you would simply revel in, 
 and he would make a fine addition to your cabinet of 
 curios, though you would have to enlarge it several feet 
 each way, as there is nothing small about him. He has 
 a very striking figure, too, which I sha'n't attempt to 
 describe, except to say that you simply can't imagine 
 him in a dress-suit. He has n't even a dressy complex- 
 ion, for he's quite ruddy. (I can't say much there. 
 My blowziness is still with me, and these cold, windy 
 days are especially favorable to it.) 
 
 '' He 's a radical about some things, and I 'm afraid 
 he does n't like women very well. That 's a great 
 defect, of course. Ahem ! But he may outgrow it — 
 he 's only thirty-five ! If you could see him, Clara, you 
 would either hate him or love him at first sight — you 
 are so terribly absolute. I believe you would love him, 
 though ; so perhaps it is just as well for you not to see 
 him, because he is not a marryi?ig man, strictly. He 
 does n't go in for society, either, so you would n't want 
 him. I should just about as soon think of leading a 
 grizzly bear through a chinaware exhibit as of taking 
 him to an afternoon tea, for instance. Maybe that 
 recommends him to you, though. Or have you out- 
 grown that fearful unconventionality of yours? 
 
 " He thinks (I 'm full of him to-night, for he was just 
 here, and you have got to stand it) that a woman hasn't 
 any right to marry a man unless she can fathom all his 
 ambitions and all that, and help him out with them. 
 Can you do that for Tom? If not, my dear, it is my 
 painful duty to inform you that your contemplated 
 marriage is a mistake, and sooner or later will bring 
 you to grief But, dear me ! what can a poor girl do ? 
 He says she ought to crush her love, for the man's sake, 
 
228 The Darlingtons 
 
 and keep away from him. That 's one kind of crush- 
 ing that he does n't know much about, I fancy. And if 
 a woman should do it, how much credit would she get 
 from the very man she had done it for? You tell me, 
 Clarissa dear, the next time you write." 
 
 This long spurt over, Carol's pen again lagged ; and, 
 abandoning the letter for the moment, she left the table, 
 and sank down into the big leather chair. A pretty 
 picture she made, with her queenly figure at rest, the 
 toes of her red slippers just touching the fender, the 
 mass of fair hair pillowed against the chocolate-colored 
 leather, her half-closed eyes liquid and bright with name- 
 less, unutterable thoughts. 
 
 She was not thinking of Kaltenborn either — not just 
 then. She was thinking of her mother. Mrs. Darling- 
 ton was the only deeply religious member of the family. 
 Ruth's religious nature had not yet awakened ; Herbert 
 had no convictions ; his father was indifferent or scepti- 
 cal ; and Carol herself was only lukewarm at the best. 
 The family attitude toward the church was frequently 
 a subject of raillery in the domestic circle. The rector 
 of St. Paul's — and, later, Kaltenborn — also came in 
 now and then for a good-natured thrust. 
 
 It was all done in a kindly, tolerant spirit ; but to-night 
 Carol wondered, in her unwonted tenderness, if this 
 bantering had not more than once given her mother 
 pain. Some things were too sacred for the most kindly 
 jesting. From this she got to thinking of her mother's 
 marriage, her wanderings with her young husband, her 
 first babies. This period of her mother's life had 
 always been very vague to Carol, but she knew the main 
 facts, and now her kindled imagination clothed the 
 skeleton with flesh. She was old enough now to put 
 
The Leaven Works 229 
 
 herself in her mother's place, in those days of young 
 wifehood ; and the fact that her mother had once been 
 a young woman like herself, filled with the same glowing, 
 rosy hopes ; that her mother had once been wooed and 
 won, just as she, Carol, would some day probably be ; 
 that her mother was then young and inexperienced and 
 only a girl, — all this came to Carol to-night like a revela- 
 tion, with a new and intensified meaning. 
 
 In this new Hght, she pictured her mother, then a 
 young wife, striving with both hope and fear to turn her 
 worldly young husband's thoughts upward. She saw 
 her fail, in bitter but hidden pain ; saw her turning then, 
 with hope springing up anew, to her babies, to plant in 
 them in good season the spiritual seed which had but 
 languished and died in the stony soil of her husband's 
 nature. 
 
 Those babies, what were they now ? — Carol asked 
 herself. Amiable scoffers. The thought was inexpres- 
 sibly touching to her, and she murmured, with tears in 
 her eyes, " Poor little mother ! How many times has 
 your heart ached for us ! " She rose, with a swelling 
 bosom. In that moment she felt that never, so long as 
 she lived, could she give her mother the least pain 
 again. She started for her mother's room, for she 
 wanted to look into her face, and see if there was any 
 sadness there now. But remembering that her mother 
 must be in bed, she paused. Tlie next moment she 
 was on her knees by the side of her own bed, with 
 bowed head. It was not conversion. It was a tribute to 
 mother-love, and it eased the daughter's aching heart. 
 
 When she rose, she murmured aloud, with a fluttering, 
 yearning sigh, " If I could only feel as good and tender 
 as this all the time I '^ 
 
230 The Darlingtons 
 
 In the morning the rose-color was gone, but not for- 
 gotten. After her cold bath and five minutes of exercise 
 with her clubs, she went downstairs, where she found 
 the family already at breakfast. 
 
 " What was the theme last night, Carol ? " asked her 
 father, after a little, with a wink at Bert. *' It must have 
 been a tough one. You look pretty well tuckered out 
 this morning." 
 
 Her father's joking words sounded harsh and cynical 
 just then. " Papa, do you see anything particularly 
 ridiculous in Mr. Kaltenborn ? " she asked with dignity. 
 
 '• I don't see anything ridiculous in him at all," pro- 
 tested her father, but with waggery in his eyes. 
 
 " Then why are you always asking what our theme 
 was ? You insinuate that we do nothing but engage in 
 ridiculous theological disputes." 
 
 *' Not at all, not at all ! " returned Darlington, airily 
 — and provokingly. " I am interested in what you talk 
 about, of course. I don't want him to be putting any 
 unorthodox ideas into your head. They say he 's a 
 little radical," he added, with a look of mock concern. 
 
 " Your solicitude about my orthodoxy is touching, 
 papa," she retorted, sarcastically. " It 's a wonder that 
 the opinions of some of my other friends don't cause 
 you uneasiness." 
 
 " No, I feel perfectly confident of your ability to take 
 care of yourself with everybody except Brother Kalten- 
 born. He 's a giant that could crush you as I would an 
 egg-shell." 
 
 " I should like to see you and him in an argument 
 once," said Carol, with a little threatening laugh. 
 
 " Oh, you would, would you ! " exclaimed her father, 
 defiantly. 
 
The Leaven Works 231 
 
 " I '11 bet there would n't be enough left of papa to 
 draw a conclusion from ! " cried Ruth, derisively, all her 
 sympathies with Carol in this contest. 
 
 " Young ladies don't bet, Ruth," said her mother, 
 reprovingly. Then she added quietly, but proudly, 
 " Your father has held his own in debate with some very 
 clever men, Carol." 
 
 '' They think I 'm a fool, Winifred," said Darlington, 
 looking across at his wife. " Perhaps if I wore a Prince 
 Albert and carried a ready-reference Bible around under 
 my arm, they'd have some respect for me." 
 
 Carol bit her lip, and scarcely spoke again during the 
 meal. Darlington saw that he had gone too far, and he 
 attempted some conciHatory jocularity toward Carol, 
 but she would have none of it. When the others 
 had gone, Mrs. Darlington said, " Carol, don't you 
 know your father well enough to know when he is 
 joking? " 
 
 " I do, mamma. And well enough to know when he 
 is not joking." She spoke in a hurt tone. " I don't 
 care anything more about Mr. Kaltenborn than I do 
 about any other preacher I know, but I won't have him 
 ridiculed behind his back as long as he calls here and 
 is received by the household as a friend. It is n't 
 gentlemanly, and it is n't honest." 
 
 She walked down to the office in a frame of mind in 
 ill accord with the glorious winter sunshine. She 
 decided that she would treat her father coollv all that 
 day, and maybe longer. At the head of the stairs she 
 paused abruptly, and stood still for a moment. " Sacri- 
 fice No. One ! " she murmured, and instead of going to 
 her own room, she turned towards the president's door. 
 She found her father reading the morning paper. 
 
232 The Darlingtons 
 
 " Papa, I want you to take that back," she said, 
 without sitting down. 
 
 " Take what back ?" he asked in apparent surprise. 
 
 " What you said about Mr. Kaltenborn," she answered, 
 with unusual earnestness. 
 
 "What did I say about Kaltenborn?" he asked in 
 his most innocent tone. 
 
 " Please don't, papa ! " she begged. " I swallowed 
 my pride and came in here to effect a reconciliation, 
 but I 'm going out again if you are going to talk in that 
 way." 
 
 He looked at her earnest face curiously, and with 
 either surprise or admiration, or both. " What the 
 deuce do you care what I said about Kaltenborn?" he 
 asked, still manoeuvring around the humble-pie at hand 
 for him. 
 
 " I do care," said she, arbitrarily. 
 
 " Well, I did n't mean anything," he said, " and I take 
 it back, if that 's all you want. But I can't for the life 
 of me see what there was in my remarks to take excep- 
 tion to. Here ! There 's a brand-new ivory paper-knife 
 that a supply man left here yesterday. That shall be 
 my pipe of peace. Trot on, now. You niight kiss 
 me, though, if you want to, just to show there 's no ill- 
 feeling." 
 
 " No, I don't think you are quite penitent enough 
 yet," she answered, rising. 
 
 " You will — before the morning is over," he called 
 after her. " Not a word now, not a word now ! " he said, 
 mysteriously, as she paused. '• You will find out in 
 time." 
 
 She stood a moment longer, and then walked slowly 
 back to his chair, and, bending, placed her cool lips upon 
 
The Leaven Works 233 
 
 his temple. " There, — if you are so sure about it ! " 
 she said. 
 
 About half-past ten Darlington came into her room in 
 a great hurry. " Get on your hat and coat, and ask no 
 questions," he said. 
 
 She did so, and he led the way downstairs, to where 
 two carriages stood. Ruth and two of the largest stock- 
 holders of the road were in the first one ; Bert and Elsie 
 Chfford were in the second. Mr. Darlington helped 
 Carol into the latter, and then got into the other one 
 himself. 
 
 " What's it all about, Bert? " demanded Carol. 
 
 "The new compound-engine came in on 16 last 
 night, and is in the round-house now," he answered. 
 
 Carol's eyes lighted with pleasure, and she gave Elsie's 
 hand an ecstatic squeeze. '^ But why can't we have four 
 people in our carriage, too ? " she asked. " This looks 
 selfish." 
 
 '^ We thought we 'd stop at the hotel on the way down, 
 and get Cash," said Bert. 
 
 " Well, we won't stop there," said Carol, promptly. 
 " We '11 drive up and get mamma, instead. Papa ! " she 
 called to her father, who was driving the other carriage, 
 " You follow us ! We 're going after mamma first." To 
 herself she said, " Not a sacrifice, but thoughtfulness." 
 Darlington, though he called back something to Carol 
 about her mothers not caring for such things, swung his 
 horses about and prepared to follow her. 
 
 "Carol, you'd better go on without me," said ]\Irs. 
 Darlington, doubtfully, as her daughter swept into the 
 dining-room and stated her mission. '^ I have so much 
 to do this morning, dear, that I 'm afraid I have n't time." 
 Take time," said Carol, autocratically. " Get on 
 
 u 
 
2 34 The Darlingtons 
 
 your hat ! That dress is good enough." And the 
 mother, protesting that she did not know the first thing 
 about a locomotive, was forced along by the daughter. 
 
 At the round-house the new engine, glossy with black 
 paint and glittering with her brass-work, was surrounded 
 by a knot of admiring engineers, firemen, and shop- 
 hands, who fell back respectfully at the approach of the 
 president's party. The great machine was truly a fasci- 
 nating sight, towering high above their heads, with its 
 crushing weight of iron and steel, its marvellous capacity 
 for both speed and power, its beneficence in its appointed 
 place, its appalling destructiveness when out of that 
 place. 
 
 Charles Darlington nursed the mammoth, motionless, 
 bloodless thing in his eyes, as a mother might her child, 
 and laid his hand affectionately upon one of the cold 
 drivers. There were engineers and firemen standing 
 there who regarded a locomotive as little less than 
 human. They loved it because of companionship with it 
 in sunshine and storm, in midnight darkness and omni- 
 present danger ; they boasted of its strength, and spoke 
 tenderly of its weaknesses ; they humored its moods, 
 jealously refusing one day to push it too hard, the next 
 day exultingly giving it its head, and encouraging it to 
 do its best. Some were there who could hang their 
 heads out of the cab window, night or day, and above all 
 the roar of that mighty, on-rushing mass detect the 
 rattle of a loose nut, as a jockey detects the first sign of 
 fatigue in his mount. They could, in the same position, 
 and by the sense of smell alone, detect a heated bearing, 
 and thus avert, perhaps, the loss of life. They lived in an 
 engine, with it, and for it ; watched it grow old and 
 decrepit and out-of-date ; and at last saw it ground to 
 
The Leaven Works 235 
 
 pieces in a wreck, or, with tears in their eyes, saw it 
 hauled away, no longer proudly heading the train, to be 
 destroyed. Yet it is doubtful if one of these men had 
 a warmer place in his heart for the beautiful, symmetri- 
 cal machine now before them than had Charles Darling- 
 ton. For he, too, had ridden in the cab. 
 
 After satisfying their eyes with mere bulk and glitter, 
 the ladies were helped up into the cab, where Mr. Dar- 
 lington explained to them the use of every attachment 
 by which an engineer works his complicated machine, — 
 gauges, cocks, levers, handles, valves, in bewildering con- 
 fusion. Mrs. Darlington was thoroughly happy. The 
 affectionate respect paid her family by the employes was 
 sweet to her. She was proud of her husband's knowl- 
 edge, and of Carol's quick perception. Bert's quiet, 
 manly bearing, the care he took of Elsie, and the unflag- 
 ging interest with which he explained the mysteries to 
 her, also warmed his mother's heart. Even Ruth's keen 
 inquisitiveness was not unnoticed by her. Carol saw 
 it all, and it doubled the happiness of the occasion 
 for her. 
 
 While the inspection was going on, old Porter Head- 
 ley, the engineer to whom the new locomotive had fallen 
 by right of seniority, leaned against one of the big drive- 
 wheels, which stood three inches higher than his head. 
 He was plainly doing his best to appear calm, even indif- 
 ferent ; but as a matter of fact he had come down at five 
 o'clock that morning to see his new "girl," and had 
 looked her over a dozen times since from tender to pilot. 
 His young fireman leaned against the next driver with 
 folded arms, in a rather badly done imitation of his 
 grizzled chief. 
 
 "Well, Port, what do you think of her?" asked Mr. 
 
236 The Darlingtons 
 
 Darlington, as the party drew together for a kind of 
 summing up. 
 
 '^ Well, sir, from what I 've seen of her," answered old 
 Headley, casting his eyes along the boiler, as though 
 that were all he had seen of her, " I should say she '11 do." 
 
 '^ Do you see ninety miles an hour anywhere in her? " 
 
 " I can tell you better, sir, when I hear her pulse 
 beat." 
 
 "She'll have to foot it at that rate," answered the 
 president, " if you ever fall behind on the new schedule. 
 She '11 have to make sixty regularly between stations, 
 and maybe seventy. Any of those improvements in the 
 cab that you don't understand?" The president winked 
 at Carol. 
 
 " None that I 've seen," answered Headley, impertur- 
 bably. ^ 
 
 The president stepped back a little to get one more 
 comprehensive view of the engine, and shook his head 
 admiringly. Turning to a portly man, one of the direc- 
 tors, he said, enthusiastically : " Bowers, I wish we had 
 a machine of thirty years ago to set beside that, just to 
 see the difference. It would look about as much like 
 that as a hay-press. Drive-rod about a third as big as 
 that, and about one-tenth as strong. Look at that boiler ! 
 A family could live in there, comfortably. Those old 
 rattle-traps had a boiler about the size of a flour barrel, 
 and little three-foot drivers. Then some smart man 
 figured out that the bigger the drive-wheel was, the greater 
 the speed would be, and they put on eight-foot drivers, 
 just as they are doing in Europe to-day. That smart man 
 forgot, though, that big wheels are useless without steam, 
 and that plenty of steam will make a comparatively small 
 wheel revolve fast enough to satisfy anybody but a mad- 
 
The Leaven Works 237 
 
 man. Look at those cylinders ! That machine, Bowers,'' 
 he exclaimed, pausing impressively, '^ is one of the noblest 
 works of man ! " 
 
 " And one of the most expensive," suggested Bowers, 
 with a grin. 
 
 " Expensive ! " snorted the president. " Why, man, 
 nine thousand dollars is dirt cheap for that. Fifteen 
 years ago you could n't have bought the steel in her for 
 that. She costs a little more than the old style, I '11 
 admit, but she '11 save it in fuel in a year or two. And 
 if we want to, we can cut our schedule from Ashboro to 
 High Point to two hours. And if we do it, — and we 
 wi// when the road-bed is ballasted up a little, ■ — we '11 
 scoop every through passenger for the South that now 
 goes by the M. and A. What would you say to that ? " 
 
 " One hundred and two miles in two hours ? " asked 
 '%^^wers, incredulously. 
 
 " Why not ? The road-bed will be all right, with a 
 little ballasting. The only thing I 'm at all afraid of is 
 the rails. Sixty-five-pound rails were n't meant for 
 exactly that kind of work, I '11 admit. But I Ve seen it 
 done before. I have done it myself. I did it down in 
 Georgia, where they used to run trains so slow that the 
 Georgia crackers could n't get their mules killed by 'em, 
 and consequently quit raising mules. The train I put 
 on killed seven of them the first run, in three hundred 
 miles, and gave the stock-raising industry of that section 
 a boom it never had before — and never will have again, 
 I reckon." 
 
 " The last time you told that story, papa, it was five 
 mules," said Carol, laughing. 
 
 " Mules are going up," retorted her father, instantly. 
 
 "I '11 tell you, Charlie," said Bowers. "I like to see 
 
238 The Darlingtons 
 
 home industries encouraged ; but if you are putting on 
 nine-thousand-dollar engines and ballasting road-beds 
 to give the stock-raising interests of this section a Hft, 
 I think I '11 sell my railroad stock and buy a farm." 
 He grinned on the crowd, but Carol, who knew the 
 opposition her father had met in putting through his 
 pet scheme of a fast train, suspected the director was 
 more than half in earnest. Evidently, Darlington thought 
 so too, for he said, shortly, — 
 
 "Don't you be in a hurry about that farm. I've 
 known men to get scared before, and sell out when a 
 few improvements were in sight, and I Ve noticed that 
 they always bought back — at a sharp advance.'' 
 
 Bert and Elsie were standing a little apart. Elsie's 
 big brown eyes were fixed upon the towering locomotive 
 in almost childlike wonder. 
 
 "' What makes you so quiet, sweetheart ? " asked 
 Bert, in a low tone. 
 
 "I am awed,'' she murmured, with an affectionate 
 smile. '' I never was so close to an engine before. 
 There is something grand and impressive about the 
 thought that man, little man, built that great machine 
 that can run ninety miles an hour, and pull, your father 
 says, fifty times its own weight. It 's so motionless and 
 so cold now ! Just to think that a little fire and a little 
 water will hurl that vast bulk, with all its load of human 
 freight, through the country at that terrible speed." 
 
 " It is an inspiring thought," said Bert, tenderly. 
 
 " I 'm proud of you," she added, still more softly. 
 " Proud to think that you have something to do with it 
 all. Its vast strength is to be spent in your service ; 
 and you hire these men and pay them and enable them 
 to live in comfort, and you look after their famiHes if 
 
The Leaven Works 239 
 
 they are hurt or killed. You make the time-tables, and 
 hire the despatchers that handle the trains, and make 
 the freight rates — " 
 
 '^1 publish them, Elsie." He smiled. "They have a 
 habit of making themselves." 
 
 '• Well, it 's a great responsibility, anyhow," she re- 
 turned. " And you ought to feel very, very serious 
 about it." 
 
 *' I do," he said, squarely meeting her glance. 
 
 It was decided, to old Headley's palpable disappoint- 
 ment, that the new engine should not be tested until the 
 president's private car, then undergoing repairs, should 
 be completed, which would not be for ten days or more. 
 Mr. Darlington said he would then give a " speed " 
 party, and do the thing up right. " And I would advise 
 all people with bad nerves to send their regrets," he 
 added, significantly. 
 
 "I move," said a director, with a smile at Carol, "in- 
 asmuch as it will be the first trip of the engine, and 
 inasmuch as she will doubtless haul some of the most 
 distinguished citizens of Ashboro, that Miss Carol 
 Darhngton be allowed to turn the first steam into 
 the cylinders and to handle the throttle for the first 
 mile." 
 
 " I second that motion," said Elsie Clifford, at once. 
 
 " Before the motion goes to a vote, I must decline 
 the honor, with sincere regret," spoke up Carol. " Much 
 as I should prize the honor, I believe there is another 
 who would prize it more ; and much as I should love 
 to breathe the first breath of life into this noble machine 
 here, there is another who would love it still more. 
 Ladies and gentlemen, the honor belongs to Mr. Porter 
 Headley — known more familiarly, the length of the 
 
240 The Darlingtons 
 
 road, as ^old Port' — and I therefore suggest that his 
 name be substituted for mine." 
 
 "No, no! No, Miss Darlington," stammered old 
 Port, his affectation summarily knocked out of him by 
 this unexpected act. 
 
 "Yes, yes ! I insist! " cried Carol, and her sugges- 
 tion was carried, to the complete annihilation of what 
 litde stoicism old Port had left. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 A DANGEROUS PRESCRIPTION 
 
 Kaltenborn sat in his study awaiting the assembling 
 of the official board of his church. He was low-spirited 
 and unhappy. The afternoon had been spent in visit- 
 ing the abject poor. He had gone from one squahd 
 hovel to another, his nose filled with unwholesome 
 odors, and his ears assailed with the cries of fretful 
 babies, the whinings of peevish, sickly women, and the 
 complaints of their shiftless husbands. There were not 
 many such homes in Ashboro, fortunately, but such as 
 there were seemed to fall mostly to Kaltenborn's lot. 
 To-day he had done the best he knew. He had 
 spoken words of comfort to a mother whose worthless 
 son had been gone two days, she knew not where. 
 To one family he had promised food ; to another, fuel ; 
 and clothes to a third. He had patched up, as well as 
 such things can be patched, a quarrel between two 
 families over the division line between their back yards, 
 the fence having long since been used as fire-wood. 
 He had explained to one perturbed sister the meaning 
 of a sentence in his last Sunday's sermon, and had 
 quoted authority to convince her that his teaching was 
 strictly orthodox. He had sharply rebuked for his idle- 
 ness a lazy lout to whom three children and a wife 
 looked for bread. After all this, he had called upon the 
 
 i6 
 
242 The Darlingtons 
 
 church treasurer, to see if any money had been turned 
 in to be applied to the large and growing deficit in his 
 salary. The treasurer was apologetic and hopeful, but 
 bankrupt. 
 
 Yet all this alone would not have served to depress 
 Kaltenborn, for he was hardened to it. But there were 
 divisions in the church. Two or three of the oldest 
 members — and the best-paying ones as well — had 
 taken offence at Kaltenborn's doctrine, and were syste- 
 matically absenting themselves from services. Another 
 and larger faction — though none of these had either 
 withdrawn or threatened to do so — complained that his 
 preaching was above their heads. 
 
 Kaltenborn knew that his sermons were pitched high 
 intellectually, and he knew that his ideas were advanced. 
 Hence the opposition of the conservatives and the 
 dissatisfaction of the fat-witted were perfectly intelligible. 
 But the problem remained how to preach as he had 
 before — this he was determined to do — and yet reclaim 
 the allegiance of the malcontents. In his trouble it was 
 a source of strength and consolation to know that the 
 younger members of the church were with him as a unit 
 almost. After all, they were the ones he was preaching 
 for and working for. The grayheads were past remould- 
 ing, for the suns of many summers and the frosts of 
 many winters had set them hard and dry. 
 
 The official board had been convened this evening 
 to discuss the advisability of calling an evangelist. 
 Or, rather, the board had convened itself, for Kalten- 
 born was opposed to the project. The methods of 
 the ordinary evangelist were exceedingly distasteful to 
 him. The evangelist's ranting, his crudity of speech, 
 his appeals to the emotions, his lurid pictures of hell, 
 
A Dangerous Prescription 243 
 
 his melodramatic and harassing accounts of wicked- 
 ness, his marvellous tales of conversion — all these Kal- 
 tenborn despised. Consequently, he had done all he 
 could, in a quiet way, to discourage the idea of calling 
 an evangelist. His efforts had been in vain, though, and 
 he knew to-night, before a single member of the official 
 board entered his study, that an evangelist would be 
 called. 
 
 This thought also added to his loneliness and to the 
 sense of ingratitude and injustice under which he 
 smarted. As he meditated on the sacrifices he had 
 made to preach, on the loftiness of purpose with which 
 he had come to this church, on the zeal with which he 
 had been fired, and then thought of the results, of the 
 narrowness and bigotry with which he had been assailed 
 from different quarters, he reached the dregs of his 
 bitter cup. 
 
 In this crucial moment, when life seemed a failure 
 and all his sacrifices vanity, a sweet, strong, sympa- 
 thetic, womanly face floated across his mental vision, 
 and smiled at him encouragingly. It was Carol Dar- 
 Hngton's face — ethereahzed and spiritualized, but hers 
 just the same. The phantom thrilled him, in that sus- 
 ceptible moment, with a bewildering joy, — so bewilder- 
 ing that he suspected its legitimacy. But casting his 
 scruples aside, he put behind him the stern reahties of 
 the hour, and relinquished himself to his seductive 
 fancy. 
 
 Between his mental eye and the squalid homes of 
 Railroad Street were interposed the luxurious warmth 
 and glow of that big house on the brow of the hill. 
 The poor, stooped, angular, hollow-chested women of 
 the afternoon faded away like an ugly dream, and in 
 
244 'The Darlingtons 
 
 their place stood one of supple, softly rounded figure, 
 showing the graceful lines of young womanhood, and 
 elastic with life, health, and happiness. Her low, 
 vibrant laughter soothed his ears ; her glorious eyes, 
 so worldly-shrewd yet so deep and tender, beamed 
 upon him their mischief, humor, joy, soHcitude, and — 
 in this fanciful moment — a something else that clutched 
 his heart like an iron hand. Then the door-bell rang. 
 
 It was a trustee. The rest came singly or by twos 
 and threes. The early ones waited for the later ones 
 in ominous silence. By half-past seven all were present, 
 for some of them lived in the country, and wanted 
 an early session. Kaltenborn, chairman ex officio, called 
 the meeting to order, though it was already as orderly 
 as a group of statues. The others arose one by one 
 and set forth their opinions. Their unanimity was 
 striking. The church had not had an evangelist for 
 several years, they said ; a lack of spirituality was lament- 
 ably evident, especially among the young. Without re- 
 flecting on their pastor, who was working according to 
 his light, the church needed stirring up. An attraction 
 was needed which would bring outsiders within reach 
 of the Word. The insiders themselves needed the 
 Gospel, ''the good old-fashioned Gospel," as Trustee 
 Hackett put it, "writ in the Holy Scriptures." The 
 Gospel was good enough for his father and for him, and 
 ought to be good enough for his children. A httle fire- 
 and-brimstone was not a bad thing, now and then, 
 another brother said. Without complaining, he did n't 
 think Brother Kaltenborn gave the people enough Hell, 
 A httle of that would often do more than a great deal of 
 Heaven. It was like salt in the cattle's fodder. 
 
 Kaltenborn had prepared himself for a vigorous oppo- 
 
A Dangerous Prescription 245 
 
 sition ; but at the last moment the futihty, as well as 
 the impolicy, of such a course was too apparent. When 
 his turn came, therefore, he rose and stated that he 
 could not agree with much of what had been said. 
 But if, in its collective wisdom, the Board saw fit to call 
 an evangelist, he would graciously submit to its judg- 
 ment, and take steps at once toward securing a good 
 man. His acquiescence evidently took the others by 
 surprise. It just as evidently also created a better feel- 
 ing toward him. The trustees promptly agreed to leave 
 the matter entirely in Kaltenborn's hands ; and by a httle 
 after eight o'clock the last one of them had gone. 
 
 Kaltenborn looked at his watch, then at his books, 
 and then at his sermon. He had called on Carol only 
 a few nights before, and he was not in the habit of call- 
 ing on her oftener than once a week or once in ten 
 days. After a little thought, though, he abruptly rose, 
 put on his overcoat, and walked out. His hand was yet 
 on the door-knob when ]\Irs. Hicks called sharply, — 
 
 " If anybody comes and asks where you air, Mr. 
 Kaltenborn, what shall I tell 'em ? " 
 
 " That you don't know," he answered, grimly. 
 
 As he walked along he called to mind, with the 
 incredulity with which one recalls a harsh or unkind 
 deed of one's own, that he had half promised himself 
 the night before to wean himself from Carol Darhngton. 
 To-night the thought was monstrous to him, and he 
 put it away with a fierceness worthy of one of his 
 Viking ancestors. 
 
 Carol was out, attending a directors' meeting, Mrs. 
 Darlington said. ''But you must wait for her," she 
 added hospitably. "They expected to be home by 
 eight o'clock. The meeting was called early, on ac- 
 
246 The Darlingtons 
 
 count of the concert, you know, though Carol herself 
 is n't going ; and as she will be left alone, I have no 
 doubt she will be doubly glad to see you. I can't 
 imagine what keeps them." 
 
 Kaltenborn waited, gladly enough, until Carol came, 
 with her father and brother. iVll three were in prime 
 spirits. Carol's face was flushed with merriment, and 
 she tugged at her gloves in a listless, relaxed way, as 
 though she had laughed herself tired. 
 
 " Mr. Kaltenborn, we have just come from a directors' 
 meeting, which explains our levity," said Carol, giving 
 him her hand, with her glove half off. '^ They are 
 always worth the price of admission to a comedy, but 
 to-night was especially good. I must tell you about it 
 — if you will never tell. The new engine was the 
 cause of it all. You have read about that compound- 
 engine, of course, in the paper. Papa had a very nice 
 article in it — modern improvements, progressive railroad 
 president, and all that." She looked at her father with 
 teasing eyes, and then, her mind evidently reverting 
 to the directors' meeting, she gave another little shriek 
 of laughter. 
 
 "Well, tell your story," said Darlington, smiling 
 broadly himself. 
 
 " First, though," Carol continued, " I want to tell Mr. 
 Kaltenborn that he is herewith invited to take a ride 
 in the president's new private car, behind our new 
 engine, next Thursday, at ten o'clock in the morning. 
 Dinner will be served, and you must lay your plans 
 to be gone at least six hours." 
 
 " I thank you very much," said Kaltenborn. 
 
 " I join her in that invitation, Mr. Kaltenborn," said 
 Darlington, He added humorously, "A preacher is 
 
A Dangerous Prescription 247 
 
 about as handy a man on such an occasion as a good 
 surgeon." 
 
 " Papa has such a dehcate way of setting forth to his 
 guests the pleasures of an affair Hke this," observed 
 Carol, ironically. 
 
 " Go on about the engine, dear," said Mrs. Darling- 
 ton. " We must be going." 
 
 " Well, it seems that papa gave some of the directors 
 the idea that the engine would cost only about eight 
 thousand dollars, whereas — " 
 
 '•I didn't give them the idea at all,-' interrupted 
 Darlington, emphatically. " I told old Whitesides, in 
 plain English, that it would cost between eight and 
 nine thousand." 
 
 '' Anyhow, Mr. Whitesides got eight thousand into 
 his head," continued Carol, jauntily, '^ and when papa 
 handed in an invoice to-night amounting to $9,129.52, 
 there was quite a commotion in Mr. Whitesides's 
 neighborhood." 
 
 "That man is as complete an ass as I ever saw," 
 broke in Darlington, in disgust. 
 
 " He insinuated as much about papa," Carol went 
 on keenly. " He said he had been overridden long 
 enough ; that buying such an engine was a shameful 
 waste of monev, and moreover ridiculous in a road 
 the size of ours, and that the H. P., R., A., and S., just 
 on that account, was the laughing-stock of half the 
 railroad officials in the country. Then papa arose, 
 perfectly cool and calm," — she gave her auditors a 
 roguish glance, — '• and he and Mr. Whitesides pranced 
 back and forth for twenty minutes like two bears in 
 a pen, until finally papa suggested that if Mr. White- 
 sides's stock did not pay him as good a rate of interest 
 
248 The Darlingtons 
 
 as he could get elsewhere, he could easily find a pur- 
 chaser for it." 
 
 " I hoped to egg him on to say he wanted to sell/' 
 explained Darlington. ^' I 'd have made him an offer 
 in a minute. I 'd hke to get him out, anyway. He 's 
 a millstone around everybody's neck." 
 
 ^' They kept this up," Carol resumed, addressing 
 Kaltenborn and her mother, " until positively every- 
 body was roaring with laughter. It was simply too 
 ridiculous ! " Her voice caught in another convulsive 
 laugh, giving her pause, while her father looked his 
 dissent of the thing's having been ridiculous, but said 
 nothing. " Whitesides said that running one hundred 
 miles of railroad was not the biggest job on earth, 
 though some people seemed to think so. Papa said 
 Whitesides would think so, too, if he ever tried it. 
 Whitesides got back by saying that he hated to be tied 
 to a one-man concern ; and papa said, very sarcasti- 
 cally, that it made all the difference in the world who 
 the man was ; that he himself would hate to be tied to 
 some one-man concerns, looking hard at Whitesides." 
 
 " I did n't ! " said Darlington, laughing. 
 
 ^^ Whitesides retorted by saying that he hated to see 
 dividends cut down and good money squandered to 
 carry out a lot of pet schemes that had nothing but 
 show and tinsel to them," Carol ran on. " Then papa 
 asked him again why he didn't sell his stock, if divi- 
 dends on it were so reduced." 
 
 *^I was a fool to argue with him," commented the 
 president, briefly. 
 
 " If you could call it arguing," said Carol, slyly. 
 ^'But on the whole, papa behaved so courageously 
 and so temperately — for him — that I took him down- 
 
A Dangerous Prescription 249 
 
 town and bought him a box of cigars." She glanced 
 at a rectangular package on the table. 
 
 " That 's what kept them ! " smiled Mrs. Darlington 
 at Kaltenborn. 
 
 " You will notice, Mr. Kaltenborn," observed Darling- 
 ton, jocosely, "that I went along to help her select the 
 brand. It's a precaution that married hfe has taught 
 me." 
 
 After the others had gone, Carol settled down in her 
 chair, with a cozy " How are you to-night? " 
 
 " I don't feel so good," answered Kaltenborn. 
 
 " You don't look so good, either. You look tired. 
 What you need is a conscientious, disinterested woman 
 — something like myself — to diagnose you now and 
 then, and prescribe for you. Now, to-night you are 
 plainly disturbed about something. To overcome that 
 condition, I prescribe one — " Withholding the word, 
 she rose, with a significant expression, tore the wrapping 
 off the box on the table, and with some difficulty pulled 
 the lid up. " — cigarf'' she concluded, holding the 
 rich, black Havana up between thumb and finger. Her 
 eyes flashed him a challenge. 
 
 "Do you mean it?" asked Kaltenborn. 
 
 " Certainly I mean it," she said. " Did n't you tell 
 me that you used to smoke ? " 
 
 " I also told you I had stopped." 
 
 "And you also admitted that you enjoyed it just as 
 much as ever," she retorted. '• Here 's a match. I '11 
 strike it for you." 
 
 "No, don't," he said, wistfully. ^^I must not 
 smoke it." 
 
 " But I want you to ! " she exclaimed, imperiously. 
 
 "No." 
 
250 The Darlingtons 
 
 " Please ! " 
 
 " No." 
 
 *' I shall be very angry if you don't/' she threatened. 
 
 *' I can't help it/' he answered, laughing slightly. 
 
 " What are you afraid of?" she asked, pausing in her 
 onslaught. 
 
 " Nothing, except the witchcraft of a beautiful woman." 
 
 " Do you think it would be wrong to smoke that 
 cigar?" she demanded, evading his comphment. 
 
