SB UBRARV 3* 
 

 
 THE 
 
 GREATER LOVE 
 
 BY 
 
 ALGERNON SIDNEY CRAPSEY 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 THE 
 
 K.bbey Press 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
 114 
 FIFTH AVENUE 
 
 Emtimi NEW YORK Jtomtmtl
 
 Copyright, 1903 
 
 by 
 The 
 
 press
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Dedication 1 
 
 The Reason Why 3 
 
 BOOK FIRST KETURAH BAIN. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Keturah 15 
 
 II. Her Father 21 
 
 III. Her Mother . . . 1 27 
 
 IV. Childhood Days 31 
 
 V. The Beginning of Sorrows 35 
 
 VI. The First Disaster 41 
 
 VII. A Misfortune of War 47 
 
 VIII. The Birth of Love 57 
 
 IX. Poor Benjamin 63 
 
 X. A Forgotten Mother 69 
 
 XI. An Annual Proposal 77 
 
 XII. Raiment of Needlework 83 
 
 XIII. Shinar to the Rescue 95 
 
 XIV. A Family Council 99 
 
 XV. A Political Proposition 103 
 
 XVI. Heaviness in the Night 109 
 
 XVII. Joy in the Morning 117 
 
 XVIII. A Business Requirement 125 
 
 XIX. What Dogs Are For 133 
 
 XX. A New Name and a New Life 141 
 
 XXI. A Covert from the Wind 145 
 
 XXII. Old Saint Nicholas 149 
 
 XXIII. A Divine Yoke-Fellow 153 
 
 XXIV. Is It True? 159 
 
 XXV. After the Storm 165 
 
 XXVI. Adorned for the Sacrifice 169 
 
 XXVII. A Boy's Passion 175 
 
 XXVIII. Too Late 183 
 
 iii.
 
 Table of Contents Continued 
 
 BOOK SECOND DR. SUYDAM. 
 
 CHAPTEB PAGE 
 
 I. Dr. Suydam 195 
 
 II. An Ominous Cough 199 
 
 III. Domesticity 203 
 
 IV. Marriage Rights of the Poor 213 
 
 V. The Policy of an Estate 219 
 
 VI. The Devil at Work 227 
 
 VII. The Making of a Will 233 
 
 VIII. Buying a Coronet 237 
 
 IX. A Sorry Bargain 243 
 
 X. A Woman's Fate 249 
 
 XI. For So Much 255 
 
 XII. Yes, Your Grace 261 
 
 XIII. An Unbidden Guest 267 
 
 XIV. A Face in a Glass 273 
 
 XV. Mother and Son 281 
 
 XVI. Thus Saith the Lord 287 
 
 XVII. Saved as by Fire 295 
 
 XVIII. The Shadow of Death 301 
 
 XIX. A Watcher by the Door 309 
 
 XX. A New Life 313 
 
 XXI. A Goodly Inheritance 321 
 
 BOOK THIRD THE GREAT REDEMPTION. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Wicked London's Waifs and Strays 331 
 
 II. A Mighty Ruin 339 
 
 III. The Bleating of the Sheep 345 
 
 IV. The Fall of Lucifer 353 
 
 V. A Night Watch 359 
 
 VI. A Silly Sheep 363 
 
 VII. A Little Child Shall Lead Them 369 
 
 VIII. The Mystic Woman 373 
 
 IX. The Compliments of His Grace 381 
 
 X. Out on the Ebb Tide 385 
 
 XI. The Return of the Shepherd 391 
 
 XII. She Said, "I Will" 397 
 
 iv.
 
 Table of Contents Continued 
 
 CHAPTEE 
 
 XIII. Desolation in the Holy Place. . . 
 
 XIV. O Absalom! My Son! My Son! 
 
 XV This Present World 
 
 XVI. At Last! 
 
 XVII. Rest and Peace 
 
 XVIII. Shinar's Cousins 
 
 XIX. "Kiss Me Good-Night, John". 
 
 XX. Dr. Suydam Is Dead. 
 The Greater Love 
 
 PAGE 
 
 . 411 
 . 417 
 . 423 
 . 427 
 . 43, 
 . 437 
 . 445 
 . 451
 
 DEDICATION 
 
 WHILE this book was in process of preparation for the 
 press, it was subject to the criticism of one to whose 
 judgment the writer constantly deferred. Before the 
 book was completed, this wise critic was suddenly taken 
 away by death. That event, saddening as it did the life 
 of the writer, delayed the completion of the work. 
 
 Now that he is about to submit his creation to the 
 colder and impartial judgment of the reading public, the 
 writer wishes to say, that, whatever may be the fate of 
 his book, he has already been amply repaid for any labor 
 and anxiety it may have cost him, by the fact that it gave 
 some pleasure and added some interest to the last days 
 on earth of Emily Margaret Crapsey ; who was both the 
 loving daughter and the judicious friend of the writer, 
 and to whose blessed memory and pure spirit, as an act 
 of gratitude for all that she was to him and of all that 
 she did for him, he now dedicates this book.
 
 THE REASON WHY 
 
 IN the latter part of the sixth, and early in the seventh 
 decade of the nineteenth century, in the night school of 
 the Duane Street Lodging House for boys, in the City of 
 New York, there was a lad who went by the name of 
 Shinar. This boy did not lodge in the house ; he lived in 
 Mulberry Street. 
 
 Shinar was not his legal name ; indeed, the boy had no 
 legal name no name derived by right from his father 
 since Shinar had no father that either he or anybody else 
 had ever heard of. He was born in that under world 
 where people cannot be so particular about their parents, 
 but must take life as it comes to them, without knowing 
 or caring from whom it comes. 
 
 When Shinar was a month old he was taken by his 
 mother to a Mrs. Magrath, who kept what was known as 
 a baby farm in the Bend of Mulberry Street. Mrs. Ma- 
 grath received with the baby, as was her rule, three 
 months' pay in advance. Mrs. Magrath adhered rigidly 
 to this custom of advance payment, because so only could 
 she hope for any payment at all. From long experience 
 the baby farmer had learned that a baby left with her was 
 a baby forgotten. She limited her demand to three 
 months' expenses because that was the average life of 
 children left in her care. If, by chance, any child lived 
 longer than that, his next of kin was notified, and if, at
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 the end of another month nothing was heard from them, 
 the child died. The cost of the last month was paid by 
 the child itself. It was buried at the expense of the charit- 
 able public, the charge for the time and care of Mrs. 
 Magrath being included in the bill. In this way Mrs. 
 Magrath lived an honest and a useful life, caring for those 
 for whom nobody else would care, nursing them as long 
 as they lived, and burying them decently when dead, and 
 at the same time laying up for herself a little treasure in 
 the bank. 
 
 Shinar's mother brought him to the Magrath farm, 
 and paid the usual fee and went her way, and nobody ever 
 heard of her again. That the boy did not follow the cus- 
 tom of the Magrath children and die at the end of the 
 third or fourth month was owing to the lusty life that was 
 in him, and still more to the interposition of Providence in 
 the person of a young girl. 
 
 The Magrath farm in the Bend of Mulberry Street 
 was next to a cottage, then owned and occupied by a sea- 
 faring man named Joshua Bain. At that time, Mulberry 
 Street was not built up with great tenements as it is now, 
 but was lined with small cottages, set, for the most part, 
 back from the street. Of these houses the Bain cottage 
 was No. 53. Owing to this proximity the Bains were 
 more or less troubled by the Magrath children ; but, as the 
 Bains were good-hearted people, they took that trouble 
 kindly, and did all they could to help Mrs. Magrath in the 
 care of her little ones. 
 
 Keturah, the eldest of the Bain children, was espe- 
 cially useful in this way. Nearly every day she would go 
 into Mrs. Magrath's and try to still the wailing voices of 
 the babies, and to wonder why they were always sick and 
 why they died so soon. To her questions Mother Magrath
 
 The Reason Why 
 
 would answer, piously : "Tis the Lord's will, me dear. 
 Blissid be His name ; the holy Mary is afther wantin' thim 
 in hivin." 
 
 Little Keturah wondered still more when she heard 
 this, and she said within herself, "If the Lord wanted them 
 back so soon, why did he send them at all ? Why did not 
 the holy Mary keep them, if she loved them, and not let 
 them come to this world only to be sick, and to die, and to 
 cry all day and all night, and make little girls so sorry for 
 them?" The child did not tell these thoughts, she only 
 pondered them in her heart, and told them long afterward 
 to the writer of this book when he was her friend and 
 counsellor. 
 
 When the baby, who afterward became the boy Shinar, 
 was brought to the farm, Keturah was thirteen years old, 
 just trembling on the verge of womanhood. As soon as 
 she saw this child, her own motherhood was born in her, 
 and her heart yearned after the baby; he was such a 
 pretty baby. She took him in her arms, and when she 
 looked in his deep, dark eyes, and he smiled in her face, 
 she burst out crying and, in the midst of her sobs, said : 
 "O, Mother Magrath, must he die like the rest? Does 
 the Lord want him right away ? Wont the holy Mary let 
 me keep him just for a little while?" 
 
 "Shurely, dearie; if ye prays to her and gives her 
 candles. But thin who's to pay for him whin the money's 
 gone? The holy Mother might let ye kape the spalpeen, 
 but she ud niver pay for the likes of him ; niver. She ud 
 say it's chaper to take care of him in hivin, it is." 
 
 "Oh, Mother Magrath," said Keturah, eagerly, "I will 
 pay for him. I have a little money that I have saved, and 
 I am a big girl and can earn money now, so please ask 
 the Lord to let him stay. I will give the blessed Mother
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 two pounds of candles from the store if she will only give 
 this baby to me for my very own." 
 
 "All right, dearie," said Mother Magrath, "your'n he 
 is, and ye may bring me the candles. Ye naden't be afther 
 troublin' the holy Mary, I ull spake to her ; she is a frind 
 o' mine, she is." 
 
 So little Keturah became the foster mother of the 
 nameless waif from the street. She afterward wondered 
 how it was all arranged so easily with the Lord and the 
 blessed Mother ; but that was not her business, and she did 
 not trouble herself about it. All that she knew and cared 
 for was that she had a baby to love, and she loved it. She 
 had a brother and a sister, but then they were not babies. 
 Brother was eight and sister was three years old; and 
 these were mother's children, not her very own. So 
 without compunction, Keturah took the little stranger 
 into her heart and kept him there. 
 
 At first she wanted to take the child into her own 
 home, but that her mother would not hear of. Her own 
 three children were all that her little house would hold ; 
 and if Keturah were to begin adopting the Magrath 
 children there would be no end to the little ones who 
 might be added to her household. So Mrs. Bain said, 
 "No," very decidedly, to Keturah's request, and the girl 
 had to leave her foster child with Mother Magrath. But 
 she did not love it the less nor give it the less care on that 
 account. She used all her pennies to buy nice, fresh milk 
 for her baby, and made all its clothing, and was to it a 
 sweet and loving mother. 
 
 In the summer she would take her brother and her 
 sister and the baby and go down to the river side, and, 
 while the boy and girl were playing on the dock, Keturah 
 would walk up and down with the baby in her arms until
 
 The Reason Why 
 
 he went to sleep, and then she carried him to a cool, dark 
 place under the dock, where she had made a bed for him 
 with straw, and laid him down to take his afternoon nap. 
 There, breathing the pure air from the river, the child 
 would grow rosy and strong, and his little mother would 
 sit beside him (leaving her brother and sister to take care 
 of themselves up above) and dream of what her baby 
 boy would be in the years to come a president, at the 
 very least, she thought. 
 
 She never had the child christened. She knew nothing 
 about that, and Mother Magrath was afraid of the priests. 
 Nor did Keturah give the child any regular name, only 
 pet names, such as mothers give their babies. So it came 
 to pass that a child whose earthly mother cast him away, 
 and for whom the heavenly Mother did not seem to care, 
 found his place in a little girl's heart, and so was kept 
 alive. 
 
 Things went on in this way for two years and more. 
 The baby had learned to walk and to talk, and to be in 
 mischief every minute, and then something happened. 
 Keturah could no longer take care of him. She had to 
 go to work and earn money to provide for her own people. 
 A great sorrow had come to Keturah; but baby knew 
 nothing of this. He only knew that he missed his little 
 care-taker, so that he cried after her in the morning and 
 hunted for her in the street. 
 
 He was becoming so troublesome that Mother Ma- 
 grath was beginning to think that it was time for him to 
 go to the blessed Mary, when, by a lucky chance, he saved 
 himself for another, if not a better, fate. 
 
 One morning, when he was crying after Keturah, he 
 strayed as far as Chatham Street, where a man, hurrying 
 up the street, ran over him, and then, by the way of
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 reparation, picked him up and gave him a bright, silver 
 half-dollar, saying, "There, there, baby; don't cry. Give 
 that to your ma, and tell her to buy you some candy." 
 
 Just then Mother Magrath, who was looking for the 
 child, came along and took him from the man, with the 
 money in his hand. The man told her to take better care 
 of her baby, and keep him out of the street. 
 
 But Mother Magrath had learned something more to 
 her advantage than that. She knew now why the child 
 had been left to her. She saw at once that he was able not 
 only to earn his own living, but to become a source of 
 income, which might make up for the loss of her business, 
 which had come to a sudden end. From the day that she 
 found him in the street, Mother Magrath carried the 
 child, neatly dressed, with his face washed and his hair 
 in curl, and set him down in some busy street and let him 
 run. In a few moments he had caught his victim, and his 
 cry of warning was heard ; he was under the feet of some 
 man who was glad to escape the wrath of Mrs. Magrath 
 by paying fifty cents or a dollar nearly always a dollar. 
 In this way the child never earned less than three dollars 
 a day, and sometimes as much as five, and Mrs. Magrath's 
 bank account increased accordingly. The baby's way of 
 making a living was hard and hazardous ; but he escaped 
 with his life, though sometimes sorely bruised. Keturah 
 knew nothing of all this. She found the black and blue 
 spots on his body at night, and scolded Mother Magrath 
 for not taking better care of him. The old woman was 
 ready with excuses the baby would run away, and she 
 could not help it ; he was out in the street before she knew 
 anything, and it was a wonder that he was not killed; 
 all of which was true enough. Mother Magrath kept 
 careful watch over the baby for her own sake as well as 
 
 8
 
 The Reason Why 
 
 for his. He was her bread-winner; her only support in 
 the world. Baby farming had become too dangerous a 
 business to be carried on with safety. The frequent 
 deaths among the children attracted the attention of the 
 public authorities, who were not so ready as little Keturah 
 to accept the theory that the Lord took them to the blessed 
 Mary, but were strongly inclined to charge their death 
 upon Mother Magrath, and threatened her with the prison 
 should she continue her way of life; which she wisely 
 abandoned and depended wholly upon what the baby 
 earned by his falls. 
 
 This vocation was followed until the child became a 
 boy, whom busy men kicked and cuffed out of their way, 
 when a new method of opening the public purse was 
 adopted. Mother Magrath led the child, thinly clad, by 
 the hand, and went from house to house in the daytime, 
 and about the streets at night begging her bread. This, 
 if not quite so profitable as the baby's falls, yielded not 
 only what was sufficient for her daily needs, but also a 
 little for the bank. 
 
 When Keturah learned that Mother Magrath was 
 making a beggar of her boy she was very angry, and when 
 she found that she could prevent it only by sending mother 
 and child to prison, she was broken-hearted. She knew 
 that the prison would complete the ruin that the street 
 had commenced, so she had to hold her peace and bide her 
 time. 
 
 Keturah kept careful watch over the child, and as soon 
 as he was old enough she persuaded him to give up beg- 
 ging and go to work. From her own earnings she pur- 
 chased the outfit of a bootblack and set him up in busi- 
 ness. She was the very first to think that a bootblack 
 would do better if he had a regular stand and a chair for
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 his customers; so she bought a chair for the boy and 
 secured from Mr. Cronin the right to place the stand in 
 front of his saloon, at the corner of Chatham and Mul- 
 berry Streets. This saloon was the resort of the politi- 
 cians of that neighborhood as Mr. Cronin was the ward 
 alderman and the ward boss and so was a very desirable 
 situation for such a business as that which Keturah set 
 up for her foster child. 
 
 The lad became very popular, and soon had a large 
 and profitable clientage ; and Mrs. Magrath, to whom he 
 brought his earnings, discovered to her amazement that 
 honest work paid better than dishonest work or begging. 
 And from that time, with the exception of a small pension 
 which she received from Saint Nicholas Church, her only 
 source of income was what the boy earned. But this she 
 cared for so wisely that her savings in the bank increased 
 rapidly, and were counted by the thousand instead of by 
 the hundred dollars. 
 
 It was at this time of his life that the boy came to have 
 a name of his own. His customers called him Shinar, 
 which name he at last adopted, and greatly increased his 
 fame and his income by having a large sign printed and 
 put at the back of his chair which read, "Here is where 
 Shinar shines your shoes." 
 
 In the winter time, when the nights were dark and 
 cold, Shinar, at the request of Keturah, came to the night 
 school, and there the writer of this book made his ac- 
 quaintance, and, through him, that of his foster mother. 
 The acquaintance of the writer with this remarkable 
 woman ripened into a friendship that lasted as long as 
 she lived. He had not known her for a great while before 
 he came to have for her a reverent affection. She was, in 
 his estimation, one of those whose fate it is to bear a sin 
 
 10
 
 The Reason Why 
 
 and a sorrow which is not their own, and which is brought 
 upon them by their strong affections. Such souls as hers 
 are born into this world to love, to suffer, and to die. 
 
 Up to this time the story of this life has been an un- 
 written tragedy, and if the writer is moved to write it 
 now, it is not for her sake only, but for the sake of an- 
 other, with whom her life became strangely involved, and 
 who on her account was made liable to a dishonorable 
 charge, which lost him his place in life and branded his 
 name with a shame which it has borne to this day. 
 
 The reader of this history will find out why it .was that 
 a clergyman, who, up to his fortieth year, was irreproach- 
 able in his calling, honored as a scholar, and almost wor- 
 shipped as a preacher, suddenly fell from the high place 
 which he held in the world, was divorced by his wife 
 and deposed by his bishop, and passed the rest of his life 
 in obscurity, and was buried in a nameless grave.
 
 BOOK FIRST 
 w 
 
 Keturah Bain
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 KETURAH 
 
 ONE day late in the month of April, in the year 1871, 
 a little after the hour of noon, a woman turned from 
 Chatham Street into Mulberry, in the City of New York. 
 As she hurried along the street, to escape the rain that 
 was beginning to fall, there was nothing in her appearance 
 to attract attention. She was of medium height and 
 slender build, and seemed to belong to that order of 
 working women who throng in and out of the shops of 
 the city in the morning and the evening. She was dressed, 
 as is usual with her class, in simple black a close-fitting 
 serge dress and a jacket of the same material; on her 
 head she wore a plain round hat, in which, as the only 
 ornament she allowed herself, was a cluster of red flowers, 
 giving a bit of color to what was otherwise severely plain. 
 
 When she was a little way up Mulberry Street, just in 
 the Bend, she stopped in front of a passageway that ran 
 between two high tenements to some court in the rear. 
 As she paused, she turned toward the street, and there 
 passed over her face an expression of annoyance which 
 quickly changed to sadness ; then, as if calling up her 
 courage, she drew in two deep, spasmodic breaths, which 
 
 15
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 were almost sobs, and turned about and went quickly 
 through the passage into the court beyond. 
 
 At the far end of the court, which was about thirty 
 feet deep, was a cottage which seemed greatly out of place 
 in this dark corner of the city. It was such a house as you 
 find to-day on far-away country roads in New England, 
 under the shadow of elms, with hollyhocks in the door- 
 yard. Once it had been white with green blinds, as be- 
 came a New England cottage, but that was long ago. 
 Now the grime of the city was upon it, and it was a dirty 
 brown. The woman went toward it with her eyes on 
 the ground, as if afraid to look upon its dismal aspect; 
 and, hastily opening the door, entered and shut her- 
 self in. 
 
 The door opened into a small hallway, out of which a 
 flight of stairs ascended to rooms above. Both hallway 
 and stairs were uncarpeted, and were worn and soiled. 
 Hanging her hat on a peg in the wall, the woman went to 
 the rear of the hallway, and entered a room on the right. 
 This room was evidently the dining-room, as it was chiefly 
 occupied by a large table, upon which were unwashed 
 dishes and broken food. At the sight of this disorder, the 
 expression of annoyance changing into sadness was once 
 more seen upon the face of this woman. 
 
 The reason of that expression was revealed by the 
 face itself. It was a face highly refined and delicate, as 
 strangely out of place in its surroundings as the cottage 
 itself. It was a New England face, such as one sees in 
 the pictures of Puritan maidens, looking wistfully at de- 
 parting ships as they sail away to the far-off English 
 homes. There was that same pathetic, far-away look out 
 of the wide-open gray eyes ; the same sad brow, the same 
 delicate nose, the same sensitive mouth and sharp-pointed 
 
 16
 
 Keturah 
 
 chin which one looks for in the Priscillas and Prudences 
 of New England. Her hair once black, now tinged with 
 gray, was combed over the ears and gathered into a knot 
 low down over the neck. It was abundant and beautiful 
 hair, none the less beautiful because of the sheen of the 
 silver that was in it. The complexion of this woman was 
 without color, and yet it was neither pale nor brown, but 
 was of that chalky whiteness which is occasioned by an 
 indoor life, with its attendant absence of sunlight. 
 
 As she stood looking disconsolately at that untidy 
 table, she seemed a careworn woman of forty years ; her 
 brow was deeply lined and there were wrinkles under her 
 eyes, and yet there was something about her general bear- 
 ing that denied her age and was almost girlish a name- 
 less charm and grace of womanhood that needed only 
 favorable circumstances to make this gray-haired woman 
 young enough for love and happiness. In fact, she was 
 that morning only thirty years old. Sorrow and care, not 
 years, had turned her hair and wrinkled her face. 
 
 After standing a few moments in distressing hesita- 
 tion, she put down a small basket, which all this time she 
 had been holding in her hand, placing it on a shelf over 
 the stove for the room was both kitchen and dining- 
 room and drawing a deep sigh, and saying under her 
 breath, "Poor mother, poor mother," she tied on an apron 
 and went to work, quickly clearing away the table and 
 washing and drying the dishes. 
 
 As she was finishing her task the door opened and 
 another woman, much larger and older than she, entered 
 the room. The new-comer was a worn and faded blonde, 
 who had been handsome in her day, but was now a sad 
 wreck. It was not so much her age as dissipation of some 
 kind that had made her what she was. Her hair was that 
 
 17
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 lifeless yellow hair that never changes color; her face 
 was flabby, as if bloated in some unnatural way ; her large 
 brown eyes were lustreless and uneasy, shutting and open- 
 ing constantly as if pained by the light. This older 
 woman was dressed in a loose cotton wrapper, and seemed 
 dazed, as if she had just risen from sleep. 
 
 As the younger woman looked at her, that expression 
 of sad annoyance came over her face once more and settled 
 there. The two women gazed at each other for a moment 
 in silence. The older woman spoke first, in a low, husky, 
 far-away voice, saying, in a tone of astonishment : 
 
 "Keturah, is it you, home from the shop? I didn't 
 know it was so late ; I've been asleep. What time is it ?" 
 
 "It is not quite one o'clock, mother." 
 
 "Not one o'clock ? What ever in the world brings you 
 home before one o'clock? Did you forget your dinner?" 
 
 "No, mother; my dinner is there on the shelf, in 
 the basket; I haven't eaten it yet. I don't care for it. 
 I'm not hungry to-day." 
 
 "What made you leave the shop, then ? Has anything 
 happened ?" 
 
 "Nothing unusual, mother." 
 
 "Keturah !" cried the older woman, "what makes you 
 torment me so? Can't you tell me what you came home 
 for?" 
 
 "Maybe I came home to wash up the breakfast dishes." 
 
 At this the older woman sat down and began to cry. 
 
 "You know, Keturah," she said, "that I am sick and 
 couldn't work this mornin'. I was just comin' down now 
 to do up the dishes, not lookin' for you till night, and 
 nobody home but me. But you don't care about me being 
 sick ; nobody cares. I wish I was dead, I do." 
 
 "Never mind, mother dear," said Keturah, kneeling 
 
 18
 
 Keturah 
 
 down and putting her arms around her mother ; "I do care 
 and am sorry that I spoke as I did. I know you are sick, 
 and I am sorry for that, too. If you want to know why I 
 am at home this time of the day I suppose I must tell you. 
 I'm on half-time again ; that is all." 
 
 These words of the daughter, instead of soothing the 
 mother, seemed to plunge her into deeper grief. 
 
 "On half-time again, on half-time again," she cried, 
 rocking in her chair. "Whatever will we do? Father 
 doin' nothin' and Benny out o' work; whatever will we 
 do?" 
 
 "There, there, mother," said Keturah, soothingly. 
 "Don't cry. We will get on some way or other. It isn't 
 the first time I have been on half-time, you know." 
 
 "Oh, I know you always take me up that way; you 
 never think I know anything. How does Rosenthal think 
 we are goin' to live, and you on half-time?" 
 
 "I don't suppose he thinks anything about it, mother. 
 There is no work in the shop, and if there is no work he 
 can't keep us ; that wouldn't be business." 
 
 "But couldn't you find another place, Keturah, where 
 you'd have steady work ?" 
 
 "No, mother. When it is dull in one shop it is dull in 
 all, and besides I have been with Mr. Rosenthal so many 
 years that I am sure of a place with him as long as I can 
 work. He is very good to me, and whenever there is 
 work to be done I have it." 
 
 "There you are again, Keturah, standin' up for that 
 skinflint Jew, that grinds you down to the last cent." 
 
 "It isn't right of you, mother, to talk that way. We've 
 had our living from Mr. Rosenthal for nearly ten years, 
 and very few Christians would be as kind to me as he has 
 been, even if he is a Jew. But, mother, don't let's talk 
 
 19
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 any more about it. Come, let me put you back to bed 
 again, and I will stop here until Abigail comes home. 
 She and I will talk it all over and see what is best to be 
 done." 
 
 The mother suffered herself to be led up-stairs to her 
 room and soon fell into a dead, heavy sleep. Keturah 
 went down-stairs, and with a sad heart waited for her 
 sister, Abigail, to come hgrne from school. Abigail was 
 the brightness of her life, and the hope of the household.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 HER FATHER 
 
 KETURAH BAIN was the eldest living child of Joshua 
 Bain and Abigail Skinner, his wife. Joshua Bain was the 
 son of Ebenezer Bain, beyond whom it is not necessary 
 for the purposes of this narrative to trace the family his- 
 tory. 
 
 Joshua Bain was born in the village or town of Fal- 
 mouth, on Cape Cod, in the State of Massachusetts, in the 
 year 1816. His early life was the life of the Puritan boy 
 at the beginning of the last century. It was a life of hard 
 work and hard blows. The severe discipline of the New 
 England household made this world a sorry place for 
 little children. They were set to work when nature meant 
 them to play, and were ruled with the rod where they 
 needed the gentle guidance of the eye. And they endured 
 what no race of children before or since have had to put 
 up with, the horrors of the Puritan Sunday. From sun- 
 down Saturday night until the same hour Sunday even- 
 ing every natural instinct of the childish nature was out- 
 raged, and in the name of the loving Father it was sub- 
 jected to a system of mental and bodily torture, from 
 which the children of this generation have happily 
 escaped. 
 
 Ebenezer Bain, the father of Joshua, was a Puritan of 
 
 21
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 the old type stern and cold, a hearty hater and a domestic 
 tyrant. He married one of those sweet-faced New Eng- 
 land women, and by her had four daughters and one son, 
 Joshua, the father of Keturah. By the principle of re- 
 action, that rules so largely in nature, the child of the 
 stern Ebenezer was born with a merry heart, and almost 
 from the day of his birth there was warfare between him 
 and his father. The rod was his daily portion as a child, 
 and the horsewhip when he was older. But nothing could 
 check the flow of his spirits, and as he grew toward man- 
 hood his humor did not spare the sanctities of religion. 
 The long, tiresome sermons of the ministers, the sancti- 
 mony of the elders, and the hypocrisy of the deacons ex- 
 cited his mirth and ridicule; so that the saying went 
 abroad in Falmouth that, "There was more fun than faith 
 in Joshua Bain." In such as he the reaction against 
 Puritanism, which is now at its height, had its beginning. 
 
 As the boy grew older, the antagonism between him- 
 self and his father was intensified until it culminated in 
 one of those dreadful scenes which made the home life of 
 New England in the early part of the nineteenth century 
 so terrible and so tragical. 
 
 Among the girls of the village was a maiden of sixteen 
 years named Abigail Skinner. Now, if there was one man 
 in all the world whom Ebenezer Bain hated more than 
 another, it was Joseph Skinner, the father of Abigail. 
 This man combined in himself all the qualities that Eben- 
 ezer Bain most despised and abhorred. Bain was a violent 
 Democrat, while Skinner was a Federalist ; almost a Tory, 
 in fact. Skinner was an Arminian, which made him, in 
 the eyes of the strict Calvinist, Bain, no better than an 
 infidel. Skinner and Bain were rivals in business, and 
 Skinner was the more prosperous of the two, which fact 
 
 22
 
 Her Father 
 
 kept the anger of Ebenezer Bain at white heat. With the 
 usual perversity of youth in the matters of love, Joshua 
 Bain, out of all the girls in the village, had eyes only for 
 Abigail Skinner and, in spite of parental protest, became 
 her steady company. The father stormed and raged, all 
 to no purpose. Every Sunday night Joshua Bain and 
 Abigail Skinner sat in silence together in the parlor of the 
 Skinner cottage as was the custom of New England 
 lovers in those days and might have been called in meet- 
 ing and married at home and lived in Falmouth all their 
 days had it not been for Joshua Bain's love of fun and 
 foolishness. 
 
 He and Abigail both sang in the choir at the meeting- 
 house. The singers were in the gallery at the back of the 
 church ; the stairs leading to the gallery were winding 
 stairs and it was dark there. One Sunday morning, in 
 the fall of 1836, when the apples had been gathered and 
 the boats had come home from the fisheries, the people of 
 Falmouth were gathered in the meeting-house for the pur- 
 pose of divine worship. They were awaiting the minister 
 in that awful stillness that prevails in a New England 
 house of God, before the man of God begins to speak. To 
 the utter horror of the people that solemn silence was 
 broken by what was plainly the sound of a kiss, followed 
 by a girlish giggle and low, manly laughter. The sound 
 came from the rear of the church. On the instant every 
 person in that congregation turned the head to see who 
 had so desecrated the house of God ; but nothing was to 
 be seen that explained the mystery. Just then the min- 
 ister entered the pulpit and the congregation turned to- 
 ward him again and sat, stern of face and rigid of form, 
 through the prayers, the singing, and the sermon. It did 
 not matter what was said and sung that day, so far as the 
 
 23
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 people were concerned ; they had no thought for anything 
 but the outrage that had been committed in the holy place. 
 Nothing like it had ever happened in Falmouth. 
 
 Immediately after the service, when the people had 
 been dismissed, there was a meeting of the elders to find 
 out who had wrought this folly in Israel. The members 
 of the choir were brought before this body of judges and 
 commanded to reveal the names of the culprits. After 
 some hesitation one of the Bain girls said : 
 
 "It was nothing, only brother Josh kissed Abby Skin- 
 ner in the turning of the stairs." 
 
 At this Ebenezer Bain rose up in his wrath and asked 
 the assembled elders, as a favor, that he might be permit- 
 ted to deal with the wickedness of his own son. This re- 
 quest was granted him, and the father and the son walked 
 home in silence together. The face of the father was 
 flushed with anger; the son's face was white and still. 
 When they entered the living room the mother of the boy 
 was waiting for them, pale and trembling. She came for- 
 ward and laid her hand upon her husband's shoulder, and 
 said: 
 
 "Ebenezer, forgive the boy ; he is our only son." 
 
 "Forgive him!" cried the father, now mad with pas- 
 sion ; "forgive him who has shamed me before the whole 
 congregation of God's people, who has dared to desecrate, 
 with his libidinous folly, the holy place of worship and 
 the sacred day of the Lord ! Forgive him ! God do so to 
 me and more also, if I do not punish him so that he will 
 remember it to the day of his death. You profaner of 
 holy things, take off your coat." 
 
 "Father father Ebenezer!" cried the mother, put- 
 ting her arms around her husband's neck, "don't whip my 
 boy 1 He is my boy, and I will not have you ruin his soul 
 
 24
 
 Her Father 
 
 by your anger. It was only a kiss, only a kiss, and, Eben- 
 ezer, don't you remember, you kissed me before we were 
 married !" And the poor woman struggled to kiss the hard 
 lips that had not kissed hers for years, if so be she might 
 soften the hard heart and save her boy. But the man was 
 not to be stayed in his passion. He threw his wife aside 
 and cried : 
 
 "Boy, do you hear me? Take off your coat!" 
 
 "Yes, father," said the young man, "I hear you, and 
 I will obey you. I was foolish, I did wrong; but not so 
 wrong as you are doing now, breaking my mother's heart 
 with your wicked anger. You may whip me if you 
 please, I am used to that ; you have done nothing but whip 
 me since I was a little boy, but it is the last time. Strike 
 me one blow and I leave your house and renounce your 
 God forever." 
 
 "Silence, sir, silence!" cried the father. "Mary," he said 
 to one of the daughters, all of whom were looking on this 
 scene with horror on their lips and terror in their hearts, 
 "Mary, go to the barn and bring me the horsewhip ; boy, 
 take off your coat." 
 
 "No, father, not here; not where mother can see it. 
 I will go with you to the barn;" and going up to his 
 mother he took her in his arms and held her for a moment 
 and kissed her and said : 
 
 "Good-bye, mother, good-bye," and went out of the 
 door and walked to the barn, followed by his father. Soon 
 the women heard the terrible sound of the whip falling on 
 human flesh, but no cry was heard ; the sufferer bore his 
 punishment in silence. 
 
 In a little while the wrath of the father was spent, and 
 he returned alone to the house ; the boy did not come with 
 him. He never came again. He staid a little while in
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 the barn, feeling the burning stripes in his flesh, and the 
 burning shame in his heart, and then and there he re- 
 nounced his father's house and his father's God and went 
 away. 
 
 In an hour his mother crept out to the barn to see him, 
 but he was gone and she never saw him again, for in three 
 months she was dead and buried. 
 
 26
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 HER MOTHER 
 
 WHEN Joshua Bain disappeared from Falmouth, Abi- 
 gail Skinner disappeared also. Nobody, except Joseph 
 Skinner, knew when they went away or where they had 
 gone to, and Joseph Skinner held his peace. 
 
 On that Sunday night, after his father left him, 
 Joshua Bain put on his coat and went to see his girl. He 
 walked bravely through the street so that no one should 
 know that he, Joshua Bain, had been whipped like a cur 
 by his father. When he reached the Skinner cottage, he 
 found Abigail waiting for him in fear and trembling. 
 She knew something dreadful had happened. Joshua 
 came in as usual and kissed her, as he always did on Sun- 
 day night, and sat down to keep company with her. At 
 this Abigail breathed more freely ; nothing had happened 
 after all. 
 
 In a few moments she was sadly disabused of her con- 
 fidence. The young man, unable to restrain himself any 
 longer, burst forth into a passion of weeping and cursing. 
 All the bitterness of all the hard years of his hard life 
 found expression in a frightful storm of rage and hate. 
 He cursed his father, and he cursed his father's God ; he 
 would never again, he said, set his foot in the house of his 
 father or the house of his God ; he had no father and he 
 
 27
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 had no God. He had done nothing but give an innocent 
 kiss to an innocent girl, and he had been beaten like a 
 dog. He did not care for God; he would rather go to 
 hell any day than be with him. Was a kiss sacrilege and 
 was laughter an insult? It would be better for the world 
 if there were less praying and preaching and whipping, 
 and more laughing and kissing. 
 
 So the young man stormed and blasphemed, until the 
 rage of his heart was spent. Joseph Skinner heard him 
 and came into the room, and then Joshua, having quieted 
 down, told them all that had happened, and he told them 
 also that he was going to leave Falmouth forever. He 
 would not live any longer in the same town Or state with 
 his father ; he was afraid he would kill him, and he begged 
 Abigail to go with him. He would try and be good to 
 her ; they could go to New York and make their way, he 
 was sure. Would not she marry him at once and go with 
 him ? Carried away by his vehemence, the girl consented, 
 as did her father. 
 
 They put Joshua to bed, and Joseph Skinner, whose 
 wife was dead, washed his back, which was red and 
 swollen with his whipping, with salt and water, and then 
 rubbed it with whale oil. 
 
 Early the next morning he started with the young 
 people for Boston, which they reached in three days, and 
 there Joshua Bain and Abigail Skinner were made man 
 and wife; Joshua was twenty and Abigail sixteen years 
 old. 
 
 Joseph Skinner gave them two hundred dollars and 
 they sailed from the port of Boston for New York, to 
 enter upon a new and strange life. 
 
 Abigail Skinner, who had so early and so suddenly 
 been forced into the life and duties of womanhood, was 
 
 28
 
 Her Mother 
 
 hardly equal to the task. She was not the kind of stuff 
 of which heroines are made. She was a tall, large woman 
 of the blonde type the sort of woman that nature builds 
 for shady nooks and cosy corners and uneventful lives ; 
 the kind of woman that sours in adversity and frets under 
 discomfort. 
 
 On the way to New York she was very sick, and when 
 she reached the great city she was taken with such a 
 longing for the quiet home in Falmouth that she nearly 
 died. Her love for Joshua Bain had been but a girl's 
 fancy and it soon passed away, and from morning till 
 night she fretted and worried until the poor man was 
 well-nigh distracted. He was, as he promised, a good 
 husband to her, bearing with her infirmities and trying 
 to make her happy. 
 
 In a year the first child was born. Its little life be- 
 ginning thus in excitement and loneliness, it was born 
 without the power to live, and fortunately died in a few 
 weeks. In two years more another child was born, a 
 little girl, whom her father called after the name of his 
 mother, Keturah. And as she grew up, the child seemed 
 to reproduce on earth the life of that sad, sweet-faced, 
 gentle woman, who had died of a broken heart in Fal- 
 mouth. From the very first she, too, was sad, sweet- 
 faced, and tender-hearted. Her father loved her and she 
 loved her father. Four other children were born in the 
 course of time, two of whom died, leaving Keturah, Ben- 
 jamin, and Abigail, named for her mother, as the children 
 of the household. 
 
 The mother, occupied with her family cares and used 
 to the ways of the city, ceased to pine for her New Eng- 
 land home, and grew to be a very handsome woman, fair 
 and large, that type of English woman one sees on the 
 
 29
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 farms in Devonshire women who move about as the 
 cattle do and are quiet as long as they are well cared for. 
 The wife of Joshua Bain had the face and figure of these 
 women, but she lacked their repose. The keen American 
 air, while it had not been able to give her energy, had 
 succeeded in souring her disposition and she was that 
 saddest of all created things, an unhappy, discontented 
 woman.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 CHILDHOOD DAYS 
 
 UNTIL she was fourteen years old, Keturah Bain had 
 a comparatively happy life. Her father was the owner of 
 a small vessel and was engaged in the coasting trade up 
 and down the Sound. He carried goods from the city to 
 the towns along the shore, and brought the produce from 
 the country to New York. His business was fairly pros- 
 perous, and he was a hale and hearty sailor-man. In the 
 winter, when his own sloop was laid up, he would make 
 a voyage as mate, or even before the mast, down to the 
 West Indies, and from there he would bring the children 
 coral trinkets and tropical fruits. 
 
 It was during this period of his life that he made a 
 home for himself and family in the Bend of Mulberry 
 Street. In those days Mulberry Street, while not fashion- 
 able, was still very respectable. It was inhabited by small 
 merchants and tradesmen and mechanics. Here Joshua 
 Bain built his house ; a New England cottage, with queer 
 gables and dormer windows; it was white with green 
 blinds. The house was set far back in the yard and an elm 
 was planted close to the gate, and in the summer and fall 
 hollyhocks, larkspurs, and golden-rod bloomed before the 
 door. It was a pretty home, and Keturah made herself 
 happy caring for the flowers in the garden and helping 
 her mother in the house.
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 But the great delight of her childhood was the river 
 and the boat on the river. The blood of generations of 
 seafaring men was in her veins, and she loved nothing 
 better than to go down in the evening when the tide was 
 coming in and watch the waves chase each other like 
 children at play. In the summer time, when she was old 
 enough, and there was no school, her father would take 
 her with him up the Sound. These were to her days of 
 delight. She would sit for long hours and watch the 
 sails flap in the wind, and when she was tired of that 
 would go and look over the side of the boat and see the 
 water run by. She loved nothing better than to cook for 
 her father and eat her meals with him in the snug little 
 cabin, and at night she was rocked to sleep by the motion 
 of the ship, and was hushed by the music of the waves 
 beating against the port-hole. 
 
 When the boat landed at some quaint old town, on the 
 shores of Long Island, or in the State of Connecticut, the 
 child would wander about and dream of herself as living 
 in such a town as that. Her mother had sung to her the 
 praises of Falmouth, and she always thought of such 
 towns as the nicest places in the world to live in. 
 
 Keturah was educated in the public school, which had 
 just then come into existence, and she was as happy in 
 her school as she was by the riverside. She was from the 
 first a lover of books, and would read all that she could 
 lay her hands on. There was one book which she never 
 read. Her father would never allow a Bible in his house. 
 Neither did Keturah often go to church or Sunday-school. 
 She grew up without any knowledge of that great system 
 of religion, in the midst of which she lived. She knew 
 that there were churches, and that people talked of God, 
 but that did not concern her. She lived her life without
 
 Childhood Days 
 
 any hope of heaven, nor fear of hell. Her mother had 
 her say her prayers when she was little and she learned 
 a few simple hymns ; but when- she questioned her father 
 about it he laughed and said that he guessed if we would 
 take care of ourselves, God would take care of himself. 
 So little Keturah did not trouble her soul with the reli- 
 gious problems of her day. Predestination, saving grace, 
 and eternal punishment she never so much as heard of. 
 Her Sundays were like her week days, only she did not 
 go to school and had more time at the river. 
 
 Only two things troubled her ; her mother's f retfulness 
 and Mrs. Magrath's children. Why her mother could 
 not be happy in their pretty home, and why children were 
 sent to Mrs. Magrath to sicken and die, were problems 
 that sorely perplexed her little soul. She tried to solve 
 them in a practical way, doing all she could to make her 
 mother happy, and striving to quiet the cries of the Ma- 
 grath children. So the days of her childhood passed, 
 until Shinar came, and then she- began to be a woman.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE BEGINNING OF SORROWS 
 
 WHEN she was little more than fourteen years old, 
 Keturah made a discovery that changed her at once from 
 an unconscious, careless child into a conscious, anxious 
 woman. 
 
 One day when she was expecting her father to come 
 home, she went down to the pier to watch and wait for 
 him. Very soon she saw the sloop out in the middle of 
 the river making for the shore. To her astonishment the 
 boat did not take its proper course, but veered about as 
 if it were in the hands of an unskillful pilot. Several 
 times the Falmouth, for that was the name of the boat, 
 so called after that old, never-to-be-forgotten home, just 
 escaped colliding with other vessels. Keturah could not 
 comprehend what was the cause of this strange action. 
 Her father was one of the best steersmen on the Sound, 
 and always brought his little ship into her dock in grand 
 style. But that day he fumbled as if he had never 
 handled a wheel before. Keturah was lost in amazement 
 as she saw the sloop staggering like a drunken thing, in- 
 stead of coming straight for her dock. 
 
 At last, after many escapes that were miraculous, the 
 Falmouth was tied up to her pier and Keturah went 
 aboard to see what was the trouble. In an instant the 
 mystery was explained. Her father was drunk. 
 
 35
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 The effect of this discovery upon the child was ap- 
 palling. It was as if she had seen the sky falling and the 
 earth going to pieces under her feet. She had loved and 
 reverenced her father as few fathers are loved and rever- 
 enced by their children. He represented to Keturah all 
 that was best and noblest in the world. His patience with 
 her mother, his gentleness toward his children, his un- 
 varying cheerfulness, made up the brightness and beauty 
 of her life. She gave to him the admiration and the wor- 
 ship that most children are taught to give to their heav- 
 enly Father. But Keturah had never heard of her heav- 
 enly Father; her earthly father was her only father, she 
 had no other God but him. To see him in the condition 
 in which she found him was like seeing the abomination 
 of desolation in the holy place. 
 
 Living where she did, Keturah could not help seeing 
 drunken men and women, and they excited in her soul 
 fear and disgust. She shrank from them as from the un- 
 holy and the unclean. As she watched her father on that 
 fatal day, staggering about the deck of his vessel, uncer- 
 tain of step, inarticulate of speech, she grew faint and 
 sick. She had a dizziness in her head and a nausea she 
 could not control. She sat down and covered her eyes 
 and waited for strength to come to her. She did not dare 
 to speak to her father. She did not want him to know 
 that she saw his condition. 
 
 It was, indeed, the sad fact, that Joshua Bain had been 
 slowly drifting into drunkenness. Everything in his life 
 laid him open to the temptation to drink. Drinking was 
 much more common in his day than it is now ; there was 
 very little or no temperance sentiment in the country. 
 Everybody drank more or less, and men did not drink 
 wine or beer, but distilled liquors, such as whisky or rum. 
 
 36
 
 The Beginning of Sorrows 
 
 When Joshua was a boy he saw that his father, though 
 an elder of the church, was a daily drinker of Jamaica, 
 and when he was a young man he always had something 
 to drink of an evening. It was the custom of the country. 
 
 When he came to New York he continued the habit 
 of his youth; he was a constant, but not an excessive 
 drinker. But the habit grew on him as he grew older. 
 His way of life fostered it. His business carried him 
 into taverns where drinking was a matter of course, and 
 during the long, lonesome days, when the sloop was be- 
 calmed or drifting slowly before a contrary wind, he had 
 nothing to while away the time but his glass and his pipe. 
 
 When at home he took refuge from the fretfulness of 
 his wife in Michael Cronin's saloon, and no one could be 
 in Cronin's saloon and not drink. So both at home and 
 abroad, temptation was in his way and he yielded to it. 
 
 The hard discipline of his early years had not strength- 
 ened his will ; it had broken it. And when he cast himself 
 loose from his father's house and his father's God there 
 was no restraining force in his life. His very virtues of 
 sweetness and gentleness and good nature became his 
 snare. He did not try to rule himself, he simply drifted ; 
 and he who drifts is lost. 
 
 Keturah left the ship without speaking to her father, 
 nor did she say anything at home of what she had seen. 
 She did not want to believe that it was true. She went 
 about her work with eagerness and hurried away as soon 
 as she could to take care of Shinar. She staid away from 
 the house until bedtime, and then hurried to her room 
 and went to bed, thinking that if she could only go to 
 sleep, she would wake up in the morning and find that 
 it was not so. 
 
 Late in the night Keturah heard her father come home, 
 
 37
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 and for the first time in her life she heard him speak 
 roughly to her mother. When he came in the house he 
 was greeted as usual with dreary complaining. That 
 fret, fret, fret, which is the torture of domestic life, was 
 not borne meekly that night as it had always been before, 
 but was resented with sullen roughness and even pro- 
 fanity. When Keturah heard the voice of her father 
 swearing at her mother, she covered her ears with the 
 bedclothes and hiding her face in the pillow, lest she 
 should disturb Abigail, who slept with her, she cried 
 herself to sleep. 
 
 When she wakened in the morning she had a sense 
 of strangeness, as if she were in another world. At first 
 she did not know what had happened, but in a moment 
 the memory of yesterday came back to her as a wave of 
 misery, and she turned her face to the wall and closed 
 her eyes and tried to shut it out. The voice of her mother 
 calling her compelled her to rise from bed, dress herself, 
 and go down stairs. She was afraid to go down; she 
 was afraid she would find everything changed. Her very 
 fear, however, made her hurry. She wanted to see and 
 know the worst. When she came down stairs and went 
 out of doors, she was astonished to find everything just 
 as it had been ; there was the tree by the gate, and the 
 flowers beside the path. The sun was shining and the 
 birds were singing and the street was full of people going 
 to work. Keturah could not understand why everything 
 else should remain as it was, when her own life had 
 changed so completely. 
 
 Her first feeling was a sense of relief. Things could 
 not be so bad after all. She must have been mistaken 
 yesterday. Father was not drunk; only sick. With a 
 happier heart she went into the house and there her better 
 
 38
 
 The Beginning of Sorrows 
 
 impressions were confirmed ; there was no more change in 
 the house than out of doors. The children were down 
 stairs, waiting for breakfast; her mother was fretting at 
 them, as she always did, and her father was reading the 
 paper. As Keturah saw all this her spirit revived and 
 she went about her work with cheerfulness. 
 
 But she could not help watching her father as she had 
 never watched him before, and what she saw in his face 
 went far to dampen her newborn hope and confirm her 
 fears of the morning. There was no change in the world 
 outside, there was no change in the household routine ; all 
 that was as it always had been ; but there was a change 
 in her father's face. That change had been coming for 
 a long time, only Keturah had not seen it until now; it 
 was a sad and sudden revelation to her. She saw a cer- 
 tain redness in her father's face, which was not the rough- 
 ness of the wind, and over his eyes there was a certain 
 haze and blear; his look was unsteady and on his coun- 
 tenance there was an aspect of sadness, of weakness, and 
 of shame. His face was the face of a man in the first 
 stages of moral decay. Keturah could not understand 
 all that she saw in that face, but she knew it meant some- 
 thing wrong, and her heart failed her accordingly. 
 
 From that day she was on the lookout for evil. Her 
 confidence in the goodness of her father was shaken and 
 her life became a daily dread. What she feared came to 
 pass. Her father came home again and again under the 
 influence of strong drink, until at last the awful conclu- 
 sion was forced upon Keturah that her father was a 
 drunkard. And she found herself outside the gates of 
 Paradise in the wilderness of the world. 
 
 39
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE FIRST DISASTER 
 
 FROM that day the life of Keturah was one of consum- 
 ing anxiety. Her mother did not seem to be aware of 
 the danger that they were in, and Keturah did not care to 
 speak to her about it. She and her mother were not in 
 sympathy. She had to live her life of anxiety and sor- 
 row alone, and wait with fear and trembling for what the 
 morrow would bring forth. She knew that it was not 
 safe for her father to be in charge of the sloop, especially 
 to be at the wheel, as he always was ; he was there at the 
 risk of his own life and at the risk of the lives of others. 
 The river, crowded with craft, was no place for a drunken 
 pilot, and such she had sadly to admit her father was. 
 Once or twice she had spoken to him timidly, asking him 
 if he could not get something to do on shore ; but he had 
 answered roughly, telling her to mind her own business, 
 and she did not care to speak to him again. She could 
 only wait for the end. 
 
 And it came all too soon. It was a dark September 
 day, when the autumnal equinox was blowing, and sailing 
 in the Sound required a clear eye and a steady hand. 
 Joshua Bain was bringing the Falmouth down from New 
 London. He had been drinking hard all the day before 
 and was in a state of collapse. It was the very day and 
 
 41
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 hour for a disaster, and he did not escape it. When ne 
 was off Blackwell's Island he put his helm to port when 
 it should have gone to starboard, and ran down the prison 
 boat that was taking released prisoners from the Island 
 to the city. Three of the prisoners, two men and a wo- 
 man, were lost, as also were two of the keepers. Five 
 lives in all paid the penalty of Joshua Bain's uncertain 
 eye and unsteady hand and drunken soul. 
 
 At the investigation which followed, before the court 
 of the port wardens, it was clearly proven that the col- 
 lision was the fault of the captain of the Falmouth. It 
 was also brought out at the trial that Joshua Bain was 
 in the habit of drinking. By decree of the court his 
 license as captain was taken away and he was fined one 
 thousand dollars. Beside this, he was sued in the court 
 for damages by the heirs of those whose lives had been 
 lost by the accident, and also by the city, the boat of which 
 had been injured. The verdicts against the poor man 
 were so heavy that he was ruined for life. He was threat- 
 ened also with criminal prosecution for manslaughter, 
 but this, through the remissness of the district attorney, 
 he escaped. 
 
 Nothing could be more complete than the misfortune 
 that had befallen the family of Joshua Bain. His sloop 
 was taken away from him and his house was sold by the 
 sheriff, and was purchased by the Bullet estate. 
 
 Then came the change that had long been inevitable. 
 The city of New York had been growing by leaps and 
 bounds. Neighborhoods had been changing with a ra- 
 pidity that was bewildering. The fashionable quarter of 
 yesterday was the slum of to-morrow. Residence streets 
 were taken for business; and quiet neighborhoods were 
 built up into great tenements, to house the mixed and 
 
 42
 
 The First Disaster 
 
 noisy foreign population that was crowding from all lands 
 into the great city. For years Mulberry Street had been 
 in a state of transformation. The Irish and the Jews 
 were crowding out the native population and driving 
 them up town and into the suburbs. Hideous and pop- 
 ulous tenements were taking the place of the cottage 
 houses with their pretty dooryards. 
 
 For a long time the Bullet estate had wanted the Bain 
 property to complete the lot necessary for a large build- 
 ing which the agent wished to put up there. He had al- 
 ready purchased from Mrs. Magrath, and had offered 
 Bain a handsome sum for his house. But Joshua Bain 
 would not sell because it was his home ; the place where 
 he had lived ever since he had been in the city, and which 
 he had builded in the likeness of the house of his mother, 
 and which he had loved as a man loves that upon which 
 he has spent his time, his money, and his heart. But 
 what the Bullet millions could not accomplish had been 
 brought about by drink. The home that Joshua Bain 
 would not sell, he lost. At that time there was no law 
 against keeping or building houses on the rear of city 
 lots, so the Bullet estate moved Mrs. Magrath's shanty 
 and the Bain cottage back to the line of the lots and built 
 their great tenement in front, leaving a narrow passage 
 to the rear. Thus the Bain cottage, which had been open 
 to the sky and the street, was shut into the narrowness 
 and darkness of a damp and paved court. 
 
 If there had been any power of weeping left in the 
 soul of Keturah, she would have cried to break her heart 
 when the elm was cut down at the gate and the turf torn 
 up in the dooryard. But Keturah had grown too old 
 for tears ; her eyes were as dry as her heart was desolate. 
 So she watched in silence this desecration of her home 
 and tried to save what she could out of the ruins. 
 
 43
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 In this crisis of the family history she had become the 
 head of the household. Her father, utterly broken by 
 the accumulating misfortune, drifted away on the sea of 
 drunkenness and was of no use to his family. When he 
 did recover he was able to do only odd jobs down at the 
 river in the way of loading and unloading ships, and he 
 also, by and by, having influence with sailors and long- 
 shoremen, made himself useful to the political boss of his 
 district and was allowed to gather a few crumbs from 
 under the political table ; but this was only years after the 
 great disaster. 
 
 Keturah's mother, unable to bear up under the family 
 misfortunes, gave away to a habit of opium eating which 
 she had slowly been acquiring for years. She was sub- 
 ject to sick headache and her physician had given her 
 opium to quiet her pain, with the usual result that the 
 remedy was worse than the disease, and as her husband 
 was an alcoholic, so was she an opium drunkard. 
 
 It was under such circumstances that the strong will 
 01 Keturah exerted itself to save what she could of the 
 family wreck. She would keep her father and mother 
 from the poor-house, and her brother and sister from the 
 street. By her force of character she easily dominated 
 the weaker wills of her father and mother and kept hold 
 of the boy and the girl. 
 
 She left school and found work for herself in the 
 trimming rooms of Isaac Rosenthal, manufacturer of hats 
 and caps. The pittance paid her would have been in- 
 sufficient to keep a roof over their heads, and the poor- 
 house and the street would have been their portion had 
 not a little good fortune come in the midst of their mis- 
 fortune. Grandfather Skinner died in Falmouth, and left 
 her mother a few hundred dollars. Keturah got posses- 
 sion of that and kept it for ready money. 
 
 44
 
 The First Disaster 
 
 She looked everywhere for a place to live in, but could 
 find nothing so convenient to her work and so in accord 
 with their means as their own cottage in the rear of No. 
 53 Mulberry Street. It was shut in from the light and 
 made vile by the sights and sounds of a low tenement, 
 but what could she expect ? She was poor as the poorest, 
 and poverty brought with it not only want but degrada- 
 tion. Everywhere within reach of her work she found 
 the same conditions. Besides, she could have the cottage 
 for themselves and it was their own old home. And if it 
 was hidden, it hid their ruin and their shame. 
 
 So Keturah used a part of her mother's legacy to buy 
 a five-years' lease of the cottage from the Bullet estate. 
 She put her brother to work in a drygoods house in 
 Chambers Street, and she herself went every day to her 
 work and to her labor until the evening. 
 
 45
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 A MISFORTUNE OF WAR 
 
 BY that wonderful power of adaptability which is 
 Nature's best gift to living things, Keturah adjusted her- 
 self to her new conditions and was not unhappy in them. 
 Her work, at first so irksome, soon became a pleasure. 
 As the girls in the trimming room were paid by the piece, 
 Keturah's wages depended upon her industry and her 
 skill. Her New England sense of duty made her a care- 
 ful worker. She never tried to do more than she could 
 do well. She had no desire to increase her wages at the 
 expense of her employer. Every hat and cap that left 
 her hands would bear the keen inspection of the fore- 
 woman and even of Mr. Rosenthal himself. At first her 
 careful methods placed her at a disadvantage with other 
 girls, and they made fun of her accordingly. But she 
 soon found that her way was the best. While the work 
 of the other girls was frequently rejected and they were 
 fined for spoiling the material intrusted to them, and so 
 lost sometimes as much as half their week's wages, Ke- 
 turah's work after the first few weeks was always ac- 
 cepted and what she did she was paid for. She had no 
 losses to make up. Soon she became the most rapid, as 
 well as the most careful worker in the room, and her in- 
 come increased in proportion. While not exactly pop- 
 
 47
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 ular, Keturah was greatly respected by her shopmates. 
 She had the influence which a superior nature always has. 
 The working girls were, for the most part, children of 
 foreign and illiterate parents, careless in their habits and 
 coarse in their speech; loud laughter and low jests were 
 the staple of talk and mirth. In the midst of this coarse- 
 ness, Keturah, with her refinement and gentleness, seemed 
 a being from another world, and she suffered acutely from 
 it. But she kept bravely on in her way, bearing the scoffs 
 of the girls, who called her "Yankee miss" and "stuck 
 up," in silence, until at last she conquered the respect of 
 her companions and brought them to conform in a 
 measure to her ways and habits. 
 