 " Not in itself." 
 
 " Do you think it would set anybody a bad example 
 — me, for instance ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Then why would it be wrong ? " 
 
 " Because you would think less of me for it/' he 
 answered, seriously. 
 
 ''Would you call that a wrong?" she asked, signifi- 
 cantly, after a pause. 
 
 '' I should." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because to have you think less of me would do me 
 great injury. It would impair my power for usefulness," 
 he answered, steadily. 
 
 Again Carol paused thoughtfully, her eyes darkling 
 with excitement of some kind. '' I can't pass over 
 praise of that depth and sincerity," she finally answered, 
 candidly. " I believe you, and I feel myself honored. 
 But you were never more mistaken in your life, IMr. 
 Kaltenborn, than in supposing that I would think less 
 of you for smoking that cigar. Why should I ? I know 
 you don't number me with those people who think a 
 preacher ought to be denied the good things of life, 
 just because he is a preacher. And you certainly don't 
 
A Dangerous Prescription 251 
 
 believe that I see anything intrinsically wrong in smok- 
 ing, when my father and brother both smoke. And 
 you can't think that I am trying to — to test your 
 strength, or anything like that. Do you? " she asked, 
 abruptly, as though it might be possible. 
 
 " I could n't think that," he answered. 
 
 " Because I simply have a curiosity to see how you 
 would look in the place of other men. I want to see 
 how you would look at the end of a cigar, as I heard a 
 reformer facetiously put it once," sne added, more 
 lightly. '^ Papa and Bert look so comfortable and 
 oblivious to care when they are smoking, that I won- 
 dered if you would too. I simply can't imagine you 
 rolling a cigar between your teeth," she continued, 
 laughing, " and squinting your eyes to keep the smoke 
 out, and sending a puff half-way to the ceiling. Can 
 you do it? I don't believe you can. Please show me. 
 How can you refuse, when I beg in this way?" she 
 asked, with arch chiding. 
 
 " Because I know it is best." 
 
 " Then you are a crank, after all ! " she exclaimed, 
 dropping her outstretched hand. " Just as much as 
 any of them, at heart." She might have been jesting, 
 but she was not at all surprised, nevertheless, to see an 
 ominous light come into his eyes. 
 
 " If by a crank you mean a man who will defend the 
 dignity of his office against the whim of a woman, I am 
 one," he answered, dryly. " If you mean the slave of 
 a prejudice, I am not one — as I shall show you." 
 
 Before she quite realized his purpose, he had taken 
 the cigar from her fingers, and bitten off its end. Then 
 recovering herself, she exclaimed, indignantly, " Do 
 you suppose I would allow you to smoke it now ? " 
 
252 The Darlingtons 
 
 And forgetting herself momentarily, she reached for 
 the cigar. 
 
 He quietly intercepted her hand ; and, taking hold 
 of her wrist, easily held her off. " Would you use 
 force?" he asked in surprise. She at once withdrew 
 her hand, and sat down stiffly. Kaltenborn lit the 
 cigar, tossed the match into the grate, and silently 
 smoked, without vouchsafing her a glance. 
 
 She was sorry, but also hurt, and a little bewildered. 
 It was hard for her to realize, too, that she had been 
 handled in this rough, arbitrary manner. She watched 
 him with steady, disapproving eyes, and once her lips 
 curled scornfully. He smoked on, and though he did 
 not roll his cigar or squint his eyes or blow smoke ceil- 
 ingward, after the manner of the Darlingtons, father and 
 son, yet he certainly looked oblivious enough. 
 
 "Mr. Kaltenborn, you must apologize for the tone 
 you used to me," she said, in a firm voice, but she 
 trembled to her knees. 
 
 " Miss DarHngton, if I thought I had been rude to 
 you, I should apologize willingly," he answered, rising. 
 "But I cannot apologize for words or tones that I 
 thought, and still think, justified by your remark." 
 
 " Do you refuse ? " she asked, faltering. 
 
 " I refuse," he answered, respectfully. 
 
 The blood slowly ran out of Carol's face until it 
 was as white as marble. " Do you know what that 
 means?" she asked, in a voice that distinctly trembled. 
 
 "Yes. It means that our intercourse must cease," 
 he answered, bluntly. 
 
 He stood with his hand on the back of his chair, ap- 
 parently as hard and insensible as a man of stone. In 
 reality, his heart was aching. He knew she felt hurt, 
 
A Dangerous Prescription 253 
 
 and that she believed an apology due her. Yet it had 
 been refused, and now the alternative faced her of dis- 
 missing him or of abdicating her rights. He suspected 
 that dismissing him meant something to her, and he 
 could not but sympathize with her in her trying posi- 
 tion. Still, he believed that he was right, and his ruthless 
 conscience was fully aroused. He did not know why 
 he stood there so long. He did not want to see her 
 surrender, and he could not himself surrender. Yet 
 something that rode down his reason as the north wind 
 rides down the zephyr held him fast. 
 
 " Good-bye ! " he said at last, but made no move to go. 
 
 She did not answer or lift her eyes. 
 
 " Good-bye," he repeated, shifting his position. 
 
 She lifted her handkerchief to her eyes, and held it 
 there. The movement touched him. 
 
 " Miss Darlington," he began, in a voice that vibrated 
 with feeling, " if you think that I, for the sake of grati- 
 fying a wounded pride, or for the sake of displaying a 
 theatrical firmness, can give up our friendship, you are 
 doing me an injustice. If you think that I spoke to 
 you without respect, you are mistaken. Yet your words 
 were sharp, very sharp." 
 
 "Then I beg your forgiveness," she murmured. 
 
 *' You have that already, " he answered. '' And if I 
 have wounded you, I will say that nothing was further 
 from my thoughts, and that I am very, very sorry, and 
 I beg _)'(?///- forgiveness." 
 
 " I forgive you — with all my heart," she murmured 
 again. He lingered a moment, as if uncertain of his 
 next move, and she said, " Sit down." When she had 
 touched away the last of her tears, she lifted her face, 
 and gave him a confused glance. 
 
254 The Darlingtons 
 
 " I am so sorry, Mr. Kaltenborn," she began, remorse- 
 fully. " Such a scene might better have taken place in 
 the kitchen, and it was my fault." 
 
 Kaltenborn flushed, and answered gravely, " It takes 
 two to make a quarrel.'' 
 
 " Oh, we did n't quarrel I " she exclaimed, recoihng 
 slightly. 
 
 " That 's what it would have been called in the 
 kitchen," he returned. " Perhaps it was not quite that 
 bad." 
 
 " It was bad enough, anyhow," she answered ruefully. 
 " But we '11 forget it ; we '11 never speak of it again, and 
 — I '11 never ask you to smoke again." 
 
 " And I '11 never smoke again," he said, emphati- 
 cally. " It was a piece of bravado worthy of a boy." 
 
 " I did n't think a little thing like a cigar could cause 
 so much trouble — outside of the nursery," she con- 
 tinued, now smihng a little. 
 
 " It 's the little things that cause most of the trouble," 
 answered Kaltenborn. " But, a cigar or a kingdom, it 
 would have been the same. The cigar merely started 
 
 usr 
 
 She was silent for a little, looking abstractedly into 
 the fire. A trace of mist was still in her eyes, giving 
 her a subdued, tender appearance. 
 
 " Suppose you had gone away angry, Mr. Kalten- 
 born," she said at last, frankly meeting his eye. '' It 's 
 a terrible thing to destroy a friendship. I think a friend- 
 ship is the sacredest thing on earth. When I think 
 of all the good we might do each other ; and how 
 we might sometime, just by our influence, save each 
 other from some false step ; and then think of our 
 going through hfe — through ii/e, till we die, without 
 
A Dangerous Prescription 255 
 
 seeing each other again, all because of that miserable 
 cigar, it almost unnerves me." 
 
 He smiled sympathetically into her glistening eyes. 
 '' I am glad you can feel so deeply on the subject. 
 But we have stood the test, and if our friendship is ever 
 dissolved, it will be by something greater than a cigar, 
 or the pride or anger that a cigar can provoke." 
 
 " What do you mean } " she asked, uneasily. 
 
 " Oh, nothing in particular," he answered, rather 
 hastily. " Only, if anything ever should arise to sep- 
 arate us, we could always think of each other kindly, 
 and make the recollection of our friendship serve us 
 instead." 
 
 " But what could separate us ? " she asked, still dis- 
 satisfied. 
 
 He was silent a moment, and then answered, " My 
 leaving Ashboro, for one thing." 
 
 She looked at him sharply, as though questioning his 
 candor, but finally accepted his explanation. 
 
 When Carol reached her room, she found herself in a 
 tremulous condition. Her muscles twitched, flashes of 
 heat passed over her face, and her pulse throbbed in 
 her ears. These purely physical phenomena bewil- 
 dered her not a httle, and frightened her somewhat. 
 She feared she was going to be sick. A glance in 
 the glass showed her a pair of intensely bright eyes 
 and deeply flushed cheeks. That all this had any 
 connection with the scene downstairs, she at first 
 had not the remotest suspicion ; and when the truth 
 flashed over her, she gave a little gasp, and sank down 
 into a chair confounded. Then, in her relief, she 
 emitted a little hysterical laugh, and exclaimed aloud, 
 " Why, you absurd, ridiculous creature ! " She quickly 
 
256 The Darlingtons 
 
 arose and looked into the glass again, this time with a 
 flush the source of which she well knew. The beautiful 
 image in the glass seemed to smile at her first, so she 
 smiled back, with a strange joyousness, and leaned for- 
 ward and kissed the phantom's red lips. The act left a 
 little vaporous trace upon the cool glass, and this she 
 quickly and guiltily erased with her handkerchief. 
 
 Ruth stepped into the room, just home from the con- 
 cert, with her wraps still on. Carol fully expected her 
 sister to say something about her flushed condition, but 
 Ruth gave no sign of seeing anything out of the way, 
 and began to talk of the concert. To her own surprise, 
 Carol listened attentively to her sister's criticisms, but 
 she was thinking at the same time what a trifling thing 
 a concert was, and rather pitying Ruth for being so 
 easily amused. 
 
 Her mental activity continued long after she had gone 
 to bed, — increased, if anything, — and the witches of 
 the pillow wove their most tangled spells in her brain. 
 In her condition, so highly favorable to imagination, so 
 utterly destructive of judgment, the scene in the parlor 
 seemed the most natural thing in the world. She re- 
 acted it time and again, until, on the borderland 
 between consciousness and unconsciousness, she saw 
 Kaltenborn's grave face close to hers, felt the pressure 
 of his hand upon her shoulder, and distinctly heard him 
 say, '^ Kiss me, love ! " So vivid was the fancy that for 
 a moment she struggled to escape him, then suddenly 
 found herself wide-awake, sitting up in bed, with a 
 wildly throbbing heart. 
 
 Long after Carol had gone to sleep Kaltenborn sat 
 in his study, neither writing nor reading. He, too, was 
 reacting that scene. And she had cried ! That one 
 
A Dangerous Prescription 257 
 
 thought went plunging down the harp of his senses 
 until it sprung the last, deepest, most resonant chord. 
 How easily he could love her ! Just to let go of 
 himself! Just to forget that he was a preacher, 
 pledged to a hfe of comparative poverty; just to 
 forget that she was rich, and loved the pleasures of 
 the rich. Just to remember that he could go back 
 to the brewery, where his father, once assured that 
 his son had seen the error of his ways, would wel- 
 come him with open arms. Just to remember that 
 she was beautiful, good, pure, noble, and constant. 
 But — some things he could not forget, and some 
 things he had vowed not to remember. 
 
 «7 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THE '' SPEED " PARTY 
 
 On the morning of the new engine's trial — an ex- 
 quisitely bright, bracing morning — a mixed crowd of 
 Ashboroans jostled one another good-naturedly on the 
 platform at the station, swarmed curiously around the 
 locomotive, and streamed through the president's pri- 
 vate car. Busy merchants were there, stealing a mo- 
 ment from their stores, and smiling at each other for 
 their curiosity ; women and children, frankly enjoying 
 the scene ; shop-hands and trainmen, visibly proud 
 of the display and inchned to be a httle patronizing 
 in explaining things to outsiders ; directors and officials 
 of the road. Work was suspended in the railroad 
 offices for the time being, and the clerks and tele- 
 graph operators came down and mingled with the 
 other spectators. 
 
 At each end of the glossy, newly painted palace-car 
 of the president — marked "Winifred," in bright gold 
 letters in an oval panel on the side — stood a dignified 
 colored porter in a brand-new, brass-buttoned suit oi 
 blue, courteously restraining the throng of sight-seers 
 from pushing. All the early morning, while the car yet 
 lay in the yard, butchers', bakers', and grocers' wagons 
 had rattled to and fro over the tracks, until the re- 
 frigerator in the kitchen was packed with an appetiz- 
 
The ''Speed" Party 259 
 
 ing store. But now, at almost the last moment, a 
 belated cart dashed up to the rear of the car with 
 further supplies. 
 
 " Judge," the cook, a Herculean negro, whose crow- 
 black seemed even blacker by contrast with his cap and 
 suit of immaculate white, bustled out from the kitchen to 
 the platform with a grandiose air, and took charge of 
 the goods from the cart, at the same time pompously 
 reading the delivery-boy a lecture on his tardiness. No 
 one, however, seemed to take any offence at Judge's 
 imperiousness ; and when he again emerged from the 
 car, and swaggered down the station platform, a half- 
 head taller than the tallest man there, it was evident 
 that he was a favorite. His versatility was astonishing. 
 To the ladies and gentlemen who bowed and smiled at 
 him, he was the essence of respect and humihty ; but no 
 sooner did he enter a group of his black associates than 
 he began to strut like a turkey-cock. They, in turn, 
 hung upon his patronizing utterances as they would 
 upon the words of an oracle, and guffawed at his jokes, 
 and altogether spoiled the black rascal. 
 
 The train consisted of the president's car, a day-coach, 
 — which served the double purpose of ballasting the 
 train and accommodating some of the employe's, — and 
 the locomotive. The last glistened in the sunlight like a 
 v.-ar-horse of old full-panoplied for the fray. The flutter- 
 ing flags and bunting might have been the colors of the 
 knight-errant's fair lady ; the air-pump, like a great 
 heart, seemed to thump with suppressed excitement ; 
 and the burst of steam from the hard-pressed safety- 
 valve which occasionally made the bystanders jump, 
 was not unlike a mighty equine snort. Old Port, in a 
 spotless sheathing of overalls, stood at the cab step with 
 
26o The Darlingtons 
 
 folded arms. In honor of the occasion, his flannel shirt, 
 usually flaring open on his grizzled chest, was fastened 
 at the neck with a neat blue tie. His attitude and his 
 expression were impressive, and seemed to say that the 
 iron monster upon whose haunch he so familiarly leaned, 
 and at which the crowd was gazing in admiration and 
 wonder, was but a plaything in his hands. 
 
 Next to him stood his wife — a timid little woman — 
 and his blooming daughter. Mrs. Headley plainly 
 regarded her husband as the hero of the occasion. Her 
 eyes shifted from him to the crowd, and back again, as 
 though connecting the two ; and when the president of 
 the road hurried by and familiarly saluted her husband, 
 her withered cheek glowed with pride, and she was too 
 self-conscious for a moment to face the throng. Her 
 daughter, however, stood by with a rather mischievous 
 smile on her pretty Irish face. But if no man can be a 
 hero to his valet, by how much less can he be one to 
 his quick-witted daughter? Still Port had other ad- 
 mirers than his wife, especially among the round-house 
 and shop employes, who had been given a couple of 
 hours ofl", and among the train-crews who were ofl" duty. 
 These men circled round and round the locomotive, 
 pausing for minutes at a time to finger and discuss a nut, 
 or oil-cup, or valve. 
 
 Old Port had a distant, exclusive look in his steel-blue 
 eyes, as though nothing near at hand was worthy of his 
 attention. But there was one object near at hand at 
 which he furtively stole a glance now and then. This 
 was a group near the head of the engine consisting 
 of the president and his family, Elsie Clifford, Miss 
 Dane, Winter, Kaltenborn, and one or two others. The 
 rest of the party, among them several directors, the 
 
The "Speed" Party 261 
 
 mayor of Ashboro, an alderman or two, and several 
 other representative citizens, was scattered down the 
 platform. 
 
 The president was the personification of energy and 
 good nature. He carried himself as uprightly as a 
 young corporal on dress-parade, and stepped as briskly 
 about ; his eyes constantly twinkled, and his smiles 
 reached everybody. Occasionally, however, he gathered 
 his brows in a business-like frown, as if to remind the 
 others that this was not all a holiday, and that beneath 
 the festivities lay a deep and useful purpose. Especially 
 was this frown visible when Mr. Whitesides was near. 
 
 Carol, for once, did not share this commercial spirit 
 of her father. Her happiness was unalloyed. It sparkled 
 in her eyes, played in smiles around her red lips and 
 regular teeth, rang in her laughter, and betrayed itself in 
 her springy step. She wore a hat with a single feather 
 stuck in it at a rakish angle, which accented her jaunty, 
 careless air. Her skirt was a rough plaid of bright, 
 warm colors ; and Kaltenborn, who seldom noticed a 
 woman's dress, thought she might have hunted through 
 the dry-goods emporiums of the world without finding a 
 pattern more in harmony with her mobile, athletic car- 
 riage. As she gracefully turned and shifted herself from 
 one position to another, in mere exuberance of health 
 and strength, there was at least one observer who thought 
 the sight the fairest of the occasion. 
 
 Yet Kaltenborn perceived a shade of reserve in Carol's 
 attitude toward him. She talked to him freely enough, 
 though, — so freely, in fact, that he saw she was fending 
 him off by that method. She talked of the engine, the 
 private car, old Port, Judge, the flags, the dinner, every- 
 thing and everybody, until he found it difficult to slip 
 
262 The Darlingtons 
 
 in a word himself, and utterly impossible to broach any- 
 thing personal, had he been so inclined. He knew the 
 cause of this, for he had not seen her since their little 
 scene over the cigar. Her demeanor both pleased 
 and displeased him. Regarded as one of those httle 
 defences which women throw around their hearts, even 
 against the man they secretly love, — yea, because they 
 love him, — it pleased him. Regarded as a warning 
 that there must not be another such intimate approach 
 as he had made before, it displeased him. He himself 
 had said there must not be such another approach, yet 
 he did not want her to say so. 
 
 Finally the group started slowly down the platform, 
 but paused near old Port as Mr. DarUngton stepped 
 forward with a slip of paper in his hand. 
 
 ^•I am going to be my own conductor to-day, Port," 
 he said briskly. " There 's your schedule. It puts us 
 into High Point at 12.15, ^^^ Y^^ won't have to run 
 over fifty miles an hour at any time to make it. I have 
 a little theory I want to test. Besides, I don't care 
 about burning out any of those new journals on my car. 
 Coming back, though, Port," and he gave the veteran 
 a dark smile, " you will have a free track and no respon- 
 sibihty. We expect some running then." 
 
 "You will get it," answered Headley, grimly. 
 
 As her father moved on, after a few minor directions, 
 Carol said to the engineer, with an excited eye, " Mr. 
 Headley, I want you to give my father his fill of speed 
 for once." 
 
 "I guess that would be pretty hard to do, Miss 
 Carol," smiled the old man, kindly. " But I '11 give 
 him all I can — rememberin' that you are aboard," he 
 added, with an almost tender gallantry. 
 
The ** Speed" Party 263 
 
 " You see," Carol explained to Kaltenborn, as they 
 walked along, "papa has got all our engineers in a 
 chronic fever about speed by telling them some of his 
 wild West experiences. Once he came down a Rocky 
 Mountain grade, five miles long and sloping like a 
 cellar-door, — so he says, — on a flat-car with a broken 
 brake-chain. Half-way down, with the chances about 
 even of his ever getting all the way down alive, he /// 
 his cigar, though the wind was going by him, so he cal- 
 culates, at the rate of a hundred miles an hour. He 
 says that he was n't a bit scared, and that he enjoyed 
 the trip thoroughly, and that he will never be quite satis- 
 fied till he rides at that speed again." 
 
 *' I suppose that is a perfectly veracious account," 
 observed Kaltenborn, smihng. 
 
 "Well, that's the home version," admitted Carol, 
 with her sprightly laugh. -'• Papa tells it a little differ- 
 ently outside, I believe. But that is practically the 
 story ; so that it is n't likely that Port will be able to 
 shake papa's nerves very much to-day." 
 
 *' How about the nerves of some of the rest of us?" 
 asked Kaltenborn, quizzically ; and from the little spas- 
 modic move which Carol made, and the daring gleam 
 which came into her eyes, he suspected that some 
 nerves would be shaken, though certainly not hers. 
 
 Old Port watched the president's party as far as the 
 car, and then turning to his fireman, said slowly : " I 
 have known that girl since she was fifteen years old, and 
 dang me, if I know her as well to-day as I did then. 
 She 's as curus a combination as I ever see. You 
 heard her ask me to scare her paw, didn't you? You 
 kind of thought she was jokin', didn't you ? Well, 
 you would n't if you had seen her eye. Dang me, I 
 
264 The Darlingtons 
 
 believe she 'd take chances on a smash-up, and killin' 
 herself and all her family, just to scare her paw." He 
 chuckled a little. The crowd had followed the presi- 
 dent's party, and Port was allowing himself some re- 
 laxation. " We won't take any chances, Billy, but 
 mebbe we can scare the old man a bit yet. I was 
 afraid he M see that barrel of rosin in the tender there. 
 We won't use it unless the old man gets too particular ; 
 but if we salt the fire-box with that, I '11 guarantee he 
 won't kick any more." 
 
 The party filed into the private car. Judge assured 
 the president that the stores had all been received ; the 
 train-despatcher nodded "All right " from an upstairs win- 
 dow; Bert, acting in his father's stead as conductor, 
 waved his hand to Port ; and the " Winifred " was under 
 way — so smoothly and noiselessly that the occupants 
 of the luxurious seats inside would scarcely have been 
 aware of the start had it not been for ^the cheering 
 outside. 
 
 The "Winifred" was truly a palace-car. As Kalten- 
 born noted the costly hangings, the polished mahogany, 
 the rich upholstery, the heavy bevelled mirrors, the 
 glittering chandeliers, he did not wonder that some of 
 the directors looked askance at all this luxury. These 
 things impressed him, though not as they had impressed 
 the curious throng at the station. To him it was mar- 
 vellous that all this comfort and luxury, all this roomi- 
 ness and substantiality, should be on wheels, flying 
 smoothly and almost noiselessly across the country at a 
 terrifying rate of speed. And he could not but wish, in 
 a boyish way, that the shade of the builder of the first 
 humble car might be there to see it all. 
 
 Mr. Darlington was telHng at the moment about that 
 
The '^ Speed" Party 265 
 
 first humble car. It was merely a stage-coach, drawn 
 first by horses, on wooden rails protected by strips of 
 iron. Then came the first locomotive, little, if any, faster 
 than the horses. Indeed, it was a question for some 
 time whether horses or locomotives were the better 
 motive power for a railroad train ! The president of one 
 of those early roads wrote, in his perplexity, to a noted 
 civil engineer and inventor, and gravely asked him which 
 of the two, in his opinion, was the better adapted to the 
 work ; and the inventor, old Horatio Allen, gravely 
 answered that he preferred locomotives, because the 
 breed of horses could never be materially improved, 
 while no man knew what development would take place 
 in the breed of locomotives ! 
 
 Then the builder of one of those primitive engines 
 challenged — rashly, his friends thought — a horse-car 
 to a race, on parallel tracks. So desperate were the 
 chances for the engine that the builder himself took 
 his stand on the little uncovered platform, and handled 
 the throttle and did the firing. He won by a narrow 
 margin. The victory was proclaimed over all the civil- 
 ized world, and thus was settled for all time the case of 
 Horse versus Steam. Stock-raisers ominously shook their 
 heads, and predicted the bankruptcy of every horse- 
 breeder in the land, and looked forward to the early 
 extinction of the equine race. 
 
 ''Why, gentlemen," continued the president, enthusi- 
 astically, — including the ladies also in this address, — 
 " less than sixty years ago the Baltimore and Ohio railroad 
 offered four thousand dollars as a premium to the builder 
 of an engine that could dx?^\v Jifteen tons, day after day, 
 at the rate oi fifteen miles an hour, on a level road. Three 
 engines were entered in the contest, but only one of them 
 
266 The Darlingtons 
 
 met these rigorous requirements, and that one had to be 
 rebuilt to do it. Think of it, gendemen ! And I '11 
 wager that those builders were looked on by their neigh- 
 bors as a lot of hare-brained inventors who might better 
 have been making an honest living for their families by 
 sawing wood, — just as the people to-day look on the 
 inventors of flying-machines." 
 
 '^ About what weight engine did they make in them 
 days, Darlington ? " asked Mr. Bowers, making his Httle 
 eyes still smaller as he asked the question, as if suggesting 
 a mental calculation. 
 
 " These I speak of were not to weigh more than three 
 and a half tons. They were afraid of getting them too 
 heavy,'^ said Darlington, sarcastically. 
 
 '" What does this new one weigh ? " asked Kaltenborn. 
 
 "Fifty-five tons," and the president launched out 
 again on the comparative superiority of the latter-day 
 engines in the matter of pulling capacity. 
 
 " What speed do you figger on makin', comin' back, 
 Darlington?" asked Mr. Bowers again, after staring 
 fixedly at the president for three minutes. 
 
 " Well, we could make eighty or ninety," answered the 
 president, with a sparkle in his eyes. ^' Of course, the 
 latter would n't be safe on this road-bed and these rails. 
 I should n't be surprised if old Port would let her rock 
 along at about seventy, or seventy-five, or possibly eighty, 
 on the good stretches." 
 
 "Would eighty be perfectly safe?" asked Bowers, 
 shifting his position a little. 
 
 The president gave Kaltenborn a peculiar glance which 
 might have been taken in Heu of a wink. " No speed is 
 perfectly safe," he answered, dryly. 
 
 " I mean reasonably safe, of course, reasonably safe," 
 
The " Speed " Party 267 
 
 the director hastened to add, giving the ladies a sharp 
 glance, to correct any erroneous opinion they might have 
 formed of his railroad knowledge. 
 
 " It 's safe as long as you are on the rails," returned 
 Darlington, facetiously. " Off the rails, ten miles an hour 
 is dangerous." 
 
 " Of course, we Ve got others to think of besides our- 
 selves, — the ladies, for instance," answered Mr. Bowers, 
 with an attempt at gallantry which was something of a 
 failure. " Mrs. Bowers was quite uneasy this morn in' for 
 fear something would happen to-day, and I don't think a 
 hundred-dollar note would have tolled her into this car. 
 But I told her," he added, complacently, " that new 
 engines cost too much to send them head over heels into 
 a ditch just for amusement." 
 
 " I guess we '11 keep her out of the ditch, unless Head- 
 ley gets too ambitious to make a record," answered the 
 president, again giving Kaltenborn that subtle glance. 
 The latter, as he compared Bowers's porcine face and 
 fishy eyes with the sharp, clean-cut features of the presi- 
 dent, could readily understand the antagonism between 
 the two, and he could not but enjoy the president's bait- 
 ing of the pompous, but timid, director. " Headley is 
 generally conservative," continued Darlington, with keen 
 pleasure. " But he 's on his mettle to-day, and there is no 
 fool like an old fool, you know." 
 
 '' Of course, he 's got his instructions," suggested 
 Bowers, uneasily. 
 
 *' I remember once," Darlington went on, disregard- 
 ing the interruption, '^ we were testing an engine down 
 South, with the safest and oldest engineer on the road. 
 It took him just twenty-five minutes to make old 
 iron out of a seven-thousand-dollar machine, and we 
 
 \ 
 
268 The Darlingtons 
 
 sold the chair-car we were in for the tacks in the 
 upholstering.'^ 
 
 Carol gave her father a roguish, but admonishing, 
 glance, and Ruth lifted her handkerchief to her lips to 
 hide a smile. 
 
 '^ Tacks ! " exclaimed Bowers, leaning forward. 
 
 "That's all there was left worth saving," said the 
 president, solemnly. 
 
 " I think there must have been a little more than that 
 left, Charles," said Mrs. Darlington, with her kindly smile. 
 " I have no recollection of that catastrophe," she added, 
 though not as doubting the story. 
 
 " You don't remember the time old Nat Wilkins was 
 killed ? " asked her husband, in surprise. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I remember that," she admitted. 
 
 •'That was the time," he returned. "I don't think 
 there were two pieces of that engine left that you could n't 
 have put in your pocket," he continued. '* But the 
 strangest thing about it was that not one of us, twenty 
 in all, got anything worse than a broken arm, except 
 poor old Nat and his fireman. I got my left wrist 
 dislocated." 
 
 Bowers glanced at his own thick wrist, but said no 
 more for a few minutes, and then only observed that he 
 guessed he would take a smoke. He strolled off to the 
 smoking-room. Several of the gentlemen followed, 
 including the president, whom Carol detained by the 
 sleeve long enough to whisper, " Stop it, papa ! " 
 
 " Would n't you sooner be a railroad man than a 
 preacher now ? " she asked of Kaltenborn, as he sat 
 down beside her, in her father's place. 
 
 " Possibly, — if I could be a president, and ride in 
 such a car, and be surrounded by such a happy official 
 
The "Speed'' Party 269 
 
 family," he added, with an amused glance at Darlington's 
 retreating figure. 
 
 ^' Don't you make fun of the family," she admonished 
 him, laughing. " It has on its best bib-and-tucker 
 to-day. If you think they are misbehaving now, you 
 ought to see them when some big expenditure is under 
 discussion. I '11 have to smuggle you into a directors' 
 meeting some time. If you like comedies, you would 
 enjoy the performance." 
 
 Kaltenborn murmured something about having no 
 objection to that class of plays, and for a moment they 
 watched the slowly revolving landscape through the 
 window, — sear brown fields, leafless woods, straw- 
 stacks, farm-houses, big red barns, and now and then a 
 village, through which they whirled with unslackened 
 speed. 
 
 '^I suppose, too, if I were a railroad man just now, I 
 could smoke," observed Kaltenborn in a low tone. 
 
 Taken off her guard, Carol flushed a Httle at this 
 reference ; but her eye did not quail, and she looked 
 him calmly in the face. " I should think you would 
 have had enough of smoking for a while," she answered. 
 Her tone was disapproving, and it made Kaltenborn feel 
 for a moment that he had been guilty of an indelicacy. 
 
 She looked more beautiful to him at that moment than 
 he had ever seen her. Her hair, especially, — and he 
 had noticed the fact several times before, that morning, 
 — seemed thicker and finer and of a lighter shade than 
 usual, and rolled back from her forehead and temples in 
 heavy waves, to a massy bunch behind. Carol noticed 
 his occasional glances, and after a httle exclaimed play- 
 fully, as though making amends for her previous severity : 
 
 *■ You must n't look at my hair. I washed it y ester- 
 
270 The Darlingtons 
 
 day, and it simply won't stay up. It straggles so, and 
 makes me look positively rebellious." 
 
 " I rather like to see you look rebellious," answered 
 Kaltenborn. 
 
 ^' You would n't dare preach that," she retorted. 
 
 " I say a good many things to you that I should n't 
 dare preach." 
 
 " What — for instance ? " she asked, in a confi- 
 dential undertone. 
 
 " Oh, little things that come and go like breath, but 
 which, like breath also, may carry life or may carry 
 disease and death," he answered, evasively. After a 
 moment, he added, ^' I have no business to tell you 
 that I like to see you rebellious." 
 
 "Why?" she asked, innocently. 
 
 " Because I despise rebelliousness in others, and 
 because, as a rule, it is a despicable thing. It's the 
 same selfish thing in a Lucifer falling from heaven or 
 in a woman setting her husband at naught on the 
 price of a new hat, knowing that she can kiss his anger 
 away." He spoke in a low, unmoved tone, so that 
 Cash Winter, ten feet away, might have supposed them 
 to be discussing Browning or something else as im- 
 personal. 
 
 " What do you say these things for, then ? " she 
 asked, almost contemptuously. 
 
 "' Because you make me," he answered boldly. 
 
 The calmness with which she received this statement 
 sur^Drised him. She lifted her face, and looking him 
 squarely in the eye, asked, coolly, " Why do you let 
 me make you? You are not in the habit of letting 
 people make you do things against your will." 
 
 There was a challenge in her tones that he certainly 
 
The "Speed'' Party 271 
 
 would have accepted had he been allowed to answer, 
 but at that moment Miss Dane came up, with Bert 
 and Elsie. 
 
 " I have just dug these people out ! " exclaimed 
 Miss Dane, breezily. " Now you keep them dug out. 
 It's a reflection on the rest of us for them to go 
 mooning off by themselves, and they ought to be re- 
 buked. But I suppose they are not really responsible." 
 
 Kaltenborn looked at the straight, well-knit young 
 fellow, a head taller than the slender form by his side, 
 easy of manner and deliberate almost to indolence, 
 with a face singularly pure and innocent for a man's, 
 and bearing no hint of those volcanic fires through 
 which he had so often passed. And as he looked 
 he did not wonder that the tendrils of Elsie's heart, 
 in reaching upward toward sun and sky — now that 
 the flowering hour of womanhood had arrived — should 
 wrap themselves so tightly around this seemingly firm 
 support. He prayed, too, in his heart, that the sup- 
 port might prove as firm in fact as in seeming; that 
 it might not fall away, and leave the tendrils to grasp 
 at empty air, until they withered, sickened, and died ; 
 or, sadder still, until they sank to earth, and locked 
 in their bhnd embrace some baseborn weed, in whose 
 dense atmosphere the blossoms of the tender plant 
 would slowly smother and come to naught. 
 
 Miss Dane joined the group, but the two lovers, 
 after taking their chaffing good-naturedly, managed, 
 unobtrusively and apparently without design, to find a 
 seat together and a little apart from the others. 
 
 "They'll think we are unsociable," said Elsie, look- 
 ing into Bert's eyes. 
 
 Bert looked musincrlv out of the window without re- 
 
272 The Darlingtons 
 
 plying. He heard, but he Hked to ignore Elsie's little 
 fears and whimsies in this way, and he fancied that 
 she liked it too. It distinguished his manhood from 
 her womanhood. After a moment he answered, gravely 
 and with a touch of boyish superiority, " I am in no 
 mood for light talk, to-day, dear. I am too happy. 
 I am so happy that I am almost afraid." 
 
 "Afraid of what, sweetheart?" she asked, in a voice 
 ineffably sweet and tender. 
 
 " Afraid that it is all too good to be true — that it is 
 more happiness than I deserve," he answered solemnly. 
 
 Elsie nestled closer to him, with an impulsive little 
 movement. " You must not, love," she whispered. 
 " Nothing God can give is too good for you." 
 
 After a moment's silence he asked, in a lighter vein, 
 but still soberly enough, " Elsie, has the thought 
 crossed your mind this morning that some day you 
 will ride over this road, possibly in this very car, as 
 the wife of the president of the H. P., R., A., and S. 
 railroad — as my wife?" 
 
 Her hand stole into his, which was conveniently 
 near, and held it tightly — so tightly that he could feel 
 the throbbing of his pulse within her grip. 
 
 "We are sitting in the little drawing-room," he went 
 on musingly, " you in some loose-flowing gown, I in my 
 smoking-jacket and slippers. We are travelling away 
 off somewhere, taking a trip out West. It is night. A 
 storm is raging outside, and as we fly through the 
 darkness, the wind dashes the rain against the glass. 
 Outside it is cold and wild and terrible ; inside, it is 
 warm and cozy. You are awed by the storm, and you 
 creep closer and closer to me, until at last your head 
 is on my breast; and my arm is around your waist. 
 
The "Speed " Party 273 
 
 And as I bend my head and look into your half- 
 frightened eyes, I smile, and hold you a little tighter, 
 and you look up with a little sober smile, and whisper, 
 ' Kiss me, husband ! ' And I kiss you. You love me, 
 but you are also proud of me, for I am a great railroad 
 president, and we are travelling over this Western road 
 as guests of honor." 
 
 "And are you proud of me, too?" she asked, with 
 luminous eyes. 
 
 The tender young fellow's own eyes suddenly grew 
 misty. " Yes, I am proud, too," he answered. 
 
 For a while they sat hstening to the measured click of 
 the wheels beneath; then Bert asked, '"'Did it ever 
 strike you, Elsie, that Carol could come to care for a 
 man like Kaltenborn?" 
 
 " He 's the last man in the world I should select 
 for her," she answered. " Which may be a very 
 good reason for thinking that she could," she added, 
 smiling. 
 
 " I hope not," said Bert, soberly. 
 
 There was something in his manner or intonation that 
 Elsie could not assent to, so she said nothing, but finally 
 asked, "Why?" 
 
 " Because they are too different. Their ideas of life 
 are utterly opposed." 
 
 Again a dissenting expression came over her face, 
 and she asked, though without self-assertion : " Of 
 course, we are only idly speculating ; but if two such 
 people as Carol and Mr. Kaltenborn should love each 
 other, do you think they would give much thought 
 to such differences ? " 
 
 " They are just the people that would," he answered. 
 " I know Kaltenborn has an influence over her/'' he 
 
 18 
 
274 The Darlingtons 
 
 continued. " He has got her interested in the poor, for 
 one thing. Yesterday she took some old clothes and 
 some potted plants to a family that hves down by the 
 round-house." 
 
 " So far, so good," said Elsie. 
 
 Much as she respected Carol's force and mind, the es- 
 sentially feminine Elsie had not an unqualified admira- 
 tion for Carol ; and when she mentally compared Bert 
 with his sister, it was always to the disadvantage of the 
 latter. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 THE NEW engine's METTLE 
 
 Meanwhile, the other members of the party were amus- 
 ing themselves in various ways. A card-game was go- 
 ing on in the smoking-room, and another one outside, 
 though most of the men preferred simply to smoke and 
 talk. The ladies strolled about, looking into the presi- 
 dent's sleeping apartment, with its white bear-skin rug, 
 or standing at the door of the tiny kitchen and watching 
 the busy movements of Judge and his two assistants. 
 At every turn spotless mirrors tempted the ladies to 
 pause and peep a moment, and give their back hair a 
 passing pressure of the hand or their ribbons a tuck. 
 
 " Have you taught him to look with equanimity upon 
 such sights?" asked Winter of Carol, nodding his head 
 to where Kaltenborn was standing with his hands be- 
 hind his back and watching a card-game, with an intel- 
 ligence which suggested that he himself had sat at table 
 with kings and queens and the rest of the suit. 
 
 " He is calm," observed Carol, smiling. " But he is 
 only adapting himself to circumstances," she added, de- 
 fensively. '' That 's a virtue which you ought to be able 
 to admire." 
 
 " I do admire it," he returned. 
 
 " Though I doubt very much if he does," she added, 
 slyly. 
 
276 The Darlingtons 
 
 Without regarding Kaltenborn in any sense as a 
 rival of his in the friendship of Carol Darlington^ Winter 
 was beginning to look with no pleasure upon Kalten- 
 born's influence over Carol. She had of late, he noticed, 
 a way of taking new and startling views of old and 
 commonplace things ; she was always giving the con- 
 versation a dialectical turn, and race-horse talk no 
 longer satisfied her as once it had. Winter regarded 
 these changes as only a passing conceit with Carol, but 
 he relished them none the more for that. 
 
 " I ought to have been a preacher," he continued, 
 with a jesting look. ''The ministry is a sure road to 
 popularity with women." 
 
 ''I don't quite make the connection," answered 
 Carol, dryly. 
 
 "Well, a preacher has a great organization back of 
 him to enforce his precepts. He is a kind of monarch, 
 and women like power. Now if I put forth a sugges- 
 tion," he continued, mockingly, "it is critically ex- 
 amined, and, ten to one, rejected. But let a preacher 
 put forth the same suggestion, and it is instantly 
 accepted. Look, for instance, at the women who shut 
 themselves up in convents at the bidding of a priest." 
 
 " There are monks," she suggested. 
 
 " Yes, but not at the bidding of women. Take Kal- 
 tenborn's church. I don't know, but I '11 warrant that 
 five-sixths of his active members are women, and that 
 the membership of t^e remaining sixth of men can be 
 credited to the influence of their wives." 
 
 " You are not finding fault with them for that ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 "Certainly not," he returned. "They are doing a 
 good work, I suppose. All I 'm trying to establish is 
 
The New Engine's Mettle 277 
 
 their submission to the dictates of a man who happens 
 to be a preacher. They wouldn't* give any woman, 
 however talented, half the obedience they give him. 
 They may murmur a little against the law he lays down, 
 but they obey it. Living on a higher moral plane than 
 his — most of them — yet they look up to him. They 
 overlook his personal blemishes, and though they may 
 doubt his spirituality, they accept him as authority on 
 things spiritual." 
 
 Carol looked at him half-humorously, half-admiringly. 
 " You surprise me, Cash. You show a perception and 
 a philosophy that I little suspected in you." 
 
 " Of course, that is not true of all women," he quali- 
 fied, not sure whether she was chaffing him or not. 
 "Some women have an independence of religious 
 thought equal to any man's." 
 
 "Do you admire that class of women especially?" 
 she asked. 
 
 "I do." 
 
 " Well, just remember this," she said ; " those women 
 who are so easily led in religious matters, are simply fol- 
 lowing the bent of their natures, which is toward good. 
 You don't think a preacher could lead them the other 
 way, do you?" 
 
 *' Of course not." 
 
 "Would you say that I am easily led?" she asked. 
 She smiled, but looked at him keenly. 
 
 " I hope not," he answered. 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 "Because I think you have enough sense to steer 
 your own course." 
 
 " Well, I hope so, too," she answered. " At least, 
 that is what I am doing." 
 
278 The Darlingtons 
 
 The trip up was devoid of any special incidents. 
 Whenever they stopped, they were received by a 
 gathering of people — for their coming had been 
 flashed along the wires — and were cheered on their 
 way. Once they stopped between stations on account 
 of a hot box on the private car, and once on account 
 of some slight derangement of the engine. 
 
 Dinner was served a little before twelve o'clock. 
 The dining-room being inadequate for the occasion, 
 the tables were thrown into one long board and set 
 in the drawing-room. Though Judge's resources must 
 have been tried, his reputation did not suffer in the 
 least. The meal was ready on the minute set by 
 the president, and the serving took place without a 
 hitch. There were no tedious waits, no cold dishes, 
 no underdone ones. The power behind the waiters 
 — Judge himself — never once showed itself; but its 
 sufficiency was attested by the alacrity of the crew of 
 white-aproned blacks. 
 
 Before the meal was quite finished, the car came to a 
 rest in the station at High Point, the terminus of the 
 hue. When the guests had risen, the president led 
 them out into the station, where a surprise awaited 
 them in the shape of half a dozen carriages or more, in 
 which they were driven about the little city for a breath 
 of fresh air. 
 
 '•' Now, Bert," said Mr. Darlington, when they once 
 more stood in the station, ••' here 's your return schedule. 
 Keep your eye open. Get your orders at every stop, 
 whether you need them or not. The first run is only 
 fifteen miles, to Langdale. Thirty-seven will side- 
 track at Ralston, and Twenty-three at Rankelman. 
 Port will have to turn her loose to make those con- 
 
The New Engine's Mettle 279 
 
 nections. Outside of that, he can do as he pleases, 
 and I guess that will please the rest of us," he added 
 significantly, for old Port's fighting-blood was famous. 
 *' I 've got him pretty well stirred up. Don't egg him 
 on too much,'' he cautioned. "Now run into the 
 despatcher's office, and see if everything is O. K. be- 
 fore we pull out. All aboard, ladies and gentlemen ! " 
 
 Bert was gone sev^eral minutes, and his father, in his 
 impatience, was just hurrying towards the despatcher's 
 office himself when he met his son coming back. 
 "What's the trouble?" he demanded. 
 
 " Nothing," answered Bert, signalling to Port to go 
 ahead ; and the pair had to run to make the rear plat- 
 form, for old Port pulled out with a vigor which indi- 
 cated that he had been very thoroughly " stirred up." 
 
 The run to Langdale was made at a good warming-up 
 pace, averaging fifty miles an hour, so the president an- 
 nounced. He sat with his w-atch in his hand, calling off" 
 the time every half-minute or so, though without once 
 glancing out of the window at the mile-posts. This 
 feat exciting the curiosity of the ladies, he called their 
 attention to the rhythmic clicking of the wheels over the 
 fish-plates, and explained that the number of these clicks 
 in twenty seconds represented the number of miles being 
 run to the hour. Some of the guests at this took out 
 their watches and calculated for themselves until they 
 grew tired of the amusement. 
 
 Between Langdale and Anniston, Bert did not appear 
 in the private car, and in answer to Mrs. Darlington's 
 inquiry, her husband said that Bert was in the coach, 
 probably conferring with the two or three machinists 
 on hand there in case of emergency. At Anniston, 
 Bert, after looking in at the operator's window for 
 
28o The Darlingtons 
 
 any telegraphic orders, made his way forward to the 
 engine. 
 
 '^ Port," he called up, " father says that last run would 
 have been a good record for a fast-freight line. This is 
 a passenger train." 
 
 Old Port's eyes flashed at this unexpected thrust, for 
 he had been gradually working up the speed ; but he 
 answered, respectfully, "All right," and turned from 
 the window. 
 
 The next seventeen miles were reeled off in a httle 
 less than as many minutes. This high speed was hardly 
 perceptible in the heavy, carefully balanced private car, 
 the only indication being a gentle swaying motion and 
 the low hum of the wheels. But when the passengers 
 looked out of the windows, the trees and fence-posts 
 and bushes showed a tendency to run together, and the 
 banks of the cuts through which they passed flashed by 
 in quivering hnes. The president's eyes began to snap, 
 and the guests smiled venturesomely at one another. 
 Mr. Bowers sat with his little eyes half-closed, a picture 
 of indifference, and in the very teeth of the president's 
 announcement of sixty-three miles an hour, carelessly 
 remarked to another director that he believed bitumi- 
 nous coal would soon take a drop. 
 
 Bert sat in the smoking-room, occupied now only by 
 three elderly men besides himself. He took no part in 
 their conversation, but seemed absorbed in some tele- 
 grams which he held in his hand. He had read them 
 through several times when one of the party remarked, 
 " She 's humming now, gentlemen ! " Bert looked up 
 quickly, and gave a contemptuous laugh ; and when the 
 speaker turned questioningly, he stalked out of the 
 room. He took his stand at the rear door of the car, 
 
The New Engine's Mettle 281 
 
 alone, where he remained until the next stop. He then 
 went forward to the engine again. 
 
 " Port, father says he has a bottle of nervine back 
 there if you need it," he called up. " One of the di- 
 rectors also says he 'd walk back to Ashboro, only he 
 doesn't want to get in ahead of the party." 
 
 The old veteran looked down testily, not just relishing 
 the joke. But at sight of Bert's cold, satirical face, his 
 testiness gave way to a sterner mood, and with his me- 
 chanical '' All right ! " he sharply ordered the fireman to 
 fill the fire-box to the doors. The run before them was 
 nearly twenty-five miles, over the worst section of track 
 on the road — badly ballasted, and abounding in curves 
 and wooden trestles. But Port was too old an engineer 
 to begin a record-breaking run by counting chances ; 
 and grimly shutting his eyes to these unpleasant facts, 
 he urged his ponderous iron horse to a still fiercer burst 
 of speed. No soft cushions or cunning springs were 
 under /im, to lull him into a false sense of security, or to 
 deceive him as to the awful momentum with which he was 
 being hurled through space. The fifty tons of iron and 
 steel which he controlled with his single hand thumped 
 and jarred, pitched and swayed, and angrily pounded 
 the rails beneath, or furiously ground against their sides 
 at every curve. 
 
 The fireman was distinctly pale, but old Headley was 
 calmly watching the frail, glistening rails, which danced 
 in the sunlight far ahead like cobwebs wet with dew. 
 He felt only as he had felt a thousand times before, 
 when plunging along through pitchy darkness, — that he 
 was in higher hands than man's. All restraint had been 
 thrown to the winds. Caution was now but a mockery. 
 A fallen tree, a cow, an open switch, a defective 
 
282 The Darlingtons 
 
 part — the old man simply closed his eyes as he knew 
 he would some day do when death thus faced him in 
 fact. But, for the first time in his life, his heart was 
 rebelHous against Charles Darlington. 
 
 As the train swept down a long straight stretch of 
 track, like a colossal projectile from a colossal gun, it 
 seemed as if no human power could turn its flight at the 
 bottom, and keep it from leaping the rails and burying 
 itself in the hills beyond. But human ingenuity did it ; 
 they safely rounded the curve, and the old man gravely 
 commanded, " Fire up ! " 
 
 Now indeed it seemed as if the locomotive was a 
 thing of flesh and blood, goaded to madness by the seeth- 
 ing fires within its vitals. It trembled in every inch of 
 metal, it throbbed and gasped and strained and shook ; 
 and what looked a smoothly-moving thing of beauty was 
 in fact a hell of heat and din. But onward, ever onward 
 it flew ! 
 
 Probably not a person in the second car behind, with the 
 exception of Charles Darlington, could have sat in that 
 cab with unblanched cheeks. The passengers were suffi- 
 ciently disturbed as it was. Conversation had ceased. 
 A spell hung over the party. Carol sat with fearless, 
 daring eyes, but her face was sober. Elsie, wishing Bert 
 was with her, hugged close to Carol, her dark, dilated 
 eyes flitting inquiringly from one face to another. Mrs. 
 Darlington kept her eyes on her husband as he called 
 off in a low tone, " Seventy ! Sixty-seven ! Seventy-one ! 
 Seventy-two! Seventy! Seventy-Jive/^^ indicating the 
 variations in speed. Bowers regularly mopped the sweat 
 from his heavy face, though the temperature was far from 
 oppressive. 
 
 As the train slowed down for Rankelman, the president 
 
The New Engine's Mettle 283 
 
 sharply snapped his watch shut, and said to his wife, with 
 an ominous frown, " Headley has lost his senses. There 
 is n't a brakeman on the road who would have picked 
 out that stretch of line for a spurt." But his brows 
 quickly relaxed, and with his unfailing twinkle he began 
 to rally the others on their sober faces. 
 
 Bert once more went forward to the engine. " Stop 
 at Hamilton, Headley ! " he commanded, abruptly. 
 " You have ten miles of the best track on the road 
 before you. We expect you to do something better than 
 you have yet done. An engineer, to be useful, must be 
 fearless. If you are afraid, father says he will take the 
 throttle himself." 
 
 Old Headley, scarcely believing his own ears, peered 
 down into young Darlington's face with a searching, sus- 
 picious glance. " Did your father send that message to 
 mel " he asked, in a voice trembling with indignation. 
 " Does he think it 's on account of myself that I have — " 
 He broke off shortly, and passed his hand over his face 
 in a dazed way, as though he suspected that it might be 
 he himself and not everybody else who was going crazy. 
 " I '11 do it," he answered, dutifully, to Bert's continued 
 haughty glance. 
 
 And he did. The run to Hamilton was made at an 
 average speed of seventy-eight miles an hour, touching 
 eighty at a few points. Still the passengers suffered less 
 discomfort and were in less danger, by reason of the im- 
 provement in the road-bed, than on the last stretch at 
 seventy miles an hour. But the wary president was 
 conscious of the increased speed, and as the train pulled 
 into Hamilton he thrust his head into the smoking-room, 
 where Bert, for reasons of his own, preferred to sit, and 
 said, " Bert, tell Port not to try to beat that ! " 
 
284 The Darlingtons 
 
 Bert, who was gazing steadily out of the window, 
 nodded his head without looking up. A moment later 
 the president saw him go forward toward the engine. 
 Bert paused at the rear end of the tender, in a curious, 
 hesitating way, as though lost in thought. Looking up 
 and seeing a little boy watching him, he shook his head 
 threateningly at him, and then laughed as the little fellow 
 scurried off in alarm. Approaching the cab, he said : 
 
 " Headley, father wants to see you and the fireman in 
 the telegraph office." 
 
 "Both of us?" asked the old man, in surprise. 
 
 "Both of you," answered Bert, sharply. He turned 
 on his heel, but instead of going back along the platform, 
 mounted the front end of the coach, just behind the 
 tender. 
 
 Forty-five seconds later, perhaps, the train moved off 
 once more, this time with a jerk that would have been 
 inexcusable in a freight engineer at the throttle of his 
 first passenger-train. The president, in his seat in the 
 private car, scowled, and murmured to Carol, " Old Port 
 is mad now. I '11 teach him that a train of cars is not a 
 thing to vent his spite on." His displeasure increased 
 as the locomotive picked up her speed with an abrupt- 
 ness which indeed tested her. The president's practised 
 eye could very nearly approximate their speed without 
 the use of his watch, and he estimated a few minutes 
 later that they were running seventy miles an hour. This 
 was about the safety limit on this particular section of 
 track. Still they continued to move faster and faster, 
 and at last the president drew out his watch, and noted 
 the next mile-post, for the " clicks " were coming too 
 rapidly now to be counted. Indeed, they were merged 
 into a low, musical whir. The next post was passed in 
 
The New Engine's Mettle 285 
 
 just fifty seconds, — seventy-two miles an hour. The 
 next in forty-seven seconds, the next in forty-five. 
 
 "Eighty miles an hour!" murmured Darlington, so 
 that only Carol could hear. Still the white-banded mile- 
 posts fantastically jumped into sight and out of sight 
 again, like dancing, jeering imps, quicker and quicker. 
 
 The fences by this time were flying by in dizzy, trem- 
 bling lines. The telegraph wires grotesquely rose and 
 fell, mere black lines dancing against the sky. The 
 nearer patches of wood were dark blurs. Even the 
 cleverly constructed palace-car could not conceal such 
 speed as this ; it had ceased to glide, and was now 
 moving in httle regular bounds, with side-jerks which 
 made the guests' heads roll on their shoulders like sun- 
 flowers in a breeze. The windows, in spite of their 
 rubber padding, were beginning to rattle. The colored 
 waiter with a tray of lemonade glasses found it difficult 
 to keep their contents off the ladies' laps. Mr. Bowers, 
 now noticeably pale, gripped the arms of his chair, but 
 seemed determined to die rather than cry for quarter. 
 Elsie Clifford gazed steadily out of the window, white 
 to the lips, but heroically silent. Even Carol looked 
 serious, and regarded her father's silence with a puzzled 
 expression. Still he would give no sign that anything 
 was wrong, and doggedly scanned now his watch, now 
 the flying and all but invisible mile-posts. 
 
 Then came a blur on the landscape, a slight darkening 
 of the car, an increased roar, a confused rotary move- 
 ment of cube-like figures outside, for the space of a 
 breath, — and then the landscape again. It was Bloom- 
 ington, through which they had swept like a devastating 
 hurricane, without warning of whistle or bell. 
 
 " Did he whistle ? " asked Darlington of Carol. He no 
 
286 The Darlingtons 
 
 longer had need of talking low to hide his'vvords from 
 the others ; yet his voice was huskily subdued. 
 
 " No," she answered, with an alarmed glance into his 
 excited eyes. 
 
 His next words were drowned in a loud roar which 
 suddenly smote their ears, and as suddenly rolled away, 
 like the report of a cannon. They had crossed the high 
 bridge over Flat Rock River, without so much as the 
 reduction of an ounce of steam. 
 
 " Darlington, is n't this dangerous? " cried Bowers, in 
 desperation, lifting his voice above all the noise, and 
 leaning forward with a pallid, drawn face. 
 
 " Dangerous ! " shouted the president, leaping to his 
 feet. " It 's suicidal ! The man has gone crazy ! " 
 
 He reached for the bell-cord and gave it an energetic 
 pull, commanding those who had risen to sit down 
 again. He waited fifteen seconds. No response came 
 from the whistle, no application of the brakes was made. 
 Just as he seized the cord again, one of the mechanics 
 from the coach staggered in. The president stepped 
 forward instinctively to meet him, and then bent his ear 
 to the other's lips. Carol saw her father suddenly turn 
 deathly pale and lean faintly against the casing for sup- 
 port. Then he followed the mechanic out, hke one not 
 quite himself. 
 
 Carol jumped up, with an exclamation of alarm. For 
 a moment she gazed excitedly at the upturned, inquiring 
 faces, until her eye fell upon Kaltenborn, grave and 
 anxious, but calm. She motioned to him, and the two, 
 followed by Elsie Clifford and several others, made their 
 way forward. As they opened the door on to the plat- 
 form, a deafening roar burst upon their ears, giving them 
 a sickening sense of the speed with which they were 
 
The New Engine's Mettle 287 
 
 rushing on to destruction. It was only a step from the 
 vestibuled end of the private car to the door of the coach, 
 but it was a difficult step, and both the young women 
 reeled dangerously in spite of Kaltenborn's supporting 
 hand. Then down the aisle of the coach they lurched 
 and pitched, clinging as best they could to the seats, till 
 they reached the door at the other end. There the 
 president stood speechless and motionless, and there 
 they, too, soon stood in the same stupefied condition. 
 
 Glaring at them over the tender from the cab of the 
 engine, was a face whose distorted lines and fixed eyes 
 and streaming hair both father and daughter knew well. 
 It was Bert's. The prospect of interference seemed to 
 have animated him with a fury that was fairly diabolical. 
 At first sight of his father he had seized the heavy axe 
 kept on the tender for emergencies, and this he now 
 swung to and fro, madly and blindly, with a force that 
 would have severed a strong man's trunk in a single 
 stroke. 
 
 Chnging to the railing and to one another for support, 
 the little group on the careening platform gazed at the 
 terrible spectacle with frozen lips and cheeks. Then 
 Darlington, with a face not unlike its usual self, except 
 for its paleness, hastily turned back into the coach. 
 Kaltenborn fancied he was overcome, but before he him- 
 self could arouse his benumbed faculties sufficiently to 
 consider some method of rescue, the president as sud- 
 denly re-appeared. He carried a revolver in his right 
 hand. With that calmness which comes to most people 
 in the hour of extreme peril, the others watched him 
 move to the front of the platform. Elsie stood by as 
 quietly as though the weapon which was to strike her 
 lover down, perhaps in death, was but a toy. Then 
 
288 The Darlingtons 
 
 Carol, with a low cry of horror, threw herself upon her 
 father's half-Hfted arm. Darlington looked at her a 
 moment, rather blankly, and then wound his left arm 
 around her waist. 
 
 " Hold me steady, daughter ! " he said. 
 
 She faltered a moment, and then the heroism which 
 was hers as well as his, asserted itself. She braced her- 
 self against the brake-wheel, stiffened her form, and closed 
 her eyes. This last unnerved her father, apparently, for 
 the moment, and he lowered his uplifted arm. 
 
 "He's my boy! " he exclaimed, huskily, turning a 
 pair of supplicating eyes upon Kaltenborn. 
 
 " Is there no other way? " asked Kaltenborn, with a 
 dry throat. 
 
 " No other," said the president, hoarsely, " and not 
 this unless we are quick. We meet 23 at Lamberton." 
 
 Without another word, Kaltenborn seized the weapon 
 from Darlington's nerveless hand, quickly raised it, 
 aimed, and fired. The swaying car destroyed his aim, 
 and the maniac in front, with an inarticulate cry of 
 derision, swung his axe more fiercely than ever. 
 
 " Wait/'' 
 
 It was Elsie's voice. Before a hand could stay her, 
 before a mind could comprehend her purpose, she had 
 leaped upon the rail, and thence to the tender. Walking 
 unsteadily over the rough footing afforded by the coal, 
 and swaying to and fro with the rocking motion of the 
 tender, she made her way toward the delirious man, 
 closer and closer, until it seemed to the breathless 
 spectators that the flying axe grazed her devoted bosom. 
 If she hoped that this man who had taken the most 
 sacred vows to love and protect her would now, by some 
 supernatural agency, fulfil those vowSj she hoped in vain. 
 
The New Engine's Mettle 289 
 
 He was her lover now no more than if his clay had been 
 clothed with the hair and armed with the claws of a tiger. 
 His eyes, as she pressed nearer, glittered with a demoniac 
 cunning and resentment. With fear, too, though one 
 lunging stroke would have stilled forever the brave heart 
 of the frail, unarmed woman before him. But he dared 
 not make that stroke. 
 
 It was manifest, though, that Elsie had no chimerical 
 hopes, but intended to match cunning with cunning. 
 Folding her hands before her, she threw back her head 
 and sent forth peal after peal of ringing laughter. In 
 that environment of death and worse than death, the 
 sweet, girlish tones, rising clear and high above all the 
 hideous din ; that slender, swaying form, with its flying 
 hair and drapery, — did more to awe the straining spec- 
 tators than all that had gone before. It was equally 
 effective with Bert. An expression of the intensest 
 astonishment overspread his face, and his axe began to 
 swing more slowly. Again the musical notes rang 
 merrily out, and the axe came to a rest. 
 
 " Good, Bert ! Good, good ! Heap on the coal, 
 heap on the coal ! " she cried, and stretched her arms to 
 him invitingly. For a moment he surveyed her suspi- 
 ciously ; then, his face lighting with a childlike smile, he 
 sprang forward and lifted her down. As he did so, she 
 bound his arms to his side, and bore him to the floor. 
 
 Ten seconds would have been sufficient for him, in 
 the fury of betrayal, to fling her to certain death. But 
 scarcely five had passed before Kaltenborn had planted 
 his bulk mercilessly upon the fallen man's breast, and 
 pinioned his arms to the floor in a grip of iron. At the 
 same instant almost, Charles DarHngton was closing the 
 throttle of the engine and applying the air-brakes. 
 
 19 
 
290 The Darlingtons 
 
 Kaltenborn held his victim down until Lamberton was 
 reached, and a doctor summoned, and the quieting 
 morphine administered. The poor stupefied form was 
 then carried into the private car, and laid away in the 
 berth in the president's sleeping-room. One of the 
 shop-hands in the coach was impressed into service as 
 fireman, the president himself took his seat on the oppo- 
 site side of the engine, and the train once more moved 
 on, slowly and wearily by contrast with its former speed. 
 
 The remainder of the trip was painfully different from 
 its joyous beginning. The men, after gravely canvassing 
 the details of the harassing affair, and expressing their 
 sympathy for the stricken family and the unfortunate son, 
 turned to more cheerful topics, talking in the low, 
 guarded tones which people adopt in the house of 
 afiHiction. Most of the women timidly avoided that 
 end of the car in which Bert lay, as though they feared 
 he might rise from his stupor and stalk out among them. 
 They looked pale and worn and shattered, and talked 
 whisperingly of the sad event of the day. Tears now 
 and then wet the eyes of more than one. 
 
 Mrs. Darlington and Ruth sat in the Httle room in 
 which Bert lay. Ruth, seated on a stool, with her face 
 in her mother's lap, softly sobbed. The mother, with 
 dry eyes, soothingly smoothed her daughter's dark hair, 
 but wisely refrained from offering further comfort. Once 
 or twice one of the ladies appeared at the door, and 
 asked if she could do anything. Once, too, Judge, the 
 cook, softly glided up and solicitously asked if some 
 " hot soup or sumpin' " would n't do Mister Bert good. 
 "No, thank you, Judge," said Mrs. Darlington, with a 
 grateful smile. " He 's asleep now." Upon which Judge 
 solemnly withdrew his kindly black face. 
 
The New Engine's Mettle 291 
 
 What the thoughts of that mother were, none but 
 another mother, with another such son, could tell, — none 
 but she who had felt the litde soft lips at her breast, and 
 the little warm hand on her neck ; who had helped along 
 the first tottering steps, had planned the first little pair of 
 trousers, and had seen the child fade away in the youth, 
 and the youth in the man. None but she whose first 
 thought, first energy, first love, first everything, had, by 
 God's decree, been for her young. 
 
 In another private apartment, with drawn curtains, sat 
 Elsie and Carol. They had not spoken since entering 
 the room. The tension to which Elsie's sensitive nature 
 was strung was painful to see. She nervously crossed 
 and uncrossed her hands, she clutched at the folds of 
 her dress, and the muscles of her face twitched contin- 
 uously. At last she gave up. 
 
 "Oh, what shall I do?" she sobbed, despairingly, 
 hiding her face on Carol's shoulder and piteously clinging 
 to her hands. 
 
 " I love him, too, dear," said Carol, her own voice 
 breaking. Elsie sobbed a little longer, and then raised 
 her face ; their lips met and held together for a long 
 time, the tawny head of one pressed close and lovingly 
 against the dark head of the other, Elsie's arms around 
 Carol's waist, Carol's around Elsie's neck. 
 
 " I dread going to bed to-night," sighed Elsie, tremu- 
 lously. 
 
 " You are going to sleep with me to-night," answered 
 Carol. Her voice was exquisitely sweet and tender, and 
 went straight to the other's heart. 
 
 Meanwhile Kaltenborn was listening to the story of 
 Bert's thraldom to liquor from the lips of Cash Winter. 
 The scene he had just witnessed, and certain thoughts of 
 
292 The Darlingtons 
 
 Carol which crowded in upon his brain in connection 
 with that scene, made Kaltenborn unusually impression- 
 able, and Winter's story affected him deeply. 
 
 " I drink myself, a Httle," concluded Winter, invited 
 to this frankness by Kaltenborn's fraternal manner, " and 
 I have a bar attached to my hotel. I could hardly run 
 the hotel without it. But every time Bert has one of 
 these falls, I have such a repugnance to the accursed 
 stuff that I am tempted to close the bar and pocket my 
 losses. Yet Bert never got a drop to drink in my place, 
 and my bar-tenders know it would be worth their jobs to 
 sell him one. And it is n't the liquor alone, " he continued^ 
 defensively. " Liquor works no such havoc with you or 
 me, or with more than one man in ten thousand. The 
 curse is in Bert's blood. I suppose people look at his 
 parents and sisters and Elsie — poor little thing ! — 
 and his prospects, and wonder how he can drink. But 
 I know that he is not a responsible being when these 
 moods take him. C. A.'s father was the same kind of 
 a man, though C. A. never takes a drop himself. It 's 
 distasteful to him. His father died at thirty-five — 
 as a result of drink, I suppose, — and left his family 
 without a cent, for he could never get insured, and C. A. 
 went to work in the shops when he was only a child." 
 
 " ' The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's 
 teeth are set on edge,' " said Kaltenborn, sadly. " I 
 know of a case along the same lines. The grandfather 
 had such a temper that he more than once tore a shirt 
 oif his back because it chafed his neck. If he stubbed 
 his toe on a chair, he would often kick it across the 
 room, and had been known to throw it through a window. 
 His grandchild displayed the very same temper at a 
 tender age, and the child's mother used to smile at it 
 
The New Engine's Mettle 293 
 
 and call it spirit. At twenty-two the boy was a murderer, 
 and is in the penitentiary now. Should he happen to 
 marry and have children, it will take generations of 
 struggle and tears and bitter remorse on the part of 
 innocent ones to exorcise that devil. I think that is one 
 of the most solemn thoughts that ever come to my mind. 
 The victim may be just such a manly young fellow as 
 Bert Darlington. But saddest of all, perhaps, — at least 
 to a man, — is when the victim is some pure, sweet girl, 
 as free from sin almost as an angel, yet destined, through 
 the devil that her father or grandfather or great-grand- 
 father nursed into lusty life upon his evil passions, to be 
 shunned by her sex, and to die a nameless thing, and be 
 buried in a potter's field. The lesson is — Be good." 
 
 At Ashboro, Kaltenborn walked upstairs in the station 
 with Carol while she telephoned to the house for a 
 carriage. 
 
 " Is there anything that I can do ? " he asked, as they 
 stood at the head of the stairs. 
 
 ** Be charitable," she answered, with a little worn smile 
 
 " I feel now as though I could never be anything else," 
 he returned, sympathetically. 
 
 She half offered, he half invited, her hand ; and when 
 it lay in his he carried it to his lips. She received the 
 homage in the spirit in which it was given, and as she 
 turned her head partly away to gather up her skirts to 
 descend the stairs, she said quietly, — 
 
 " I don't know why I should be so glad that you did 
 that/' 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 A DROWNING MAN'S STRAW 
 
 When Charles Darlington stepped down from the loco» 
 motive at Ashboro, he looked ten years older than he 
 had in the morning. He looked much better after 
 breakfast the next day, but still had not gotten back all 
 the years of which he had been robbed. At the office 
 he found the editor of the I?itelligencer, who respectfully 
 soHcited an authoritative account of the sensational 
 events of the day before, and declared his readiness to 
 suppress whatever facts the president should indicate. 
 
 " Suppress nothing," said Darhngton, sharply. "You 
 are not running your paper in the interests of my 
 family. Your subscribers pay for the news, and they 
 ought to have it." And he briefly outlined the whole 
 affair. 
 
 All day long Darlington flitted in and out of Carol's 
 room, on one pretext or another, passing and re-passing 
 the traffic-manager's empty private office, — for Bert lay 
 on a bed of fever. Carol understood these visits. She 
 knew that her father in his loneliness and heartache 
 wanted to be near her, to hear her voice, to touch her 
 hand, and to be constantly assured that she was not too 
 miserable. The thought made her very tender, and more 
 than once, as the door closed on his trim, upright figure, 
 the tears came into her eyes, and she murmured to her- 
 
A Drowning Man's Straw 295 
 
 self, with a lump in her throat, " Poor papa ! poor papa ! " 
 Nothing about him, though, betrayed his grief — no 
 wanness of face, no subdual of voice, no diminution of 
 energy. This stoicism in her father always excited 
 Carol's profound admiration, and she had striven to 
 acquire it with a perseverance worthy of a better cause. 
 
 To-day, though, she wanted to lay her head on her 
 father's shoulder and have a good cry. She would not 
 gratify the weakness, — as she believed it, — but she 
 came very near doing so perforce. The two were going 
 over a large sheet of tonnage statistics — properly Bert's 
 work. Mr. Darlington, standing by Carol's chair, dropped 
 his arm across her shoulder. All at once the dry columns 
 of figures were splashed with a single teardrop. Both 
 affected not to see it, and were so affecting still when 
 another crystalline drop fell, and, mixing with the purple 
 copying ink, wrought havoc with the clerk's neat sheet. 
 For a moment the figures blurred before Carol's eyes ; 
 then she softly drew her handkerchief and cleared the 
 mist away, and was about to go on calling off figures, 
 when her father abruptly pressed his face tightly to hers, 
 and held it there while the scalding, beneficent tears 
 poured down her cheeks. When he released her, with 
 some murmured tenderness, she gave him a moist, 
 tremulous kiss. 
 
 That evening a httle family council was held, consist- 
 ing of father, mother, and elder sister. Darlington sat by 
 the table with his paper in his hands, glancing it over 
 perfunctorily in the intervals of silence. Carol sat with 
 a book in her lap, but she had read over and over the 
 same page without interest or comprehension. Mrs. 
 Darlington was in her accustomed place at the end of 
 the table, working away steadily with her needle, but 
 
296 The Darlingtons 
 
 with luminous, troubled eyes. At last Darlington laid 
 his paper down ominously. -- 
 
 " We might as well face the music," he said, conclu- 
 sively. "There is only one thing left to do, and that is 
 to send him to some institution for treatment." 
 
 Neither of the women moved an eyelid, but Mrs. 
 Darlington's hands suddenly became still. Then Carol 
 gave her father an inquiring glance. 
 
 "I was talking with Dr. Hammond about it to-day," 
 Darlington continued, " and he strongly urged such a 
 course. There is no doubt about it, it is a disease with 
 Bert ; and the longer it runs, the harder it will be to cure. 
 He cannot overcome it alone, any more than he could 
 any other disease." 
 
 *•' Sometimes people can overcome disease by will- 
 power alone, especially diseases of a nervous order, like 
 this," suggested Carol. 
 
 '^ Bert can't," answered her father. " He has demon- 
 strated that. So far as the disgrace of sending him off 
 somewhere is concerned," he continued, as if he had 
 outlined all objections in advance, "nothing can add to 
 the disgrace he has already brought on himself — and us. 
 We might as well look that fact in the face. There is no 
 use in shutting your eyes to a thing that is as patent as 
 sunlight. Every man, woman, and child in this town 
 knows his weakness." 
 