 To the younger girls who came into the shop she was 
 a helpful friend, showing them how best to do their work 
 and protecting them from the older and ruder women. 
 Any one who was in trouble could always find a wise and 
 sympathetic counsellor in Keturah Bain. In a few years 
 her moral sway was undisputed. 
 
 Her employer was not slow to recognize the commer- 
 cial value of such a character as that of Keturah, and 
 when the forewoman, jealous of her growing influence 
 in the shop, attempted to injure her in his estimation, 
 Mr. Rosenthal, to prevent friction, quietly dismissed the 
 forewoman and put Keturah in her place. 
 
 Then came the great war time with its rush of orders. 
 Hats and caps by the thousands were to be made for the 
 soldiers, and Mr. Rosenthal was not slow to get his share 
 of the work. Prices were high and wages increased. 
 These, if not altogether happy, were not unpleasant, days 
 for Keturah Bain. As she stood in her workroom in 
 the midst of her fifty girls, she felt herself a power in 
 the world, and had the satisfaction that comes of an as- 
 sured position and a regular income. 
 
 48
 
 A Misfortune of War 
 
 At home things were not so bad as they might be. 
 Her father was slowly recovering from the worst phase 
 of drunkenness and would go sometimes for weeks with- 
 out drinking. In such intervals he would earn quite a 
 little as 'longshoreman, and on his best days would be em- 
 ployed as a stevedore. Except when drunk, he was al- 
 ways the same easy, happy, gentle Joshua Bain whom Ke- 
 turah had known and loved in her childhood. When 
 sober, he was plainly his mother's child ; but drink brought 
 out the fierce, Puritan strain of his father's blood, and 
 then he was very hard to live with, and his home an un- 
 pleasant place. At such times Keturah would take her 
 mother and the children and go away to the riverside and 
 wait until the worst was over. 
 
 The character of her mother slowly degenerated under 
 the power of the drug she was using. Keturah tried in 
 every way to keep the deadly thing from her, but all to no 
 purpose. The mother, when Keturah was from home, 
 would pawn anything that she could lay her hands on in 
 order to gratify her depraved appetite. At last Keturah 
 gave up the struggle, and to save herself further shame 
 and annoyance, she found out from the physician how 
 much opium her mother needed to keep her satisfied and 
 supplied her with the required quantity. 
 
 There was one thing Keturah would not do. She 
 would not give her father anything for drink, and to tell 
 the truth and do him justice, he never asked her for it. 
 Whatever he spent in that way he earned. 
 
 Keturah was careful to keep Abigail in school. She 
 meant to educate her so that in time she could earn her 
 living by teaching. Keturah, seeing the dreadful evils 
 of shop life, determined from the very first that Abigail 
 should never suffer from them as she had. She was 
 
 40
 
 willing to deprive herself, not only of luxuries, but even 
 of necessities, to save her sister from such a fate. At all 
 cost to herself, Abigail was to be prepared to take that 
 place in life which was hers by right as the daughter of 
 New England parents. 
 
 Abigail repaid her care with a passive affection. She 
 yielded early to the dominant will of her sister, and was 
 anxious to please her as far as she could consistently with 
 her own ease and pleasure. Keturah's eyes were too par- 
 tial to see this strain of sensual selfishness in her sister. 
 Abigail's budding beauty was her delight, and her good 
 scholarship, for she was a good scholar, was her pride. 
 Keturah, as a reward for these good qualities which she 
 admired in the child, kept her as well dressed as any child 
 in the school, and when she had finished in the grammar 
 school sent her to the Normal College. 
 
 Benjamin was doing exceedingly well in his business. 
 He had already been promoted from the position of er- 
 rand boy to the place of stock keeper in the print depart- 
 ment in the great establishment of Johnstone & Morgan 
 in Chambers Street. He was a favorite of Mr. Morgan, 
 who took a great interest in his welfare. His prospects 
 of promotion were excellent and Keturah looked to him, 
 in time, to restore the family fortunes. 
 
 In this way it was well with the Bain family in the 
 first years of the great Civil War. This war was so far 
 away that they, apparently, had nothing to fear from it. 
 What was such a curse to the South was a blessing to 
 these work people of the North. It gave them plenty of 
 work and high wages. But when all was thus fair and 
 peaceful, this family was suddenly involved in the con- 
 sequences of the civil strife and suffered the misfortunes 
 of war. 
 
 so
 
 A Misfortune of War 
 
 It happened in this way : 
 
 For three days New York was the scene of a conflict 
 more dreadful than that which was raging in the South. 
 These days were the days of the draft riots, when the 
 dregs of the people came out of the back streets and alleys 
 and took possession of the city, destroying property and 
 killing such negroes as they could lay their hands on. 
 Those days were days of terror, especially in that part of 
 the city where the Bains lived. For the first two days 
 Keturah stayed at home and kept all the family, except 
 the father, with her. On the third day Benjamin said he 
 must go to the store and see if he could do anything for 
 Mr. Morgan the truth being that he was very tired 
 of staying in the house, and wanted to go out and have 
 his share in the excitement of those exciting days. 
 
 At first Keturah refused him permission, but he in- 
 sisted and at last she had to let him go. She went her- 
 self as far down as Chatham Street with him, and seeing 
 the crowds surging toward Printing House Square be- 
 came frightened, and begged Benjamin to go to the store 
 by way of the back streets and to come home just as soon 
 as he could. This the boy promised he would do ; but as 
 soon as Keturah had turned up into Mulberry Street to 
 go home, Benjamin ran up Chatham Street and was 
 caught in the crush of the mob and was carried in spite 
 of himself up into Printing House Square. 
 
 It was the day when the mob threatened to destroy 
 the Tribune building. They were gathered there, a mass 
 of mad, yelling men and women. It would have gone 
 hard with Horace Greeley and his old printing house if 
 the Seventh and other regiments had not come in the 
 night before from the front to restore order to their be- 
 loved city. While the mob was spending its time and 
 
 51
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 strength in oaths and ribaldry, hooting at the Governor, 
 who was trying to pacify them with soft words, calling 
 them his friends, his very dear friends, the citizen soldiery 
 were marching in grim silence down the Broadway, de- 
 termined to put an end at once to the rule of lust and 
 murder, which the weakness and supineness of the civil 
 authorities had allowed for three days to reign without 
 hindrance in the city. 
 
 Benjamin Bain had forced his way through the press 
 of people up onto the steps of French's hotel, that then 
 stood on the corner of Printing House Square and Frank- 
 fort Street. As from his point of vantage he looked over 
 the heads of the crowd, he saw that which made him, boy 
 as he was, hold his breath in terror. Just beyond the 
 City Hall park, in the Broadway, he saw a moving line 
 of steel, glistening in the sunlight. 
 
 The soldiers had come, and the end was at hand. In 
 a moment he saw a horseman force his way into the crowd 
 waving his sword and evidently trying to speak ; but his 
 voice was drowned in the roar of the mob, and the man 
 was driven back by stones and sticks and pistol shots. In 
 another instant the line of gleaming steel on Broadway 
 disappeared, there was a puff of smoke, a deafening 
 rattle, and then such a scream of baffled hate and rage as 
 only a human mob can put forth, which was followed 
 by a mad rush for safety as the miscreants sought to es- 
 cape the bayonets that were pressing in upon them from 
 Broadway and Chambers Street. 
 
 Benjamin Bain was thrown down from the steps of 
 the hotel, and an hour afterwards he was taken up ap- 
 parently dead, from the pavement of Printing House 
 Square, and carried to Bellevue Hospital. 
 
 That day was a day that Keturah Bain had cause to 
 
 52
 
 A Misfortune of War 
 
 remember as long as she lived. Benjamin had not been 
 gone but a little while before she heard the sound of firing 
 in the street. She comforted herself by the thought that 
 he had gotten safely into the store and would stay there 
 until the trouble was over. And when silence succeeded 
 the noise, she breathed more freely, believing that the riot 
 was suppressed and that Benjamin would surely be home 
 at noon. When the noon hour passed and the boy did 
 not come, she began to grow anxious, and as the afternoon 
 wore on and he still remained away, her anxiety deepened 
 into fear. 
 
 After waiting until she could bear her suspense no 
 longer, Keturah summoned up her courage and went to 
 the street to find out, if she could, what had happened in 
 the morning. She saw at once that the streets that day 
 were no place for an unprotected woman ; they were full 
 of drunken men and women, who were raging against 
 the soldiers and threatening dire vengeance for what they 
 called the murder of the morning. From the talk of the 
 street Keturah learned that the soldiers had fired on the 
 mob, wounding and killing a great many people. She 
 returned to her home with a new terror in her heart. 
 Benjamin might have been in the crowd and might have 
 been wounded. She sat down with that thought as her 
 company, and watched the passage-way until it was dark. 
 
 Benjamin was his mother's favorite child, and when 
 it was toward night she came into the room where Ke- 
 turah was sitting, still keeping her watch at the window, 
 and said : 
 
 "Keturah, where is Benjamin? I haven't seen him 
 since morning." 
 
 "I don't know where he is, mother; he went away at 
 nine o'clock to go to the store and he hasn't been home 
 since." 
 
 53
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "Has there been any trouble in the streets to-day?" 
 
 "Yes, mother, very serious trouble. A great many 
 people have been hurt and some killed." 
 
 "Oh, Keturah!" cried the mother, sitting down in a 
 faint. "You don't think Benjamin was there, do you?" 
 
 "I don't know, mother, but I hope not. I told him to 
 go by the back streets to the store. I guess he is there 
 now. Mr. Morgan has kept him to help take care of the 
 store." 
 
 "Do you think so, Keturah, do you really think so?" 
 cried the mother in distress. 
 
 "Yes, mother, I do, so don't be afraid. Ben will 
 surely be home in a little while now." 
 
 Keturah's brave answer belied the sinking courage of 
 her heart. Fear was becoming a dreadful certainty. As 
 the darkness deepened and still Benjamin did not come, 
 Keturah began to grow restless and to walk from room 
 to room in the house. She took little Abigail, who was 
 sobbing with the weariness of her three days' confinement, 
 and gave her some supper and put her to bed. When 
 she came down stairs she found that her father had come 
 home in a drunken stupor. He was lying in a deep, sense- 
 less sleep on the lounge in the front room. On seeing 
 this Keturah broke down utterly. She had hoped that 
 her father would be himself when he came home, and she 
 could send him to look for Benjamin. But with him in 
 that condition, there was no one to go but herself, and 
 she was afraid of the streets. For a moment she gave 
 way to an outburst of grief, and then recovering herself, 
 she put on her hat and jacket, and passing into the dining- 
 room to tell her mother that she was going to look for 
 Benjamin, she found her mother with her head on the 
 table, in the first stages of opium drunkenness. 
 
 54
 
 A Misfortune of War 
 
 At that sight a great wave of pity came over Keturah ; 
 pity for that kind-hearted, but degraded man, whose 
 stertorous breathing from the next room smote upon her 
 ears like a blow; pity for that poor, hopeless woman, 
 whose dishevelled and dishonored head lay there prone 
 upon the table ; pity for poor Abigail up-stairs, who had 
 to grow up to the knowledge of her inheritance of shame ; 
 pity for Benjamin, perhaps dead in the streets, and pity 
 last of all for her own young, joyless life, which seemed 
 to be at that hour a burden greater than she could bear. 
 
 It was this pity for herself that gave her courage to go 
 out into the streets. For after all, what did it matter? 
 Nothing could be worse than the present; if she were 
 killed, death would be a short way out of the misery of 
 life. 
 
 Thus without a word of encouragement from a living 
 soul, Keturah went out of doors into the darkness and 
 terror of the street. 
 
 She did what she had told Benjamin to do in the 
 morning. She went by the back streets to the store in 
 Chambers Street. She found the store closed and de- 
 serted, only the night watchman was there, who told her 
 that no one except the janitor had been down that day 
 and he had said nothing about Benjamin. The night 
 watchman did not think he had been there. When Ke- 
 turah asked what she ought to do, he said she had better 
 go down to the station-house in the next block ; there per- 
 haps she might learn something of her brother. He 
 would gladly go with her, he said, only he could not 
 leave his post. 
 
 Following his advice, Keturah went to the station- 
 house. It was crowded with people, and it was a long 
 time before she could speak to the sergeant in charge. 
 
 55
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 When she did speak to him he was very rough and im- 
 patient with her. How could he know where her brother 
 was ? Why did not she keep him at home ? Did she think 
 the police had nothing to do that night but to look for a 
 brat of a boy ? Keturah bore this outbreak of official in- 
 solence in silence, and when it was over said firmly : 
 
 "Sir, I must find my brother; can you tell me where 
 to look for him?" 
 
 To this came the rough answer : 
 
 "If he is dead, he is at the morgue; if he is hurt, he is 
 at Bellevue." 
 
 56
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE BIRTH OF LOVE 
 
 As Keturah turned away from the desk, not knowing 
 what to do, a young man stepped up to her and said : 
 
 "I beg your pardon, miss, but you hadn't ought to go 
 out in the streets alone to-night. May I go with you and 
 help you find your brother ?" 
 
 The young woman looked up with a startled gaze at 
 the speaker and she saw in front of her a tall young man, 
 with his right arm in a sling. He explained, saying : 
 
 "I was hurt to-day. Had my arm broken and have 
 been here waiting for the police surgeon to set it ; he fin- 
 ished about an hour ago and I've been restin' awhile be- 
 fore goin' home. I am goin' now, only I heard you 
 talkin' to the sergeant and I thought maybe I might help 
 you. My name is Sherwood, John Sherwood. I live 
 up in Rivington Street. It aint right for any woman to 
 be out to-night alone, 'specially," he said, lifting his hat 
 with his disengaged hand, " 'specially such a young wo- 
 man as yourself." 
 
 Keturah blushed at this speech and was very pretty 
 to look upon. She was only twenty-two then, and the 
 bloom of her young womanhood was upon her, and as a 
 woman she could not help being pleased with the courtesy 
 of the young stranger. His voice was so gentle and his 
 
 57
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 manner so straightforward and honest, and Keturah's 
 need was so desperate that she gave him her confidence 
 at once. At that moment she was as grateful for his kind 
 words as a hungry dog for a bone. Putting her hand 
 upon his arm, she went out with him into the street. It 
 was a long and dangerous walk up to the morgue and the 
 hospital. There was no public nor private conveyance 
 on the streets, all traffic was suspended. Broadway was 
 in the possession of the soldiery and no one was allowed 
 to pass that way. So Keturah and her new-found friend 
 had to make their way up Chatham Street, through the 
 Bowery and Third Avenue to Twenty-second Street. 
 
 The remembrance of that walk for years afterward 
 would cause Keturah to awaken in the night in a cold 
 sweat of alarm. In her dreams she would see again those 
 dreadful men and women; lost to all humanity, shame- 
 less, reckless, senseless creatures, letting loose in the civil- 
 ized world the primitive passions of the savage, raging 
 with hate and mad with drink. 
 
 A large force of armed police were moving about dis- 
 persing the crowds and preventing as far as possible any 
 acts of violence. But the officers were so few and the 
 people so many that Keturah expected every moment to 
 see the mob get the upper hand, tear the officers to pieces, 
 and, free from all fear and restraint, go on to burn the 
 city and kill the people. But beyond a disturbance here 
 and there, which was quickly suppressed, there was no 
 outbreak, and Keturah and her friend were pushed along 
 by the crowd. Sherwood walked as closely as he could 
 to the houses and kept Keturah on the inside so that the 
 men should not see her. In his hand, hanging down and 
 concealed, he carried a revolver to be used in case of 
 necessity. 
 
 58
 
 The Birth of Love 
 
 When they passed out of the Bowery into Third Ave- 
 nue the crowd was less dense and they were able to move 
 more rapidly, and coming to Twenty-second Street, which 
 was entirely deserted, hurried down to the morgue and 
 the hospital. When they reached the place, Sherwood 
 turned toward the morgue ; but Keturah shrank back and 
 said: 
 
 "No, no, not there; let us go to the hospital first." 
 
 "Don't you think," said Sherwood, "we had better go 
 to the morgue first ? If we don't find him there we can go 
 to the hospital, and it ull be easier to go from the morgue 
 to the hospital than from the hospital to the morgue." 
 
 Hearing this, Keturah suffered herself to be led to the 
 house where the dead were exposed. As she drew near 
 she heard a great cry of wailing women; mothers were 
 weeping for their sons and their daughters, wives for 
 their husbands, and young women for their fathers, their 
 brothers, and their lovers. 
 
 As Keturah entered the morgue she saw the dead in 
 rows propped up in a half sitting posture, for more easy 
 recognition and for economy of space. Keturah moved 
 slowly with the moving crowds between the dead, with 
 that far-away, dazed sensation which is Nature's narcotic, 
 that she uses in times of terrible and painful emotion to 
 deaden the agony of the soul. Keturah walked as if in her 
 sleep, through these scenes of horror, looking at the faces 
 of the dead with curious interest, not paying any more at- 
 tention to the wailing of the women than if they had been 
 crying babies of the tenement. At last she came to the 
 end, and, looking up into the face of her guide, she said, 
 quite calmly : 
 
 "My brother is not here." 
 
 "Very well, then," said he, "let us go to the hospital." 
 
 59
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 They came out of the morgue and stood for a moment 
 in the silence of the night on the shore of the river. It 
 was a beautiful night, without a cloud, and every star in its 
 place ; a gentle breeze was moving, and the outgoing tide 
 was washing softly against the timbers of the hospital 
 pier. For a long time after, Keturah could not see the 
 stars in the sky, nor feel the night wind on her face, 
 without seeing rows of sitting dead, and feeling cold 
 terror in her heart, and hearing the wailing of mourning 
 women. 
 
 For weeks and months she was afraid to go down to 
 the river. The horror of that night had spoiled for her 
 the beauty of the sky and the water. 
 
 After waiting for a moment to allow Keturah to re- 
 cover herself, Sherwood went with her to the hospital. 
 Looking over the names of those who had been brought 
 in that day, they did not find Benjamin's name among 
 them and were about to go away, when they were told that 
 in the next room were a few who had been brought in un- 
 conscious, and so were not able to tell their names. The 
 boy they were looking for might be there. And there 
 they found him, lying white and still on a cot. 
 
 The nurse told them that he had a concussion of the 
 brain and his hip was broken. He was still alive, but no 
 one could tell how long he would last. He might die at 
 any time. 
 
 Turning to her friend and protector, Keturah said : 
 
 "Mr. Sherwood, you have been very kind to me to- 
 night, more kind than any one has ever been to me before 
 in my life. I don't know why you have done all this for 
 me except that you are a good man with a good heart." 
 
 "Please, Miss, please," said Sherwood, blushing, 
 "don't say anythin' about it. I am sure you are welcome. 
 
 60
 
 The Birth of Love 
 
 I couldn't bear to see a young woman like you go out in 
 the street alone on such a night as this, so I dared to ask 
 you if I might go with you. If it was a liberty, I hope you 
 will excuse me and say nothin' more about it." 
 
 "Excuse you say nothing more about it ? Why, Mr. 
 Sherwood, you have done for me what I never expected 
 any man would ever do. You have saved my life. I am 
 a poor woman. My name is Keturah Bain. I live at No. 
 53 Mulberry Street, in the rear, and work at Rosenthal's, 
 the hatter, on Broadway. I can never do anything to 
 make up to you for what you have done for me to-night, 
 only I can think of you always as a brave and noble 
 gentleman, who helped me in my time of trouble." 
 
 Keturah was talking in a low voice, looking straight 
 into the eyes of Sherwood, her own gray eyes swimming 
 in tears. The young man flushed with pleasure as she 
 spoke to him, and reaching out took her by the hand and 
 said : 
 
 "Miss Bain, I am glad I met you to-night; let us be 
 friends, let me help you all I can." 
 
 "I will," said Keturah ; "and there is one thing more 
 I will ask you to do for me: I must stay here to-night 
 with my brother. Will you go to-morrow morning to 
 my home and tell my mother that I am here with brother 
 Benjamin, and will come home as soon as I can?" 
 
 "I will," said Sherwood, "I will go to-night. I will 
 go home and let my mother know that I am safe, and then 
 will go down and tell your mother what has happened." 
 
 "Thank you," said Keturah, pressing the hand that 
 was holding hers, as they stood thus clasping each other's 
 hands, a flash of emotion passed from the dark eyes of the 
 man into the gray eyes of the woman, and a new love was 
 born into the world. 
 
 61
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 POOR BENJAMIN 
 
 FOR three days and nights Benjamin Bain lay uncon- 
 scious, and Keturah, who kept her watch beside his bed, 
 expected every moment to be the last. Her first feeling 
 under this fresh stroke of misfortune, was one of rebellion. 
 The fortitude which had sustained her through all the 
 trials of her life gave way for the time, and she wished 
 that she might die as Benjamin was dying. 
 
 That bitter cry which has been wrung from stricken 
 hearts since the world began was on her lips; what had 
 she done to deserve such a fate as hers? She had lived 
 such a life that it would have been better for her if she had 
 never been born. Without any fault of her own, so far 
 as she could see, she was being punished as if she were a 
 criminal. She had rather be in prison than live as she 
 lived : the dusty workshop all the day, the cheerless home 
 all the night. Hers was a life of toil, rewarded by shame 
 and sorrow. Never since a child had she known gladness. 
 Her father's fall had all but destroyed her faith in men, 
 and her mother's weakness had caused her to despise 
 women. Her own life was polluted by daily contact with 
 all that was low and mean and sordid. Why should she 
 strive any longer to keep it clean and honest? Why not 
 throw it away as she had seen other women throw their 
 
 63
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 lives away for a brief hour of pleasure.; or, as that thought 
 was intolerable to Keturah, why not end it out yonder 
 in the sweet waters of the river? Keturah loved the 
 river; upon it she had seen her happiest hours, and she 
 imagined herself as floating out on the ebb tide, into the 
 waters of the deep sea, lost to everything that was hard 
 and cruel ; asleep forever in the waves of the ocean. 
 
 As Keturah looked down on the face of her brother she 
 hoped that he would die, that was the best thing that 
 could happen to him ; it was the best thing that could hap- 
 pen to anybody. She would be glad to die at once if it 
 were not for Abigail. The remembrance of her sister 
 gave a new bitterness to her thought. Every person near 
 and dear to her except Abigail was the victim of some 
 terrible misfortune. Her father was a drunkard, her 
 mother under shameful bondage to opium; and now 
 Benjamin was stricken in his youth, doomed to die, or 
 else to rise from bed, a hopeless cripple for life. His 
 thigh had not been set, and Keturah knew that every hour 
 of delay made that operation more difficult and danger- 
 ous. She surrendered all hope of ever seeing her brother 
 strong and well again. She found herself wishing that 
 every breath might be the last. 
 
 But when she thought of Abigail, growing more and 
 more beautiful every day, and imagined all the evils that 
 might come to her in this evil world, she was beside 
 herself with fear and rage. And she registered a vow 
 in her soul, saying: "On the day that anything happens 
 to Abigail, I will surely kill myself." 
 
 But after a while the storm in the soul of Keturah spent 
 itself, and she was calm once more and could look her 
 trouble in the face. And when after an endless night of 
 watching the morning came, she was glad to see the light. 
 
 64
 
 Poor Benjamin 
 
 After all there was something to live for ; there was light 
 in the daytime and sleep at night. She felt unconsciously 
 that any one who can wake by day and sleep by night need 
 not despair altogether of life; there is some joy in the 
 light and some peace in the darkness for every soul of 
 man or woman. 
 
 Keturah found a sad consolation also in the long line 
 of cots that ran on either side of the hospital ward, from 
 one end to the other. On each cot lay some suffering man, 
 beside whom watched some sorrowing woman. As she 
 sat there in the midst of the sick and the dying, Keturah 
 entered as never before into the fellowship of suffering. 
 She was not alone; others were, as she was, under the 
 hand of affliction. It was not some blind fate that was 
 pursuing her and driving her apart by herself. She was 
 only one of a great company, hers was the common lot. 
 As she grasped this thought and held it firmly in her mind, 
 her bitterness became bitter-sweet and her despair was 
 changed into resignation. 
 
 On the third day the physicians set the broken bones 
 of Benjamin as well as they could and performed a deli- 
 cate operation upon a depression in his skull, and on trie 
 fourth day he recovered consciousness, and the physicians 
 said he would live. 
 
 But his life, like his bones, was broken, and no one 
 could ever make it again what it had been. After a 
 month's confinement in the hospital he was brought home, 
 and was able to get about by the aid of a crutch. He 
 was a cripple for life, and his mind was weakened by the 
 blow on his head. It was a year before he could think of 
 work again. Mr. Morgan, his employer, interested him- 
 self in his behalf, but could find no place for him in the 
 store. Indeed, there seemed nothing that the poor fellow 
 
 65
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 could do to earn a living and pass away the time. In his 
 long sickness he had lost energy and ambition. Pain, as 
 it often does, had made him forgetful and selfish, and poor 
 Keturah had a third incompetent life to provide for. 
 
 When Benjamin's health was fairly restored, his sister 
 cast in her mind for a way by which he could provide for 
 himself. After some thought, it occurred to her that he 
 could at least do what Shinar was doing. He could find 
 some sheltered place and establish a stand for the clean- 
 ing and blackening of boots and shoes. Keturah, with 
 the pride of blood which is in every New England vein, 
 shrank from the notion of this menial labor for her 
 brother; but then menial labor was better than idleness 
 and beggary, and she determined to put her thought into 
 execution. Shinar made a good living in this way, why 
 should not Benjamin do the same? 
 
 So Keturah secured permission to set a chair on the 
 corner of Duane Street and Broadway, and hurried home 
 to tell Benjamin and her mother about it. 
 
 She spoke to her mother first, saying : "Mother, I have 
 found something for Benjamin to do." 
 
 "What is it, Keturah?" asked the mother. "I hope it 
 aint hard work ; Benny can't do any hard work now, you 
 know." 
 
 "Yes, mother, I know, and this isn't hard work ; there 
 is no lifting or walking to do." 
 
 "That's nice, that would suit him; I'm glad you've 
 found a job like that for him. Poor boy, he's awful tired 
 of staying about the house all the time. But what is the 
 work, Keturah? You aint told me yet." 
 
 "Well, mother, I am afraid you wont like it. I don't 
 altogether like it myself, but it is the best I can do. The 
 firm down stairs has given me leave to put a boot-clean- 
 
 66
 
 Poor Benjamin 
 
 ing stand on Duane Street, just round the corner from 
 Broadway." 
 
 "Keturah Bain, what do you mean? Do you mean 
 Benjamin to be a boot-black?" 
 
 "Yes, mother, it is the best I can do for him. He 
 can make more at that than at anything else." 
 
 "O my! O my!" cried Mrs. Bain, "I knew we was 
 low down, but I didn't think we was as low down as that. 
 My Benjamin a boot-black? You ought to be ashamed 
 of yourself for thinking of such a thing." 
 
 "Why ashamed, mother? Surely it's better than idle- 
 ness. Look at the boy Shinar, he makes better wages for 
 himself than half the boys in the shop." 
 
 "O, yes," cried Mrs. Bain, "you're always talking 
 about Shinar. I hope you don't even your brother to 
 that brat of a boy, who don't so much as know who his 
 own father is." 
 
 "It would be better for some of the rest of us if we 
 didn't know our father," said Keturah, sadly. 
 
 "There you go, Keturah, speaking against your father. 
 You're hard on him, you're hard on me, and now you're 
 bein' hard on Ben." 
 
 "Maybe I am hard, mother, I'm sure I've had enough 
 to make me hard. But if Ben wont do this, I would like 
 you to tell me what he can do." 
 
 "Well, I can tell you one thing Ben aint goin' to be 
 a boot-black, he aint ; and his grandfather a Skinner." 
 
 "What has Grandfather Skinner to do with it, mother ? 
 He is dead, and can't do anything for Ben." 
 
 "There's one thing he'll do, he wont let his grandson 
 be a boot-black ; he was an honorable man, and earned his 
 livin' by honorable work." 
 
 "Any kind of work is honorable, mother, that is 
 
 67
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 honest. I'm sure Grandfather Skinner would think as I 
 do if he was here. He was a Yankee, and would say as 
 Yankees do, if you can't get the best, take the best you 
 can and look out for better to-morrow." 
 
 Keturah's mother answered her arguments by rock- 
 ing and crying and saying: "Benjamin shall never be a 
 boot-black never, not if we all have to starve. I ud rather 
 starve than see my boy blacking boots on the streets. 
 And so would you, Keturah, if you had any pride." 
 
 "But, mother. I haven't any pride ; what have I to be 
 proud of, I would like to know?" Seeing it was useless 
 to continue the struggle, Keturah left her mother and 
 went to find Benjamin. He was more set against her 
 plan than his mother. He wouldn't, and Keturah couldn't 
 make him be a boot-black. 
 
 Finding it impossible to make others see what she saw 
 so plainly, that doing nothing is the most trying and most 
 disgraceful thing in the world, Keturah gave up the effort 
 and let matters drift. Benjamin spent his days as best he 
 could, sitting most of the time in Price's livery stable, 
 and finding some pleasure in watching the horses go out 
 and come in, and earning a few cents now and then by 
 holding a horse for some patron of the stables. 
 
 Keturah mourned for Benjamin more than she 
 mourned for her father. That bright boy whom she 
 admired and from whom she had expected so much was 
 gone, she did not know where, and in his place was this 
 listless?, idle man. Keturah did not blame her brother; 
 he could not help being lame. It was an accident of war ; 
 and so she buried the memory of his bright and promising 
 youth and wrote over him the sad epitaph "Poor Benja- 
 min," and poor Benjamin he was for the rest of his life. 
 
 68
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 A FORGOTTEN MOTHER 
 
 WHEN John Sherwood left the hospital and hurried 
 homeward through the empty streets there was a guilty 
 feeling in his heart. That night he had done something 
 which he had never done before. He had forgotten his 
 mother. All his life he and his mother had lived alone, 
 and were all in all to each other. He was her only son 
 and she was a widow. Before he could remember any- 
 thing his father died and left him to the care and sup- 
 port of his mother. From his mother he heard of his 
 father's brave life and his early death. He was one of 
 that army of clerks who give their lives to the building 
 up of great fortunes in which they have no share. Sher- 
 wood's father was a bookkeeper in the establishment of 
 James Bullet. His hours were long and his pay scanty. 
 For twelve hours a day he sat behind his desk in the 
 dark, dingy office, without light and without air, and as a 
 natural consequence his lungs, weak by inheritance, be- 
 came diseased and he fell a victim to consumption. Two 
 years before he was stricken he had been improvident 
 enough to marry a girl as poor as himself, thinking that 
 what was enough for one was enough for two, and that 
 love would make up for all deficiencies. But he found to 
 his sorrow, as others have done, that when love had once 
 
 69
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 tied the knot of matrimony it had nothing else that it 
 could do ; that the butcher, the baker, and the candle-stick 
 maker had to be paid in other currency than kisses. The 
 increase of love meant the increase of expenses, and poor 
 Sherwood went without many a necessary dinner, and 
 denied himself in the matter of clothing, so that Mary and 
 the baby might be warmed and rilled. Thus he pined and 
 faded away behind the books that recorded the vast in- 
 crease of the Bullet estate. Old Bullet, who was then 
 alive, never thought of giving Sherwood a holiday or in- 
 creasing his income. Why should he? He could hire a 
 thousand men to do the work that Sherwood was doing 
 at the same or less wages, on any day of the week. So 
 this man Sherwood sickened and died, and left his wife a 
 widow and his son an orphan, and nobody cared. When 
 he gave up his place to go home and die another man was 
 hired to do his work before the sun set. And when he 
 was buried, James Bullet, for whom he worked faithfully 
 during the ten years of his active life, did not so much as 
 know that he was dead. Sherwood had left his employ- 
 ment two months before and Bullet had forgotten all 
 about him. 
 
 When her husband died Mary Sherwood was left 
 penniless upon the world, and with her eyes red with 
 weeping she went out in search of work by means of 
 which to earn sufficient to keep herself and her baby alive. 
 She could do nothing except plain sewing, which is the 
 most poorly paid labor in the world. At that time the 
 stores were just beginning to sell ready-made underwear 
 for women and children, and Mary Sherwood was given 
 all the work she could do by the great house of Geo. Rip- 
 son & Co., in Grand Street. Her task was to finish the 
 garments that others had made, to work the buttonholes 
 
 70
 
 A Forgotten Mother 
 
 and put on the binding and trimming. As she had the 
 baby to care for she was obliged to do her work at home, 
 and John Sherwood's first and only recollection of his 
 mother was that of a frail, pale woman, bending over a 
 piece of white goods, through which she was ceaselessly 
 passing her needle. 
 
 Soon after her husband's death Mary Sherwood had 
 taken some rooms over a stable in Rivington Street. The 
 reason for this was that the rooms were cheap and warm. 
 The heat of the horses below saved her many a dollar in 
 fuel. The odor from the stables was disagreeable and the 
 stamping of the horses disturbing; but Mary Sherwood 
 soon became accustomed to these things, and found 
 strength in the pungent smell of the stall, and in the rest- 
 less movement of the horses, the only diversion that her 
 life allowed her. These beasts of burden were her only 
 society. Living as she did she could not go to see any- 
 body, and no one ever came to see her. Her life was spent 
 in work and in prayer. She did not go to church, that 
 was too expensive ; but she prayed night and morning be- 
 side his bed for her sleeping boy. Her desire for him was 
 a life of honest, healthful labor. She sent him to school 
 until he was sixteen years old, and then she apprenticed 
 him to the plumbing trade. From the first she determined 
 that he should not follow in his father's steps and drudge 
 out his life for a pittance in some dark, dreary office ; but 
 that his work should be active and carry him out of doors, 
 and have within it some hope of advancement. Through 
 the kindness of one of the stable men she heard of an 
 opening for a boy in the plumbing establishment of Gar- 
 lock & Son, on Second Avenue near Tenth Street, and 
 there she placed her boy, and there he had served his ap- 
 prenticeship, and there he was, at the opening of this nar-
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 rative, working as a journeyman plumber. He and his 
 mother still lived in the rooms over the stable in Rivington 
 Street, not because it was any longer absolutely necessary 
 for them to do so, but because it had been their home for 
 so long that they did not care to change it for another, 
 and further, because John was saving his wages, hoping 
 by the time he was thirty or so to set himself up as a 
 master plumber. 
 
 On the night when John Sherwood went with Keturah 
 Bain to look for her lost brother, his mother was waiting 
 for him at home with an anxious heart. He had never 
 been away from her so long before in his life. When his 
 day's work was done he was always at home, except when 
 he went, as he did in the winter evenings, to the night 
 school in the Cooper Institute. So it was not without 
 reason that his mother's heart beat with alarm as he de- 
 layed his coming. It was in the early morning hours 
 when she heard his key turning in the night latch of the 
 street door. At this sound the mother rose up and went 
 and opened the door at the head of the stairs, that her boy 
 might have light to see his way up. She stood there at 
 the open door waiting for him. She was a small woman, 
 slight and bent, with a worn face and gray hair which 
 struggled out from under the widow's cap that she had 
 worn ever since the day she had laid her husband away 
 in his grave. As she stood at the head of the stairs she 
 peered into the darkness below, shading her eyes with 
 her poor fingers, scarred and wounded by the pricks of 
 countless needles ; looking to see if it were, indeed, her 
 son who was coming up the stairs. When John reached 
 the top of the stairs and saw his mother standing there, 
 his conscience troubled him because he had kept her wait- 
 ing up so long for him. 
 
 72
 
 A Forgotten Mother 
 
 "Why, mother dear," he said, "aint you gone to bed 
 yet? It's most mornin'." 
 
 "Do you think I could go to bed, John, and you out in 
 the streets at this time o' night ? Wherever have you been, 
 my son, wherever have you been, to keep your mother 
 waitin' for you till her head aches. You never did so be- 
 fore. And what in the world is the matter?" cried the 
 mother, in alarm, as she caught sight of John's arm in a 
 sling. 
 
 "Nothin' very much, mother," cried John. "Only 
 there is a little bone in my arm that's broke. You know 
 there's been wild times on the street to-day. The soldiers 
 have been puttin' down the riot, they fired on the mob and 
 killed ever so many, and hurt a good many more." 
 
 "But, my son, you did not mix up in the riot, did you? 
 How then did you come to be hurt ?" 
 
 "You see, mother, it was this way. We are workin' 
 in the new buildin' at the corner of Warren Street and 
 Broadway. At about noon we heard the soldiers marchin' 
 down Broadway and ran out to see what was goin' on. 
 There was an awful crowd there and when the soldiers 
 came along they was all yellin' and pushin' like mad peo- 
 ple. I got up on one of the iron columns so as I could 
 see better, and then the rush came and threw me off, and 
 broke one of the bones in my wrist." 
 
 "O, John," cried the mother, in great distress, "what 
 did you do then ? Why didn't you come right home ?" 
 
 "You see, mother, I knew I ud have to do somethin' 
 right away, so I went down to the Chambers Street 
 station, and they told me to wait and the police surgeon 
 would do what he could for me. So I waited till about 
 four o'clock, when one of the surgeons set the bone; it 
 was only a little bone and the surgeon says it ull be all 
 right in a week or two." 
 
 73
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "It must have pained you awful, John, and I wonder 
 you didn't come home as soon as it was set and lay down. 
 Where have you been all the night?" 
 
 "Well, mother, it did pain me some, but not so very 
 much, and just as I was leavin' the station to come home, 
 a girl came in who had lost her brother. The sergeant 
 told her she ud have to go to Bellevue or to the morgue 
 if she wanted to find him, 'cause the dead and the wounded 
 were there. And I felt awful sorry for the girl, she was 
 so young and so pretty. I knew she hadn't ought to be 
 out such a night as this alone in the streets, so I offered 
 to go with her to look for her brother, and I did and we 
 found him, badly hurt in the hospital." 
 
 "Ah, John, my son," said the mother, sadly, "you went 
 with this girl and you forgot your mother." 
 
 "No, mother, I didn't forget you, that is not for long. 
 When I was goin' through the mob, I didn't think about 
 much else 'cept keepin' those murderin' brutes away from 
 that girl, and in the dead house I couldn't think about 
 nothin' but those dead men settin' up and starin' at you 
 with their eyes wide open, and never winkin' so much as 
 an eyelash. I tell you, mother, it was awful. But when 
 we found the boy in the hospital then I remembered you, 
 and told the girl I must hurry home and tell you all about 
 it." 
 
 "But, John," said the mother, "the girl do you know 
 who she is ; what is her name and where does she live ?" 
 
 "Yes, mother, she told me her name, it's Bain, or 
 something like that. Keturah Bain, I think she said, and 
 she lives down in Mulberry Street at No. 53 in the rear." 
 
 "Oh," said the mother, contemptuously, "if she lives 
 in Mulberry Street, she is some low, wretched creature, 
 some Irish or Italian girl. I wonder that you went out 
 of your way for her." 
 
 74
 
 A Forgotten Mother 
 
 "No, mother, she aint that kind of a girl and you 
 mustn't speak so of her," said John. 
 
 "Mustn't!" cried the mother, flushing with anger. 
 "Since when did you begin to say mustn't to your mother? 
 Since you picked this girl up off the street ?" 
 
 "Mother, dear," said John, "you hadn't ought to get 
 mad at me, I aint done nothin' wrong. Even if she was 
 an Irish girl, you would want me to help her if I could. 
 But she aint that kind of a girl. She is an American girl. 
 She speaks beautifully. So that I was 'shamed of my- 
 self." 
 
 "You've no cause to be 'shamed, John, only I know you 
 have picked up a careless way of talkin' at the shop, 
 leaving off your g's at the end of words and the like o' 
 that ; but this Miss didn't say anythin' to you about that, 
 did she?" 
 
 "Why, no, mother, o' course not, only she spoke so nice 
 and sweet that I knew she had been to school more'n I 
 had, and I couldn't and don't understand her livin' in 
 Mulberry Street. It aint right for the likes o' her to be 
 livin' in such a street as that." 
 
 "It seems to me, John, that you have been thinkin' a 
 good deal about that girl, seein' that you've only known 
 her since sundown. And I'm afraid," said the mother, 
 laying her hands on the shoulders of her boy and looking 
 into his eyes, where she saw to her dismay a light that had 
 never been there before, a light such as she saw in his 
 father's eyes, when he took her in his arms, two and 
 twenty years before, and asked her to be his wife. "I'm 
 afraid," she repeated, tearfully, "that you'll be thinkin' 
 more and more of this girl and less and less of your 
 mother every day now." 
 
 "Why, mother, how you talk! You're tired and that 
 
 75
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 makes you foolish. This girl aint nothin' to me, and I 
 aint nothin' to her. It was only by chance I met her to- 
 night and I don't know as I'll ever see her again." 
 
 "You know where she lives, don't you, John ?" 
 
 "Yes, mother." 
 
 "Then you'll see her again, all right enough, and she'll 
 see you. Why don't you take off your coat and get ready 
 for bed? It's most mornin'. If we're goin' to get any 
 sleep before daybreak we had better be about it." 
 
 "But I aint goin' to bed, mother. I was thinkin' to go 
 down to Mulberry Street and tell the girl's mother where 
 she is and that she has found the boy. I promised her I 
 would." 
 
 "Oh, you promised her that, did you ? And yet you aint 
 nothin' to her nor she to you, you say. What makes you 
 run about for her all night then if you don't care for her ?" 
 
 "Because I promised her, and I don't like to break my 
 promise, mother." 
 
 "Yes, John, and you'll be makin' more and more 
 promises to her and you'll keep 'em even if it does break 
 your mother's heart." 
 
 "Oh, pshaw! mother, what's the matter with you to- 
 night ? Do go to bed and go to sleep. I will run down to 
 Mulberry Street and will be back in an hour. I aint goin' 
 to forget you because I've been tryin' to do somethin' for 
 somebody else. There, there, be a good mother and don't 
 cry. There isn't nothin' to cry about." And John kissed 
 his mother and hastened out into the street, leaving her 
 to live through that sad hour which comes to every 
 mother when she knows that her boy is her boy no longer. 
 He is a man now and is another woman's lover.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 AN ANNUAL PROPOSAL 
 
 WHAT John's mother feared, came to pass. He did 
 think more and more of Keturah Bain every day. While 
 his wrist was healing he could not work and he spent his 
 idle time in anything but idleness. He went every day 
 to the hospital to see how Benjamin was getting on and 
 in the evening he and Keturah would go up together to 
 visit the boy. When Benjamin was brought home, John 
 Sherwood continued his visits and established himself as 
 a friend of the family. Keturah loved him from the very 
 first, but she tried hard not to let him know it. She knew 
 that neither he nor she were ready for marriage. He had 
 his mother and she her family to care for. They could 
 undertake new duties only by forsaking old ones. And this 
 the stern New England conscience would not permit 
 Keturah to do. 
 
 She tried several times to send John away, knowing 
 that she ought not to encourage his attentions, but he 
 would not go. Day after day, month after month, and 
 year after year he came to her, bringing with him his 
 honest heart and his loyal soul, saying: 
 
 "Keturah, I've been lovin' you ever since I saw you 
 that night in the station-house, will you marry me?" 
 Then Keturah would laugh and say: "No, John, I will 
 never marry you until you can say your g's." 
 
 77
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 At this poor John would blush with shame and go his 
 way, and for a week he would absent himself from his 
 lady love, saying his g's over and over to himself, until he 
 had them on the end of his tongue. Then he would come 
 again and say: "Keturah, I've been loving (with the 
 accent on the g) you ever since I saw you that night at 
 the station-house ; will you marry me ? You hadn't ought 
 to treat me the way you do." 
 
 "O, John !" Keturah cried merrily, "how can you ex- 
 pect me to marry a man who says 'hadn't ought' for ought 
 not ? It can never, never be." 
 
 On hearing this John would look at her with tears in 
 his eyes and say : "It aint right, Keturah, to make fun o' 
 me. If you don't care for me, say so, and I will try to 
 bear it ; but it's cruel of you to pick me up the way you do. 
 I know I can't speak like you do. But, Keturah, don't you 
 see that I'm learnin'. No, no, I mean learning to speak 
 more correct every day, and if you'll only marry me I'll 
 learn from you your own way o' speakin' ; there now, I 
 mean your own way of speaking." 
 
 "O, foolish John," Keturah cried, "you don't think I 
 care so very much about the way you speak although I 
 do like you to speak correctly ; but that is not the reason 
 why I cannot marry you." 
 
 "What is the reason then, Keturah?" says John. 
 
 "Ask me some other time," says she, "and maybe I 
 will tell you." 
 
 And John did ask her over and over again. In season 
 and out of season he pressed his suit. Keturah did not 
 resent his importunity. She found it pleasant to have a 
 lover devoted to her every wish, but while she listened she 
 had never said "yes" to John's asking. 
 
 And every year her lover made what Keturah called 
 
 78
 
 his "annual proposal." This was a solemn, formal 
 declaration of his love under romantic circumstances that 
 gave to it a dignity and a power that Keturah found it 
 hard to resist. It was at the seaside, down on Far Rock- 
 away Beach, and the occasion was the annual excursion 
 of the Journeymen Plumbers' Union. John would never 
 go to this picnic unless Keturah went with him, and she, 
 knowing how much he needed the outing, would never 
 refuse him. 
 
 After the clam chowder was eaten and the people who 
 had sat down to eat and drink, rose up to play and the men 
 and the women were whirling round in the mazes of the 
 waltz, John and Keturah would wander off by themselves, 
 out of the sight of the people and out of the sound of the 
 music, and hide themselves beside some hillock of sand, 
 and there they would sit and watch the great waves roll 
 in and break against the shore and listen to the seabirds 
 crying one to another, and then John would reach out and 
 take the woman's hand in his and say, "Keturah, will you 
 marry me?" To which Keturah answered sadly, "No, 
 John, I cannot." 
 
 "Why not, Keturah?" 
 
 "Because we are poor." 
 
 "But, Keturah, that aint any reason ; poor people marry 
 every day." 
 
 "I know they do, John, and the more's the pity, and 
 the more's the misery." 
 
 "We ain't so very poor, Keturah," pleaded John, "I'm 
 gettin', I mean getting, good wages ; enough to keep us 
 two in comfort, I'm sure." 
 
 "Yes, John, us two. But we two are not all that are 
 to be kept. There are others beside us." 
 
 "Yes, I know," said John, "there's mother, but she 
 
 79
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 could live with us, and we would have enough for her, 
 too." 
 
 "Yes, John," said Keturah, "we could easily take care 
 of your mother, that would be your duty and my pleasure. 
 I have learned to love your mother dearly and nothing I 
 could ever do for her would be a trouble to me. But then, 
 you know, John, there are others beside your mother to be 
 taken care of." 
 
 "I know, Keturah, there are your people ; but don't you 
 think you've done enough for them, and might think of 
 me and yourself ?" 
 
 "Now, John, you are talking like a selfish man, not 
 like my hero, who risked his life for an unknown girl, the 
 night of the draft riots. Do you think I could go away 
 and be married, and be happy ever after, as the story 
 books say, and know that Abigail was, perhaps, running 
 loose on the streets, and Benjamin had no one to look 
 after his clothing and father and mother might be sent to 
 the Island as vagrants? I be happy in my happy home, 
 and all my people shut out in misery and want! You 
 don't think it, John, I know you don't think it." 
 
 "No, Keturah, T don't ; but it's awful hard to think of 
 you giving all your life for others, and not having the 
 least bit of it for yourself." 
 
 "I know it's hard, John, but that don't make it any the 
 less right. Most right things are hard in this world, so 
 far as I can see. But there are others beside your mother 
 and my mother and father and Ben and Abigail that we 
 ought to think of before we marry ; people to whom our 
 marriage will mean more than to any persons else in all 
 the world." 
 
 "Why, who be they, Keturah ?" 
 
 "Who are they ? John, who else but our children ?"
 
 An Annual Proposal 
 
 "Keturah, how you talk! We aint got no children." 
 
 "Pardon me, John, we haven't any now, but if we were 
 married we would have them or we ought to have them, 
 and, John dear, I love my children too well to let them 
 be born into such a world as you and I must live in." 
 
 "What is the use in bein' so foolish, Keturah ? It's time 
 enough to worry about the children when they come. You 
 aint got no children now, maybe you never will have any." 
 
 "Yes, I have children, John; I've had children ever 
 since I was a little girl. Eight children, John, five boys 
 and three girls. I know all their names and the color of 
 their hair and eyes. They come to me at night when I am 
 asleep and they call me 'mother,' and I take them one by 
 one in my arms and kiss them and I rock the baby to 
 sleep." 
 
 "But if you are so fond o' children," said John, 
 "Keturah, why don't you have real children instead of 
 dream children?" 
 
 "Because, John dear," said Keturah, looking with sad 
 eyes out over the sea, "because my dream children can 
 never be hungry nor cold, they can never learn to drink 
 and to swear; they never have to work until they are so 
 tired that they are ready to die, if only they can rest. My 
 dream boys never have to lie and cheat, and my dream 
 girls can never be deceived and led astray by wicked men. 
 My dream children are happy and I leave them in their 
 happiness." 
 
 "That means that you will never marry me, Keturah." 
 
 "No, John, it doesn't mean that exactly, it means that 
 I will never marrv and have children to live in such 
 places as you and I live in. I never see a child in our part 
 of the city without wondering why it was ever born. It 
 has no chance from the first to live a decent life. Some- 
 Si
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 body is to blame, I don't know who except the father and 
 mother who bring it into the world. I will never be a 
 mother until I am sure that my children can have light 
 for their eyes and air to breathe and water to wash them- 
 selves clean." 
 
 "When that day comes will you marry me, Keturah ?" 
 said John. 
 
 "Yes, and it may come sooner than you think. It wont 
 be long before Abigail will graduate from the Normal 
 College and then she will get a position as teacher in the 
 schools, somewhere in the West Side, I hope, and we can 
 go over on Union Hill and find a double cottage, such 
 as I have seen there, and my folks can live on one side 
 and you and your wife and your mother on the other, and 
 my children can play in the yard behind the house and we 
 will be happy as happy can be." 
 
 "Then you do love me, Keturah, and will marry me 
 when you can?" 
 
 "Yes, I love you, John, with all my heart, and will 
 marry you just as soon as I can." 
 
 "And may I kiss you, just once, Keturah?" 
 
 "Yes, John, you may, just once." 
 
 And John did. 
 
 82
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 RAIMENT OF NEEDLEWORK 
 
 IT has been necessary to give a brief account of the 
 life of Keturah Bain up to the day when we first saw 
 her going into her house in Mulberry Street in the spring 
 of 1871. Without this background the picture that is to 
 follow would not have its proper perspective. Keturah 
 Bain had not lived her thirty years alone. She was the 
 center of a little group of human beings, and it was her 
 relation to these people that made her life to be what it 
 was, a life of care and sorrow and self-sacrifice. She 
 was the one strong personality in the midst of a company 
 of weaklings, and her strength was taxed to the utmost 
 in taking care of those who had lost the power to take 
 care of themselves. Keturah had long ceased to expect 
 anything in particular from her father, her mother, or 
 her brother Benjamin. Her hope centered in her sister 
 Abigail, who was just finishing her course in the Normal 
 College, and was preparing herself for the profession of 
 teaching. Keturah had looked forward to Abigail's grad- 
 uation as to a day of deliverance. When the girl, instead 
 of being a source of expense, should be earning some- 
 thing for the family purse, Keturah calculated that they 
 could afford to leave the darkness and dampness and dirt 
 of No. 53 Mulberry Street in the rear, which was growing 
 
 83
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 more intolerable every day, and move into some better 
 locality, or best of all, cross the river and live on the 
 Jersey hills, a thing which Keturah wanted to do more 
 than anything else in the world. Her day-dream was of 
 a quiet cottage on a quiet street in Union Hill, with yard 
 enough about the house for a little garden, with holly- 
 hocks and larkspurs, such as used to bloom in their own 
 little yard, before the great tenement was built. Keturah 
 did not know just how they could live in Union Hill, and 
 Abigail teach in New York City, but she thought her 
 father could manage it somehow. He had a little political 
 influence and might get Mr. Cronin or Mr. Flynn to do 
 something. He could still vote in the ward, even if he 
 did live in Union Hill. They were not as particular 
 about such things then as they are now in the city of 
 New York. 
 
 So as Keturah lay dozing in the dark room off the 
 dining-room, which was her sleeping-room, she was a 
 very child, dreaming her day-dreams and painting the 
 dark clouds of her life with the rainbow hues of hope. 
 And on the rainbow, clothed with its bright colors, sat 
 Abigail Bain, the last remaining hope of the Bain family. 
 
 Keturah lay half asleep until about three o'clock in 
 the afternoon, when she was awakened by the opening 
 of the front door into the hall. Knowing it was her 
 sister she called to her, saying : 
 
 "Abigail !" 
 
 "Yes, Keturah," came the answer in a sweet, girlish 
 voice. 
 
 "How is it out of doors, dear?" cried Keturah. "It 
 was raining when I came in ; is it raining still ?" 
 
 "Oh, no; it's clearing off, and is a beautiful after- 
 noon." 
 
 84
 
 Raiment of Needlework 
 
 "Are you very tired, Abigail ?" 
 
 "No, I am not tired. I rode all the way home to-day, 
 because it was raining when I started." 
 
 "Well, dear, keep on your hat and coat, for I want to 
 take a walk; I have a bad headache and the air will do 
 me good." 
 
 "All right, Keturah, I'll be glad to go. I've something 
 to tell you." 
 
 Keturah rose up from her bed, and putting on her 
 hat and coat, went out for a walk with her sister. This 
 was one of the pleasures of her life. She loved to take 
 Abigail and go down to the river and bathe her soul in 
 the light of the sun, in the freshness of the air, and in the 
 beauty of the water. Her favorite walk was along South 
 Street, which, thirty years ago, was much quieter than it 
 is now. It was the ship-chandlers' street, and was piled 
 high with barrels and was redolent of the smell of tarry 
 ropes. It is a wide street, open on the water side, with 
 a view up and down the river, and the city of Brooklyn 
 over the way. Keturah loved this street as she loved no 
 other place in the world; it was her recreation ground. 
 Here she came in that spring day in 1871 with her sister 
 Abigail, to walk away her headache. And with every step 
 she felt herself growing better. She went blithely round 
 the coils of ropes and in between the barrels, and felt as 
 young and frisky as a girl. She was always happy when 
 she was out here in the open air with Abigail by her side. 
 
 Abigail Bain was at that time in her nineteenth year, 
 and was in all the freshness and beauty of her opening 
 womanhood. It is astonishing what nature will do for a 
 girl, even in the dark streets and alleys of the tenement- 
 district. The stranger will see, in those streets, young 
 women who in beauty of face and perfection of form, are 
 
 85
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 not surpassed by the women who live in elegant homes 
 on quiet streets and wide avenues. Abigail Bain was not, 
 however, a girl of the tenement district, by birth and by 
 education; she belonged to a different class. From the 
 very first, it had been the effort of Keturah to remove Abi- 
 gail as far as possible from her home surroundings. She 
 had her transferred to a school in the upper part of the 
 city, where she would meet with nice children, and when 
 she had finished at the grammar school, Keturah had her 
 enter the Normal College, in which she was the compan- 
 ion of many of the best girls in the city, to say nothing 
 of the boys. 
 
 In coloring and in her general features, Abigail 
 favored her mother's side of the house; tall and slender, 
 though with a tendency to stoutness that would develop 
 later in life, chestnut hair that clustered in short, be- 
 witching curls about her face and neck, large innocent 
 blue eyes that looked at you when you spoke to her with 
 surprise and wonder, a small, delicately formed nose and 
 mouth that puckered into a whistle, cheeks with a faint 
 peach-blow bloom, a rounded chin, a long, graceful neck, 
 set upon shoulders that tapered into well-rounded arms, 
 ending in long, narrow hands which had the delicate 
 coloring of her cheeks ; she was, in her whole figure and 
 personality, instinct with the subtle power of feminality. 
 
 Abigail was not yet conscious of her power. She 
 was in that early stage of womanly development when 
 the woman looks upon her nature, not as a force to in- 
 fluence and control others, but as a means of personal 
 enjoyment for herself. 
 
 The two women continued their walk as far up as 
 Corlaers Street; that old quaint street with its Dutch 
 houses, the houses of the descendants of the Dutch burgh- 
 
 86
 
 Raiment of Needlework 
 
 ers who once had lived in their boweries along the river 
 side. And as they walked, the sisters communed with 
 each other of what was in their hearts. Keturah told 
 Abigail that she was on half-time and the family would 
 have to economize, if they were to keep a roof over their 
 heads and bread on their table. 
 
 "Oh, dear!" said Abigail, "I am so sorry, and my 
 graduation coming on that is going to cost ever so much. 
 But I haven't told you the news yet." 
 
 "No, dearie, you haven't; what is it?" 
 
 "Mr. Hunter sent for me and told me I was to have 
 the Latin Salutatory at the Commencement. He said 
 I came very near having the Valedictory. Philip Schuy- 
 ler, who gets it, was only three points ahead of me." 
 
 "Bless you, Abigail !" cried Keturah ; "how delightful ! 
 I knew you would stand very high in your class, you 
 learn so easily, but I didn't suppose you would be second 
 and nearly first. That is just grand ; it is worth all the 
 work and the waiting." 
 
 "Yes, it is, but I am glad the work is over. I'm tired 
 to death of books. I don't believe I will ever look in a 
 book again as long as I live." 
 
 "Why, Abigail, how can you talk in that way? And 
 you expecting to earn your living by teaching. You 
 will have to keep at your books if you are to get on in 
 your work." 
 
 "Oh, I suppose so, but I hate the thought of it. I 
 think I'd rather do anything else in the world than teach." 
 
 "But, Abigail," cried Keturah in alarm and distress, 
 "you can't do anything else. If you do, all the time and 
 the money you have spent in the Normal College will be 
 wasted. You went there, you know, to prepare yourself 
 to be a teacher." 
 
 87
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "I know that, Keturah, but I hate the thought of it all 
 the same, and I wont be a teacher very long, I can tell 
 you." 
 