 Again neither of the women took any exception to his 
 statement, but Darlington knew well enough that silence, 
 in this case at least, did not give consent. He would have 
 been glad, indeed, had they offered some valid objection, 
 for the course he proposed was, in spite of his brave words, 
 gall and wormwood to his pride. Finally he continued, — 
 
 " Dr. Still says, though, that he is not sure about the 
 
A Drowning Man's Straw 297 
 
 benefits of such a course. The treatment frequently 
 fails, he says, even in the case of habitual drunkards, and 
 with periodical drunkards its efficacy is even more 
 uncertain. In Bert's case he thinks the moral influence 
 would be bad. It would not only be a public acknowl- 
 edgment of the boy's inability to overcome his appetite, 
 but he thinks the taking of medicine would tend to make 
 Bert himself relax his will power. I don't know but he 's 
 right. But it's the single chance left," he added, with a 
 kind of desperation, " and it seems to me that we can 't 
 do less than try it. We owe it to the boy, for he won't 
 go himself. We have tried everything else. If Bert had 
 associates that led him into these excesses, I 'd send him 
 away. But it is n't his friends. I know very well that 
 his friends exercise a restraining influence, if anything. 
 And his incentives all around to a life of sobriety are 
 greater here than they could be anywhere else. Whiskey 
 alone does it, and where on earth can I send him that he 
 can't get whiskey?" 
 
 "There is one thing that I ought to tell you both," 
 said Mrs. DarHngton, in a subdued voice, " now that this 
 idea of — of sending him off has come up. I had a long 
 talk with him this afternoon, and I think he sees some 
 things in a new light — some things about the church 
 and a Christian Hfe, Charles," she added, with an earnest 
 glance at her husband. " He talked very earnestly, and 
 I believe a change has taken place in him. I believe he 
 has secured an ally which will enable him to conquer his 
 foe — if it can be conquered without medical aid. And 
 I think, Charles, that we ought to give him one more 
 chance to escape the humiliation of confessing to the 
 world his inability to help himself." 
 
 Darlington was as willing as his wife to spare his son's 
 
298 The Darlingtons 
 
 pride. This hope of hers was built, to his sceptical 
 mind, upon sinking sand. But drowning men grasp at 
 straws, and, furthermore, the thought had crossed his 
 own mind more than once, since Bert's last spree but 
 one, that he might possibly be wrong about this thing 
 called religion. It had certainly helped others. The 
 unfailing sweetness and patience of his wife through all 
 their married years, he had always attributed to natural 
 traits ; but of late the thought had come to him with 
 peculiar persistency that possibly her virtues were in part 
 owing to her Christian ideals. If Bert could be made 
 to believe that Christianity would help him, Darlington 
 could see, scientifically, how he would be helped ; for a 
 believer would receive benefit through the mere act of 
 believing, regardless of the truth of his belief. Darlington 
 could not entertain the highest respect for the intelligence 
 of any person who could accept, iJi ioio, the teachings 
 of any church, even though that person was his own wife 
 or son ; and in his heart he regarded the vein of scepti- 
 cism in Carol as an evidence of intellectual acuteness. 
 But' intellect was not everything, he well knew. Con- 
 sequently, his wife's words threw a faint, trembling ray 
 of hope into the gloom which now oppressed him, and 
 after some further talk the project of sending Bert away 
 was temporarily abandoned. 
 
 Carol went upstairs to relieve Ruth, who was watching 
 beside Bert. She found Bert asleep. His pale face, 
 which seemed to have grown thinner in only twenty-four 
 hours, his white hand on the coverlid, and a general air 
 of invalidism and frailty, gave him a peculiarly chastened 
 appearance. A book was lying open on the little table 
 near his pillow. She glanced at it, and saw that it was 
 the Bible. 
 
A Drowning Man's Straw 299 
 
 This simple incident affected her most powerfully, and 
 when she went to her own room, she had hardly closed 
 the door before she burst into tears ; and with twitching 
 lips and an aching tenderness she murmured, " Poor, 
 dear little brother ! " That Bible was inexpressibly 
 pathetic to her. Bert had always been indifferent to the 
 church and to spiritual matters ; since he was a little lad 
 at his mother's knees he had probably never read con- 
 secutively a whole chapter of the Scriptures ; and Carol's 
 mental picture of him, propped up in bed, patiently, 
 blindly, hopefully groping through those pages of sacred 
 writ for the mystic words which would make a man of 
 him again, stirred her love to its deepest depths. 
 
 Was it all a delusion — this religion? Was Kaltenborn 
 a victim of delusion ? Were all the miUions who read 
 that Book with faith, who lived with lighter hearts because 
 of it, who laid their loved ones hopefully away because 
 of it, who died with smiles upon their faces because of it 
 — were all these victims of a delusion ? Were all the 
 milHons who bent the knee in Christian lands to be 
 classed with the savage who prostrated himself before a 
 painted image and prayed for rain ? Carol had asked 
 herself these questions before, but to-night there was 
 something abhorrent even in the asking of them ; and it 
 was a source of wonderful consolation to her to know 
 that, whatever her secret doubts might have been, she 
 had never spoken one word to destroy a single fellow- 
 being's faith. 
 
 Bert was confined to his bed for several weeks by what 
 the family knew as nervous prostration. Elsewhere it 
 was known by another name, a terrible Latin name, asso- 
 ciated with infernal terrors — delirium tremens. His 
 case was a mild one, though, and the devils which he 
 
300 The Darlingtons 
 
 saw were goblins — little fellows of a tantalizing rather 
 than of a frightful mien. The footboard of his bed was 
 their favorite carnival ground. Here they gathered — 
 grotesque little fellows, with big paunches, pipe-stem 
 legs, peaked caps, and flowing whiskers — and winked 
 and grimaced and turned somersaults and shook their 
 fists at Bert and laughed and pretended to jump on him, 
 swinging their arms back and forth to get a good start, 
 as the boys used to do at school. It was seldom that 
 they frightened Bert, but they often made him angry, in 
 his irritable condition. To enable him, therefore, to rid 
 himself of these pests, a cane was left at his bedside. As 
 long as the goblins amused him, he would let them alone ; 
 but when they began threatening, he would stealthily 
 reach for his cane, gradually lower it until it rested on 
 the far end of the footboard, and then, with one quick 
 move, he would sweep the whole band off into vanishing 
 air. 
 
 Sometimes, when Carol or Ruth was sitting on the 
 edge of the bed, one of these mischievous goblins would 
 unexpectedly put in an appearance on her shoulder, or, 
 still more impudently, on top of her head, from which 
 point he would thrust out his tongue at Bert, or jump up 
 and knock his heels together, or slap his sides and crow 
 like a rooster, — all in a most tantalizinsf manner. Bert 
 would silently watch his tormentor until his patience was 
 exhausted ; and then, cunningly diverting his eyes so 
 that the imp might not suspect his purpose, he would 
 whisper his trouble to his sister. Upon this, she would 
 lift her hand with infinite caution until it hovered above 
 the unsuspecting victim, then pounce down upon him 
 like a hawk, squeeze him between her fingers until he 
 shrieked with pain, and toss him into space. This 
 
A Drowning Man's Straw 301 
 
 performance seldom failed to make the invalid laugh 
 until his shrunken, childish piping filled the room, and 
 the tears ran down his cheeks. To Carol, too, this 
 routing of the goblins was so funny that the tears often 
 crowded her eyes, until Bert would sometimes say, 
 pettishly, ^' Don't laugh that way, Carol ! You look as 
 though you were crying." 
 
 Bert's real suffering was not in this fantastic land of 
 goblins, but in the material land of humiliated parents 
 and sisters, stricken sweetheart, blasted hopes, impotent 
 resolutions, broken vows, and dark, uncertain future. 
 The anguish which racked his wasted frame as he thought 
 of these, in his rational moments, can be better imagined 
 than described. To such an extent was his self-abasement 
 carried that he shrank at times from the eyes of his 
 mother and sisters. Yet he was brave, and he suffered 
 in secret except on the few occasions when the demon 
 of Remorse prodded him so pitilessly that he broke down 
 utterly in the presence of Carol or his mother. 
 
 Elsie came nearly every day to inquire after the sick 
 one, and to leave him flowers or delicacies. She did 
 not ask to see him, though, and he did not ask to have 
 her brought up, or make any confidences to any of the 
 family about her. Kaltenborn also called several times ; 
 but though he and Bert were designedly left alone, the 
 latter said nothing to his mother about having opened his 
 heart to the minister. 
 
 Bert first left the house on a beautiful spring morning. 
 It was late in April, but the season was backward, and 
 the tender green leaves on the elms were scarcely larger 
 than squirrels' ears. Yet the sun shone with the fervor 
 of a penitent ; the dead, brown lawns were sprinkled 
 with green ; the crisp air was touched with a summery 
 
302 The Darlingtons 
 
 softness ; and all nature seemed to be beginning 
 anew. 
 
 Bert wore a heavy overcoat, and was muffled to the 
 ears. Haggard, hollow-eyed, trembling, leaning heavily 
 upon a cane, with an old man's stoop and a settled air 
 of sadness and despair, he made his way slowly along the 
 sunny street. His eyes were fastened on the ground, 
 and he seemed oblivious to everything around him. 
 Some one met and passed him on the sidewalk ; he knew 
 it was a man, and he knew, from a slight change in the 
 footfalls, that the man was looking back at him ; but that 
 was all. He passed another pedestrian, and again he 
 knew he was being stared at from behind. A carriage 
 rolled by — he knew it was a carriage from its rumbling. 
 It seemed to slacken its speed as it drew nearer, and 
 then the sweet voice of a young woman sang out, blithely, 
 " Why, hello, Bert ! " He nodded his head without Hft- 
 ing his eyes, and made an abortive motion toward his hat 
 with his hand, and continued on his tottering way. 
 
 He passed Elsie Clifford's home. He knew it without 
 looking, but no one would have suspected it from any 
 change in his expression. He turned the next corner 
 beyond, mechanically, and apparently without marking 
 his course. Two large dogs were romping on the side- 
 walk. They took no pains to get out of his way, and he 
 weakly struck at them with his cane. One of them, with 
 puppy awkwardness, dashed against Bert's legs in its 
 efforts to escape, and he reeled and fell to the sidewalk. 
 His hat rolled away into the grass on the terrace. For 
 a moment he stared about him in a bewildered way, and 
 made no attempt to rise. Then some one, running up 
 from behind, bent over him and asked him if he was 
 hurt. Bert murmured something unintelligible, and his 
 
A Drowning Man's Straw 303 
 
 rescuer, after looking at him queerly for a moment, lifted 
 him to his feet and set his hat on his head. Without 
 glancing at his good Samaritan, Bert mumbled his thanks, 
 and moved slowly and uncertainly on. He turned in at 
 a little vine-clad, stuccoed cottage, and asked of the old 
 woman who responded to his ring — Mrs. Hicks — for 
 the Rev. Stephen Kaltenborn. A moment later he was 
 seated in the minister's study. 
 
 The young man's aspect gave Kaltenborn a positive 
 shock. He had seen Bert during his sickness a number 
 of times, but there the environment of bed and sick-room 
 prepared one for the change, and smoothed over the fell 
 work of disease. Walking about, in the garb of every-day 
 life, Bert looked like one risen from the grave. He 
 seemed the wreck of his former self. Nor was the change 
 merely physical. The stooped, trembling figure and the 
 wasted face were bad enough, but there was something 
 almost appalling in the stolid hopelessness which was 
 stamped upon him, and which seemed to weigh him 
 down like an incubus from wdiich there was no escape. 
 His blue eyes were faded and dull ; his brow was wrinkled 
 and contracted, like a dotard's. 
 
 " Mr. Kaltenborn," he began, abruptly, " I come to 
 ask if there is any earthly salvation for such as I." He 
 spoke in a high, shrill key, with a querulous quality in 
 his voice. " I come to ask if Jesus Christ can do any- 
 thing for such as I." 
 
 " Jesus Christ came for just such men as you," answered 
 Kaltenborn, gravely. 
 
 Bert stared at him with dull, unresponsive eyes ; yet 
 there was a terrible earnestness and penetration in his 
 gaze, such, Kaltenborn fancied, as one might have before 
 the Judgment-seat. 
 
304 The Darlingtons 
 
 (C 
 
 If Christ can't save me, I am lost — lost forever," 
 said the invalid, after a pause. " I have exhausted all 
 other means. My manhood, my resolutions, my sacred 
 vows, my mother, my sisters, my affianced love, my 
 prospects, the opinion of men, — all have failed. For 
 whiskey, the sight and smell of which I loathe, I have 
 made a devil of myself, — a foul-mouthed, beastly, 
 murderous thing. I have torn the hearts of those I hold 
 dearest, trampled their pride in the dust, and made them 
 curse the day that I was born." He paused, and looked 
 Kaltenborn steadily in the eye, as if to make sure that he 
 reahzed the infamy of this indictment. " That is the 
 kind of a man I am — if it be not calumny to you and 
 others of your race for me to call myself a man." 
 
 "Don't abase yourself too much, " said Kaltenborn, 
 hopefully. " There are extenuating circumstances which 
 I and all your friends fully recognize." 
 
 A bitter, sarcastic smile, not just that of a sane man, 
 spread over Bert's face. " Abase myself too much ! Abase 
 myself too much ! " he murmured to himself, musingly, 
 as though it were a joke. Then his expression suddenly 
 changed, and he answered with unaccountable haughti- 
 ness : " Sir, it is impossible for me to abase myself too 
 much. You cannot comprehend the depths of my 
 depravity. I do these things knowingly, sir, without 
 pity or remorse. When I am drunk, sir, I could kill — 
 I could kill — " He shuddered, and was unable to go 
 on. " I will not harass your feelings," he began again, 
 gently this time, "but I must say that I knowingly 
 and voluntarily — " 
 
 " No, not knowingly and voluntarily, " protested Kal- 
 tenborn, emphatically, anticipating the others self- 
 denunciation. 
 
A Drowning Man's Straw 305 
 
 "Knowingly and voluntarily," repeated Bert, just as 
 emphatically. '' When I take a drink, I take it know- 
 ingly and voluntarily. There is no force back of it. I 
 toss it off as freely, as carelessly, as I would a cup of tea. 
 I know what I am doing just as well as you would. 
 There is no force, I say, no burning thirst, no irresistible 
 craving. I do it because I want a drink, just as you 
 might want one. I could get along without it ; I know 
 I ought to get along without it. Yet I take it. I have 
 no strength to resist. I don't mean to get drunk. I 
 never meant to get drunk in my life. Yet who but a 
 hopeless fool," he cried, passionately, "who but a moral 
 degenerate, could go on deceiving himself for years ? " 
 
 Kaltenborn looked at him sadly. Far from accepting 
 Bert's word that there was no force, he saw in this com- 
 plete subversion of will and reason a most terrible force, 
 one that worked with the cunning and subtlety of a 
 devil. He saw, moreover, — and the thought made him 
 cold around his heart, — a chain of cause and effect 
 operating in young Darlington's brain, without the co?ise?it 
 of the man. He saw a process of cellular movement 
 within Bert's brain, which, given its excitant — the sight 
 or smell of whiskey, or the sign-board of a saloon, or 
 even something whose connection with whiskey no man 
 could trace — mechanically sent him to the bar, like an 
 automaton, ordered his whiskey for him, lifted it to his 
 lips, and poured it down his throat, — a cellular move- 
 ment as independent of Bert's will as the beating of his 
 heart or the filling of his lungs ; a cellular action and 
 interaction established and perfected by his grandfather. 
 Likewise, when a newly born baby feels the nipple 
 between its lips, it begins to suckle. The excitants were 
 different ; the action was first nature in the baby's case, 
 
 20 
 
3o6 The Darlingtons 
 
 second nature in Bert's ; but the process was the same. 
 Both were the result, so Kaltenborn believed, of the 
 working of matter, as simple and as positive in action, 
 and as scientifically explainable, as the movements of a 
 machine. 
 
 " Sometimes I want it, but say No," continued Bert, 
 *^ and keep away from it as easily as you could. I feel 
 weak and tired now, for instance, from walking up here. 
 I know that a drink of whiskey would do me good. A 
 doctor might prescribe it for anybody else. But no 
 power on earth could tempt me to touch it. I could 
 look at it, smell of it, — I could wash my mouth out 
 with it, and not swallow a drop. But that means — 
 nothing — nothing — nothing. My appetite is asleep — 
 glutted. It is not it that thinks whiskey would do me 
 good now. It is /, my sane self. I can refuse myself 
 But let it ask for whiskey, and — you know the result. 
 When it asks for whiskey, I know it in a minute. I am 
 on my guard. To be safe, I say I won't go down town. 
 But I go. I can't tell you why. Once down town, I 
 say I won't go into a saloon. But I go. I can't tell you 
 why. I say I won't take a drink, but I take it. I walk 
 up to the bar saying that I won't take it. I order the 
 drink saying I won't take it. I say it while I hold the 
 glass in my hand. I say it, Mr. Kaltenborn," he 
 exclaimed, piercingly, " while the accursed stuff is run- 
 ning down my throat. I say it, but I know I am a 
 Har." 
 
 " When you go down town, do you know that you 
 are going to take a drink? " asked Kaltenborn, thought- 
 fully. 
 
 "It may seem incredible to you, but I don't. I in- 
 dulge in the first step, flattering myself that I am strong 
 
A Drowning Man's Straw 307 
 
 enough to refrain from the second one. Sometimes I go 
 down town just to prove that I am strong enough to go 
 and not drink. I have never proved it. I never shall," 
 he added, blackly. " Sometimes I find some other 
 excuse for going — anything or nothing, it matters 
 not." 
 
 " The place for you to win victory, Mr. Darlington, is 
 in the very first skirmish with your temptation," said 
 Kaltenborn, after a Httle reflection. *' You will never 
 win it anywhere else. Your desire to prove your strength 
 is only a device of the tempter — a tempter so subtle 
 that one is almost persuaded to believe in the old per- 
 sonal devil. You must recognize that fact, and you 
 must shut resolutely down on yielding one iota, even in 
 your thoughts. It is easy for me to talk, I know, and 
 hard for you to do ; but I must talk, and you must do. 
 Don't permit yourself to think of going down town. 
 Keep yourself in an elevated state of mind," he added, 
 though such advice sounded almost like mockery — it 
 was so hard to follow. '• Think what you can be to your 
 friends and your family. Look upon yourself as an in- 
 strument of God's, with a given work to do. Think 
 constantly of His watching you. Remember that He is 
 with you in your struggle, that He is m you. He made 
 you for a purpose, and He will not lightly let you miss 
 that purpose. You may think yourself the victim of a 
 law. If you are, it is a broken law. Remember that the 
 laws of the universe are but His will ; that they are all 
 beneficent ; that they are working in you to help you in 
 your fight, if you get into position to be helped." 
 
 He paused, wondering if he had told the strict truth. 
 He wondered if those very laws were not working for 
 the destruction of this perverted youth, in order that the 
 
308 The Darlingtons 
 
 perversion might not spread. He wondered if that 
 complex system of Cause and Effect, popularly known 
 as Habit ; if that unconscious, volitionless, cellular move- 
 ment which he had been thinking of a moment before, 
 was really hurrying this poor wretch on to destruction. 
 
 Bert wearily shook his head at Kaltenborn's conclu- 
 sion. "I have done it all," he said. "That and a 
 thousand times more. I have a book at home in which 
 I have written out every sentiment I could think of that 
 would lift a man above a brute, — all my love, hopes, and 
 ambitions ; my expectation of some day being a husband 
 and a father ; my awful responsibility if those unborn in- 
 nocents receive this legacy from me ; my hopes of heaven, 
 with the dear one of my choice and my family ; everything 
 that could stir my soul I have written down there, and 
 taken the most solemn vow that I would read it all over 
 when I was tempted. I have vowed that even if I 
 yielded, I would read it over once again, thoughtfully 
 and solemnly, before I took a drink, in the hope that I 
 might be saved at the last moment. It has failed. I 
 don't read it. 
 
 "To school my will," he continued, after a moment, 
 " I have assigned myself a thousand useless tasks, to be 
 gone through with every day. I swing my Indian clubs 
 a certain number of times ; I count up to a certain num- 
 ber ; I repeat quotations over and over ; I wash my 
 hands and face and teeth at certain hours — many times 
 oftener than is necessary. I do, I say, a thousand use- 
 less, even repugnant, things to school my will. I have 
 performed these tasks faithfully for weeks and months. 
 But infallibly the time comes when these things seem too 
 absurd, too childish, too useless, to be continued, and I 
 give them up. But whether I give them up or not, I 
 
A Drowning Man's Straw 309 
 
 drink just the same. No," he repeated, shaking his head 
 once more, " I cannot do it alone. Jesus Christ must 
 save me, or I am lost." 
 
 "Christ can save you, and will," said Kaltenborn. 
 " But you must let him do it in His own way. I must 
 tell you plainly, too, in common honesty, that you must 
 look for no miracle. To throw yourself upon your knees 
 and confess your weakness to Him, and leave it all with 
 Him, hoping thus to arouse His compassion and to be 
 saved without an effort of your own, will not do. I am 
 tempted to wish that I could tell you that He would thus 
 miraculously preserve you, for I know you have fought 
 hard. But, after all, that would be only my way of hav* 
 ing it done — only the way that men, in times past, have 
 thought it was done, and which some still think is the 
 way. We are now finding out that God does it differ- 
 ently, and need I say how much more grandly? Were 
 man saved by the arbitrary act of God, he would sink 
 into the insignificance of a puppet worked by wires. As it 
 is, his possibiHties of development are unbounded. You 
 must get Christ into you. That sounds trite, I know, 
 but it means something. Think on the noble morality 
 and philanthropy He taught, away back in those dark 
 days, and in time you will find yourself in the grasp of 
 an admiration and inspiration such as you do not now 
 dream of, and which will lift you high above the mire in 
 which you have grovelled — in which we are all prone to 
 grovel in different ways. You will find yourself always 
 in that elevated mood of which I just spoke, when the 
 very thought of sin will be abhorrent to you." 
 
 Bert stared at the floor, without a change of feature. 
 " Your views of Christ are mine," he answered, in a dead 
 tone. " I never believed He saved by miracle. But I 
 
3 1 o The Darlingtons 
 
 thought — I hoped I might be wrong. It is only by 
 miracle that I can be saved." 
 
 Kaltenborn did not answer at once. Never before 
 had the utility of his rehgious belief been put to such a 
 test. His unorthodox views had bothered him little in 
 his ministry. By glossing them over, or by keeping 
 them in the background, he had kept within the pale of 
 his church, just as many another deep-thinking m.inister 
 has had to do in order not to destroy his usefulness. 
 But to-day, with this naked soul before him, he was 
 forced to declare himself to the last word, and as a result 
 the seeker of salvation before him had pronounced him- 
 self lost. The moisture stood upon Kaltenborn's brow, 
 but he manfully put aside the temptation to offer lying 
 words of comfort. 
 
 *' When you talk in that way," he returned, gently but 
 firmly, "you simply reject God's way, and declare 
 against it in favor of man's. Because Christ does not 
 save miraculously, you believe He does not save at all. 
 Is not that an impious, puerile thought? Christ came 
 and lived a perfect life to show all men what they can 
 do. He struggled with temptation until He sweat drops 
 of blood. Have you done as much? Yet He won, 
 and died blameless. Does not such a story thrill you 
 and uplift you? If not, it is only because you do 
 not comprehend its magnificence. Sometimes I am 
 uplifted by it until I seem to hear the rustle of angels' 
 wings." 
 
 " Christ was born free from sin," answered Bert, 
 doggedly. " I came with this curse in my blood." 
 
 " He was not born passionless," answered Kalten- 
 born, quickly. " He was born with all the passions of 
 
 men." 
 
A Drowning Man's Straw 311 
 
 "Don't you believe that Christ was sinless?" asked 
 Bert, with a feeble gleam of interest in his eyes. 
 
 " Not in the accepted sense," said Kaltenborn. " That 
 Christ stalked through the world, a mere reflection of 
 God, a divinity masked in human flesh, incapable of 
 sin, held up by something that is denied you and me, 
 and yet asks you and me to be like Him, is the cruellest, 
 most abhorrent thing that I can conceive. For God to 
 ask us to equal such a creation would be a mockery ; 
 and for Him to punish us for not equalling it would be a 
 piece of injustice worthy of a pagan despot." 
 
 For a moment there was silence, and then Kaltenborn 
 continued gravely, " That is my beHef, Mr. DarHngton. 
 It has strengthened me, and it will strengthen you. 
 Christ was great only as other men have been great, 
 though we must remember that He was incomparably 
 the greatest of them all. The example of any great man 
 ought to help you, but the example of Christ most of 
 all." 
 
 " I thought of joining the church," said Bert, gloomily. 
 " But I don't see the use if your views are right." 
 
 "Why not? Whatever may be its errors, the church 
 is Christ's great organ. While humanity is weak wher- 
 ever you find it, yet you will meet in the church examples 
 of Christlike sweetness and piety and exaltation that will 
 surprise you, and do you good. They are not numerous, 
 I will confess, but you will find some." 
 
 "If I joined at all, I wanted to join your church," said 
 Bert. 
 
 " Why not your own — your mother's and your sisters', 
 where your friends and associates are ? " 
 
 " Why not yours ? " retorted Bert. 
 
 "Join that, if you will; but I think you would feel 
 
312 The Darlingtons 
 
 more at home in the Episcopal church. Our church 
 forbids certain pleasures that you have been brought up 
 to consider harmless. The rules might bear on you 
 rather heavily, and I want to make it as easy for you as 
 possible. But whatever church you join, or whether you 
 join any or not, I have this to say as a last word. You 
 are weak and despondent yet. Don't worry too much 
 about yourself now. Abide your time ; wait until your 
 strength returns, and I will pledge myself, with your aid, 
 to overcome this weakness of yours yet. When you feel 
 your appetite stirring come to me, at any hour of the day 
 or night. I shall not think you weak or foolish. Rather, 
 I shall think you strong and wise. If you will do this, 
 I am positive you cannot fall. If you don't think it 
 necessary to come to me, — that is, if your symptoms 
 are not alarming, — go to your sister Carol. She is a 
 noble girl, and confession to her will do you good. It 
 will rout that devil in you, and give you a spiritual 
 uplifting." 
 
 ^^ She has helped me," said Bert, gratefully. 
 
 " She will do it again," said Kaltenborn, hopefully. 
 " We will all do it, and we '11 win." 
 
 For ten minutes more Kaltenborn talked on earnestly 
 and enthusiastically, until his strong and fearless nature 
 communicated some of its fire to his listener and a ray 
 of hope shone faintly from his eyes. Then his face 
 unexpectedly fell again. 
 
 " What is it? " asked Kaltenborn, intuitively. 
 
 " I wanted to go to Elsie with some new hope this 
 time. I wanted to tell her that I was going to lean on 
 Christ from now on. I wanted something definite. She 
 can't have any more faith in me unless I offer her some- 
 thing of that kind," he exclaimed, bitterly, bursting into 
 
A Drowning Man's Straw 3 1 3 
 
 tears. '' There is nothing in me that she can respect 
 any more. She would have faith in somebody else, or 
 in Christ. This plan we have talked over may help me, 
 but its success depends a good deal on w^, and that, — 
 that will destroy her faith." 
 
 " You are leaning on Christ, and you may tell her so." 
 
 " Not in the way she leans," he answered, dispiritedly. 
 
 " There 's less difference than you think, in practice," 
 said Kaltenborn, encouragingly. *' It 's in the theory 
 that there seems such a wide divergence." 
 
 " She may have thrown me over altogether," mused 
 Bert, gloomily. '•' If she has — " 
 
 " If she has, you will be a man, just the same," inter- 
 posed Kaltenborn. '• If she loves you, she will not lose 
 sight of you, though she should forbid you to enter her 
 house. And when you have conquered, you can go to 
 her and offer her a thousand times more than you can 
 to-day. But go to her to-day, or some time soon. There 
 is no need of despairing yet, for if there is any being this 
 side of heaven Christ-like in forgiveness, it is a woman 
 who loves." 
 
 '• Christ himself would have thrown me over long ago," 
 said Bert, simply, " if I had broken my word to Him as 
 often as I have to her." 
 
 Kaltenborn smiled. '' You have n't tried Him yet," he 
 answered. 
 
 Bert rose, and buttoned his overcoat with white, trem- 
 bling fingers. There was not much in his face to give 
 Kaltenborn hope, but the minister remembered that the 
 young fellow was yet sick. "I don't know," said Bert, 
 rather vaguely. '• If your views are right, — and I believe 
 they are, — I don't know whether Christ can help me or 
 not. I think I 've gone too far. I fancy the devil within 
 
314 The Darlingtons 
 
 me is too strong to be exorcised. I fancy the way to 
 kill that devil is to kill me," he said, with a tone and 
 expression that made Kaltenborn's blood run cold, " and 
 I fancy that 's the way Christ will do it. But maybe not, 
 maybe not," he added, as if to spare the other's feelings. 
 " Good-by." He held out his thin, bloodless hand, 
 with a wan smile which pathetically suggested his old 
 bonhomie. 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 WHERE FORGIVENESS IS DIVINE 
 
 Elsie Clifford knelt at her bedside on the second 
 night after the memorable speed trial — she had spent 
 the first night with Carol — and in language as simple as 
 she would have addressed to an earthly parent, she 
 asked her Heavenly Father to tell her what to do. Her 
 decision seemed to her so momentous for good or for 
 evil, so unique in the experiences of mankind, that she 
 would scarcely have been surprised had God taken 
 special cognizance of it, and spoken to her out of the 
 clouds as He spoke to the prophets of old. But He 
 did not so speak, and she rose with the weight of woe 
 still bearing down upon her brave heart. 
 
 For hours she lay and wrestled with the great problem 
 — to give Bert up, or not to give him up. The prob- 
 able effect of her dismissal upon him ; the acceleration 
 of his ruin; the effect her marriage would have upon 
 herself in case he never reformed ; the chances of his 
 reforming after she had married him ; what were her 
 rights, and what her duties ; how much she should suf- 
 fer for his sake ; how much she ought to deny her love 
 for her own sake, — these and a thousand other per- 
 plexing questions she went over again and again. 
 
 In the stillness and darkness and solitude of night, 
 and in her excited condition, things lost their true pro- 
 portions. She seemed to escape from herself, and to 
 
316 The Darlingtons 
 
 appeal to herself as another person. At one time she 
 half fancied she had married Bert already, and looking 
 down the vista of time, she beheld herself as the ances- 
 tress of a great family. She saw the members of this 
 family playing, toiling, loving, marrying, failing, suc- 
 ceeding, dying. But behind and through all she saw 
 the workings of that curse let into their veins by a weak 
 forefather, through the connivance of a weak mother — 
 she, Elsie Clifford — generations before they were born. 
 She hearkened for their curses — for certainly she 
 should be cursed — until in her half delirious condition 
 she seemed really to hear a confused murmur come 
 faintly up from the far-distant future. God had not 
 spoken, but His all-seeing eye was upon her, and she 
 dared not shirk. She would not shirk either, but what 
 was shirking, and what was not? 
 
 About three o'clock in the morning a hysterical fear 
 that some catastrophe was about to befall took posses- 
 sion of her. She first thought of screaming for her 
 grandmother, for it seemed that she must have some 
 hum.an presence near her or go mad. But reason had 
 not yet left her, and reflecting that a scream would 
 frighten her grandmother, she slipped from bed, and 
 with fast-beating heart and trembling knees, glided 
 noiselessly down the hall to her grandmother's door. 
 There the thought struck her that her grandfather would 
 be sure to grumble if she awakened him. She smiled 
 that she should stop to consider such a trifle as that in 
 such a crisis, and then she thought how strange it was 
 that she should be standing there smiKng when but a 
 moment before she had been so frightened. She felt so 
 much better that she went back to bed again ; but no 
 sooner had she closed her eyes than the torturing fan- 
 
Where Forgiveness is Divine 317 
 
 cies came trooping back to her ; and it was with an 
 overpowering sense of thankfuhiess that she saw her 
 grandmother enter the door. 
 
 "Why don't you go to sleep, child?" asked Mrs. 
 Clifford. "I thought I heard you up a moment ago." 
 
 " I 'm so nervous ! " exclaimed the girl, clinging to 
 the old lady's hand- 
 Mrs. Clifford got into the bed, and drawing Elsie 
 close to her bosom, said, " You won't be nervous now. 
 Go to sleep. If there is anything that bothers you, we 
 will decide it all to-morrow." And in less than five 
 minutes the tired body was in repose. 
 
 Nothing further was said about her trouble in the 
 morning, however ; and of the solution she eventually 
 reached, Elsie said nothing to her grandmother, and her 
 grandmother asked nothing. Indeed there was a 
 chastened and spiritual air about the girl which forbade 
 any inquisitiveness. Even the old man, whose affec- 
 tions had long since dried up and blown away, and who 
 practically regarded love as a weakness of youth, put 
 away his usual querulousness on the subject, and main- 
 tained silence. 
 
 It was a soft, warm evening, and Elsie was sitting on 
 the veranda for the first time after dark that spring, 
 when Bert Darlington stopped at the gate. As he came 
 slowly down the walk, with cane and overcoat, the collar 
 of the latter turned up, Elsie quickly rose and de- 
 scended to the bottom step, where she stood with out- 
 stretched arms, in a playful, endearing manner. 
 
 " Welcome, truant ! " she exclaimed, cheerily. 
 
 " A welcome is more than a truant deserves," he 
 answered, with a wan smile, taking both her hands in 
 his. For a moment they stood thus, face to face, in an 
 
3 1 8 The Darlingtons 
 
 embarrassing silence. Then Bert added, " I can't sit 
 out here. The doctor has ordered me to keep out of 
 the night air." 
 
 " And did you suppose I was going to let you sit out 
 here?" she asked, with tender indignation, playfully 
 turning him toward the door. " March ! and be care- 
 ful that you don't bump your nose in the dark." As 
 she lighted a lamp, she ran on, " I 'm so glad you came. 
 I was just a little lonely. It is such a lovely evening 
 that grandfather and grandmother thought they would 
 walk over to Mr. Everett's." She paused to stir the fire 
 a little in the next room. " This fire is about out. We 
 thought we 'd let it go out, but grandfather is a little 
 afraid of a cold snap yet. He says we had just such 
 weather as this in '54, when everything was killed by a 
 late frost," she added, laughing. " Come out here — 
 it 's warmer." 
 
 "It's warm enough here," answered Bert, getting 
 slowly out of his coat, though Elsie flew back to help 
 him. 
 
 It was the first time she had seen him since she bore 
 him to the cab floor, on that fateful ride. His wasted 
 appearance smote her heart, and she could have cried 
 then and there but for her resolution to avoid anything 
 tragical at this meeting. So she slipped up to him, 
 instead, and placing her hands on his shoulders looked 
 up into his face with a whimsical smile. "You poor 
 boy ! " she murmured. " You have been sicker than I 
 dreamed of." 
 
 After a moment or two of this, during which Bert 
 seemed reasonably cheerful, he suddenly exclaimed in 
 leaden tones, " Elsie, I can't keep this deception up 
 any longer. What have you decided to do ? " 
 
Where Forgiveness is Divine 319 
 
 *^What have you decided to ask me to do?" she 
 returned, in a low tone. 
 
 " To follow your conscience/' he answered. '^ I 
 have forfeited every right I ever had." 
 
 " Herbert, you have not given up ? " she asked, not 
 in dismay or apprehension, but with soft, sweet reproach. 
 
 "Just about," he answered, despondently. 
 
 " And you are not going to try any more ? " she con- 
 tinued, with the same gentle, hurt look. 
 
 " I have tried a long time," he returned. 
 
 "And I have forgiven you a long time, dear," she 
 rejoined. 
 
 " Yes. If there had been a spark of manhood left in 
 me, that would have saved me. But it did not." 
 
 " Bert ! " she exclaimed, abruptly, shutting her lips 
 firmly, " do you suppose that I would have struggled 
 with my heart all these months and years as I have for 
 the sake of a man who says he will not try any more? 
 Do you suppose I would have done that for a coward ? 
 You have no right to give up. When you give up, you 
 are throwing, not only yourself, but me away. If you 
 do it, Herbert," she continued, solemnly and inexor- 
 ably, " all your past will sink into insignificance com- 
 pared with the dastardliness and cowardliness of this 
 last act." 
 
 " That 's true," he answered, unmoved. " A natural 
 climax in depravity." 
 
 "' A natural climax ! " she exclaimed, scornfully, the 
 memory of her multiplied sufferings rushing in upon 
 her. " How can you think of your noble mother, 
 whose blood is in your veins, and give voice to such a 
 horrible thought as that? " 
 
 " How could I think of her and do the other things I 
 
320 The Darlingtons 
 
 have done?" he asked, but her passion was stirring 
 him. After a moment his face perceptibly softened, 
 and looking into her eyes, he said, with a sad smile, " It 
 does n't make much difference what we call it, Elsie, or 
 how we explain it. I 'm about done for." 
 