 "Abigail, Abigail, what are you saying? I've been 
 looking forward for years to your graduation, when you 
 could help me take care of the family." 
 
 "Oh, the family," cried Abigail, with a toss of her 
 head, "I'm disgusted with the family. Pa's drunk most 
 of the time and Ma's stupid and Ben is lazy and we live 
 in a dark, dirty hole that isn't fit for a dog. I tell you 
 one thing, Keturah, I'm not going to slave for the family 
 the way you have done. I am going to live for myself, 
 not for a lot of other people." 
 
 These flippant words cut Keturah to the heart, and 
 her eyes filled with tears and her lips quivered, and she 
 was about ready to cry. But then she was used to her 
 sister's way of talking. The child was discontented with 
 her home and well she might be. It was no place for 
 such a bright, beautiful creature as the young girl beside 
 her. In a few moments Keturah controlled her feelings 
 of sorrowful indignation and said quietly : "What will 
 you need for your graduation, Abigail, any new dresses ?" 
 
 "Yes, Keturah, that was what I wanted to speak to 
 you about. I don't see how I can get along without three 
 dresses, at the very least. I will want one for class day. 
 That ought to be a street gown. Some kind of cloth for 
 the skirt and jacket with a silk underwaist. Then I 
 ought to have an evening dress for the graduation ball, 
 and a light, high-cut dress for the commencement exer- 
 cises, and beside the dresses I will need gloves and shoes, 
 a handkerchief and a fan." 
 
 As Abigail enumerated her wants Keturah laughed 
 merrily. "You must think," she saxl, "that we are the
 
 Raiment of Needlework 
 
 Astors. Where in the world do you think all those things 
 are to come from?" 
 
 "I don't suppose they are to come from anywhere. I 
 will have to go, if I go at all, in the shabby dress which 
 I have worn all the year, with nothing on my hands and 
 patched shoes on my feet. No, thank you ! I wont go at 
 all. I'll tell Mr. Hunter I can't come to commencement 
 and he can give the Salutatory to Maud Atkins ; what she 
 lacks in scholarship she makes up in money and dresses. 
 It was a shame to send me to a school where I have to 
 hide my poverty all the time." 
 
 "Hoity-toity! hear the girl talk! Maybe you would 
 like to have gone into a shop as your sister Keturah did. 
 Working from seven in the morning till six in the even- 
 ing, and where would your beauty be then, I would like 
 to know? Come now and kiss me, and ask my pardon, 
 and I'll tell you a secret that will more than match your 
 news." 
 
 The girls had seated themselves on a pile of lumber 
 down close by the water. Abigail looked at Keturah and 
 laughed and kissed her and said : "There ; as usual I am a 
 naughty girl ; I always was and I suppose I always will be. 
 I know you are good ; you've worked for us all. But I 
 do say it is too bad. If we had the money that goes for 
 whisky and tobacco and opium we needn't live as we do, 
 and you wouldn't have to work so hard." 
 
 "There, there," said Keturah, "you are off again, and 
 here am I waiting to tell you a secret about your dresses." 
 
 "Oh, I never expect to have any dresses except some 
 old slimpsy stuff, made up all out of fashion." 
 
 "Stop, Abigail ; stop, till I tell you my secret." 
 
 "What is your secret ?" 
 
 "I have your dresses." 
 
 89
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "You have my dresses ! What do you mean ?" 
 
 "I mean just what I say. I have your dresses, and 
 beautiful dresses they are. No girl in all your class will 
 have such lovely gowns as you will have." 
 
 "Keturah Bain, you are talking nonsense. You never 
 could get me such dresses as Maud Atkins and Florence 
 Beekman wear." 
 
 "Couldn't I? We will see about that. For once you 
 shall outshine Maud Atkins and throw Florence Beekman 
 in the shade." 
 
 "But how? Tell me how." 
 
 "Easily, very easily," said Keturah. "You know 
 when Gran'ther Skinner died, they sent a great box of 
 things to mother, and among the things were some dresses 
 of Grandma Skinner." 
 
 "Oh." said Abigail, frowningly ; "I am to wear Grand- 
 ma Skinner's worn-out gowns, and so outshine Maud 
 Atkins and Florence Beekman. No, thank you." 
 
 "Wait, Missy, wait till I tell you. Among the goods 
 that came was a piece of cloth that never was made up. 
 It is a kind of cloth that you can't get nowadays. 
 Grandma Skinner carded it with her own hands and it 
 was woven on a hand-loom. It is all lamb's wool, as fine 
 as silk. Grandma made it, I guess, for mother's wedding 
 dress. But poor mother didn't have any wedding, and 
 this cloth was laid away in the cedar chest and was for- 
 gotten till Gran'ther died, then it was sent to me, and 
 I thought I would have it for my wedding, but my wed- 
 ding day is put off till to-morrow, and always will be to- 
 morrow. So I mean you to have this dress for your class- 
 day dress at commencement time, and it will last you a 
 long time for a street dress." 
 
 "Oh, you dear, how will you have it made?" 
 
 90
 
 Raiment of Needlework 
 
 "In the latest fashion ; with a close-fitting skirt I'm 
 so glad hoops have gone out with a jacket waist and 
 a silk vest, and it shall all be lined with silk. There is 
 an old silk dress of Grandma's, that is without a break, 
 and will line the cloth from top to bottom." 
 
 "Splendid, splendid," cried Abigail, "but what about 
 the ball dress and the graduation gown?" 
 
 "For the ball you will have a gown even more beauti- 
 ful than the class-day dress. Did I tell you the color of 
 that?" 
 
 "No, you didn't; that don't matter; we can have it 
 dyed any color we choose." 
 
 "We won't need to have it dyed. It is a pale blue, 
 robin's-egg blue. The very color for you to wear in the 
 daytime. And your evening dress is what do you 
 think?" 
 
 "I don't know. Some ball gown of Grandma's, I 
 suppose." 
 
 "Yes, a china silk, a beautiful china silk, pink and 
 white stripes, made short in the waist in the style of the 
 empire. And that style is just coming in again, you 
 know. Oh, it is a beauty, I can tell you." 
 
 "And you have kept all these things all these years, 
 Keturah?" 
 
 "Yes, and I have watched over them as if they had 
 been my babies. I have taken them out and aired them, 
 and when you and mother have asked about them, I have 
 said, 'Oh, some old things of Grandma's that I am look- 
 ing over,' and you have turned up your nose and gone 
 away." 
 
 "I didn't think you were so sly, Keturah." 
 
 "Sly! sly is no word for it. I'm a very fox icr 
 cunning."
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "Why did you keep the things so long? I wonder 
 you didn't have them made up long ago." 
 
 "Made up! when there was no one to wear them? 
 Rosenthal's forewoman would look well in lamb's wool 
 and china silk, wouldn't she, now ? No. I kept them for 
 my wedding day, and when that never came I kept them 
 for my pretty sister, there!" and Keturah pinched the 
 shell-like ear of Abigail. 
 
 "And you haven't had any good of them at all," said 
 Abigail. 
 
 "Oh, yes, I have," said Keturah, "they have been my 
 dream dresses. I've seen myself standing beside John 
 in the china silk saying, 'I take thee, John, to be my 
 wedded husband.' Just think of it, John and I and china 
 silk, all in the same dream. And then the lamb's wool 
 I've worn when John, as a master-plumber, took me to 
 the Mayor's reception. Oh, I tell you, Abigail, I have 
 worn those dresses until I'm tired of them. You can 
 have them now." 
 
 "Thank you, Keturah, but how about the graduation 
 dress? I guess we can buy that, can't we? A muslin 
 will do ; it won't cost much." 
 
 "Yes, we can buy that, and John's mother will make 
 it for us, and she will make the lamb's wool and alter the 
 china silk." 
 
 "But how about the money, Keturah?" 
 
 "What money?" 
 
 "Why, the money for shoes and gloves and a hat and 
 a fan, and to pay for the class pictures and the class sup- 
 per and the senior ball, and the class stone." 
 
 "And the class what?" cried Keturah in amazement. 
 
 "The class stone, every class puts a stone with the 
 class year and the class motto in the wall of the build- 
 ing." 
 
 92
 
 Raiment of Needlework 
 
 "And what might you need for all these class doings, 
 Miss Millionaire?" 
 
 "I don't know exactly, not more than fifty dollars." 
 
 "Fifty dollars? Why, sakes alive, how in the world 
 do you suppose I can spare you fifty dollars ?" 
 
 "I don't know, Keturah, but if I graduate I'll have to 
 get it some way. I can't go with the class unless I do as 
 the rest do. I'd rather stay away." 
 
 "Well," said Keturah, "I've got a little of Gran'ther's 
 money in the bank that can go to help Grandma's clothes. 
 But, child, I'm glad you don't have to graduate more 
 than once; if you had to graduate twice, we would have 
 to go to the poor-house. But come, dear, it is getting 
 late. We must go home." 
 
 93
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 SHINAR TO THE RESCUE 
 
 As Keturah and Abigail were walking down South 
 Street on their way home, they saw a lad running toward 
 them, at the top of his speed, carrying a dog in his arms. 
 The runner was followed by a gang of boys who were 
 yelling at the top of their voices and stoning the fugitive 
 with stones. After the boys came a blue-coated police- 
 man brandishing his club in the air. From the doors of 
 the shops and the houses the people thronged out to see 
 what was going on. The scene was exciting in the last 
 degree and had all the appearance of an incipient riot. 
 The two girls were frightened and turned and ran up 
 James Street, but in doing so they seemed to draw the 
 crowd after them. As they heard the rush of flying feet 
 close upon them they fled for refuge into the door of 
 Maloney's grocery store. Reaching that place of safety 
 they looked up and saw the boy, with the dog, standing 
 before them. He could not run any further. He had 
 lost his wind. 
 
 When Keturah saw the boy she gave an exclamation 
 of surprise and dismay and cried, saying : "Shinar, what- 
 ever is the matter?" And as the mob of boys was ap- 
 proaching, she took hold of the lad and drew him quickly 
 into the store and shut the door after her. The boys, 
 
 95
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 pursued by the policeman, rushed up the street and scat- 
 tered, as only boys can. 
 
 When the danger was over, Keturah turned to Shinar 
 for an explanation of the scene which she had just wit- 
 nessed. He stood before her hatless and coatless. And 
 a tall, lithe lad he was, his dark hair growing low down 
 his forehead and shading his large brown eyes that were 
 dancing with merriment. He held the whimpering dog 
 in his arms as a mother would hold her baby, quieting 
 the quivering nerves of the frightened creature with 
 gentle caresses. When he had fairly caught his breath 
 and could speak he proceeded to explain. "You see this 
 yer dorg, Keturah. Well, I tell yer he aint no common 
 dorg like yer kin pick up on the street anywhere. He is 
 fine breed ; he is a bull terrier, and a first cross at that. 
 I knowed his father, as nice a eytalian hound as ever yer 
 see, and his mother was a beauty ; a full-blooded English 
 bull. This yer dorg is worth money. He's ready to fight 
 any dorg of his weight and whip him on sight. He's my 
 dorg. Mike Cronin gave him to me, and I had him tied 
 to me chair and I went into the store to dry meself after 
 the rain, and when I came out the dorg was gone. I tell 
 yer I was scared and I scooted right down the street, 
 huntin' fer him, fer when a dorg gets loose he mostly 
 runs fer water, and when I got down to South Street I 
 heard him yelpin' and I found him under the dock tied 
 with his string, and there was Jimmy Mulchahy and a lot 
 o' fools a-stonin' of him. They was playin' they was 
 Fenians and this yer dorg was the English lion ; when I 
 see 'em I took a hand in that there game meself. I was 
 the English army comin' to the help of the lion. I gives 
 Jimmy Mulchahy a bat over the head and knocks the other 
 fellers right and left and cuts the string and picks up the 
 
 96
 
 Shinar to the Rescue 
 
 puppy in me arms and runs fer me life, and that's why 
 I'm here w'dout me hat and me coat." 
 
 Shinar made this speech of explanation in one breath, 
 as fast as he could speak. When he came to a stop, 
 Keturah and Abigail burst out laughing. And Keturah 
 said : "It is all very well, Shinar, for you to rescue your 
 dog from those Irish boys, but don't you think you are 
 getting to be too big a boy to run about the streets fight- 
 ing for a dog ? You are nearly as old as Abigail ; you are 
 almost a man." 
 
 When Keturah spoke of Abigail the boy looked at 
 the girl and blushed. He seemed suddenly to become 
 conscious of himself, and he said: "Maybe I'm gettin' 
 too big to run the street bareheaded. I've been thinkin' 
 o' that fer a long time ; but I aint too big to fight fer me 
 dorg when a lot o' brats is stonin' him wid stones. That 
 aint what dorgs is fer, is it, Abigail ?" 
 
 "No," said Abigail, "it certainly is not, and you did 
 right to take him away from those horrid boys. Let me 
 see if he is hurt." And the girl took the dog in her arms. 
 She found one of his legs badly bruised, which she and 
 Keturah bound up in vinegar and brown sugar. 
 
 Then they made haste and hurried home, for it was 
 nearly supper-time. Abigail still held the dog in her 
 arms and Shinar walked beside her, casting fond looks 
 on the dog and shy looks on the girl. 
 
 97
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 A FAMILY COUNCIL 
 
 WHEN Keturah and Abigail reached home they found 
 their mother in a fretful state of waiting. Supper was 
 on the table and the two men were seated. 
 
 "Why, Keturah, wherever have you been?" said the 
 mother, "till past supper-time, keeping Abigail out in the 
 damp." 
 
 "It isn't so very damp, mother. We were out for a 
 walk and coming home we met Shinar, who was running 
 away from a parcel of boys that were stoning him and 
 trying to get his dog away from him." 
 
 "Was it that dog that Mike Cronin give him?" said 
 Captain Bain. 
 
 "Yes, father, it was," said Abigail, "and it is a beau- 
 tiful dog, as dogs go." 
 
 "That it is," said the Captain ; "it's a bull terrier. I 
 wonder at Mike's giving it to the boy. I don't believe 
 he'd a done it, if he'd a known what that dog is worth." 
 
 "It seems to me that we are havin' a deal of talk 'bout 
 Shinar and his dog," said Mrs. Bain. "It isn't enough 
 for Keturah to take care o' Shinar, but she's got to look 
 after his dog as well." 
 
 "Yes, mother, you know the saying, 'love me, love my 
 dog,' " said Keturah, smiling. 
 
 99
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "I guess you hadn't better be talkin' about lovin', 
 Keturah," said Captain Bain. "John mightn't like it." 
 
 "Oh, I'll take care of John, father. I'm not afraid 
 of him. I couldn't make him jealous if I wanted to." 
 
 "I suppose," said Ben, "if it wasn't for John you'd 
 marry Shinar." 
 
 "No, brother dear," said Keturah, sweetly, "and for 
 the very simple reason that Shinar wouldn't marry me. 
 I'm his mother, you know, and men don't usually marry 
 their mothers. If Shinar marfies into our family at all 
 he will marry Abigail. He doesn't have any eyes for me 
 when Abigail is about." 
 
 "I hope," said the mother, "that you don't let that 
 boy look at our Abigail. The impudent little wretch !" 
 
 "Come, come, mother," said Keturah, "there is no 
 harm done. If a cat can look at a king, surely a dog can 
 look at a queen, and Shinar isn't going to hurt Abigail 
 by casting sheeps' eyes at her." 
 
 "I guess not," said Abigail, tossing her head. 
 
 "Give Shinar a rest, can't you?" said Captain Bain. 
 "He is a good lad and no harm in him. But I reckon 
 we've had enough of him for once. Let's change the 
 subject. Your mother tells me you're on half-time again, 
 Keturah ; is it for long ?" 
 
 "I don't know, father," answered Keturah, "but I am 
 afraid it is. Mr. Rosenthal says that the outlook is very 
 bad. He is afraid of a panic, and so he is not doing any- 
 thing except to fill orders. He says he don't want to be 
 caught with a big stock on hand when the prices fall." 
 
 "It's just the same 'longshore," said Captain Bain; 
 "nothin' doin' at all. Ship arter ship is goin' out o' port 
 with nothin' but ballast in her hold." 
 
 "And it's mighty quiet up to Price's," chimed in Ben- 
 
 100
 
 A Family Council 
 
 jamin. "Horses ain't doin' nothin' 'cept eatin' their 
 heads off." 
 
 "If that is so," said Keturah, "you need not stay about 
 there so much. You certainly get nothing by it except 
 bad grammar." 
 
 "You're mighty partickerler 'bout your grammar, Ke- 
 turah," snarled Benjamin. "I wonder how you stand 
 John leavin' his g's off and all that." 
 
 "Never mind John, Ben," said Captain Bain; "his 
 tongue may be a little awk'rd, but he is mighty cute with 
 his hands." 
 
 "Oh, dear me," cried Mother Bain, "whatever will 
 we do with Keturah on half-time and nothin' doin' 'long- 
 shore? Seems to me we'll be wantin' somethin' beside 
 our g's pretty soon." 
 
 "Don't be afraid, mother," said Keturah; "Abigail 
 will keep us from starving. She is almost at the head of 
 the class and is sure to get a school as soon as she grad- 
 uates. Isn't she, father?" 
 
 "I hope so, Keturah, I hope so, but her bein' at the 
 head o' the class aint nothin' to do with it," said Captain 
 Bain. 
 
 "Why not, father ? Surely her high standing will help 
 her." 
 
 "Not a bit, not a bit, Keturah," said Captain Bain; 
 "it aint standin' that does the business; it's the pull; 
 you've got to be in with the bosses or you aint in with 
 the schools." 
 
 "Why, father," said Keturah, with a falling coun- 
 tenance, "then Abigail hasn't any chance at all. She 
 has no pull, as you call it." 
 
 "Don't be so sure o' that, Keturah ; I guess Abigail's 
 got a pull that'll land her all right." 
 
 101
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "What do you mean, father?" said Benjamin. "Are 
 you goin' to work the Johnny Fox racket and scare the 
 boss?" 
 
 "I aint revealin' secrets o' state to them as sets up to 
 Price's livery and might be tellin' the same to the enemy. 
 I am goin' now to see one of the bosses. I'm sent fof 
 on important business." 
 
 Captain Bain having finished his supper rose up from 
 the table, put on his hat and coat and went out to keep 
 his political appointment. 
 
 102
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 A POLITICAL PROPOSITION 
 
 CAPTAIN BAIN had been sent for. Michael Cronin, the 
 ward boss, had told him that Patrick Flynn, the district 
 boss, wanted to see him and would meet him in Cronin's 
 saloon that evening at eight o'clock. This message rilled 
 the heart of Captain Bain with pleasant anticipations. 
 There must be some good reason why Flynn wanted to 
 see him, for the great man of the district never wasted 
 his time in useless interviews. When he wanted to see 
 a man he always had something for that man to do, and 
 when a man did anything for Flynn he was sure of being 
 well paid for it out of the city treasury. 
 
 In one respect Captain Bain had not departed from 
 the traditions of his fathers ; he was strongly Democratic 
 in his convictions and affiliations, and had done more or 
 less work for the Democratic party all his life. It was 
 not, therefore, without reason, that the invitation to meet 
 the district leader of his party, gave rise in him to hopes 
 of political preferment. 
 
 He reached Cronin's saloon a little before the time 
 appointed, as it would never do to keep the great man 
 waiting. When he entered the barroom he saw that 
 Michael Cronin was, himself, behind the bar. He was 
 polishing the mahogany surface of that bar with all the 
 pride of one who takes an interest in his business. 
 
 103
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 Michael Cronin had risen high in the political life of 
 his adopted city, but he had never been so foolish as to 
 look down with contempt on the means of his exaltation. 
 His saloon was not only the source of his income, it was 
 also the center of his influence. Without that saloon 
 Michael Cronin would never have been, as he was, the 
 alderman of his ward. When he saw Captain Bain, he 
 gave him that hearty greeting which he always gave to 
 his customers and his followers. 
 
 "How is the Captain to-night, I don' know. Wantin' 
 a drink? Well, step along and don't be bashful. I'm 
 doin' the treatin', and what shall it be, Jimacy? Well, 
 there it is." And Cronin placed before Captain Bain his 
 favorite Jamaica and a glass. The Captain was not slow 
 to fill the one with the other and drink it sip by sip, 
 to get the full fire of it on the tongue, the palate, and the 
 throat. After he had finished he wiped his mouth with 
 his hand and said : 
 
 "Flynn wants to see me?" 
 
 "Yis," said Cronin. 
 
 "What for?" said the Captain. 
 
 "I don' know," said the alderman. "Paddy Flynn 
 kapes his mouth shut, and that's the reason he's Paddy 
 Flynn." 
 
 "Can I wait?" said Captain Bain. 
 
 "Shure," said Cronin. "Jist take the bottle into the 
 nixt room, and whin Flynn comes I'll sind 'im in." 
 
 Following these pleasant directions Captain Bain took 
 his bottle and his glass and the evening paper, and went 
 into the private room to pass the time of waiting. He 
 had been there only a few minutes when Mr. Flynn ar- 
 rived. He was a large man, dressed in black broadcloth, 
 and wearing the silk hat which at that time was the uni- 
 
 104
 
 A Political Proposition 
 
 form worn by the successful politician. Flynn was a 
 prompt man and he proceeded at once to business. 
 
 "How are you, Captain?" he said. "I'm glad to 
 see you." 
 
 "Thank you, Mr. Flynn," said the Captain. 
 
 "How are you gettin' on with the boys ?" said Flynn. 
 
 "Pretty well, Mr. Flynn, pretty well." 
 
 "How many votes can you bring out?" 
 
 "I guess a hundred or a hundred and fifty." 
 
 "Good, good ; do it and you'll get your share of what's 
 goin'." 
 
 " What'll I get, Mr. Flynn ? I ud like to know. I find 
 it mostly promises before 'lection, and put off arter- 
 ward." 
 
 "Oh, you needn't be afraid, Bain ; if you do your duty 
 we'll take care of you," answered the leader. 
 
 "You have said that before, Mr. Flynn," said the 
 Captain. 
 
 "Yes, but now I mean it. What do you want, any- 
 how?" 
 
 "Well, I ud like a place as street inspector for myself 
 if I could get it, and then I've got a daughter just comin' 
 out o' the Normal College, and I ud like a place for her 
 in the schools." 
 
 "A daughter, eh ?" said Flynn. 
 
 "Yes," said the Captain. 
 
 "And that's what I come to talk to you about, Cap- 
 tain Bain." 
 
 "About my daughter? How do you know my 
 daughter?" 
 
 "Oh, I've had my eye on her for a long time, and I tell 
 you, Captain Bain, she can do a sight better for herself 
 and for you than goin' into any school. A girl like that 
 
 105
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 don't want to go into no school," said Flynn, dropping 
 into the double negative. 
 
 "What can she do beside teachin'? That's what she's 
 been studyin' for," said the Captain. 
 
 "No, it aint," said Mr. Flynn; "that girl has been 
 studyin' for somethin' a mighty sight better than teach- 
 in'. Maybe you don't know it Captain Bain, but that 
 girl is one of the finest girls goin'. She can command 
 her own price, I tell you." 
 
 "Yes, I know our Abigail is a fine girl, but what's 
 that got to do with it ? What have you got for her to do, 
 anyhow ?" 
 
 "Well, Captain, you know it's just this way. In these 
 days there's big money goin' about for them as aint too 
 squeamish to take it when it comes their way. You want 
 money, don't you?" 
 
 "Yes," said the Captain, "I want money, but I don't 
 see just how I am to get it. You aint told me yet." 
 
 "Your daughter can get it for you," said Flynn. 
 
 "But how? What can she do except teachin' to get 
 money?" said Captain Bain, looking at Mr. Flynn with 
 eyes growing heavy with drink. 
 
 "She can do lots of things," said Flynn, filling his 
 glass. 
 
 "What things?" answered the Captain, vaguely. 
 
 "What things?" said Flynn, sinking his voice to a 
 confidential undertone. "She can wear silk dresses, and 
 diamonds and pearls ; she can drive behind four horses ; 
 she can eat terrapin and drink champagne; she can sail 
 on yachts and ride in private palace cars." 
 
 With shaking hands, Captain Bain put down his glass 
 and looked with alarm at the man across the table, saying : 
 "And my girl would be paid for doin' all that?" 
 
 106
 
 A Political Proposition 
 
 "Surely," said Flynn, in a whisper, "surely. I know 
 a man, and he is high up, I tell you, who'll give as much 
 as ten thousand dollars and findings to have a girl like 
 that for one year." 
 
 Captain Bain sat perfectly silent and looked Mr. 
 Flynn straight in the face. In those days social vice 
 was the handmaid of political corruption. It was a time 
 when rich and powerful men drove their mistresses in 
 state through the streets of the city, and when there was 
 a rivalry among such men as to who should possess the 
 most beautiful woman. Such men as Flynn, who had 
 the city treasury at their command, would pay any price, 
 if they could only go beyond, in this evil way, some other 
 man of their own set. Such a proposition as Mr. Flynn 
 made to Captain Bain was made every day to poor but 
 beautiful women, and by many of them it was eagerly 
 accepted. 
 
 As Flynn leaned across the table, waiting for his 
 answer, he saw, to his astonishment, a wonderful change 
 come over the face of Captain Bain. The drunken flush 
 left his cheeks and they became as pale as ashes ; the misty 
 haze left his eyes and they glowed like coals of fire ; his 
 hand ceased to tremble and he rose from his chair, hold- 
 ing his glass firmly in his grasp. As he looked down on 
 the man, who had made to him this base proposition, the 
 soul of his Puritan ancestors revived in him, and his man- 
 hood was aflame with shame and indignation. 
 
 Patrick Flynn quailed before him and said, feebly, 
 half rising from his seat: "Come, Captain, don't be 
 squeamish ; what do you say ?" 
 
 "What do I say," cried the Captain. "I say take 
 that, you dirty scoundrel!" and with all his force he 
 dashed the glass and the liquor full into the face of the 
 man who had insulted him. 
 
 107
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 Flynn, with his face cut by the glass, and his eyes 
 blinded by the rum, sprang to his feet and cried with a 
 curse: "You fool, I'll send you to prison for this and 
 you can stay there till you rot, and I'll have the girl in 
 spite of you." 
 
 With the blood streaming down his face, the mad- 
 dened man rushed into the saloon, where the sight of the 
 great leader in this deplorable condition caused the ut- 
 most consternation. "Call an officer," he said, and a 
 dozen men ran into the street crying "Murder !" In a few 
 moments a half-dozen officers were in the place. "Take 
 that man," said Flynn ; "he tried to murder me," and he 
 pointed to Captain Bain, standing in the door between 
 the private room and the saloon, all the strength gone out 
 of him, the ashes from his cheeks, the fire from his eyes, 
 the firmness from his hand; after his outburst he had 
 fallen back at once into his normal condition of drunken 
 imbecility. 
 
 Without resistance or explanation he suffered himself 
 to be led away to prison. 
 
 JOS
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 HEAVINESS IN THE NIGHT 
 
 KETURAH was sitting in the dining-room after the 
 dishes had been cleared away, chatting with Abigail about 
 the coming Commencement, when the front door was 
 thrown open with a bang and Shinar rushed in, wild 
 with excitement. 
 
 "Keturah," he cried, "the cops have got the Captain." 
 
 "Shinar, stop your foolishness," said Keturah calmly. 
 She was used to the boy's ways and knew his tricks. 
 
 "I tell ye it aint foolishness, the cops has got the Cap- 
 tain and are takin' him to the Tombs," said Shinar. 
 
 "Shinar, are you in earnest? Do you mean what you 
 say?" said Keturah, rising from her seat and looking 
 anxiously at the boy. 
 
 "Yes, 'pon honor I do. It aint no foolin' this time. 
 They've got him for sure." 
 
 "How did it happen?" said Keturah hastily, prepar- 
 ing to go out. 
 
 "I can't jist tell how it happened. I was cleaning a 
 feller's boots at me chair, when all on a sudden there was 
 a row in the saloon and a crowd comes rushin' out cryin' 
 'Bloody murder! Paddy Flynn is kilt,' and then the cops 
 comes runnin' from everywhere and in I goes wid 'em, 
 and there was Paddy Flynn, his face all a-streamin* wid 
 
 109
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 blood, and there was the Captain, a-standin' in the door 
 back o' the saloon, tremblin' like a whipped dorg, and 
 Flynn points his finger at 'im and says, 'That's him; he 
 tried to murder me.' And then the cops took hold of the 
 Captain and 'rested 'im and run 'im into the Tombs." 
 
 Shinar's circumstantial account convinced Keturah 
 that his story was true, and she hurried away to the 
 Tombs, wondering what had come over her father. He 
 had left home in a state of sobriety,, and there had not 
 been time for him to become surly, much less violent, in 
 his drunkenness since then. He had never gotten into 
 trouble of this kind before and Keturah wondered, with 
 a sinking heart, whether this were not a new phase of his 
 dreadful disease, and whether the disgrace of the prison 
 was to be added to the shame of a drunkard's life. 
 
 When Keturah reached the station-house she was 
 ready for the new and terrible sorrow which she felt had 
 come to her. Entering the house, she went to the desk 
 and asked the officer in charge if Captain Bain was there. 
 
 "Yes, he's here all right," said the officer. 
 
 "What is the charge against him ?" asked Keturah. 
 
 "Assault with intent to kill," was the answer. 
 
 "May I see him?" said Keturah. 
 
 "Who are you ?" asked the officer. 
 
 "I am his daughter." 
 
 "Very well; you can see him. Here, Jim, take the 
 girl down stairs." 
 
 Keturah followed the attendant down the stone stair- 
 way to the cells beneath. In those days there was, in con- 
 nection with the prison called the Tombs, a station for 
 the reception and detention of persons charged with 
 crime. In the basement of this station-house were the 
 cells where the prisoners were confined. As Keturah 
 
 no
 
 Heaviness in the Night 
 
 passed down the narrow corridor, she saw men and wo- 
 men, standing, like wild beasts, at the barred doors of their 
 cages. Thinking she was an addition to their number, 
 she was greeted with cries and oaths of welcome, and she 
 shrank away from the coarse ribaldry as the sensitive 
 plant shrinks from the rude touch of the human hand. 
 It seemed to her a long time until she came to her father's 
 cell, which was at the end of the corridor. 
 
 When she reached his cell she saw him sitting on his 
 bed with his head in his hands and his elbows resting on 
 his knees. She stopped before the door, but he did not 
 look up ; he sat in the same posture of despair. Keturah 
 remained silent until the attendant left her, and then she 
 said softly, "Father." 
 
 The old man did not lift his head; he either did not 
 hear, or else he did not want to hear. Keturah waited 
 a moment, and then called again a little louder, "Father, 
 father." 
 
 The old man lifted his head from his hands and gazed 
 at his daughter with a vacant stare. He did not seem to 
 know her. "Father," she cried in distress, fearing his 
 mind was leaving him. "Father, don't you know me? 
 It's Keturah." 
 
 "What do you want?" said the old man, in a hoarse 
 whisper. 
 
 "Come here, father, come here," pleaded the woman. 
 
 Captain Bain rose up from his bed and staggered 
 slowly to the grating and stood there trembling. Keturah 
 took him by the hand, and seeing how weak he was said to 
 him: "Sit down, father, sit down." The Captain sank 
 down onto the floor, a heap of misery, and Keturah sat 
 down in front of him, still holding his hand in hers, and 
 neither of them spoke a word. 
 
 in
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 One by one the prisoners ceased from their coarse 
 jest and song and oath, and fell off to sleep, and the 
 silence was broken only by the loud breathing of the 
 sleepers. The minutes that seemed hours and the hours 
 that seemed ages slowly passed away, and Keturah still sat 
 on the stone floor, leaning her face against the iron bars, 
 holding her father's hand in hers. Once or twice the at- 
 tendant came and looked at her, but seeing her grief, he 
 went away and left her there. 
 
 When all was still, Keturah whispered softly, saying : 
 "Father." 
 
 "What?" said the Captain, looking at her with dazed 
 eyes. 
 
 "Tell me, father, what is the matter; did you try to 
 kill Mr. Flynn?" 
 
 "Yes, I did," said the Captain. 
 
 "Why, father, why did you do it?" 
 
 "Because he's a dirty scoundrel," said the Captain, 
 repeating the words he had used to Flynn. 
 
 "But, father, you wouldn't want to kill him for that. 
 What did he do to make you so angry?" 
 
 "He wanted to buy Abigail," said the Captain, bring- 
 ing his face close to the bars and whispering in Keturah's 
 ear. 
 
 "He wanted to do what?" cried Keturah, starting as 
 if she heard a snake hissing. 
 
 "He wanted to buy Abigail," repeated the Captain, 
 sullenly. 
 
 "What do you mean ? W r hat did he want to buy Abi- 
 gail for?" said Keturah, in amazement. 
 
 "What does a scoundrel like that want a woman for ?" 
 said the Captain, fiercely. "You know as well as I do." 
 
 "What did he say, father ? What did he say ?" asked 
 Keturah breathlessly. 
 
 112
 
 Heaviness in the Night 
 
 "I asked," replied her father, "if my daughter, who 
 was comin' out o' the Normal couldn't get a school. And 
 he said, 'Your daughter can do a fine sight better nor 
 that. I know your daughter. She's a mighty fine girl.' 
 And I said, 'What can she do?' He said, 'She can ride 
 behind four horses whenever she wants. She can eat 
 terrapin and drink champagne; she can wear silks and 
 diamonds, and can sail on yachts.' And I said, 'And 
 she'll be paid for doin' that ?' and he said, 'Yes ; I know 
 a man as ud give ten thousand dollars and findin's to have 
 a girl like that for a year.' " 
 
 "Oh, God," cried Keturah, "and what did you do 
 then?" 
 
 "Then I stood up, and when he said, 'Well, what do 
 you say, don't be squeamish, Bain ?' " I said, 'Say ! I say 
 take that,' and I threw my glass of rum and broke it on 
 his nose, and the rum went into his eyes." 
 
 "You did right, father," cried Keturah, "you did 
 right." 
 
 "Yes, I did right for once in my life, and because I 
 did right I'm here behind the bars and am like to go to 
 prison for ten years." 
 
 "Oh, father," exclaimed Keturah, "not so bad as that, 
 not so bad as that !" 
 
 "Yes, bad as that and worse. You don't know what 
 I done, Keturah, you don't know what I done. I hit the 
 deestrict leader; that aint assault; that's treason, and he 
 said he ud send me to jail and kep me there till I rot, 
 and he can do it, Keturah, he can do it," said Captain 
 Bain, in despair. "And what's worse, he said he ud have 
 the girl in spite o' me." 
 
 "Oh, God help us," cried Keturah, "whatever will 
 we do?"
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "What are you saying?" said Captain Bain crossly. 
 "God help us ? If there's any God he is on the other side 
 always, always will be: he's helping Paddy Flynn, not 
 me." 
 
 "Oh, father, please don't," cried Keturah, "don't speak 
 that way now." Keturah had no more belief than her 
 father in the goodness of God, but her woman's soul 
 shrank from the blasphemy of speech. 
 
 "Speak, I guess I will speak," cried Captain Bain, in a 
 rage. "God's been agin 5 me all my life. I was whipped in 
 God's name when I wasn't more than three years old. I 
 was horsewhipped for laughin' when I was a boy, and 
 beaten for kissin' the girls when I was a young fellow, 
 and it was God, God, God, all the day long, till I come to 
 hate God sittin' up there in heaven, and havin' us poor 
 babies whipped down here on the earth." 
 
 "Please, father, don't, don't !''' sobbed Keturah. 
 
 "Yes, I will," said the Captain, "I'll say for once what 
 I think. What's God doin' for us now? Nothin' at all. 
 He is too busy helpin' them Suydams ; them big bugs that 
 goes to Saint Nicholas Church. Suydam a-preachin' 
 there, and his wife and her children ridin' down to hear 
 him in their kerridge. God's helpin' them to grind us 
 down to the last cent ; raisin' the rent on us till they get 
 twenty per cent. They are God's people, I tell you. He's 
 helpin' them every time. Don't you let me ever hear you 
 say, 'God help us' again. You just get out o' God's way 
 and help yourself if you can." 
 
 Keturah made no answer to this outbreak of her 
 father. She only cowered lower down on the cold stone 
 floor and stifled the sobs that welled up from her break- 
 ing heart. The foul air choked her, and the damp 
 chilled her to the bone. As she lay there without faith or 
 
 114
 
 Heaviness in the Night 
 
 hope, she would have died had it not been for the great 
 love that was in her heart. "What shall we do to save 
 Abigail ?" she sobbed out at last. 
 
 "Do?" said the Captain. "You must get her out o' 
 this town as quick as you can." 
 
 "But where can I send her, father?" said Keturah, in 
 despair. 
 
 "She'll have to go to Falmouth to her Aunt Mary's," 
 said the Captain. 
 
 "Then she'll never have a school in the city?" said 
 Keturah, wistfully. 
 
 "Never," said the Captain. "The blow I gave Paddy 
 Flynn in the face settled that forever. Now, Keturah, 
 you must promise me to send Abigail away just as soon 
 as you can. Paddy Flynn aint the man to be balked." 
 
 "Yes, I promise, father," said Keturah. "And father, 
 wont you promise me something? Wont you, father 
 dear?" 
 
 "Yes, I'll promise, Keturah, whatever you want." 
 
 "Father, wont you promise that if you ever get out of 
 this you will never go into Cronin's saloon again?" 
 
 "Promise," cried Captain Bain, springing to his feet. 
 "Promise: I swear it. Hear me swear, Keturah, hear 
 me swear. Never will I let one drop o' Cronin's whisky 
 go down my throat as long as I live. So help me God." 
 
 Keturah smiled pitifully at her father's oath. For 
 the moment he seemed to have forgotten that God could 
 not or would not help him. Keturah was too wise to call 
 attention to this inconsistency. She only said: "Oh, 
 father, if you would only promise me never to drink any 
 whisky at all, any more, I'd be so happy." 
 
 "5
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 Captain Bain let his hand fall and said : "I'll promise 
 all a man can, Keturah, I'll promise all a man can, and I 
 can't do more." 
 
 And Keturah had to be content with that.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 JOY IN THE MORNING 
 
 IN the morning, when Captain Bain was arraigned 
 before the police magistrate, a great and joyful surprise 
 awaited him. When his name was called, and he stood 
 before the judge, that magistrate was holding a paper in 
 his hand which he was reading with evident displeasure. 
 He hemmed and he hawed, and he pished and he pshawed 
 and looked at Captain Bain and the paper, and frowned, 
 and said at last : "Are you the man what hit Mr. Flynn ?" 
 
 "I am," said Captain Bain. 
 
 "Well, you're a lucky man." 
 
 "Am I?" said Captain Bain. 
 
 "And Mr. Flynn is a noble gentleman," said the judge. 
 
 "Is he?" said Captain Bain. 
 
 "Yes, he is," said the judge, "and you ought to go 
 down to him on yer knees all the rest of the days of yer 
 life." 
 
 "Ought I?" said the Captain. 
 
 "Yes, you ought," said the judge. "Here is Mr. Flynn 
 givin' you a free pardon for all you done." 
 
 "Has he?" said Captain Bain. 
 
 "Yes, he has," said the judge. "Here's a letter come 
 from him this morning sayin', 'Let that man go: he 
 didn't know what he was doin.' He was drunk.' Now, 
 
 117
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 that's what I call a noble gentleman. Mr. Flynn has a 
 fellow feelin' and can make allowance for a man when 
 he's drunk. You was drunk, wasn't you?" 
 
 "Was I?" said Captain Bain. 
 
 "Yes, you was," said the judge, "if 'Mr. Flynn said 
 you was drunk, you was drunk. Wasn't he drunk, 
 officer?" 
 
 "Yis, yer honor," said the officer. 
 
 "Well," said the judge, "Mr. Flynn said let that man 
 go and ask him no questions, and I'm goin' to do what 
 Mr. Flynn says. But even Mr. Flynn can't keep me from 
 doin' me duty by the law. Mr. Clerk, the charge against 
 this man of assault with intent to kill is withdrawn. 
 Enter the charge of drunk and disorderly. You was 
 drunk and disorderly, wasn't you ?" 
 
 "Was I ?" said the Captain. 
 
 "Yes, you was and don't you deny it. Officer, take the 
 oath." 
 
 The officer was sworn. "This man was drunk and 
 disorderly, wasn't he?" 
 
 "Yis, yer honor." 
 
 "Well, then, it's ten dollars or twenty days, and you 
 may thank your stars it aint twenty years. Hittin' Paddy 
 Flynn is most as bad as hittin' the Queen of England. 
 Officer, take him away." 
 
 And the Captain was led back to his cell. 
 
 Keturah, who had staid with her father all night, and 
 gone with him into the court, could hardly believe her 
 ears. The awful terror of the night passed away like a 
 dream. She asked the judge if she might pay her father's 
 fine and take him home. And when told that she could, 
 she fairly flew home and got her bank book and hurried 
 to the bank and drew out the money from the little balance 
 
 118
 
 Joy in the Morning 
 
 that was there, and ran back to the Tombs and paid her 
 father's fine, and securing his discharge, she took him by 
 the hand and he and she went home together, wondering 
 at their marvelous escape. Like all wonderful things 
 that happen in this world, their good fortune had a very 
 simple and natural explanation. 
 
 Patrick Flyhn was frightened. 
 
 Midnight meditations and morning counsels had con- 
 vinced him of the unwisdom of the course of action which 
 he had taken. He lay all night thinking the matter over 
 and considering what he had better do. In the saloon 
 he was taken by surprise. To his utter astonishment, his 
 liberal offer had been refused with scorn. For some un- 
 accountable reason a poor man had been squeamish and 
 had refused to take big money when it came his way. 
 Why he should do this Flynn did not understand. To him 
 money was money, no matter how it was come by. 
 
 But, though Mr. Flynn was perplexed, he did not lose 
 his head. He saw at once that it would never do for him 
 to prosecute Captain Bain. If the story were told just as 
 it happened it would ruin Mr. Flynn in the district, and 
 his political career would be ended. The leader saw that 
 he had made a mistake, and he cast in his mind how he 
 could best remedy it, and, perhaps, make a gain of his 
 ungodliness. 
 
 As he lay with his eyes and nose bandaged, early in 
 the morning, pondering his unpleasant situation, he was 
 helped to a right conclusion by the great leader of his 
 party. This man was an early riser and had read in the 
 morning paper of the attack on Flynn. Anxious to know 
 the cause of this misfortune, he had called a carriage and 
 was driven to Flynn's house. He was at once shown to 
 the sick man's room. At the first sight of him the leader 
 had to laugh in spite of himself. 
 
 119
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "Flynn," he said, as soon as he could control his 
 laughter, "what in the world is the matter? What has 
 happened to you?" 
 
 "A blamed fool hit me in the face with a whisky 
 glass." 
 
 "What did he do that for?" said the leader. 
 
 '"Cause I made him mad, I 'spose." 
 
 "How did you make him mad ? Come, speak up, let's 
 have the truth." 
 
 "Well, I made him a proposition and he did not 
 like it." 
 
 "What was the proposition?" 
 
 "Well, it was this way. The man had a girl a 
 mighty fine girl, and I wanted the girl to take 'round to 
 the Tiger Club. I wanted to take the brag out of Jim 
 Flash, who is showing off that Markham girl of his, as if 
 she was the only girl in the world. So I said to this 
 fellow that this girl could get big money if she wanted it. 
 I went so far as to offer her ten thousand dollars and 
 findin's for one year. And with that the fool threw his 
 glass, whisky and all, right into my face." 
 
 "And served you right," said the leader. "I wish 
 he had killed you. You and Jim Flash and your set are 
 goin' to ruin our whole game. If you want to be nasty, 
 why can't you be nasty among yourselves, and not flaunt 
 your foulness before the whole city? I tell you, I'll have 
 no more of it. It's too dangerous, you've got to stop it 
 right away. You don't know these people. You can 
 steal their money and they wont say a word. The poor 
 wont grumble, because it aint their money we are stealing, 
 and the rich don't make a fuss because they can make 
 money faster than we can steal it. But just let them 
 think you are playin' false with their women and they'll 
 
 120
 
 Joy in the Morning 
 
 sweep you into hell quicker than they'd sweep garbage 
 into the street." 
 
 "What shall I do?" said Flynn, sharing his leader's 
 alarm. 
 
 "Do?" said the master. "Why, send word at once to 
 the judge to let the man go and then stop his mouth with 
 the best thing you can give him. What does he want?" 
 
 "He said," answered Flynn, "that he'ud like a place 
 on the street for himself and he'ud like his girl to get into 
 the schools. I will say for Bain that he's a good fellow, 
 works hard for the party, votes a hundred or a hundred 
 and fifty at every election." 
 
 "And that's the kind of man you insulted ! Let me tell 
 you, Mr. Flynn, two or three more mistakes like this and 
 Mike Cronin will get his promotion. We can't have 
 district leaders throwin' away a hundred or a hundred and 
 fifty votes, I tell you. Make the man a court messenger, 
 and tell him his girl shall have the best place in the schools 
 we can find for her as soon as she is ready." 
 
 "I'll do it, sir, I'll do it," said Patrick Flynn eagerly. 
 
 "See you do," said the leader, as he went away. 
 
 As a consequence of this conference Captain Bain 
 received on the afternoon of the same day a letter which 
 read as follows : 
 
 My dear Captain Bain : 
 
 I regret exceedingly the unfortunate occurrence of 
 last night. I am afraid you did not quite understand my 
 proposition, and were a little hasty in your action. But 
 we will let bygones be bygones, and will put aside all ill 
 will for the sake of the party. These are not times for the 
 friends -of the party to fall out with one another. In con- 
 sulting with those high in authority, I find it to be the 
 
 121
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 general opinion that your services to the cause are deserv- 
 ing of reward. You were speaking about the position of 
 street inspector ; but we feel that such employment is not 
 fitted for a man of your age. You would be exposed to 
 the weather in all times and seasons, and that you ought 
 to avoid. 
 
 I take pleasure in saying that we can offer you a posi- 
 tion more suitable to your condition and deserts. If you 
 will take the inclosed card to the Supreme Court Cham- 
 bers, No. 3, and ask for Judge Hanson, he will appoint 
 you to the office of court messenger, which I am sure 
 will be entirely satisfactory. 
 
 It gives me further pleasure to say that your daughter, 
 for whom I have profound respect, will be provided for in 
 the schools as soon as she is ready to teach. 
 
 Hoping you will do as well by the party in the future 
 as in the past, I remain, 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 PATRICK FLYNN. 
 
 This letter was composed by Mr. Flynn's private 
 secretary and was signed by the full, bold signature of the 
 great man himself. It was delivered to Captain Bain on 
 the day after his discharge from the Tombs. He read it 
 with great satisfaction. He was keen enough to see the 
 advantage of his position and he was determined to use 
 his power to the utmost. He had Flynn at his mercy, 
 and he meant to keep him there. 
 
 When he showed the letter to Keturah she was more 
 frightened than ever before, and she said to her father : 
 
 "I hope, father dear, you will not think of accepting 
 any favor from this man. You ought not to have any- 
 thing to do with him." 
 
 122
 
 Joy in the Morning 
 
 "Oh, that's all right, Keturah. I've got Flynn now 
 where I want him. I'll take his job all right enough." 
 
 "But don't you see, father," said Keturah, "that he is 
 trying to buy you, just as he did before, only in a different 
 way?" 
 
 "Yes, I know he's buyin'. Paddy aint the man to give 
 nothin' for nothin' ; but it's different now, he's biddin' fer 
 somethin' that I've got for sale." 
 
 "What is that, father?" asked Keturah, anxiously. 
 
 "Silence," said the Captain. 
 
 "But, father, wont he try to do what he said he would 
 do, and try to get hold of sister in spite of you ?" 
 
 "No, Keturah, Abigail is safe now so far as Flynn is 
 concerned. He knows them goods aint for sale, and he'll 
 look elsewhere. He can find plenty to take his bid." 
 
 By this answer Captain Bain showed that he had not 
 breathed the political atmosphere for nothing. He was 
 right in thinking that Patrick Flynn would not risk his 
 political influence for any woman, however beautiful. 
 There were thousands of women to be had every day, but 
 there was only one district leadership. Captain Bain 
 had every reason to think that all dangers from that 
 quarter had passed away. Flynn might bear him a grudge 
 and might turn him down when he had the chance, but he 
 would never allude to that other subject again. So with- 
 out compunction or fear Captain Bain presented himself 
 at the Court House, and was duly installed as court mes- 
 senger. 
 
 Keturah did not share in her father's confidence. She 
 was afraid that some scheme was brewing that would in- 
 volve her in some new and great misfortune. Apart en- 
 tirely from what had happened, she knew that Abigail 
 was in great danger. In the life that they lived there were 
 
 123
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 no moral safeguards, such as hedge about the girl that 
 grows up in a quiet and secluded home. To live a moral 
 life in the midst of immoral surroundings demands great 
 strength of character, and Keturah was beginning to see 
 to her dismay that Abigail was not strong morally. Her 
 education had trained her intellect and her taste, but not 
 her conscience and her will. 
 
 Poor Keturah had no one to turn to for counsel. She 
 thought of that long night on the prison floor when she 
 said, "God help me !" And she began to wonder if after 
 all there might not be a God who could and would help 
 her, and was not, as her father had said, on the other 
 side on the side of the wicked against the innocent, on 
 the side of the strong against the weak. 
 
 124
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 A BUSINESS REQUIREMENT 
 
 KETURAH was so busy the day after her father's arrest, 
 in paying his fine and securing his release from jail that 
 she did not go to the shop. The next day found her in 
 her usual place, but not in her usual spirits. She was in 
 that state of collapse which follows all violent emotion. 
 The lines were deeper in her brow and the color was 
 darker under her eyes. As she stood at the head of the 
 workroom in her long white apron, she had the lassitude 
 which was the natural result of her previous excitement. 
 She appeared to be that morning what she really was, a 
 careworn, hopeless woman. 
 
 As she looked down the long workroom at the fifty 
 girls sitting at the benches, she had what was next to 
 hatred in her heart for the conditions of life that com- 
 pelled them to work as they did, and for what they did. 
 She knew better than they did themselves what they were 
 doing. They were sacrificing all the hopes and joys of 
 womanhood for the sake of a little bread to eat and cloth- 
 ing to put on. As Keturah stood watching them she 
 knew that many of them were already lost to virtue, and 
 that one of them would have to be sent that very day 
 from the little shelter which the shop gave her and be ex- 
 posed without protection to the powers 'of evil that were 
 
 125
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 raging in the city. "And yet," said Keturah, bitterly, 
 "men say there is a God." 
 
 As the woman was chewing the cud of this hard say- 
 ing, word came that Mr. Rosenthal wanted to see her in 
 the office, and she went to him at once. 
 
 "You were not here yesterday, Keturah?" said her 
 employer. 
 
 "No, sir," answered Keturah. 
 
 "What was the matter ?" said he. 
 
 "My father was in trouble, and I had to stay at home 
 to help him." 
 
 "I am very sorry to find fault with you, Keturah, but 
 you must understand that I employ you, not your father, 
 and I can't have you staying away from your duties at the 
 shop to help your father." 
 
 "I don't do it very often, sir," answered the woman, 
 meekly. 
 
 "I know that, but you should not do it at all. In busi- 
 ness, business comes first every time, and when you can't 
 attend to your business, you'll have to give it up, and I 
 will get some one who will attend to it." 
 
 "I'm very sorry, Mr. Rosenthal. I will not do it 
 again," said Keturah, with trembling lips. 
 
 "See that you don't," said her employer, crossly, "and 
 look after your room more carefully. Things are not 
 going on there as well as they might. The girls have 
 been spoiling a great deal of work lately." 
 
 "I know that, Mr. Rosenthal, and I do my best to 
 prevent it ; but you know this time of year is a hard time 
 for the girls." 
 
 "What has the time of year to do with it?" said Mr. 
 Rosenthal. 
 
 "A great deal," answered Keturah. "The girls are 
 
 126
 
 A Business Requirement 
 
 always more difficult to manage in the spring than at any 
 other season of the year." 
 
 "Keturah," said her employer, looking at her over his 
 glasses, "you talk like a fool." Courtesy toward women 
 had no place in business. Keturah was used to being 
 spoken to in that way and did not resent it. She only 
 said: "Maybe I do, Mr. Rosenthal, but I know that I 
 have a great deal more trouble with the girls now than I 
 do in the fall and the winter." 
 
 "And what is the reason ?" said the man. 
 
 "Spring fever, I guess," answered the woman. "The 
 birds are singing, the trees are in blossom, and the sun 
 is shining, and the girls feel it. They want to be out of 
 doors playing, and they can't, and that makes them un- 
 easy, and they get nervous and restless." 
 
 Mr. Rosenthal laughed and said : "I guess they play 
 all right in my trimming room, and that is about all they 
 do. Look at that stack of work over there, ruined in the 
 trimming. I wish I could put men in the trimming room. 
 Girls are such a bother." 
 
 "Yes," said Keturah, "it is no wonder that the men 
 are the better workers. It is easier to be a working man 
 than it is to be a working woman." 
 
 "How is it easier?" said Rosenthal. 
 
 "Because," said Keturah, "the working man has noth- 
 ing but his work to do. When he is through, he is 
 through. When he goes home he finds his supper ready 
 for him. Every working man has a woman to take care 
 of him. After his supper he can take his pipe and go out 
 to his saloon and have a little rest and recreation. But 
 how is it with a working woman ? When she gets up in 
 the morning she has to get her own breakfast, or else 
 come away without it. If she has a home to go to after her 
 
 127
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 work is done, she has to help her mother get supper and 
 clear away the dishes, and like as not, there are half a 
 dozen children to take care" of till bedtime. And then 
 she has no place to go except the streets, and you know a 
 girl who runs our streets does worse. And yet men 
 wonder that girls get nervous and can't do as good work 
 as they can." 
 
 "What you say may be true, Keturah," said Mr. 
 Rosenthal, lazily knocking the ashes from his cigar, "but 
 it is all sentiment ; it has nothing to do with business. We 
 pay our girls to do our work, and we expect them to do it. 
 But there is no use in talking any more. I wanted to tell 
 you that we'll have to make another cut of ten per cent, 
 in wages." 
 
 "Another cut of ten per cent. !" exclaimed Keturah in 
 dismay. "W r hy, Mr. Rosenthal, it is impossible ; the girls 
 are not getting enough to live on now. If you take any 
 more away from them they will starve." 
 
 "I can't help it," said the employer, "business does not 
 warrant us paying present wages, and we will have to cut 
 down or shut up. The lookout for business is worse than 
 it has been for years. As far as I can see, it would pay 
 one to shut down the shop, and go to Europe and live there 
 until the hard times are over. You can tell the girls they 
 can take the cut, or else they can leave the shop, and 1 
 don't care much which they do." 
 
 "Very well, sir," said Keturah, faintly. 
 
 "I wish you would send away that girl, Anna Rice, 
 she spoils more work than she is worth. It would pay me 
 to pay her to stay at home," said Mr. Rosenthal. 
 
 "Poor Anna!" said Keturah, "her mother has had 
 twins, and she has had to be up with them every night for 
 a month. The poor girl is all worn out." 
 
 128
 
 A Business Requirement 
 
 "I have nothing to do with her mother's babies. Let 
 the girl stay home and take care of them. Send her away. 
 And what is the matter with that girl, Carrie Twine ? She 
 don't look right to me." 
 
 "She is not right, Mr. Rosenthal. Carrie Twine is in 
 that condition into which every girl falls when Jim Car- 
 don takes a fancy to her." 
 
 "Well, send her away. A girl that can't take care of 
 herself has no business in the shop." 
 
 "I will send her away, Mr. Rosenthal, but that will 
 simply mean the ruin of another girl. Cardon will choose 
 another as soon as she is gone." 
 
 "I can't help that, Keturah. You ought to take better 
 care of the girls. Tell them what's what. If they want 
 to make fools of themselves with Jim Cardon that is their 
 lookout," and with this Mr. Rosenthal turned to his desk, 
 and Keturah left the office. As she walked back to her 
 room, she said under her breath, "And yet men say there 
 is a God." 
 
 When the noon hour came, Keturah called her girls 
 about her, and announced the cut of ten per cent. This 
 was received, as she expected, with an outcry of dismay 
 and indignation. "Why, what does Rosenthal mean cut 
 us ten per cent, and put us on half-time ?" cried one of the 
 girls. "How does he think we're goin' to live?" 
 
 "I don't think Mr. Rosenthal thinks anything about 
 that," said Keturah. "It is his business to make hats and 
 not to make girls live." 
 
 "Well, we wont work for him," cried the girls in 
 chorus. "We'll strike." 
 
 "Strike," said Keturah, pityingly, "why, Mr. Rosenthal 
 could hire a hundred girls to-morrow to do your work at 
 his own terms. He says the times are going to be very 
 
 129
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 hard, and he is right. It wont be long, I tell you, before 
 working people will be glad to work on any terms. I tell 
 you, girls, you had better hold on to what you have. It 
 is better than nothing. But you must do as you please. 
 Those of you who will accept the cut can come Monday 
 morning; those who wont can stay away." 
 
 With a great deal of grumbling, the girls put on their 
 hats and coats and left the shop, all except Anna Rice and 
 Carrie Twine who were requested to wait after the others 
 had gone. 
 
 As soon as she was alone Keturah called Anna Rice to 
 her desk and said : "Anna, I'm sorry, but Mr. Rosenthal 
 says I am not to keep you any longer ; you spoil too much 
 work." 
 
 "Oh, Keturah," said Anna, turning white and faint, 
 "whatever will I do, and mother and the babies wantin' 
 every cent I make, and more, too?" 
 
 "I don't know what you will do," answered Keturah, 
 sadly, "unless you go to the charities for help." 
 
 "Oh, I never could be a charity, never. I'd die first," 
 said Anna, the tears running down her cheeks. 
 
 "Yes," said Keturah, "it's easy to die, people do it 
 every day. But the worst of it is, you can't die when you 
 want to. You just have to wait and wait and wait." 
 
 "Well, I suppose there is no use in talkin'. Give me 
 my wages and let me go," said Anna Rice. 
 
 "You have no wages coming to you," said Keturah. 
 
 "No wages comin' !" said the girl aghast. 
 
 "None," said Keturah. "I'm sorry, but you have 
 spoiled this week a great deal more than you have earned." 
 