 There was something deeply pathetic in his smile. 
 Elsie arose abruptly, crossed swiftly to his chair, and 
 knelt beside him, with her head on his bosom. 
 
 " Oh, Bert, how I love you ! " she moaned. 
 
 He supported her with one arm. With the other 
 hand he smoothed her hair. It struck him at the time 
 as a strange thing — indeed, as an evidence of his 
 depravity — that he should be sitting there so cold and 
 self-controlled while her heart was breaking. 
 
 "What do you love in me?" he asked, musingly, 
 after a little. She did not answer, and he continued, 
 "What is there about me to love? Just tell me one 
 thing." Still she did not answer, and he went on, " If 
 I should die to-morrow, do you know what people 
 would say? They would say, 'Poor devil ! I feel sorry 
 for Elsie CHfford, but there are some things in this 
 v/orld worse than death.' That 's what they would say." 
 
 " Don't ! " she whispered, pressing tighter. 
 
 He fell into a moody silence. Elsie held herself 
 motionless against him. The house was as noiseless as 
 a tomb. Some one walked by, and the footfalls seemed 
 to echo dismally. Then a vehicle rolled briskly by. 
 After that all was still again until Elsie's pet kitten came 
 into the room, and rubbed herself against Bert's foot 
 with a plaintive mew. This sound seemed to recall 
 Elsie, and she arose quietly and went back to her chair. 
 Bert watched her silently for some minutes — she did 
 not look at him — and then went over and sat down on 
 
Where Forgiveness is Divine 321 
 
 the arm of her chah". There was an expression on her 
 face which he had never seen there before, and which 
 he did not want to see again. 
 
 '' I did n't mean it," he said. '^ I am not as bad as 
 that. I have not forgotten all that you have suffered 
 for me. As long as I have memory I shall not forget it. 
 I felt strong this morning, and all day, but somehow as 
 soon as I entered the gate a great wave of despondency 
 came over me. I never felt quite so depressed in all 
 my life before. I am sick yet, Elsie, and weak. Be as 
 charitable as you can." 
 
 '• I am all charity for you," she answered. 
 
 She dropped her head softly upon his shoulder, not 
 so much in affection as in weariness. Later she laid 
 her hand upon his neck. Next she pressed his cheek 
 with the same hand, and turned his head until his lips 
 were against hers. There she held them, for a long, 
 long time. 
 
 " God bless you and keep you ! " she said, softly. 
 
 21 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 THE EVANGELIST 
 
 Carol Darlington scarcely saw Kaltenborn for more 
 than three weeks. His presenc'e was required nightly 
 at the church. The evangelist had come, and the 
 revival was in full progress. The church was filled to 
 the doors every night, and the mourners' benches were 
 crowded with penitents. 
 
 During the third week of his ministrations, the evan- 
 gelist was stricken with a hoarseness which incapacitated 
 him for pubhc speaking, and it was announced on a 
 Thursday that there' would be no services on the two 
 following nights. On the next night Kaltenborn left his 
 co-worker, the evangelist, who was being entertained by 
 Mrs. Hicks, to amuse himself as best he could, and went 
 to see Carol. 
 
 He found her in high spirits, and, it seemed to him, in 
 a strongly materialistic mood. At least, there was a de- 
 cided contrast between the atmosphere of her music-room 
 and that of the scenes he had been watching nightly for 
 over two weeks. Before the revival meetings began, 
 Carol had been inclined to be slightly jocular with refer- 
 ence to them, and to-night she insisted, with a subtle 
 gleam in her eye, on talking about them, though Kalten- 
 born would have preferred to talk about anything else. 
 
 Among the converts was a notorious trio of sisters 
 who had bent their knees at the mourners' bench more 
 
The Evangelist 323 
 
 than once, but who had as often strayed away from 
 the precepts there inculcated. With regard to this ad- 
 dition to Kaltenborn's flock, Carol was especially viva- 
 cious and sarcastic. Kaltenborn let her run on, without 
 attempting much defence at first, preferring to watch the 
 play of her handsome features, and to smile in an indul- 
 gent and superior way now and then. It seemed to him 
 a great privilege to be in a position to smile so upon 
 such a woman. A few short months before, such a thing 
 would have seemed impossible ; but here he was doing 
 it, in the most natural way in the world, and she seemed 
 to enjoy it. 
 
 "Well, I 'm very glad of one thing," he said, finally, 
 falling into a more comfortable position. 
 
 "In connection with the Hyers girls?" she asked, 
 quizzingly. " By all means let us have it." 
 
 " I am glad that you don't mean more than two per 
 cent, of what you say." 
 
 "The margin of sincerity you allow me is extremely 
 small, sir," she returned, with a charming pretence of 
 severity that would have deceived no one. 
 
 " You won't say you are glad they are not in your 
 church," he ventured. 
 
 *'I am," she answered, promptly, — "very glad, in- 
 deed." 
 
 " Would you see them out of the church altogether 
 before you would have them in your church ? " 
 
 " I would." 
 
 "Why?" he asked, soberly. 
 
 " Because they are detestable hypocrites. They have 
 gone through a so-called conversion nearly as many 
 times as there have been evangelists in Ashboro. They 
 are characterless, and they will stay in the church as 
 
324 The Darlingtons 
 
 long as their present fright lasts, and no longer. They 
 are dirty and slovenly, in spite of the finery and perfume 
 they manage to secure by unknown means. They are 
 dishonest ; they outrage their neighbors by their scan- 
 dalous conduct, and they are altogether a disgrace to 
 the town. I think it is a shame for a decent, virtuous 
 woman, whose tender conscience brings her to the altar 
 for some peccadillo, to have to kneel there with those 
 shameless creatures." 
 
 Kaltenborn had no desire to disparage this righteous 
 burst of indignation, but he asked, quietly, ^' Do you 
 think those women are hypocritical when they kneel at 
 the altar and confess their sins before their fellow-towns- 
 men?" 
 
 "I don't know that they are hypocritical," she 
 answered, " but it is simply another manifestation of the 
 animal nature which has made them what they are. 
 They are scared." 
 
 ^' Don't you suppose they have regrets for their mis- 
 spent lives ? The Bible says that the way of the trans- 
 gressor is hard. You and I know that it is so. May 
 they not have found it out ? Don't you suppose that 
 they sometimes have longings for something higher 
 and nobler than their base round of hfe? When they 
 see women on the street who are respected and ad- 
 mired by the community, don't you suppose they have 
 a desire, weak and vague, perhaps, to be like them ? " 
 
 "I suppose they do, of course," she answered, yield- 
 ing. " But their desire is so appallingly weak and vague 
 and fleeting that I have n't any faith in it — or patience 
 with it. And I '11 tell you plainly, Mr. Kaltenborn, that 
 if one of the requisites of a Christian life is to love such 
 people, I can never be a Christian. I loathe them, and I 
 
The Evangelist 325 
 
 can't help it. I could give them money — though that, 
 unfortunately, is not one of their wants ; I could even 
 carry them food if they were sick. But I should 
 be holding my moral breath until I got out of their 
 presence." 
 
 "That feeling is perfectly natural/' answered Kalten- 
 born, with a flavor of sarcasm. " As natural, I may say, 
 as the animalism you condemn in them. It is a feeling 
 shared by the mass of pure women. Yet it is not 
 the spirit which filled Christ when he lifted up the 
 Magdalen." 
 
 " There has been only one Christ," she answered. 
 
 " It is not quite the spirit which upheld George Wash- 
 ington during his eight years' struggle, not with Eng- 
 land's armies, but with his own mutinous soldiers, an 
 incompetent and helpless Congress, and an ungrateful 
 country. It is not quite the spirit which has filled any 
 of the world's great men and women." 
 
 '•1 never pretended to be great," she answered, 
 coolly. 
 
 " I wish that you might." 
 
 " Perhaps I am too conscious of my limitations," she 
 suggested, dryly. 
 
 "Your limitations are not strikingly noticeable," he 
 returned. " You are great, in your way. You are a 
 good railroad auditor, and I believe you would make a 
 very good railroad president. You are pretty shrewd ; 
 you have a will of your own. You have a deep affectional 
 nature, I believe, — if you would only give it a chance. 
 You are a little afraid of being tender, which is distinctly 
 antithetical to greatness. But I should Hke to see you a 
 little more charitable — especially toward such people as 
 these Hyers women. I don't want you to relax one jot or 
 
326 The Darlingtons 
 
 tittle of that instinctive hatred you have for their vices, 
 for that hatred in pure women is the salvation of society. 
 I only want you to remember that these women did not 
 make themselves. Their low passions and their lack of 
 integrity are a legacy, so far as I can learn, from their 
 mother. These periodical repentances, which you re- 
 gard as so contemptible, are flashes of their better nature. 
 No one knows when those flashes will kindle a fire. 
 That is why we take these women into our church, 
 though we may believe that they will backslide again, as 
 they have done so often in the past. They don't help 
 the church any ; they hurt it, rather, in the eyes of many 
 well-meaning people. But the church as an institution 
 is not to be considered with regard to benefits and inju- 
 ries. The individual is the object of our solicitude." 
 
 " I don't feel a bit complimented by the pretty things 
 you have said," she answered, with mock sulkiness. " I 
 see the sermon sticking out of all of it." Then she con- 
 tinued, soberly, " I know that there is nothing more un- 
 lovely than a cynical or callous woman, and I know 
 that those are just my faults. I try to overcome them, 
 but as long as they are in me, I suppose it is best to let 
 them come out — like bad blood," she added. 
 
 " Bad blood is not always best dealt with by being let 
 out," answered Kaltenborn, smiling. "But as long as 
 you have diagnosed your case so honestly, I think you 
 can be trusted to prescribe for it. That reminds me ; 
 has your brother said anything to you about the talk 
 we had ? " 
 
 "He told me all about it," she answered. She 
 paused, and he fancied she was about to express her 
 gratitude ; but she said, instead, " Some of your relig- 
 ious tenets somewhat staggered me.'' 
 
The Evangelist 327 
 
 " Why ? " he asked, slightly resenting her tone. 
 "As coming from a Methodist minister," she 
 explained. " Your ideas of Christ are a good deal like 
 my own — those I keep away down on the bottom. I 
 suppose we are both heretics." 
 
 " That word * heretic ' is not the bugbear it once 
 was," he answered, shortly. 
 
 " No, but it has power enough yet to throw you out 
 of your pulpit," she said. She looked at him closely, 
 as though estimating the effect of her words. 
 
 " It would n't be the first time I have suffered expul- 
 sion for my opinions," he answered. 
 
 " Where, before ? " she asked, not quite understand- 
 ing his allusion. 
 
 " Out of the brewery, for one place," he answered, 
 with a quaint smile. " Out of the law, for another." 
 
 " And if they throw you out of the church, where will 
 you go? " she asked. 
 
 " I don't know. What would you suggest?" 
 
 "You might try railroading," she answered, whimsi- 
 cally. 
 
 " Would you give me a job ? " 
 
 "What can you do?" she asked. 
 
 " Anything." 
 
 " I don't know. There are so many who can do 
 that. You might begin with the presidency, though. 
 Almost anybody can be a president. Then, if you suc- 
 ceeded at that, we should promote you until you finally 
 became a brakeman or a fireman. Those are the most 
 trying positions on the road, as the gentlemen who fill 
 them will tell you themselves." 
 
 " I think I should prefer to start in as assistant audi- 
 tor," he said, smiling. 
 
328 The Darlingtons 
 
 "What are your special qualifications for that 
 position?" There was an almost imperceptible change 
 in her light, bantering tone — a httle stiffening, as it 
 were. 
 
 "Have you never discovered any?" he asked. 
 They were sitting near together, and he looked her 
 squarely, though not boldly, in the eyes. She quietly 
 lowered the dark-fringed curtains, and smoothed the 
 flounce of her skirt. 
 
 " If I have, would you want me to say so ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 Her lashes lifted momentarily, revealing a dark and 
 enlarged pupil. " I have," she said. It was still play, 
 perhaps. 
 
 " What are they? " he asked. 
 
 Again her flounce needed attention, but this time 
 she gathered it fold by fold between her thumb and 
 finger. " Are you not inquisitive .? " she asked, in 
 an undertone. 
 
 " Am I ? " 
 
 *' I think you are," she murmured. 
 
 He paused. The animation slowly died from his 
 face, and then he assumed an upright position again, 
 thus taking his face further from hers. " I think so, 
 too," he said. 
 
 When he left, shortly after, Carol's cheeks still 
 retained a feverish glow, and her eyes an unusual 
 brightness. 
 
 "I will bring those poor people's names that you 
 wanted from mamma around to-morrow morning," she 
 said, at parting. 
 
 " Be sure," he admonished her, "because they need 
 immediate attention. Or I can call and get them." 
 
The Evangelist 329 
 
 " No, I '11 bring them in the morning," she repeated. 
 She did not, though. A dancing-party, presumably 
 the last of the season, was to be given at Helen Dane's 
 that night; and it was half-past eight, after she was 
 dressed, before Carol thought of the names again. The 
 last thing before leaving her room, therefore, she 
 snatched up a piece of paper upon which to take down 
 the names from her mother's dictation. She looked 
 radiantly beautiful in her costume ; yet, when she 
 stepped into Ruth's room for something or other, that 
 little maiden did not look longest, or first or last, at her 
 sister's superb arms or velvety shoulders or perfect 
 bosom. It was Carol's face, crowned and framed with 
 its wealth of pale hair, upon which she dwelt with 
 lustrous eyes. To-night the violet eyes were not quite 
 so restless or proud as usual, but shone with a limpid 
 tenderness even more beautiful. 
 
 " Oh, sweetheart ! " cried Ruth, admiringly. '^ I 
 wish I could go." 
 
 " You will be going, Babe, when I am a withered old 
 maid," answered Carol, happily. 
 
 As she swiftly gathered her rustling skirts in one 
 hand, at the head of the stairs, and gave them a little 
 shake, Ruth glided up to her side, bent on witnessing 
 her sister's triumph downstairs. Carol straightened, 
 thrust out a white-slippered toe, and descended the 
 stairs with the grace and assurance of a queen. They 
 met Herbert at the foot, in evening dress. 
 
 " By Jove, sis ! " he obsen^ed, " you must be out for 
 blood to-night. Kaltenborn ought to see you now." 
 
 She colored a httle, and only answered, " I am glad 
 you are going. I was afraid you would n't." 
 
 "I hate it enough to stay away," he answered, with a 
 
3 30 The Darlingtons 
 
 clouding face. It was his first social appearance since 
 the trial of the new engine. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Darlington were both in the sitting- 
 room. Mrs. Darlington looked up at the girls' entrance, 
 and said quietly, "You look very nice, Carol." She 
 had her views about spoiling children, but she had 
 equally positive views about starving them with indiffer- 
 ence. Carol fussed around the room, now at the 
 mirror over the grate, now at the chiffonier, until Bert 
 and Ruth went out again. 
 
 •' Mamma, if you will give me those names now, I will 
 leave them for Mr. Kaltenborn," she said, in a hurried, 
 careless tone. " We drive right by." 
 
 ''I wouldn't bother with that now," said her mother. 
 
 ^' I promised them for to-day, positively," said Carol, 
 with a slight flush, and she hastily scribbled them down 
 as her mother called them off. Then, tucking the paper 
 away mysteriously in her corsage, she leaned her bare 
 elbow against the mantel-piece. With her other hand 
 she lightly lifted her skirts, and held her toe out to the 
 blaze. She was not at all cold, though, judging from the 
 glow on her cheeks. 
 
 Mr. Darlington looked up from his paper. This flesh 
 and blood of his own stirred his heart as did few other 
 things in the world. He was proud of her beauty ; 
 he respected her intelligence ; and, deep in his heart, 
 he was just a little awed by her fidelity to certain 
 principles. 
 
 "What's on to-night? '^ he asked, as though he had 
 not heard the event at the Danes' talked of daily for two 
 weeks. 
 
 " Nothing much," answered Carol, carelessly, to punish 
 him for his tardy interest. The mother glanced from 
 
The Evangelist 331 
 
 daughter to husband. In all the years she had not 
 learned to understand these little sparring-matches be- 
 tween Carol and her father. Darlington returned to his 
 paper, and Carol walked to the centre of the room, 
 directly in front of him. 
 
 '' I hardly know what wrap to wear," she observed, 
 reflectively, to her mother. '' 1 don't know — I think 
 I '11 wear the swan's-down. There is Cash now," she 
 added, at the sound of wheels at the porte cochere. 
 " Good-bye, everybody." 
 
 Her father did not answer ; she paused, and a moment 
 later a pair of soft arms stole around his neck. She 
 chose to let herself be conquered this time. 
 
 ^' Papa, why don't you say how you like me ? " she 
 asked, feigning an injured tone. 
 
 " You '11 do," he answered, lightly, without lifting his 
 eyes. 
 
 " You have n't looked at me," she protested. 
 
 " Yes, I have." 
 
 " What have I on, then ? " 
 
 '* Oh, I did n't know that was to be looked at," he 
 answered, dryly. 
 
 Mrs. Darlington glanced up doubtfully, but Carol, 
 bending over, tucked her face in her father's neck, 
 and laughed naughtily. 
 
 " If you were n't so old and cross, papa, don't you 
 think you would fall in love with me?" she exclaimed, 
 coquettishly. 
 
 '•You will have all that powder off your arms next, on 
 my coat," he grumbled. 
 
 " There 's none on," she retorted. " Don't you think 
 you would ? " 
 
 " Don't bother me. Your mother, when I married 
 
332 The Darlingtons 
 
 her, could give you cards and spades on beauty ; but it 
 was a long time before I decided to love her." 
 
 "That isn't mamma's story/' answered Carol, taunt- 
 ingly. For a moment she blew girlishly at his whiskers. 
 "Well, I said good-bye," she reminded him. 
 
 " So did I." 
 
 " You did not." 
 
 " Good-bye, then." 
 
 " Some fathers kiss their children good-bye," she sug- 
 gested, half smothering him with her hair and arms and 
 perfume. The crow's-feet around Darlington's eyes now 
 wrinkled in a smile, and he surrendered. He placed 
 his hand on her head, in spite of her cries that he would 
 spoil her hair, and pressed her mouth to his. " Trot 
 along, now," he said. He made no remarks after she 
 had gone, but he read over the first paragraph of rail- 
 road items four times before he got started down the 
 column. 
 
 " Please tell the driver to stop at Mrs. Hicks's," said 
 Carol to Winter, as he helped her into the carriage. 
 
 "What for? "he asked. 
 
 "I have some names for him — for Mr. Kaltenborn." 
 
 "Names!" 
 
 " Yes, names of people — poor people," she said, with 
 some sharpness. Cash acknowledged his imphed stupid- 
 ity with an " Oh ! " and gave the necessary directions. 
 
 Mrs. Hicks came to the door, and led Carol back to 
 Kaltenborn's study, and rapped for her. Kaltenborn 
 called " Come! " and Carol pushed the door partly open, 
 still standing on the threshold. Her first impression was 
 that she smelled a cigar, — and a very poor one. At 
 the same instant her eyes fell upon a gaunt, sandy-haired 
 man with glasses, in the further corner of the study. He 
 
The Evangelist 333 
 
 was just withdrawing his hand from the foliage of a potted 
 plant, and Carol received the impression that he was 
 conceaHng his cigar there. 
 
 " I beg your pardon,"' she said to Kaltenborn, who at 
 once arose and came forward. " I have those names for 
 you," she added, in a lower tone. As they moved away 
 from the study door by tacit consent, she went on, '' I 
 forgot them until this evening, — which I hope you will 
 forgive, — and then I scribbled them down from 
 mamma's dictation in a shorthand style that I don't 
 believe you can read, after all." Kaltenborn motioned 
 her into the parlor, where she finished with, " I '11 re-write 
 them, — it will take only a second, — if you will give me 
 a pencil." 
 
 He brought her paper and pencil, and she sank down 
 into a chair. Dropping the silk scarf from her head to 
 her shoulders, she brought from under her downy cloak 
 an arm gloved to the elbow, and began to write, — in a 
 slightly labored way, owing to her tight glove. The 
 richly dressed figure with its elaborate coiffure ; the dim, 
 yellow hght, which suffered by contrast with the marble 
 radiance of her face ; the black-garbed, motionless 
 preacher ; the humble room, — these formed a striking 
 picture. Its effect on Kaltenborn was rather unexpected. 
 He appeared not to see Carol at all, not even when she 
 shook her cloak still further back, and revealed a gUmpse 
 of her bare arm. He stared steadily at the page she 
 was writing, and when she handed him the hst, he 
 thanked her gravely. 
 
 " I will give you one of these, if you want it," she said, 
 laying her hand upon her roses. She looked at him 
 sharply, and received his affirmative before she pulled 
 out one of the half-blown buds. 
 
334 The Darlingtons 
 
 ^'Was that your evangelist?" she asked, drawing her 
 cloak close about her again. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Does he smoke ? " 
 
 Kaltenborn's face reddened a trifle, but he maintained 
 his grave, dignified air. " Yes," he ansv;ered. "He says 
 it helps his catarrh." 
 
 The tones of both were cold, and hers half-con- 
 temptuous as well. At the door Kaltenborn stood with 
 his hand on the knob for what seemed a long time, as if 
 he had something further to say. She fancied he might 
 be going to apologize for his inexphcable coldness ; but 
 he did not, and after a moment she said, " Please let me 
 out." He opened the door with a scarcely audible 
 good-night, and let her pass. 
 
 He stood there for a moment. She had gone — his 
 friend, his dearest friend — to a ball, while in the next 
 room, awaiting him, sat a fellow-worker in the church who, 
 only two nights before, had thundered against the dance. 
 Kaltenborn was tempted for the moment to rush out into 
 the night, and tell Carol why he had been so cold. 
 
 He left his rose in the parlor, and returned to the 
 study. The evangelist had resumed his catarrhal treat- 
 ment, with perfect fortitude, if not, indeed, absolute 
 gusto ; blowing the smoke out — after it had performed 
 its healing function — as skilfully as C. A. Darlington 
 could have done it himself. 
 
 " Who was that woman, brother? " he asked, compla- 
 cently. His powerful glasses gave his eyes a staring, 
 bulging appearance. 
 
 '*' Her name is Carol Darhngton," answered Kalten- 
 born, as he glanced over the list in his hand. 
 
 The evangelist smoked a moment in silence. No one, 
 
The Evangelist 335 
 
 after looking into his eyes at that moment, would have 
 taken him for a fool — or a saint. 
 
 " Railroad president's daughter?" he asked, smoothly. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Going to give a theatre party down the line, in her 
 pa's private car, next Friday?" 
 
 *' Not that I know of," said Kaltenborn, looking up 
 inquiringly. 
 
 The evangelist looked as though he rather doubted 
 Kaltenborn's ignorance on this subject, but freely 
 pardoned the pretence. '• She is," he said. 
 
 ^' How do you know? — if I may ask." 
 
 The evangelist stared meditatively at the ceiling, 
 dusky with the lamp-smoke of many a year. " Some 
 of the brethren told me," he answered, finally. " They 
 suggested that I might make a good stroke for the Lord 
 by holding off my sermon on theatre-going until the 
 night after this party, and then giving it a local, or, I 
 may say, a personal application. I have about decided 
 to do that," he added, significantly. 
 
 Kaltenborn instinctively knew that the man was 
 watching him, and he did not change a muscle of his 
 face. After a moment the evangelist continued : 
 "■ She 's a personal friend of yours, ain't she ? " 
 
 "Has any one told you so, Mr. Mc Andrews ? " 
 asked Kaltenborn bluntly, eying him with unmistakable 
 pugnacity. 
 
 Far from resenting this display of spirit, the evangelist 
 leaned forward with a shrewd, droll look on his gaunt 
 features. " I may say, Kaltenborn, without breach of 
 confidence, that they have. And it was hinted that if 
 she had been less of a friend of yours, you would be 
 a better preacher. Don't flare up, now ! I don't take 
 
336 The Darllngtons 
 
 any stock in that rot myself. I was a lonely young 
 preacher myself once. God knows I am lonely enough 
 now, for that matter, seeing my wife and children once 
 in three months sometimes, and sometnnes not. And I 
 still hanker after the beautiful and the refined. But it 
 don't do, Stephen," he continued, familiarly, and 
 Kaltenborn smiled in spite of himself at the man's 
 impudence. " You will find, if you look into the mat- 
 ter, that it 's generally the odor of a flesh-pot that attracts 
 you. And while we could overlook a little of that,'^ he 
 smiled, with suave knavery, "it will get you into hot 
 water up to your eyes, sooner or later. But '' — and he 
 paused impressively — "I like you. I like that woman. 
 She looks like a whole-souled creature. If you say the 
 good word, I will withdraw that sermon on theatre- 
 going." 
 
 " I would n't have you do it on my account for ten 
 thousand dollars," said Kaltenborn, quickly. 
 
 "If you are indifferent, all right/^ said McAndrews, 
 with a shrug. "Perhaps it is best, as long as I have 
 promised the brethren. But I '11 warn you that, in the 
 words of a beloved and sanctified, but very blunt old 
 presiding elder of mine, I am going to give the theatre 
 'hell.' I am going to give them a sermon that has 
 brought more than one society belle to the altar — and 
 may bring her. Good-night, brother." 
 
CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 THE TEST OF FRIENDSHIP 
 
 Kaltenborn walked back to the parlor for his flower. 
 The delicate essence which Carol had left behind was 
 still sensible to his nostrils, and he closed his eyes and 
 tried to fancy her still present. This failing, he returned 
 to his study and sat down at his desk, with the rose in 
 one hand and the pencil which Carol had used in the 
 other. Suddenly he pressed the latter to his lips. 
 
 The next moment he had thrown it the length of the 
 room, and with a bitter smile on his lips he deliberately 
 began to pick the flower to pieces. When it was only a 
 litter of torn petals, when he had brushed them into his 
 waste-basket, when it was too late, his act struck him as 
 a heartless piece of brutality, as sacrilege almost, and he 
 could have cried. 
 
 Never in his hfe before had he felt so lonely. Cut 
 off from his church by Carol, cut off from Carol by his 
 church, regarding his love for her as a weakness and a 
 violation of conscience, at the same time despising the 
 people who had condemned his friendship for her, he 
 was really in a mood for desperate deeds. 
 
 He pictured Carol at the ball, in all her purity and 
 beauty, swinging with rhythmic movement to the soft 
 music, supported by the arm of another man, her cheeks 
 aglow with pleasure, her eyes sparkling. Or she was 
 
 22 
 
338 The Darlingtons 
 
 sitting in some secluded nook, listening to murmured 
 pleasantries. Of what moment, he reflected bitterly, were 
 those quiet talks he had had with her in the music-room 
 compared with all this gayety? Quiet talks! He 
 sniffed the words contemptuously. He could not even 
 smoke for her. 
 
 He glanced down at his sombre ministerial frock with 
 something like loathing. He had not always worn such 
 a frock. What was he wearing one now for ? To stand 
 in a pulpit and preach a gospel that he did not more 
 than half believe ; to announce himself to the world as 
 the priest of a body of people whose opinions and ideals 
 he, for the most part, held in sovereign contempt. 
 
 In these reflections, unjust both to himself and to 
 Carol, he did not wholly forget that those eyes which 
 were now sparkling for another man had once filled 
 with tears for him. He knew that tears were more than 
 sparkles. He knew, in his heart, that this balancing of 
 Carol's amusements against the serious side of her life 
 was unjust ; for she was not given over to social pleas- 
 ures. He knew, too, that a large measure of his present 
 contempt for the church was chargeable to his contempt 
 for that one of its ministers who had just left the room. 
 And he knew that that man was not a fair representative 
 of his class. But in his present bitter mood he was not 
 particular to be discriminating, or even just. 
 
 Carol's silence toward him in the matter of her 
 theatre party also hurt him. It seemed to argue a lack 
 of confidence in him, and to class him with those 
 narrow-minded people who censured such amusements. 
 Added to this was the evangehst's promised sermon 
 against theatre-going. Kaltenborn knew well what 
 that sermon would be, coming from such a man. It 
 
The Test of Friendship 339 
 
 meant a tirade, a low appeal to bigotry, and in 
 this particular case a stirring of the passions of the poor 
 against the rich. He dreaded that sermon, and its 
 probable effect upon his relations with Carol ; but he 
 would not have lifted his little finger, clandestinely, to 
 prevent it. He did not, however, mean to sit down 
 helplessly, and let events have their own destructive 
 way. That was not his nature. In pursuance of a 
 resolution he had amved at, he made his appearance 
 on Monday morning at the office of the auditor of 
 the High Point, Rankelman, Ashboro, and Southern 
 Railroad. 
 
 " It 's business, I see by your face," said Carol, 
 laughing, forcing herself to forget Kaltenborn's coolness 
 of Saturday night. '^ You are very unsophisticated. If 
 you want a favor from the railroad — and of course you 
 do — you ought to saunter in here in an idle way, laugh 
 and joke for half an hour, until you get me into a good 
 humor, and then suddenly spring your request. I could 
 then graciously do only one thing — grant it." 
 
 *^ I should hate to trap you in any such way, least of 
 all on my present errand," answered Kaltenborn, quite 
 soberly. 
 
 "Oh, so serious as that ! " she exclaimed, affecting a 
 levity that she did not feel. 
 
 " It is very serious for me," he returned. '' You are 
 going to give a theatre party at High Point next Friday 
 night. I knew nothing of it until last Saturday night, 
 after I had seen you," he added, looking pointedly at 
 her. "Mr. McAndrews, the evangehst, told me, just 
 after you left, that some of my members had suggested 
 to him that next Saturday night would be an opportune 
 time for him to preach a sermon against theatre-going. 
 
340 The Darlingtons 
 
 He seems to think well of the suggestion, and it is his 
 present intention to preach the sermon." 
 
 Carol had dropped her cheek upon her hand, and 
 was looking at him with round, interested eyes, in which 
 there was the faintest gleam of excitement. 
 
 " I know what kind of a sermon he will preach," con- 
 tinued Kaltenborn. " It will be a good deal like the 
 one my predecessor preached on a similar occasion. It 
 may be worse. It will, in any event, be plain enough for 
 any one to understand at whom it is aimed. Some of my 
 members were also kind enough to tell McAndrews that 
 you were an intimate friend of mine, and to hint that our 
 intimacy had something to do with my silence in the 
 pulpit on the subject of amusements. McAndrews, 
 hypocrite though I believe him to be, is a man of some 
 liberality. He thunders against these things simply be- 
 cause it is his business to do so, and he offered, in view 
 of the relations between you and me, to withdraw the 
 sermon. In my heart, I believe the withdrawal of that 
 sermon would best serve the interests of my church, just as 
 I believe that the church would have been better off with- 
 out this evangelist. In the latter matter, though, I gave 
 way to the views of my people, and in common honesty 
 I had to do the same with regard to this sermon on 
 theatre-going. I therefore told him that I could not 
 allow him to withdraw the sermon on my account. " 
 
 He paused, as if hoping Carol might make some 
 comment. But she did not break her silence, and he 
 went on, — 
 
 "Perhaps you will understand my motives without 
 further explanation. The point is this : If he preaches 
 that sermon, at you, our intercourse must cease. As 
 pastor of the church I shall be held as supporting 
 
The Test of Friendship 341 
 
 McAndrews's views. I cannot make a public disclaimer. 
 That being the case, your friends could hardly under- 
 stand why you should continue to countenance me ; and 
 my members could hardly understand how I, after 
 tacitly consenting to your public denunciation, could 
 continue my friendship in private. In short, a contin- 
 uation of my visits at your house would jeopardize the 
 respect in which you are held by your friends, and would 
 jeopardize my usefulness in the church." 
 
 This was sufficiently important to justify another stop. 
 Carol continued her gaze with eyes of augmented bril- 
 liancy. Kaltenborn saw her throat swell, but she did 
 not help him out with a single word. 
 
 "I came here," he concluded, abruptly, '-'to ask 
 you, for the sake of our friendship, to give up your 
 party." 
 
 Carol must have guessed, from the tension around his 
 mouth, what it cost to say those simple words. But for 
 a moment her admiration was submerged under a tem- 
 pest of rougher emotions. She wanted to denounce the 
 narrowness of Kaltenborn's church members, and to 
 scathe, with her ready tongue, the hypocrite who, for 
 pay, would publicly blacken an innocent woman's repu- 
 tation. She wanted to call Kaltenborn's attention, in 
 scornful tones, to the cowardice of giving up a harmless 
 pleasure in order to escape the abuse of a ranting evan- 
 gelist. Lastly, she wanted to point out the incongruity 
 of a friendship requiring such a peculiar sacrifice. 
 
 But something in Kaltenborn's face seemed to tell her 
 that he knew all this even better than she ; and that he 
 was appeahng to something higher in her than even 
 courage or justice or tolerance. Something else re- 
 strained her, too, — the hardihood of the man in so 
 
342 The Darlingtons 
 
 coolly preferring a request involving a sacrifice of such 
 magnitude, and his unmistakable sincerity in so doing. 
 
 "Are you aware of the extraordinary nature of that re- 
 quest, Mr. Kaltenborn?" she asked, in a voice that 
 throbbed a little with indignation in spite of her self- 
 restraint. 
 
 " I am," he answered, with an irresistible grandeur. 
 " It is so extraordinary that I should never have dared to 
 make it of any but an extraordinary woman." 
 
 " You are asking me to disappoint twenty friends in 
 order to favor one." 
 
 " In order to sa2'e one," he corrected. Once more 
 he went carefully over the ground to convince her of the 
 inevitable consequences of her party, and to show his 
 own helplessness. " I don't know that I need to say 
 it," he concluded, "but I am asking no more than I 
 would give. I have been thinking this question over 
 every waking hour since last Saturday night. I realize 
 to the full the self-denial, the forgiveness, the nobility, 
 which the sacrifice calls for. But, beheve me, — without 
 belitthng that sacrifice, — if I were asked to do it for 
 you, it seems to me it would be the easiest thing in the 
 world." 
 
 It did look so, she had no doubt, from the heights on 
 which he stood. She did not admit the inaccessibility 
 of those heights to herself, but she resented the neces- 
 sity of ascending them. Turn as she might, though, 
 never in her life before had she been so clearly conscious 
 of being on trial. Yet she stubbornly fought against the 
 conviction, and held it off as long as she could. 
 
 " Mr. Kaltenborn, I feel deeply in this matter," she 
 said, finally. "Your friendship is not a thing that I 
 could lightly let go. I would sacrifice a great deal to 
 
The Test of Friendship 343 
 
 keep it. But I think you have fallen into your old habit 
 of taking things too seriously. I don't believe that 
 wrong can ever put down right. Why should this evan- 
 gelist come between us, no matter what the circum- 
 stances? Do you know, I don't beheve it is ever right 
 to be weak — and that is what you are asking me to be. 
 You are asking me to give way in a matter of principle 
 for the sake of expediency. That is, " she explained, at his 
 dissenting expression over these blunt words, " you want 
 me to give up what I consider a harmless amusement 
 simply because somebody else considers it not harmless. 
 And as for my friends falling off, in case I should coun- 
 tenance you after your apparent sanction of my public 
 denunciation, I don't believe you quite do justice to the 
 respect my friends have for me. And you don't mean 
 to say, do you, that any great number of your members 
 would discountenance your associating with me, even 
 though this man did deliver his diatribe?" 
 
 "They would," answered Kaltenborn, decidedly. 
 " Your family is wealthy. You belong to an aristocratic 
 church. My people are poor, and belong to a demo- 
 cratic church. Many of your pleasures are hopelessly 
 beyond their reach, and others of them cross their con- 
 sciences. For me, their pastor, to associate with you, is 
 a thorn in their flesh at the best. I have seen it all 
 along, and it has troubled me. More than once I have 
 thought it my duty to give up your friendship, for the 
 sake of the work I have already given up so much for. 
 But you have helped me in more ways than one, and I 
 am doubtful even now as to what my duty is. Yet those 
 doubts will be removed if you persist in giving your 
 party ; for, take my word for it, I see a crisis at hand. 
 The only question for you should be — Is it worth 
 
344 The Darlingtons 
 
 while ? Is a friendship requiring such a peculiar sacrifice 
 founded on reason ? Is it worthy of continuation ? Is 
 it not, in the end, destined to perish anyhow ? " 
 
 "What do you think about it?" she asked, with a 
 curious intonation. 
 