 "And nothin' in the house for mother and the 
 babies !" sobbed the child. 
 
 "Annie, where is your father?" said Keturah. 
 
 130 <
 
 A Business Requirement 
 
 "At the Island/' whispered Annie, "always at the 
 Island." 
 
 "What for?" said Keturah. 
 
 "Drunk." 
 
 "Annie, dear, I'm awfully sorry for you. I can't do 
 much, but here is a little money to get something for 
 mother and the babies, and I'll come in to-morrow and 
 see how you are getting on." 
 
 Annie took the money without a word, and left the 
 workroom. 
 
 Keturah sat still for a moment, her face as gray as 
 ashes, and then she called to the girl at the farther end of 
 the room, saying, "Carrie Twine, come here." Carrie 
 Twine was a large girl of the brunette type. As she stood 
 before Keturah her cheeks were flushed and her brow was 
 sullen. "Well, what do you want ?" she said, crossly. 
 
 "I am afraid you will have to leave the shop," said 
 Keturah, gently. 
 
 "Leave the shop," said the girl, "little I care for that ; 
 but what will I leave the shop for?" 
 
 "You know," said Keturah. 
 
 "Yes, I know," said Carrie Twine. "I'm not good 
 enough to stay in the shop. I'm not fit to 'sociate with 
 Miss Bain and her innocents," and the girl laughed. 
 
 "Come, Carrie, things are bad enough. Don't make 
 them worse. You know you can't stay here in your con- 
 dition," said Keturah, her face quivering with pain. 
 
 "How did I come to be in my condition?" said the 
 girl, fiercely. 
 
 "You know," answered Keturah. 
 
 "Yes, and you know, too. You know that man watches 
 for us girls as a spider watches for a fly. Why don't you 
 send him away ? Oh ! he is the foreman, and you daren't 
 
 131
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 speak to him. Which one of the girls are you goin' to 
 give him when I am gone ?" 
 
 "Oh, Carrie don't, please don't. Here is your money. 
 Take it and go." 
 
 "Yes, I'll go. There's more ways than one of makin' 
 a livin'. I'll go fast enough, don't you fear." 
 
 The girl took her money and with a toss of her head 
 passed out of the door and down the stairs. 
 
 That night Carrie Twine went out on the street.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 WHAT DOGS ARE FOR 
 
 WHEN Keturah left the shop that Saturday, after dis- 
 missing Anna Rice and Carrie Twine, she walked through 
 the streets hanging her head, and her cheeks burning with 
 shame. She felt herself guilty of a disgraceful act. She 
 was an oppressor of the poor, and an encourager of vice. 
 It is true, she hated all these things with all her heart, 
 and with all her soul, but she had to do them. If she did 
 not she would lose her own living and the living of all 
 depending on her, and no good would come of it. If she 
 did not obey orders she would be sent away, and another 
 would do what she had done. In any case Anna Rice 
 would be sent out to beg or to starve, and Carrie Twine 
 to seduce and destroy. 
 
 Keturah had to confess that even Mr. Rosenthal was 
 not greatly to blame. It was simply a business necessity. 
 He could not keep Anna Rice when she spoiled more than 
 she earned, nor Carrie Twine when she had become 
 wicked and morose. The pity of it all was that no one 
 could help it. It was a part of the natural order of things. 
 
 When Keturah reached home she found a new vexa- 
 tion awaiting her. Benjamin met her with the news that 
 Shinar was in jail. 
 
 "Shinar in jail!" cried Keturah. "What has the boy 
 been doing that he should be in jail ?" 
 
 133
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "Dog fightin'," said Benjamin. 
 
 "Dog fighting? Do you mean to say he was taken to 
 jail for that?" 
 
 "Sure," said Benjamin, "and they'll send him to the 
 Island for a month." 
 
 "How dreadful!" said Keturah, "that will ruin the 
 boy. He will learn more wickedness there in a month 
 than he has learned in all his life before. Shinar is not 
 a bad boy, and they shall not make him a bad boy. I 
 must go and see what can be done for him." 
 
 "There can't nothin' be done fer him," said Benjamin. 
 "It wasn't the cop as took him. It was the agent of the 
 Cruelty, and them agents don't let go when they get hold ; 
 it's money to them." 
 
 "I can't help who has taken him," said Keturah. "I 
 wont let them send him to the Island. Where is he now ?" 
 
 "At the Tombs, I guess," said Benjamin, "and you'd 
 better let him alone. It'll do him good, he's too fresh." 
 
 Without stopping to defend her favorite from this 
 aspersion, which even if true was not important, Keturah 
 found herself for the second time in the same week on 
 her way to the prison of the Tombs. She was in no 
 gentle mood when she reached that gloomy abode of 
 crime. She was angry with Shinar and angry with the 
 world, and anger gave her the spirit to fight for the sal- 
 vation of the boy whom she had brought up from infancy. 
 
 She walked up to the desk in the station-house and 
 demanded of the officer to know where Shinar was. 
 
 The officer looked at her for a moment and said, 
 "What do you want to know for? Are you any relation 
 o' his?" 
 
 "I do not think that makes any difference. I want to 
 know where he is because I want to help him. I'm no 
 
 i34
 
 What Dogs Are For 
 
 relation, but I have known him since he was a baby. He 
 is not a bad boy, and I want to save him from the Island 
 if I can. Please tell me where he is. I want to get him 
 out of jail." 
 
 The officer turned lazily to his register and said : "He 
 has been sent to the Special Session for trial. They are 
 clearing the prison to-day to make room for the Sunday 
 drunks. If you want to see him before he is sent to the 
 Island you'd better hurry. They rush things along 
 Saturday afternoon." 
 
 Keturah inquired her way to the court room where 
 the Special Sessions was sitting. It was a dark, illy- 
 ventilated room in the Tombs. The Court, composed of 
 three judges, disposed of cases of crime and misdemeanor, 
 which did not call for jury trial, that were sent to them 
 from the police court. 
 
 When Keturah entered the room she became faint and 
 sick. The air of the room was foul and close. The prison 
 pen was full of bedraggled men and women, whose un- 
 washed faces and uncombed hair gave them the appear- 
 ance of wild creatures of the wood. These human cattle 
 looked on the proceedings of the court room with the 
 stolid indifference of beasts that- do not know or care 
 what is to become of them. 
 
 The judges on the bench and the lawyers within the 
 bar had the appearance of men who were ashamed of what 
 they were doing, and were in haste to be done with it. 
 Little time was wasted in disposing of the riff-raff of 
 humanity which was there at the bar of judgment. A 
 few hasty questions ; a short decision of twenty dollars or 
 sixty days, sent them one after another, out of the 
 prisoners' dock, back to the prisoners' pen, to wait until 
 the whole batch was disposed of, that they might all be 
 transported to the Island.
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 Outside the bar was that motley crowd of beggars, 
 thieves, and prostitutes that make the audience of every 
 police court. 
 
 This is for such as they better than a play; it is the 
 drama of real life, and they watch it with the keenest 
 interest. The beggar, the thief, and the prostitute are all 
 people of leisure. Their business occupies only a small 
 portion of their time. In the police court they find diver- 
 sion that is both interesting and exciting. The actors on 
 the stage before them are their friends and companions, 
 in whose fate they have that lively concern which men 
 always have in the misfortunes of others. 
 
 Keturah made her way through the court room to the 
 bar. Sitting close to the bar, and leaning upon it was 
 Lead-pencil Morrison, a big, burly English bully, foul in 
 person and foul in soul, who begged and beat his way 
 through the world, enjoyed all of its pleasures that he 
 cared for, and did none of its work. Keturah knew him : 
 he had certain political relations with her father. She 
 never could look at him without a shudder. As she stood 
 beside him there at the bar of the court she felt herself 
 degraded by the sight of him. As he leaned upon the 
 rail he was leering at a woman in the prisoners' dock, who 
 was being tried on a charge of petty larceny from the 
 person, and was already convicted and sentenced, and was 
 standing in the dock gazing listlessly at the court and the 
 people. She and Lead-pencil Morrison were pals. He 
 had the money which she had stolen. She looked at him 
 and he looked at her, and then she went her way to serve 
 out her six months' sentence, while he was free to do with 
 other women as he had done with her. 
 
 When Keturah saw the look that passed between this 
 man and woman, her head began to swim, and the room 
 
 136
 
 What Dogs Are For 
 
 to grow dark; a horror of great darkness was settling 
 down upon her, and she laid hold of the bar to keep her- 
 self from falling. As she was striving to hold herself 
 together she heard the quick, sharp voice of the presiding 
 judge call the name Shinar. At the sound of this name 
 the darkness fell away from Keturah, and she lifted up 
 her eyes and saw Shinar standing in the prisoners' dock. 
 In the midst of all that sin and foulness he gave the im- 
 pression of innocence and cleanness. He was a tall lad 
 upon whose face vice had made no mark. His dark 
 hair, curled close to his head, gave him an appearance of 
 neatness, and his brown eyes, shining with honest light, 
 indicated anything but a bad boy. 
 
 When the judge looked at him, he gave a start as if he 
 saw an unaccustomed sight: his keen eye detected a 
 novice in the dock. 
 
 "What is your name ?" said the Judge. 
 
 "Shinar," said the boy. 
 
 "How do you spell it?" said the judge. 
 
 The boy spelled his name. 
 
 "What is your other name?" asked the judge. 
 
 "I aint got no other name," answered the boy. 
 
 "Yes, you have," said the judge. "You must have 
 another name. What is it?" 
 
 "I aint got no other name, my name is jes' Shinar." 
 
 "Why didn't you say so?" said the judge. "Clerk, 
 enter the prisoner's name as Jesse Shinar. What is the 
 charge against him ?" The clerk read a paper which set 
 forth that the prisoner at the bar had been guilty of violat- 
 ing the statute which made the encouragement and abet- 
 ting of dog fighting in the State of New York a mis- 
 demeanor to be punished by fine or imprisonment or both. 
 When the reading of the charge was ended the judge 
 
 137
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 said : "You are accused of dog fighting. Are you 
 guilty ?" 
 
 "No, I aint," said the boy. 
 
 "You are not guilty," said the judge, "do you mean 
 to say that you didn't fight these dogs ?" 
 
 "No, sir, I didn't, the dorgs fighted theirselves." 
 
 "And you didn't encourage or abet them," said the 
 judge, impatiently. 
 
 "I didn't 'courage 'em," said Shinar, "they 'couraged 
 theirselves, but I did bet Tim Maloney that my pup 'ud 
 whip his brindle inside o' ten minutes by the clock." 
 
 "Then you did fight the dogs," said the President of 
 the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, who 
 was conducting the case for the State. The boy, having 
 no counsel, had to conduct his own case. 
 
 "No, I didn't fight no dorg, I tells ye. The dorgs 
 fighted theirselves." 
 
 "But you set them on." 
 
 "No, I didn't. I didn't do nothin'. I jes let go the 
 string. The dorgs went at it theirselves." 
 
 "But you stood by and watched them and bet on the 
 result. That is encouragement and abetment within the 
 meaning of the law. Didn't you know that ? Don't you 
 know that it is wrong for dogs to fight?" 
 
 "No, I don't," answered Shinar, "and the dorgs don't 
 neither. They'd ruther fight than eat, any day. My bull 
 terrier never had a better time in his life than he had the 
 day he whipped Maloney's brindle." 
 
 "But how about the brindle ? Did he like it ?" 
 
 "I guess not," said Shinar. "The whipped dorg never 
 does ; but then, if yer goin' to have the fun o' dorg fightin' 
 youse got to have a whipped dorg. It ain't no fight if 
 you don't." 
 
 138
 
 What Dogs Are For 
 
 Here the court interrupted the conversation between 
 the boy and the prosecutor, saying: "We cannot waste 
 our time in this way. Mr. Prosecutor, call your witness." 
 The agent who arrested the boy was sworn, and testified 
 to finding the boys engaged in fighting their dogs in the 
 stable yard of Price's livery. One of the boys had es- 
 caped, but this one he had arrested. It was clearly a fight, 
 within the meaning of the law. 
 
 When the agent had finished, the court said to the 
 boy: "What do you say to that?" 
 
 "I say that's all right ; my bull terrier was fightin' Tim 
 Maloney's brindle. But I wasn't hurtin' the dorg. I 
 wouldn't hurt him, no, not for nothin'. When Jimmy 
 Mulchahy was stonin' him I swiped him over the mouth ; 
 I wouldn't let no boy stone my dorg. That ain't what 
 dorgs is for. I jes' cut his string and run, didn't I, Ke- 
 turah?" said the boy, looking at his friend behind the 
 bar. "There she is," said Shinar. "She's my friend. 
 She'll tell ye I ain't no bad boy. As fer this fightin', 
 that's all right, that's what dorgs is for." 
 
 "Mr. Prosecutor," said the court, "we are inclined 
 to dismiss the case against this prisoner." 
 
 "Your honors, I protest against any such course. The 
 prisoner is clearly guilty, and if the cruel practice of dog 
 fighting is to be stopped, an example must be made. I 
 demand judgment on the prisoner." 
 
 The presiding judge consulted with his colleagues 
 and then said, snappishly : "Five dollars or ten days." 
 
 At this Keturah Bain spoke out and said : "You must 
 not send that boy to the Island and make a bad boy of 
 him. There are bad boys enough in the world." 
 
 There was a stir in the court as this clear voice of 
 protest was heard. The judges looked up and frowned, 
 and the crier cried: "Silence in the court!"
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 The presiding judge said, kindly, "You can pay the 
 boy's fine, if you wish, and take him away. It is the 
 best thing you can do for him. The Island is a bad place 
 for him." 
 
 "I will pay the fine," said Keturah, and looking 
 fiercely at the prosecutor, she said: "and if we took as 
 good care of our boys and girls, as some people try to 
 take of the dogs, we wouldn't have so many of them 
 in the prison and on the street." 
 
 "Silence in the court !" cried the crier. 
 
 Keturah, without further words, went round to the 
 clerk's desk and paid, out of her week's wages, the fine 
 imposed upon Shinar. The boy received his certificate 
 of discharge, and he and Keturah left the court room 
 together. 
 
 140
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 A NEW NAME AND A NEW LIFE 
 
 WHEN they reached the street Keturah let loose upon 
 the boy the vials of her wrath. 
 
 "You are," she said, "a wicked and ungrateful boy. 
 You do not care for me, and forget all that has been done 
 for you. You are going to the bad as fast as you can. If 
 you keep on you will soon be sent to the Island, and after 
 that to Sing Sing. And all the years I have spent work- 
 ing for you will be wasted in the making of a criminal. 
 I am ashamed of you, Shinar. A big boy like you, almost 
 a man, behaving like a little street urchin. If that is all 
 you mean to do with yourself and for yourself, I shall 
 have nothing more to do with you. I have troubles 
 enough of my own without having to run after you and 
 keep you out of trouble." 
 
 Keturah's speech ended in a sob. Shinar heard her 
 with hanging head and burning cheeks. 
 
 "But, Keturah," he said, "I didn't mean no harm. I 
 didn't know it was wrong." 
 
 "Didn't mean any harm, didn't know it was wrong! 
 That is the worst of it. You are nearly eighteen years 
 old, and you don't know what is right and what is wrong. 
 I am ashamed of you." 
 
 "Yes, Keturah," said the boy, with heaving chest and 
 
 141
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 choking voice, and tears streaming down his cheeks, "yes, 
 and I'm 'shamed o' myself. I aint nothin' but a street 
 boy. I aint got no father nor no mother, and has to set 
 in front o' Cronin's saloon and hear nothin' all day long 
 but cursin' and vile talk. I don't have no fun at all, at 
 all, 'cept a bit o' dog fight now and then, and fer that they 
 pull me in and send me to the Island. I aint goin' to 
 live this kind o' life any longer. I'm goin' away from 
 here into the country and be a man, not a street loafer." 
 
 These words were spoken bitterly, and ended in a 
 hearty fit of crying. 
 
 Keturah took the boy by the hand and led him into 
 the hallway of a house, and there she put her arms about 
 him and said : "There, there, Shinar, don't cry, don't cry. 
 I was wrong to be angry with you. You are not to blame. 
 You do the best you can. You are right about leaving 
 Cronin's saloon. It is no place for you. You must take 
 up some kind of work that will make a man of you." 
 
 Keturah held the boy's head against her breast and 
 comforted him until he ceased from crying. She took 
 out her handkerchief and wiped away the tears from his 
 eyes, saying : "There, dearie, there. You are a good boy, 
 and I am a cross, wicked, old woman." 
 
 At this Shinar laughed, and holding Keturah's hand 
 in his and patting it, said: "You aint wicked and you 
 aint old. You are the best mother a poor street boy 
 ever had. If you hadn't took me up when I was a baby, 
 I'ud been a long time dead by now." 
 
 "Yes, dear," said Keturah, "you would have been dead 
 sure enough, and now that you are alive, you must live to 
 some purpose. You must not stay at Cronin's any longer. 
 I think you had better go away to the country and forget 
 the ways of the street. I will speak to Mr. Best about 
 
 142
 
 A New Name and a New Life 
 
 it, and he will get a home for you out in the West, and 
 you will be a great man there and come back a senator, 
 or maybe a president." And Keturah laughed, and 
 Shinar laughed also. 
 
 As they were walking along and chatting as to how 
 their plan was to be carried out, Keturah happened to 
 look at the paper which she held in her hand, and when 
 she read it she cried : "Shinar, Shinar, they have given 
 you a new name." 
 
 "What is it?" said the boy. 
 
 "Jesse, Jesse Shinar ; isn't that a nice name ?" 
 
 "Yes, that's bully !" 
 
 "Oh, Shinar," said Keturah, "don't say bully. You 
 aren't a street boy any longer and you mustn't talk street 
 talk." 
 
 "All right, Keturah, it aint bully, it's jes dandy, aint 
 it?" 
 
 "Shinar, Shinar, if you are going to be a senator, you 
 will have to go to school and learn to speak English in- 
 stead of slang. Now you have a new name you must 
 begin a new life. We will see about it as soon as we 
 can." 
 
 So it was settled between the foster mother and the 
 foster son that he was to make a radical change in his 
 life, to begin to live as a man and not as a boy. Neither 
 of them thought yet of the pain of parting. They saw the 
 end of the new life in honor and prosperity, not its be- 
 ginning in exile and hard work. 
 
 When they reached home, it was toward evening, and 
 the day was far spent. As they were going through the 
 passage way, Keturah drew Shinar to her bosom and 
 kissed him, and sent him with a happy heart to his own 
 house.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 A COVERT FROM THE .WIND 
 
 WHEN Keturah reached home she found herself ut- 
 terly exhausted by the varied experiences and emotions 
 of the day, and she had one more trial to meet before that 
 long day ended in night. 
 
 When her family heard of what she had done for 
 Shinar, how she had paid his fine and kept him from 
 going to the Island, they overwhelmed her with a storm 
 of reproaches. Mother Bain whined, Abigail sulked, 
 and Benjamin sneered; even Captain Bain found fault, 
 saying: "Don't you think, Keturah, that was goin' jest 
 a leetle too far ?" 
 
 "Too far, father, not at all. Do you suppose I would 
 let that boy go to the Island and be ruined forever ?" 
 
 "Maybe not," said the Captain, "maybe not, but when 
 all's said and done, the boy aint your boy and you aint 
 got no call to look arter him." 
 
 "Not my boy," said Keturah, flushing with anger, "I 
 would like to know why he is not my boy. He is all the 
 boy I have, and all the boy I'm like to have. You have 
 done all you can to keep me from having any boy of my 
 own, and now you scold and find fault if I spend a 
 dollar or two to keep a lad I have brought up from a baby 
 out of jail. I've worked and starved until I am old and 
 
 MS
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 gray, and am snarled and sneered at when I do the least 
 little thing for myself." 
 
 The family stood aghast at Keturah's outbreak. It 
 was so unusual that it caused the greatest consternation. 
 The poor overwrought woman burst into tears, and with- 
 out waiting to eat a morsel of supper, went away and shut 
 herself in her room. She threw herself as she was upon 
 the bed and lay in the darkness with her face to the wall, 
 conscious of nothing but weariness of body and sorrow 
 of soul. 
 
 After a long fit of crying, she got up and undressed 
 and went to bed and fell into a deep, heavy sleep. When 
 she woke up in the morning, Keturah heard the rain beat- 
 ing down upon the pavement of the court, and that sound 
 caused her heart to fail within her. It meant a Sunday 
 at home. And a Sunday at home was the dread of Ke- 
 turah's life. Keturah had often wondered whether there 
 was any place in the universe that was worse than her 
 home of a Sunday. In the week it was not so bad. She 
 was away all day at her work, and came home only to 
 sleep. But Sunday brought out all the horrors of tene- 
 ment life. Half-dressed men and women lounging at 
 the windows of the front tenement, slatternly girls and 
 boys playing and fighting in the narrow court, or if it 
 rained, making the day hideous with cries and screams 
 from window to window. 
 
 In her own house it was no better. The woman had 
 no privacy except in her dark, stifling bedroom. In the 
 living room the men sat about in their shirt sleeves, smok- 
 ing their pipes. Mrs. Bain was more slovenly than 
 usual and even Abigail, if she was at home, was untidy. 
 It was one of the many disorganized households where 
 mutual respect has been lost, and soul displays itself to 
 soul in a sort of hideous nakedness. 
 
 146
 
 A Covert from the Wind 
 
 As Keturah lay in the darkness, she saw this dreadful 
 day dragging its weary hours along, and she almost 
 screamed in her despair. She went to the window in the 
 living room, where Benjamin was sleeping on a lounge, 
 and looking out of the window saw the rain coming down 
 in sheets. She went back to her room wondering what 
 she would do. She could not stay in the house all day. 
 Her nerves were still quivering with the excitement of 
 the day that was gone ; she could not meet the family and 
 hear the fret, fret, of her mother, the snarling of her 
 brother, and see Abigail in the sulks, as she would be all 
 day. The thought of it all was intolerable. The wind 
 and the rain without were better than the gloom and the 
 bad humor within. Keturah rose and moved about 
 quietly, so as not to wake Abigail, who slept with her, 
 dressed herself as well as she could in the darkness, and 
 went out into the kitchen. 
 
 Although it was dark in the house, it was well on into 
 the morning, past nine o'clock. Keturah took from the 
 pantry a morsel of bread, which with a glass of water 
 made up her breakfast, and having choked down the 
 bread by means of the water, put on her overshoes and 
 waterproof coat and taking her umbrella, went out into 
 the storm. 
 
 As soon as she passed out of the passage way, Ke- 
 turah's spirit revived. The rain had washed the air 
 and it was full of life and vigor. As Keturah breathed, 
 she felt her very soul cleansed by the freshness and purity 
 of morning. The rain was still coming down in long 
 slanting streams, but Keturah did not mind it. The very 
 wetness beating against her face was a refreshment. 
 
 Walking by instinct rather than by conscious direction, 
 Keturah made her way down Mulberry Street to Chatham
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 and up Chatham to Duane and across Duane to Broad- 
 way. The poor girl was going the way that she went 
 every morning to work. She was the only living creature 
 to be seen on that morning in the streets of the city. Not 
 even a policeman was abroad. 
 
 When she reached Broadway, Keturah encountered 
 a new difficulty. The wind was from the northeast, and 
 it swept down Broadway with the force of a gale. Ke- 
 turah could hardly stand up against it. Not knowing 
 where she was going, she turned northward and went up 
 the street. She battled against the wind and crossed 
 Pearl Street and came to Worth. As she was crossing 
 Worth Street a mighty gust of wind came upon her, took 
 hold of her umbrella, twisted it inside out, and left her 
 exposed to the full fury of the storm. Turning aside, 
 she fled through the gate of Saint Nicholas churchyard, 
 to the church porch for refuge. She stood there wet 
 and disconsolate, wondering what she was to do next, 
 when the sexton came along and opened the door of the 
 church, and seeing her plight, invited her to come into 
 the church. 
 
 She gladly accepted his invitation, as she was shiver- 
 ing with the wet and the cold. The sexton took her to a 
 seat in the rear of the church, near a hot air register, for 
 though it was the latter part of May, he had kindled a 
 fire, because of the present rain and the cold. Leaving 
 Keturah to dry her garments by the heat, the sexton went 
 about his duties, preparing the church for the worship 
 that was soon to follow. 
 
 Keturah stood over the register until she was fairly 
 dry and warm, and then as the storm was still raging, 
 sat down in the nearest seat to wait until the rain and 
 wind should cease, and so fell asleep. 
 
 148
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 OLD SAINT NICHOLAS 
 
 SAINT NICHOLAS church, in which Keturah had found 
 refuge from the storm, was one of the oldest churches in 
 the city of New York. It had been built at the beginning 
 of the seventeenth century. It was a large stone build- 
 ing, in the style of Wren; with columns in front, sup- 
 porting the roof of a deep porch, beyond which rose the 
 roof of the church, centering in a dome. It was a small 
 copy of Saint Paul's, London. The columns were of 
 wood and plaster, instead of stone, and the porch was 
 roofed with shingles. The building itself was of blue 
 freestone, covered, after the manner of the time, with 
 stucco. 
 
 The church stood within a churchyard that extended 
 from Worth to Leonard Street, and ran down the hill 
 to the hollow, where Center Street supplied its eastern 
 boundary. In this churchyard were the graves of those 
 who had once worshipped in the church. 
 
 The interior of the church was not attractive. It 
 was painted in dark colors, which absorbed the light and 
 made it gloomy, even on a bright day. On such a day as 
 that when it sheltered Keturah, it was dark as night, and 
 in consequence the sexton had lighted the gas. The 
 church was furnished with high-backed pews of imitation 
 
 149
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 mahogany, each supplied with a door that latched on 
 the inside and so was guarded from intrusion. At the 
 far end of the church was a mighty structure, reaching 
 from the floor nearly to the roof. It was built in stories 
 or lofts and contained the pulpit, the reading desk, and 
 the altar. The pulpit was at the top and was reached 
 by a long flight of stairs. The preacher, preaching from 
 that height, was literally "a voice from heaven." The 
 reading desk was many feet below the pulpit and had 
 a separate stairway of its own. Below that, six steps 
 above the floor of the church, was the communion table. 
 
 Saint Nicholas was an Episcopal church, and was 
 one of the richest and most fashionable churches in the 
 city of New York. 
 
 Its congregation was made up largely of old Dutch 
 families, who had intermarried with the English gentry, 
 and had conformed to the English church. With these 
 were mingled the families of successful merchants, whose 
 wives and daughters had social ambitions and who found 
 the church a vestibule to the best society. To own a pew 
 in Saint Nicholas was to hold a certificate of high social 
 standing. These pews were let with the greatest care, 
 and were much sought after. There were orders enough 
 on the treasurer's books to rent the church twice over. 
 Men were ready to pay five thousand dollars a year to 
 have their wives and daughters sit beside the Schuylers 
 and the Van Antwerps. But in spite of its prosperity, 
 old Saint Nicholas was doomed. It was far down town ; 
 tenements lined its lower boundary and business houses 
 were crowding it on the street. The land it occupied was 
 of immense value for business purposes. The vestry, 
 consulting both the convenience and the interest of the 
 congregation, had sold their house of worship and the 
 
 150
 
 Old Saint Nicholas 
 
 graves of their ancestors for many millions of dollars, 
 and were preparing new quarters elsewhere. Already 
 the walls of the new Saint Nicholas were rising on Mur- 
 ray Hill. The new church, designed by the leading 
 church architect of the day, was in the Gothic style, and 
 was to be the largest and most costly church on Man- 
 hattan Island. There were to be no wooden pillars 
 there, but monoliths of polished granite, and walls of 
 Connecticut freestone, lined inside with colored marbles. 
 Tiled floors and seats of real mahogany, with marble altar 
 and pulpit of beaten brass, were to complete the building 
 that was to house the rich and aristocratic congregation 
 of Saint Nicholas. 
 
 This building was approaching completion, and an- 
 other year would see the flight of the worshippers from 
 the old shrine to the new. 
 
 It was an open secret that when the congregation re- 
 moved from the lower to the upper part of the city, the 
 rector, the venerable Dr. Van Antwerp, would retire upon 
 a handsome pension, and the rectorship would devolve 
 upon his assistant, the Reverend Dr. Suydam, who had 
 long been regarded as the most accomplished and elo- 
 quent preacher, as well as the most popular pastor in the 
 Episcopal church in the diocese of New York. 
 
 151
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 A DIVINE YOKE-FELLOW 
 
 KETURAH was awakened from a quiet sleep by the 
 sound of music in the church. She did not open her 
 eyes at once, but lay with her head resting against the 
 back of the pew, listening almost unconsciously to the 
 tones of the organ, as they entered her ears and soothed 
 her soul. She hungered for music, and she heard so little 
 of it. Her life was full of discords, not of concords and 
 melody. As she lay still and listened, she forgot the hard 
 life that she lived every day, and for the moment was in 
 that rest that remaineth for the people of God. 
 
 Suddeny the notes of the organ ceased, and a human 
 voice was heard, saying : "I will arise and go to my Fa- 
 ther, and say unto him, Father, I have sinned against 
 heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be 
 called thy son." 
 
 At the sound of this voice, Keturah lifted up her eyes 
 and saw two men in white robes, standing in the reading 
 desk, underneath the pulpit. One of them was saying 
 the morning prayer of the Episcopal church. Keturah 
 was not acquainted with the prayer book, and the few 
 times she had visited the Episcopal church in the course 
 of her life, she had thought the service formal and tire- 
 some ; but somehow it was different that morning. The 
 
 153
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 great church was empty. There were not a dozen persons 
 in it. The storm was still raging without, and the rain 
 was beating against the windows. As Keturah sat in her 
 seat, she had a sense of protection, as if some power 
 greater than the power of the storm were shielding her 
 from its fury. 
 
 She did not attempt to follow the service of the church. 
 She did not stand nor kneel, but sat still and listened to 
 the reading and the singing, as if she were in a dream. 
 The reader of the morning had a rich, well-modulated 
 voice, and interpreted the prophet and the evangelist so 
 that their message seemed a real message to him, and he 
 made it real to those who heard him. 
 
 Saint Nicholas was famous for its music. Its choir 
 contained the finest voices that money could hire. That 
 morning there was a sort of abandonment in the singers, 
 as if they, like birds, were singing for the sake of the 
 song and for their own delight. Keturah had never 
 heard anything like it before. She seemed to herself to 
 be in some celestial grove, where birds of Paradise were 
 singing at the break of the eternal day. 
 
 The worship of the church followed its accustomed 
 course through praise and pleading until at last, after 
 the singing of a hymn, Keturah heard a voice that she 
 had not heard before, far up the church, saying: "Take 
 my yoke upon you and learn of me; for I am meek and 
 lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls." 
 
 At first Keturah could not tell where these words 
 came from. They seemed to come down from the sky 
 through the roof of the church, as if they were a message 
 from the storm without. As Keturah raised her startled 
 eyes to look if she could see the speaker, the words fell 
 again with piercing sweetness upon her ears : "Take my 
 
 154
 
 A Divine Yoke-Fellow 
 
 yoke upon you and learn of me ; for I am meek and lowly 
 of heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls." 
 
 Following the sound, Keturah saw a man standing in 
 the high pulpit of the church. He was far away, but the 
 light was on his face and she could see it plainly. He 
 seemed a young man ; his dark hair fell away toward the 
 left side, from a broad, high forehead. The color of his 
 eyes could not be seen from where Keturah sat, but they 
 seemed to look straight at her, and she felt their glow 
 as one feels the glow of distant stars. Standing where 
 he did, he appeared of supernatural height, and his white- 
 robed figure suggested an angel of annunciation with 
 some special word to a waiting soul. His voice, while not 
 loud was clear, and filled the whole building with intelli- 
 gent sound. Every word carried its meaning to every 
 part of the church. It was a voice in which emotion and 
 thought were equally blended. The man seemed not only 
 to think but to feel what he said. He paused, after giving 
 out his text, and from every corner of the empty church 
 the words came back upon the ear, losing themselves in 
 whispering sounds as if an hundred angels were repeating 
 the words of the great angel, saying: "Take my yoke 
 upon you and learn of me ; I am meek and lowly of heart, 
 and ye shall find rest unto your souls." Keturah, as she 
 heard these words repeated for the third time, was startled 
 into attention. She became wide awake and began to 
 listen intensely. 
 
 After a moment's pause the speaker went on, saying : 
 "These words of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, do 
 not convey to us their full meaning, because we do not 
 understand the figure of his speech. The word yoke, 
 which is the determining word of this passage, is a word 
 to us and it is nothing more. The most, if not all, of us 
 
 i55
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 have never seen a yoke and do not really know what it is. 
 Having thus no distinct conception of the figure, we can- 
 not understand the speech. 
 
 "To those, however, to whom the Lord was speaking, 
 this word suggested that with which they were most 
 familiar. It was an instrument that they used in their 
 daily toil. While listening to Jesus speaking, perhaps, 
 upon some hillside of Gallilee, they could see the beasts 
 of burden, the ass and the oxen yoked together by their 
 wooden collar, dragging the plow through the unturned 
 field or pulling the cart, ladened with goods, along the 
 dusty road. Thus the yoke to them suggested partner- 
 ship in toil. Two creatures bound together in a common 
 task. It was the yoke that held the animals together and 
 it was the yoke that attached them to their work. If 
 they were to pull at all, they must pull together. The 
 ease and comfort of each of the workers depended not so 
 much upon the work itself, upon the burden attached to 
 the yoke, as they did upon the nature and disposition of 
 the yoke-fellow. Two creatures equally yoked together 
 would plod all day long in comfortable companionship, 
 and at nightfall would be weary only with the weariness 
 of patient toil, patiently endured. 
 
 "But creatures unequally yoked hinder one another 
 in their common task. The stolid ox yoked to the restive 
 ass has not only his burden to bear, but he has to endure 
 all the caprices of his yoke-fellow his startings and his 
 stoppings, his jerkings and his jumpings, and the poor 
 ox can make no headway, but comes to a stop at night 
 with his task half accomplished, sore of body and be- 
 wildered of soul. 
 
 "This," said the speaker, "is a parable of human life. 
 Man cannot do his work alone. He must be yoked to 
 
 156
 
 A Divine Yoke-Fellow 
 
 some power beside himself if he would perform his al- 
 loted task before the sunset." And then the preacher 
 went on to show the various yokes that man must bear. 
 By the yoke of knowledge and obedience he is bound to 
 nature, and walking together with her is able to do all 
 the mighty things that he has done in the world, to build 
 his cities and bridge his rivers, and to pass in safety over 
 the great deep. 
 
 He spoke also of the yoke of interest by which men 
 were united in great common enterprises impossible of 
 accomplishment in any other way. 
 
 He treated also of the evil yoke of pride by which 
 men yoke themselves to an eager and a pushing world, 
 and wear out their souls in vain ambitions and baseless 
 hopes. When yoked to the world by pride and ambition, 
 a man has the world, not with him, but against him ; his 
 yoke then is not a help, it is a hindrance. The world 
 pulls and jerks until the neck is sore and the heart is 
 weary. Woe unto that man or that woman who is the 
 evil yoke- fellow of an evil world! Night will find them 
 bruised and beaten, bemoaning work undone. 
 
 The speaker passed on, and in a softer tone began to 
 speak of the yoke of faith and love by which man may 
 be united to God in Christ Jesus, for the work of life. 
 The yoke of Christ is not something, he said, "that we 
 bear for him, but it is something we bear with him. He 
 is our yoke-fellow and toils with us from morning until 
 evening. Too often we think of Christ as if he had taken 
 his neck from under the burden of life, and were now in 
 eternal felicity at the right of the Majesty on high, judg- 
 ing our toil by the hard measure of his accomplishment, 
 expecting us to do alone, what he could do only by the 
 help of his Father. Not such is the teaching of the Gos-
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 pel. Having once placed his neck in the yoke of human 
 life, he is to remain there always, even to the end of the 
 world. He comes to all who travail and are heavy laden, 
 and taking the heavier side of the burden upon himself, 
 toils with them until the task is done. 
 
 "Remember that though the yoke of Christ is, com- 
 paratively, an easy one, it is still a yoke, and it means a 
 task and a burden. Jesus yoked himself to humanity by 
 means of the cross. He did not take away the sorrow 
 of human life ; he simply shared it. He does not relieve 
 man of the burden of existence; he only helps him to 
 bear it." 
 
 And then lifting up his voice, as if he would make it 
 pass through the granite walls of the church and pene- 
 trate the dark tenements at the foot of the churchyard, 
 he cried in tones of entreaty, "Oh, ye who are poor and 
 lonely, upon whom is laid the burden and heat of the 
 day; who go on your way weeping, bearing your good 
 seed; whose labor is from the morning till the evening; 
 whose bread is affliction and whose drink is tears, why 
 will ye labor and suffer alone, when a little faith and a 
 little love would make you the yoke-fellow of God in 
 Christ, your toil to be lightened with his help, and your 
 way sweetened by his company?" 
 
 As the voice of the preacher died away into the ascrip- 
 tion, Keturah Bain found herself standing upright, her 
 hands grasping the back of the seat in front of her, her 
 eyes straining toward the speaker, her soul quivering 
 with excitement. 
 
 She had heard a voice from heaven. 
 
 158
 
 IS IT TRUE? 
 
 THE woman stood still as if in a trance. She did not 
 notice the few people as they passed out of the church. 
 Her eyes were on the empty pulpit from whence the 
 preacher had gone down. She was engaged in one of 
 those intense debates which decide the destiny of human 
 souls. Was what she had just heard true? Was God 
 really on the side of the weary and the heavy laden; on 
 the side of the toiler, and not of the one who was driving 
 him to his toil? Did God indeed bear the yoke and not 
 carry the whip? 
 
 She had never heard that before. She felt that it 
 ought to be true; but was it? Her soul quivered with 
 painful joy at the bare possibility of its truthfulness. If 
 true, here was the explanation of her life. She and God 
 were doing some necessary work together, bearing some 
 common burden, to lay it down in its allotted place. Oh, 
 the joy of the thought! Not fighting against Fate, but 
 working with God. 
 
 As Keturah stood arguing thus with herself, two 
 men came down the church and were about to pass her 
 by. Keturah seeing them, turned abruptly, and said : 
 "Can you tell me who it was that has just been speaking 
 in the church?" 
 
 159
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 The elder of the two men answered, saying: "It was 
 I. Can I do anything for you ?" 
 
 "May I speak to you for a moment?" asked Keturah. 
 
 "Certainly," said the man, and motioning to his com- 
 panion to pass on, he turned into the pew where Keturah 
 was standing, asked her to sit down, and looking at her 
 kindly, said: "What is it? What can I do for you?" 
 
 "Is it true?" said Keturah, eagerly. 
 
 "Is what true ?" said the minister. 
 
 "That which you said this morning. Is it true that 
 God helps us ?" 
 
 "Certainly it is true," said the preacher. "Surely you 
 have heard that before ; surely you believe it ?" 
 
 "I have never heard it before," answered Keturah, 
 "and I never believed it till now. I can hardly believe it 
 even now. It is too good to be true." 
 
 "My dear child," said the minister, "where were you 
 brought up that you have never learned so simple a 
 truth?" 
 
 "Do you call it a simple truth, sir? Why, to me it is 
 the hardest thing in the world to believe. I was brought 
 up here in the city of New York. I live down in Mul- 
 berry Street. I am a poor working woman. I live with 
 the poor and see their misery. I don't see that God helps 
 them at all. He is not on their side. He is on the side 
 of the rich." 
 
 "It does seem so," said the preacher, gravely, "but it 
 is not so. I was speaking to you this morning about 
 Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God. Well, you know he 
 was poor and afflicted and despised and rejected. The 
 rich of this world went out against him and put him to 
 death. You know that, do you not?" 
 
 "Oh, yes," said Keturah, "I know that, but what has 
 that to do with it ?" 
 
 160
 
 Is It True? 
 
 "Very much," said the preacher. "When Jesus was 
 hanging on the cross, the men who condemned him to 
 death, passed by and railed at him and said, 'He called 
 himself the Son of God; let God deliver him now if he 
 will have him.' You see, these men thought that God 
 was on their side and against Jesus. But he wasn't, you 
 know. God loved and helped Jesus more when he was 
 on the cross than at any other time. Jesus was bearing 
 bravely what God gave him to bear, and God uses his 
 sorrow and his suffering for the salvation of the world." 
 
 "I see, I see," said Keturah. "I never have been told 
 that before. I have been told that God was punishing 
 people all the time for doing such little things. My 
 father believes that. He says that when he was a boy he 
 was whipped all the time, and he was told that God was 
 going to send him to hell if he was not a better boy, and 
 all he did was to have a little fun. My father does not 
 believe in any God. My father has had a hard life. I 
 am so sorry for my father." And the tears gathered in 
 Keturah's eyes and rolled slowly down her cheeks. 
 
 The minister did not answer for a moment. He was 
 deeply moved by the emotion of the woman beside him. 
 Breaking the silence, he said : "I do not wonder, my child, 
 at your doubts and difficulties; I am sure that if I had 
 lived as you have, I should not have even your faith and 
 hope and love. I am sorry for you and for your father." 
 
 "Yes," said Keturah, breaking in eagerly, "and that 
 is not the worst. I am forewoman in my shop and have 
 many girls under me. Yesterday I had to send two girls 
 away. One of them was a poor girl, whose father is a 
 drunkard and whose mother has just had twin babies. 
 Poor Anna had so little to eat and so little sleep that she 
 could not do the work, and our employer told me to send 
 
 161
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 her away. And she had to go. Now she and the mother 
 and the babies are starving. And what can I do ? How 
 does, how can God help them ? And the other girl, Carrie 
 Twine, was ruined by a man, who has ruined a number 
 of girls in our shop, and I had to send her away, and she 
 is out on the street selling her soul for bread. How does 
 God help her? Can you tell me? I hated myself for 
 sending those girls away, but I couldn't do anything else. 
 It is hard, it is hard." And the woman leaned her head 
 upon the back of the seat in front of her and gave way 
 to her tears. 
 
 The preacher sat beside her, holding her hand. He 
 was pale and still. He felt himself in the presence of a 
 great reality. Words were becoming things. The en- 
 treaty of the closing words of his sermon had found an 
 answer. A soul weary and heavy laden was seeking rest. 
 He did not, he could not say a word to the sorely tried 
 woman beside him. He simply assured her of his sym- 
 pathy by the gentle pressure of his hand. 
 
 After the force of her emotion was partly spent, Ke- 
 turah lifted up her head and said through her tears : "I 
 beg your pardon, sir ; I have no right to bring my troubles 
 to you. I have no right to keep you here. I do not be- 
 long to your church ; I am only a stranger from the street, 
 driven in by the storm." 
 
 "My dear," said the preacher, "you are not a stranger. 
 You are a friend, a very dear friend. I do not know your 
 name, but you have shown me your heart and it is a 
 brave heart, under a great sorrow and heavy burden. Let 
 me help you. I cannot do much, but I can do a little. 
 I can give you friendship and sympathy. Will you let 
 me?" 
 
 "Indeed I will, sir. You are very kind, I do need 
 some one to help me. May I see you again ?" 
 
 162
 
 Is It True? 
 
 "Certainly, my child, certainly. Give me your name 
 and address and I will come and see you." 
 
 "Oh, sir, you could not do that I work all day and 
 at night I have no place where I could see you. My fa- 
 ther would not like you to come to the house. He does 
 not like ministers," said Keturah, blushing. "I will come 
 here and listen to you, and when I am in trouble I will 
 come to you and tell you and let you help me if you will." 
 "Thank you," said the minister, "I will be glad to 
 have you do so; whenever you want me, let me know, 
 and I will make an appointment to meet you. But you 
 must tell me your name, else I shall not know when you 
 send for me." 
 
 "My name," she said, "is Keturah Bain." 
 "And mine," said he, "is Jacob Suydam." 
 While this conversation had been going on the janitor 
 had been moving about uneasily, trying to attract the at- 
 tention of Dr. Suydam. He did not like the situation at 
 all. This strange woman had no right to stop Dr. Suy- 
 dam after service. He was tired after preaching and 
 ought to go home. Beside, they were keeping the janitor 
 and his dinner was getting cold. Shaking his keys to 
 make a noise, the janitor walked up to the seat where the 
 minister and the woman were sitting, and said : 
 
 "I beg your pardon, sir, but your carriage is waiting." 
 "Very well, Jenkins," said Dr. Suydam, and turning 
 to the woman he said, "I must go now. You will surely 
 let me hear from you." 
 
 "Yes sir, I will," answered Keturah, and they passed 
 out of the church together. Dr. Suydam got into his 
 carriage and was driven up Broadway, and Keturah 
 went down the street, the eyes of the janitor following her 
 with looks of disapproval. 
 
 163
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 AFTER THE STORM 
 
 WHEN Keturah came out of the church she found 
 that the wind had fallen and the rain had ceased. The 
 clouds were slowly drifting out to sea and the sun was 
 drying the streets, now washed and clean. 
 
 Keturah did not turn into any of the side streets and 
 go directly home. She walked down Broadway, her 
 mind busy with the experience of the morning. She was 
 in the presence of a new and great thought. God, whom 
 she had always thought of with fear and distress, had 
 suddenly become a comfort to her. Perhaps her father 
 was wrong; perhaps she was wrong; God did not hate 
 her father, nor her mother, nor her brother, nor all the 
 poor and the miserable. He loved them, so the preacher 
 of the morning had said, more than he loved any one else. 
 He loved them because they needed his love. That was a 
 new thought in the heart of Keturah. She tried to hold 
 it fast because it was comfortable. Back behind the 
 thought was the old unbelief, the suspicion that it might 
 not be so. She did not dare to think much about it. She 
 only wanted to feel it for the present. 
 
 Keturah was greatly moved, not so much by what 
 she had heard, as by the kindness and sympathy of the 
 preacher, which he had shown in every word and act. 
 
 165
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 His personality made a powerful appeal to hers. He was 
 all that she so longed to be, refined, educated, gentle in 
 manner and speech. She had struggled all her life to 
 keep herself above the level of her surroundings. She 
 had been careful of her speech and of her manners. She 
 felt instinctively, as she listened to Dr. Suydam, that he 
 was naturally and easily what she struggled to be. 
 He was an angel standing always in the presence of that 
 divine culture and refinement which she worshipped from 
 afar. She felt also that if she could have him for a 
 friend, life would have in it more that was worth the 
 living. 
 
 From that day Keturah's life was changed by the 
 presence of a new thought, and by contact with a new 
 personality. 
 
 She walked down Broadway as far as Bowling Green, 
 and then, suddenly remembering that she had not pro- 
 vided the Sunday dinner, she made haste to go home. 
 She stopped into a little cook shop in Chatham Street and 
 bought some cold ham and an apple pie and some bread 
 and butter, and carried it to her waiting household. 
 
 To all questions she answered simply and truthfully 
 that she had gone out in the morning for a walk and had 
 turned into Saint Nicholas church to get out of the storm, 
 and had stayed there until the rain was over. After that 
 she had gone down Broadway. She said nothing about 
 the experience of the morning, that she pondered in her 
 heart. 
 
 In the afternoon she went upstairs, and finding an 
 old Bible of her mother's, she came down into the living 
 room and opened the book at the Gospel of Luke, and 
 
 166
 
 After the Storm 
 
 began to read the story of the passion. Her father seeing 
 her, said : "What are you reading, Keturah ?" 
 
 "I am reading," she said, "the sorrowful death of a 
 good man." 
 
 167
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 ADORNED FOR THE SACRIFICE 
 
 COMMENCEMENT day had come and gone. It had been 
 for Abigail Bain a day of triumph and a day of delight. 
 She was dressed as well as any girl upon the platform, 
 and was by far the most beautiful among them. She 
 spoke the words of her Latin Salutatory in a girlish, sing- 
 song way that was charming to hear. In English, her 
 method would have been bad, but in Latin it was the very 
 thing ; she seemed, as she stood there, repeating her Latin 
 phrases with rising and falling cadence, like some ancient 
 priestess of beauty, chanting the praises of loveliness. 
 
 The people did not understand what she was saying, 
 but they did see what she was, and she went to her seat 
 followed by a storm of applause. 
 
 As she sat down she was handed a great cluster of 
 roses. Keturah had brought them, being determined that 
 nothing should be wanting that day to complete the glory 
 and the pleasure of her sister. The elder sister saw in 
 the younger, as she stood there in the midst of educated 
 and refined people, herself educated and refined, the ful- 
 fillment of a long cherished desire, the accomplishment 
 of a self-imposed duty. Abigail was educated above the 
 level of the shop. 
 
 The young girl, in her pale blue dress, made a picture, 
 
 169
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 as she sat at the end of the row, far out on the stage, and 
 many eyes were turned toward her in admiration, at 
 which Keturah rejoiced and felt like crying out and say- 
 ing, "She is my sister." 
 
 After commencement, Abigail found her life at home 
 very dreary. She spent as much of her time away from 
 it as she could. She had school friends who lived in the 
 upper part of the city, and she visited them, or else she 
 put on her blue gown, when the day was fair, and went 
 up on the avenues, into picture stores and into shops, 
 looked at all the lovely things to be had for money, and 
 longed to have them for her own, repining at her poverty 
 and her mean estate. Leaving the stores, she wandered 
 off into the park, and sitting down, dreamed the day- 
 dreams of a girl full of life and without experience. 
 
 She enjoyed her freedom, coming as it did after a 
 long period of confinement in school. What to do with 
 that freedom she did not know exactly, but she prized it 
 all the more on that account. She hated the thought of 
 going back to school as a teacher, but that was some 
 months away and she tried not to think about it. She 
 basked in the sun while the sun was shining, without 
 troubling herself for the moment about what was to 
 come. 
 
 A few Sundays after her graduation, Abigail put on 
 her blue dress and her pretty new hat and her gloves and 
 went out in the morning to go somewhere to church. 
 She followed the way that Keturah had gone the day of 
 the great storm, and came to the front of Saint Nicholas. 
 There was no storm to drive Abigail into the church. 
 It was a perfect day in June. The sun was shining, the 
 birds were singing, and the flowers were blooming above 
 the graves; well-dressed people were thronging into the 
 
 170
 
 Adorned For the Sacrifice 
 
 church door. Attracted by the life and the rustle, Abi- 
 gail turned aside and followed the crowd into the church. 
 
 It was a great day in Saint Nicholas. The Dean of 
 Westminster was going to preach. Keturah had come 
 to the church earlier in the day, and hearing that a 
 stranger was to preach did not care to stay, but had gone 
 away to have a long day by herself in the park. 
 
 Abigail did not know who was going to preach and 
 did not care; what she enjoyed was the people. To be 
 one of a well-dressed company satisfied the deepest crav- 
 ing of her heart. 
 
 As she entered the church, the crowd gave way, sup- 
 posing her to be a regular member of the parish. When 
 she reached the foot of the aisle she stopped, not know- 
 ing where to go. As she was standing and waiting, a 
 young man came that way and stopping beside her, looked 
 at her with undisguised pleasure. After gazing a mo- 
 ment at her face, until she dropped her eyes in confusion, 
 he stepped to her side and said softly, "Do you wish a 
 seat?" 
 
 "Yes, sir," said she. 
 
 "Come with me," said he, and taking her up near to the 
 front of the church, he showed her into a pew and fol- 
 lowed her. 
 
 Abigail was not conscious that morning of anything 
 but the presence beside her. She heard the music and she 
 heard the sermon, but she did not feel the one or listen 
 to the other. She felt nothing but the sidelong glances 
 of admiration that swept up and down the graceful lines 
 of her person, and she listened only to the beatings of 
 her own heart. 
 
 When the stranger handed her a prayer book and his 
 fingers touched hers, it sent a thrill to her soul. Seeing 
 
 171
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 the people kneeling in prayer, Abigail knelt also, and the 
 young man followed her example, and kneeling closer 
 than the space at his command required, the girl was 
 overcome by a strange sensation and rose hastily and 
 leaned her head upon her hand. 
 
 After the service was over the young man opened the 
 door of the pew and stood waiting for Abigail to pass 
 out. As she did so he walked beside her down the aisle 
 out into the street. 
 
 As she was turning away Abigail looked at him shyly, 
 and said : "I thank you very much for giving me a seat." 
 
 "You are quite welcome, I am sure," said he. "Did 
 you enjoy the service?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, indeed," said she, "it was beautiful." 
 
 "Great sermon," said he. 
 
 "Very," said she. 
 
 "Do you often come to Saint Nicholas?" 
 
 "Not very often; only sometimes." 
 
 "Not a member?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "I don't come every Sunday," said the young man, 
 "but I belong here. That was my seat. I should be 
 happy to have you use it whenever you wish." 
 
 "Oh, thank you," said Abigail, "you are very kind." 
 
 "Will you come again ?" said the man, anxiously. 
 
 "Yes," said Abigail. 
 
 "When? Next Sunday?" 
 
 "Yes, next Sunday." 
 
 "Here is my card. Give it to the usher and tell him 
 to show you to my seat. I am glad to have met you. 
 Shall be happy to meet you again." 
 
 "Good-day," said Abigail. 
 
 "Good-day," said the young man. 
 
 172
 
 Adorned For the Sacrifice 
 
 Abigail took the card that was given her and crushed 
 it in her hand without reading it. She turned away in a 
 flutter of embarrassment and went down the street, her 
 heart beating and her cheeks burning. 
 
 173
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 A BOY'S PASSION 
 
 AFTER Shinar's arrest Keturah determined that he 
 should not stay any longer in the city. She was sure that 
 he had in him the making of a man if he only had the 
 chance, and she said that he should have it. Whenever 
 Keturah had a will she always found a way. So she had 
 seen Mr. Best, the locating agent of the Children's Aid 
 Society, and he had found a situation for Shinar with a 
 farmer in Wayne County, New York. This had been 
 Keturah's desire. She did not wish the boy to go to the 
 far West. 
 
 It was in the contract that the lad was to have a cer- 
 tain number of hours at school, during his time of service, 
 and he was to serve for four years, or until he was 
 twenty-one years old. Then, being a man, he was to be 
 at liberty to make his own contracts and care for himself. 
 
 Keturah's main thought was to get him away from 
 the street and its associations, and give him time to forget 
 its language and its ways. The boy himself was willing 
 enough to go. He felt the stirrings of manhood and 
 wanted to be something beside a boot-black, a waiter, or a 
 porter. His whole appearance indicated that he had good 
 blood in his veins and that blood was speaking and urging 
 him on into higher walks of life. Consequently, he yielded
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 a ready assent to the plans of his foster mother. He did 
 not mean to live in the country always ; he meant to stay 
 there only until he was ready to come back and be a man 
 in the city. 
 
 Shinar still lived with Mother Magrath, and con- 
 sidered himself as her sole support; hence before he 
 could go away it was necessary that some provision be 
 made for her. Keturah had her own thoughts about this 
 matter. She knew that Mother Magrath was not as poor 
 as she seemed. She was certain that the old woman had 
 laid by enough in the bank to keep her in comfort until 
 Shinar should be ready to take care of her again. 
 
 One evening Keturah went over to the Magrath cabin 
 to talk with the mother about sending Shinar away. The 
 place where Shinar lived was indeed a cabin. For, as 
 Joshua Bain had built his home in the likeness of a New 
 England cottage, so had Paddy Magrath made his after 
 the fashion of an Irish cabin. The low walls, the high- 
 pitched roof, the small windows and the sunken floor 
 suggested at once the bog, the pig, the pipe and the 
 potato. 
 
 The inside of the cabin was even more indicative of 
 the race of its builders than the outside. The rafters of 
 the roof were unhewn and unpainted, the floor of the 
 cabin was of earth and was littered with straw. There 
 were only two rooms in the house, the living room and 
 the nursery. This last had been the home of the babies 
 in the days of baby farming, but for years past had been 
 occupied by the boy, Shinar. 
 
 It was that wonderful migration of peoples from all 
 lands to the new world, which occurred in the early years 
 of the last century, that set the rough cabin of the Ma- 
 graths beside the prim cottage of the Bains. And it was
 
 A Boy's Passion 
 
 the pressure of the growing city that had forced both 
 cottage and cabin out of the light of the street into the 
 darkness of the court. 
 
 Keturah found Mother Magrath sitting before the fire 
 with a pot of potatoes on the boil, crooning an old Irish 
 song and rocking herself to and fro to the measure of the 
 music. 
 
 "Good evening, mother," said Keturah, sitting down 
 on a stool beside the little old woman and brushing her 
 gray, straggling hair out of her eyes. "I have come over 
 to talk to you about Shinar." 
 
 "And phwat had the lazy spalpeen been a-doin' now, 
 bad cess to 'im. Has the cops got 'im agin ?" 
 
 "No, mother, the cops haven't got him, and we must 
 send him away where the cops can't get him." 
 
 "Oh, Keturah, mavourneen, phwat has the bye been 
 a-doin' that ye ud be sindin' 'im away from his old mither ? 
 Is it murther?" 
 
 "No, mother, it isn't murder," said Keturah, laughing, 
 "but you know Shinar is growing to be a man now, and 
 he must give up his boot-blacking stand, and go away into 
 the country, and learn something beside street work and 
 street talk." 
 
 "In the counthry, did ye say ? And phwat 'ill the likes 
 o' him be doin' in the counthry, as can't be afther tellin' 
 the differ between a pig and a pertater?" 
 
 "Just so, mother," said Keturah laughing more 
 heartily, "just so, we want him to learn the difference 
 between a pig and a potato." 
 
 "And f er phwat 'ill he be afther knowin' that ?" 
 
 "So that he can buy and sell pigs and potatoes if he 
 wants to." 
 
 "And ye'll be afther havin' the bye lave his old mither 
 
 177
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 to die o' starvation? Oh, Keturah, darlint, ye'll not be 
 afther bein' so cruel as all that, and me bein' takin' care o' 
 the bye and givin' him his sup and his lodge sin' he was a 
 babby. Ye'll not be takin' 'im away now, not at all." 
 
 "But I will be here, mother, to look after you, and you 
 know you have money in the bank to take care of you 'till 
 Shinar comes back again." 
 
 "Money in the bank!" cried the old woman, her eyes 
 gleaming with suspicion, "who ud be tellin' you I'd money 
 in the bank?" 
 
 "Oh, I know it, mother. I've seen you go in the 
 Broadway Savings Bank, and you know you wouldn't go 
 there unless you had money to put in the bank, or else 
 wanted to draw some out." 
 