 " Last night I thought it was worth while. To-day I 
 don't know." 
 
 "Have I had anything to do with the change?" she 
 asked. 
 
 " I don't know that, either," he returned, shortly. 
 
 She sat thinking for a moment, her lips tightly pressed 
 together, and her mouth drooping a little stubbornly at 
 the corners. But after a little these sharp corners relaxed 
 somewhat. 
 
 " You said a minute ago," she observed, " that you 
 were asking no more than you would give. Did you 
 suspect it might be more than / should be willing to 
 give?" 
 
 " The thought occurred to me," he answered, frankly. 
 
 " Then you give me credit for less magnanimity than 
 you claim for yourself." 
 
 " No. Our friendship may not mean as much to you 
 as it does to me." 
 
 She seemed to attach no special significance to his 
 words, for her serious face underwent no change. But 
 she had a faculty, as he had learned, of feigning calmness 
 in even crucial moments. 
 
 " Would that make any difference, if I were really 
 magnanimous ? " she asked, argumentatively. " Might n't 
 I give up simply for your sake, — or because it was 
 right ? " She turned upon him a pair of eyes so tran- 
 quil, so impersonal, that he experienced a disagreeable 
 sensation. 
 
The Test of Friendship 345 
 
 " I did n't ask it on those grounds," he returned, 
 shortly, " and I could not accept it on them." 
 
 " Do you think, Mr. Kaltenborn, that you have a right 
 to ask it on any other?" Her eyes were a little dilated, 
 and each pupil seemed to contain a point of fire ; but it 
 was impossible for him to tell whether her tone was 
 favorable or unfavorable. 
 
 ■ '' It is for you to pass on that," he returned, steadily, 
 and the color suddenly mounted to her cheeks. 
 
 '' I must think it over — your proposition," she said, 
 hastily. '^ But if papa knew that I was going to give up 
 my party because that evangeHst had threatened to slander 
 me, what do you suppose he would say ? " 
 
 "You are not giving it up for any such reason," 
 answered Kaltenborn, warmly. 
 
 " If papa knew I was giving it up for yoic, what do you 
 suppose he would say?" she asked. 
 
 '' He would probably^ say that you were a fool," 
 answered Kaltenborn, bluntly. 
 
 She winced, and asked, half ironically, '^ What do 
 you suppose your people, the Methodists, would say?" 
 
 "They would probably think that the evangelist 
 had scared you," he answered, with uncompromising 
 frankness. 
 
 "And what would you think?" she asked, and in 
 spite of her admirable self-possession there was a slight 
 huskiness in her voice. 
 
 "I should try not to think too much," he answered. 
 
 She did not hft her eyes. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 A PROVIDENTIAL INTERVENTION 
 
 Carol gave herself until Wednesday night to come to 
 a decision. Sometimes Kaltenborn's request seemed 
 hopelessly quixotic ; at other times it seemed logical and 
 natural. But for the most part it seemed quixotic, and 
 she told herself, over and over again, that it was so. Yet 
 somewhere within her consciousness she knew that these 
 repetitions were a vain lie, and that in the end she would 
 give in to Kaltenborn. 
 
 This conviction sometimes goaded her to fierceness. 
 She would then whip her pride up until compliance with 
 Kaltenborn's request seemed downright immodesty — an 
 odious bid for his friendship, and — why deny it to her- 
 self? — his love. Not that she felt fully ready to requite 
 such a feeling, or was sure that she could ever requite it. 
 But somehow, of late, she had allowed herself to think 
 unflinchingly of his love. She had come to regard it as 
 her right. She had come to regard him as a kind of 
 protege of hers, who, in common gratitude, should bestow 
 upon her all his devotion. At least, she could not imagine 
 him as loving any one else. Hence, in her moments of 
 mortified pride, she told herself hotly that she would not 
 bid for what was already rightfully hers. 
 
 She finally went to her father, less for advice than for 
 moral support. She had an idea that he would deride 
 
A Providential Intervention 347 
 
 her weakness clean out of existence. His derision was 
 keen enough, in all reason ; but so far from casting out 
 her fancied weakness, it seemed only to root it more 
 firmly, and she found herself siding with Kaltenborn 
 against her father. 
 
 " I want to do what is right ^^ she said, with her clear, 
 straightforward gaze. " It will be a little queer to with- 
 draw the invitations now, and a few may suspect the real 
 reason. But I don't care for that, as long as he doesn't 
 misconstrue my action." 
 
 "Misconstrue it how? " asked her father. 
 
 " Well, if I do this, the inference is that I attach 
 some value to his friendship," she answered, with a trifle 
 of confusion. 
 
 " So I take it," said her father, dryly. " And you 're 
 afraid he will misconstrue it, and take it that you attach 
 no value to his friendship?" 
 
 "He may think that I attach more value than I do," 
 she answered with dignity, ignoring his irony. 
 
 The president drew out his knife, and began to sharpen 
 a pencil, the keen blade cutting through the soft cedar 
 without perceptible effort. "As a matter of fact," he 
 continued, blowing the parings away, " how much do you 
 value his friendship ? " 
 
 " That 's a leading question," she answered, laughing, 
 and coloring a little. " I like him very much. He is 
 original and manly and intelligent, and I think his society 
 does me more good than that of anybody else I know. 
 That 's about the extent of it." She looked at him very 
 innocently. 
 
 " How much do you think he values j^?/r friendship ? " 
 asked her father, still busy with his pencil, 
 
 "I don't know," she answered, conservatively. "I 
 
348 The Darlingtons 
 
 fancy, though, that he thinks fully as much of mine as 
 I think of his. If he did n't; he would hardly ask me to 
 do this." 
 
 " I have an idea, Carol," said Mr. Darlington, " that 
 he thinks more of it. I have an idea that he thinks a 
 good deal more of it." He paused. A peculiar lumi- 
 nosity flashed up in Carol's eyes, and then was instantly 
 quenched. ^' Still, if you want to give up your party for 
 the sake of seeing him three or four times a month until 
 he moves away next fall, give it up. It's nobody's 
 business but your own." 
 
 " It is n't certain that he '11 move," she said. 
 
 "From what he told me the other day, it is pretty 
 certain. He 's too broad-minded for these people. He 's 
 the broadest-minded preacher I ever knew, I think. 
 But he has some queer ideas. He has ideas that don't 
 square with yours and mine, and never will." He paused 
 again, but Carol said nothing. "Not one man in a 
 thousand would ask a woman to do what he has asked 
 you to do, and I don't think one woman in a thousand 
 would do it, — unless she loved him." Another pause. 
 Under his keen scrutiny, Carol flushed slightly, but still 
 said nothing. " It never crossed his mind that it would 
 cost you anything to give up that party." 
 
 " It would n't, papa," was her astonishing answer. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " asked her father, almost 
 sternly. 
 
 " I mean that the way matters stand, I would sooner 
 give the party up than not, — if it 's right." 
 
 "All right," he assented, with some acidity. "If you 
 feel that way, the thing for you to do is to give it up. 
 But I '11 tell you this, — it would n't make any difference 
 to him whether it cost you something or not. Such 
 
A Providential Intervention 349 
 
 considerations don't stop a man like Kaltenborn. When 
 such men think they are right, they will have their way, 
 if it takes a leg, — or breaks a heart. I can be bull- 
 headed enough myself, up to where it begins to draw 
 blood out of somebody, and then I cave. But you take 
 one of these fanatics, and he's got no heart. The crying 
 of a woman is no more to him than the squalling of a 
 cat, — and many a woman has found it out to her 
 sorrow." 
 
 " Do you mean to say that Mr. Kaltenborn is a fa- 
 natic," asked Carol, ominously. 
 
 " I mean to say that he is just that fanatical," answered 
 her father, valorously, for his blood was up. 
 
 A slightly sarcastic smile overspread Carol's proud 
 features. But quickly, as if recognizing the unlovableness 
 of this, her face softened, and she asked, conciliatingly, 
 " Is n't that a good way to be, sometimes ? " 
 
 " It 's a good enough way for the infallible God to be," 
 her father answered, forcibly. " But when a narrow, 
 bigoted, short-sighted, faulty man tries it on — and they 
 are the only men that do try it — there is misery ahead 
 for somebody, — and it 's generally a woman." 
 
 '' Papa, do you mean to apply those odious epithets to 
 Mr. Kaltenborn?" she asked again, the ominous calm 
 now settling unmistakably. 
 
 " No ! I mean that red-headed evangelist," he re- 
 turned, fiercely. " If I had my way, I 'd split his tongue 
 and put him to work in a treadmill." He chewed his 
 cigar savagely for a moment ; but, Carol saying nothing, 
 he soon continued, more temperately : " But Kalten- 
 born's judgment is poor. He left his father's brewery, 
 where he was probably getting four or five thousand 
 dollars a year, to go into the law. Then, not satisfied with 
 
350 The Darlingtons 
 
 that, he went into the ministry, and cut himself off from 
 the old man's good will and his millions. To-day he is 
 working for eight or nine hundred dollars a year. I 
 have no use for breweries, God knows, but why did n't 
 he abide his time ? His leaving the brewery did not re- 
 duce the output of beer a single barrel, whereas if he 
 had stayed until the business had come into his hands, 
 he could have sold the brewery and put the proceeds 
 into charity — if that 's his idea. Or he could have torn 
 it down, if he did n't want any more beer to be made 
 there, and still have had plenty of money. Think of 
 the poor-houses, asylums, and hospitals he could have 
 built ! But no, he had to go and preach, and here he is 
 in Ashboro, locked up in a nutshell." 
 
 For a little there was silence. Carol was evidently 
 impressed, but she only said, with a rueful smile, " Well, 
 this does n't help me any." 
 
 " I had hopes that it would," he answered, almost 
 appealingly. Before she had time to take him up, he 
 added, " If I make a decision for you, will you abide 
 by it ? " 
 
 " What is it, first?" she asked, laughing girlishly. 
 
 "No! I make no decisions on approval." He 
 turned to his desk, and began to read some letters. 
 She watched him a moment with troubled eyes, and after 
 a little he said, "You talk it over with your mother." 
 
 She did so that evening. Somewhat to Carol's sur- 
 prise, her mother took the communication very calmly, 
 indeed. This pleased Carol, secretly, but it was about 
 the only feature of the interview that did please her. 
 Mrs. Darlington seemed to take about the same view of 
 the matter that her husband had taken, namely, that such 
 a request implied something more than mere friendship. 
 
A Providential Intervention 351 
 
 In her heart, Carol recognized the justness of this 
 assumption, yet it vexed her that they should make it. 
 
 After telling her daughter that it was a matter which 
 she would have to decide for herself, Mrs. Darlington 
 added, " I hope you may never forfeit Mr. Kaltenborn's 
 admiration. But you say you regard him only as a 
 friend, and, Carol, I want you to be very careful not to 
 do anything that could possibly lead him to think other- 
 
 wise." 
 
 " But how can I claim to be even his friend if I cut 
 him loose in this fashion?" argued Carol, patiently. 
 " And do you suppose, mamma, that he could make 
 such a mistake as that? " 
 
 " Men have made greater mistakes," answered her 
 mother. 
 
 When Mr. and Mrs. Darlington were left alone at bed- 
 time, he asked her if Carol had spoken to her about the 
 theatre party, and asked her what she had told the girl. 
 
 " I told her that I did n't think she was called upon 
 to give it up," answered Mrs. Darlington. 
 
 ''What did she say?"' asked Darlington, amiably, 
 rather pleased that his views should have been confirmed 
 by his wife. 
 
 " She did n't say what she would do, and I did n't ask 
 her. I could see she was troubled about it. I wish she 
 wasn't — quite so much. I think Mr. Kaltenborn ap- 
 peals very strongly to her. I fancied she would get 
 tired of him in a month, but he comes oftener than ever. 
 For some reasons I am not sorry. Yet — " She hesi- 
 tated a moment, and ended with, '' He has a good deal 
 of influence over her, and for the best. I believe. She 
 never mentions it — she would n't, anyhow ; but now and 
 then she drops something." 
 
352 The Darlingtons 
 
 "I never heard her drop anything/' said Darlington, 
 dissentingly. 
 
 Mrs. Darlington entered into no details, but simply 
 said, '' She has changed her views regarding a great 
 many things. For the better, too, I must say, in most 
 
 cases." 
 
 "Well, I admire the man myself, in some ways," 
 answered Darlington, indirectly defending Carol. 
 
 "We all do, I think," said his wife, quietly. 
 
 "I don't think her saying those things cuts any 
 figure," he continued. "They are pretty level-headed, 
 both of them. They understand each other. He 
 knows her place, and she knows it." He waited for his 
 wife to assent to this, but as she did not he went on : 
 " Carol is a little bit of a coquette in an innocent way. 
 Most women are, for that matter. But she 's got too 
 much sense and too much honor to tamper with a man 
 like Kaltenborn. I sounded her pretty well myself, 
 to-day," he added, importantly. 
 
 " She 's too deep for me to sound," said his wife, half- 
 plaintively. " She 's so different from Bert. Sometimes 
 I think it was a mistake to let her go into the office, 
 Charles. She is naturally independent and headstrong, 
 and I think being in the office has made her more so." 
 
 "Bosh!" exclaimed Darlington, amiably. "It has 
 been her salvation. You tie a girl Uke her down to 
 cleaning up her room and working doilies and looking 
 pleasant, and she '11 go to the dogs." 
 
 " I don't think either of our girls would do that, 
 Charles," remonstrated his wife. 
 
 "She is just as likely to do it as somebody else's 
 girl," returned Darlington, coolly — too coolly to 
 mean it. 
 
A Providential Intervention 353 
 
 " She 's got to be tied down that way some day — 
 when she 's married," said his wife. 
 
 " She '11 have a boss then," he retorted. 
 
 " I don't think she will ever marry a boss," observed 
 Mrs. Darlington, gravely. 
 
 " She '11 never marry any one else," he returned, tak- 
 ing up his paper. That Kaltenborn had the timber in 
 him for the very best kind of a boss may have just 
 struck him, and may have had something to do with his 
 silence. 
 
 " I don't fancy there is anything between them yet," 
 observed Mrs. Darlington, striking home in Darhngton's 
 thoughts with a precision that made him wince. " But 
 when a girl begins to give up her parties for a man, one 
 can't tell where it will end." 
 
 " She has n't given up any parties yet," answered 
 Darlington, with some asperity. 
 
 I believe she will," said his wife, firmly. 
 Well, if she does, I guess we can't stop her. And if 
 we could, I guess it would n't do any good. So there 
 you are." 
 
 When Carol entered her father's office the following 
 morning, with hat and jacket on, and a bundle of square 
 envelopes in her hand, and said, in a voice not quite 
 natural, and with a half-frightened smile, " Here are the 
 cancellations of the theatre-party invitations/' it cannot 
 be said that Darhngton was surprised. Nevertheless, 
 the act gave him a disagreeable turn. He gave her a 
 quick glance, and grunted, '' All right." 
 
 ^* You are angry," she said, with an appeahng look. 
 
 **What the deuce should I be angry about?" he 
 asked, knocking his papers about in quite a purposeless 
 way. " It is n't my funeral." 
 
 23 
 
 (C 
 
354 '^h^ Darlingtons 
 
 "I hope it isn't mine, either." Her tones were so 
 humble that his conscience smote him, and looking up 
 he asked more sofdy, — 
 
 " Why should I be angry? " 
 
 " Because I did n't take your advice," she said, 
 sweetly. 
 
 " I did n't give you any advice," he returned. 
 
 " If you don't want me to send them, papa, I '11 tear 
 them up right now," she said, coming nearer. 
 
 ** It 's a matter of no moment to me," he answered 
 smoothly, but stubbornly. 
 
 " I won't send them ! " she exclaimed. 
 
 " Do just as you please." 
 
 " Papa, I 've had trouble enough already about this," 
 she began, turbulently. 
 
 " Am I troubling you ? " he asked, affecting inno- 
 cence. " Go on and mail your letters. You know 
 your own business better than I do. I have n't the 
 slightest objection to your mailing them." 
 
 " You act as though you had," she complained. 
 
 « I have n't." 
 
 As Carol walked down the main street toward the 
 post-office, she saw Ethel Dane and another young 
 woman coming toward her. The chances were ten to 
 one that they would make some mention of the party, 
 which would prove exceedingly embarrassing to Carol at 
 that juncture. With a guilty flush she turned into the 
 first door that offered escape, which happened to be that 
 of a drug-store. The alert clerk was altogether too 
 prompt for her in her flurried condition. For a 
 moment she could not fix her mind upon a single article 
 in the varied display before her that she could reason- 
 ably ask for, and then she perversely called for some 
 
A Providential Intervention 355 
 
 quinine. The clerk wanted to know first how much, 
 then whether she wanted it in bulk or in capsules, and 
 then in what size capsules — simple questions enough, 
 but it taxed her ingenuity to answer them. While these 
 details were being settled, Carol saw the two girls pass 
 the window. After paying for the quinine, at the same 
 time assuring the garrulous clerk that no one was 
 especially sick, she salHed out into the street again, 
 thoroughly vexed with herself, and not a little ashamed. 
 
 When she was within two doors of the post-office, a 
 passing messenger-boy on a bicycle suddenly veered 
 in to the curbstone, dismounted, and handed her a 
 telegram. She received too many telegrams in the 
 course of business to have any of the awe for them that 
 most women have, and she opened this one very coolly. 
 It was from the manager of the opera-house at High 
 Point, and announced that the building had burned to 
 the ground the night before, and that there would, as a 
 matter of course, be no entertainment on Friday night. 
 
 Just how glad Carol was to receive that telegram, she 
 did not realize for a moment or two. It came like a 
 reprieve to a condemned criminal — too good news to 
 be instantly comprehended. Then she swung around, 
 and walked briskly up the street. She had a wild 
 desire to throw the package of tinted envelopes in her 
 hand high into the air, and give a little yell. But fore- 
 going these undignified demonstrations, she strode on, 
 with a vigorous step and head well up. A little further 
 on she ran squarely into Ethel Dane and her companion. 
 
 " The opera-house at High Point has burned to the 
 ground ! " were Carol's first words. 
 
 " You are joking ! " cried Miss Dane, aghast. Carol 
 handed her the telegram. 
 
356 The Darlingtons 
 
 *' It 's a heartless shame ! " exclaimed the young lady, 
 with a stamp. " I just this minute tried on my new 
 gown for the last time." 
 
 "Well, I didn't burn it," said Carol, without the 
 least regret. 
 
 " I don't know ; I believe you did," said Miss Dane, 
 with very pretty petulance. " You have a kind of 
 * successful incendiary ' grin on your face. I beheve 
 you burnt it just to get out of giving a party. You 
 don't look a bit sorry — does she, Edith ? Oh, dear ! 
 Well, good-bye. Your correspondence must be grow- 
 ing," she added, as her sweeping gaze lighted upon 
 Carol's envelopes. " Why don't you mail them ? " 
 
 " That 's a pretty shirt-waist, Ethel," said Carol, with- 
 out a blush. 
 
 "Like it?" exclaimed the other, carelessly plucking 
 out the bosom. "That doesn't make me feel a bit 
 better. Good-bye. I ^11 never forgive you^ remember 
 that ! " 
 
 The first thing Carol did upon returning to her office 
 was to lock up the notes of cancellation in a private 
 drawer, to await a convenient and safe destruction. 
 The second thing was to tell her father the news. 
 
 "Well," he remarked, non-committally. 
 
 " I 'm glad," she said. 
 
 " Kaltenborn won't be," said her father, mahciously. 
 
 "Why?" she asked, but the same thought had 
 already crossed her own mind. 
 
 " It robs him of a little victory. He won't know now 
 whether you wrestled successfully with your bad angel 
 or not." 
 
 " It is n't necessary that he should know." 
 
 " Oh, yes, it is," he returned, with his light irony. 
 
A Providential Intervention 357 
 
 " You must tell him all about it, and mention the fact 
 that you had the very notes to cancel the engagement 
 in your hands when the telegram came. Then he will 
 tell the red-headed evangelist, and maybe he won't skin 
 you, after all." 
 
 " Papa, you can be pretty mean when you want to,'' 
 said Carol, turning away. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 UNTYING A KNOT 
 
 Nevertheless, Darlington's words had their intended 
 effect. Carol wrote Kaltenborn a note telling him that 
 the burning of the opera-house had settled her vexed 
 question. It was not quite honest, she felt ; but in her 
 strait she blinked at this fact, and soothed her con- 
 science by promising herself to tell Kaltenborn the whole 
 truth, should he touch upon the matter. She despatched 
 the note to Mrs. Hicks's house by the office-boy. 
 
 Kaltenborn called that evening, to Carol's surprise. 
 She had supposed his presence would be required at the 
 "protracted meetings," as they were officially called. 
 He made no explanation, however, of his absence from 
 the church, and she, for some reason, did not want to 
 ask him for any. In her penitence over that unfair note, 
 which had given her more than one twinge of conscience 
 during the day, Carol was unusually gracious. Kalten- 
 born was in a reciprocal mood. There was a vein of 
 tenderness in his voice ; he moved about with a light- 
 ness unusual in him ; he talked about the results of the 
 evangelistic meetings — after Carol had introduced the 
 subject — in a favorable tone, quite in contrast with his 
 usual manner ; he spoke kindly of the evangelist ; and 
 when Carol opened the whole question of the usefulness 
 of evangelists, taking Kaltenborn's old stand against 
 
Untying a Knot 359 
 
 them, he canvassed the other side of the question with 
 judicial fairness. Summing all this up, Carol suspected 
 that Kaltenborn was in trouble of some kind, and that it 
 had subdued him. At last he asked, rather abruptly : 
 
 " Had you come to any conclusion about giving up 
 your party when you received the telegram announcing 
 the burning of the opera-house ? " 
 
 " What did you think? " she asked, evasively. 
 
 "Your note was obviously intended to convey the 
 impression that you had not," he answered. 
 
 Carol reddened. The very simplicity and unconscious- 
 ness of his imputation gave it a sting which he perhaps 
 would not knowingly have inflicted. 
 
 " I had,^^ she answered. He waited for her to go on, 
 and she asked, " Did you try to guess what my conclusion 
 was?" 
 
 " I did not. I had no means of knowing." 
 
 " Do you mean to say, Mr. Kaltenborn, that you were 
 in real doubt as to what I should do } " she asked, with 
 some feehng. 
 
 " How could I be otherwise," he answered, " when 
 you were in doubt yourself the last time I saw you? " 
 
 *' Sometimes a man knows a woman better than she 
 knows herself,'' she answered, with a pecuHar intonation. 
 " Excuse me a moment," she added, rising and leaving 
 the room. When she came back, she placed in his 
 hands a package of square envelopes, addressed and 
 stamped, and held together by a rubber band. "Read 
 any one of those," she said; and when he had done it, 
 she added, " I had those in my hands, and was at the 
 post-office door, when that telegram was received." 
 
 She was standing by his side, her figure drawn up a 
 little proudly. Kaltenborn looked up into her serious 
 
360 The Darlingtons 
 
 face with a searching glance, and as he looked, his own 
 face became illuminated. 
 
 " Why did you write these notes ? " he asked, gently. 
 
 " Why? " she repeated, blankly. " Why — why, be- 
 cause you wanted me to," and the tell-tale blood flooded 
 her cheeks. She attempted to turn away, but Kalten- 
 born suddenly took her hands, and drew himself up 
 beside her, the envelopes falling in a shower upon the 
 floor. 
 
 " Carol, I love you," he began, in a firm, purposeful 
 tone. " I have loved you for a long time, and now I 
 must tell you. I can't occupy this anomalous position 
 any longer. It is right that you should know I love you, 
 even though that knowledge ends all." 
 
 Carol stood with both her hands in his, her head 
 slightly bowed, her eyes directed downward toward her 
 hands. Her expression was tranquil, and thoughtful, and 
 respectful. The least compression showed about her 
 mouth. 
 
 They stood thus for some time, motionless and speech- 
 less. Then Carol's lips relaxed a little, as though she 
 was going to speak, and her face Hfted slightly ; but 
 nothing came of it. Kaltenborn gazed at her with a rare 
 tenderness, and pressed her hands together between 
 his. 
 
 " It is this secret which has been spoiling me," he 
 went on, softly, lest the spell which bound her should be 
 broken. " I have been like a man stricken with disease 
 who is afraid to go to a physician and learn the worst ; 
 who, from fear of the surgeon's knife, lets the insidious 
 growth gnaw out his vitals. But I am not afraid of the 
 knife any longer, — if it be necessary to use it." 
 
 Still the hands in his lay passive, and her lashes did 
 
Untying a Knot 361 
 
 not lift. Possibly the cheek nearest to him grew a shade 
 paler. Her whole body seemed to be Hstening. 
 
 " I have no right, perhaps, to hold your hands thus, 
 — even to speak to you thus," he continued. '' Perhaps, 
 in face of this confession, you may think I had no right 
 to ask you to give up your party, and my asking you to 
 do so may seem selfish. It was. But there was so httle 
 that I could ask of you in my position, where another 
 man might have asked so much, that I could not give 
 that little up. Do you forgive it? Do you forgive me 
 for asking it for friendship's sake, when I wanted it for 
 love's sake? " 
 
 In answer, she inclined her head a little further, and 
 for a moment Kaltenborn gazed silently and raptly upon 
 her square, white brow. 
 
 " There is so little that I can ask, even now," he 
 began, but broke off as in desperation at his own 
 helplessness. 
 
 *' I think I hear some one coming," she murmured 
 softly. "■ You have hold of my hands." 
 
 He released them, and moved toward the hall ^^I 
 cannot possibly talk to any one else just now," he ex- 
 plained, hurriedly. But the footfalls turned off into 
 another room, and Kaltenborn halted and glanced back 
 at the statuesque figure. She did not speak, and scarcely 
 looked at him, yet something in her eyes bade him stay. 
 He turned back ; but still she said nothing. 
 
 " I am laboring under no delusions," continued Kal- 
 tenborn, with some reserve, at her prolonged silence. 
 '^I can understand the embarrassing position I have 
 placed you in. I am just as much alive as you are to 
 the peculiar conditions under which our friendship has 
 existed, and have never for one moment forgotten the 
 
362 The Darlingtons 
 
 limitations set by those conditions, — do not forget them 
 now. I know that j^ou and I occupy widely separated 
 spheres in life. I may say that our intimacy has existed 
 on sufferance, and I realize that that sufferance, so far 
 as you are concerned, must now end. I have forfeited 
 it. And even were you willing, in your charity, to con- 
 tinue that sufferance, yet it would be unwise for you to 
 do so, and no kindness to me. And even were that 
 sufferance — '^ 
 
 ^^ Dofi^t call it that!" she entreated, with such an 
 undertone of passion that he looked a moment in amaze- 
 ment. 
 
 " Even had your friendship been merged into a much 
 deeper feeling," he continued, " you perhaps would be 
 helpless. The days of shepherds piping their love-songs 
 beneath the windows of princesses have gone by, if, in 
 fact, they ever existed outside of the strained fancies of 
 the poet. Love is not all to-day." 
 
 " It is, for a woman," she murmured. 
 
 A spasm of pain passed over his face, but he continued 
 stoically : " Country ministers' wives are not recruited 
 from the ranks of people in your social position. A 
 woman in your position is not fitted by religious or social 
 training for the life of a minister's wife. I don't suppose 
 you could be happy in such a life — unless you loved 
 your husband very, very much. Nobody knows all this 
 better than I. Therefore I say that I did wrong in 
 coming here after I saw the drift of my affections." 
 
 '* Are n't you too hard on yourself? " she asked, in 
 the same suppressed tone she had been using, looking 
 steadily down. 
 
 I am not hard enough," he returned, inexorably. 
 No matter what I might have hoped, no matter what 
 
 
Untying a Knot 363 
 
 encouragement you might have given me, I should, in 
 loyalty to my work, have kept away. I should have 
 known that it must end in bitterness. I did know it." 
 He paused a moment, as if reflecting on this bitterness. 
 " Perhaps it is best — I know it is best — for this bitter- 
 ness to come now. And when I reflect that you gave 
 me no encouragement, that I had no real hope — " Again 
 he broke off with a kind of impatient despair. 
 
 Carol still stood with averted eyes, an almost angelic 
 sweetness and patience lighting her face. Kaltenborn 
 looked at the fair picture a moment with longing eyes, 
 and then went on grimly : '' Can you imagine yourself 
 working with the people of the Methodist Church here, 
 allied for life to a man living on a salary of nine hundred 
 dollars a year? — your clothes scanned every Sunday, 
 and yourself censured if you put on anything too fine, 
 and your husband told, when he suggests that the quar- 
 terage is running behind, that his wife should not in- 
 dulge in such extravagance? — some of the members 
 refusing to pay their quarterage on the ground that the 
 preacher's wife dresses better than their wives and 
 daughters do, and consequently doesn't need the money 
 as much as they do? Could you give up dancing, 
 cards, and theatres, and cut yourself off from most of 
 your old associates ? " 
 
 " That is not beyond my imagination," she answered, 
 slowly, after a moment. Her eyes lifted, but instantly 
 fell before his gaze. 
 
 *' Do you mean that you could be happy under such 
 conditions? " he asked, wonderingly. 
 
 " I can conceive of compensations that would make 
 such a life, not only tolerable, but attractive." Her lips 
 quivered a little, and Kaltenborn looked at her blankly. 
 
364 The Darlingtons 
 
 striving to fathom her meaning. Such words seemed 
 truly strange, coming from her. 
 
 "What compensations, for instance?" he asked. 
 
 "The love of a loyal man," she answered. 
 
 Her words seemed to bring vividly before him all that 
 he had lost, and he suddenly exclaimed, with vehemence, 
 " Carol, I am most unhappy. The times and I are out 
 of joint. Everything I touch turns to dust. I am a 
 failure, and no courage, no philosophizing, will disguise 
 the fact any longer. Something is deadly wrong with 
 me. The very hopelessness of my future at this moment 
 makes me physically sick. Even supposing that all I 
 have dreamed of as the acme of happiness were true — 
 suppose you loved me enough to marry me. In what 
 light would your father and mother regard me as a hus- 
 band? They would scorn the notion. That is what 
 drives me mad with jealousy and shame. I have given 
 up all to be a preacher, to work for the uplifting of the 
 grovellers. Yet were I to-day the manager of my 
 father's brewery, as I once was, and the prospective 
 heir of his money, your own father, whose boy has been 
 degraded so often by that same stuff by which my father 
 has acquired his wealth, would regard me as a more 
 eligible husband for his daughter. You would yourself." 
 
 Carol suddenly lifted her head and transfixed him 
 with a look of such unutterable reproach and indigna- 
 tion that he added quickly, — 
 
 " I mean that you could more safely marry me — that 
 you would have a surer guarantee of happiness. You 
 would not be transplanted from one sphere of life to 
 another — to one that would be strange to you and cold 
 and constantly wearing. That's what I meant," he 
 added with tender penitence. " What training have you 
 
Untying a Knot 365 
 
 had for a minister's wife ? What sympathy could you 
 have for my work?" He paused, and looked at her in- 
 tently. ^' Don't think me harsh. I tell you, soberly, it 
 would break my heart to give you pain. I appreciate all 
 you have been to me. God knows I do — your friend- 
 ship and all. But that vast gulf between us — that 
 divergence of thought and motive and aim, which 
 began in you long before your birth, and has grown 
 more and more marked ever since — how can you cross 
 that ? How can I ? I have known it — I knew it 
 when I asked you to become my wife." 
 
 " When did you ask me to become your wife ? " 
 
 She lifted her eyes without shame or fear, as though 
 bidding him to look into her soul. Kaltenborn blinked 
 at her helplessly, blinded by the light of a great revela- 
 tion. Then her eyes dilated with a sudden fear, and clasp- 
 ing her hands over her shame-flushed face, she cried in 
 anguish : " Oh, Stephen, can't you see that I love you ? " 
 
 Still he sat speechless and motionless, stunned with 
 the magnitude of his thoughts. After some time — he 
 had no idea what length of time — he walked over to 
 Carol's chair with perfect composure, and laid his hand 
 upon her bowed head. 
 
 " Look up, love," he said. 
 
 She shook her head, and when he repeated his re- 
 quest, she answered, " Not yet, Stephen." 
 
 He dropped down beside her, with a smile, and 
 pulled her hands away. Still she would not let him look 
 into her eyes, and, encircling his neck with her arms, 
 she hid her face upon his shoulder. 
 
 When Kaltenborn got back to his lodging, about 
 eleven o'clock, he knocked at the evangelist's door. 
 
366 The Darlingtons 
 
 That worthy, Kaltenborn knew, was as slow in going to 
 bed as he was in leaving it in the morning, and he was not 
 surprised to find liim still up. 
 
 "How's your throat?" asked Kaltenborn, almost 
 joyously. 
 
 '•'Better," answered the evangelist, eying Kaltenborn 
 sharply. 
 
 "Will you preach to-morrow night?" asked the 
 latter. 
 
 *'The Lord willing, I shall. What 's the racket? " 
 
 " I have something to tell you, my brother," said 
 Kaltenborn, with an overflow of fraternalism that made 
 the evangelist prick up his ears still further. ^^ I was out 
 to-night to see that young woman who was to give the 
 theatre party, — Miss Darlington." 
 
 " Your landlady insinuated as much to me," said 
 McAndrews, with a grin. 
 
 "I may say in confidence," Kaltenborn went on, in- 
 different now to Mrs. Hicks's flings, " that as a friend of 
 hers I had previously asked her to abandon this party. 
 I am free to confess that I see no particular harm in 
 theatre parties, and that I asked her to give up this one 
 simply that our friendship might not be jeopardized — I 
 have n't time now to go into the details of that. I 
 found to-night that she had decided to give up her 
 party before she knew of the destruction of the opera- 
 house at High Point. In fact, by a rather queer co- 
 incidence, she had the letters cancelling her invitations 
 in her hand, and was standing at the post-office door, 
 when the telegram was brought up to her. At dinner 
 you told me that, in view of the burning of the opera- 
 house, you would substitute for the sermon against 
 theatre-going one called 'The Hand of God.' This 
 
Untying a Knot 367 
 
 sermon, I take it from what you said, treats such 
 events as the destruction of this opera-house as provi- 
 dential interventions in many cases ; and I presume you 
 mean to make a local application in this particular case. 
 Without raising a doctrinal point, I want to ask you, 
 in view of the self-denying and magnanimous conduct of 
 this young woman, not to preach even the ' Hand of 
 God ' sermon. It would do Miss Darlington a great in- 
 justice, especially as she cannot publicly explain what 
 I have just explained to you. And she would n't do it 
 if she could," he added. 
 
 The evangelist, who had listened with the greatest in- 
 terest, calmly lit a cigar. " Kaltenborn, if your simple 
 request induced that young woman to give up her 
 party," he exclaimed, admiringly, '' you ought to go into 
 evangelistic work." 
 
 A slight flush showed on Kaltenborn's cheek, and he 
 said, smilingly, "Then you will forego that sermon?" 
 
 " Certainly I will, certainly. I 'd be a brute if I 
 did n't. She 's done her duty, but whether by her God 
 or by you, I 'm not clear." He gazed meditatively at 
 the ceiling, taking little, short, highly relishable puffs at 
 his cigar. " I '11 have to get up a new sermon for next 
 Saturday night, I guess. Friday night exhausts my 
 repertory. You see, throwing out 'The Fleshpots 
 of Egypt' — that's the theatre sermon, — and 'The 
 Hand of God ' both, kind of cuts me short. Still, it 
 strikes me that I've got one shot left in my lockers. 
 Yes ! Any Mormon elders been around here lately, 
 proselyting, — say within the last year? " 
 
 "None that I know of," answered Kaltenborn, re- 
 pressing a smile. 
 
 " I 'm sorry — under the circumstances. One of the 
 
368 The Darlingtons 
 
 hottest shots I Ve got is * Mormonism : the Degradation 
 of Woman, and the Desolation of the Home.' The only 
 trouble with it is you can't blaze away at random. 
 There would n't be much sense, you see, in preaching 
 it here unless you 've had a Mormon elder or two with 
 you in the past year or so. It 's kind of funny you ain't 
 had, too. I strike their trail in a good many places^ 
 and when it ain't too cold. I go after 'em — hot." 
 