 "Oh, ye spyin', lyin' chit !" cried the woman, rising up 
 and shaking herself loose from Keturah's hand. "Fer 
 phwat are ye puttin' yer nose that it don't belong at all, 
 at all, and me havin' a few pinnies saved out o' me hard 
 earnin's to pay fer me buryin' and ter buy a mass fer me 
 poor ould sowl. And ye be talkin' o' me havin' money in 
 the bank ; bad cess to ye !" 
 
 "Come, come, Mother Magrath," said Keturah, "don't 
 get angry. You have money in the bank and you must 
 use it to buy bread with, that is better than masses. When 
 you are dead somebody will bury you and God will take 
 care of your soul." 
 
 "Oh, yis, that phwats ye say, ye unbelavin' prode- 
 shan, there '11 be no praste sprinklin' ye wid holy wather, 
 and ye'll be afther needin' it, ye will, whin the divil gits 
 
 ye." 
 
 "Come, mother," said Keturah, soothingly, "we wont 
 quarrel the night before Shinar is going away. You shall 
 have your masses if you want them. I will see to that and 
 
 178
 
 A Boy's Passion 
 
 so will Shinar. Come now, we both love the boy. Let us 
 send him away in peace." 
 
 At this the old woman sat down and began to croon 
 and to cry. "Oh, me bye, me bye, the last o' me childer. 
 The babbies is dead ivry one, only this, and they be afther 
 takin' ye away and lavin' yer mither widout chick er 
 child to spake a word to her whin she's dyin'. Ochone, 
 me darlint, ochone." 
 
 Paying no more attention to Keturah, the old woman 
 got up and went and sat on the cabin floor, close to the 
 fire and put her head between her hands, and her elbows 
 on her knees, and sat swaying to and fro, lifting her voice 
 after the manner of the wailing woman at a wake. 
 
 Keturah tried to comfort her, but she would not be 
 comforted and wailed louder and louder, so that Keturah 
 thought it best to leave her alone. 
 
 Going home, she found Shinar standing in the hallway 
 talking with Abigail. The boy as he stood there, dressed 
 in his Sunday best, was the peer of the girl beside him. 
 Nearly as tall as she, his dark hair and rich color con- 
 trasted well with her pale, golden beauty. Seeing them 
 together one would say, "There is a handsome couple." 
 
 Shinar had been in to say good-bye to the family, and 
 just before Keturah came, had met Abigail in the hall and 
 was trying to say good-bye to her. But it was hard work. 
 For Abigail he had that first passion which comes to a 
 boy in his teens and sweeps him out of boyhood into man- 
 hood. 
 
 "You'll be fergettin! me, Abigail, as soon as I'm 
 gone," said the boy, wistfully. 
 
 "No, I'll not forget you, Shinar. Why should I?" 
 said the girl. 
 
 "Oh, there'll be so many comin' to see you that you 
 wont have no time to think o' me," said he, sadly. 
 
 179
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "Oh, yes, I will," said the girl, lightly," "I will think of 
 you often enough. Even if I were to try to forget you, 
 Keturah wouldn't let me. She will talk about you enough 
 to keep me in mind. You may be sure of that." 
 
 These words gave some comfort to the forlorn youth. 
 He knew they were true. Keturah would talk about him, 
 and Abigail could not forget him altogether, there was 
 something in that, but it was not enough, and so he added : 
 "But you'll not be thinkin' o' me as I'll be thinkin' o' you." 
 
 "How is that ?" said the girl, absently. 
 
 "Why, I'll be thinkin' o' you all day and dreamin' o' 
 you all night, and be savin' to meself, maybe when I go 
 back to the city, a man as is a man, and not a wharf rat, 
 maybe Abigail 'ull think o' me then as I think o' her, 
 maybe she will." 
 
 "What do you mean, Shinar? I think of you now just 
 as I always have and always will. Your going away 
 wont make any difference nor your coming back." 
 
 "It wont?" said the boy, choking. 
 
 "No," said the girl, "I guess not." 
 
 "You'll allers think o' me as a boot-black ? I couldn't 
 do nothin' to make you think o' me as a man as might say 
 to you sometime : 'Abigail, I'm earnin' good wages now, 
 wont you come wid me and be my wife ?' " The boy 
 blushed crimson to the roots of his hair as he made this 
 declaration. 
 
 Abigail laughed loud and long and said : "You fool- 
 ish boy, I'm ever so much older than you are. Do you 
 think I want to marry a baby ?" and she turned her head, 
 scornfully. 
 
 "Oh, I knew you wouldn't, Abigail, that's what I said. 
 You'll forget me as soon as I am gone, and I'm goin' ter- 
 morror. Maybe, Abigail, if I'm nothin' but a baby you 
 
 1 80
 
 A Boy's Passion 
 
 wouldn't mind kissin' me jest once before I go. There 
 aint no harm in kissin' a baby, you know." 
 
 Without saying a word the girl turned her cheek to the 
 boy and he kissed her, knowing, novice as he was in mat- 
 ters of love, that when a girl gives her cheek she gives 
 nothing else. This is not the kiss of love or even of 
 friendship; it is the kiss of indifference. 
 
 With this poor crumb of comfort the boy had to be 
 content, for just then Keturah came in and Abigail went 
 away. 
 
 The next day Shinar left the city for his country home, 
 and there in the long, lonely days and the still longer and 
 more lonely nights he dreamed of golden hair and blue 
 eyes which could never be his except in dreams. 
 
 181
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 TOO LATE 
 
 "I AM sorry, Abigail, to tell you that the last train has 
 left for the city. We stayed a little too long down on the 
 beach and are five minutes too late." 
 
 "Oh, Robert, whatever will we do?" 
 
 "Do, my dear ? Why, the only thing we can. We will 
 stay here over night and go up to the city in the morning." 
 
 "But, Robert I cannot do that. Indeed, I cannot." 
 
 "Why, my dear girl, you must do it. There is nothing 
 else for you to do, unless we were to walk to the city, and 
 that you know is impossible." 
 
 "What will Keturah say?" cried the girl in tones of 
 distress, tears gathering in her eyes and falling slowly 
 down her cheeks. 
 
 "There, there, don't cry. It can't be helped, you know. 
 You can tell your sister that you stayed over night with 
 some friend of yours uptown." 
 
 "But, Robert, what will I do to-night?" 
 
 The young man laughed and said : "Why, stay here, 
 of course. This is the Brighton Beach Hotel, and it is 
 the business of the house to have rooms for wayfarers 
 such as we are. You wait here and I will go and see 
 about the rooms now." 
 
 The speakers in this dialogue were Abigail Bain and 
 
 183
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 the young man whom she had met in Saint Nicholas 
 Church. That meeting had ripened into an intimacy, and 
 it was "Robert" and "Abigail," and "my dear girl" with 
 them. The Sunday after the first meeting Abigail went 
 again to Saint Nicholas Church. She showed the usher 
 the card which the young man had given her. The seat 
 was empty and remained so throughout the service. 
 Abigail heard nothing and felt nothing of what was going 
 on. Her mind and heart were preoccupied. She said to 
 herself, "Will he come?" and her spirits sank within her 
 when the service was over and he had not come. 
 
 She rose from her seat with a lump in her throat, and 
 was hardly able to keep back the tears. In the vestibule 
 she met Keturah, who had been up in the gallery listen- 
 ing to Dr. Suydam preach. Keturah had seen Abigail 
 when she was shown into her seat and had wondered at 
 her being there. When Keturah had left home Abigail 
 was in bed. She had never to her sister's knowledge been 
 interested in Saint Nicholas Church, and Keturah could 
 not make out why she was there. But Keturah did not 
 worry long over the matter. She was glad to see Abigail 
 down among the fashionable people from up town. It 
 was her natural place, where she ought to be, and where 
 she should be. 
 
 On these bright Sundays when the church was full of 
 richly dressed people, whose coachmen and footmen were 
 waiting on the carriages outside, Keturah did not find the 
 same strength and comfort which she had found on the 
 day of the storm, when the church was dark and cold and 
 empty. She did not know exactly what made the differ- 
 ence, but there was a difference. The music, while equally 
 beautiful, was not so moving. It was no longer an un- 
 conscious voice singing for its own delight the praises of 
 
 184
 
 Too Late 
 
 Him who gave it. It was now a conscious voice singing 
 to please the people. 
 
 And the preaching was different also. Keturah did 
 not venture down on the floor of the church, but went up 
 into the gallery near the pulpit where she could see the 
 speaker. From this point of view she gained a new con- 
 ception of the preacher. Dr. Suydam seemed to her less 
 the messenger of God, and more a simple man. She still 
 enjoyed his preaching. Its clearness of thought, its sim- 
 plicity of language and the tenderness and earnestness of 
 its tone appealed to her intelligence and to her heart. If 
 she had not believed a word that he said she would have 
 still listened to him with delight. He gratified her crav- 
 ing for refinement of thought and delicacy of feeling. 
 His preaching was so different from the preaching which 
 she had heard in the mission chapels with its coarse abuse 
 of human nature and its crude statements of the divine 
 nature and the divine purpose. This preaching had dis- 
 gusted her and driven her away from all thought of God 
 and all care for religion. But with Dr. Suydam it was 
 just the other way. He made the thought of God attrac- 
 tive and religion desirable. She wanted always to believe 
 what he said. His God she wanted for her God, and his 
 hope for her hope. It was hard for her, with her experi- 
 ence in life, to believe in any such God as Dr. Suydam 
 preached, but she wanted to believe it. Her faith trembled 
 constantly between hope and despair. 
 
 When she had listened to Dr. Suydam a few times 
 from her place of vantage in the gallery a feeling of pity 
 began to mingle with her reverence for him. She detected 
 a constraint in his manner and a sadness in his voice 
 which told of a mind ill at ease and a heart out of tune. 
 He did not seem to enjoy his preaching as he did on the 
 
 185
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 day when she first heard him. The ring of sincerity 
 which had filled the whole church with the voice of truth 
 on the day of the storm seemed wanting in these days of 
 light. 
 
 And when Keturah looked down at the people, she 
 caught a glimmering of the cause of this change in the 
 preacher. He was preaching to a people who did not care. 
 When he had set forth some truth of the Gospel of Christ, 
 with a clearness that must convince the understanding, 
 and with a beauty and a tenderness that ought to charm 
 and move the heart, the people would all get up and go 
 away as if nothing had been said. They would, indeed, 
 speak of the beauty of the sermon to each other as they 
 passed out of the church. But they spoke in a light way, 
 as they might speak of a singer at a concert, as if it were 
 the purpose of a sermon to please, and not to convince or 
 to move. When Keturah began to understand all this her 
 heart was moved with a great compassion for this man of 
 mental endowment and tender heart, who went week after 
 week up into his high pulpit and exercised his gifts to no 
 purpose. The futility of his work drew Keturah to him 
 as not even his preaching had done. 
 
 When she came down out of the gallery on the Sunday 
 morning of which we are writing, her heart was full of 
 sadness, and she went out of the church with a feeling of 
 relief. The God of the great world, in which she lived 
 and worked, might not be so tender nor so beautiful as 
 the God who was preached in the church ; but He was real, 
 He did something. He made people believe in Him, if 
 by nothing else yet by pain and sorrow ; but as for this 
 God and Saviour, who was preached in the church, He 
 did nothing and nobody cared for Him at all. 
 
 As Keturah passed out of the church, musing sadly 
 
 186
 
 Too Late 
 
 on these things, she lifted up her eyes and saw Abigail 
 standing in the church porch talking to a young man. 
 She swept the young man up and down with a look that 
 would read him through and through. As soon as she 
 saw him she was afraid of him. She walked slowly down 
 the steps into the street, and by-and-by her sister joined 
 her. As they walked home together Keturah said to 
 Abigail: "Who was that young man speaking with you 
 on the porch of the church ?" 
 
 Abigail hesitated a moment and then said: "I don't 
 know exactly who he is, only he is a friend of Philip 
 Schuyler." Now, this was said at a venture. Philip 
 Schuyler had been Abigail's classmate in the Normal 
 College and a friend of his might well be her acquaint- 
 ance; unwittingly she had spoken the truth. The young 
 man was an intimate friend of Philip Schuyler. Abigail, 
 however, had spoken not knowing the truth, with the 
 quick intuition of a woman who wishes to cover an em- 
 barrassing situation. 
 
 "How did you come to know him ?" asked Keturah. 
 
 "Oh, Philip introduced me," said Abigail, adding the 
 lie direct to the lie indirect. Abigail did not mean to lie, 
 she simply wanted to satisfy Keturah that her acquaint- 
 ance with the young man was a proper acquaintance. She 
 had not planned the conversation with her sister, it just 
 made itself as it went along, and it served its purpose. It 
 did satisfy Keturah. For it is an unwritten law of Ameri- 
 can life that the formal introduction of any woman to 
 any man by any third party makes their acquaintance 
 legitimate, and the proper basis of any intimacy that may 
 follow. 
 
 So Keturah simply said : "Well, I suppose that it is 
 all right, but I don't like his looks. I hope you will be 
 careful." 
 *- 187
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "Oh, yes, I will be careful," said Abigail, and the sub- 
 ject was dropped. 
 
 Before leaving the porch that morning, Abigail had 
 halfway promised that she would be in Union Square, 
 at the Fountain that afternoon, at three o'clock, to meet 
 her new acquaintance. She left her home immediately 
 after dinner, thinking she would go and visit her friend, 
 Maggie Howard, in Twentieth Street, and so told 
 Keturah. She walked up Broadway slowly to Maggie 
 Howard's house and up the steps to the door. She rang 
 the bell and asked if Miss Howard was at home. The 
 servant who answered the bell said that she was not. She 
 had gone to Brooklyn to spend the day. 
 
 Abigail left her card and went down the steps, and 
 walked rapidly down Broadway, and turned into Union 
 Square, and stood watching the goldfish in the fountain. 
 She had not waited long before her friend of the morning 
 came up and lifted his hat, saluted her and said : "It is a 
 beautiful afternoon, would you like a drive in the Park ?" 
 
 After a moment of hesitation, Abigail said, "Yes." 
 
 The young man led her to Seventeenth Street, where 
 an open landau was standing, a coachman was on the seat 
 and a groom at the horses' heads. The livery was of a 
 pale blue and gold and exactly matched Abigail's dress. 
 
 "To McAdam's, through the Park," said the young 
 man. 
 
 "Yes, sir," said the coachman, touching his hat. 
 
 The groom gave the horses their heads and mounted 
 to the seat beside the coachman, who drove through 
 Seventeenth Street to Fifth Avenue, and up the avenue to 
 the Park. 
 
 That drive formed an epoch in the life of Abigail Bain. 
 She found herself rolling through the Park in the midst of 
 
 188
 
 Too Late 
 
 a crush of carriages, none of which was richer than the 
 one she was in. From time to time her companion raised 
 his hat to the finest of the turn-outs as he passed them, and 
 by and by as he did so she bowed her head. 
 
 The girl was in a dream. She seemed suddenly lifted 
 out of her old sordid surroundings into the world of 
 wealth and fashion. It had all come to pass as if it were 
 a fairy tale. Prince Charming had come and taken her by 
 the hand and made of her a princess. She did not stop to 
 reason about it. She simply let herself float away over the 
 sea of sensation that surrounded her. 
 
 Leaving the Park, they sped up the roadway to the 
 region of Washington Heights and there, at the famous 
 McAdam road-house, they were served such a dinner as 
 Abigail had never eaten before in her life. It was served 
 in a private room with flowers and wine. 
 
 After the dinner came the long drive home through 
 the dark. The young people did not talk much, but they 
 felt each other's presence by that subtle power which 
 Nature uses when she would draw youth and maiden 
 together. 
 
 Abigail was driven to 22 West Twentieth Street, the 
 house of her friend Maggie Howard, and finding her at 
 home spent a short time with her, telling her that she had 
 been out driving with a friend of Philip Schuyler, and 
 then leaving Maggie's house hurried to Fourth Avenue, 
 and took the cars to Chatham Street, and so to her home. 
 
 To Keturah and the rest she said she had spent the 
 afternoon in the Park and the evening with Maggie 
 Howard. 
 
 From that day forward Abigail lived in her dream of 
 luxury. She had the richest of food and the choicest of 
 wine. She rode in her carriage with the coachman to 
 
 189
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 drive, and the footman to open the door. She had her box 
 at the theatre and sailed from time to time on a private 
 yacht down the bay and out to sea. 
 
 So the summer was passing away and the young girl 
 was enjoying it without a thought of the future. She was 
 treated not only with respect, but with deference. No 
 wonder that she dreamed dreams and looked forward with 
 joyful anticipation. She loved the young man who was 
 so kind to her, and he evidently loved her. To her that 
 love meant only one thing. She was to be his forever, his 
 wife and the mistress of his house and fortune. 
 
 No definite promises had been given or received. 
 Abigail was in that passionate state which takes love for 
 granted and yields the innocent tokens of an affection of 
 which she is not ashamed. She concealed her intimacy 
 from Keturah and the family more from pride than from 
 fear. In her new life she was growing more and more 
 disgusted with her mean surroundings and her family 
 connections. She was hoping for the day to come quickly 
 that would take her away from it all. She said to herself : 
 "When I am married I will help Keturah to live in a bet- 
 ter place, but I don't suppose I will be able to see much 
 of her or the rest of them. I am sure Robert would not 
 like it." 
 
 So she dreamed her dreams and made her plans until 
 that night in August, when she found herself with Robert 
 at the Brighton Beach Hotel after the last train had gone 
 to the city. 
 
 While Robert was away Abigail sat on the porch of 
 the hotel, watching the moonlight on the sand, and listen- 
 ing to the surf beating against the shore, with a strange 
 feeling of fear in her heart. It suffocated her so that she 
 could not breathe. She got up hastily and walked to the 
 
 190
 
 Too Late 
 
 edge of the porch to find relief. But as she leaned upon 
 the rail and looked out she only heard more clearly the 
 beating of the surf, and she was the more afraid, and she 
 wished with all her heart that she were at home. 
 
 She was roused from her painful revery by the voice 
 of her friend, saying: "Come, Abigail, it is all right. I 
 have taken rooms. We will have a little supper, and then 
 the maid will show you to your room." 
 
 When she turned and looked at him, he saw that she 
 was frightened. "Come, dear," he said, "come, there is 
 nothing to be afraid of . Let us go to supper." And taking 
 her by the hand he led her to a table at the far end of the 
 porch, overlooking the sea. And then a dainty supper was 
 served ; and when they had finished, the young man took 
 the girl to the upper floor and calling the maid sent her 
 away to her room, saying : "Good-night, Abigail. I hope 
 you will rest well. We will return to town early in the 
 morning." 
 
 "Good night, Robert," said Abigail and following the 
 maid, she went to her room. 
 
 191
 
 BOOK SECOND 
 v 
 
 Dr. Suydam
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 DR. SUYDAM 
 
 WHEN Dr. Suydam reached home on the Sunday 
 morning of his interview with Keturah Bain he found that 
 he was late for luncheon. Simmons, the butler, who 
 opened the door for him told him that "Mrs. Suydam and 
 Master Robert and Miss Katherine was a-waitin' for him 
 in the mornin' room." 
 
 "Tell them not to wait," said Dr. Suydam, "I will be 
 down presently," and handing his umbrella to the butler 
 he passed up the stairway to his library. The home of 
 Dr. Suydam was one in which wealth was manifested on 
 every side. The floor of the hallway was a rich mosaic, 
 overlaid with priceless rugs ; the stairway was of polished 
 oak with mahogany balustrade. The walls of the hall and 
 the stairway were covered with pictures by the leading 
 masters of the world. At the foot of the stairway was a 
 niche containing a piece of statuary by Story, and at the 
 head of the stairs was a group in marble, from the chisel 
 of Harriet Hosmer. The library into which Dr. Suydam 
 entered was a noble room, the full width of the house, and 
 running back thirty feet. It was lined with bookcases, 
 extending up to the ceiling, which contained one of the 
 finest private libraries in the city of New York. Dr. Suy- 
 dam was a lover of books and spared neither means nor
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 pains to secure the finest editions and the most costly bind- 
 ings. His library contained nothing that he had not read. 
 
 He was, as his appearance indicated, the man of cul- 
 ture. Dr. Suydam was tall and slender; his head was 
 the long head of the thinker and the mystic ; his brow, nar- 
 row and receding, was shaded by dark brown hair in 
 which there was a tinge of gray. Being short-sighted, 
 Dr. Suydam was never without his glasses, and so the 
 power of his eyes was in a measure lost. When he re- 
 moved his glasses his eyes were seen to be weak and 
 watery, showing the hard wear to which they had been 
 subjected. A long, thin nose, a wide mouth, sensitive 
 lips, and pointed chin gave to the whole face a delicate 
 refinement, and showed the character of the man to be 
 strongly emotional. 
 
 Socially Dr. Suydam was a Brahmin. There was no 
 social rank higher than his in the city of New York; 
 none, indeed, higher than his in America, coming as he 
 did from the old Dutch stock, bearing a name older than 
 the city itself. Dr. Suydam was an aristocrat by inherit- 
 ance as well as by training. He was not a rich man, as men 
 were even then counting riches in the city of New York ; 
 but he had inherited from his father, who had died in 
 his early youth, a fortune sufficient to support him in the 
 state of life into which he had been born. His mother was 
 the daughter of a successful merchant, and her fortune 
 added to that of his father made it possible for him to live 
 as he pleased. 
 
 From his earliest youth he had been a student, and had 
 been allowed to follow his natural inclination without let 
 or hindrance. At the early age of twenty he had gradu- 
 ated with high honors from Columbia College, and turning 
 from the noise and bustle of the world entered the min- 
 
 196
 
 Dr. Suydam 
 
 istry of the Episcopal Church. He had intended to devote 
 himself to missionary labors in heathen lands ; but he was 
 the only son of his mother, and she besought him not to 
 leave her to live and die alone. He yielded his wishes to 
 her prayers and accepted temporarily, as he thought, a 
 position on the staff of Saint Nicholas Church. 
 
 While he was waiting for Providence to open the way 
 for him to preach the Gospel in foreign parts, he preached 
 the Gospel to his own people. And as the years went by, 
 and still he could not go, he drifted into the ways and 
 formed the habits of the city pastor, ministering to a rich 
 and fashionable congregation. 
 
 From the very first Dr. Suydam preached the Gospel 
 rather than doctrines based on the Gospel. His sermons 
 were either spiritual or practical. He was chaste yet 
 fervid in his style, and was accustomed to throw out such 
 strong appeals as that which brought Keturah Bain to her 
 feet. 
 
 On that Sunday morning the preacher, utterly uncon- 
 scious of himself, had simply given voice to the great 
 Gospel of Jesus the Christ. 
 
 His interview with Keturah had moved him deeply. 
 He felt at once that she was a woman widely different 
 from those who usually surrounded him after his preach- 
 ing and praised his sermons, and came to him not so much 
 to seek his advice as to indulge in the luxury of spiritual 
 emotion. 
 
 His experience with Keturah Bain had been a fresh 
 experience ; it had brought him face to face with the great 
 realities of human life, its sin, its sickness, its poverty and 
 degradation. As he stood in the midst of his luxurious 
 surroundings there came into his heart a sad dissatisfac- 
 tion with himself and his work in the world. He could 
 
 197
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 not fail to contrast his preaching with his life. He lived 
 really in two worlds. He believed ardently all that he 
 preached while he was preaching. That life of high en- 
 deavor, of self-sacrifice and personal purity, was the life 
 which he had chosen for his own in the days of his youth. 
 He had intended to make of himself a whole burnt offer- 
 ing to the Lord. That inspiration still ruled his thinking 
 and his feeling, but somehow or other it had escaped him 
 in practice. When he came down out of his pulpit and 
 had entered his satin-lined carriage, and was driven to his 
 elegant home on the avenue, he could not help contrasting 
 his theory with his practice. In theory life was to be high, 
 holy, and severe, a life of self-denial, of devotion to God 
 and man; in fact, it was commonplace, luxurious, and 
 self-indulgent. 
 
 And though custom had habituated Dr. Suydam to 
 this contrast, yet he could not altogether rid himself of the 
 painful uneasiness which it occasioned. 
 
 And on this day, forgetting his lunch, he fell into a 
 sad reverie, seeing himself as he was and as he might 
 have been. 
 
 At the end of twelve years the mother of Dr. Suydam 
 died, and, so far as she was concerned, he was at liberty 
 to go where he pleased, but then it was too late. He had 
 married a wife and could not go. 
 
 198
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 AN OMINOUS COUGH 
 
 THE engagement of Dr. Suydam to Mrs. James Bullet, 
 known to New York as the Bullet millions, had been a 
 nine days' wonder in social circles. The popular preacher 
 had reached the ripe age of thirty-five and never once, so 
 far as society knew, had been entangled with any woman. 
 Female loveliness had spread its snares before him in vain. 
 Devotees lifted their soft eyes and clasped their soft hands 
 in ecstatic worship to no purpose. The heart of the 
 young preacher was hardened against every appeal of 
 the soft emotions. His books, his work, and his mother 
 filled up for him the measure of his desires. 
 
 When society had made up its mind that Jacob Suy- 
 dam never would marry, and womankind, since it could 
 not have him for a lover, was beginning to worship him 
 as a saint, then all of a sudden, and without any warning, 
 the idol was shattered and the fair dream of human per- 
 fection vanished. 
 
 Dr. Suydam was engaged and then married. 
 
 And, of all women in the world, to the Bullet millions ! 
 To a woman not of his class ; a widow with two children ; 
 a woman at least five years older than the man who was to 
 be her husband, and who, ever since her first husband's 
 death, had been almost brazen in her efforts to force her 
 way into the inner circles of New York society. 
 
 199
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 Never did a man fall so fast and so far as Dr. Suydam 
 fell in the estimation of society, when his engagement was 
 announced. And in his own heart he joined in that con- 
 demnation which was pronounced against him by the 
 world. 
 
 He never could think of his engagement and marriage 
 without a blush of shame. He had never meant to marry 
 the Widow Bullet, nor any other woman, and least of all 
 had he meant to do it on the morning when by his actions 
 he had made it inevitable. A moment of weakness be- 
 trayed him into a lifelong mistake. He was able to read 
 in his own life the sad story of the Fall of Man. 
 
 The Widow Bullet had for social reasons purchased a 
 pew in Saint Nicholas Church. From the very first she 
 'had been drawn to the young assistant minister, who was 
 a high priest in that inner circle into which she so longed 
 to enter. The young man met her advances with that 
 courtesy which was natural to him, and she in return 
 placed herself and her fortune at his disposal. She was 
 ready to further his slightest wish to the full extent of her 
 means. 
 
 At that time Dr. Suydam was deeply interested in a 
 scheme to found a college in China. His interest in the 
 foreign field was all the greater because he could not him- 
 self enter that field. He did not find many to think as he 
 did. Hard-headed business men said, "We have work 
 enough at home, let England take care of China." The 
 close of the war had made the education and evangeliza- 
 tion of the negro a duty nearer to the heart of the Ameri- 
 can people than the education and conversion of the 
 Chinese. So poor Dr. Suydam had not many to sympa- 
 thize with him in the great desire of his heart. 
 
 The encouragement and the help of Mrs. Bullet were 
 
 200
 
 An Ominous Cough 
 
 very grateful to him. One day she came to see him by 
 appointment in the vestry room of the church. He was 
 seated at his table and she came and sat down beside him. 
 
 Mrs. Bullet was, in her way, a handsome woman, and 
 she was in all the glory of her second womanhood. She 
 was an Irish woman from the County of Munster. Her 
 form was tall and well rounded, her light hair had dark- 
 ened with age until it was like burnished copper. Her 
 gray eyes shaded by dark lashes gave a distinguished ap- 
 pearance to her countenance, and her color, a rich blend- 
 ing of red and white, gave her all the power and fascina- 
 tion of a full-blooded, healthy woman. 
 
 As she seated herself she said: "I have come, Dr. 
 Suydam, to ask how much you need to finish the buildings 
 of the college in China." 
 
 "I do not know exactly, Mrs. Bullet, but I am afraid 
 it will require not less than ten thousand dollars." 
 
 "May I have the privilege of giving that amount," said 
 the lady, "so that the college may be finished at once and 
 the work go forward ?" 
 
 "Do you mean, Mrs. Bullet, that you wish to give the 
 whole of the ten thousand dollars yourself ?" 
 
 "Certainly." 
 
 "Why, my dear madam," said Dr. Suydam, "this is 
 princely," and arising he gave his hand to Mrs. Bullet. 
 She, rising also, placed her hand in his and came close to 
 him and said : "I am glad to do it. It gives me the great- 
 est pleasure to help you in any way." 
 
 "Oh, thank you, Mrs. Bullet. I am very grateful, 
 there are so few who care for this work. I am thankful, 
 not only for the money, but also for the sympathy. I hope 
 I may have that sympathy always." As Dr. Suydam 
 spoke he still held the hand of Mrs. Bullet in his. 
 
 201
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 She, drawing nearer to him, said : "Dr. Suydam, it is 
 the dearest wish of my heart to be near you and to help 
 you always. May I ?" 
 
 Looking down Dr. Suydam saw her bosom rise and 
 fall, and the full power and aroma of her womanhood 
 took possession of him and scarcely knowing what he said 
 or did, answered : "Certainly, Mrs. Bullet, certainly." 
 
 "Oh, how happy you make me !" cried the widow, and 
 she held up her lips to be kissed. 
 
 Still hardly knowing what he did, Dr. Suydam 
 stooped down and kissed her. 
 
 The high color in her cheeks deepened into purple and 
 her gray eyes melted into tender blue. Without stirring 
 she still held up her waiting lips, and Dr. Suydam kissed 
 her the second time. 
 
 Just then he heard an ominous cough and looking up 
 he saw the sexton standing in the open door. 
 
 Dr. Suydam, flushing to the roots of his hair, said: 
 "Jenkins, will you please say to any one who asks you, 
 that I am to marry Mrs. Bullet ?" 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Jenkins, and he went away. 
 
 202
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 DOMESTICITY 
 
 WHEN Dr. Suydam married the widow Bullet, the 
 women fumed and the men laughed. The women decried 
 the widow for the artful, scheming creature that she was, 
 and despised Dr. Suydam for yielding to her wiles. The 
 men shrugged their shoulders, and said a parson was just 
 like other men and knew a good thing when he saw it. 
 Teddy Schuyler expressed the common opinion when he 
 said the Bullet was "a fine woman, be gad, and her mil- 
 lions were millions, and that was all there was of it." 
 
 After his marriage, Dr. Suydam continued to officiate 
 as minister of Saint Nicholas Church, and in a short time 
 recovered in a measure his popularity. He was no longer 
 the pet and darling of the single women of his congrega- 
 tion. In many a chamber his picture had been turned to 
 the wall, and the fair devotee who used to pray before that 
 picture as before the image of a saint went prayerless to 
 bed. 
 
 But Dr. Suydam and the Bullet millions, once joined 
 together, became a force which it was impossible for social 
 New York to ignore. With her new name, Mrs. Suydam 
 took her new place and held it. She built a new house for 
 herself in the most fashionable part of the city, and when 
 she opened her doors, all society passed through those 
 
 203
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 doors into her drawing-rooms, and she became at once one 
 of the elect. 
 
 And yet she was not happy. 
 
 The clerical position of her husband was a bar to her 
 complete social success. She could not as a minister's wife 
 quite keep pace with the lay members of the congregation. 
 She was invited to the more formal and stately entertain- 
 ments, such as dinners and the like ; but she was not ex- 
 pected to be present at the masked balls and wilder 
 gayeties of the social world. 
 
 This galled her exceedingly, but she consoled herself 
 with the thought that what was denied her was freely en- 
 joyed by her children. Her son Robert and her daughter 
 Katherine were in the front rank of the fashionable set. 
 The name of her daughter was associated in current gos- 
 sip, with that of a distinguished scion of the English 
 nobility. 
 
 Dr. Suydam was in this family, but not of it. He and 
 his wife drifted apart immediately after marriage. There 
 was never any real love between them, and there was no 
 common interest to hold them together. The college in 
 China suddenly lost its charms. Dr. Suydam thought of 
 it with shame and Mrs. Suydam never thought of it at 
 all. 
 
 She was busy with her social duties, using all her skill 
 for the advancement of her children, and left her husband 
 to his books and his writing. She admired and praised his 
 sermons, and in the sight of the world kept her place as a 
 devoted and dutiful wife. 
 
 Dr. Suydam went back to his work with a deep sense 
 of humiliation. He had lost his self-respect, and had 
 forfeited his high calling. He never could dream of giv- 
 ing his life for souls that are lost. The only thing left him 
 
 204
 
 Domesticity 
 
 was to become a successful city rector, and so realize, if 
 possible, the ambition of his wife. 
 
 He had been married six years, and all that time had 
 been waiting for Dr. Van Antwerp, the rector, to die 
 or resign, and at last he was to see the fulfillment of his 
 lower hope. As we have already learned, with the re- 
 moval of the church, which was soon to take place, Dr. 
 Van Antwerp was to retire on a handsome pension, and 
 Dr. Suydam was to succeed him in the rectorship of Saint 
 Nicholas Church. But somehow or other the prospect 
 was not alluring, and Dr. Suydam wished for another lot 
 than that which fate had forced upon him, wished that 
 there was some other hope before him than that of being 
 the rector of one of the richest and most fashionable 
 churches in the city of New York. 
 
 Never had he felt this more keenly than he did this 
 day as he stood and looked sadly at the clouds returning 
 after the rain. 
 
 Dr. Suydam was so deep in his revery that he had lost 
 all thought of the luncheon waiting for him in the morn- 
 ing room. He was recalled to himself by the voice of 
 Simmons saying with a shade of impatience : "I beg your 
 pardon, sir, but Mrs. Suydam told me to say that luncheon 
 was a-gettin' cold and would you please come down." 
 
 "Certainly, Simmons, I will come immediately," said 
 Dr. Suydam who, however, still lingered as if dreading to 
 meet the people to whom, with one exception, he was 
 hardly more than a stranger. Finally overcoming his re- 
 luctance he went down into the morning room. 
 
 His wife and daughter were there dressed in their 
 morning gowns ; his wife in white, but Katherine in a pale 
 blue. Robert Bullet was seated before the open fire, read- 
 ing the Spirit of the Times, a sporting paper. He 
 
 205
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 looked up as Dr. Suydam entered and taking his pipe out 
 of his mouth said : "Good morning, Doctor," and then 
 went on smoking and reading. 
 
 Mrs. Suydam was not very cordial in her greeting. 
 She was quite impatient because luncheon had been de- 
 layed so long. What she considered her husband's dila- 
 tory habits were very annoying to her. She did not rise, 
 but simply glanced up and said : "You are very late to- 
 day, Doctor." 
 
 "Yes, I was detained. A young woman wished to see 
 me after the service." 
 
 "I wonder that any one was at church to-day," said 
 Mrs. Suydam, "and I wonder more that women can't let 
 a minister alone. It was Miss Emmett, I suppose. She 
 is always stopping you as you go down the aisle." 
 
 "No," answered Dr. Suydam. "It was a stranger, a 
 woman from the neighborhood who came into the church 
 to get out of the storm." 
 
 "I am glad," said Mrs. Suydam, "that we are going to 
 leave that neighborhood. It is getting worse and worse 
 every day; and those people are forcing themselves into 
 our church. If you are a little late, as like as not you find 
 a shopgirl in your pew." 
 
 "Well," said Dr. Suydam, smiling, "a shopgirl needs 
 the gospel as much as young ladies of society." 
 
 "If she does," answered Mrs. Suydam, tartly, "let her 
 go and hear it in a mission chapel and not thrust herself 
 in where she does not belong. Those people are getting 
 more and more insolent every day." 
 
 Dr. Suydam never argued with his wife. Whenever 
 she expressed a decided opinion it was his custom to be 
 silent for a moment, and then to politely change the sub- 
 ject. So at this moment he turned his attention to his 
 
 206
 
 Domesticity 
 
 chop and his chocolate, and nothing more was said of the 
 stranger whom he had met in the church. 
 
 After a pause, Katherine Bullet looked up from the 
 morning paper and said : "Who was at church this morn- 
 ing, papa ?" 
 
 "Nobody, my child," said the Doctor, "that is, nobody 
 but Mayor Beekman." 
 
 "And I'll bet he was late," said Robert. "Beekman 
 goes down every Sunday to the City Hall to get his mail, 
 and he takes in Saint Nicholas on his way home, gets in 
 just in time for the sermon, and leaves as soon as it is 
 over. Beekman doesn't waste any time on preliminaries 
 or conclusions, I can tell you." 
 
 "Well,"' said Katherine, "I think the Mayor shows 
 his good sense in all that. Daddy's sermon is about all 
 there is worth staying for in old Saint Nicholas. It is. 
 getting to be a nasty place and as dreary as a barn." 
 
 "Katherine," said Mrs. Suydam, severely, "how often 
 must I tell you not to call Dr. Suydam, Daddy ? It is not 
 respectful." 
 
 "Oh, you don't care, do you, Daddy?" said the girl, 
 coming and standing behind the Doctor's chair. "You 
 don't want to be treated with respect all the time, do you 
 now ? I'm certain I'd die if I had to be treated with re- 
 spect day and night. When I get to be a duchess, I tell 
 you I'm not going to bed with my coronet on. There is 
 one thing I am going to put in the marriage settlements, 
 and that is that I am not to sleep in my dignity." 
 
 "Katherine," cried Mrs. Suydam, "remember that your 
 brother and Dr. Suydam are present." 
 
 "I beg a thousand pardons. A woman should never 
 speak of sleeping, in the presence of so modest a person 
 as Dr. Suydam, or of one so innocent as Bobby Bullet." 
 
 207
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 Dr. Suydam took the hand of the girl, with which she 
 was smoothing his hair, and said, "You naughty girl ; why 
 do you delight to say things that shock your mother ? If 
 your bite were as bad as your bark, we should have to 
 keep you muzzled all the time. Tell me, madcap, where 
 were you last night that you did not get home till ever 
 so late?" 
 
 "Late, Daddy," said the girl, "late, it was early, it was 
 four o'clock in the morning." 
 
 "Where could you have been till that hour?" said 
 the Doctor. "I thought you said you were going to Mrs. 
 Schuyler's to dinner." 
 
 "So I did," answered Katherine. "If you want a 
 history of the evening, I will try to give it to you, though 
 it will be hard to remember everything as it happened. 
 At six I went to the Perkins' to afternoon tea; at seven 
 I came home and dressed, and went to Schuyler's to 
 dinner. At ten we went to the opera for the last act of 
 Tannhauser ; at eleven-thirty we drove up to Tommy Van 
 Winkle's studio to see some dancing; at one o'clock we 
 went to the Horton house for supper; from there we 
 drove to the Schuyler's, where we girls sat about and 
 talked till four o'clock, and then I came home." 
 
 "Kate," said Robert Bullet, slowly looking up from 
 his paper, "if I were you, I wouldn't be so fresh." 
 
 "Don't say wouldn't, Bobby, dear, say couldn't. If 
 you had been through all I went through last night, you 
 would be so exhausted that you couldn't even smoke your 
 
 pipe." 
 
 "You girls," said the young man, "are getting so fast 
 there is no keeping up with you. We men are getting 
 tired of it all, I can tell you." 
 
 "I can well believe that, Bobby, my boy. You men 
 
 208
 
 Domesticity 
 
 tire very easily. You lose your wind before you have 
 commenced to run your race. You young men are worn 
 out with dissipation before you are twenty." 
 
 These spats between brother and sister were so much 
 a part of the family life, that no notice was taken of them. 
 
 "Come, Katherine," said Dr. Suydam, "leave Robert 
 to his paper, and tell me if you think it is just the thing 
 for the daughter of Dr. Suydam to be out until four 
 o'clock Sunday morning." 
 
 "Oh, that wasn't the daughter of Dr. Suydam at all, 
 at all," said Katherine, dropping into a rich Irish brogue. 
 "It was that bit of a divil, Jim Bullet's gurl, it was. Dr. 
 Suydam's daughter goes to church o' Sundays, and is as 
 proper as Saint Bridget, but that divilish cantrip, Jim Bul- 
 let's gurl, she's the terror, she is." 
 
 "Katherine," said Mrs. Suydam, "if you do not speak 
 more respectfully of your father, I shall leave the room. 
 Your irreverence spares nothing, not even the memory 
 of the dead." 
 
 "Pardon me, my dear mother," said the girl. "I not 
 only reverence the memory of James Bullet, deceased; I 
 adore it. From all that I can learn my father, James Bul- 
 let, lived a life of self-denial that would have made him a 
 saint in the good old days. He toiled from morning till 
 night and denied himself the common comforts of life, 
 and all that you might own the finest house in New York, 
 that Bobby, over yonder, might own a private yacht, and 
 that I, Katherine Bullet, might, if I pleased, buy a duke- 
 dom." 
 
 "Katherine," said her mother, rising in anger, "your 
 flippancy is unbearable. I do not know where you got 
 such a nature as yours. Not from me, certainly, and 
 surely not from any association with Dr. Suydam." 
 
 209
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "No, mother, not from you nor yet from Dr. Suydam. 
 I am Jim Bullet's girl and no mistake. I have heard that 
 my respected father was not a reverent man; I am told 
 that he even went so far at times as to use bad words. 
 You ought to be satisfied if I am only flippant ; you know 
 I might be profane." 
 
 "Kate," said Robert, rising and knocking the ashes 
 from his pipe, "you are a fool." 
 
 "Thanks, awfully, Bobby," said Katherine, with a 
 courtesy. 
 
 As Robert was leaving the room his mother said : "I 
 hope, Robert, that you are going to be home to dinner. 
 Mayor Beekman and Florence are to dine with us." 
 
 "I am sorry, mother, but I can't come home to-day. 
 We are going to give Dipford a dinner at the club to- 
 night, before he starts west on his great hunt." 
 
 "Oh, of course, if you are to dine with the Marquis, 
 you cannot come. Give my regards to his lordship, and 
 say that we shall expect him to stay with us when he 
 comes back from the west." 
 
 "And tell that young man," said Katherine, "to take 
 good care of himself. He must remember that I have an 
 option on him." ' 
 
 "Katherine," cried her mother, "your coarse way of 
 speaking will be your ruin." 
 
 "Well, mother mine, if I am ruined I am ruined. But 
 I know that a girl worth twenty millions in her own right 
 is not easily ruined. She can, if she pleases, indulge in 
 the expensive luxury of speaking the truth. I know and 
 you know and Daddy knows that the coronet of the pro- 
 spective Duchess of Senlac is in the market, and I am one 
 of the half-dozen girls in the country that can put up the 
 necessary funds. I have put in my bid. Dipford isn't 
 
 210
 
 Domesticity 
 
 much of a man, but I like him for his title's sake, and if 
 I want him I am pretty sure to get him. There is no girl 
 in the town that has so much money, combined with so 
 much beauty." 
 
 The girl drew herself up to her full height and made 
 a sweeping gesture with her arm, and her presence did 
 not belie her words. She was that most bewitching of 
 women, an Irish blonde ; her hair, which was the coronet 
 that nature had made for her, was gathered in great coils 
 about her head and was the color of the clouds at sunset. 
 When Katherine was young, Bobby called her red-head, 
 but the red had grown darker, and her hair was like the 
 clouds of evening shot through and through with light. 
 Her "eyes were of the deepest blue and were merry and 
 mischievous. Her nose, short and thick, would have been 
 an ugly feature, had it not been for the full ripe lips, al- 
 ways rippling with laughter, which made a man crazy to 
 kiss them. 
 
 In the presence of this girl a man was in the presence 
 of life of life that was bright and joyous and satisfied 
 with itself. She had everything which this world gives 
 to its favorites ; beauty of person, health, wealth, social 
 position, and the sense of humor. Katherine did not take 
 herself or her world seriously. She was on the lookout 
 for the fun and frolic side of life, and she was a girl in 
 her twentieth year. 
 
 Dr. Suydam, as he looked at her, could not help ad- 
 miring her. She was all that made his domestic life 
 tolerable. 
 
 At her last speech the Doctor laughed heartily, and 
 said : "Take care, my dear ; it is not well to boast before 
 your bargain is completed. There are other girls as con- 
 fident as you of securing the prize of their high calling 
 
 211
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 in the social world, which seems to be an English coro- 
 net. Take care, I say, that they do not combine against 
 you." 
 
 At this Katherine made a pretty mouth and left the 
 room. Mrs. Suydam followed her, and Dr. Suydam re- 
 turned to the quiet of his library and the company of his 
 books.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 MARRIAGE RIGHTS OF THE POOR 
 
 AFTER his meeting with Keturah Bain, Dr. Suydam 
 had fallen into the habit of going down to the church for 
 the afternoon service. At that time none of the regular 
 parishoners were present, only people from the neighbor- 
 hood and strangers off the street. This afternoon serv- 
 ice was in charge of the younger members of the clerical 
 staff; the rector was never present, and Dr. Suydam 
 rarely. It was a matter of comment when he began to 
 come Sunday after Sunday to evening prayer. The 
 younger clergy wondered among themselves as to its 
 meaning. They were the more puzzled, and not a little 
 scandalized, when they saw Dr. Suydam frequently meet- 
 ing and walking away with a strange woman. 
 
 Dr. Suydam was himself perplexed by his state of 
 mind. He was strangely drawn to Keturah Bain. Her 
 spiritual and intellectual condition had for him a subtle 
 fascination. With her he could discuss, as he did with 
 no other person, the fundamental problems of human life. 
 And yet he felt that if these discussions were to have any 
 practical result, they would throw him out of harmony 
 with his own world and lead him into strange countries. 
 
 In the long summer afternoons, he and Keturah used 
 to walk together down to the Battery Park, and talk of 
 the things that lay nearest their hearts. 
 
 213
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 The time for the picnic of the Plumbers' Union was 
 near, and Keturah knew that John Sherwood would be 
 pressing his suit, and she was sad and anxious. Her 
 marriage seemed farther away than ever, and she wished 
 she could put an end to it all and send John away forever 
 and ever. 
 
 When she and Dr. Suydam were seated on a bench 
 in Battery Park, looking out over the bay, Keturah turned 
 to the Doctor and said: "Dr. Suydam, do you think that 
 poor people ought to marry?" 
 
 "Certainly," said the Doctor. "Why not? Why do 
 you ask such a question ?" 
 
 "Why, it seems to me," said the girl, sadly, "that if 
 poor people didn't marry, in a little while there wouldn't 
 be any poor people, and all the misery that comes of 
 poverty would pass away from the earth." 
 
 Dr. Suydam laughed heartily, and answered : "Very 
 true, but if the poor people didn't marry, there wouldn't 
 be any people at all, the work of the world would cease, 
 and the human race come to an untimely end." 
 
 "Then you think poor people ought to marry, and have 
 children, so that the human race may be continued and 
 the work of the world carried on?" said Keturah. 
 
 "Yes," said the Doctor. 
 
 "But what is the use of it ?" asked Keturah. 
 
 "The use of what?" said the Doctor. 
 
 "The use of the human race and the work of the 
 world. It seems to me that the continued misery of the 
 poor is an awful price to pay for such a sorry thing as this 
 world and the human life that is on it. Now if the poor 
 people were simply to stop marrying for fifty years, there 
 would be an end of all toil and trouble; there would be 
 no more sin and no more sorrow." 
 
 214
 
 Marriage Rights of the Poor 
 
 "True," said Dr. Suydam, "but your remedy is not 
 likely to be applied in our day. Nature has taken care of 
 that. The poorer the people, the sooner they marry and 
 the more children they have." 
 
 "Yes," said Keturah, "and that is what makes me 
 angry. I cannot understand how a poor woman, with a 
 decent thought in her mind, can think of marrying and 
 bringing children into the world, to live as the children 
 of the poor live in this city. Why! such children are 
 damned before they are born. I, for one, can never be 
 guilty of adding a single life to increase the sum of sin 
 and suffering in the world !" 
 
 "Do you mean," said Dr. Suydam, "that you will never 
 marry ?" 
 
 "Yes," said Keturah, "that is what I mean, and yet I 
 want to marry. I have wanted to marry for a long time. 
 I have been engaged ten years." 
 
 "Engaged for ten years!" said the Doctor, looking 
 into the sad, strong face before him with new interest. 
 "You must have a faithful lover." 
 
 "Yes, I have," said Keturah, "John Sherwood is as 
 faithful as a dog. I tell him to go away and marry some 
 other woman. But he will not let me go." 
 
 "And do you care for him?" said the Doctor. 
 
 "Care for him?" said Keturah. "More than that, I 
 love him. John Sherwood is not a great man, but he is 
 a good man. He came into my life when I needed him, 
 and now he is as much a part of my life as I am myself ; 
 but yet I cannot marry him and give him the only poor 
 reward he asks for all his years of devotion." 
 
 "Why can't you marry him ?" said the Doctor. 
 
 "Because he is poor and I am poor," said the girl. 
 
 "That is carrying a theory to the point of absurdity. 
 
 215
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 Poor people must marry and believe that God will take 
 care of them and their children," said the Doctor. 
 
 "That is all very well, Doctor, for you to say, because 
 you are a minister ; but as a matter of fact, you know and 
 I know that God does not take care of the children of the 
 poor. They are hungry and they are cold; they go to 
 prison and to lives of shame, and your God does not lift 
 a finger to help them." 
 
 "But, my dear Keturah," said the Doctor, anxiously, 
 "is not God the father of the fatherless, and did not Jesus 
 call the weary and heavy laden to himself? Must we not 
 have faith and believe that God will bring light out of 
 darkness ?" 
 
 "That, Dr. Suydam, is very beautiful, and when I am 
 up in Saint Nicholas listening to you I believe it, or at 
 least I try to believe ; but when I get down into Mulberry 
 Street I cannot believe it. There is no God down there 
 who cares for the people. He seems to care for the people 
 up town, but not for the people in the back streets." 
 
 "But he has left his church in the world to care for 
 those very people." 
 
 "Very true," said Keturah, "but does it ?" 
 
 Dr. Suydam sat silent for a moment and then he 
 answered: "I am afraid not, I am afraid not." 
 
 "Under the circumstances I do not think I ought to 
 marry, not even if there was no one to think of but John 
 and myself. I do not think children ought to be born 
 into such a world as we have to live in. It isn't fair to 
 the children." 
 
 That evening Dr. Suydam walked home with Keturah 
 Bain. She had never permitted this before ; now she 
 consented because she wanted him to see the world in 
 which she lived and into which she did not wish children 
 to be born. 
 
 216
 
 Marriage Righ+* of the Poor 
 
 The back streets of the city were really an unknown 
 land to Dr. Suydam. He had gone to and from his 
 church by Broadway. He was in the habit of riding more 
 than walking, and was used to looking at life from a car- 
 riage window. People out yonder on the pavement 
 secerned to belong to a different world with which the 
 man in the carriage had no concern. 
 
 As Dr. Suydam walked down Mulberry Street, through 
 the throng of people and saw the ragged children playing 
 on the sidewalk, as he looked at the unkempt, slovenly 
 women and at the hard, degraded faces of the men, he 
 began to have that pity for the multitude which filled the 
 heart of Jesus the Christ. 
 
 When they came to the passage way leading to 53 
 Mulberry Street in the rear, he asked Keturah where she 
 was going. She said, "Home." 
 
 The court into which she led him was already dark, 
 though out in the street it was still light. In the gloom 
 Dr. Suydam was just able to see the grimy cottage of 
 the Bain's, crowded against the black cabin of the Ma- 
 grath's. "Do you live here ?" said Dr. Suydam. 
 
 "Yes," said Keturah. 
 
 "How long have you lived here ?" said the Doctor. 
 
 "All my life," said Keturah. 
 
 "But surely you have not lived in this darkness and 
 dirt all your life." 
 
 "No," said Keturah, "when I was a child, it was very 
 different. There was nothing between our cottage and 
 the street, and we had a pretty garden with flowers and 
 trees." 
 
 "How did you come to lose it all ?" inquired Dr. Suy- 
 dam. 
 
 "My father was unfortunate and we had to sell ; then 
 
 217
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 the Bullet estate bought our land and moved our cottage 
 back and built the great tenement in front, and so we were 
 shut in." 
 
 "And how much rent do you pay for this place ?" 
 
 "We pay twenty dollars a month." 
 
 "Twenty dollars a month for this house, without light 
 or air ! It is an outrage. Why do you stay here ?" 
 
 "Because we have nowhere else to go. I must be 
 near my work. We would have to pay nearly as much 
 for a floor in a tenement. We have this little house all 
 to ourselves and it is our home." 
 
 Dr. Suydam simply said "Home," and with tears in 
 his eyes gave his hand to Keturah, said "Good-by" in a 
 low voice, and went away. 
 
 He understood why Keturah did not want to marry 
 and have children, 
 
 318
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE POLICY OF AN ESTATE 
 
 FROM that time Dr. Suydam visited Keturah in her 
 own home and became intensely interested in the phase 
 of life which was thus revealed to him. When he came 
 to know her father and her mother, her sister and her 
 brother, and to learn, as he did, little by little, how she 
 had given her life to keep these other lives from sinking 
 into irremediable ruin, Dr. Suydam began to have for 
 Keturah Bain a veneration bordering on worship. He 
 saw in her a living example of that law of sacrifice which 
 underlies human life, and is its safety and its hope. 
 
 Keturah Bain lived the Christ life which Dr. Suydam 
 preached. 
 
 Not only did Dr. Suydam come to know the lives of 
 the people living in the crowded precincts of Mulberry 
 Street, but he came to know also the conditions that were 
 in a measure responsible for those lives, and among other 
 things he made a painful acquaintance with the Bullet 
 estate. He found that estate invested largely in tenement 
 property. Whenever it was possible each lot had on it a 
 front and rear tenement. Nearly every front tenement 
 had a saloon on the first floor, and the rear tenements 
 were the abode of unutterable poverty and squalor. The. 
 estate, so invested, was yielding ten per cent, net, on its 
 valuation. 
 
 219
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 As these facts became known to Dr. Suydam, they 
 filled him with sorrowful indignation. He began to look 
 upon himself and the social class to which he belonged, 
 as vampires, who were sucking the life-blood of the poor. 
 The luxury in which he lived, he now saw clearly was 
 paid for by the souls of the people. The honor of man- 
 hood and the purity of womanhood were sacrificed to the 
 idol of material prosperity, shared by the few to whom it 
 ministered. The more Dr. Suydam thought about it, the 
 more he saw that it was utterly antagonistic to the gospel 
 of Christ. He could see now, if he had never seen be- 
 fore, why Christianity was such a failure in the world. 
 The religion of the Master had been betrayed by its own 
 disciples. The power and success of the world had laid 
 hold of the machinery of the Christian religion, and were 
 using it for their own advantage. They were keeping the 
 people quiet by the hope of a world to come, while they 
 themselves were seizing and enjoying the world that 
 now is. 
 
 Dr. Suydam determined that he would not any longer 
 be responsible for the great wrong which he had discov- 
 ered. He made up his mind to speak to his wife and per- 
 suade her, if possible, to remedy some of the worst evils 
 existing on her estate. 
 
 In concluding to take this step, Dr. Suydam was de- 
 parting from a rule which he had observed from the be- 
 ginning of his married life. 
 
 He had never in any way meddled with the affairs of 
 his wife. He soon learned that she was a woman fully 
 capable of managing her own business ; that in all the 
 practical concerns of the world she was greatly his su- 
 perior. Deferring to her judgment, he was in the habit 
 of consulting her in regard to his own investments, and 
 rarely did her judgment fail him. 
 
 220
 
 The Policy of an Estate 
 
 The opinion which Dr. Suydam had of his wife was 
 shared by the lady herself. She knew that in all that 
 pertains to the business of the world Dr. Suydam was a 
 child, who but for her guiding and restraining hand, 
 would lose all that he had, and as for consulting him 
 about her own business, the thought never occurred to 
 her. She had managed the Bullet estate, without his 
 help, in the days of her widowhood, and she continued to 
 do so after she had married the second time. 
 
 Mrs. Suydam had for her husband the mild contempt 
 which men and women of affairs have for men and women 
 of thought and feeling. It was, therefore, no easy task 
 for Dr. Suydam to speak upon a subject that had never 
 once been mentioned by him to his wife. But as he could 
 not silence his conscience in any other way, he finally 
 mustered courage and sought his wife for the purpose 
 of pressing upon her the necessity of a reform in the ad- 
 ministration of her estate. 
 
 At breakfast one morning, after a visit to Keturah 
 Bain, Dr. Suydam told his wife that he would like to 
 speak with her for a few moments on a matter of business. 
 
 "Certainly," said Mrs. Suydam, and she led the way 
 to her private room. This room contained all the furni- 
 ture to be found in a business office : a great desk in the 
 center and alphabetical cabinets along the walls for the 
 arrangement and filing of business papers. Off this 
 office was a smaller room occupied by Mrs. Suydam's 
 private secretary. 
 
 Closing the door of the secretary's room, Mrs. Suy- 
 dam sat down at her desk and waited for her husband to 
 speak. Seating himself in a chair which was placed at 
 the side of the desk for those who wished to interview 
 Mrs. Suydam, Dr, Suydam proceeded to open his case. 
 
 221
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 He said ! "I have been visiting some of our people who 
 live in the lower part of the city. I find that they are 
 tenants of your estate, and I wanted to speak to you about 
 the houses in which they live ; they are in a very bad con- 
 dition and are unfit for occupation." 
 
 "I do not see, Dr. Suydam," said his wife, "why you 
 should trouble yourself about matters that do not concern 
 you. I leave the care of my estate to my agent, and he 
 receives all complaints from the tenants and does with 
 them what he thinks is best." 
 
 "I beg your pardon, Mrs. Suydam," (Dr. Suydam 
 and his wife had fallen into the formal way of calling 
 each other Dr. and Mrs. Suydam), "for speaking to you 
 in regard to matters that I have, up to this time, left to 
 your own judgment; but the evils on your estate are so 
 many and so great that I must speak of them, and if possi- 
 ble, get you to correct them." 
 
 "Again I say, Doctor," said Mrs. Suydam, her color 
 rising, "that I have perfect confidence in my agent. He 
 will, I am sure, do all that the best interest of the estate 
 demands." 
 
 "I am not thinking, Mrs. Suydam, of your estate," 
 answered the Doctor; "I am thinking of the people who 
 live on your estate. It is for them that I speak. Your 
 estate is oppressing them, demanding of them three times 
 the value of the tenements in which they live." 
 