CHAPTER XXX 
 
 THE serpent's CUNNING 
 
 Herbert Darlington sat in his office looking over some 
 manuscript tariff-sheets which were to go to the printer 
 in the morning. It was night, and the building was so 
 still that he could hear the faint scampering to and fro 
 of a mouse which had recently taken up quarters some- 
 where in his room. The slight noise disturbed him out 
 of all proportion to its volume ; and, pausing in his 
 work, he fell to thinking of a harassing detective story 
 he had once read when a boy, in which the young 
 Sleuth was cast into an underground vault full of raven- 
 ous rats. Bert had reached that point in his retrospec- 
 tion where the young hero was battHng with sleep on 
 one hand and the ferocious rodents on the other, when 
 the venturesome mouse went scuttling through the 
 waste-paper basket. The sharp, crackling sound made 
 Bert jump, and in a gust of temper very unusual in him, 
 he kicked the basket across the room. 
 
 He turned to the sheets again, but he had no heart 
 for the work. The room seemed cold, though it was 
 a mild summer evening, and the stillness, now that the 
 mouse was frightened into silence, oppressed him. He 
 arose, and for some minutes walked restlessly up and 
 down the room, with his hands in his pockets. It was 
 important that the tariff-sheets should go to the printer 
 
 24 
 
370 The Darlingtons 
 
 in the morning, yet he finally locked them up unfin- 
 ished, lighted a cigar, and turned out the Hghts. 
 
 On the outside steps below, he asked himself where 
 he should go. It was just half-past eight. Elsie's 
 parlor naturally came to his mind first, but he as quickly 
 dismissed the thought. Old man Clifford was more 
 than he could tolerate just then, and, somehow, even 
 Elsie did not appeal to him. But conscious of his 
 unjust mood, he tried to picture himself at her door, 
 then in the parlor, then talking with her. It would not 
 do ; he knew he would be moody and taciturn and 
 despondent. 
 
 There were still left his home and his club. The 
 latter was a little social organization with quarters in the 
 Ashboro Inn. The rooms contained a piano and a 
 billiard table, and here the boys smoked or read or 
 played cards or sang. The membership embraced ten 
 or twelve of Ashboro's most prominent young men ; 
 but, in spite of this, it was hinted in many quarters that 
 a great deal of wickedness went on behind the drawn 
 curtains of the club, and it had been denounced from 
 the pulpit of the Methodist Church, before Kaltenborn's 
 time, as a half-way house to hell. These strictures 
 were grossly unjust for the most part, though it is prob- 
 able that some things did go on at the club which would 
 not bear the broad light of day. 
 
 Bert finally decided to go home. But at the gate an 
 unaccountable melancholy took possession of him — a 
 feeling akin to homesickness. The house before him 
 had an unfamiliar, inhospitable air in the starlight, and 
 increased the chilliness which he had felt in the office. 
 He thought that possibly he was going to have a chill, 
 and that the best thing for him to do would be to go to 
 
The Serpent's Cunning 371 
 
 bed. But toward his own room he felt an especial 
 repugnance, and the idea of going to bed there, just 
 then, was exceedingly disagreeable. 
 
 Standing there irresolute, his thoughts again turned to 
 Elsie, and as quickl}' turned away again. Her home was 
 even more cheerless to his fancy just then than his own. 
 As a last resort, therefore, he decided on the club ; but 
 as he walked aimlessly along, and ran over in his mind 
 those he would be most likely to find there, he was con- 
 scious of a sharp antipathy to all of them. He might 
 go up to the Business Men's Club, of which he was also 
 a member, he reflected. He usually found little pleas- 
 ure in the society of the elderly men who gathered 
 there, but to-night, with the perversity which had 
 fastened upon him, he fancied that it would be rather 
 entertaining to watch these old men playing penuchle, 
 or hsten to them discussing poHtics. He stepped off 
 quite briskly, with a certain cozy sofa in mind on which 
 he could lie back and smoke, and, comparatively un- 
 observed, hear and see all that went on. 
 
 After going a block he suddenly stopped. His father 
 would be there — he had heard him say at dinner that 
 he thought he would go up that evening. Just why this 
 fact should influence him, Bert did not know or pause 
 to inquire ; but the thought had given him a sudden 
 distaste for the Business Men's Club also. He swung 
 around, and walked back to the house, yawning discon- 
 solately. Entering his room and snapping on the elec- 
 tric light, he glanced around him, without taking off his 
 hat or sitting down. In spite of its luxurious furnish- 
 ings, the place was just as cheerless as he had expected 
 to find it. 
 
 His books offered no temptation to remain, for he 
 
372 The Darlingtons 
 
 never read much, and still less on these warm evenings. 
 His Bible — a present from his mother years before — 
 lay on the table. He smiled half-cynically as he 
 recalled the earnestness with which he had searched its 
 pages during his convalescence. He had not opened it 
 now for several weeks, and felt less than ever like doing 
 so at this moment. But in sheer contrariness he did 
 open it, still standing, and glanced idly at a random 
 page. The words were as dead and foreign to him in 
 spirit as though they had been written on another 
 planet, by a race of beings buried and forgotten aeons 
 before. He tossed the book down irreverently, and 
 walked out. 
 
 There was a light in Carol's room, but he did not go 
 in. In fact, he softened his footfalls somewhat as he 
 passed her door ; and when he went out the front door, 
 he closed it with rather less noise than usual. 
 
 For an hour or two he roamed the streets in the 
 residence part of the town, with his eyes turned toward 
 the starry heavens. At times he was filled with the most 
 ennobling thoughts, and a strange happiness thrilled 
 him ; again he fell into a despondent, self-pitying mood. 
 On the whole, though, he felt much better at ten 
 o'clock, and turned his steps homeward quite cheerfully. 
 But at the gate he felt the same insurmountable repug- 
 nance to going to bed, and in a flash he decided to go 
 up to the club, late as it was. 
 
 As he walked down the slope, he saw his father and 
 another man under a street-lamp ahead, approaching 
 him. For no reason that he could assign, except that 
 he was in a solitary mood, he crossed the street into the 
 shadow, and passed them unrecognized. 
 
 At the club four or five young fellows. Cash Winter 
 
The Serpent's Cunning 373 
 
 among them, were sitting around a card-table. One of 
 them was idly shuffling a pack of cards; the others 
 were tilted back in their chairs, as though they had 
 finished playing. Bert saluted them briefly, and not 
 very sociably; and, standing a little apart from them, 
 smoked his cigar in momentary silence. His presence 
 seemed to throw a restraint over the others, as though 
 possibly they had been discussing something not meant 
 for his ears. Bert felt this, and was about to move into 
 the other room, when one of the boys said, — 
 
 " Bring out your bottle, Jackson. Bert 's no baby. 
 Besides, it ain't a square deal." 
 
 The young man addressed as Jackson hesitated a 
 moment, and then with evident reluctance took from a 
 little shelf under the table — ordinarily used for chips — 
 several small whiskey-glasses and a squat brown bottle. 
 While he filled the glasses, another member of the com- 
 pany went for water for a "wash." 
 
 " I '11 have one on you, too, Jackson." It was Bert 
 who spoke. He did not smile, and there was a hardness, 
 almost a defiance, in his voice and eyes. 
 
 The company instantly exchanged significant glances, 
 which Bert could not have failed to notice. Jackson, with 
 his hand still on the bottle, flushed slightly, and glanced 
 almost appealingly at the others. Their faces were ex- 
 pressionless. Then Jackson slowly filled another glass. 
 
 " Bert, if you drink,. I don't," said Winter, decidedly, 
 setting his glass down, and looking Darlington squarely 
 in the eye. 
 
 Bert grew slightly paler, and did not speak for a mo- 
 ment. Then he said, haughtily, " Very well, I will not 
 interfere with your pleasure," and stalked out of the 
 roorau 
 
374 "T^^ Darlingtons 
 
 As he approached the bright front of a saloon on the 
 street below, — the other fronts were dark, — he was 
 conscious of a temptation to go in. Not to drink, simply 
 to go in. The temptation to drink had passed away. 
 He resolved, though, that he would not even go in ; but 
 after passing the door, he deliberately turned back ; and 
 it was with a peculiar, almost dehghtful, sensation that 
 he felt himself carried along into the saloon, — without 
 volition, as it were, something like one who falls through 
 space in a dream. He stopped at the cigar-case, how- 
 ever, bought a cigar, lit it, looked around in a slightly 
 bewildered way, and walked out again. When he reached 
 the next corner he was trembling all over, and his forehead 
 was damp with perspiration. 
 
 A panic feehng like hysteria was taking possession 
 of him. He felt what he had never felt before. The 
 horrible feehng was on him, like some nightmare, that he 
 was going to take a drink, and was going to get drunk. 
 In the grip of this terrible sensation, he felt as helpless as 
 a maniac in his frenzy. In his terror, his wits fled ; his 
 blood seemed turned to ice-water, and a deadly coldness 
 settled around his heart. He felt as if he was going to 
 faint, and a moment later his knees did in fact give way, 
 and he sank gently to the sidewalk, just as one of the 
 young fellows he had left in the club came up. He 
 looked sharply down at Bert in the darkness, and then, 
 as if assured that nothing much was wrong, he asked : 
 
 "What 's the matter, old man? " 
 
 The other's voice and presence stimulated Bert imme- 
 diately. " Dropped my knife," he mumbled, and to gain 
 time made a pretence of groping over the dark pave- 
 ment. The other was about to strike a match when 
 Bert added, " Never mind ! I 've got it." By a supreme 
 effort, he raised himself to his feet. 
 
The Serpent's Cunning 375 
 
 The other was in a sociable mood, — perhaps he fell 
 a Httle contrite over the recent scene in the club rooms, — 
 and he stood and talked for ten minutes. Those minutes 
 were as so many hours of torture to Herbert. He heard a 
 voice a long way off. talking of things that he knew 
 nothing about, but which he was conscious he ought to 
 know something about. He answered as best he could, 
 though, and his companion seemed to discover nothing 
 amiss. After a little Bert's faculties cleared, and when 
 his companion finally moved away, he was almost sorry. 
 
 He grasped his cane tightly, and walked swiftly up 
 the slope toward his home. But he did not stop there, 
 or even pause. He kept on, until he reached Mrs. 
 Hicks's cottage. He stood on the steps some time be- 
 fore he rang the bell, though, and once he half turned 
 away ; but immediately feeling a return of that miser- 
 able, lost, helpless sensation, he eagerly and desperately 
 seized the knob of the old-fashioned bell. After some 
 delay, Mrs. Hicks cautiously opened the door a few 
 inches. Bert asked for Kaltenborn with what he felt to 
 be cowardly eagerness, but he was almost shameless now. 
 He stiffened in terror when the old lady told him that 
 Kaltenborn was over at Brandy wine, attending an 
 Epworth League convention, and would not be back for 
 two days. Then recognizing Bert, she opened the door 
 a little further, and asked him if any one was sick. 
 
 Bert did not answer. For a moment he felt like 
 throwing himself at the old woman's feet, and begging 
 her to save him. But even under the scourge of his 
 dread terror, his pride balked at this humiliation, and he 
 abruptly turned away into the darkness without another 
 word. 
 
 Brandy wine was on the H. P., R.; A., and S. railroad, 
 
376 The Darlingtons 
 
 and for a moment Bert entertained a wild idea of going 
 down to the round-house, ordering an engine fired up, 
 and being taken to Kaltenborn. But again his pride 
 balked, — he felt a little better now, — and he walked 
 swiftly toward Elsie Clifford's home. To his inexpressible 
 joy, there was a light in her room, which was in the front 
 of the house, over the parlor. Dismissing his first idea 
 of ringing, he tiptoed up into the stoop, from the side of 
 which he could command a view of Elsie's window. 
 Clasping the post tightly in his arms, he gazed up at the 
 illuminated curtain, as he might have gazed at the rock 
 of salvation, his lips parted, his eyes glistening with a 
 piteous intensity, his fine face rapt with reverence and 
 awe. 
 
 He had held this fixed position for some time when 
 the shadow of a figure fell across the curtain, lingered an 
 instant, and disappeared. 
 
 " Dear little girl ! dear little girl ! dear little Elsie ! " 
 he whispered, with transcendent solemnity. '^ I am not 
 afraid. I can fight it out. I '11 be brave. I won't give 
 up. I '11 do it for your sake, sweet one. I love you, 
 darling. I love you so much. I will always love you. 
 I will die for you. I will be brave for you. I am not 
 afraid, am I, dear one ? You won't let me fall, will you ? 
 Pray for me, love, and God will help me for your sake. 
 I can't be bad as long as you love me. No, no, sweet 
 little girl, dear little girl, pride of my life, salvation of the 
 world ! " 
 
 As he clung to that hard, insensate post, minute after 
 minute, peace came to his storm-tossed soul. Somebody 
 went by, whistling, on the other side of the street. Bert 
 listened as attentively as though it were the enthralling 
 strains of an angel band. Then he smiled, — a happy, 
 
The Serpent's Cunning 377 
 
 joyous smile. Ah, it was so good to live ! So good to 
 breathe the cool night air ! So good to look up at the 
 stars ! So good to smell the first early flowers ! He 
 wondered who it could be that whistled so merrily. 
 Whoever it was must be very happy. He wondered if 
 the person had ever drunk, or if his father ever had, or 
 his grandfather. Probably not, or he would not be so 
 happy, he thought, with a momentary pang. But the 
 pain instantly passed. Most people were happy. Many 
 parents and grandparents had drunk, and yet their sons 
 and grandsons had saved themselves. He had, for one. 
 
 He slipped out into the street again, like a strong man 
 ready for the race. What a glorious thing to be a man ! 
 To be able to overcome by will-power alone the miser- 
 able, degrading weaknesses of the body ! And to know 
 that one had overcome them ! His exultation was almost 
 painful, for in that moment he was convinced that he 
 had exorcised forever the demon which had afflicted him 
 so sorely and so long. He held his head high ; he 
 walked with a springy step ; he twirled his cane jauntily ; 
 he carolled snatches of song. 
 
 Could a hunchbacked, shrivelled, crooked-limbed 
 dwarf be magically made over while he slept into a fair- 
 faced, strong, clean-Hmbed man, his joy and amazement 
 over his metamorphosis could scarcely be greater than 
 were young DarHngton's over his own metamorphosis. 
 He felt like one emerging from the pitchy blackness and 
 horrid cries of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, out 
 into the glorious sunlight of God, with warmth and life 
 and singing birds and nodding flowers all around. A 
 new era in his life had begun. He was now like other 
 men. He could do as they did. So confident was he, 
 in the plenitude of this new and amazing strength, that 
 
378 
 
 The Darlingtons 
 
 he felt he could even take one drink, had he wanted it, 
 and then easily stop there. True, he had felt so in the 
 past, and had been deceived ; but there was something 
 vastly different in his present confidence. 
 
 After a little, he felt a desire to prove that difference, 
 not only for his own satisfaction, but for the satisfaction 
 of those who might happen to see him drink. Some- 
 thing within him warned him, even now, not to try this. 
 But as he felt not the slightest craving for liquor, and as 
 this prudent thought wounded his new pride, and chilled 
 his ardor, he impatiently shook it off. 
 
 i 
 
CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 REAPING THE WHIRLWIND 
 
 Bert deliberately walked down-town again. The 
 saloons were ostensibly closed at this hour, but he had 
 no difficulty in effecting an entrance. The bar-tender, 
 though, after seeing who it was that he had admitted, 
 looked anything but pleased, and reluctantly went back, 
 to his place behind the bar. No other customers were 
 present, but the click of billiard-balls and the sound of 
 tipsy levity came from a back room. 
 
 *' I '11 take a little whiskey, please," said Bert, in a 
 clear, firm tone. When the liquor was set out, he 
 steadily poured the glass half full, looked the bar-tender 
 squarely in the eye, as he lifted the draught to his Hps, 
 and then drank it down. As he set the glass back, a 
 burst of rude laughter came from the other room. 
 
 "It is too bad that some people have to abuse 
 whiskey," observed Bert, quietly, taking an easy position 
 against the bar. The bar-tender seemed inclined to 
 take this sentiment, coming from a man of Darlington's 
 notorious reputation, as a joke. But something in the 
 young fellow's face restrained the bar-tender's knowing 
 smile, and he gave Bert a searching, puzzled second 
 glance. 
 
 " It takes all kinds of people, Mr. Darl'n'ton, to make 
 a world," he answered, conservatively, as he rinsed the 
 glasses. 
 
380 The Darlingtons 
 
 "The world could very profitably dispense with that 
 kind/' returned Bert, pointedly. He stood and smoked 
 in silence for a moment. " I believe I '11 have another 
 one," he added, in the same quiet tone. 
 
 The bar-tender set the bottle and glasses out again 
 with evident reluctance, and glanced half-involuntarily 
 into the back room, as though he were calculating 
 on what assistance he might receive from that quar- 
 ter in case young Darlington had one of his dreaded 
 "spells," with which the bar-tender was only too well 
 acquainted. 
 
 Bert did not fail to notice the other's reluctance, and 
 he said graciously, pausing with the brown bottle in his 
 hand, "■ You fellows have been a little bit afraid of me in 
 the past, have n't you ? ". 
 
 "Well, I guess we have," said the other, with a 
 sycophantic grin. " You 're pretty bad when you get 
 started." 
 
 " I/ll never get started again," said Bert, impressively, 
 as he tossed off the liquor. " That 's all in the past. I 
 have been cured." 
 
 The bar-tender received this statement with a rather 
 dubious countenance at first. But the man before him 
 was so plainly sober that he asked, finally, "Gold 
 cure ? " 
 
 ''No, no, nothing like that," answered Bert, quickly. 
 " Something infinitely better." 
 
 " I never had much faith in that gold cure," observed 
 the vender. " I 've seen too many relapses." 
 
 " Any purely physical cure is bound to end in a 
 relapse," said Bert, loftily. " My cure was nothing of that 
 kind. I am hardly at liberty to say just what it was. I 
 discovered it myself, though. Or, rather, it came to me. 
 
Reaping the Whirlwind 381 
 
 I may say that I consider it as a pure and simple gift of 
 God's." 
 
 The bar-tender's dubious air returned, and he fur- 
 tively scrutinized his customer's face again for any evi- 
 dence of earlier potations that evening. " Still, a man 's 
 got to be careful after takin' any cure," he observed, 
 practically. 
 
 A shadowy smile flitted over Bert's classic features, 
 half amused, half sarcastic. Evidently he had not 
 missed the animus of the other's remark. He did 
 not answer, but when he shortly said, " I guess I '11 take 
 one more and then go home," it was with the manner of 
 flouting the other's admonition. 
 
 The bar-tender, now that the prospect of a speedy 
 riddance of his dangerous customer was in sight, set the 
 Hquor out with greater alacrity this time. Still, Bert 
 showed no disposition to go after this drink, but stood 
 gazing intently at a piece of terra cotta statuary repre- 
 senting an old Knickerbocker, which stood on the end 
 of the bar. The vender waited patiently several min- 
 utes, and then said with a forced yawn, " Well, I guess 
 I '11 close up," and turned to his cash register to make 
 up his cash. 
 
 "Give me another drink," said Bert, without turning 
 his head ; and there was something so peremptory in his 
 tone that the bar-tender, with his knowledge of Bert's 
 nature when in hquor, dared not refuse. 
 
 After serving the drink, he turned to his cash again, 
 at which he worked with unusual expedition, at the same 
 time bawling to the occupants of the back room to 
 hurry up and finish their game, as he wanted to lock 
 up. Before he was through, though, another request 
 for a drink came from Bert. The bar-tender paused in 
 
382 The Darlingtons 
 
 his work, with his broad back toward his customer. He 
 could see Bert's reflection in the mirror. As yet the 
 young man showed no marked evidence of intoxication. 
 He stood erect, and spoke with no thickness or uncer- 
 tainty. But his cheeks were flushed, and his eyes very 
 bright and sHghtly vacant. 
 
 "Ain't you had about enough?" asked the bar- 
 tender, harshly. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Bert, with ultra pohteness, 
 at the same time leaning over the bar, as if to indicate 
 that he had not heard. 
 
 " I said I thought you 'd had about enough," repeated 
 the bar-tender, not so boldly as before. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Bert again. It would 
 have been a very dull man indeed that could have 
 missed the significance ^( Darlington's expression and 
 tone this time. The bar-tender backed down, and said, 
 with forced geniahty, — 
 
 " Have one on me, Bert, and then go home." 
 
 " I drink only at the expense of my friends," answered 
 Bert, haughtily, throwing down a silver dollar. 
 
 After swallowing the dram, he again began to study 
 the terra cotta figure. The vender watched him ner- 
 vously, and though nearly twice the weight of the slim 
 young fellow, he again glanced out into the back room. 
 Suddenly, without the least warning, Bert lifted his cane 
 and smashed the image into a thousand pieces. He 
 then resumed his easy posture without vouchsafing the 
 astounded and indignant bar-tender so much as a glance. 
 
 "What's that for?" the other demanded, threaten- 
 ingly, but his bravado rang false. 
 
 " I did n't like the way it looked at me," answered 
 Darlington, gravely. " Its eyes looked at me with a 
 
Reaping the Whirlwind 383 
 
 steadiness verging upon impoliteness. They seemed to 
 insinuate that I am drunk. They winked, as if to say, 
 * Behold the man ! ' They rolled, and grew large and 
 small, and looked as cold as a fish's. They bulged and 
 stared and looked as though they were afraid of me. 
 In fact, bar-tender," he suddenly exclaimed, swinging 
 about and facing the other with a satanic glitter in his 
 eyes, ''they looked a good deal as yours look now ! " 
 
 The bar-tender tried to laugh it off, but his lips 
 stiffened with terror. The image that faced him so 
 threateningly was in fact appalling, for Bert was fast 
 lapsing into what may be called a second consciousness. 
 The gentle, manly youth was making way for the bestial, 
 homicidal fiend. The amiable mouth drooped cruelly 
 and the tender gray eyes of an hour before gave no more 
 promise of mercy now than those of a famishing tigress. 
 
 The bar-tender, after a moment's hesitation, seized 
 a beer mallet, and began to back away. Bert vaulted 
 lightly over the bar and grasped a lemon-knife, bran- 
 dished it high in the air, and sprang forward. The 
 other fled with a cry of terror. Bert did not pursue 
 him, but the flying man did not pause until he had 
 escaped through the back door. The loafers in the 
 billiard-room quickly followed him, with a sobriety and 
 prudence which one would hardly have credited them 
 with a moment before. 
 
 The maniacal fury which follow-ed in the unfortunate 
 youth, resulting in the almost complete destruction of 
 the furnishings of the saloon, is not to be described. 
 From that time Bert remembered nothing clearly. 
 Events came and went like a dream. The dark street 
 in which he soon found himself, gave way after a 
 little to the glare of some lighted room. He saw dark 
 
384 The Darlingtons 
 
 figures advance and recede, and was vaguely conscious 
 that they were inflicting pain of some kind upon him. 
 But he didn't mind the pain much, and, retaliating, the 
 dark figures were soon all dispersed and he was alone 
 again. 
 
 When he next became conscious, he heard the click 
 of wheels beneath him, and recognized the swaying 
 motion of a railroad coach. When the train seemed to 
 stop longer than usual he got off, — he had no idea how 
 or where. It was night again, he took it, for he saw a 
 long fine of lights stretching away ahead of him. He 
 asked somebody on the street what town it was. The 
 person only laughed at him. Bert struck at him, there 
 was a sound of rapidly retreating footsteps, and he was 
 again alone. 
 
 He wanted whiskey again now. When he finally 
 found his way into a saloon, and ordered a drink, the 
 bar-tender asked him to show his money first. Bert 
 quietly laid down a handful of bills and silver on the bar 
 — all the money he had. The man picked out a bill 
 and handed him back some change. Bert knew he was 
 being robbed ; still he said nothing, but sat down in a 
 chair and instantly fell asleep. 
 
 He awoke with his own name sounding in his ears. 
 The room was full of fog, apparently, and through the 
 fog dark shapes passed to and fro. These shapes were 
 men, he knew, and they were after him, he conceived. 
 Tottering toward an open door, he crept down a flight of 
 steps on hands and knees. It was damp and cold at 
 the bottom, like a cellar, and he hid himself behind 
 some barrels. 
 
 His next consciousness found him aboard another 
 train. This mystified him considerably, but he was 
 
Reaping the Whirlwind 385 
 
 too stupid yet to attempt any reasoning. For some 
 time he watched the landscape flying by, though it 
 was only a dark, blurred mass to him. As he thus 
 leaned heavily against the window-ledge, he became 
 conscious of some hard object pressing against his side. 
 Investigating, he discovered a pint flask in his pocket, 
 containing a few spoonfuls of whiskey. The sight of the 
 stuff nauseated him, but he knew its value as a stimulant, 
 and he forced it down his throat. For a moment it 
 made him very sick, and then his pulse began to 
 strengthen, and he was soon able to take note of the 
 faces around him. Finally, a young brakeman came 
 through the car, and, stopping at Bert's seat, asked him 
 how he felt. 
 
 "What day is this?" asked Bert, weakly, without 
 answering. 
 
 ii' 
 
 ■This is Friday," answered the other. 
 
 A spasm of pain passed over Bert's face, but he 
 merely said, ^^Thank you," and turned to the window 
 again. He had been out since Tuesday night. 
 
 He ran his hand over his face. It was covered with 
 a three days' stubble. The movement revealed to him, 
 further, that his hands were as grimy as a coal-heaver's, 
 and were badly cut and bruised. He noticed, too, that 
 his diamond ring was gone. He next glanced down at 
 his clothes. A tramp's could hardly have been more 
 disreputable, for he was literally in rags. He felt for his 
 watch only to find that also gone, and he remembered 
 that it was the third watch he had thus lost since his 
 twentieth birthday. 
 
 When the brakeman next came through the car, Bert 
 halted him. "Where is my father?" he asked in hag- 
 gard tones. 
 
 25 
 
386 The Darlingtons 
 
 " He '11 be at the depot with a carriage when we get 
 to Ashboro. The conductor telegraphed to him at 
 Rankelman that we had you. Your father was out on 
 the line lookin' for you yesterday and the day before," 
 he added, famiharly. 
 
 At that moment a gentleman passed through the car 
 with whom Bert was well acquainted. He looked 
 squarely at Bert, but did not speak. 
 
 " Why did n't he speak to me ? " asked Bert, simply. 
 
 "I don't suppose he knowed you," answered the 
 brakeman, with a laugh. " Mighty few would in that rig. 
 That headpiece you 're wearin' don't look just right on 
 you." 
 
 Bert languidly hfted the " headpiece " in question, and 
 found it to be a conductor's old cap. He gazed at it 
 with perfect gravity for a moment, without speaking, and 
 then put it on again. 
 
 The train reached Ashboro a few minutes after dusk. 
 As it rolled at reduced speed through the freight yard, a 
 dusky figure swung off the platform-steps of one of the 
 coaches. For a moment it reeled and almost fell. It was 
 Bert Darlington. The shame of getting off at the station, 
 before a curious throng, was more than he could bear. 
 
 He sat down on a tie to recover his strength. This 
 part of the yard was sometimes used by the residents of 
 the east side as a short cut to the stores, and a moment 
 later Bert saw a young woman crossing the tracks 
 toward him. It was not until she was within ten feet of 
 him that he recognized Ethel Dane, Carol's dearest giri 
 friend. He lowered his head so that she might not recog- 
 nize him. As the young woman came up she gave the 
 doubled-up figure a half-frightened glance, such as she 
 would have given a tramp, gathered her skirts in her 
 
Reaping the Whirlwind 387 
 
 hand, as if to escape contamination, and avoided him 
 by six or seven feet, although he sat just on the edge of 
 the path. But after passing him, she slackened her 
 speed, stopped, and turned and looked back. In a 
 moment she approached him again. 
 
 " Are you sick, sir? " she asked, timidly. " Because if 
 you are, we have rooms here that you can go to." 
 
 For a moment Bert was tempted to shake his head 
 and let her go on undeceived. But it was too degrad- 
 ing, and lifting his head, he took off his cap. Even 
 then she did not recognize him until he said, sadly, 
 '' Don't you know me, Ethel?" 
 
 For a moment she stared at him with a blanched face 
 and horrified eyes. Then, bursting into tears, she 
 sobbed, " Poor little Carol ! " 
 
 Bert watched her with dull, tired eyes, as though her 
 grief were utterly alien to him ; but finally he said, 
 simply and sweetly, " Don't cry, Ethel. '^ 
 
 "Are you going home?" she asked, wiping her 
 eyes. 
 
 "Yes," he answered. 
 
 "Then I'll go and tell your father. He's at the 
 station. I '11 have him drive down here for you." 
 
 It was not more than half an hour later before little 
 knots of people were gathered here and there on the 
 main street. There was one knot in front of Tompkins's 
 drug-store ; another at the foot of the stairs leading up 
 to Dr. Still's office ; and another in front of the under- 
 taking establishment of Marmaduke Hundreth. There 
 was a hurried crossing of the street, first this way and 
 then that, without much regard to the cross-walks. 
 Clerks, bareheaded and in their shirt-sleeves, formed 
 
388 
 
 The Darlingtons 
 
 smaller knots of twos or threes in front of their respec- 
 tive places of business. 
 
 A lady in a buggy drove up to the curb near the little 
 crowd at old man Hundreth's, and instantly some one 
 hurried over to her and imparted some startling intelli- 
 gence, for she gave a sharp exclamation, and dropped 
 one of her lines. A trio of girls paused curiously and 
 wistfully near the drug-store, upon which a young man 
 immediately detached himself from the group and 
 stepped up to the girls, and began a hurried recital. 
 The girls' soft eyes grew round and sober. A little later, 
 in the residence portions of the town, women might 
 have been seen in animated conversation over back- 
 yard fences, or hastening, bare-headed^ to the next- 
 door neighbor's. 
 
 Herbert Darlington had been killed in the yards by a 
 switch engine. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 AFTERMATH 
 
 There are some human events which burst upon a small 
 community with cataclysmic violence ; which for a brief 
 instant derange the social machine, give pause to the 
 course of trade and industry, and even momentarily dis- 
 tract the votaries at the shrine of Mammon. Such 
 an event was Herbert Darlington's tragic death. The 
 prominence of his family, his responsible position in the 
 railroad, his pecuHar weakness, and his unfailing kind- 
 liness and amiability, all lent force to a blow that would 
 have been stunning under any circumstances. On that 
 fatal night there was perhaps not one home, high or low, 
 in Ashboro, which was not affected by the sad event. 
 In many homes he was sincerely mourned, either as 
 friend or benefactor ; in others, he was pitied ; and in 
 still others, he was held up as an impressive example of 
 the vanity of life and the destructiveness of strong drink. 
 On the afternoon of his funeral the village was wrapped 
 in an almost Sunday quietude. Most of the stores were 
 closed for an hour or two, at least. The railroad shops 
 were shut down for the day ; the general offices were 
 closed from morning till night, with the exception of the 
 train-despatcher's office, where it was necessary to retain 
 a few telegraph operators. A special train was run the 
 length of the road to give such of the employes as wanted 
 
390 
 
 The Darlingtons 
 
 to do so an opportunity to attend the funeral, and the 
 coaches came into Ashboro loaded to the platforms. The 
 Episcopal Church could not hold a quarter of the crowd 
 which gathered there. The I7itellige7icer of the following 
 week is authority for the statement that the funeral train 
 was nearly twice the largest in the history of Ashboro. 
 
 Resolutions of regret and sympathy were passed by 
 Bert's club, and by the Business Men's Club, and by the 
 Ladies' Union Aid Society, of which Mrs. Darlington 
 was a member. Several social events set for the week 
 following Bert's death were postponed, — even a dance 
 which was to have been given by a benefit association 
 with which Bert had had no affiliation whatever, and 
 with few of whose members he had had even the slightest 
 acquaintance. 
 
 Public sentiment at first flamed so high against the 
 traffickers in liquor that it was hardly safe for one of 
 them to be seen outside of his place of business ; an 
 incendiary attempt was made against one of the most 
 pestiferous grog-shops ; and the temperance party con- 
 fidently predicted the annihilation of the license party at 
 the next local election. But waves of sentiment, like 
 waves of water, seek a level as soon as the disturbing 
 force is removed. At the polls, only four months later, 
 the prohibition party showed no marked gains ; and all 
 the liquor licenses were renewed the following spring 
 by the Common Council. 
 
 It is undeniable that if a man of only mediocre ability, 
 or less, will but enslave himself to drink, he will find many 
 ready to proclaim him a wasted genius. Many who pro- 
 fessed to see in Herbert Darlington the superior of his 
 father in business sagacity, predicted that it would be a 
 long time before the traffic department of the H. P., R., 
 
Aftermath 391 
 
 A., and S. recovered from the loss of its official head. Yet 
 affairs in that department seemed to go on about as be- 
 fore, and the former chief clerk — a young man in 
 whom nobody, with the possible exception of Charles 
 Darlington, had discovered any special abihty before — 
 seemed to fill Bert's place very satisfactorily. 
 
 In still another matter did excited public opinion go 
 astray. Elsie Clifford, who was frequently spoken of as 
 a bundle of nerves, was confidently expected to be pros- 
 trated by Herbert Darlington's sudden death. Many 
 believed that her reason would be affected, — she was 
 always so quick and impulsive, — and a few quietly ex- 
 pressed the opinion that she would not long survive her 
 affianced. Yet, when she was first seen down-town 
 again, a week after Bert's death, she betrayed no evi- 
 dence of a dissolution of either mind or body. She was 
 a little pale, to be sure, and unusually grave ; but when 
 she bent over young Mrs. Wickwire's baby-carriage, and 
 kissed the little inmate, she smiled brightly, and seemed 
 happy. Mrs. Wickwire told afterward that there were 
 tears in Elsie's eyes. Very probably there were, too. 
 
 Death is not the crudest thing in the world. It 
 atones for many sins ; and though the dead may soon be 
 half-forgotten by all but a few, it is by foes as well as by 
 friends. The grave is a sanctuary in which all but the 
 foulest may find a refuge. The saloons still ran, the 
 traffic department moved along without a jolt, Elsie 
 CHfford found a solace for her grief; but Herbert Dar- 
 lington by no means died in vain. After he had been 
 laid away, few thought of him except in connection with 
 his virtues, — his love for his sisters and mother, his 
 gentle amiability, his unassailable integrity, and his win- 
 ning lack of self-consciousness. Even his one great, 
 
392 The Darlingtons 
 
 notorious weakness was consigned by most people to 
 that limbo of things better forgotten ; and now that the 
 poor body which had been the helpless instrument of 
 that ungovernable passion was so still and cold, people 
 were prone to soften and smooth over in their minds the 
 ravages which that passion had wrought. Many who had 
 looked upon his sprees — if they may be so called — 
 as mere indulgences, now came over to the more 
 charitable and juster view that he was a victim of 
 heredity. 
 
 Herbert's death was a blow to his mother from which 
 she never fully recovered. To take a child from a 
 woman of her age is to lop a great branch from a full- 
 grown tree. Nature refuses to replace the loss. Yet the 
 rest of the tree vnW leaf and blossom as before, and 
 sometimes with even greater vigor. Mrs. Darlington, 
 though stunned, accepted her trial with Christian forti- 
 tude. Of all the children, Bert had been the nearest to 
 her in disposition, as Carol was the nearest to her father. 
 She had sometimes fancied that if Carol had been a boy 
 and Bert a girl, the family would have been better bal- 
 anced. But it was only a passing fancy, and she would 
 not have had them changed if she could ; for Herbert 
 was gentle without being effeminate, and Carol was dar- 
 ing and courageous without being masculine. The 
 mother was equally proud of the son's gentleness and 
 the daughter's sturdiness. 
 
 After Bert was gone, after Mrs. Darlington had accepted 
 the inevitable and had begun to adjust herself to the 
 changed conditions, she told herself that she would 
 sooner have him dead than a confirmed drunkard. 
 Sometimes she told the family this, as they sat around in 
 a little group, so woefully reduced by the absence of only 
 
Aftermath 393 
 
 one. Darlington always silently acquiesced in this senti- 
 ment ; but it was some time before Carol could listen to 
 it without an aching throat and a hardened heart, and a 
 desire to exclaim bitterly that there was no need for her 
 brother to be either dead or a drunkard. 
 