 "I would like to know, Dr. Suydam," said the lady, 
 with a tinge of sarcasm, "how you have come so suddenly 
 to take an interest in these people. I have known you 
 now for ten years, and this is the first time I have ever 
 heard you so much as mention the people who live ir 
 lower New York. If I remember rightly, you are chieflj 
 interested in the welfare of the Chinese." 
 
 222
 
 The Policy of an Estate 
 
 "I can pardon your sneer, Mrs. Suydam," answered 
 the Doctor, "because it contains a very sad truth. It is 
 true that I have for years been the pastor of a church and 
 have never once taken the trouble to look into the lives 
 of the people who live under the shadow of its steeple." 
 
 "And what has roused your sudden interest?" said 
 Mrs. Suydam. "A woman?" 
 
 "Yes," said Dr. Suydam, "a woman." 
 
 "I thought as much," said Mrs. Suydam. "Your 
 sudden zeal for the souls of the people has its origin in 
 zeal for the soul of another one of the women who fall 
 down and worship you. I would advise you, Dr. Suydam, 
 to drop this creature. Your attention to her has been 
 remarked." 
 
 "Madame," said Dr. Suydam, flushing in his turn with 
 anger, "I shall exercise my pastoral office as I think best, 
 and pay no attention to idle and evil gossip. This 
 creature, as you call her, is living in one of your tenements 
 and is paying you twenty per cent, on a fair valuation of 
 your property. You are robbing her to keep yourself, 
 your son, and your daughter in luxury." 
 
 "Pardon me, Dr. Suydam," said the lady, with quiet 
 scorn; "remember we are not in church, and this is no 
 place for a sermon. If the creature in whom you are so 
 much interested does not wish to pay the rent which my 
 estate demands, she is not compelled to do so. She can 
 leave my property and go elsewhere." 
 
 "Yes ; and where will she go ? To property that is as 
 bad and even worse than yours. The tenement property 
 is all alike." 
 
 "You admit, then," said Mrs. Suydam, smiling, "that 
 the Bullet estate is not exceptionally wicked in its deal- 
 ings with tenants." 
 
 223
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "Certainly ; I admit that your estate is no worse than 
 others in the same neighborhood, but I would have it 
 far better. I would have it a model of all that such an 
 estate should be an example of what an estate should do 
 for people that live in its houses." 
 
 "Indeed," said Mrs. Suydam, lifting her eyebrows, 
 "and what do you advise us to do ?" 
 
 "I would have you," answered the Doctor, "tear away 
 all the rear tenements. They are simply pestholes, breed- 
 ing all kinds of disease. I would have you place in every 
 set of apartments a bath and a closet, and instead of rent- 
 ing to saloon keepers, I would have you set apart one 
 large room on the street as a reading room for the use of 
 the tenants of the building." 
 
 Mrs. Suydam laughed scornfully. "Your interest in 
 the creature is even greater than I thought. You wish to 
 provide her with all the luxuries of life, and are willing 
 that I should pay for them. No, I thank you." 
 
 "I wish, Mrs. Suydam," said the Doctor, earnestly, 
 "I wish you would drop all personalities and all feeling 
 and look at this matter from the standpoint of Chris- 
 tianity." 
 
 "And pray," said Mrs. Suydam, "what has Chris- 
 tianity to do with the management of my estate?" 
 
 "It has everything to do with it," exclaimed Dr. Suy- 
 dam. "In the management of your estate you are violat- 
 ing the plainest precepts of Christianity every day." 
 
 "Thank you," said Mrs. Suydam. "If I am, I am 
 glad to know it. But you will please remember that I 
 manage my business on business principles, and not ac- 
 cording to the sentimental vagaries of people who know 
 nothing about the world in which they live." 
 
 "But, Mrs. Suydam," expostulated the Doctor, "your 
 practice is a daily contradiction to my preaching." 
 
 224
 
 The Policy of an Estate 
 
 "And what if it is?" said the lady, with deepening 
 scorn. "You do not for a moment suppose that the people 
 to whom you preach take your preaching seriously. No 
 one dreams for a moment of acting on the principles 
 which you proclaim so eloquently. You do not take it 
 seriously yourself. You preach poverty and self-denial, 
 but for all that you like a good dinner and are particular 
 about your wine." 
 
 "You refuse, then," said the Doctor, rising, "to even 
 consider the matter of reforming the abuses existing in 
 connection with your estate ?" 
 
 "I certainly do, sir," said Mrs. Suydam, turning to 
 her papers. "It is my duty to take care of my income." 
 
 "And it is mine," said the Doctor, as he passed out 
 of the room, "to take care of my people." 
 
 And he went out of the presence of his wife baffled 
 and ashamed. 
 
 225
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE DEVIL AT WORK 
 
 THE long summer days came, bringing with them 
 their stifling heat. The clergy and people of Saint 
 Nicholas' church migrated to the mountains and the sea- 
 side. Robert Bullet's yacht, the Sea Hawk, spread its 
 white wings and sailed away to the coast of Maine. 
 
 At the same time Abigail accepted an invitation to 
 spend a part of the summer with one of her friends in the 
 country. Keturah was glad to have her go, and was 
 thankful that Abigail was in the way of being lifted out 
 of the sordid and debasing conditions of Mulberry Street. 
 She saw, however, with sadness, that her new life was 
 drawing her sister farther and farther, not only from her 
 home, but also from her people. Keturah knew that in a 
 short time she would lose Abigail altogether. As soon 
 as she began teaching she would live elsewhere. 
 
 The summer was a lonesome one for Keturah. She 
 had sad, homesick letters from Shinar. He never could 
 get used to the country. There was so much noise there ; 
 he couldn't sleep. The birds and the cattle and the chick- 
 ens wakened him before daylight, and the crickets and the 
 katy-dids wouldn't let him sleep o' nights. 
 
 When Keturah read these complaints and then 
 listened to the ceaseless din of the city streets, the rattle 
 
 227
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 and the roar, the cries of vendors and the shrieking of 
 children, she smiled at Shinar's grumbling, and wished 
 that she too might be wakened by the song of birds and 
 the lowing of cattle, and go to sleep to music of crickets 
 and the cry of the katy-did. Keturah smiled more sadly 
 when she read at the close of Shinar's letter the words, 
 asking her "not to let Abigail forget him." "Poor boy," 
 she said, under her breath, "Abigail thinks less of him 
 than he thinks of the birds and crickets." 
 
 As Keturah lay awake night after night in the sicken- 
 ing heat of her back tenement, a great fear kept watch 
 with her in the darkness. 
 
 After a brief effort at sobriety her father had fallen 
 back into his drinking habits. True to his vow that not 
 a drop of Cronin's whisky should pass down his throat, 
 he had transferred his patronage to the saloon of Patrick 
 Maloney over the way. This saloon was not nearly so 
 fashionable nor so elegant as that of the alderman. 
 
 It had no mahogany bar nor nickel-plated ale pump; 
 its sanded floor and deal tables showed that it was a re- 
 sort for the common people. Sailors and 'longshoremen 
 were among its patrons. 
 
 In this saloon Captain Bain was a great man. He 
 was a city official, and was known to have a mysterious 
 pull with the district leader. 
 
 Maloney treated the Captain with the utmost defer- 
 ence and placed at his disposal a little back room where 
 he could confer with his friends. 
 
 Keturah saw her father sinking down into lower and 
 lower stratas of life, and knew that it was only a question 
 of a little time when he would be turned out of his office 
 in the Court House, and with his dismissal would go all 
 hope of Abigail's getting a school. And if Abigail did
 
 The Devil at Work 
 
 not get a school, what could she do ? Whenever Keturah 
 thought of this she was filled with a feeling of terror. She 
 was afraid for Abigail, the girl was so pretty, so wilful, 
 and so weak. 
 
 Captain Bain did not share in Keturah's anxiety. He 
 was elated with his prospects and was bursting with self- 
 importance. From time to time he let fall mysterious 
 hints, saying, "It aint goin' to be in Noo York like it 
 has been. Flynn and the boss'll have to do different 
 if they're goin' to hold on." 
 
 Keturah paid no attention to these mutterings of her 
 father; they seemed to her simply the mutterings of a 
 drunken man. In the night she turned on her pillow in 
 despair and cried herself to sleep. In her dreams she 
 saw a very sorrowful figure whose soul looked at her out 
 of sorrowful eyes, and when she wakened in the morning 
 she was comforted, saying to herself, "If God can't help 
 me, at least he is sorry for me." 
 
 But Keturah was mistaken in thinking her father's 
 mutterings to be mere drunken vaporings. He was en- 
 gaged in an enterprise of great moment. He was entering 
 into a secret conspiracy for the overthrow of the ring that 
 ruled New York. 
 
 No less a person than Johnny Fox, a leading politician, 
 who was known to be out with the boss, visited Captain 
 Bain in the back room of Maloney's saloon. He came in 
 by the side door so that his presence should not be known 
 to the customers of the place. 
 
 One midsummer night Johnny Fox and Captain Bain 
 were sitting in conference, a bottle of whisky between 
 them, slowly drinking and talking. 
 
 "Well, Captain," said Johnny Fox, "when are ye goin' 
 to do it?" 
 
 229
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "I don't know if I'm goin' to do it at all," said the 
 Captain ; "I aint promised yet." 
 
 "Yes, you did," said Fox; "you promised yisterday." 
 
 "What if I did?" said the Captain, sullenly. "I can 
 take it back, can't I ? I'm pretty well fixed now." 
 
 "Well fixed," broke in Fox; "Flynn 'ull fix you in a 
 week or two. He aint forgot that blow you give him 
 with the whisky glass. He's jest waiting for the boss to 
 go away when he'll fire you quicker than hell and send you 
 to the Island to get you out of the way." 
 
 "I know Flynn don't like me," said Captain Bain, "but 
 he dassent fire me. I'll tell on him." 
 
 "Tell on him be damned," said Fox, "what 'ull he 
 care for that ? He 'ull say you 're a drunken liar. I tell 
 you if you want to make yourself solid wid us you've got 
 to hustle. When Flynn fires you it 'ull be too late." 
 
 "What do you want me to do?" said the Captain. 
 
 "We wants you to get in the dock-i-ment room in the 
 Court House and hide yourself in the closet and see where 
 Jim Carroll keeps thim papers of his'n. He's mighty 
 anxious about 'em and comes down a dozen times a day 
 to see if they are all right. We want you to sneak them 
 papers." 
 
 "How'll I do it?" asked the Captain. 
 
 "This way," said Fox. "To-morrow you go and hide 
 in the closet about two o'clock. I'll be about and keep 
 my eye on Carroll. When he goes in the dock-i-ment 
 room I'll foller him to the door. When he's got the 
 drawer of the dock-i-ment chist open I'll step in and say, 
 'Hello, Carroll, can I speak to you ?' He'll come all right, 
 and I'll lead him out in the hall and you sneak thim dock- 
 i-ments, and you can put these papers as look jest like 
 'em in the drawer and hide in the closet, and Carroll 'ull 
 
 230
 
 The Devil at Work 
 
 go back and see the papers all right and 'ull go away satis- 
 fied." 
 
 "And what 'ull you do with the papers?" said Cap- 
 tain Bain. 
 
 "Oh, we 'ull photograph them dock-i-ments and you'll 
 sneak 'em back again, and Carroll wont know them dock- 
 i-ments has been out o' his holy kapin' till he sees their 
 pictures in the Noo York Times." 
 
 "And then what 'ull happen ?" said the Captain. 
 
 "Then 'ull happen," said Johnny Fox, "such a ruction 
 as this town aint seen since the draft riots. The great 
 city of Noo York 'ull have a spasm of reform. The air 
 of Noo York won't be wholesome at all, at all, for the 
 boss and Tony Beekman and Jim Carroll and Paddy 
 Flynn, and they'll seek for safety in furrin' parts." 
 
 "And what good 'ull that do you, Johnny Fox ?" asked 
 Captain Bain. 
 
 "Oh," said Johnny, "when the spasm of reform .is over 
 I'll be boss." 
 
 "And what good 'ull that do me ?" said the Captain. 
 
 "If you keep straight, Captain," said Johnny Fox, "you 
 kin have Cronin's place in the ward. Now will you 
 sneak ?" 
 
 "Yes, I'll sneak." 
 
 "To-morrer?" 
 
 "Yes, to-morrer." 
 
 "Well, thin, don't you drink no more to-night. Now 
 you've agreed ; give me your hand on it." 
 
 The Captain gave his hand to Johnny Fox, and when 
 he drew it back he found that he had sold the boss for two 
 pieces of gold. 
 
 Johnny Fox went out of the side door and Captain 
 Bain, holding the money in his hand, went out of the sa- 
 loon into the street and staggered homeward. 
 
 231
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE heat of the summer had been very hard upon 
 Mother Magrath. Ever since Shinar had left her she had 
 been failing. She missed the boy sadly. She sat in her 
 empty cabin and crooned and cried : "He ate o' me mate 
 and drunk o' me cup since whin he was a baby, and now 
 he's gone and left me to die in me cabin alone, bad cess 
 to him and to the woman as sint him away." 
 
 Whenever Keturah went into the cabin she was greeted 
 with outcries and reproaches. The old woman mourned 
 so for the boy and wilted so under- the heat that Keturah 
 began to fear that she would not last through the sum- 
 mer. And she deemed it her duty to see that whatever 
 money Mrs. Magrath had, should go to Shinar at her 
 death. She knew that the old woman had no one near 
 enough of kin to inherit under the law, and she had 
 learned that if she died without disposing of her property 
 it would all go to the State. Keturah set her wits to work 
 to persuade her to make a will in favor of Shinar. She 
 knew that the one desire of Mother Magrath was to have 
 a great funeral when she died. So she approached her 
 from this side, hoping to secure for Shinar whatever re- 
 mained, and Keturah did not think it would be much, after 
 the funeral expenses were paid. 
 
 233
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 One evening, when the heat was so intolerable that 
 no one could stay in the court, Keturah took Mother Ma- 
 grath out of her cabin and walked slowly with her up to 
 the City Hall Park. They found a vacant seat near the 
 fountain and sat there, trying to believe that the falling 
 water made the air cooler. 
 
 Keturah held the old woman's hand in hers and said : 
 "I wish we could stay here all night, mother. It's so 
 much cooler than it is down in the court." 
 
 "Ye 'ud be after catchin' yer death if ye did, mavour- 
 neen." When Mother Magrath called Keturah mavour- 
 neen it was a sign that she was pleased with her. 
 
 "Well, mother," said Keturah, "if we did it wouldn't 
 matter. We've got to die sometime, you know. If not 
 to-day, then to-morrow." 
 
 "Yis, me dear, yis, and it's not fer long I'll be stayin', 
 cool or no cool. Since the bye lift me, bad cess to him, 
 I be hearin' the banshee in the cabin. It do be callin' 
 me sowl, and I 'ull be havin' to go and not a chick ner a 
 child to care for me buryin'." 
 
 "You needn't trouble about that, mother. When you 
 are taken away, Shinar and I will see that you have a 
 proper funeral," said Keturah, stroking the woman's hair. 
 
 "Ye 'ull be afther doin' that, Keturah, mavourneen ?" 
 said the old woman. 
 
 "Yes, mother," said Keturah. 
 
 "Ye 'ull have me laid in a white shroud ?" 
 
 "Yes, mother, if I have to make it myself." 
 
 "And ye'll have no common coffin, but a caskit like 
 from Moriarty's." 
 
 "Yes, mother, what color shall the casket be ? White ?" 
 
 "Niver, me dear, niver; de white caskit be all out o' 
 fashion. It's purple I 'ull be afther havin', an' a hearse 
 wid plumes and twinty hacks." 
 
 234
 
 The Making of a Will 
 
 "Twenty, mother ? Isn't that a great many ?" 
 
 "Sure it is, me child, and it's a great many I be want- 
 in'. Whin Widdy Murphy was buried she had twinty 
 hacks behind the hearse and I sid to meself, sid I, Til 
 have as miny hacks as Widdy Murphy if I has to starve 
 meself to dith fer it.' Make it twinty-two, Keturah, make 
 it twinty-two." 
 
 "You will want to be carried to the church?" said 
 Keturah. 
 
 "Yis," answered the old woman, "and ye 'ull buy a 
 mass fer me sowl. I'm no heathenish prodeshan, to be 
 thinkin' o' goin' to Mary and the blissid saints, and the 
 praste not sayin' a mass fer me sowl. You'll sure have 
 the mass, Keturah?" 
 
 "Yes, mother, you shall have the mass." 
 
 "And a wake," said Mother Magrath, eagerly. 
 
 "What kind of a wake, mother?" said Keturah. 
 
 "Ye'll have me in me white shroud in me caskit, and 
 ye'll ask me frinds and me neighbors to come and wake 
 me. I'll not lie still in me grave if ye don't give me 
 a wake," said the old woman, shaking her fist in Ke- 
 turah's face. 
 
 "Oh, you shall have your wake, mother. But I was 
 never at a wake. What do they do at a wake ?" 
 
 "Whin I do be layin' in me caskit, they do be drinkin' 
 to me hilth and wishin' me good luck where I be gone to." 
 
 "What do they drink ?" said Keturah. 
 
 "Whisky," said the woman. 
 
 "Oh, not whisky, mother. I can never let them drink 
 whisky. Surely you don't want them to drink whisky at 
 your wake," cried Keturah. 
 
 "Yis, yis," said the old woman, excitedly, "widout 
 whisky it's no wake. You'll have whisky, now won't ye, 
 Keturah, darlin'?" 
 
 235
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 Keturah, who was a Yankee, answered this question 
 by asking another. "But how is all this funeral to be 
 paid for, Mother Magrath? It'll cost a deal of money." 
 
 "Oh, I 'ull pay fer it all right. I've been savin' pinny 
 by pinny fer me funeral." 
 
 "Well then, mother," said Keturah, "you must make 
 a will." 
 
 "Make a will ? Phwat's that ?" 
 
 "That is a paper saying what shall be done with your 
 money after you are dead. If you don't make a will the 
 police will come and take all your money and they will 
 keep it, too," said Keturah. 
 
 "The cops, did ye say? Niver. They be stalin' me 
 money all me life. Not a pinny fer them whin I'm dead." 
 
 "Well, then, you must make a will," said Keturah. 
 
 "You 'ull be makin' it fer me, Keturah, darlin', that's 
 a good girl. Wont ye now?" 
 
 Keturah took the old woman down home in the early 
 morning hours and the next day, having consulted with 
 Mr. Rosenthal, she brought a lawyer to the cabin and 
 there in the presence of two witnesses was executed the 
 last will and testament of Mary Magrath ; in which, after 
 paying all debts and funeral expenses, she devised the rest 
 and residue of her property, of which she should die pos- 
 sessed, to one Jesse Shinar, her adopted son, and Ke- 
 turah was named in the will as sole executrix. Keturah 
 paid the lawyer for making the will and put it away in 
 the safe in Mr. Rosenthal's office. 
 
 Without knowing it, Shinar had become an heir. 
 
 236
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 BUYING A CORONET 
 
 THERE is no place on the surface of the earth that has 
 greater charms than the west porch of the Suydam Manor 
 House. Places of greater sublimity there may be, but 
 none of greater charm. 
 
 The Manor House lies upon the east bank of the Hud- 
 son river, halfway between Tivoli and Cedar Hill. It 
 stands on the crest of the hill that slopes down to the 
 river. It is set far back from the road and is approached 
 through a long avenue, bordered by cedars. It is a white 
 house, low and long, and was built in the early part of the 
 eighteenth century. It had been the country home of 
 the Suydam family for four generations. Dr. Suydam 
 had inherited it from an uncle, and he loved it better than 
 any other place in the world. 
 
 Mrs. Suydam preferred her more pretentious cottage 
 at Newport. But to Newport Dr. Suydam would never 
 go and so, to save appearances, Mrs. Suydam had to spend 
 a portion of each summer at the Manor House. This, 
 which was a vexation to her, was a delight to her daugh- 
 ter Katherine, who loved the Manor House almost as 
 ardently as Dr. Suydam himself. She saw, what her 
 mother did not, that this old house on the Hudson had 
 about it a distinguished and aristocratic air that was al- 
 
 237
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 together wanting to the evident newness of the Newport 
 cottage. 
 
 Katherine had also what her mother lacked, a soul to 
 appreciate the beauties of Nature, and because of this she 
 loved the west porch of the Manor House. From that 
 porch she looked out over the wide waters of the Hudson 
 river, the white houses of the village of Saugerties, and 
 then on beyond the foothills to the great Kaaterskill or 
 Catskill range of mountains. 
 
 No mountains in the world are more lovable than 
 the Catskill. They have a combined dignity and sweet- 
 ness which gives them all the grace and charm of a mag- 
 nificent and beautiful woman. As one watches them he 
 is ashamed, as if he were spying on a woman in her 
 privacy. 
 
 In the morning the mountain wakens and makes her 
 toilet. She bathes herself in the gray mist that hides her 
 from prying eyes. She comes out of her bath blushing 
 rosy red in the light of the rising sun. When her toilet 
 is finished she goes about her daily work as dainty as a 
 bride on the bridal day. Her one occupation is to make 
 herself lovely. She creates herself ornaments out of cloud 
 shadows; she is capricious and changes her dress with 
 the changing hours. Now she is clothed in the gray garb 
 of the nun, and now in the purple of the princess, and 
 again in the green of the huntress. 
 
 The storms that break over her only give her the 
 added beauty which tears give to the eyes of a woman. 
 She bursts into a passion of thunder sobs, only to smile 
 more charmingly when the passion has spent itself in re- 
 freshing rain. 
 
 Like all women, these mountains are at their best in 
 the evening. Then they dress for the grand function of 
 
 238
 
 Buying a Coronet 
 
 the day. They are to dance with the clouds and make 
 love to the stars. For this they clothe themselves in crim- 
 son and crown themselves with gold. And when the 
 evening gayeties are over they cover themselves with 
 darkness and go to sleep. Sitting on the west porch of the 
 Manor House and looking out at their dark and massive 
 forms, one can almost think that he can hear them breathe 
 and has for them the awe and reverence which the pure 
 soul has for a sleeping woman. 
 
 Who once has loved these mountains can never have 
 a second love. Alp and Appenine are cold, and not for 
 a moment to be compared in sympathy and loveliness with 
 these bewitching mountains of the west. 
 
 Katherine Bullet loved these mountains and made 
 them her confidants. They were now her chosen wit- 
 nesses at the time of her betrothal. She had come to 
 the Manor House to entertain and accept a proposal of 
 marriage. As she sat down on the west porch waiting 
 for her lover, who was to arrive by the evening train, 
 there was about her no air of blushing expectancy. Her 
 brow was in a frown and her lips were in a pout, as if 
 she were dissatisfied with what she was about to do. She 
 had sat for an hour and more watching the mountains 
 with a feeling of shame. They were quiet, content with 
 their station in life, while she was restless, eager, ready 
 to give herself to a man whom she did not love, for the 
 sake of higher social position. 
 
 She was about to give her virgin soul for a coronet 
 and that virgin soul shrank from the sacrifice, as from 
 a profanation. 
 
 As she was meditating with much discomfort on this 
 treason to her higher self, she heard the sound of wheels 
 on the avenue, and a moment later found herself in the 
 arms of her dearest friend, Florence Beekman. 
 
 239
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "Oh, Kathe," exclaimed Florence, who was as dark 
 as Katherine was fair. "Oh, Kathe! is it really so?" 
 
 "Is what really so, you goosie?" 
 
 "You know what I mean. Is he coming?" 
 
 "To what particular he, among the infinite number 
 of possible he's, do you refer?" 
 
 "Oh, yes," said Florence, "you can afford to be mys- 
 terious and sarcastic when you know that the Marquis of 
 Dipford is coming to lay at your feet the coronet of 
 Senlac." 
 
 "The Marquis of Dipford is coming, I believe, but the 
 coronet of Senlac is not his to lay at any one's feet. His 
 father, the Duke of Senlac, is alive, and may outlive this 
 son as he has outlived his elder brother, and then who will 
 be Duchess of Senlac? Certainly not the widow of Dip- 
 ford. Dipford is only a title by courtesy, and the widow 
 of Dipford will only be Lady Fitz Osborn, even if she is 
 Lady and not plain Mrs. Fitz Osborn." 
 
 "Oh, you wretched girl," cried Florence, "you are 
 not so much as engaged to Dipford and here you are 
 talking about being his widow." 
 
 "It is well to consider possibilities when you are buy- 
 ing futures. If I give five millions down for the coronet 
 of Senlac and then the market is short and the coronet is 
 never delivered, do I get my money back? I guess not. 
 My money has gone to save the Senlac estates from the 
 hammer and I get nothing but plain Mrs. Fitz Osborn, and 
 some haughty English woman comes in for the circle of 
 gold. I tell you this buying of coronets is risky business." 
 
 But you will not refuse the Marquis, will you, 
 Kathe?" 
 
 "Refuse him? Oh, no. Dipford is not much of a 
 man, but he is the best the market affords, and, poor as he 
 is, he will do to hang my social ambitions on." 
 
 240
 
 Buying 1 a Coronet 
 
 "But, Kathe, dear, you love him just a little bit, 
 don't you ?" 
 
 "Love him, Florence, love that manikin? What girl 
 talks of loving to-day, and what is there for her to love ? 
 I could love," said Katherine, rising and pacing the 
 porch, "I could love some great Irish king who would 
 crush me in his arms and smother my mouth with his red 
 beard. But love these worn-out roues of a worn-out 
 social class. Never. A woman who could love them, 
 must come to them as they come to her, with her forces 
 spent in dissipation. It is a shame to waste fresh woman- 
 hood upon such a stale manhood." 
 
 "Now, Kathe," said Florence, "don't ride quite 'such 
 a high horse. Did you never see a man you could love?" 
 
 "Yes," said Katherine, "one." 
 
 "Who, pray ?" said Florence. 
 
 "Wilkins," said Katherine. 
 
 "What, Wilkins the coachman?" cried Florence, 
 laughing. 
 
 "Yes, Wilkins the coachman, and you needn't laugh. 
 Wilkins is a man with strong arms and mighty 
 thighs, and then, Wilkins can do something. He can 
 drive horses. But these little men without arm or thigh 
 or calf, who lisp and drawl, whose highest ambition is 
 croquet or tennis; what woman is not ashamed to look 
 at them, much less love them ?" 
 
 "Well, my dear," said Florence, "will you run away 
 with Wilkins and give us a charming sensation in high 
 life?" 
 
 "Impossible, impossible ; a better woman than I se- 
 cured the felicity of Wilkins years ago, and she is the 
 mother of ten. No, I who crave the fierce embraces of 
 an Irish king must put up with the mild attentions of an 
 English marquis." 
 
 241
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "And there is not a girl in America," said Florence, 
 " who doesn't envy you these mild attentions." 
 
 "There, there, my dear, there you have it. I marry 
 Dipford that I may wave my hand from my ducal car- 
 riage at the Van Dorns, the Van Vechtens, and the 
 Schuylers. I have played the game against them and 
 I've beaten them. Now I must pay the price and the 
 price is my body, my soul, and my fortune." 
 
 "But Kathe, you know down in your secret heart that 
 Dipford isn't half bad." 
 
 "I know," said Katherine, "that Dipford is as good 
 as his kind. He is twenty-two. He has run his course 
 for four if not six years. He has about used up all the 
 strength he ever had. But I guess I can groom him up 
 and make an English statesman of him. I reckon there 
 is enough left of him for that." 
 
 "You wretched girl, how you talk !" said Florence. 
 
 "I am a wretched girl! No one more wretched at 
 this moment in all the world. But come, let us go and 
 dress before his lordship arrives." 
 
 242
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 A SORRY BARGAIN 
 
 WHEN Katherine came down ready to receive her 
 suitor, she looked the duchess that she was to be. Her 
 evening gown was a sea-green silk, which broke into 
 ripples of lace about her bosom. Out of this sea foam her 
 shoulders rose, contrasting softly with the whiteness of 
 the lace. Had the lace not been there one would have 
 thought the shoulders white, but with the lace about them 
 they revealed the delicate pink of the seashell. 
 
 From the shoulders the neck shot up slender and long, 
 holding a head as proud as the head of any duchess within 
 the four seas. And above it all, the great coils of reddish 
 hair that changed its shade with every change of light. 
 
 It did seem a pity that this magnificent Irish girl 
 should not be the bride of some old Irish king and breed 
 O'Briens for the throne. 
 
 When Katherine and Florence entered the drawing 
 room they found the dinner party waiting for them. The 
 distinguished guest of the evening was the Marquis of 
 Dipford. This heir to one of the oldest and proudest 
 titles in the English peerage did not altogether belie his 
 descent. He had about him an air of elegant insolence, 
 which is the characteristic of those who hold high places 
 in the world. It was the air of a man who was accus- 
 
 243
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 tomed to command and to be obeyed. In person the Mar- 
 quis was not altogether unattractive. He was tall and 
 slender. His hair and side whiskers were the hair and 
 whiskers of the English blonde, almost flaxen in color. 
 He had the long, thin, aristocratic nose. So far good, but 
 his face ended badly in a weak mouth and chin and was 
 of an ashy paleness, showing a poor condition of the 
 blood. His whole figure was emaciated, and Katherine 
 well might doubt the safety of her investment. 
 
 As she entered she greeted the Marquis coldly, and 
 taking his arm went out with him to dinner. It was a 
 family party and the dinner was a quiet one. 
 
 After the coffee had been served in the drawing room 
 Katherine and the Marquis passed out into the grounds 
 behind the house. It was a beautiful summer night. The 
 moon was full and the river and the mountains were seen 
 in that mysterious light which reveals while it conceals. 
 
 The whip-poor-wills were sending out their melan- 
 choly cry from the hillsides, and the crickets were chirrup- 
 ing in the grass. Katherine stood still for a moment, and 
 then broke the silence saying: "How do you like our 
 country ? Don't you think this is a beautiful place ?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, this is all right, but your country's awfully 
 new, you know," said the Marquis. "You ought to see the 
 West." 
 
 "Oh, I have seen the West ; but what did you see there 
 that attracted your attention ?" 
 
 "Stumps, and what you call saloons. Drinking places, 
 you know." 
 
 "Yes, I know ; but how did you come to think so much 
 of stumps and saloons?'' 
 
 "Well, you know we would ride for hours and hours 
 through the country and nothing but stumps, then we 
 
 244
 
 A Sorry Bargain 
 
 would come to a town, nothing but saloons. It seemed 
 to me that the Americans had cut down all their trees to 
 build saloons?" 
 
 Katherine Bullet laughed and said: "You will not 
 carry away a very high idea of our country, will you ?" 
 
 "Oh, I've seen something beside stumps and saloons." 
 
 "What?" said Katherine. 
 
 "Oh, I've seen some of the finest horses and women in 
 the world." 
 
 "Indeed ! And which did you admire the most ?" 
 
 "The women. You have the finest women in the world 
 here in America." 
 
 "You flatter us," said Katherine. 
 
 "Not at all," said the young man, "I mean every word 
 I say and more. I beg your pardon, but you, yourself, are 
 the finest woman I have seen in my life." 
 
 "Your lordship does me honor," said Katherine, with 
 a sweeping courtesy. 
 
 "I mean to do you honor if you will let me. I came 
 here on purpose to ask you to be my wife." 
 
 "Your wife?" said Katherine, looking away over the 
 river to the mountain. 
 
 "Yes, my wife. I liked you the very first time I saw 
 you. You are a stunning girl. I wish you would let me 
 write to my father, the Duke of Senlac, that you accept 
 my proposal. I know he will be pleased." 
 
 "May I ask by what name your lordship is called in 
 your own family?" 
 
 "My name?" said the Marquis. 
 
 "Yes, your name, surely they do not call you my lord 
 all the time." 
 
 "My name is Reginald Maurice Thomas Henry Fitz 
 Osborn, Marquis of Dipford and Baron Brockton." 
 
 245
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "Merciful me," exclaimed Katherine looking the young 
 man up and down, "are you all that ?" 
 
 "Yes," said the Marquis, blushing. 
 
 "Well," said Katherine, "if I am to consider your 
 proposal I must have a shorter name than that. I could 
 never think of saying 'yes' or 'no' to Reginald Maurice 
 Thomas Henry Fitz Osborn, Marquis of Dipford and 
 Baron Brockton." 
 
 "Oh, you needn't call all that every time, you know. 
 At home they call me Tommy." 
 
 "There now," said Katherine, "that is something like. 
 Well, Tommy, you want me to be your wife?" 
 
 "I certainly do," said Tommy. 
 
 "Why?" said Katherine. 
 
 "Because I like you better than any girl I have ever 
 known." 
 
 "You are sure of that?" 
 
 "Perfectly." 
 
 "Before you English people marry you make what 
 you call settlements do you not?" 
 
 "Yes, but my friend, Mr. Du Pre, will attend to that, 
 shall I send him to your father?" 
 
 "No, send him to me." 
 
 "To you?" 
 
 "Yes, to me," said Katherine. "We American girls 
 attend to our own business. 
 
 "I will send him in the morning. I may say to him 
 that you will consider my proposition ?" said the Marquis. 
 
 "Yes," said Katherine. 
 
 "Thanks," said the Marquis. "May I ?" and he came 
 to the girl holding out his arms. 
 
 "Yes," she said, "you may kiss my hand," and she 
 held out her hand. 
 
 246
 
 A Sorry Bargain 
 
 "Thanks," he said, brushing her hand with his lips. 
 "We always kiss the Queen's hand at court receptions." 
 
 Without further words Katherine turned and went 
 into the house. 
 
 247
 
 CHAPTER X 
 A WOMAN'S FATE 
 
 THE morning after the ardent love scene described in 
 the previous chapter, found Katherine Bullet sitting on the 
 west porch of the Manor House, watching the sunlight 
 on the mountains. The clear air brought the great hills 
 very near to her and as she looked at them she wished that 
 she might go and hide herself in their depths, and live a 
 mountain maiden all her days. Her soul was crying for 
 the simplicity of nature. 
 
 As she was musing on the hard fate that compelled 
 her to live an artificial life with artificial people, her revery 
 was disturbed by the presence of Dr. Suydam on the 
 porch. He came to where she was sitting and gently laid 
 his hand upon her head, saying: "I hear, my dear, that 
 you are to be congratulated. You have accepted the pro- 
 posal of the Marquis of Dipford." 
 
 "Hardly that, Daddy," said Katherine, looking up, "I 
 have consented to consider the young man's proposition. 
 Whether I accept it or not will depend altogether upon 
 the terms which he offers." There was a weariness in 
 Katherine's voice that stirred a chord of pity in the heart 
 of Dr. Suydam. 
 
 "Is not that rather a cold way of considering a pro- 
 posal of marriage ?" said he. 
 
 249
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "Not when the proposal comes from such a man as 
 Dipford to such a woman as I am. A proposal of mar- 
 riage between us has nothing sentimental about it. It is a 
 matter of cold business." 
 
 "Why so, my dear ? You are the very woman to rouse 
 sentiment in the heart of a man. You are a woman that 
 any man might love." 
 
 "Yes," said Katherine, looking wistfully over at the 
 mountains. "Any man might, but any man wont." 
 
 "Why not, my child ?" said the Doctor, "why not, why 
 should you not inspire love as well as any woman in the 
 world?" 
 
 "Because," answered the girl, rising and walking to 
 the front of the porch, and turning her back on the moun- 
 tains, "because I am not a woman, I am twenty millions of 
 dollars, and twenty millions of dollars may inspire greed, 
 avarice, envy, hatred, and malice, but never love." 
 
 "But you do not think, Kathe dear, that your fortune 
 shuts you out from all human affection?" 
 
 "Yes, it does, Daddy, yes it does. It shuts me out 
 from all human affection except yours," and the girl went 
 over and kissed the Doctor on the cheek. 
 
 "If you think in that way why do you not get rid of 
 your fortune?" said the Doctor, taking her hand. 
 
 "You might as well ask me," said the girl, "why I 
 don't get rid of my head. I was born with one as well 
 as with the other. Take my head or my fortune away 
 and I am not I." 
 
 "There, my dear, you are mistaken. Your head is 
 your dear, lovely self, but your fortune is simply an acci- 
 dent of your life, a train of circumstances you carry 
 about with you." 
 
 "Yes," said the girl, "but I am old enough to know 
 
 250
 
 A Woman's Fate 
 
 that our fate depends far more on our circumstances than 
 on ourselves, no matter how dear and lovely we may be. 
 Do you suppose if I were only my dear, lovely self that 
 the Marquis of Dipford would make a proposal of mar- 
 riage to me? Don't you believe it, Daddy. He might 
 make me a proposal, but it would not be of marriage. 
 He might want me, I think he would, but not for his 
 wife." 
 
 "But, Kathe dear, under these conditions, why marry 
 at all? Why not devote yourself and your fortune to 
 charity and good works?" 
 
 "Heaven deliver me from such a fate as that! A 
 fashionable slummer; the prey of designing parsons and 
 crazy cranks. Making myself lady bountiful to the poor 
 and turning honest, hard-working folk into paupers. 
 No, thank you, anything but that. No, Daddy mine, I 
 am shut in by hard fate to just one calling. I must play 
 the social game, or not play at all." 
 
 "But, Katherine, you can surely satisfy your social 
 ambitions in this country. There are men of wealth and 
 position who would be glad to marry you." 
 
 "Wealth and position," cried Katherine, scornfully, 
 "to marry wealth would be simply to add money to 
 money, which when one has twenty millions is a tiresome 
 and useless process, and as for position I have that 
 already ; thanks to you, Daddy, I am already the swellest 
 of the swells. No, Daddy, no, I must have new worlds to 
 conquer, or I must die." 
 
 "And do you think you can conquer by means of the 
 Marquis of Dipford?" said the Doctor, smiling. 
 
 "Yes," answered Katherine, "I do. In the first place, 
 when I marry Dipford I will enter the most select social 
 circle in the world. I shall be a member of the aristocracy 
 
 251
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 of England. Then if I can keep Dipford alive, I will, in 
 due time, exercise great influence as the wife of a leading 
 member of Parliament and a Cabinet Minister, and by 
 and bye be Duchess of Senlac." 
 
 "You expect Dipford," said the Doctor with a merry 
 twinkle in his eye, "to reach such distinction in the 
 state ?" 
 
 "Yes, if he marries me, I do," said Katherine, "Dip- 
 ford isn't half a fool. All he needs is proper grooming. 
 I have detected in him a power of observation and a 
 faculty for epigrammatic remark which will make his 
 fortune in English public life." 
 
 "Indeed," said the Doctor, "from my little knowledge 
 of the young man I never should have believed him capa- 
 ble of any great mental effort." 
 
 "It isn't mental effort, it is just genius. Last night, 
 when I asked him what he saw out West he answered 
 stumps and saloons. Now, that I call genius. Thousands 
 of tourists have traveled across the American Continent 
 and have seen the mountains and the rivers and the broad 
 prairies, but this young man saw stumps and saloons, and 
 when you come to think of it that is just what you do 
 see. Miles and miles of stumps and hundreds and hun- 
 dreds of saloons. And Dipford went on to draw a con- 
 clusion from what he saw. He said that the Americans 
 had cut down all the trees to build saloons, and so in a 
 simple sentence Dipford laid bare the secret of American 
 life. We have destroyed the forest to build the saloon. 
 A young man who can say things like that has a future." 
 
 "And you mean to marry in order to share Dipford's 
 triumphs ?" 
 
 "I mean to marry him in order to make his triumphs. 
 Without me, Dipford would be simply a string of ciphers 
 
 252
 
 A Woman's Fate 
 
 as long as his titles, with me he will be that same string 
 of ciphers with the figure one before them." 
 
 "Take care, Katherine; remember what Wolsey said 
 to Cromwell. 'Fling away ambition.' " 
 
 "Yes, and fling away all there is left me in the world." 
 
 "You despair of love, then?" 
 
 "Yes, love is frightened away by my fortune. He can 
 never reach the heart through twenty millions of dollars." 
 
 Here the conversation was interrupted by Simmons, 
 the butler, who brought Katherine a card bearing the 
 name of Archibald Du Pre.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 FOR SO MUCH 
 
 WHEN Katherine entered the library and her visitor 
 rose up to meet her she took a step backward in surprise. 
 Knowing him to be the attorney of the Marquis of Dip- 
 ford, she had expected to see an elderly man, with a bald 
 head and glasses. She found herself, however, in the 
 presence of a young man, not more than thirty years old, 
 tall, slender, alert, with dark hair and eyes, a man of the 
 French, rather than of the English type. There ran in 
 his veins, as Katherine saw at once, not the cold blood of 
 the Saxon, but the hot blood of the Gaul. 
 
 When he rose to meet her the eyes of the stranger 
 manifested the admiration which he could not conceal, 
 and Katherine returned his gaze with one equally admir- 
 ing. They stood for a moment in silence, Katherine 
 thinking to herself: "What a pity! What a pity! this 
 should not be the attorney of the Marquis of Dipford, 
 but the Marquis of Dipford himself;" then blushing at 
 her silence, she said, "Mr. Du Pre, I believe?" 
 
 "At your service," he answered, bowing. 
 
 "You wish to see me ?" asked the lady. 
 
 "Yes," he answered. "I come from the Marquis of 
 Dipford who tells me that you have consented to receive 
 a proposal of marriage from him." 
 
 255
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "That is true, I have consented to consider such a pro- 
 posal," said Katherine. 
 
 "May I say," said the gentleman, still standing, "now 
 that I see you I consider the Marquis exceeding fortunate 
 to win the affection of a lady of so much beauty, and 
 unless her face belies her, of so much goodness." 
 
 "And," added Katherine, "of so much wealth," smil- 
 ing and seating herself, and motioning Mr. Du Pre to a 
 chair. 
 
 He looked at her with a merry twinkle in his eye, and 
 said : "I have been told that the American ladies are 
 cynical." 
 
 "Truthful, if you please, Mr. Du Pre," answered 
 Katherine, "we are both aware that were it not for my 
 wealth I would never be thought of as the wife of the 
 Marquis of Dipford, and to be perfectly frank were it 
 not for his rank I would never think of the Marquis of 
 Dipford in the light of a husband." 
 
 "I presume," said Mr. Du Pre, "that worldly con- 
 siderations do necessarily enter into such a proposal as 
 the Marquis of Dipford has made to you. But let me 
 assure you that above and beyond all that, the Marquis 
 has for you the greatest respect and admiration. His 
 feelings are deeply engaged. He desires this alliance, not 
 merely from motives of interest, but from motives of 
 affection." 
 
 "I am sure," answered Katherine, "that the Marquis 
 is very kind to prefer an American girl to all the beauties 
 of England." 
 
 "The Marquis, I assure you, has grounds for his 
 preference. May I be so bold as to say that there is not 
 in all England a more beautiful woman than yourself, 
 none upon whose head the coronet of Senlac would rest 
 more worthily." 
 
 256
 
 For So Much 
 
 "Thank you, sir," answered Katherine, "but do you 
 not think that our conversation is rather inconsequent? 
 It is hardly necessary to tell a woman that she is beauti- 
 ful. That is the first article of her creed. Skeptic in all 
 else, she believes in her own beauty with all the zeal of a 
 fanatic. I think we can, if you please take that for 
 granted, and putting aside all sentimentality pass on to 
 the business that brings us together. I understand that 
 the estate of Senlac is heavily incumbered." 
 
 "I regret to say that it is," answered Mr. Du Pre, 
 "the indebtedness has been accumulating for a long time, 
 until now the interest on the indebtedness almost equals 
 the income from the estate. The Duke of Senlac is really 
 a poor man." 
 
 "The family, I understand, is one of the oldest in 
 England," said Katherine. 
 
 "Yes," answered Mr. Du Pre, "the Fitz Osborns came 
 over with William from Normandy, and Hugh Fitz 
 Osborn was created Duke of Senlac immediately after 
 the Conquest. He married a niece of Harold, the last of 
 the English kings, so that the family of Fitz Osborn 
 unite in one stream the noblest blood of the Norman and 
 the English races." 
 
 "Indeed," said Katherine, "do you not think the 
 stream is rather thin and watery in the veins of the Mar- 
 quis of Dipford?" 
 
 "Perhaps, perhaps," answered Mr. Du Pre, smiling. 
 "The Marquis is not as robust as we should like him to 
 be, but he is very young and will grow stronger as he 
 grows older." 
 
 "That does not necessarily follow," said Katherine, 
 "but we are wandering from the business in hand. What 
 did you say were the extent of the incumbrances resting 
 upon the estate of Senlac?" 
 
 257
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "I cannot answer that question exactly, but I am 
 afraid they are not less than one million pounds." 
 
 "That is a large sum of money," said Katherine. 
 
 "Very large," said Mr. Du Pre. 
 
 "But not so large that I cannot relieve the estate of 
 its burden should I enter the family as the wife of the 
 Marquis of Dipford. I will be perfectly frank with you. 
 I am a woman of very large wealth. I own one-third of 
 an undivided share in my father's estate; this estate is 
 estimated at sixty millions of dollars, and is invested so 
 that it is yielding ten per cent, per annum on its valuation. 
 My income from the estate is about two millions a year. 
 I have not, of course, been able to spend this income, and 
 beside my undivided share in my father's estate I have 
 about six million dollars invested in various securities in 
 my own name." 
 
 "You certainly," said Mr. Du Pre, "have been greatly 
 blessed by fortune." 
 
 "Blessed or cursed as you please," said Katherine, 
 "the fortune is there. It is piling up every day. It is 
 not doing me, nor, so far as I can see, any one else any 
 good. I must make some use of it, and the only thing 
 I can think of is to use it to secure for myself the highest 
 possible place in the social world, in which I am con- 
 demned by my fortune to live." 
 
 "I fear," said Mr. Du Pre, "that you do not find per- 
 fect satisfaction in the social world." 
 
 "I do not," said Katherine, "but so far as I can see no 
 one finds any great satisfaction in any world, but whether 
 we like it or not we have to live in the world in which we 
 find ourselves. I belong to the world of wealth, and can 
 with wealth command high social position. It is all my 
 world has to give me, and I take it." 
 
 258
 
 For So Much 
 
 "Have you never thought of love ?" said Mr. Du Pre, 
 ardently. 
 
 "Sentiment and money, Mr. Du Pre, are not near of 
 kin to each other. We who are born to wealth and station 
 must not consider our hearts. We must look to our 
 wealth and our station, so again, I say, if you please, to 
 business. If I accept the proposal of the Marquis of Dip- 
 ford it will be my first duty and pleasure to relieve the 
 estate of Senlac of all indebtedness." 
 
 "This is, indeed, the princely act of a princely 
 woman," said Mr. Du Pre. 
 
 "But," said Katherine, "this is not unconditional. 
 The Marquis of Dipford is not strong. His elder brother, 
 I understand recently died of consumption. Is that so?" 
 
 "Yes," answered Mr. Du Pre. "Consumption brought 
 on by dissipation." Mr. Du Pre was silent for a moment, 
 and then answered, blushing, "The late Marquis of Dip- 
 ford was ruined, not to say killed, by a designing and 
 wicked woman." 
 
 "I fear," said Katherine, "that the present Marquis 
 has not escaped altogether from the dangers that de- 
 stroyed his brother." 
 
 "He has not," said Mr. Du Pre. "It was to save him 
 from the same woman that he was brought to America, 
 and I beg of you, Miss Bullet, to use that influence which 
 you have over the young man to deliver him from an evil 
 power that is bent on his destruction, and save one of the 
 oldest and proudest families of England from extinction." 
 
 "It is a sorry task," said Katherine sadly, "but I will 
 try. I will pay the indebtedness of the estate of Senlac 
 on condition that Dipford House and the estate immedi- 
 ately connected with it is conveyed to me, and upon the 
 further condition that a mortgage covering the whole 
 
 259
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 estate of Senlac is made out in my name. This is to pre- 
 vent any further borrowing by the present Duke or the 
 Marquis of Dipford, and in consideration of this mort- 
 gage I will grant to the present Duke an income of fifty 
 thousand pounds and to the Marquis of Dipford an in- 
 come of twenty thousand pounds." 
 
 "I will lay your propositions before the Duke, and am 
 sure that he will consider them most favorably, and I 
 hope it will soon be my pleasure to welcome you as its 
 future mistress to the Castle of Senlac," said Mr. Du Pre. 
 
 "If you will call upon my lawyers, Hamilton, Chose 
 and Hamilton, they will have the settlements ready within 
 a week," said Katherine. 
 
 "Thank you, I will call," and Mr. Du Pre bowed and 
 left the house. 
 
 Katherine went onto the west porch of the Manor 
 House, and said to Dr. Suydam, who was waiting for 
 her: 
 
 "Well, Daddy, I've bought a dukedom." 
 
 "Have you, my dear? For how much?" 
 
 "Oh, for so much. I have given for it everything I 
 have but my heart." 
 
 260
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 YES, YOUR GRACE 
 
 THE summer was over and gone, but it was summer 
 time still in the Suydam Mansion upon the avenue. In 
 that favored spot art had triumphed over nature. Novem- 
 ber winds were bitter in the streets and November rains 
 were cold, but in this house the air was soft and warm, 
 and the flowers were blooming gaily. Mrs. Suydam was 
 taking a last look at her rooms, before leaving them to 
 dress for dinner. 
 
 These rooms were decorated for one of the greatest 
 social events that had ever occurred in the City of New 
 York. The Duke of Senlac was to dine with Dr. and 
 Mrs. Suydam, and thus publicly celebrate the engage- 
 ment of his eldest living son, the Marquis of Dipford, to 
 Katherine Bullet, only daughter of Mrs. Suydam, and 
 heiress in her own right to twenty millions of dollars. 
 
 This event was creating the wildest excitement in 
 the city. Not only were social circles stirred to their 
 depths, but the commonality were agog to all that was 
 going on. Penny papers carried the news to Mulberry 
 Street, and the faces of the Duke of Senlac, the Marquis 
 of Dipford, of Katherine, and Dr. and Mrs. Suydam were 
 made familiar to the newsboy and the boot-black. It was 
 stated that immediately after the great dinner the Mar- 
 
 261
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 quis of Dipford and Robert Bullet would sail for Europe 
 on the new steam yacht, which young Bullet had just 
 built at the cost of half a million of dollars. 
 
 Keturah Bain read of these doing in which Dr. Suy- 
 dam was engaged with a sinking heart. He seemed far 
 removed from her dark and dismal life. She could not 
 think of him as one to whom she could go with the great 
 and new trouble that had come upon her. 
 
 But Mrs. Suydam, as she stood in the midst of her 
 dining room lined with smilax and blooming with Ameri- 
 can beauties, had no suspicion that all this grandeur was 
 making a sad heart sadder, down in the purlieus of Mul- 
 berry Street. 
 
 Mrs. Suydam was at the height of her social success. 
 She was to entertain nobility, and those who were in- 
 vited to meet his Grace would be the envy of all New 
 York in the morning. The satisfaction of Mrs. Suydam 
 was marred by the thought that she owed this crowning 
 success of her life to her daughter rather than to herself. 
 She thought, with some bitterness, that if she were as free 
 as the Duke of Senlac she might that night have been 
 celebrating her own instead of her daughter's engage- 
 ment. 
 
 Simmons, the butler, was busy arranging the tables. 
 Mrs. Suydam said, "Simmons." 
 
 He stopped with a start and said : "Yes, Mrs. Suy- 
 dam." 
 
 "You have placed the Duke of Senlac on my right and 
 Lady Napier on my left, the Marquis of Dipford on the 
 right of Dr. Suydam, and Miss Katherine on his left." 
 
 "Yes, Mrs. Suydam," said Simmons, "and I've put 
 Mayor Beekman next the Duke 'cause he is a good talker, 
 and I've put Mr. Du Pre next Miss Katherine." 
 
 262
 
 Yes, Your Grace 
 
 "Pray, who is Mr. Du Pre ?" 
 
 "He is the lawyer of the Marquis of Dipford." 
 
 "Who told you to invite him to this dinner, and give 
 him a place next my daughter?" said Mrs. Suydam, 
 haughtily. 
 
 "If you please, madam" (when Mrs. Suydam was 
 angry Simmons always called her madam), "if you 
 please, Miss Katherine told me I was to be sure and send 
 Mr. Du Pre a card. She directed it herself and she told 
 me I was to put him next to her at table." 
 
 "That will do, Simmons. You may leave Mr. Du Pre 
 where he is, as my daughter wishes it to be so. You 
 have placed Mr. Robert next to Miss Beekman?" 
 
 "Yes, Mrs. Suydam." 
 
 "Very well. I wish you would see Signer Morrelo 
 when he comes, and ask him to have his orchestra play 
 very softly during dinner. Sometimes Morrelo forgets 
 that a dinner is not a concert." 
 
 Two hours later Mrs. Suydam was receiving her 
 guests in the drawing room. The Duke of Senlac was at 
 her side, and he was all that a duke should be. He was 
 in court dress for the occasion with star and garter. He 
 was the most brilliant among a group of brilliant figures. 
 The English ambassador was there, two generals and an 
 admiral with their showy uniforms, and merchant princes 
 with their wives and their daughters : these latter sur- 
 passing the assemblage of any court in Europe in the 
 richness of their gowns and the splendor of their jewels. 
 
 The Duke of Selnac was very attentive to Katherine 
 Bullet, who stood on his left. These attentions were 
 interrupted by greetings which he gave to and received 
 from the various guests as they were presented by Mrs. 
 Suydam ; but in spite of these interruptions he kept up a 
 
 263
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 running talk with his prospective daughter for whom 
 he evidently had the greatest admiration. 
 
 "It is lucky for Dipford," said the Duke, "that he had 
 the first chance with you, my dear." 
 
 "Why so, your Grace?" said Katherine. 
 
 "Because if he hadn't you wouldn't have had to wait 
 for me to die to become Duchess of Senlac." 
 
 "Why not, sir?" said Katherine. 
 
 "Because, my dear, I should have married you my- 
 self," said the Duke, slyly pressing Katherine's hand. 
 
 "You," said Katherine, "and the Duchess not a year 
 dead. Oh, fie, fie, on you ! For shame !" 
 
 "I honor the late Duchess," said the Duke, "and I 
 mourn her as dead; but, my dear, one living woman is 
 worth a hundred dead ones, especially when so young 
 and so fair as my daughter that is to be. Worse luck to 
 me that she should be a daughter and not nearer and 
 dearer." 
 
 "Your Grace shows your court training, but perhaps 
 I might have something else to say. Pardon me, I feel 
 too young for one of your age and rank." 
 
 "Too young for me, you mischief," said the Duke. 
 "You mean I am too old for you, but look at me now. 
 Am not I as good a man as Dipford?" 
 
 "Better, my lord," said Katherine. 
 
 "Better," cried the Duke, gaily, "better. Now I am 
 more sorry for myself than ever. Dipford isn't much of 
 a man, is he?" 
 
 "Not much, your Grace," said Katherine. 
 
 "Why then, do you marry him?" 
 
 "To become Duchess of Senlac and to make the Mar- 
 quis of Dipford, in due time, prime minister of Eng- 
 land." 
 
 264
 
 Yes, Your Grace 
 
 "Oh, that is your game, is it?" said the Duke. 
 
 "Yes, your Grace," said Katherine. 
 
 "And you'll win it, too, you'll win, I will bet on you 
 against the field. A clever woman such as you are can 
 make a bigger fool than Dipford, prime minister." 
 
 "Yes, your Grace," said Katherine.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 AN UNBIDDEN GUEST 
 
 ALL the guests invited to meet the Duke of Senlac had 
 arrived except the Mayor of the City of New York. His 
 coming was awaited with some impatience by the hostess, 
 and with considerable curiosity by the rest of the com- 
 pany. Every one was anxious to see how Tony Beekman 
 would carry himself in the face of the terrible charges 
 which had been brought against him. 
 
 That very morning the city had been startled by the 
 publication of documents which proved beyond a doubt, 
 that the city officials had been guilty not simply of fraud 
 but of downright robbery on the most gigantic scale. 
 Such splendid stealing had never before been known in 
 the history of the world. 
 
 The city officials, at the time, were, as a class, men 
 of a very low order Irish saloon keepers and members 
 of the volunteer fire department, men without educa- 
 tion or refinement. Their actions were in keeping with 
 their birth and character. But Anthony Beekman was 
 of an entirely different order. He was the friend and 
 peer of Jacob Suydam, and belonged to the most exclu- 
 sive set in the city of New York. He was a gentleman 
 and a scholar whom political aspirations had associated 
 with men that had been his ruin. The story of the down- 
 
 267
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 fall of Anthony Beekman, one of the unwritten tragedies 
 of the world, cannot be told in this place. It is mentioned 
 here because Anthony Beekman was intimate in the 
 household of Dr. Suydam, and his daughter the dearest 
 friend of Katherine Bullet. When Katherine read the 
 account in the morning paper she did not believe a word 
 of it. She said it was a campaign lie, but at the same 
 time she was very sorry for poor Florence. 
 
 When the Mayor entered the room there was not a 
 sign to show that he was disturbed by what was going 
 on in the city. His face was as calm as the face of a 
 saint, his manner as gracious as that of a prince. He 
 was a man to win his way by the openness of his counte- 
 nance and the blandness of his speech. 
 
 When she saw him enter the room, Mrs. Suydam took 
 the arm of the Duke of Senlac and led the way to dinner. 
 The Marquis and Katherine followed, then the company 
 in due order. 
 
 The dinner was after its kind, a long and somewhat 
 dreary affair. Conversation was low and intermittent. 
 The Duke of Senlac finding himself next the Mayor, was 
 ungallant enough to turn away from his fair hostess and 
 seek information and entertainment from the man on his 
 left. 
 
 He said : "You are the Mayor of the city, I am told." 
 
 "Yes, your Grace, I have that honor, or perhaps I 
 should say, in view of the charges made against me, I 
 have that dishonor." 
 
 "Now, don't you know," said the Duke, "I can't 
 understand your politics as you call it, at all. I see you 
 want to take this and that department of your city govern- 
 ment out of politics. What do you mean by that ?" 
 
 "It means that the city government is to have nothing 
 to do with these various departments." 
 
 268
 
 An Unbidden Guest 
 
 "But I should think it would be the first duty of your 
 city government to look after these very things. What 
 is your government for, if not for that ?" 
 
 "I perceive," said the Mayor, "that your Grace is still 
 unacquainted with the spirit and working of our demo- 
 cratic institutions. Government with us exists in a large 
 measure for the purpose of furnishing lucrative occupa- 
 tion to as great a number as possible of free and worthy 
 citizens." 
 
 Here Mrs. Suydam cut in, saying: "I hope your 
 Grace will pay no attention to Mr. Beekman. He is a 
 politician and is not in love with his trade." 
 
 "Mrs. Suydam has spoken like the wise woman she 
 is," said the Mayor. "She has told the whole story in a 
 sentence. With us politics is a trade, and a very dirty 
 trade at that." 
 
 "Fancy now!" said the Duke. "With us politics is 
 a game, and we think a very noble game." The Duke, 
 the Mayor and Mrs. Suydam then drifted into a discus- 
 sion of the relative merits of the English and American 
 systems. 
 
 Meanwhile Katherine Bullet was becoming greatly 
 interested in Mr. Du Pre. 
 
 "Your name," she said, "is not an English name." 
 
 "No," he answered, "it is French. My grandfather 
 was a French emigrant, who escaped from France in the 
 Revolutionary period and settled on the estate of Senlac. 
 He was employed as a tutor in the family of Senlac, and 
 we have been there ever since." 
 
 "You are satisfied with your position?" said Kath- 
 erine. 
 
 "Satisfied? Well, yes and no. I have at present 
 general oversight of the affairs of the estate and expect
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 in a short time to represent the borough in Parliament." 
 
 "Oh!" said Katherine, "I thought Dipford was in 
 Parliament or is to be shortly." 
 
 "So he will," said Mr. Du Pre, "but ha. will represent 
 Dipford, not Senlac." 
 
 "Oh, I see, when Dipford goes into the House, you go 
 with him as manager. What a charming arrangement! 
 He is certain to make his way under such wise manage- 
 ment." 
 
 "I fear you overestimate both my ability and my influ- 
 ence. I hardly expect to carry Dipford a great way." 
 
 "Why not ?" said Katherine, "because he is so heavy ?" 
 looking wickedly at Dipford. 
 
 "No, Miss Bullet," said Mr. Du Pre, smiling at the 
 Marquis, "let us say rather because he is so light." 
 
 "Are you not ashamed to speak so of one who is to 
 be my husband?" 
 
 "Your husband, Miss Bullet, will gain intellectual and 
 moral weight with his wife. She will supply all that he 
 lacks." 
 
 Dr. Suydam in the midst of a conversation with the 
 Marquis of Dipford on his right, was interrupted by 
 Simmons, the butler, who said : "I beg your pardon, sir, 
 but there is a young woman in the 'all who says as 'ow 
 she must see you." 
 
 "But, Simmons, you must tell her I'm engaged." 
 
 "I did, sir, but she says she 'ull wait, and she must see 
 you to-night." 
 
 "How did she get in?" said the Doctor, impatiently. 
 
 "That stupid 'Arry let her in, sir. I'll go and tell her 
 to get out, and if she don't I'll call a policeman," and the 
 butler turned to go and dismiss the waiting woman. The 
 Doctor hastily rose and followed him in order to prevent 
 
 270
 
 An Unbidden Guest 
 
 a scene. When he reached the reception room on the left 
 of the hall he found Keturah Bain waiting for him. He 
 started in surprise, saying: "Keturah! What is it that 
 brings you here to-night?" 
 
 "It is trouble that brings me, Dr. Suydam, great 
 trouble. I had to come, I could not help myself. I had 
 to come or die." 
 
 "But Keturah, my child, I cannot see you to-night. 
 We are entertaining friends at dinner." 
 
 "At dinner, Dr. Suydam ? Why, it is long after sup- 
 per time." 
 
 "Yes, I know, Keturah, but we, you know, have 
 dinner at night, and we have the Duke of Senlac and the 
 Marquis of Dipford dining with us, so I cannot see you 
 to-night." 
 
 "Of course you can't," said Keturah, "I was foolish 
 to come ; I will go." As she rose her face took on a look 
 of misery so abject that it startled Dr. Suydam. He took 
 the girl by the hand and said to her: "What is it, 
 Keturah, what is it? Tell me at once." 
 
 "Abigail is lost," said Keturah. 
 
 "What dead?" said Dr. Suydam. 
 
 "Worse than that," said Keturah. 
 
 "Why, what do you mean, my child? Speak out," 
 said the Doctor. 
 
 "I mean that our Abigail has gone away-. Some bad 
 man has made a fool of her." And Keturah leaned her 
 hand upon a table in front of her and her whole frame 
 was shaken with noiseless, tearless sobs. 
 
 Dr. Suydam went out of the room, closing the door 
 behind him and told the serving man in the hall to go to 
 the kitchen and fetch a cup of coffee to the woman, and 
 to have her wait until he came back. 
 
 271
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 A FACE IN A GLASS 
 
 WHEN Dr. Suydam returned to the table he found that 
 his absence had been remarked. As he re-entered the 
 dining room Mrs. Suydam looked up and said with a 
 tinge of impatience in her voice : "What is the matter, 
 Dr. Suydam? Where have you been?" 
 
 "I was called out," said the Doctor, "to see a young 
 woman who is in trouble." 
 
 "A young woman?" said Mrs. Suydam. 
 
 "Yes, a young woman." 
 
 "Ah, Dr. Suydam," said the Duke of Senlac, "you 
 did well to go and see her. A young woman in trouble 
 is always an interesting creature." 
 
 "I do not find them interesting," said the Doctor, "ex- 
 cept as sorrow and grief are interesting." 
 
 "Exactly," said the Duke, "exactly. A woman can 
 hardly be called a woman until she has gotten herself 
 into all sorts of trouble. She is very flat until she has 
 made herself a history. I am sure, madam," he said, 
 turning to Mrs. Suydam, "that you have a history well 
 worth the reading. A history, however, not of defeats 
 but of victories. You have troubled many hearts, though 
 your own be undisturbed." The Duke made this gallant 
 remark with high-bred insolence, and Mrs. Suydam 
 blushed with pleasure. 
 
 273
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "Gad!" said the Duke to himself, looking at her, "a 
 fine woman and worth millions of pounds. If the parson 
 were not in the way I would marry her." Mrs. Suydam 
 felt the eyes of the Duke burn into her soul and she 
 blushed again. 
 
 Dr. Suydam took his place and remained there until 
 Mrs. Suydam and the ladies left the room. Then the 
 Mayor rose up, and filling his glass said : "Gentlemen, I 
 trust I am not speaking unadvisedly, when I ask you 
 to drink to the fairest and best of women ; the Lady of 
 Dipford that is to be !" 
 
 "Your honor expresses my sentiments exactly. Dip- 
 ford is a damned lucky dog, who is getting a great deal 
 more than he deserves," said the Duke. 
 
 "I don't know about that," said Dr. Suydam, 
 "Katherine is a very fine girl, but Dipford, you know, is 
 a noble fellow." 
 
 "Good! Good!" came from all round the table. 
 
 "Come, Dipford," said Robert Bullet, "you know our 
 steamer is to sail at daylight. We must be moving if we 
 expect to go aboard to-night." 
 
 "All right," said Dipford, "I will be with you." 
 
 The party rose and the two men passed into the draw- 
 ing room. Dr. Suydam slipped quietly along the hall to 
 the waiting room and found Keturah there, with her un- 
 tasted coffee before her. Leaving the door open, Dr. 
 Suydam sat down and took Keturah 's hand in his and 
 said : "Now, Keturah, tell me all about it." 
 
 After a moment's silence, Keturah said in a low, heart- 
 broken voice: "I've known for a long time that some- 
 thing was wrong. Abigail has been behaving strangely. 
 She has been away from home a great deal. I thought 
 she was with her friends up-town, girl friends I mean. 
 
 274
 
 A Face in a Glass 
 
 But I know now that she has been going with some young 
 man, who has been driving her in the Park and sailing 
 with her down the Bay." 
 
 "Do you know who this young man is?" said Dr. 
 Suydam. 
 
 "I do not know his name, but I think it is a young man 
 that she met in Saint Nicholas Church. I saw him 
 talking to her one Sunday early in the summer, as soon 
 as I saw him I was afraid of him. I knew he meant her 
 harm." 
 
 "Can you describe him, Keturah?" said the Doctor. 
 "Perhaps I know him." 
 
 Instead of answering, Keturah rose suddenly to her 
 feet, her eyes dilating with horror, her form rigid as a 
 rod of iron. With one hand she clutched the Doctor, and 
 with the other she pointed to a mirror at the end of the 
 room and said : "See, see, there there he is !" 
 
 The Doctor looked up in amazement thinking the girl 
 had gone mad ; glancing into the mirror he saw the reflec- 
 tion of Robert Bullet, who was standing in the hallway 
 drawing on his gloves. 
 
 "Who is that?" whispered Keturah. 
 
 "That is my son," said the Doctor. 
 
 "Your son !" 
 
 "Perhaps I should say my step-son, Robert Bullet." 
 
 "That is the man," said Keturah. 
 
 "What man?" said the Doctor. 
 
 "The man who has been with my sister !" 
 
 "Impossible," said the Doctor. 
 
 "No, not impossible ; that is the man, I tell you." 
 
 In a moment another joined the one in the mirror. 
 Then both of them passed out of the glass and the street 
 door was heard to open and shut, the Marquis of Dipford 
 and Robert Bullet were off for England. 
 
 275
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 Dr. Suydam and Keturah remained silent for a mo- 
 ment, and then he whispered, saying, "You are sure?" 
 
 "Yes," she answered, "I am sure." 
 
 "My son sails for England at daylight, and I can do 
 nothing now. I will, however, look into the matter at 
 once, and if what you suspect is true I will find your sister 
 and see that justice is done in her case." 
 
 With this assurance Keturah returned to her home to 
 wait and watch for the one who had gone astray. 
 
 It did not take Dr. Suydam very long to discover that 
 the suspicions of Keturah were not without foundation. 
 If Robert Bullet were not the guilty man, he was greatly 
 wronged by appearances. From Philip Schuyler, Dr. 
 Suydam learned that Robert Bullet had been constantly 
 with Abigail Bain since the early summer. Schuyler did 
 not hesitate to speak his mind, and to speak it very freely. 
 He told Dr. Suydam that in his opinion Bullet was a cad 
 of the lowest order, unfit to associate with gentlemen. 
 "I would have him expelled from the Knickerbocker if 
 I could, but that kind of thing doesn't hurt a man in the 
 club. If a man cheats at cards or does not pay his club 
 debts he is thrown out in short order ; but the more girls 
 he ruins the higher he stands in the estimation of the 
 fools and rakes who form the majority in our fashionable 
 clubs." Philip Schuyler went on to speak about Abigail 
 Bain. He told Dr. Suydam that she was an unusually 
 beautiful girl, with a bright active mind, but very vain 
 and foolish. "It is a shame," said Schuyler, "that Bullet 
 had to make her his game. There are plenty of loose 
 women about town, married and unmarried, to serve a 
 man's purpose without having to spoil a fine girl like 
 that." 
 
 "Has Robert been guilty of this kind of thing before ?" 
 said Dr. Suydam. 
 
 276
 
 A Face in a Glass 
 
 "Guilty," cried Schuyler, laughing, "you don't sup- 
 pose for a moment that we fellows count that sort of 
 thing guilt. We call it glory. We reckon our conquests 
 as the Indian his scalps. I don't claim to be a saint my- 
 self, but I do say there is a limit. Society women are fair 
 game ; but it is a shame to deceive and ruin a girl who has 
 nothing in the world but her respectability." 
 
 Dr. Suydam was greatly shocked by what he heard 
 from Philip Schuyler. He was one of those virgin 
 souls that think no evil. A momentary weakness, which 
 he never thought of without shame, had betrayed him 
 into a loveless marriage. His spiritual ministration had 
 revealed to him the weakness of women, but not their 
 wickedness : he was haunted by fair saints, but was 
 shunned by fair sinners. His purity was the purity of 
 coldness which repels, not the purity of burning love, 
 which attracts and cleanses. 
 
 Dr. Suydam had for sins of the flesh a horror which 
 made him turn away from all consideration of the subject. 
 He did not believe that such sins were possible among 
 respectable people; they were committed, he thought, by 
 those who lived in that outer world of darkness and 
 degradation, into which he nor his could never enter. 
 
 It is not strange that an ordinary Protestant minister 
 should be ignorant of the spiritual condition of the people 
 under his charge. His ministrations are confined to the 
 pulpit, the parlor, and the bedside. He takes no part in 
 the active, every-day life of the world. Men do not make 
 him a companion. He is treated by men in general with 
 reserve ; they respect his innocence. So he goes through 
 life looking down with complacency on a flock that he 
 supposes he is guarding from the danger of the wolf. 
 The poor man, never having been in the wilderness, does 
 
 277
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 aiot know a wolf when he sees one. He is deceived by the 
 clothing. The sleek wolf of avarice and the sly wolf of 
 sensuality sit in his foremost pews and listen devoutly to 
 all that he has to say. 
 
 Dr. Suydam was one of these innocents and he was 
 suffering the fate of the innocent, which is to be betrayed 
 and beaten by the guilty. 
 
 Dr. Suydam had never formed a very high opinion of 
 his step-son, but he had never supposed that Robert was 
 actually bad, and the discovery of this fact came to him as 
 a painful surprise. 
 
 Further investigation proved beyond question that 
 Abigail Bain had been the intimate companion of Robert 
 Bullet. She had been out with him in the yacht for days, 
 and if she were not his wife she ought to be. The girl 
 had disappeared the day before Robert had sailed for 
 England. She had left a note for Keturah saying that 
 she was going away to be married and would not be back 
 for a long time, probably never. She asked Keturah to 
 forgive her for leaving home. She could not help it, she 
 had to go. 
 
 Dr. Suydam had the city searched for the girl without 
 avail, and he and those whom he consulted came to the 
 conclusion that she had left the country, and was gone 
 to meet Robert in London. 
 
 Dr. Suydam carried what comfort he could to poor 
 Keturah, who was heartbroken with grief and shame. 
 Her eyes were weak through weeping, and her hair was 
 losing all its lustre. 
 
 Poor John Sherwood, who came and sat with her 
 every night, saw to his dismay, the girl whom he loved 
 turning into an old woman before his eyes. 
 
 "Don't, Keturah, don't," he cried, as he sat and held 
 
 278
 
 A Face in a Glass 
 
 her in his arms, while she wept the hopeless tears of the 
 utterly miserable. "Come, Keturah, come, don't cry any 
 more. It wont do you any good. Come now, let us get 
 married. You have worked for other people long enough. 
 Come now and rest while I work for you." 
 
 "Poor John," said Keturah, lifting up her lips to be 
 kissed. "I believe if I were dead in my coffin you would 
 say, 'Come, Keturah, let us get married.' " 
 
 "Yes," said John, sadly, "I believe I would. So come 
 now, don't let us wait any longer or we will both be 
 dead and buried." 
 
 "Oh, John," said the girl, for girl she was when his 
 arms were around her. "I cannot marry until we find 
 Abigail." And she started up and cried fiercely, "How 
 I hate him!" 
 
 "Hate whom?" said John. 
 
 "That wicked man whose face I saw in the glass. A 
 face without a care, without a wrinkle, who looks as if he 
 had never done anything in his life, except please him- 
 self. He has everything and we have nothing, nothing 
 but our good name, and he comes and steals that away 
 from us. I hate him, I hate him." 
 
 "He is a rascal," said Sherwood. 
 
 "Yes, and God lets him live. I don't understand God 
 at all," and Keturah was silent for a moment, then she 
 added in an undertone only this : "I know God is sorry, 
 He can't help it. Bad men are stronger in the world than 
 He is. They and the devil get the best of Him, but He 
 is sorry, God is sorry for us." 
 
 Dr. Suydam told Keturah that he would not give up 
 the search until he had found her sister. He would go to 
 London and see if he could find here there. And when he 
 did find her Robert should marry her. 
 
 And Keturah had to comfort herself with these words. 
 279
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 MOTHER AND SON 
 
 DR. SUYDAM was greatly disturbed in his mind, and 
 did not know exactly what to do. He had promised 
 Keturah to go to London in search of Abigail, but it was 
 not a promise which he could easily perform. He could 
 not lay aside his work in Saint Nicholas and go hunting 
 the world over for a girl who had gone astray. That 
 would make him a laughing stock. And yet he could not 
 get the matter out of his mind. Wherever he was, by 
 night or by day, he kept hearing the words, "Doth he not 
 leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness and go and 
 seek that which is lost?" "The good Sheperd giveth his 
 life for the sheep;" and when he could no longer quiet 
 his conscience he determined to speak to his wife and 
 make his arrangements to go to London. 
 
 He had been walking in the Park all the afternoon, 
 trying to summon courage to speak to Mrs. Suydam 
 about Robert. He dreaded the scene that he knew would 
 follow ; but speak he would and speak he must. 
 
 He reached home about six o'clock and asked for Mrs. 
 Suydam and was told that she had gone to her room and 
 was dressing for dinner. He went immediately to her 
 room and knocked. 
 
 "Who is it?" said Mrs. Suydam. 
 
 281
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "It is I," said the Doctor. 
 
 "What is wanted?" said Mrs. Suydam. 
 
 "I would like very much to speak to you." 
 
 "What! now?" 
 
 "Yes, now, as soon as possible." 
 
 "Can't you wait until after dinner?" 
 
 "I would rather not." 
 
 Mrs. Suydam was surprised at the tone of the 
 Doctor's voice. It was insistent, as if he meant to be 
 obeyed. This, as well as his visit at that hour, was so 
 unusual that Mrs. Suydam was lost in astonishment. 
 She dismissed her maid and throwing a dressing sack 
 round her shoulders opened the door. 
 
 "I have come to speak to you, Mrs. Suydam, about 
 Robert," said the Doctor slowly. 
 
 "Robert," she cried, "Robert, what has happened to 
 Robert? Has the ship gone down?" 
 
 "No, Mrs. Suydam," said the Doctor, "so far as I 
 know the ship is safe and Robert is safe also. I have, 
 however, been hearing things about Robert that disturb 
 me greatly." 
 
 "Indeed," said Mrs. Suydam, "what things?" 
 
 "I hear, and I am afraid that it is true. I hear, that 
 Robert has been behaving badly with a young woman." 
 
 "And you, Dr. Suydam," said his wife, shaking her 
 hair out of her eyes, "come here and disturb me in my 
 dressing hour to tell me solemnly that Robert is behaving 
 badly with a young woman. Who is the young woman 
 and what has Robert done ?" 
 
 "The young woman is a beautiful girl, belonging to a 
 good family in the lower part of the city. She is refined 
 and well educated." 
 
 "A paragon,^' said Mrs. Suydam, "and what has 
 Robert done to or with this young woman ?" 
 
 282
 
 Mother and Son 
 
 "If reports be true," said Dr. Suydam, "Robert has 
 been living with this girl as his wife all summer." 
 
 "Has he married her?" said Mrs. Suydam, anxiously. 
 
 "No," said the Doctor. 
 
 "Well, then, what harm has been done?" said Mrs. 
 Suydam. 
 
 "What harm?" exclaimed the Doctor in amazement. 
 "What harm? Why, unless Robert does marry her the 
 woman is ruined." 
 
 "Not at all," said Mrs. Suydam, "not at all, her 
 fortune is made. Robert has always behaved very gener- 
 ously, too generously, in affairs of this kind." 
 
 "Do you mean to tell me, Mrs. Suydam," said the 
 Doctor, "that Robert has had other affairs of this kind ?" 
 
 "Do you mean to tell me, Dr. Suydam, that you live in 
 this world, in this city of New York, and do not know 
 that a young man in Robert's position must necessarily 
 have affairs of this kind?" 
 
 "Why necessarily?" 
 
 "Because he is a young man with an immense income. 
 Such men have offers from women every day. Women 
 high in society are willing to give themselves to such men, 
 if they can in that way get hold of their purse." 
 
 "You know that," said Dr. Suydam. 
 
 "Yes, I know it, and because I know it I know that 
 Robert Bullet cannot live in the city of New York as if 
 he were your St. Anthony in a desert. I know that he 
 must do as other young men have done and are doing. 
 My only care has been to keep him out of the hands of 
 women who would ruin him." 
 
 "And yet," said the Doctor, "you are a Christian 
 woman, the wife of a Christian minister, and receive the 
 Holy Communion."
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "My dressing room," said Mrs. Suydam, with a 
 shrug, "is hardly the place for a sermon. You know, Dr. 
 Suydam, as well as I, that the world in which we live does 
 not take its religion seriously." 
 
 "I cannot believe this," said Dr. Suydam. "I cannot 
 believe that many do as Robert has done, or think as you 
 think." 
 
 "I would not advise you, Doctor," said Mrs. Suydam, 
 "to become father confessor to your flock. If you did 
 you would not have that high opinion of them which 
 you have now. Of course, you know all about Mr. 
 Dulane, your warden." 
 
 "I know nothing about Mr. Dulane that is not to his 
 credit. He is always at church and is very liberal in the 
 support of all our works. I know nothing else of him," 
 said the Doctor, indignantly. 
 
 "Well," said Mrs. Suydam, "you would know, if you 
 knew anything that goes on outside your church build- 
 ing, that Mr. Dulane was living with another woman all 
 the while his wife was sick, and has been living with the 
 same woman since his wife's death." 
 
 "This is slander," said Dr. Suydam, "vile slander. I 
 will not listen to it." 
 
 "Listen to it or not as you please, it is true. Mr. Du- 
 lane hardly takes the trouble to conceal it ; he goes and 
 comes at this woman's house as if it were his own home, 
 as indeed it is. He is far more faithful to it than most 
 men are to their own homes." 
 
 "Why," said Dr. Suydam, with anger, "have I not 
 known this before?" 
 
 "You have not known it," answered Mrs. Suydam, 
 "because like most clergymen, you live in a fool's para- 
 dise and think, because you talk so much of heaven, 
 everything is heavenly." 
 
 284
 
 Motherland Son 
 
 "I do not think it worth while to continue this conver- 
 sation," said the Doctor. "I simply came to tell you that 
 I am going to London to look for this woman, and when 
 I find her I shall see that Robert marries her." 
 
 "Marries her!" said Mrs. Suydam, laughing: "If 
 Robert had to marry all the ladies who have been kind 
 to him in this way he would have quite a harem. Marry 
 her indeed, the hussy! She will be fortunate if she is 
 not thrown out on the street." 
 
 "That is what I am afraid of," said Dr. Suydam, "and 
 it is from that I would save her. I do not want the girl 
 to lose her soul if I can help." 
 
 "Oh ! if you talk about her soul," said Mrs. Suydam, 
 "I have nothing to say. But my advice is to let this 
 matter alone. It is no business of yours and you can 
 do no good by meddling." 
 
 "I intend to make it my business," said the Doctor, 
 "and to meddle until I make this wicked young man 
 atone as far as he can for the wrong he has done." 
 
 "You forget, Dr. Suydam," cried the lady in a rage, 
 "that you are speaking of my son. I will not have you 
 speak so of my son ; I will not have it !" 
 
 "You forget, Mrs. Suydam," said the Doctor, "that 
 you are my wife, and it is not for me to hear nor for you 
 to speak such words as you are speaking." 
 
 "I may be your wife, Dr. Suydam, but my children 
 are not your children and I will not have you interfering 
 in any way with them or their affairs. As for Robert 
 marrying that woman from the street, you know as well 
 as I that it is absurd, impossible. If you go to London 
 you will go on a fool's errand. Now, if you please, I 
 would like to finish dressing. I will be late for dinner 
 as it is."
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THUS SAITH THE LORD 
 
 THE Sunday following Dr. Suydam's interview witk 
 his wife was a Sunday which the congregation of Saint 
 Nicholas church never forgot. On that day it was 
 treated to a surprise and a sensation. The elegant, the 
 accomplished Dr. Suydam, whose sermons were admired 
 as being so scholarly and so spiritual, was suddenly 
 changed into a fierce, wild prophet of the Lord. His 
 usually well-modulated voice was harsh and angry in 
 tone ; his sentences were abrupt and broken ; his manner 
 was restless and nervous. 
 
 He went into the pulpit and gave out his text from 
 the first chapter of Isaiah, part of the fifth and sixth 
 verses. "The whole head is sick and the whole heart 
 faint ; from the sole of the foot even unto the head there 
 is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putre- 
 fying sores." 
 
 Pausing an instant after giving out his text, the 
 preacher said slowly and bitterly: "These words de- 
 scribe exactly the social and political condition of our 
 city to-day. Jerusalem, in the time of Isaiah the prophet, 
 was far from being so corrupt as is the city of New York 
 at this instant. Our political corruption has made us a 
 stench in the nostrils of the civilized world. Our rulers 
 
 287
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 are worse than the rulers whom Isaiah rebuked. He said 
 of them, 'Your princes are rebellious and companions of 
 thieves; our princes are not the companions of thieves; 
 they are the thieves themselves. Men of gentle birth, 
 whose family name has long been honored in this com- 
 munity, have descended to the lowest depths of political 
 degradation ; they have become the dupes and the tools 
 of men with whom their fathers would not have spoken ; 
 they have assisted these vile characters in the meanest 
 dishonesty of which a man can be capable. Beside this 
 crime, the crime of the burglar is virtue itself. The 
 burglar takes his risk and robs at his peril, but these men 
 steal the funds which they were appointed to guard. To 
 the crime of theft they add the meanness of treachery. 
 And so callous is their conscience that they do their evil 
 without compunction. Their face is as open as the face 
 of a child and their smile as bland as summer." 
 
 Dr. Suydam paused and looking down, saw Anthony 
 Beekman in his seat gazing at him with that perfect in- 
 difference with which the Mayor was in the habit of re- 
 garding all abuse. He doubtless thought that Suydam 
 was taking a mean advantage of him ; but what of that ? 
 He was a politician and had been vilified until he was as 
 used to it as an eel is to skinning. 
 
 Dr. Suydam also saw Florence sitting beside her father, 
 her face pale as ashes, her eyes aflame with indignation. 
 For a moment the preacher hesitated before those eyes, 
 but only for a moment The indignation in the eyes of 
 Florence Beekman was but a spark in comparison with 
 the indignation that was burning his heart and crying 
 for utterance from his lips. 
 
 "But," he cried in a voice that rang through the 
 church like a trumpet, "but our political corruption is 
 
 288
 
 Thus Saith the Lord 
 
 the natural outcome of our social rottenness. The seat 
 of the evil is not as some would have us think, in the 
 slums among the poor and the ignorant ; it is in what we 
 call our high places. Our young men are not simply 
 permitted, they are encouraged, to make victims of inno- 
 cent women, and when done with them, to whistle them 
 down the wind a prey to fortune. Our maidens are not 
 ashamed to sell themselves for a title, and men of high 
 station in church and state forsake their own wives to 
 seek pleasure in the arms of a stranger, and while doing 
 all these things they profess the religion of Jesus Christ. 
 
 "Nothing so horrible as this has ever been seen in the 
 world; of old, when men were licentious, they were the 
 worshippers of licentious gods, but now we worship the 
 pure, the holy, the clean, while we riot in the impure, the 
 unholy, and the unclean. 
 
 "Some terrible punishment must follow this terrible 
 apostasy. If we will not make ourselves like our God, 
 sooner or later we must make our Gods like ourselves 
 and adore the impure, the unholy, the unclean, the cruel, 
 and the dishonest. When that hour comes, we will be 
 like unto Sodom and like unto Gomorrah, fit only for 
 the everlasting burning." 
 
 When Dr. Suydam ceased preaching the church was 
 as still as a stone. Not a sound was heard, not a move- 
 ment was seen ; the whole congregation was petrified into 
 silence. 
 
 Then, as all were watching, the preacher came down 
 from the pulpit, there was a cry heard, "Look to Mr. 
 Dulane, look to Mr. Dulane!" There was a rush to the 
 place of the warden who had risen from his seat, wavered 
 and staggered, and then fallen to the floor. Dr. Dane, 
 who was in the congregation, came hastily forward and 
 
 289
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 kneeling down, felt of the fallen man's heart, and said to 
 the people, "Go away, go away. Mr. Dulane is dead." 
 
 The crowd dispersed at once. Officers came in from 
 the street and the dead man was carried out and taken 
 to his home. As the people went out there were mur- 
 murs of indignation heard on every side against Dr. 
 Suydam. What did he mean by his senseless ranting? 
 It was worse than a Methodist camp meeting. The ex- 
 citement had killed Mr. Dulane. Why couldn't he preach 
 the Gospel and let social life and politics alone? One 
 thing was certain after that morning, which was that 
 Dr. Suydam would never be rector of Saint Nicholas' 
 church. His chance for that was gone forever. So 
 everyone was saying. 
 
 Dr. Van Antwerp, the rector, who was in the church 
 that morning, was greatly shocked and grieved. 
 
 "What on earth was the matter with you this morn- 
 ing, Suydam ?" said the rector ; "You ranted in the pulpit 
 like a madman. You have killed Dulane." 
 
 "I have not killed him," said Dr. Suydam ; "the Lord 
 killed him." 
 
 "The Lord !" said Dr. Van Antwerp , "Come now, 
 Suydam, don't rant in here; what in heaven's name has 
 come over you?" 
 
 "The power of God has come over me, sending me 
 to denounce the wickedness of the wicked. The man 
 who has just died has been going from the bedside of 
 his sick wife to the bed of a harlot. He has come to the 
 holy communion here in the morning, and spent the af- 
 ternoon and night with his paramour." 
 
 "Dr. Suydam," cried Dr. Van Antwerp, "you are 
 crazy. Who told you all this ?" 
 
 290
 
 Thus Saith the Lord 
 
 "Mrs. Suydam told me, but I did not take her word. 
 I found it out myself. It is all true." 
 
 Dr. Suydam left the church by the back way, as 
 Broadway was thronged with people. He went to his 
 home in the avenue hating its tawdry magnificence 
 and despising all who were in it, even himself. He re- 
 fused to go down to luncheon and told Simmons that he 
 could see no one that day. 
 
 Mrs. Suydam sent word that she and Katherine were 
 to leave that afternoon for Newport, and Dr. Suydam 
 would hear from her lawyers. 
 
 Dr. Suydam sat in his room and heard the trunks 
 carried down stairs, heard his wife and Katherine follow 
 them, heard the street door open and shut, heard the car- 
 riage drive away, and then heard a stillness like the still- 
 ness of death creep over the great house. 
 
 He sat in his chair without moving a muscle, think- 
 ing of the terrible scene of the morning. Had he killed 
 Mr. Dulane? Where was Mr. Dulane now, in hell? 
 Yes, in hell, and who was to blame? He, Dr. Suydam, 
 had been the pastor of the dead man for ten years and 
 had never taken the trouble to find out how Mr. Dulane 
 was living, had never warned him of the danger that 
 threatened him. He remembered what the prophet 
 Ezekiel said of the watchman who did not sound the 
 trumpet. He was that watchman. He had not sounded 
 the trumpet. Mr. Dulane had died in his iniquity, but 
 his blood would be required at the watchman's hand, 
 and he, Jacob Suydam, was the watchman. 
 
 As he sat thinking of himself as in hell with Mr. 
 Dulane, there was a knock at the door and the voice of 
 Simmons was heard, saying: "If you please, sir, his 
 honor, the Mayor, Mr. Beekman, would like to speak to 
 you for a moment." 
 
 291
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "Let him come up," said Dr. Suydam. 
 
 Mayor Beekman entered the room, and went and 
 stood in front of the fire which was burning on the 
 hearth. 
 
 "Sit down, Tony, sit down," said Dr. Suydam. 
 
 "No, I will not sit down, Jacob Suydam. I will never 
 sit down again in your house. I suppose you thought 
 you did a brave thing this morning when from the se- 
 curity of your pulpit you hounded a man who was al- 
 ready hounded to death.. If you hadn't any pity for me, 
 you might have had compassion for Florence. She had 
 hysterics as soon as we got home; we had to quiet her 
 with morphine." 
 
 "I am sorry, Tony, I am sorry; but I said what the 
 Lord told me to say," said Dr. Suydam. 
 
 "What nonsense!" said Anthony Beekman. "Why 
 hasn't the Lord been telling you to say something for 
 the last ten years? You pulpit fellows are enough to 
 make a man curse religion and all that belongs to it." 
 
 "I have tried to do my duty, Anthony Beekman!" 
 cried Dr. Suydam. 
 
 "Tried to do your duty ! That is the excuse of a fool. 
 You knew, or ought to have known, what Dulane was 
 about. Did you ever say anything to him?" 
 
 "No, I did not," said Dr. Suydam. "I knew nothing 
 of it till a few days ago." 
 
 "Then you get up in the pulpit and denounce him 
 before all the people. I tell you, Jacob Suydam, that 
 man's blood is on your hands." 
 
 "Yes," said Jacob Suydam, "his blood is on my hands. 
 I know it." 
 
 "And you are hounding me out of the country. I 
 know I'm ruined. I know I've got to go. I can stand 
 it myself, but great God, man, think of Florence!" 
 
 292
 
 Thus Saith the Lord 
 
 "Tony !" cried Dr. Suydam, rising and going forward, 
 "Tony, forgive me! I am a greater sinner than you. 
 If I had done my duty, perhaps you would have done 
 yours." 
 
 "Forgive you, Jacob? I've nothing to forgive. You 
 didn't make me a rascal. I sold myself to the devil and 
 I am paying the debt. You might have spared me the 
 rant of this morning, the last morning I shall ever see 
 in this country. I am going to-morrow, before the in- 
 dictment is found against me; but where I am going, 
 what I'm going to do, or how we are going to live, I 
 don't know. I didn't need your curse to make me 
 wretched. I was wretched already." 
 
 "Don't go with my curse, Tony, take my blessing," 
 said Dr. Suydam. 
 
 "And much good would it do me. No ! No ! Let me 
 alone. Neither curse me at all nor bless me at all. 
 Good-bye, Jacob, good-bye." 
 
 Anthony Beekman held the hand of his old friend in 
 his for a moment, dropped it and went away. 
 
 293
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 SAVED AS BY FIRE 
 
 WHEN night came on Jacob Suydam found the silence 
 of the house intolerable. He rose up and went out into 
 the street. He had it in mind to go to Saint Nicholas. 
 Perhaps Keturah would be there with some news from 
 Abigail. It was Sunday night, a night when the news- 
 boys do not ordinarily run the streets; but as Jacob 
 walked down the avenue he heard them crying from every 
 direction : "Extra ! Extra ! All about the death of Dulane ! 
 All about the sermon of Dr. Suydam." Buying a copy 
 of the Herald, Dr. Suydam saw the death of John Du- 
 lane and the sensational sermon of Dr. Suydam an- 
 nounced in great head-lines. He crushed the paper in 
 his hand and a wave of bitterness swept over him. He, 
 Jacob Suydam, had suddenly become that thing which 
 he loathed beyond all things in the world, a sensational 
 preacher. 
 
 As he walked down Broadway and saw the great 
 tower of Saint Nicholas rising above the surrounding 
 buildings, tears came into his eyes. He remembered 
 the happy days of his early ministry, when he had been 
 so full of enthusiasm. He remembered his foolish, 
 shameful scene with Mrs. Bullet and he remembered 
 the years that followed. Years of high thinking, if not 
 
 295
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 of noble living. For twenty years his life had been 
 bound up in the life of Saint Nicholas, and now it was all 
 over. He knew in his heart that he would never preach 
 in Saint Nicholas again. If Abigail Bain had not been 
 found, he, Dr. Suydam, must go to London to search 
 for her, and before going to London he must resign from 
 Saint Nicholas. 
 
 When Dr. Suydam reached the church he did not go, 
 as usual, into the vestry room and vest for service. He 
 had no heart for that. He went up the stairway into 
 the gallery and sat in a corner by the organ. It was 
 dark there and no one would see him. 
 
 A great crowd was surging into the church, filling 
 not only the seats, but the aisle and the chancel. The 
 sensation of the morning had stirred the city to its 
 depths, and there was a rush to the church from every 
 quarter. But if the crowd came in the hope that the 
 exciting scene of the morning would be repeated, it was 
 greatly disappointed. Nothing happened out of the usual. 
 Evening prayer was said and a very short, common- 
 place sermon was preached by one of the younger clergy. 
 
 As he sat in his obscure corner, Dr. Suydam saw 
 Keturah Bain in the gallery just in front of him. When 
 the service was over and the people were leaving, he 
 leaned over and touched her, and motioned her to wait 
 for him. As they walked down the stairway together 
 Dr. Suydam said in an undertone: "Have you heard 
 anything ?" 
 
 "Nothing," said Keturah. 
 
 They walked in silence down Broadway, no one rec- 
 ognizing Dr. Suydam in the darkness. As they went 
 through Duane Street, fire engines and hose carriages 
 passed them at a gallop. Reaching Chatham Street, they 
 
 296
 
 Saved As By Fire 
 
 saw smoke and flames rising just beyond them and the 
 people running in crowds. "Where is the fire?" cried 
 Keturah to a police officer. 
 
 "In Mulberry Bend," he said. 
 
 "In Mulberry Bend!" exclaimed Keturah. "Come, 
 Doctor, come quickly; it may be our house!" Keturah 
 started to run, and Dr. Suydam ran with her. They left 
 the sidewalk, which was crowded with people, and ran 
 in the street. They came breathless to the Bend, and 
 there they saw the flames shooting out of the great tene- 
 ment at No. 53. "My God!" cried Keturah. "Mother 
 and father and Benjamin are at home and will perish in 
 the flames!" Without stopping to ask permission, Ke- 
 turah rushed through the passage way into the court. 
 The court was full of smoke and falling bricks, and the 
 water was pouring down in a deluge. 
 
 Just as Dr. Suydam and Keturah entered the court, 
 Benjamin Bain staggered out of the cottage, carrying his 
 mother in his arms. He had gotten only a little way 
 when he was struck to the ground by falling bricks. 
 Dr. Suydam leaped forward and dragged Mrs. Bain to 
 the shelter of the passage way. He was returning for 
 Benjamin, but before he could reach him a portion of 
 the wall fell and buried him in the ruins. 
 
 Keturah ran in and tried to uncover the body of her 
 brother, but the bricks were hot and the water was cold, 
 and she was driven back. Suddenly, with a wild cry, 
 she rushed over the bricks and through the water to the 
 Magrath cabin, calling, "Mother Magrath! Mother 
 Magrath!" Without pausing, she burst into the cabin, 
 which was already afire, and found Mother Magrath 
 crooning over some books which she had in her lap. 
 Keturah picked the woman up as if she had been a 
 
 2Q7
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 baby and ran with her through the sheet of flame that 
 was now pouring out the rear windows of the tenement. 
 
 "The divil! The divil!" cried Mother Magrath. 
 "Where be ye takin' me, at all, at all?" 
 
 "Come, mother, come," said Keturah, "or we'll burn 
 to death." Reaching the passage way, Keturah found 
 Dr. Suydam waiting for her; but her mother had been 
 taken out into the street. Dr. Suydam assisted her to 
 carry Mother Magrath, and when they reached the street 
 she was placed in an ambulance with Mrs. Bain and 
 taken to the hospital of St. Francis. Keturah and Dr. 
 Dr. Suydam went with them. 
 
 As they went along Keturah said : "Is Benjamin 
 dead?" 
 
 "I am afraid that he is," said Dr. Suydam. "No man 
 could live long in such a place as that." 
 
 "Yes," said Keturah, "Benjamin is dead, poor boy, it 
 it better so. He's had a hard life since he was hurt in 
 the riots. He died trying to save his mother." 
 
 "Yes," said Dr, Suydam, "he died a noble death. He 
 has saved himself by trying to save another. You may 
 be sure Benjamin is safe to-night." 
 
 "And father, I wonder where father is? I did not 
 see father anywhere," said Keturah. 
 
 "Perhaps he was not at home," said Dr. Suydam. 
 
 "I am sure he was not," said Keturah, "or we should 
 have seen him." 
 
 They reached the hospital, and the wounded women 
 were taken in and cared for by the good sisters. 
 
 On examination Mrs. Bain was found to have a com- 
 pound fracture of the skull. She lingered out the hours 
 of the night, but in the early morning she died. 
 
 Dr. Suydam stayed with Keturah until her mother 
 died and then he left her. 
 
 298
 
 Saved As By Fire 
 
 John Sherwood had learned where she was and had 
 come to fetch Keturah home to his house. 
 
 He said: "You are mine now, Keturah. You must 
 come home with me." 
 
 "Yes, John," she said, "I will come. I've nowhere 
 else to go." Before he left Dr. Suydam made arrange- 
 ment with the sisters for the burial of Mrs. Bain in the 
 cemetery at Union Hill. 
 
 299
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE SHADOW OF DEATH 
 
 WHEN Dr. Suydam reached home in the morning he 
 was in a pitiable condition. His hat was broken in, his 
 clothing soiled and torn, and he was in the grasp of a 
 deadly chill. He staggered as he walked, and had all 
 the appearance of a man in the last stage of intoxication. 
 Unable to open the door himself, he rang the bell, which 
 was answered by Harry, the serving man. 
 
 When the serving man saw the Doctor, he supposed 
 he was a tramp and shut the door in his face. Incensed 
 at this, the Doctor rang the bell more violently. Harry 
 called to Simmons, the butler, to help him get rid of the 
 tramp at the door. 
 
 Simmons, taking a cane in his hand, opened the door 
 and cried : "Get out o' here, you dirty rascal, or I'll break 
 your 'ead for you." 
 
 "Simmons," said Dr. Suydam, "put down your cane 
 and help me into the house. I am very sick." 
 
 Hearing the Doctor's voice, Simmons dropped his 
 cane which rolled down into the street, and stood gazing 
 open-mouthed. 
 
 "Simmons," said the Doctor, "let me in and help me 
 to my room." 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Simmons, "beg pardon, sir, but you're 
 
 301
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 that rum lookin' as 'ow I didn't know you. You must 
 a been hout all night, sir, you must." 
 
 "Never mind where I have been, Simmons. Help me 
 to my room." 
 
 Without further words Simmons assisted Dr. Suy- 
 dam to his room and put him to bed. 
 
 When he was in bed Dr. Suydam ordered Simmons 
 to say nothing about his condition to any one in the house, 
 but to go at once to Dr. Drane and ask him to come im- 
 mediately. 
 
 Simmons left the room and going down the stairs 
 said to Harry, the waiting man : " 'Arry, we's to keep it 
 dark." 
 
 "Is we?" said Harry. 
 
 "Yes ; Suydam says 'e to me says 'e, 'Simmons,' says 
 I. 'What,' says 'e 'Simmons, I begs i yer pardon for comin' 
 'ome like this', says 'e, 'and you'll please keep it dark. 
 Don't say nothink to nobody,' says 'e, "n go and call Dr. 
 Drane', says 'e, 'and tell him I'm hawful sick.' 
 
 " 'Yes, sir/ say hi, 'and we'll keep it dark, 'Arry and 
 me will.' It 'ud never do for the people to know as 'ow 
 Dr. Suydam came home that drunk as he couldn't get up 
 stairs. Hi gives warnin', hi do. Hit's bad enough to 
 'ave to put Mr. Robert to bed, but when it comes to Dr. 
 Suydam and 'im a preacher o' the Gospel, then hit's time 
 for a man as respects 'isself to give warnin', and hi gives 
 warnin' to-morrow." 
 
 Simmons went at once for Dr. Drane, whom he found 
 in his office. "Well, Simmons," said Dr. Drane, "what 
 is the matter?" 
 
 "Dr. Suydam is that bad, sir, you're to come at once, 
 but the Doctor says as 'ow you'll please keep it dark," and 
 Simmons looked very mysterious and important. 
 
 302
 
 The Shadow of Death 
 
 "Keep what dark, Simmons?" 
 
 "You'll keep it dark as 'ow Dr. Suydam come 'ome 
 this mornin' havin' been hout hall night, and 'e couldn't 
 walk straight, 'e couldn't. 'Arry and me 'ad to 'elp 'im 
 up stairs, we did, and put 'im to bed, jest like we do Mr. 
 Robert, and says 'e to me, says 'e, 'Simmons, keep it 
 dark.' " 
 
 "Simmons," said Dr. Drane, "I advise you to say 
 nothing more about this; it might get you into trouble. 
 I will come over at once and see Dr. Suydam. You may 
 be sure that something else ails Dr. Suydam; he is cer- 
 tainly not drunk." 
 
 "Not drunk? said Simmons. "If you'd a seed him, 
 with 'is 'at stove in and 'is clothes all tore and muddy 
 and 'e a-staggering as 'ow he couldn't walk, you'd say 'e 
 was drunk, and blind drunk, too." 
 
 "Simmons, said Dr. Drane, "you must not talk in 
 this way or you will surely get into trouble." 
 
 "I haint lookin' for no trouble. 'Arry and me gives 
 warnin' to-morrow. Gentlemen like us can't afford to 
 stay in a 'ouse like that, puttin' drunken men to bed that 
 way." 
 
 "Never mind, Simmons, never mind. Go home, and 
 I will follow." 
 
 As Dr. Drane walked to the home of Dr. Suydam, 
 he was greatly troubled by what Simmons had told him. 
 He admired Dr. Suydam most of all because he was a 
 high-toned gentleman. Could it be possible that this 
 man, who all his life had been without reproach had sud- 
 denly fallen into the lowest forms of vice? Was his sen- 
 sational sermon of the day before simply the outbreak 
 of drunken hysteria? 
 Dr. Drane was heart-sick when he reached the home 
 
 303
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 of his distinguished patient. He was afraid to enter lest 
 he should find in it one of those awful tragedies of human 
 sin that play havoc with human life. 
 
 When he entered the room Dr. Drane said, "Good 
 morning, Doctor; Simmons tells me that you are sick." 
 
 "Yes, Doctor Drane," said Dr. Suydam, "I fear that 
 I'm going to be very sick." 
 
 "What is the matter?" said Dr. Drane. 
 
 "I got very wet," answered Dr. Suydam, "and was 
 in my wet clothing all night, and have taken a severe 
 cold. I have severe pains in my left side and can hardly 
 breathe." 
 
 "How did you come to get so wet ?" asked Dr. Drane. 
 "It did not rain last night." 
 
 "No," said Dr. Suydam, "I got wet at the fire." 
 
 "What fire?" 
 
 "The fire in Mulberry Street. It was a dreadful fire. 
 Many lives were lost." 
 
 "Yes," said Dr. Drane. "I was reading of it when 
 Simmons came to call me. But please do not talk any 
 more; let me examine your lungs." While the doctor 
 was holding his ear to the side of his patient, he was 
 wondering how it came to pass that the Reverend Dr. 
 Suydam was at a fire in Mulberry Street. It was a 
 strange place for a respectable man to be found. Dr. 
 Drane was afraid that there was some ground for the 
 suspicions which Simmons had expressed. 
 
 A brief examination showed him, however, that he 
 had not to deal with a case of alcoholism, but with a most 
 dangerous case of pneumonia. The whole left lung was 
 affected, and the upper portion of the right lung was in- 
 volved. 
 
 Dr. Drane told Dr. Suydam that he must be very 
 quiet, and asked for Mrs. Suydam. 
 
 304
 
 The Shadow of Death 
 
 "She left yesterday for Newport. I would not like 
 you to trouble her unless it is necessary," said Dr. Suy- 
 dam. 
 
 "Very well," said Dr. Drane, and the physician left 
 the room and went down-stairs and said to Simmons, 
 "Simmons ?" 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Simmons. 
 
 "Dr. Suydam is not intoxicated and has not been in- 
 toxicated. He is a very sick man. It is a most aggra- 
 vated case of pneumonia. The house must be kept per- 
 fectly quiet, and no one must under any circumstances 
 see Dr. Suydam. I will send nurses from the hospital, 
 and will also send word to Mrs. Suydam. I depend on 
 you to take care of the house and see that the nurses have 
 everything they need." 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Simmons, "but we gives warnin' all 
 the same." 
 
 "Never mind your warnin', Simmons. Stay where 
 you are until Dr. Suydam gets better or dies. It will 
 go one way or the other in a few days." 
 
 "Very well, sir," said Simmons. 
 
 Then began the struggle with death, in the great 
 house on the avenue. The nurses came and kept their 
 watch by the sick bed. Mrs. Suydam returned from 
 Newport to be on hand in case the worst should happen. 
 She went to her husband's room, but he did not know her, 
 and she left him to the care of the doctor and the nurses. 
 By the doctor's orders the bells were muffled and straw 
 was laid in the street. The news of the Doctor's illness 
 drew crowds of curious people, who stood all day gazing 
 at the house. The report was that the great preacher 
 was dying of delirium tremens. New York had not had 
 such a sensation for years. It overshadowed the trial 
 and condemnation of the leaders of the political ring. 
 
 305
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 The newspapers spoke of the mysterious illness as 
 arising from an unsettled mental condition, and spoke 
 of the strange actions of the sick man. 
 
 Meanwhile the sick man himself, in his darkened 
 room, had entered that awful world which the fevered 
 brain creates for itself. He seemed to himself to be 
 going on long journeys seeking for something which he 
 had lost. Now he was walking through a desert, his 
 feet blistered by the burning sand. "See, see," he whis- 
 pered, "the sand is covering her. Come, come quick, 
 let us dig her out, she is buried under the sand." Then 
 he would try to get out of bed, saying to the nurse who 
 restrained him : "Let me go, let me go ; if I don't dig her 
 out she will die." 
 
 "You can't go, Doctor," said the nurse. "You are 
 too sick." 
 
 "I must go," said the Doctor, "I must go, I must go 
 before she dies, or her blood will be on my hands." 
 
 Then the Doctor seemed to be wandering in a great 
 city, hunting amid the millions for one poor lost soul. 
 
 "There now, there," he said, "she is going down that 
 street ; I hear her cry. Don't you hear her cry ? She is 
 in pain; she is dying. Yes, Keturah, I will follow her 
 and will find her. What did you say, only a sheep, only 
 a sheep? Yes, the good shepherd gives his life for the 
 sheep. I will be a good shepherd." 
 
 In his delirium the Doctor talked in this way to him- 
 self without ceasing; that terrible talk that runs on and 
 on until the listener almost goes mad himself. 
 
 Mrs. Suydam came into the room from time to time, 
 but she did not stay. She could not bear the gloom and 
 the terror of the darkened chamber. 
 
 In the early morning when the fever would drop, Dr. 
 
 306
 
 The Shadow of Death 
 
 Suydam's vision would change. In the days of his health 
 he had always been fond of the mountains, and now he 
 found himself wandering in them looking for lost sheep. 
 
 Far down the precipice he would see a lamb that had 
 fallen and was dying. 
 
 The attending nurse gathered all this from his talk. 
 "Look down there," he said, "that is a sheep, is it not? 
 It is dying, but I can't go down there, can I? It would 
 kill me ; I can't go." Then he would look frightened and 
 say : "The good shepherd giveth life for the sheep," and 
 he would break out into tears and cry, "I must go, I 
 must go. I am a good shepherd." 
 
 As the fever fell lower and lower he would talk of 
 sheep lost on the ice and buried in the snow. "Look, 
 look," he said, "there they are, my wife. Katherine, 
 cold, so cold, my wife is frozen. Katherine is freezing". 
 Come, come Kathie, come in out of the cold. Why do 
 you look at me in that way? Can't you come in?" 
 
 After the third day the delirium ceased to create 
 visions. The brain was darkened and useless, the lips 
 were still. There was no sign of life except in the hands, 
 which moved restlessly over the bed-clothing, and in the 
 eyes. The man lived in his eyes. There was in them 
 a look of agony as if they were the prison bars through 
 which a lost soul was gazing. Whoever looked into 
 those eyes was made sick by their piteous stare. Even 
 Dr. Drane, accustomed as he was to such sights, could 
 not look at them unmoved. 
 
 As he was standing by the bedside, Mrs. Suydam 
 came in and stood by him. "How is he?" said she. 
 
 "Very low," said the doctor. 
 
 "How long will he live?" said Mrs. Suydam. 
 
 "I cannot say," said the doctor. "He is in the crisis 
 
 307
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 of his sickness. The fever is falling rapidly. All now 
 depends on the heart's action. If that is strong enough 
 to carry him through he may recover; if not, he will be 
 dead in a few hours." 
 
 "What is the matter with his eyes?" said Mrs. Suy- 
 dam. 
 
 "It is the delirium rising from the fever," said the 
 doctor, adding, "they are strange. I never saw such eyes 
 before." 
 
 It was in the dark hours of the early morning that 
 Mrs. Suydam had this conversation with the physician, 
 at the bedside of her husband. Returning to her room 
 she threw herself down on a couch, dressed in a wrap- 
 per, and fell off into an uneasy sleep, out of which she 
 wakened with a start, to see the agonized eyes of Jacob 
 Suydam gazing at her. They fascinated her with terror. 
 She saw nothing but the eyes, no form nor face, only 
 the two eyes. She cried : "What is it, Dr. Suydam, what 
 is it?" As she spoke, she leaped up from the couch, and 
 found herself in a dark room. The night lamp had gone 
 out, and Mrs. Suydam was in a cold sweat from her head 
 to her feet. "He is dead, he is dead," she said, and 
 hastily throwing off her wrapper and putting on a warm 
 night robe, she crept into bed and covered her head with 
 the clothes. As warmth came back to her body, she lost 
 her sense of terror, and in its place came a feeling of 
 relief. Dr. Suydam was dead, and she could, if she 
 pleased, marry the Duke of Senlac. 
 
 As she dozed away the second time, she had visions 
 of a great hall, in which she was seated, dressed in white 
 satin with a necklace of pearls and a coronet of diamonds. 
 
 308
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 A WATCHER BY THE DOOR 
 
 WHILE Mrs. Suydam was lying asleep in her warm 
 bed, dreaming of future greatness, another woman was 
 crouching outside her door in the cold and dark, praying 
 for the recovery of Dr. Suydam. It was Keturah Bain. 
 Every night during the sickness, Keturah had come up 
 in the hope of hearing good news. There was a bulletin 
 issued by the physician, and Keturah got what comfort 
 she could from reading it. She would stay about the 
 house as long as she dared, and then would go away 
 only to come back again the next night. 
 
 On this night of the crisis the bulletin read: "Dr. 
 Suydam is very low and is failing rapidly. We still 
 have some hope, but fear the worst may happen before 
 morning." 
 
 After reading these words, Keturah went down into 
 the area way and hid herself there in the dark and cold. 
 She could not bear to go home while Dr. Suydam was 
 dying. As she sat in her dumb agony, she was not 
 afraid of darkness and she did not feel the cold. She 
 only felt that the last bit of warmth and light was going 
 out of her life. Her friendship with Dr. Suydam had 
 been the means of breaking up that hardness of heart 
 which had been the result of her hard life. From Dr. 
 
 309
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 Suydam she had learned that God is sorry. That was 
 now her creed. 
 
 In every distress she would say : "God cannot help 
 it, but then God is sorry. And if God is sorry, then 
 there is softness and pity somewhere." 
 
 But this night even that poor creed failed her. As 
 she sat in the cold and gazed out in the darkness, know- 
 ing that her friend was dying in that great house where 
 she could not enter, she no longer believed that God was 
 sorry. There was no God to care for the poor and the 
 broken-hearted. 
 
 With every passing hour Keturah became more hope- 
 less and desolate. She pressed her cheek against the 
 hard stone of the house, finding in its roughness a counter 
 irritant to the hardness and bitterness of her own heart. 
 She was becoming deathly cold, and was falling into that 
 sleep which ends the coldness of life in the coldness of 
 death; when suddenly she started up, wide awake, and 
 saw Dr. Suydam standing before her. 
 
 "What are you waiting for, Keturah ?" said he. 
 
 "I am waiting for you to die," said Keturah. 
 
 "Well, I am dead. You can go home," answered the 
 figure. Not doubting the truth of her vision, Keturah 
 rose promptly to her feet and staggered to the street. In 
 a moment she found herself in the arms of John Sher- 
 wood. "Why, Keturah, where have you been? I have 
 been hunting for you all night," said John. 
 
 "I have been down in the area waiting for Dr. Suy- 
 dam to die," said Keturah, in a whisper. 
 
 "Wont you come home, dear ?" said John. "You will 
 die yourself if you stay any longer out here in the cold." 
 
 "Yes, John," said Keturah; "I will go home. It's 
 no use waiting any longer. Dr. Suydam is dead. Take 
 me home." 
 
 310
 
 A Watcher by the Door 
 
 "How do you know that he is dead ?" said John. 
 
 "He told me so," said Keturah. 
 
 John put the poor girl into a street car and so took 
 her to his home, where his mother put her to bed. And 
 there Keturah shivered all the night and in the morning 
 was in a raging fever. 
 
 3"
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 A NEW LIFE 
 
 NEITHER the dream of Mrs. Suydam nor the vision 
 of Keturah Bain came true. Dr. Suydam did not die. 
 While these two women, one within and one without the 
 house, were disturbed by visions which they interpreted, 
 one according to her guilty hopes, and the other accord- 
 ing to her faithless fears, so that Mrs. Suydam went to 
 sleep, and Keturah Bain went away in the full assur- 
 ance that Dr. Suydam was dead, Dr. Suydam was in 
 reality coming back to life. 
 
 When these women saw him wandering about in the 
 dark, he had fallen oft" into a deep, dreamless sleep, which 
 indicated to the nurse who watched him that the crisis 
 was past and the patient would recover. 
 
 When Mrs. Suydam entered the room next morning, 
 the Doctor was still sleeping quietly; so quietly, that she 
 supposed he was dead. She turned to the attendant and 
 said: "When did he die?" 
 
 "He is not dead, madam," answered the nurse; "on 
 the contrary, he is in a natural sleep from which he will 
 awaken greatly refreshed, and if nothing happens will 
 make a speedy and perfect recovery." 
 
 Mrs. Suydam did not wish at that moment to meet 
 the eyes of her waking husband, so she turned and left 
 
 313
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 the room. She went wearily about her morning duties, 
 thinking somewhat bitterly, of her vision in the night, 
 and how she would have to meet day after day the eyes 
 of Jacob Suydam. 
 
 The recovery of Dr. Suydam was very rapid, his nat- 
 urally robust constitution and his temperate life were 
 greatly in his favor, and it required but a few weeks to 
 put him on his feet again. 
 