 A son is perhaps more than a brother, but Carol was 
 shaken more by Herbert's death than her mother was. 
 Mrs. Darlington accepted the inevitable ; Carol rebelled 
 against it. She wanted to argue it out with God — as 
 though it were not yet too late. Yet she said nothing in 
 the family circle. Her father was the only one there to 
 whom she could have thus talked, and she had it not in 
 her heart to add anything to his dumb grief. 
 
 The scales had fallen in part from his eyes. A man 
 may no more change his nature than a leopard may 
 change his spots ; and Charles Darlington was the same 
 man, yet under new conditions. His son's death pro- 
 duced permanently the same change in his relations with 
 his wife that Bert's falls used to produce temporarily. 
 The father pitied the mother. His grief was largely 
 sympathy with her. A change took place in his atti- 
 tude toward her. To be sure, he read the papers at 
 night as usual, and smoked the same number of cigars, 
 and talked almost as little as before with Mrs. Darling- 
 ton, — which was little enough. But for months after 
 their common bereavement, he would occasionally lower 
 his paper in a stealthy way, and study the subdued, 
 patient face across the table from him, — the wife of his 
 young manhood. 
 
 Somehow that young manhood did not seem so far 
 away now as it once had. He could remember just how 
 Winifred had looked the night Bert was born, and it had 
 seemed to him then, even in the hour of his joy over her 
 
394 The Darlingtons 
 
 safety, that God had placed an awful burden on frail 
 shoulders. It seemed so to him yet, in these moments 
 of revery ; and the figure across the table also seemed 
 yet the simple, delicately nurtured girl who had smiled so 
 wanly up at him from her pillow of pain, twenty-six years 
 before. Very often, at this point in his revery, his tears 
 would blur the letters on the page before him. 
 
 Yet, like many another man, — more 's the pity, — he 
 was almost awkward in the expression of this feeling. 
 Had he knelt beside his wife, and poured out his love 
 and sympathy and reverence for her with boyish impetu- 
 osity, he knew that it would have been balm to her heart, 
 and that she would never have doubted his sincerity, or 
 thought such demonstration unmanly. But he could not 
 do it, any more than he could have flown, though he 
 despised the pride or sensitiveness or coldness or what- 
 ever it was which kept him from doing it. Instead, he 
 would pave the way for his affectionate demonstrations 
 with some commonplace remark ; or, when he happened 
 to pass behind Mrs. Darhngton's chair, — sometimes by 
 design, — he would pause and pat her cheek and ask her 
 what she was reading. When she had taken his hands 
 in her own, — as she never failed to. do, — and had 
 pressed them to her cheek, and he had bent and kissed 
 her lips, — almost as full and red as in her bridal days, 
 — he would feel a lightness of heart that was almost 
 giddiness. 
 
 Sometimes, as he brooded in the office, it seemed to 
 him that he had starved his wife's heart all the days of 
 their wedded life. He knew that he was not a demon- 
 strative man, and he sometimes doubted that he was 
 even affectionate. He knew — at least believed — that 
 other men gave more of their hearts to their wives than 
 
Aftermath 395 
 
 he had given to his wife. This remorse was softened, 
 though, by the thought that he had never been intention- 
 ally unkind to her ; that he had given her few sharp 
 words, and that he had provided well for her with this 
 world's goods. He was glad to think, too, that her 
 children had been a joy to her, on the whole, and that 
 her affections had found an ample outlet in them, if not 
 in him. 
 
 But in spite of these consoling thoughts, there were 
 hours when he felt like leaving the office, and going home 
 and taking Winifred in his arms, and telling her how 
 much he loved her, and how much he regretted his 
 coldness in the past. These moods did not come 
 every day, or every week, and he never followed out 
 these impulses ; but the change of which they were a 
 manifestation made itself felt in the home every day and 
 every hour of every day. Thus, again, Bert had not 
 died in vain. 
 
 Carol, though, hardened her heart for a while. When 
 Kaltenborn called at the house the day after the funeral, 
 he found her pale and serious. He took both her hands 
 in his, and for a moment they looked into each other's 
 eyes — he as if he would search out all the pain and 
 trouble in the breast below, she as if she would tell him 
 all the pain and trouble there. Then he pressed her to 
 his bosom, and laying his cheek tenderly upon her pale 
 hair, he murmured, " Tell me all about it, love ! " 
 
 She began to sob, for almost the first time since 
 receiving the terrible news, which had struck her into a 
 kind of stupor. When she had composed herself some- 
 what, she said, tremulously, — 
 
 " I don't blame God — now. I am not unjust enough 
 to think that God would strike that poor boy down simply 
 
396 The Darlingtons 
 
 to punish him for drinking, when he was no more respon- 
 sible for it than you or I. And if he was to keep on 
 drinking, I — I don't know but that it was a mercy for 
 him to be taken away. I have got that far," she con- 
 tinued, with a httle affectionate smile. " And if he had 
 to die that the terrible appetite might die too, I can see 
 where it was just. If he died for that, because of God's 
 law, I cannot complain, for I do not expect God to annul 
 his laws for me or my loved ones. But — " She gave 
 way to her grief again, and exclaimed, with an uncontrol- 
 lable sob, as she laid her head back again on his breast, 
 " Oh, Stephen, something terrible was wrong somewhere. 
 He was so young and innocent ! '^ 
 
 " Something was wrong, Carol," answered Kaltenborn. 
 " In this case the wrong began with Bert's grandfather, 
 or possibly still further back.*' He paused to arrange 
 his thoughts, when she asked, rebelliously, — 
 
 " Do you see any m-crcy in that, — to punish him for 
 the sins of another ? " 
 
 " God is not merciful in the sense we use the word," 
 he said. " His penalties are as immutable as his laws. 
 He does not pardon sins. No man was ever yet par- 
 doned for breaking one of God's laws, and no man ever 
 will be. We human beings occasionally pardon the 
 violators of human law. But that is only because we 
 know those laws are not perfect, and guilt is not always 
 established beyond doubt. God's laws are not only 
 perfect, but beneficent ; through obedience to them man 
 is destined to reach his highest glory, and only through 
 obedience. Why, then, should he be pardoned for dis- 
 obedience ? Would not the very act of pardoning be 
 unjust? Would it not leave the violator headed the 
 wrong way, — in the wrong path?" 
 
Aftermath 397 
 
 "What do people mean, then, when they speak of 
 God's mercy?" she asked, in a calmer tone. 
 
 "Usually something they know nothing about, and 
 which does not exist. Mercy was first attributed to God 
 because men first attributed a wrath to him which he 
 does not possess. As I just said, God's mercy, to my 
 mind, lies in the very fact that he never pardons. For 
 if the operation of his law, — and the law includes the 
 penalty — is beneficent, any pardoning, — that is, any 
 annulling of the law, — would be a diminution of that 
 beneficence. Is that not clear? Your brother is dead. 
 Though killed by a locomotive, he died in all probability 
 because of an appetite which he inherited. Suppose 
 God had pardoned the breaking of the law in this case ; 
 that is, had taken away the weakness and bewilderment 
 which betrayed Bert to his death ; in short, had let Bert 
 live. That would have been simply a multiplication of 
 miseries. Bert would probably have married. What he 
 inherited he would probably have transmitted to his 
 children. Suppose he had had two sons, both drunkards, 
 and four grandsons, and so on and on, until a strain of 
 drunkards was abroad in the land. That is not a fanci- 
 ful picture. The thing has happened, not only in the 
 case of drunkards but in that of criminals. I can 
 point you to a case where a single pair of criminals have 
 infested one of our States with their offspring to the 
 number of a thousand or more." 
 
 " Why did God let f/iaf happen ? " she asked. 
 
 Her acuteness thrilled him with pride, and he pressed 
 her a little closer. " There are cases of apparent escape 
 from the penalties of broken law, I will admit," he 
 answered, thoughtfully. " But it is only apparent. The 
 penalty is simply different. It must be paid in the end." 
 
398 The Darlingtons 
 
 " And often by innocent people," she said, bitterly. 
 " Why did n't God take away my grandfather? He was 
 the sinner." 
 
 " Perhaps he had work for your grandfather. Perhaps 
 he was looking ahead to you, and he could not have had 
 you without your grandfather." 
 
 '' I don't know what he wanted me for," she murmured. 
 
 " You may be sure it was for something," he answered, 
 earnestly. " Maybe it was to soothe and cheer me 
 through Hfe, and make me stronger and better, and more 
 able to do the work I have set out to do," he added, 
 softly. 
 
 The eyes which looked up into his lit with a wonder- 
 ful radiance, and then as quickly filled with tears. " I 
 am not worthy, Stephen ! " she whispered. 
 
 " I think you are," he answered, gravely. " And you 
 have confidence in my judgment, have n't you ? " 
 
 She answered by pressing closer. 
 
 " If you are weak yet in any respect," he continued, 
 " it is only because you have not yet come into your full 
 strength. I want you to be a great woman. I expect 
 you to be. Not one whose name is in the mouth of the 
 people, but one whose greatness is known to herself 
 and to those she loves. I want you to fulfil your 
 destiny." 
 
 " Poor little Bert fulfilled his ! " she exclaimed, with 
 quivering, smarting nostrils. She added, quickly, " Oh, 
 Stephen, if you only knew how hard and wicked I felt 
 when I stood beside his casket, and everybody thought 
 my heart was melting with tenderness ! He looked so 
 sweet, as though he were asleep ; and his face was so 
 bruised where they — where they had struck him that 
 I — " She paused an instant. " Stephen, I said I 
 
Aftermath 399 
 
 should n't care if every girl's brother in the world were 
 dead." 
 
 " But you would have cared," he said, gently. 
 
 " Yes, yes," she murmured, with a shudder, " because 
 when I saw a little dead bird in the cemetery, my heart 
 ached for its mother." 
 
 " That heart-ache is one of the treasures laid up to 
 our dead brother's memory," said Kaltenborn, sweetly. 
 " Let there be more. Let him not have died in vain." 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 THE PATERNAL HEART 
 
 Something like three weeks after Herbert's funeral, 
 Stephen Kaltenborn ascended the stairs of the railroad's 
 general offices ; but instead of going into Carol's room, 
 as was his wont, he turned and went into the president's 
 office. He preferred a request to that official to which 
 the latter listened very quietly, but with possibly the 
 least uneasiness. He was tilted back in his swivel-chair, 
 and he did not look Kaltenborn in the face, but kept his 
 eyes upon his desk, and chewed a little on his cigar. 
 When Kaltenborn was done, the president was silent for 
 perhaps half a minute, bis brown eyes dancing in a way 
 that betrayed his emotion. 
 
 " I don't hesitate to say, Mr. Kaltenborn, that this is 
 something of a surprise to me," he answered, candidly; 
 " and yet I have often thought that it might come to 
 pass. You have been very frank with me, and I will be 
 equally so with you. I hoped that it would not come to 
 pass. I believe you will make Carol a good husband, 
 and, other things being equal, I don't know of any man 
 in the world that I 'd sooner trust her to. All that I am 
 afraid of is that it may be too great a change for her, 
 and that she may be unhappy on that account." 
 
 He paused, and for a moment stared hard out of the 
 window. If Kaltenborn had ever entertained any doubts 
 
The Paternal Heart 401 
 
 of Charles Darlington's tenderness for his daughter, they 
 were swept away in that moment. 
 
 " But if you have spoken to Carol, and she has given 
 her consent I have n't a word to say. Carol has practi- 
 cally been her own master since she was eighteen years 
 old, and I don't know that I have ever had to overrule 
 her. I certainly won't begin now. If she loves you, you 
 are the man we want her to marry. And if she has 
 promised to marry you, she knows what she is doing. I 
 say that to remove any doubts you yourself may have as 
 to the wisdom of this step. There was a time when I 
 thought Carol would never marry ; and though I should 
 have urged her to do so, I guess we should never have 
 picked out a preacher for her." His eyes lit with a 
 gentle pleasantry. " But she has changed a good deal 
 in the past year. I don't know but you have changed 
 her. Anyway, I guess it 's for the best. Her mother 
 is pretty sure that it is. You are getting a wife, Mr. 
 Kaltenborn, that you can be proud of anywhere. If 
 she should not happen to take to the new work right in the 
 beginning, all I ask of you is to remember that it is new. 
 She '11 adapt herself to it in time, because she is a girl 
 who can adapt herself to anything. I congratulate you, 
 sir, on the woman you are getting." He extended his 
 shapely white hand with the courtly manner which sat 
 upon him so naturally. 
 
 They talked for nearly an hour. Darlington finally 
 asked Kaltenborn if he expected to move in the fall. 
 Kaltenborn noticed that he approached the question 
 with some hesitancy. He answered that he did not 
 know, but rather thought he would. 
 
 " If you do, is it your and Carol's idea to get married 
 first ? " asked the president, with a slight huskiness. 
 
 26 
 
402 The Darlingtons 
 
 " It was," answered Kaltenborn, *' but Herbert's death 
 has changed the situation." 
 
 " Don't let it," said Darlington, earnestly. " Much 
 as I hate to see the child go, it 's her duty to be with 
 you. Don't let public sentiment dictate in a matter of 
 this kind. If you and Carol feel that you ought to 
 marry before you go — and I think you ought — I want 
 you to do it. This thing of considering a marriage as a 
 festivity which jars upon the memory of the dead, is gro- 
 tesque and abominable. Marriage is the sacredest and 
 solemnest act of a man's life, and the ceremony might 
 be performed in the chamber of the dead without incon- 
 gruity. If you want to marry before you go, Mr. Kal- 
 tenborn, if you and Carol feel as though you ought to, 
 — I want you to do it." 
 
 After the minister had gone, the president sat almost 
 motionless in his chair for a long time. Then he turned 
 to his desk and tried to work ; but it was impossible. 
 After tramping up and down his room for several min- 
 utes, with his hands in his pockets, he strolled abstract- 
 edly into the traffic-manager's office. The former chief 
 clerk looked up inquiringly. Darlington gave a shght 
 start, murmured something unintelligible, and hastily 
 turned away. 
 
 As he re-entered his own room, his eye was caught by 
 a fancy calendar illustrated with a picture of Miles 
 Standish's courtship. For six months and more he had 
 consulted the dates on that calendar without especially 
 noticing the picture ; but to-day he stood before it a 
 long time, with his hands in his pockets, studying 
 Priscilla's face. It was very strange, he thought, that 
 the hushed joy, the sweet humility, which illuminated 
 those delicate features had never impressed him before. 
 
The Paternal Heart 403 
 
 He had read the poem, he supposed, in his younger 
 days, but it had all but slipped away from him. He won- 
 dered now, whimsically, if Miles Standish ever did any 
 preaching. Most all those old fellows either did preach 
 or could preach, as he remembered his history. He 
 wondered, too, if Standish had been poor. He thought 
 perhaps he had, and he suddenly leaned forward and 
 kissed the face of a girl who was not afraid to marry a 
 poor man. 
 
 He recovered himself with a kind of guilty start, as 
 though his act was too sentimental for a man. Carol 
 had given him that calendar, and had hung it with her 
 own hands. That was only seven months or less before, 
 but for some reason it seemed in the remote past — 
 away back in Carol's girlhood days. She had laughed and 
 said, — he remembered it so plainly, — " Papa, here 's 
 a new sweetheart for you ; only, another fellow has spoken 
 first ! " And now another '' fellow " had spoken for her ! 
 He felt, momentarily, that he was going to lose her 
 almost as hopelessly as he had lost his son ; and at the 
 thought of Kaltenborn's probable early departure from 
 Ashboro, tears filled his eyes. He let them stand until 
 they had melted away, and then he walked down the 
 hall to Carol's room. 
 
 He whistled a little as he entered the door, for he 
 suspected that he was looking unduly solemn. He 
 strolled around the room, talking at random, and aim- 
 lessly working in and out the drawers of the file-case. 
 He looked at Carol to see if any marked change had 
 come over her. He thought it must have been so, but 
 he could see no change. She looked as innocent and 
 unsuspecting as a dove ; hot as it was. there was a 
 refreshing airiness and placidity about her ; her eye was 
 
404 The Darlingtons 
 
 clear and tranquil, and her cheek as white and cool as 
 though it had never flushed under a lover's kiss. The 
 sleeves of her shirt-waist were pushed half-way up her 
 forearm for the sake of comfort as she wrote ; and some- 
 how this arrangement gave her a domestic appearance, 
 as though she were forestalling her future state. 
 
 " Carol, Kaltenborn was just in to see me," said 
 Darlington, abruptly turning upon her. Her cool, white 
 cheek did not turn, and she asked tranquilly, — 
 
 *'What did /^^ want?" 
 
 " He wanted you," he answered. 
 
 She flushed a little now, but without dropping her 
 eyes she asked, soberly, "What did you tell him, 
 papa? " 
 
 '^ I saw at once that it was a cut-and-dried affair, so I 
 didn't commit myself," he answered, with a twinkle. 
 
 Carol dropped her eyes with a thoughtful, musing 
 smile, understanding her father well enough. After a 
 little she said, with a happy, arch glance, " You have n't 
 congratulated me yet." 
 
 " I congratulated him," he retorted. 
 
 "And you won't me?" she said, putting on a little 
 injured look. 
 
 He came over to her side, took her hand, and bent 
 over and laid his lips to hers. When he lifted his head 
 there was an added brightness in Carol's eyes. 
 
 " Papa, dear ! " she exclaimed, clinging to his hand, 
 "are you very, very disappointed? " 
 
 Darlington sat down and crossed his legs. " It 
 would n't be honest, Carol, for me to say that I am en- 
 tirely satisfied. I had hoped for a different life for you. 
 I don't know just what, but something different. But I 
 suppose I should have been disappointed — a little — 
 
The Paternal Heart 405 
 
 no matter whom you married. I know there is no 
 young man in this town that I should care to see you 
 marry, leaving Kaltenborn out of the count. But with 
 your education and talents, I looked for a different career 
 for you than that of a minister's wife. Perhaps I was 
 wrong. Perhaps I was too ambitious, and might have 
 made you unhappy if I had had my own way. And per- 
 haps I don't do justice to the career you have chosen. I 
 don't know much about the duties of a minister's wife, 
 that's a fact. But it is going to be hard for you, 
 daughter," he continued, with a father's solicitude, '• and 
 you will often have to exercise all the heroism you 
 possess. You will have to give up a great deal that 
 you won't see any reason for giving up — that there is 
 no reason for giving up, except that one man's meat is 
 another man's poison. But there is one thing I want 
 to say to you, now that the decision is made. Poverty 
 need have no terrors for you, thank God, for you will 
 never suffer for this world's goods as long as I have a 
 dollar in my pocket." 
 
 She squeezed his hand affectionately. "I have 
 thought it all over so many times, papa," she exclaimed, 
 with hushed joy. " I am not afraid. I know I shall be 
 happy. I am not giving it all up for him, either. Do 
 you know, I had almost made up my mind that I could 
 be a minister's wife, before I had made it up that I 
 could be — Stephen's wife ! My life has been so 
 thoughtless and aimless that I felt almost as though I 
 had to strike out and do something for somebody." 
 
 "I don't think your life has been aimless," he 
 demurred. 
 
 "Coming down here and working seven or eight hours 
 a day, papa, — what does it all amount to? " she asked, 
 
4o6 The Darlingtons 
 
 softly. " I used to thmk it was something great ; but, 
 papa, dear, I couldn't any more think now of doing 
 that all my life than — " She paused for a simile not 
 too harsh. 
 
 "You never thought of doing it all your life," he 
 objected. 
 
 " No, but I did n't know what else I could do. I did n't 
 have any plans. I did n't realize how much I could do 
 — and be — if I only made up my mind to. I did n't 
 realize how much there is to be done." 
 
 "What, for instance?" he asked. 
 
 For a moment he felt sick at heart. A great lone- 
 liness closed down over him, for his chosen disciple, 
 his own flesh and blood, seemed to be rending his 
 choicest doctrines into shreds, and making ready to 
 abandon him for another. 
 
 "Just little things that don't seem to amount to 
 much, but which really make up life and the happiness 
 of people. I can't name them over, you dear old doubt- 
 ing Thomas ! " she exclaimed, taking his hand in hers. 
 Then, as if reading his bitter thoughts, she ran on, " You 
 are doing good right here in the railroad, by being honest 
 and charitable and intelhgent. You haven't wasted 
 your life. I don't mean that. I owe all that I am to 
 you — to you and mamma — and I have done good here, 
 too. But you are a man, papa, and I am a woman, and 
 the time has come for me to change and go where I 
 can do even more good." 
 
 Darlington was a little sceptical of the amount of good 
 she was going to do, but he was beginning to feel less 
 anxious about her happiness. As a consequence, he 
 gave Mrs. Darlington the news that evening with a 
 judicial fairness. She received his communication with 
 
The Paternal Heart 407 
 
 a complacency that surprised him, and nettled him a 
 little. As a railroad man he had never made a conces- 
 sion in his life without putting all the opposing facts on 
 record ; not out of pettishness, but simply that the co?i- 
 cessioniiaire might not fail to realize the full value of 
 the concession. Their consenting to Carol's marriage 
 with a minister was in the nature of a concession, he 
 felt, and he thought that his wife swung over too easily. 
 He said nothing, though, and excused her on the ground 
 that she was a woman, and a deeply religious woman, 
 and that Kaltenborn was a man set apart to the offices of 
 religion. 
 
 " It makes me heartsick to think of her going, though," 
 Mrs. Darlington sighed. " Since Bert was taken away 
 she seems to have been so different, and to have tried 
 to take his place. The family seems so dreadfully 
 small now. I don't know what it will be like when she 
 is gone. But we can see her often, and I don't know 
 of a man I would sooner give her to. I believe he ^11 
 make her happy, and they are both old enough to know 
 their own minds. I feel, too, that if Bert were here, he 
 would approve of it. He thought so much of Mr. Kal- 
 tenborn, especially after — " She could not finish the 
 sentence, and added, in a moment, " I suppose they 
 will always be what you might call poor." 
 
 "Not while I've got a dollar," said Darlington, 
 briskly. 
 
 Whatever doubts Mrs. Darlington may have had of 
 Kaltenborn's enthusiastically accepting this method of 
 eking out his salary, she prudently said nothing just 
 then. She merely answered, " It seems a pity for him 
 to have to struggle along when his father has so much 
 more than he needs." 
 
4o8 The Darlingtons 
 
 " I am going to put a bug in his ear about that," said 
 the president, in his most business-Hke tone. " There is 
 no sense in his being cut off without a nickel. Kalten- 
 born can be stubborn when he wants to, and I have an 
 idea it 's half his own fault — this trouble between him 
 and his father. If I had a boy that wanted to 
 preach, don't you suppose I 'd let him, without turning 
 him out to grass ? " 
 
 " All fathers are not like you, Charles," she answered, 
 with a simple, unconscious pride that pleased Darlington. 
 
 *' I suppose Kaltenborn's father is a ram-headed old 
 Dutchman," observed DarKngton, " but I '11 wager any 
 money that the difference between them can be patched 
 up — and I '11 quietly make it my business to see that it is. 
 From what Kaltenborn tells me, his father has been after 
 him to let bygones be bygones, and come back and help 
 run the business. I figure it out that the old man is 
 losing his grip, and naturally turns to Kaltenborn. But 
 of course a proposition like that stirs Kaltenborn up. 
 He considers it a reflection on his sincerity. But the 
 chances are that Kaltenborn senior never dreamt of 
 such a construction being put on his letter. All 
 we 've got to do is to bring Stephen to see that." 
 
 " But will his father ever forgive him as long as he 
 stays in the ministry?" asked the wife, doubtfully. 
 " He '11 never give that up, you know." 
 
 " I '11 wager he '11 forgive him," said Darlington, con- 
 fidently. 
 
 Mrs. Darlington was used to her husband's fits of en- 
 thusiasm, and she did not attempt to argue with him 
 now. She knew that his enthusiasm was often grounded 
 on fact, and she hoped it might be so in this case. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 THE FIRST BATTLE 
 
 No one was more keenly alive to the stir which Carol's 
 engagement made in Ashboro than Carol herself. A 
 few, she was proud to believe, would understand and 
 applaud her devotion ; but most people, she had no 
 doubt, would regard her prospective alliance as a 
 romantic sacrifice of herself Therefore she adopted 
 toward most of her acquaintances, in the matter of her 
 engagement, a lofty and somewhat unapproachable 
 bearing, which, if it did not suppress curiosity and criti- 
 cism, at least kept it away from her own eyes and ears. 
 
 It was his friends whom she feared — that is to say, 
 his church-members. Of one little woman in particular, 
 clad in a snuff-colored gown and a dingy little brown 
 bonnet, Carol stood in positive terror. She had never 
 seen this little woman except on the night when she 
 read in the ]\Iethodist Church ; but the withered, di- 
 minutive figure, and the beady little eyes staring up at 
 her with cold, piercing fixity, were unforgettable. Dating 
 from her engagement to Kaltenborn, the memory of 
 these eyes began to haunt Carol. For that little woman 
 had heard Carol denounced from the pulpit ; that little 
 woman knew she was rich, and danced, and played 
 cards ; that little woman probably believed that the 
 very clothes upon her back were filched from the poor. 
 
41 o The Darlingtons 
 
 What else that little woman beUeved of her, Carol did 
 not dare try to imagine. Yet she, as Kaltenborn's 
 wife, would have to win that Httle woman's confidence ; 
 would have to look upon her as a sister in Christ ; 
 would have to extend to her a sisterly hand, and that 
 in such a way that it would not be righteously rejected 
 as a contaminated thing. Carol was more than willing 
 to try ; but it is not surprising that under the contem- 
 plation of her future duties her spirit sometimes sank. 
 
 Now and then, in these despondent moodS; she was 
 sharply assailed by doubts of her usefulness to Kalten- 
 born, and was rendered utterly miserable by the fear 
 that possibly, after all, she would prove only a millstone 
 around his neck. She bravely kept these fears to her- 
 self; but once, when the reaction was strongest in her, 
 just before the tide turned in her favor, she clasped Kal- 
 tenborn around the neck as she kissed him good-night, 
 and pressing her head beseechingly to his bosom, she 
 poured out all her troubles. 
 
 To her over-wrought imagination, her confession 
 seemed a most damning thing, not only betraying a mo- 
 mentary weakness, but branding her forever as unfit for 
 the high position to which she aspired ; and she pictured, 
 with a little despairing shudder, the grief and consterna- 
 tion with which Kaltenborn's face must be clouded. 
 But to her unutterable relief, he only turned her face up- 
 ward, with the grandeur of a god — it seemed to her — 
 and sweetly, reverently kissed her. 
 
 " My well-beloved," he said, with tranquil joy, " if 
 ever I saw God smiling on an act of mine, I see Him 
 smiling on this union of ours." 
 
 Carol felt then as if she was clinging to a rock from 
 which no storm could sweep her. 
 
The First Battle 411 
 
 In times past, before his engagement, and especially 
 when Kaltenborn felt discouraged, he had occasionally 
 speculated on the feasibihty of going somewhere and 
 establishing an independent church — a brotherhood- 
 of-man church, with no creed, and open to all who 
 aspired to a higher life. While not possessed by the 
 idea, and regarding it only as a possibility of the future, 
 the prospect of freedom and independence which such 
 a scheme opened before him had manifest charms for 
 his original disposition. After their engagement, he sev- 
 eral times dropped remarks which showed that the idea 
 of an independent church was still stirring in his mind. 
 
 Carol now set industriously to work to discourage the 
 project, though in the beginning she had rather favored it. 
 She saw that the whole matter had its roots in Kalten- 
 born's discontent, and this discontent she hoped, as his 
 wife, to abate, if not entirely remove. Moreover, she 
 had discovered in Kaltenborn a restlessness and love of 
 change which she made it her task — with a perfectly 
 serious and, withal, very beautiful assumption of raater- 
 nalism — quietly to overcome. Above all, she had a 
 woman's horror of being outside the pale of a system or 
 an established institution. She felt safer and more com- 
 fortable behind the bulwarks of the church, even though 
 the discipline there was a little galling. 
 
 Another thing which gave her thought was Kalten- 
 born's half-formed determination of asking the conference 
 which met in the fall to remove him to another charge. 
 In the beginning she had unreservedly favored this idea. 
 She feared that the Ashboro church, for reasons already 
 set forth, would not give her a fair trial ; and she fancied 
 she could assume her new role with less embarrassment 
 in a place where the curious eyes of so many of her old 
 
412 The Darlingtons 
 
 friends were not upon her. There was reason in this, 
 too, as she well knew. But when she came to learn, as 
 she did in time, that the younger element of the Metho- 
 dist Church was solidly for Kaltenborn's return, her 
 conscience began to trouble her. To leave Ashboro 
 under these circumstances seemed like ignominious flight, 
 not at all worthy of the brave resolutions she had been 
 making. At last she brought the matter before Kalten- 
 born, though with some reluctance. 
 
 " Then you think, do you," he asked, smihng, " that 
 after all these years of plucking out the choicest morsels 
 from the fleshpots, you can make the people of Ashboro 
 believe that you are really coming down to a fare of 
 herbs?" 
 
 " They will have to believe it, if I eat at a table where 
 there is nothing but herbs, — won't they?'' she asked. 
 
 Kaltenborn fell into a thoughtful silence. " Do you 
 really want me to come back here another year ? " he 
 asked, finally. 
 
 " You must say us, now," she corrected, brightly. 
 
 " We are not married yet, " he said, smihng. 
 
 She gave him another affectionate glance. ^'I fancy 
 we are, dear," she answered, soberly, ''if marriages are 
 made in heaven.' ' In answer to his question, she added : 
 "Yes, I want to stay here. That is, if you want to. I 
 would sooner go away, I beheve, if I simply followed my 
 inclination, for I feel that it would be easier for me. And 
 yet I feel as though that would be shrinking from the very 
 first blow of the battle I am going to fight. I am deathly 
 afraid of some of your people — some of our people, 
 dear," she corrected, softly. " I am afraid of that little 
 old woman in the snuff-colored gown, — you never told 
 me her name. And I 'm afraid of your landlady. But I 
 
The First Battle 413 
 
 am not going to run away from them. I am going to 
 march right up, even if my knees shake under me. 
 Stephen, are you laughing at me? " 
 
 " With you, girl, not at you. You were laughing 
 yourself.'^ He reached over and took her hand thought- 
 fully. Of late he had fallen into a way of requiring this 
 aid to thought. It was on his tongue to caution her 
 against over-valiance, and to warn her against unneces- 
 sary combats ; but he could not find it in his heart to 
 say anything that might by any possibility chill her enthu- 
 siasm. "You will rout your foes, if we stay, I have no 
 doubt," he answered. "The question is, can I rout 
 mine? I can come back here, if I say the word, it's 
 true. There is some comfort in the thought, too. But 
 can I live if I do ? There are three or four old men in 
 this church whom I can never get along with, and they 
 have a small following. Old man Collier, for instance, 
 pays fifty dollars a year to the church. If I come back 
 next year, he says he won't pay a cent." 
 
 " Did he say that?" asked Carol, incredulously. 
 
 " He did — in the last quarterly conference." 
 
 " Right before you ? " she asked, with flashing eyes. 
 
 " Right before me." 
 
 For a moment her cheeks burned with indignation, 
 and her sweet mouth set threateningly. Then she asked, 
 softly, giving his hand an encouraging caress, " What did 
 you say, dear ? " 
 
 Kaltenborn's eyes twinkled humorously as he answered, 
 " I simply said, ' Brethren, that is twenty pieces more of 
 silver than was offered Judas Iscariot.' " 
 
 " No, Stephen ! " she exclaimed, with true Darlington 
 exultation lighting her face. " Good ! " 
 
 " No, bad," he corrected, soberly. ^^ A quarterly con- 
 
414 The Darlingtons 
 
 ference is not exactly a board of directors' meeting," he 
 added, smiling. "The old man hasn't been out to 
 church since. Had I not been quite so handy wdth my 
 wit, I might have won him over. Then there is old Billy 
 Walters. I think he 'd pick heresies in the Sermon on 
 the Mount, if he found it outside the covers of the Bible." 
 He paused, and she laughed keenly. They could say 
 these httle things to each other, and expected always to 
 say them. " Altogether, I have thought it best at times 
 to let some other man take the helm here. I don't 
 know, though, whether he could do any better than I 
 have." 
 
 "' He might not do as well," she suggested, with un- 
 questioning confidence in his ability. " And you have 
 all the young people on your side. They are the real 
 workers in the church, after all. What do you care for a 
 few crotchety old men ? They '11 soon be dead and gone, 
 anyhow.'' 
 
 *^ No, I think some of them have set out to break 
 Methuselah's record," he answered, grimly. "Anyhow," 
 he added, " they are not likely to die in time to be of 
 any senice to me." 
 
 " Well, Stephen, I don't think you ought to step down 
 and out and thus virtually assist them in dictating the 
 policy of the church. They are reactionists, and I think 
 it is your duty to oppose them," she added, stanchly. 
 " If you resign, and they get a man that won't oppose 
 them, it will leave the young people helpless. Dear, you 
 ought not to leave. And / want to stay — now," she 
 added, pleadingly. " I thought at first that I could do 
 better somewhere else, but I believe that is only because 
 that somewhere else is shadowy now. As soon as we 
 got there, and stepped off the train, and everything 
 
The First Battle 415 
 
 looked strange and inhospitable, and we met the stew- 
 ards and trustees, — or whomever we do meet, — I should 
 be just as nervous as I am now. And my friends here 
 won't bother me any. They will drop me, — all except 
 some dear, sweet girls who would n't drop me if I should 
 put on a Salvation Army bonnet and kneel in the streets. 
 And I want the others to drop me. They never did me 
 any good, and — I have you, Steve boy ! " she concluded, 
 with a joyous little movement toward him. 
 
 *•' Yes, you have me beyond a doubt," answered Kal- 
 tenborn, soberly. After a moment's hesitation he drew a 
 letter from his pocket. " I got this three days ago. I 
 have n't shown it to you because I have been thinking it 
 over. But after what you 've said, I can't withhold it 
 longer. It 's from a Methodist church in Cincinnati, 
 where I preached three months as a supply before I 
 entered this conference, and it extends to me again the 
 invitation which I refused at that time." 
 
 He handed Carol the letter. After she had read it 
 through, she slowly folded it up again with luminous 
 eyes. '• This must make you very proud and happy, 
 dear ! " she said. 
 
 '' It does," he answered. 
 
 For a moment there was silence. " What answer shall 
 you make ? " Carol then asked softly, regarding him with 
 curious, wistful eyes. 
 
 " I don't know," he answered, gravely. " I 'm on a 
 sea of doubt. Two years ago I refused the invitation 
 because I thought I could do more good in a humbler 
 sphere. This church is fashionable and wealthy, — as 
 different from the Ashboro Methodist Church as anything 
 you can imagine. It seemed to me then that such people 
 had less need of my services than some other people less 
 
41 6 The Darlingtons 
 
 favored." He paused a moment. *' I have changed ray 
 mind somewhat on that point of late. I have found that 
 a man cannot wholly disregard environment. My min- 
 istry here can hardly be called a success. I have done 
 good, I know, but I have also done harm." 
 
 *' More good than harm, Stephen/' said Carol. 
 
 " I hope so, " answered Kaltenborn. " But what wears 
 on me most here — what makes me think more than 
 anything else that a change would be best for both the 
 people and me and the cause of righteousness — is 
 this eternal stultification of my conscience and my behef 
 which I have to practise here. Extra-orthodoxy binds 
 me here as with bonds of iron. In this charge I am, 
 in a sense, a living lie." 
 
 A profound sadness thrilled his voice, and touched 
 the heart of the woman before him. Then, for a 
 moment, visions of that cultivated city church, in which 
 she would so naturally find an honored place, floated 
 before her mind and half-dazzled her. But she dared 
 not speak just then. Too much was trembling in the 
 balance. 
 
 " Had you not spoken as you have," continued Kal- 
 tenborn, slowly and with a kind of hesitation, " I should 
 feel free to accept this invitation." 
 
 Carol opened his coat and slipped the letter back into 
 his pocket. Then she laid her hands upon his shoulders 
 and looked up into his face with the tranquil eyes of love. 
 
 " Whither thou goest, my love, I will go ; and where 
 thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my 
 people, and thy God my God ; where thou diest, will I 
 die, and there will I be buried ! " 
 
 THE END 
 
/ 
 
 ^