 Outwardly, Dr. Suydam had been greatly changed 
 by his sickness. His beard had grown and covered his 
 face with its soft, silken hair. It was a black beard, in 
 which a tinge of gray showed here and there. The 
 change which this beard made in the appearance of Dr. 
 Suydam was very striking. Instead of the smooth- 
 faced ecclesiastic, his friends saw a bearded man, one in 
 whose countenance was to be seen natural kindness more 
 than saintly severity. 
 
 The first time Katherine saw him after his sickness, 
 she made sport of his beard. 
 
 "Oh, my Daddy," she said, "how nice you look ! You 
 do not look at all like a parson, for all the world, you look 
 just like a man." 
 
 "Well, Kathie," said Dr. Suydam, "I am a man, am 
 I not?" 
 
 "Yes, you are, but you didn't use to be," said the girl. 
 
 "What did I use to be?" said the Doctor, smiling. 
 
 "Oh, you used to be a parson," answered Katherine. 
 
 "And is not a parson a man, you wicked girl?" 
 
 "No, a parson is a parson, a priest is a priest." 
 
 "So you think the priest shaves off his manhood with 
 his beard, do you?" 
 
 "Yes, Daddy, that is what I think. A parson loses 
 a good deal of his manhood with his beard. You are 
 going to shave again, are you not?"
 
 A New Life 
 
 "No, not right away," said the Doctor. "I am going 
 to know for a little while, at least, how it feels to be a 
 man. I suppose you think that Dipford's whiskers make 
 a man of him." 
 
 "Yes, indeed I do, Daddy. If it were not for those 
 beautiful sides, which are so English you know, I would 
 never have set my heart on Dipford. By the way, 
 Daddy, I have not forgiven you for preaching that dread- 
 ful sermon, about our selling ourselves for titles and all 
 that." 
 
 "I am sorry, Katherine, that I had to preach that 
 sermon, but I just had to do it. Things are very bad in 
 our social life, worse than you imagine." 
 
 "Worse than I imagine?" said Katherine. "Well; 
 if they are worse than I imagine they must be pretty bad. 
 A girl in our set does not have to call upon her imagina- 
 tion very much. What she sees and hears is enough. 
 Your sermon was true, but it was exceedingly foolish 
 for all that," said the girl, with a toss of her head. 
 
 "Why foolish ?" asked the Doctor. 
 
 "Foolish, because it did no good. Do you think I 
 am going to give up my title and my place in the Eng- 
 lish aristocracy because Daddy thinks the buying of a 
 title is not the highest use to which I can put my beauty 
 and my wealth? And do you think others are going to 
 forsake their favorite sins all on account of a sermon? 
 Not much, Daddy, not much. Fashionable society just 
 dotes on sermons as long as it doesn't have to practice 
 what the sermon teaches; then society votes sermons a 
 bore and the preacher a nuisance. I am afraid, Daddy, 
 that one sermon has cost you your popularity. " 
 
 "Well, Katherine," said Dr. Suydam, "there is no 
 great harm in that. Popularity is a very poor thing,
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 easily gained and more easily lost. And it will not make 
 any difference to me, as I am not going to preach any 
 more sermons, at least not for a long time to come." 
 
 "Why not, Daddy, dear?" said Katherine. "What 
 are you going to do?" 
 
 "I expect I shall have to go abroad," said the Doctor. 
 
 "Go abroad," said Katherine, "oh, how prosaic! I 
 thought you would say, I am going to stand on the 
 Washington Monument in Union Square and prophesy 
 against the wickedness of the city. But going abroad," 
 said the girl, laughing, "going abroad, why that is the 
 American cure-all. When a man succeeds in business 
 he goes abroad, and when he fails he goes abroad. If 
 he is a great general and statesman he goes abroad, and 
 if he is a great politician and rogue he goes abroad. 
 When a woman is married she goes abroad, and when 
 she is divorced she goes abroad. I did think, Daddy, 
 after the great sensation you made, you would do some- 
 thing more original than to go abroad." 
 
 "I would not go, my dear, if I did not have to go. 
 There are some matters in London that I must look into," 
 said the Doctor. 
 
 "Oh, Daddy mine, you are not going to look into 
 the past record of Dipford, are you? If you are, please 
 don't. I am not interested in the past record of Dipford. 
 It is his future record that I am after." 
 
 "My going has nothing to do with Dipford," said 
 the Doctor. 
 
 This conversation was broken off abruptly by the 
 entrance of Mrs. Suydam and Dr. Drane. 
 
 Dr. Drane found his patient somewhat excited, and 
 scolded Katherine for talking to him so long. Dr. Suy- 
 dam smiled and said, "Katherine was not to blame." 
 
 316
 
 A New Life 
 
 He had kept her with him as he was lonely, but he would 
 be good now and go to sleep. 
 
 In a few weeks the Doctor had so far recovered that 
 he was able to go out, and the first thing he did was to 
 visit Keturah Bain in Rivington Street. He called on 
 Sunday, as that was the only day when he could find her 
 at home. Keturah's chill and fever had lasted only a 
 day. She said she could not afford to be sick, and rose 
 up the next morning and went to work. The knowledge 
 that Dr. Suydam was still living was a comfort to her. 
 She knew that as soon as he could he would come to see 
 her and would help her to find Abigail. 
 
 A letter had come from Abigail saying that she was 
 in London, and expected soon to be married. She begged 
 Keturah's pardon for leaving her, but hoped when she 
 was married she could help her more than by teaching 
 school. 
 
 The letter was a comfort to Keturah, assuring her 
 as it did that Abigail was alive, but it also filled her with 
 terror. She felt that Abigail was deceiving herself into 
 the belief that she would be married. Keturah knew too 
 well that girls who allow themselves to live as Abigail 
 was living, seldom marry. Her one thought was to get 
 the girl home and save her from a worse fate than that 
 which had already befallen her. 
 
 When he visited her, Dr. Suydam found her con- 
 sumed with anxiety. She was afraid that if something 
 were not done at once, Abigail would be lost forever. 
 
 Keturah did not recognize Dr. Suydam when he 
 came into the room where she was sitting. It was not 
 until he spoke that she knew it was her friend, who had 
 come back from the gates of the grave. 
 
 "Oh, Doctor Suydam!" she exclaimed, "I did not 
 know you." 
 
 317
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "I suppose not," said he. "Nothing changes a man's 
 appearance so quickly as his beard. Mine has grown 
 during my sickness, and I do not care at present to take 
 it off." 
 
 "I am sorry," said Keturah, "I shall get used to it 
 in time, but now I seem to have lost my prophet." 
 
 "Your prophet it may be, but not your friend," said 
 the Doctor. 
 
 "I am sure of that, Doctor Suydam, and never was I 
 more in need of a friend than now." 
 
 "Have you heard anything?" said the Doctor. 
 
 "Yes, I have heard from Abigail. She is in London. 
 She writes that she expects to be married ; but you know 
 what that means." 
 
 "Yes, I know," said Dr. Suydam. "It may mean 
 more than you think. It is possible that Abigail is mar- 
 ried. At any rate, I will go to London and find her and 
 see that justice is done her. At least I can find her and 
 bring her home." 
 
 Keturah rose up and went and gave both her hands 
 to Dr. Suydam, saying: "You must not sacrifice your- 
 self for us, Doctor, indeed you must not." 
 
 "My dear child," said the Doctor, "it is not a sacri- 
 fice; if it is, it is a necessary sacrifice. I cannot go on 
 any longer in my work at Saint Nicholas. For a time 
 at least, I must have quiet and change. I can get that 
 best by going abroad, and if I can find your sister and 
 save her from further ruin, I shall look upon it is an act 
 of reparation for the wrong which has been done her 
 by a member of my household." 
 
 "When are you going?" said Keturah. 
 
 "I am going to-morrow, and have come to say good- 
 bye. Where are you to live? Here with Mrs. Sher- 
 wood?" said the Doctor. 
 
 318
 
 A New Life 
 
 "Yes, for a while. There are two vacant rooms irf 
 the back loft where I can stay with father until I hear 
 from Abigail." 
 
 "Wont you marry John Sherwood now?" said the 
 Doctor. "He is a good man, and has waited for you a 
 long time." 
 
 "I cannot marry," said Keturah, "until I hear from 
 Abigail. John has waited so long that he has formed 
 the habit of waiting." 
 
 "Well," said Doctor Suydam, "if I find Abigail and 
 bring her home and provide for her, then you and John 
 must marry." 
 
 "Yes," said Keturah. "When Abigail is found, then 
 John and I will marry and go and live somewhere in 
 quiet for the rest of our lives, which wont be long. Poor 
 John, when he marries me, if he ever does, he is going 
 to marry a poor, old, wornout woman." 
 
 Dr. Suydam gave Keturah his blessing, and went out 
 in search of the sheep that was lost. 
 
 319
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 A GOODLY INHERITANCE 
 
 KETURAII went down to the pier the morning that Dr. 
 Suydam sailed for England, to bid him good-bye, and to 
 get what little comfort she could from his words of en- 
 couragement. No one else had come to see the Doctor 
 on the day of his departure, as he had kept the matter 
 of his going a secret. His name did not appear in the 
 list of first-class cabin passengers, and no one ever 
 thought of looking in the list of the second cabin for so 
 distinguished a name as that of the Reverend Dr. Suy- 
 dam. Had they looked, the plain name of Jacob Suydam 
 would never have attracted attention. Dropping his 
 title disguised Dr. Suydam's name as effectually as grow- 
 ing his beard disguised his face. 
 
 No one recognized him as he stood on the after deck 
 talking to Keturah. He was only one of the crowd of 
 nameless people that filled the steamer with noise and 
 confusion. The time for sailing had arrived, and Dr. 
 Suydam stooped and kissed Keturah reverently on the 
 brow, saying: "Keep your courage, my child. Be sure 
 I will do all I can for Abigail." 
 
 "I am sure you will, Doctor," said Keturah, "that is 
 the only thing that gives me any hope. If you do not 
 find her, she is lost forever." 
 
 321
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "I will find her if she is alive, and will bring her back 
 to you, as a wife if I can, but anyhow, my dear, as a 
 sister." 
 
 "Yes, Doctor, as a sister. No matter what has hap- 
 pened to her, or what she has done, she is and always 
 will be my sister." The cry "all ashore" was heard, and 
 Keturah hurried down the gang plank to the pier, and 
 stood watching while the great steamer swung out into 
 the river and steamed down the bay. The poor girl 
 watched the ship until it was lost to sight, and then with 
 a sad yet hopeful heart, went homeward. 
 
 Keturah's life had been wholly changed within the 
 last few weeks. The objects of her lifelong care had 
 been suddenly taken away. Her mother and Benjamin 
 were dead, Abigail had gone, and only her father was 
 left. 
 
 Captain Bain had, as Keturah expected, lost his posi- 
 tion in the Court House and was wandering aimlessly 
 about the streets, losing what little self-respect was left 
 him. He waited in Maloney's saloon for some one to 
 treat him at the bar. Maloney no longer gave him defer- 
 ence. He allowed the fallen politician a corner in his 
 saloon, and there the Captain would sit and sleep all day 
 and far into the night, and would often wander all night 
 in the street, being unable to find his way to his new 
 home in Rivington Street. His condition was a constant 
 source of anxiety to Keturah, which perhaps at the time 
 was a good thing as it kept her from brooding over the 
 possible fate of Abigail. 
 
 Keturah had also to look after Mother Magrath, who 
 since the fire had been rapidly failing. She was still in 
 the hospital, and Keturah visited her nearly every even- 
 ing. She found the poor woman pining for her cabin 
 
 322
 
 A Goodly Inheritance 
 
 and for her boy. "Oh, Keturah, mavourneen," she cried, 
 "wont ye be afther takin' me home and bliss me eyes wid 
 a sight o' me bye ? It aint the likes o' here I can die. The 
 banshee 'ull niver come here, niver, and I can't die wid- 
 out de banshee." 
 
 "Well, mother," said Keturah, "there is a room in our 
 house in Rivington Street. I will take you there if you 
 want to go." 
 
 "Rivington Street. Where's that ?" said Mother Ma- 
 grath. 
 
 "It is where I am living now. You know, mother, 
 that our house and your cottage were burned down in the 
 great fire." 
 
 "Burnt down, did ye say, me darlin', burnt down? 
 Ochone, ochone ! And me books, did me books burn too, 
 mavourneen, did me books burn?" said the old woman, 
 crying and shaking her head." 
 
 "No, mother. I have your books. They were in your 
 apron, when I carried you out of the cabin, and I tied 
 them up in a bundle, and am keeping them for you." 
 
 "And '11 be takin' me home, and let me see the bye?" 
 
 "Yes, mother, you shall go home, and I will send for 
 Shinar to come and see you." 
 
 Keturah was longing herself to see Shinar, so she was 
 the more willing to grant the request of Mother Magrath. 
 That night a letter went to Shinar, inclosing money for 
 his railway ticket and asking him to come home at once, 
 as Mother Magrath was dying. 
 
 The next evening Shinar made his appearance in Riv- 
 ington Street. When Keturah saw him she gave an 
 exclamation of surprise. She had sent a street Arab 
 away, and a young gentleman had come back to her. 
 During the few months of his absence, that marvellous 
 
 323
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 change had come over Shinar, which comes over every 
 boy when he ceases to be a boy and becomes a man. 
 The high treble voice had become a rich baritone, the 
 slouching form was erect; the tousled hair was combed 
 into some kind of order, a dark moustache shaded the 
 upper lip ; only the black merry eyes were left of the 
 Shinar who had gone into the country a few months 
 before. 
 
 He had come out of the old street life as a butterfly 
 comes out of its cocoon, and by his appearance and bear- 
 ing gave assurance of that good blood that was in his 
 veins. 
 
 Keturah looked at him in silence, and then throwing 
 her arms around him said : "It is Shinar, after all." 
 
 "Sure it's Shinar," said the youth. "Who did you 
 think it was?" 
 
 "I thought it was the Marquis of Dipford, that we 
 have been reading about. Who ever would expect to see 
 Shinar with a clean face and a black moustache?" And 
 Keturah held the lad at arm's length, laughing heartily. 
 
 "Where I come from," said the boy, "it's easy to keep 
 clean, 'cause there's plenty o' water and no dirt, and as 
 for me moustache," he added, stroking it fondly, "why, 
 things grows faster in the country than they do in the 
 city." 
 
 "But you don't like the country, Shinar," said Ketu- 
 rah. "It's too noisy for you. Just listen and see how 
 quiet the city is." 
 
 Shinar listened to the roar of the city and laughed. 
 Shaking his hair out of his eyes, he said : "Yes, I do like 
 the country. I wouldn't live in your dirty old city if you 
 would give it to me. I am going to be a farmer." 
 
 "I am glad to hear it, my boy," said Keturah, "but 
 what has changed your mind so suddenly?" 
 
 324
 
 A Goodly Inheritance 
 
 "Oh, nothin' aint changed it. It just changed itself. 
 At first I couldn't stand the country at all. It was lone- 
 some like and so noisy, birds singin', roosters crowin', 
 cows bellowin' all the time. But after a while I got used 
 to them kind o' noises and didn't hear 'em at all. Now 
 when I come down and hear the rattle and the bang of the 
 city streets, I wonder if I was ever a boot-black, runnin* 
 about cussin' and swearin'. We don't cuss and swear to 
 our house in the country, 'cause Father Grover is a deacon 
 in the church, and he don't allow it." 
 
 "Well, Shinar," said Keturah, "I am glad to hear that 
 you have made up your mind to be a farmer. Maybe 
 when I am an old woman you will let me come and live 
 with you and I needn't go to the poor-house." 
 
 "Come and live with me !" said the boy, "you may bet 
 your life on that. You'll have the best room in the house, 
 but say, Keturah, what'll John say to that? He'll be 
 wantin' to come too, wont he?" 
 
 "Oh, John'll be married to a nice young woman by 
 that time," said Keturah, shaking her head. "But come, 
 Shinar, we must go and see Mother Magrath." 
 
 When they reached the hospital they found the bed 
 of Mother Magrath surrounded by a screen. The sister 
 said the old woman was very low, probably dying. "We 
 may see her?" said Keturah. 
 
 "Certainly," said the sister. 
 
 "Look, Mother Magrath, look, I have brought some 
 one to see you." And Keturah, taking Shinar by the 
 hand, led him up to the side of the bed. 
 
 The old woman turned her gray head on the pillow 
 and looked at the boy without the least sign of recogni- 
 tion in her eyes. She turned to Keturah, and said in a 
 whisper: "Who's that?" 
 
 325
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "It's me, mother. It's Shinar. Don't you know me ?" 
 said the boy. 
 
 The old woman started up and sat straight in her bed 
 and looked eagerly in the face of the youth. Then she 
 shook her withered hand in that face and screamed : "Ye 
 lie, ye lie, ye dirty spalpeen ! Me Shinar was a bye wid a 
 dirty face and wid a muck o' hair, wid a hickory shirt and 
 a gallass. Oh, holy Vargin, Mither o' God," she cried, 
 falling back on her pillow. "They have kilt me bye and 
 now they'll be afther stalin' the money." She looked 
 wildly about for a moment, clapped her hands together 
 and cried, "The banshee, the banshee !" Then the hands 
 fell upon the bed, the eyes were set and the woman was 
 dead. 
 
 "Poor mother," said Keturah, "the sight of you has 
 killed her. I ought to have thought that she would not 
 know you." 
 
 Shinar took the dead hand in his and said : "Poor old 
 mother, poor old mother ! She wasn't much of a mother, 
 but she was all I ever had except you, Keturah, except 
 you. You have always been my real mother." 
 
 Keturah told the sister in charge that she would send 
 for the body of the old woman and see that it was properly 
 buried. Then she and Shinar went home. 
 
 When she reached the house, Keturah remembered 
 the books which she had taken from Mother Magrath on 
 the night of the fire. She opened the package and saw 
 that they were bank-books. There were four of them. 
 And looking them over Keturah found to her astonish- 
 ment that Mother Magrath had between eight and ten 
 thousand dollars on deposit in various savings banks. 
 She had been putting in and never drawing out, and her 
 savings for all these years, with interest, made a small 
 fortune. 
 
 326
 
 A Goodly Inheritance 
 
 After she had studied the books for some time Keturah 
 looked up and said : "Shinar, you can have the best farm 
 in the country whenever you want it. You are a rich 
 man." 
 
 "How's that?" said Shinar. 
 
 "Mother Magrath is dead and you are her heir. She 
 has left you nearly ten thousand dollars." 
 
 "What do you mean ?" cried the boy. 
 -"I mean just what I say, I had her make a will in your 
 favor. The will is in the safe at the office. I thought the 
 old woman had a little money which ought to be yours 
 when she died, but I never dreamed she had so much." 
 
 "What an old miser !" said Shinar. 
 
 That night Mother Magrath had her wake. But it 
 was not the wild Irish wake that her soul longed for. 
 Only Keturah and Shinar watched beside her coffin. 
 
 As they sat out the long hours of the night Keturah 
 told Shinar all about Abigail. The poor lad listened to 
 the story with a breaking heart, and when it was finished 
 all of his young manhood went out of him and he laid his 
 head on Keturah's knees and cried like a child. 
 
 He said : "What do I care for the money now ? Take 
 it, Keturah, take it and spend every cent of it hunting for 
 Abigail till you find her. Only leave me enough to go 
 after the man. I'll hunt him all round the world and 
 when I find him I'll kill him." 
 
 "No, you wont, Shinar," said Keturah. "You'll keep 
 your money and buy a farm and marry some good woman 
 who will love you. Dr. Suydam has gone to hunt for 
 Abigail. He'll find her and bring her back, but if he 
 does she can never marry you." 
 
 "Why can't she marry me ?" cried the boy. 
 
 "Because she doesn't love you," said Keturah, "and 
 
 327
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 besides, she is another man's wife or else she is a bad 
 woman." 
 
 "She aint a bad woman," said the boy. "You oughtn't 
 to say she's a bad woman, and if she is a bad woman, I'll 
 marry her and make her good." 
 
 "Poor boy," said Keturah, as she stroked his head. 
 
 The next day the body of Mother Magrath was taken 
 to the church, and a mass was said for the repose of her 
 soul. And she had a funeral according to her desire 
 Mulberry Bend was there, and two-and-twenty hacks fol- 
 lowed the hearse. 
 
 328
 
 BOOK THIRD 
 w * 
 
 The Great Redemption
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 WICKED LONDON S WAIFS AND STRAYS 
 
 WHEN Dr. Suydam reached London, he found that 
 he was too late. Robert Bullet and the Marquis of Dip- 
 ford had left England for a voyage in the Mediterranean 
 Sea and the Indian Ocean, meaning to go as far as Cal- 
 cutta. 
 
 Dr. Suydam cautiously made inquiries, but could gain 
 no knowledge of Abigail Bain. He had letters from the 
 Duke of Senlac that admitted him as a visitor to the 
 various clubs in London that Dipford frequented, and he 
 made the acquaintance of a number of Dipford's friends. 
 He asked one of these, a young nobleman, if any ladies 
 had gone with the Marquis of Dipford and Mr. Bullet. 
 
 "Ladies," said his lordship, "I think not. I know 
 that Marie Du Pre has not gone with Dipford, and I 
 don't think the fellow Bullet had any woman with him." 
 
 "You are sure of that ?" said the Doctor. 
 
 "Yes," said the man. "I was down at Southampton 
 the day Dipford sailed, and there wasn't a woman on 
 board the yacht. Englishmen don't take women on a 
 voyage like that. Women are a bore on shipboard." 
 
 "Thank you, my lord," said Dr. Suydam. "You 
 spoke of a certain woman just now. What did you say 
 her name was ?" 
 
 33T
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "Marie Du Pre," said his lordship. 
 
 "Marie Du Pre," said Dr. Suydam, "I have heard 
 that name, Du Pre. Who is she?" 
 
 "Marie Du Pre," answered his lordship, "is one of 
 the most brilliant women of our under world. She has 
 ruined the estate of Senlac. She had the Duke for her 
 lover until she was tired of him, then she took up with 
 Dickie FitzOsborn, who was then Marquis of Dipford, 
 and killed him, then she laid hold of Tommy, the present 
 Marquis, and has nearly killed him." 
 
 "A very dangerous woman," said Dr. Suydam. 
 
 "Yes, but a danger that men court," said the noble- 
 man. "Men of the highest rank and fortune seek the 
 favor of Marie Du Pre. To be her lover for a week is a 
 title of nobility." 
 
 "Where could I see this woman ?" said Dr. Suydam. 
 
 "Ah," said his lordship, looking at Dr. Suydam 
 through his monocle. "You wish to see Marie, do you? 
 Well, I suppose that when you parsons are travelling 
 mufti you have your fling as well as the rest of us. If 
 you wish to see the most famous courtesan in England 
 you may catch a glimpse of her some night at supper in 
 the Continental on Regent Street. Marie is not as select 
 as she used to be. She is falling pretty fast. She'll be 
 on the street in another year." 
 
 "I beg your lordship's pardon," said Dr. Suydam, 
 "but I wish to see this woman, because I hope she can 
 give me some information that I am in search of." 
 
 "You can go to no better source of information in 
 London," said his lordship. "A man can learn more 
 from Marie Du Pre in an hour than he can from any 
 other woman in a year." 
 
 "Your lordship misjudges me," said Dr. Suydam, 
 
 332
 
 Wicked London's Waifs and Strays 
 
 bowing and leaving the club. His lordship, still holding 
 his monocle to his eye, looked after him and smiled. 
 
 When Dr. Suydam reached his hotel on the embank- 
 ment, he was very ill at ease. He saw at once that if he 
 continued his search for Abigail he would lay himself 
 open to the gravest suspicions. No one would ever be- 
 lieve that he sought the company of evil women for any 
 other than an evil purpose. He was filled with disgust, 
 as he thought of the Englishman following him with his 
 insolent stare, and made up his mind that he would drop 
 the whole business. If Abigail was lost in London, then 
 Abigail was lost and that was the end of it. 
 
 After dinner Dr. Suydam sat for a while in his room 
 thinking what he should do and finding himself very rest- 
 less he went out to walk away his nervousness. He 
 wandered along the embankment until he came to West- 
 minister, and strayed through the streets about the Abbey 
 until he heard the clock strike eleven. Then turning 
 homeward, passing through Trafalgar Square and hardly 
 knowing which way he went, found himself in front of a 
 brilliantly lighted hotel. Feeling tired and hungry, he 
 went into the hotel to get some supper. 
 
 An attendant in uniform showed him to the supper 
 room upstairs. 
 
 When Dr. Suydam entered the room he started back, 
 and fell against the attendant. He saw that it was no 
 place for a respectable man, much less a minister of the 
 Gospel. "What place is this?" said he to the man in 
 uniform. 
 
 "It is the Continental, sir," said the man. 
 
 "The Continental," said Dr. Suydam in an undertone. 
 "That is the place where the woman, Marie Du Pre., 
 sometimes comes?" 
 
 333
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "Yes, sir," said the man. "She is 'ere to-night with 
 my Lord Erdel, that's 'er settin' at the third table under 
 the mirror." 
 
 Dr. Suydam went in and took a table in a corner where 
 he could watch the woman, and ordered a chop and some 
 ale. Women sitting about in evening dress cast glances 
 in his direction expecting an invitation to take supper 
 with him. As he paid no attention whatever to them, 
 they began to indulge in slighting remarks at his expense. 
 
 Dr. Suydam, becoming ashamed of his surroundings, 
 was about to leave the place when he was attracted by the 
 face of the woman whom he was watching. She half 
 turned her face and showed him one of the most remark- 
 able profiles that he had ever seen in his life. A low brow 
 shaded by heavy dark hair, a high arched nose, a cheek 
 of ashy paleness, a mouth quivering at its corner with 
 some strong emotion and a firm under jaw made up a 
 face that one could not help looking at the second time. 
 It was the face of a woman born to greatness. Dr. Suy- 
 dam was fascinated by it and wondered how such a 
 woman came to be in such a place. 
 
 As he was gazing at her she suddenly turned about 
 and looked him full in the eye. And then there came into 
 her face such a look of fear as Dr. Suydam had never 
 seen on human face before; the great black eyes dilated 
 with horror, the lips of the woman became bloodless, and 
 a spasm passed over her face from the chin to the eye- 
 lashes. 
 
 Saying something impatiently to her companion at 
 table, the woman pushed back the chair and rising hastily, 
 passed out of the room. As she did so Dr. Suydam saw 
 that she was divinely tall and her form moulded as if it 
 were a model for Phidias. 
 
 334
 
 Wicked London's Waifs and Strays 
 
 Seeing her standing and shivering in the hallway, the 
 Doctor stepped up and said: "I beg your pardon, 
 madam, but may I speak to you for a moment?" 
 
 The woman looked him straight in the eye, and after 
 a second or two said : "Yes, but not here." Turning to 
 the attendant, she said : "Bring me my cloak." The man 
 brought a handsome scarlet cloak, which Dr. Suydam 
 took and threw around her shoulders as deferentially as 
 if she had been a princess. 
 
 As he did this the man with whom the woman had 
 been sitting in the supper room came and said : "I see, 
 Marie, you throw me over for what you think better 
 company," and fixing a monocle in his right eye, he gave 
 the Doctor a stony English stare, and then he bowed. 
 "It's the American parson or I'm damned," said he under 
 his breath. To the Doctor he said : "I congratulate you, 
 sir. You have the true American enterprise." 
 
 Dr. Suydam recognized his friend of the club, who 
 had told him of Marie Du Pre, lifting his hat and blush- 
 ing he passed down the stairway and out into the street. 
 The woman motioned to a cab, and they were driven 
 rapidly to the neighborhood of Russell Square ; the woman, 
 took the Doctor's cane and motioned to the left and the 
 cab stopped in front of a plain but substantial house. Dr. 
 Suydam put his fingers in the pocket of his vest and tak- 
 ing the first coin which came to him gave the cabby a half 
 sovereign. "Thank ye, my lord," said cabby, "thank 
 ye ; I 'opes as 'ow yer lordship will have a pleasant night, 
 and I knows yer will." Without further words the cabby 
 drove rapidly away, fearing that he should be asked for 
 change. 
 
 Dr. Suydam was taken upstairs and shown by his 
 hostess into a small room, handsomely furnished. Beg- 
 
 335
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 ging him to excuse her for a moment, the lady retired 
 and left him to make himself at home. The little room 
 was the perfection of exquisite luxury. Low bookcases 
 lined the walls, above them hung pictures, which even in 
 the dim light were seen to be the work of masters. At 
 one end of the room was a couch covered with blue silk, 
 and chairs of the same color were scattered about. The 
 air of the room was perfumed with a subtle odor that 
 stole in upon the senses with enervating power. 
 
 Dr. Suydam began to be afraid ; he felt himself in the 
 clutch of some soft creature who was strangling him 
 with her arms. 
 
 As he was battling with this sensation, his hostess en- 
 tered the room. She had laid aside her evening dress and 
 was clad in a house gown of soft clinging white. As she 
 entered the room Dr. Suydam rose and unconsciously 
 bowed before her. Never had he seen so tragic a figure 
 as this woman presented ; there was about her an air of 
 ruin and despair that appealed to every fiber of his 
 manhood. 
 
 "I offer no excuse, sir," she said, "for admitting a 
 stranger to my house at this hour of the night. I am a 
 woman for whom excuses have long ceased to be a neces- 
 sity." 
 
 "I assure you, madam, that I come into your house 
 with feelings of the most profound respect for its mis- 
 tress, who, whatever may have been her misfortunes, I 
 am sure is still a good woman." 
 
 "A good woman," she said, laughing a low, sad, 
 musical laugh. "I take it, sir, that you are a stranger 
 in London?" 
 
 "I am, madam," said the Doctor. 
 
 "Permit me to tell you, sir," said the woman, haught- 
 
 336
 
 Wicked London's Waifs and Strays 
 
 ily, "that you are in the house of one of the most notorious 
 women of pleasure in London, you are in the house of 
 Marie Du Pre. A woman who admits to her favor only 
 royalty and nobility. If I have brought you home, it is 
 only because I wished to escape the attentions of that 
 beast, who was insulting me at table. I will if you please 
 then dismiss you, and wish you good-night. I am in no 
 mood to give pleasure to you or to any other man." 
 
 "Madam," said Dr. Suydam, "I am not here to ask of 
 you anything that would be dishonorable either to you or 
 to me. I am here to ask your help." 
 
 337
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 A MIGHTY RUIN 
 
 MARIE Du PRE glided to the couch and sat down, 
 motioning to Dr. Suydam to seat himself beside her. 
 "Pray," she said, "who are you and what do you know 
 of me, and why do you ask me to help you?" 
 
 "Who I am," said the Doctor, "is of no consequence 
 now. I know that you are Marie Du Pre, that you are 
 acquainted with the Marquis of Dipford." 
 
 "The Marquis of Dipford," said the woman, in a 
 whisper, "that is it, that is why you frightened me. I 
 seemed to see the Marquis of Dipford standing beside 
 you. But, sir, the Marquis of Dipford is dead." 
 
 "The Marquis of Dipford dead," cried the Doctor. 
 "Why, when did he die ?" 
 
 "A year ago," whispered the woman. 
 
 "Impossible," said Dr. Suydam. "I have seen him 
 alive within the last three months." 
 
 "Oh, you mean Tommy," said the woman, "I never 
 think of him as the Marquis ; the Marquis is dead. If it 
 is Tommy you mean, I can tell you about him. What do 
 you wish to know?" 
 
 "The Marquis of Dipford is to marry my step- 
 daughter, an American woman of wealth and position." 
 
 "Tommy is going to marry a rich American, is he?" 
 
 339
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 said Marie Du Pre, laughing heartily. "Good for 
 Tommy, I knew that he would do something to save the 
 family, even if he is the fool. And he will, if he doesn't 
 die," she added, "if he doesn't die. Have you come to 
 me to give Tommy a character?" 
 
 "No," said the Doctor, "my daughter is not going to 
 marry Tommy, as you call him. She is going to marry 
 the Marquis of Dipford, heir to the Dukedom of Senlac. 
 In her opinion the rank of her suitor makes character 
 unnecessary." 
 
 "It is well she thinks so," said Marie Du Pre, "for if 
 Tommy were not a nobleman, Tommy would be con- 
 sidered no better than the wicked. But pray, sir, if you 
 do not wish to inquire about the Marquis of Dipford, may 
 I ask to what I owe your presence here?" 
 
 "I have come to ask you to help me find a young girl, 
 who, I fear, is lost here in London," said the Doctor. 
 
 "A young girl lost in London. Why, sir, there are 
 thousands of such girls, how do you expect to find one 
 among so many?" said Marie Du Pre. 
 
 "It is for this reason that I have come to you. With- 
 out some clue I know my search would be useless," said 
 the Doctor. 
 
 "And you expect me to give you a clue? You think 
 I know all the lost women in London. If so, you are 
 greatly mistaken. There are ranks and degrees in the 
 lower world just as there are in the world above us. 
 The women of the street are as far below me as I am 
 below the Duchess of Senlac." 
 
 "Yes, madam," said the Doctor. "But my hope is in 
 the fact of your association with the house of Senlac. The 
 young woman that I am looking for came over with a 
 Mr. Bullet, my step-son, the brother of the lady whom 
 
 340
 
 A Mighty Ruin 
 
 the Marquis is to marry. Mr. Bullet came with the Mar- 
 quis to London. If the young woman was with him, I 
 thought you might possibly have seen her or, at least, 
 have heard of her." 
 
 "Oh, is it that woman ? Oh, yes, I have seen her and 
 her precious American protector. Of all the cads I have 
 ever seen, he is the worst. And the woman is a silly." 
 
 "Where is she ?" said the Doctor. 
 
 "They were living in lodgings in Craven Street. Dip- 
 ford brought them here, and wanted to place the woman 
 under my protection. But what is she to you, that you 
 should take the trouble to come all the way from America 
 to London to search for her? You want to save her; is 
 that it?" 
 
 "That is it. I am a clergyman. This woman is one 
 of my flock. She has been wronged by a member of my 
 own household. She is the sister of a dear friend. I 
 must find her and take her home even if in doing so I 
 lose my name and place in the world." 
 
 "You are willing to do this for a lost woman?" said 
 Marie Du Pre. 
 
 "I am willing," said the Doctor. 
 
 Marie Du Pre looked steadily at Dr. Suydam for a 
 moment and said : "I believe you, sir. And let me tell 
 you, you have already risked your good name. That 
 wretch, Erdel, seemed to know you. If he did it will be 
 known in the club before morning that you have gone 
 with Marie Du Pre. And if you are as you say, a clergy- 
 man, you are lost." 
 
 "I feared as much when I saw the man," said Dr. 
 Suydam. "It is of no use to make any explanations. I 
 must go on with my search, no matter what happens." 
 
 "I will help you," said Marie Du Pre. "I will go to
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 the lodgings in Craven Street, and if the woman is there 
 will let you know, if not I will find out, if I can, where 
 she has gone to." 
 
 "Thank you, madam," said Dr. Suydam. "I am sure, 
 with your help, I shall find the poor girl that is lost." 
 
 "Girl that is lost," murmured Marie Du Pre. "Girl 
 that is lost. My God! how many there are, how many 
 there are !" 
 
 "May I, without offense, ask you, madam, to what 
 great misfortune you owe your sad place in the world?" 
 The Doctor said these words so tenderly that the woman 
 was moved. 
 
 "Oh, do not pity me, sir, do not pity me. If you pity 
 me you will break my heart. I must believe that I am 
 wicked or else I must die. I owe my place in the world 
 to the fact that when I was a girl of eighteen, I seduced 
 a peer of the realm of England, a cabinet minister, a 
 duke, who was old enough to be my father. Have I not 
 reason to be proud of my wickedness?" 
 
 "My dear madam," said the Doctor, "your story is 
 wildly improbable. A girl of eighteen could not beguile 
 such a man as you describe. She must have been the 
 victim, not the aggressor." 
 
 "Sir, you shall hear and judge for yourself. I am the 
 granddaughter of a French nobleman, who, in the Revo- 
 lution, fled with his children to England. He supported 
 himself by teaching French to the children of Senlac. 
 His son, my father, married a maid-in-waiting to the 
 Duchess. 
 
 "I was taken in the castle as a maid-in-waiting in my 
 turn. When I was eighteen years old, her Grace, the 
 Duchess sent me to open the town house. His Grace 
 came up to London soon after. We were alone in the 
 
 343
 
 A Mighty Ruin 
 
 house, except for the care-taker. His Grace was very 
 courteous and attentive to me. He insisted that we 
 should dine together. We had rich food and choice 
 wines. His Grace was as affectionate as if I had been his 
 daughter, or his wife, yes, his wife. He forgot and he 
 made me forget that I was not his wife. I was young 
 and ignorant ; he was weak and so he fell a victim to my 
 youth and ignorance. 
 
 "When the Duchess came to town the Duke advised 
 me to leave her service, and provided me with this house, 
 and here our children were born." 
 
 "Your children," said Dr. Suydam, in astonishment, 
 "your children. Had you children?" 
 
 "Yes, two, a boy and a girl," said Marie Du Pre. 
 
 "And are they living?" said Dr. Suydam. 
 
 "Yes, they are living, though they had far better be 
 dead. Poor children ; their blood is the noblest blood of 
 France and of England, and yet it is more shameful than 
 the blood of the costermonger of Covent Garden." 
 
 "Where are they?" said the Doctor. 
 
 "They are where they will never know their father or 
 their mother," answered Marie Du Pre, "they are a shame 
 to their father and their mother is a shame to them." 
 
 "Who is their father?" 
 
 "Have I not told you? He is the Duke of Senlac." 
 
 "The Duke of Senlac ?" exclamed the Doctor. "Then 
 they are half brother and sister to the Marquis of Dip- 
 ford?" 
 
 "Half brother and sister to the Marquis of Dipford," 
 said the woman, laughing bitterly, "the bastards of Marie 
 Du Pre, half brother and sister to the Marquis of Dip- 
 ford. Poor children, they have no kindred, no father, no 
 brother, no sister, only a wicked mother, only a wicked 
 mother." 
 
 343
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "You must not say so, you are not wicked," said the 
 Doctor, indignantly. 
 
 "Not wicked, sir, I tell you I am wicked. His Grace 
 became tired of me and left me. My father is the clergy- 
 man of the Parish of Senlac, my brother is the confiden- 
 tial friend of the Duke. These have cast me off because I 
 am a wicked and designing woman, who seduced his 
 Grace, wasted his fortune, ruined and killed his son. 
 Yes," said the woman, walking up and down the room, 
 with all the fierceness and grace of a caged leopard. "I 
 am wicked. There was nothing left for me but to be 
 wicked. I am a vampire. I suck the blood of princes. 
 I number among my victims the elder sons of ducal 
 houses. I am Marie Du Pre, the greatest courtesan in 
 London. I trample men under my feet. I, one ruined 
 woman, have ruined a hundred men. I take them when 
 they are young, I sap their strength. I kill them with 
 pleasure. Oh, Dipford, Dipford," cried the woman, 
 throwing up her arms and falling headlong on the floor. 
 
 Dr. Suydam sat down on the floor and took her head 
 upon his knees and watched beside her until the par- 
 oxysm of shame and terror passed away. Then he left 
 her and went out into the cold gray light of a London 
 morning. 
 
 544
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE BLEATING OF THE SHEEP 
 
 LATER in the day, Dr. Suydam called in at the club to 
 see if there were any letters for him, and there he met 
 again the man to whom he had spoken about Marie Du 
 Pre and whom he had seen with her the night before. He 
 knew him now as Lord Erdel of Erdleford, in Stafford- 
 shire. He had looked him up in the peerage. 
 
 His lordship looked at Dr. Suydam through his mono- 
 cle and said with a drawl : "Good morning, sir. I need 
 not ask if you had a pleasant night." 
 
 "I beg your lordship's pardon," said the Doctor; "but 
 I did not seek for pleasure ; I had other business with the 
 woman." 
 
 "Oh, of course, of course," said Lord Erdel ; "I under- 
 stand. Parsons never sin except for the good of the 
 people." 
 
 Dr. Suydam turned away, took his letters, looked up 
 Marie Du Pre's residence in the Directory and left the 
 club, knowing that he left his good name to the mercy 
 of a scandal-monger. 
 
 In the afternoon he called upon Marie Du Pre, who 
 told him that the American woman had been dismissed 
 from the lodgings in Craven Street. No one knew where 
 she had gone to. She was probably drifting somewhere 
 
 345
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 about the streets of London. "Go," said Marie Du Pre, 
 "to Piccadilly and walk the street. Every woman on the 
 town goes into Piccadilly some time during the night." 
 
 At nine o'clock Dr. Suydam took a cab and was driven 
 to Piccadilly Circus. Leaving the cab, he walked slowly 
 down the street. He found himself in the great market 
 where women sell themselves to every passer-by for bread. 
 His secluded and scholarly life had made him unfamiliar 
 with such scenes as those which now shocked him as he 
 saw the shameless traffic of the London streets. 
 
 He knew, of course, that there was such evil in the 
 world. He had seen pestilence gliding along Broadway 
 and seeking the darkness of the side street in his own 
 city of New York. There vice had, at least, the virtue 
 of semi-concealment. 
 
 But here in the capital of the Protestant Christian 
 world the traffic in human flesh was as open as the traffic 
 in the flesh of calves in the market. There was no pre- 
 tense at concealment. These women were no more 
 ashamed of their trade than the butcher was of his. Nor 
 did the passer-by seem to see anything out of the way in 
 this degradation of womanhood. English gentlemen 
 elbowed their way through the throng of women with 
 perfect unconcern. 
 
 Dr. Suydam was aghast at the sight. He saw here 
 women tall and fair, women who to the eye were worthy 
 of love and reverence, offering themselves without shame 
 to the stranger. As he was swept on by the crowd, Dr. 
 Suydam felt rising within him every base desire and every 
 unholy thought. His nature, heretofore so calm and pure, 
 was stirred to its dregs. He felt himself being sucked 
 down by the maelstrom of vice which surrounded him. 
 From this place good was banished and evil was taken for 
 
 346
 
 The Bleating of the Sheep 
 
 granted. A man's presence here was an evidence of his 
 evil nature, and here that evil in its lowest form was ap- 
 pealed to more powerfully than anywhere else in the 
 world. 
 
 Dr. Suydam hurried along, not daring to look into the 
 faces of the women, his throat dry, his lips parched, his 
 soul crying desperately for salvation. 
 
 As he came back to the Circus about midnight, he 
 saw a sight that moved him to indignation and turned his 
 attention from himself, and he saved himself by trying to 
 save another. He saw two men, evidently gentlemen, in 
 evening dress, maltreating a woman. The creature was 
 hardly a woman. She was but a girl, of eighteen or nine- 
 teen. One of these men was pressing the frightened 
 wretch against the wall of the house, while the other 
 cried : "Hold her, Erdel, hold her till I call an officer." 
 
 The crowd of women paused for a moment and 
 looked curiously at their sister sinner thus pressed cruelly 
 against the wall. But no one seemed to think it strange. 
 The girl herself took it as a matter of course. Her face 
 became stolid and cunning, like the face of an animal 
 seeking to escape its captors. 
 
 Dr. Suydam watched this scene with growing anger. 
 "Do you not see," he said to the man, "that you are hurt- 
 ing the woman?" 
 
 "What business is that of yours ?" said the man with 
 a sneer. And Dr. Suydam recognized again his acquaint- 
 ance of the club, Lord Erdel of Erdelford. 
 
 "It is every man's business to protect a woman in dis- 
 tress," said he, sternly. 
 
 "Yes, a woman," said the man, "but not a dirty " 
 
 Before the words were out of his mouth the man was 
 seized by the collar and hurled out into the street. He
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 staggered along for a moment and then fell full length. 
 Gathering himself together and rising up, he rushed back 
 and struck his assailant across the face with his cane. 
 
 Dr. Suydam did not resent the blow. He said : "Your 
 lordship may strike me if you please. I deserve it at 
 your hands, but you must not hurt the woman." 
 
 At the sound of the Doctor's voice the Englishman 
 dropped his cane and said : "By Jove, it is the American. 
 Well," he said, "you are having a fling. Marie Du Pre 
 last night, a trull from the street to-night, where will you 
 be to-morrow night ?" 
 
 "I do not know," said Dr. Suydam. 
 
 "Come," said his lordship, to his companion, "come 
 along, the slut picked my pocket, but let her have the 
 purse. She will revenge me on the American that stole 
 Marie Du Pre from me last night." The man who was 
 seeking an officer came back and the two went down the 
 street. The imprisoned woman shook herself, arranged 
 her clothing and began to ply her trade as if nothing had 
 happened. 
 
 Dr. Suydam put his hand to his smarting face and 
 found it covered with blood. He turned from Piccadilly 
 into the archway that runs to the street beyond. As he 
 did so, he found himself supported and almost carried by 
 the strong arms of a woman and he heard a rich contralto 
 voice saying : "Come, sir, come with me." 
 
 Like a little child he suffered himself to be taken, he 
 knew not where. It was up a dark stairway and into a 
 dark room. He was laid upon a bed and soon by the 
 light of a candle which his guide had lighted he saw that 
 his protector was a woman, large and strong, who lifted 
 him as if he had been a baby. "Lie still, sir, lie still," 
 she said, as she bathed his face with cold water. "You 
 
 348
 
 The Bleating of the Sheep 
 
 were very foolish to try to protect a woman of the street. 
 It is a wonder you were not killed." 
 
 Dr. Suydam did not answer a word. He lay still and 
 looked through the dim light at this sad, massive face that 
 was bent over his. Ij: seemed to him the face of a Greek 
 goddess, who had come back to earth to find her altar 
 broken down, her shrine desecrated, and herself an out- 
 cast. As she bathed his bruised face she said : "You did 
 wrong, you did very wrong, you must be a stranger in 
 London not to know that we Englishwomen are mire 
 under the feet of Englishmen. It was a noble but a fool- 
 ish thing to throw that wicked lord into the street," and 
 stooping down this goddess kissed him on the brow. 
 
 He was too faint and dazed to resist. And the woman 
 took him in her arms, put his head on her breast and be- 
 gan, in her wonderful contralto voice to sing him to sleep. 
 And the song that she sang was, "Jesus, Saviour of My 
 Soul." 
 
 The spell of the music calmed the throbbing brain of 
 the wounded man and he fell in a sleep. After a long 
 time he wakened to find himself still encircled with strong 
 arms and his head rising and falling to the breathing of 
 a mighty bosom. As he strove to free himself a voice 
 said to him : "Lie still, my child, lie still until the morn- 
 ing ; I will not hurt you." 
 
 "Let me go, let me go," cried the amazed man, "some 
 one is calling me." At this the woman rose up and held 
 the candle for him at the head of the stairway, while he 
 made his way down into the street. As he passed out of 
 the door he heard the voice of the woman singing, "Jesus, 
 Saviour of My Soul." 
 
 Dr. Suydam went away with that song in his ears. 
 His soul was calm. There was no compunction in his heart 
 
 349
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 because he had been in strange arms and had rested on a 
 strange bosom. He had not sinned, he had been protected 
 by a mighty love. 
 
 As he walked down the silent streets, through the gray 
 mist of the morning he felt himself in a new world of 
 purity and growing light. He did not take heed to his 
 steps; he walked on and on as if led by an unseen hand. 
 After wandering about for what seemed to him an age, 
 but which was really less than an hour, he was arrested in 
 his walk by the sound of a woman's voice crying bitterly ; 
 without waiting for an instant he went straight toward 
 that voice as fast as his feet could carry him. 
 
 Through the thinning fog he saw the form of a 
 woman crouching on the ground ; he, stooping down, took 
 her in his arms and lifted her up and said : "Be still, my 
 dear, be still ; do not cry, I have come to take care of you." 
 Without answering a word the woman threw her arms 
 about his neck and pressed herself against him, shivering 
 with cold and with fright. And so they stood, while the 
 mist drifted away to the sea, and the sun arose, and the 
 dome of St. Paul's floated in the morning sky. 
 
 Then Dr. Suydam saw that he was on the Victoria 
 embankment. He called a passing cab, lifted the woman 
 into it and gave the house number of Marie Du Pre. 
 
 With difficulty he roused her from her morning sleep 
 and persuaded her to let him in. 
 
 W r hen she did so and saw the woman, she said : "We 
 must make haste and call the physician and the midwife, 
 else the child will be born without help." 
 
 "The child !" said the Doctor. 
 
 "Yes, the child," said Marie Du Pre. "The woman is 
 near her time." 
 
 Dr. Suydam made haste, and calling a passing cab 
 
 350
 
 The Bleating of the Sheep 
 
 was driven to the nearest physician whom he begged to 
 go at once to help the poor woman in her distress. From 
 the physician he learned the address of the nearest mid- 
 wife and went for her also. He waited while she made 
 herself ready, and took the midwife with him in the cab. 
 
 When he reached the house, Marie Du Pre said to 
 him : "The child is born, and you have found the woman 
 that was lost." 
 
 "What!" cried Dr. Suydam. "What do you mean?" 
 
 "Come and see," said Marie Du Pre. 
 
 Dr. Suydam went in and on a pillow he saw a face 
 pale with exhaustion and yet bright with the brightness 
 of motherhood, and the face was the face of Abigail Bain.
 
 CHAPTER IVi 
 
 THE FALL OF LUCIFER 
 
 SHORTLY after these events occurred in London, Mrs. 
 Suydam was seated in the morning room of her house 
 reading a paper. As she was glancing over the page her 
 eye was arrested by head lines which announced, "The 
 Naughty Pranks of a Parson. The Preacher Has His 
 Fling." 
 
 Reading down the column Mrs. Suydam learned that 
 a certain celebrated American preacher, who had recently 
 made himself famous in New York by the denunciation 
 of vice, was making himself infamous in London, by 
 practicing the vice which he denounced. This parson, 
 whose name began with an S and ended with a dam, was 
 living up to the full privilege of his name in wicked Lon- 
 don. One night he was seen in one of the most notorious 
 resorts in Regent Street and went home with its most 
 notorious woman. 
 
 "The next night this same saint, who pretends that 
 ginger is not hot in his mouth, fought an English lord 
 for the possession of a trull, and the scene of this combat 
 of males for the female, was Piccadilly Circus, at mid- 
 night. 
 
 "The American residents in London are scandalized at 
 this man's wickedness, and are demanding that he be 
 
 353
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 arrested and sent home. The English laugh and say that 
 the man is guilty of nothing but bad form, and bad form, 
 while it is the deadliest of social, is not a civil crime. 
 
 "The correspondent of the Tattler was with Lord 
 Erdel when the parson fought with him for the girl, and 
 recognized in this defender of the London drab, the cele- 
 brated American preacher." 
 
 As Mrs. Suydam read this account of her husband's 
 downfall she blushed scarlet and said : "Well, I am done 
 with that man forever. Too nice to live with his own 
 wife, he finds his pleasure with the lowest of women. I 
 wonder how long that has been going on. His interest in 
 that woman in Mulberry Street was not purely spiritual. 
 The hypocrite !" 
 
 While Mrs. Suydam was raging over this exposure 
 of her husband's wickedness Katherine Bullet entered the 
 room. "Why, mother, what is the trouble this morning ? 
 You look angry enough to bite a ten-penny nail." 
 
 "Trouble, angry, I should think so. The wretched 
 man! We are disgraced forever!" said Mrs. Suydam, 
 throwing the paper on the floor. 
 
 "Now, mother, dear," said Katherine, "don't be so 
 tragical. What has Bobby been up to now ?" 
 
 "Bobby!" exclaimed Mrs. Suydam. "Bobby has not 
 been up to anything. Bobby knows enough to behave like 
 a gentleman when he is away from home." 
 
 "Indeed," said Katherine, lifting her eyebrows. "I 
 wish he would show a little of the same behavior when he 
 is at home ; but if it is not Bobby, who is it ?" 
 
 "It is that wretched man," said Mrs. Suydam. 
 
 "What wretched man, mother mine?" said Katherine. 
 
 "Read and see," said Mrs. Suydam, handing Kather- 
 ine the paper. 
 
 354
 
 The Fall of Lucifer 
 
 Katherine took the paper, read the account, and care- 
 lessly threw it on the floor. 
 
 "Well," said Mrs. Suydam. 
 
 "Well, what?" said Katherine. 
 
 "How you provoke me! You do not care if your 
 mother is disgraced in the eyes of all London and New 
 York." 
 
 "My mother is not disgraced," said Katherine, skill- 
 fully breaking an egg, "unless she disgraces herself by 
 believing such lies as that." 
 
 "But it is a dispatch from London. It says that the 
 correspondent of the Tattler saw the street fight," said 
 Mrs. Suydam. 
 
 "I have no doubt he did see it," said Katherine, eating 
 her egg with great care. "Daddy was doubtless standing 
 up for some poor street girl against some London bully. 
 And he did right, he did right. I have seen sights in 
 London that have made my fingers itch to use my horse- 
 whip on the backs of those English brutes. They treat 
 those poor women worse than they treat a mangy cur." 
 
 "Katherine, Katherine," said Mrs. Suydam. "Your 
 vulgarity is beyond endurance. What do you know about 
 these poor women, as you call them ?" 
 
 "Know about them!" exclaimed Katherine, "know 
 about them ! Do you think I have been driving about the 
 streets of New York, London, Paris, and Vienna, at all 
 hours of the night and don't know about them ? Haven't I 
 seen their draggled silks and painted faces until I am 
 sick ? I never see one of them but I say, 'There, but for 
 her money, goes Katherine Bullet.' " 
 
 "Indeed, my dear," said Mrs. Suydam, scornfully, 
 "your championship of vice is very becoming to a woman 
 in your position." 
 
 355
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "It is becoming," said Katherine, "for I am as vicious 
 as they. They sell themselves for money. I sell myself 
 for a title. The only difference is that the Church blesses 
 my sale and curses theirs." 
 
 "Katherine," said Mrs. Suydam, "please do not speak 
 against the Church." 
 
 "The Church, the Church," said Katherine. "The 
 Church makes a great effort to strain out a gnat while it 
 swallows a camel. It has spent millions to abolish the 
 Juggernaut and abate the Suttee, while it rolls its car of 
 greed and hate over millions of the poor, and burns its 
 women in the fires of the social evil." 
 
 "I see, Katherine," said Mrs. Suydam, "that you have 
 been taking lessons from Dr. Suydam; but take care, 
 see where his doctrines have led him." 
 
 "I don't know anything about his doctrines nor where 
 they have led him ; but this I do know. I have lived with 
 my father, the only father I have ever known, ever since I 
 was a child. He is the only man for whom I have been 
 able to keep any respect, and it will take more than the 
 lies of the Tattler to make me believe that my Daddy is 
 not infinitely better than the men and women who slander 
 him." 
 
 "Have a care, Katherine," cried Mrs. Suydam, "have 
 a care. Go a little further and you will try my patience 
 beyond endurance. You do not seem to think that this 
 scandal may ruin your own future. I shouldn't wonder if 
 Dipford and the Duke were to break the engagement." 
 
 "Have no fear on that score," said Katherine. "Dip- 
 ford is not going to marry my reputation nor the repu- 
 tation of my kindred iar or near, by blood or by marriage. 
 Dipford is going to marry my millions, and as long as 
 they are untarnished Dipford will be true." 
 
 356
 
 The Fall of Lucifer 
 
 "You may talk as you please, Katherine," said Mrs. 
 Suydam, "but that man shall never cross my threshold 
 again. I shall begin suit at once for divorce." 
 
 "Do, mother," said Katherine, "and when you get it 
 marry the Duke of Senlac. I would love to have you for 
 a mother-in-law," and making a courtesy Katherine left 
 the room. And as she went up the stairs she said : 
 "Daddy is a fool, Daddy is a fool. He is fighting against 
 all the social gods. He has fallen from the grace of the 
 social world." 
 
 Katherine shut herself up in her room, and, what was 
 unusual with her, gave herself up to a fit of bitter 
 weeping. 
 
 357
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 A NIGHT WATCH 
 
 ALL unconscious of the storm that was brewing in his 
 own household, Dr. Suydam kept watch by the bedside of 
 Abigail Bain. For days her life was in the balance with 
 death, and the weight of a straw would turn the scale. 
 The physician said only the most careful nursing could 
 save her. 
 
 And never did a patient have a more careful nurse 
 than Abigail Bain had in Dr. Suydam. He watched her 
 fever and gave her medicine and her nourishment. Marie 
 Du Pre looked at this man waiting upon this fallen girl 
 with all the deftness of a physician and the tenderness of 
 a woman, and there began to grow in her soul a feeling 
 of awe for him that was akin to worship. 
 
 She and he watched all night and listened to the 
 wandering talk of the sick woman. She cried : "Don't 
 blame me, Keturah, it was so dark and dirty down there 
 in Mulberry Street, and I wanted to be clean, I wanted 
 to be clean. Don't leave me alone, Robert, don't leave me 
 alone. I'm afraid, I'm afraid. Let me in, Keturah, let 
 me in. It's cold here in the street, and I'm afraid, I'm 
 afraid. Let me in, I don't care if it's dark, if you'll only 
 let me in. Take me in your bed, Keturah dear, I'm afraid, 
 I'm afraid." 
 
 359
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "Poor child," said Marie Du Pre. "She is in the first 
 stages of suffering that comes to every lost woman. At 
 first we are afraid. The first night, after the Duke left 
 me, I crept away to the room of the care-taker and asked 
 to lie in her bed. I was so afraid. But we soon get over 
 that and give ourselves to sin without a tremor. We are 
 afraid of nothing, not even of murder." 
 
 The plaintive voice from the sick bed began to murmur 
 again. "Please, Robert, please, don't go away like that. 
 Don't leave me here all alone. I'll be good, here I am, 
 take me, only don't hurt me, don't hurt me." 
 
 "The brute!" said Marie Du Pre, "the brute! Little 
 they care for our pain, so they have their pleasure. Do you 
 wonder that I hate them and kill them as fast as I can?" 
 
 "Kill them !" said Dr. Suydam. "What do you mean? 
 You are not a murderess?" 
 
 "Yes, I am a murderess. I kill, I kill, I kill. And, oh, 
 my God ! I killed my darling Dipford." 
 
 Dr. Suydam saw in the dim light that look of fear in 
 the face of Marie Du Pre which he had seen at the first, 
 with eyes dilated with horror she was gazing into space. 
 
 "What is it ?" said the Doctor. "What is it? What 
 do you see?" 
 
 "I see Dipford," and covering her eyes with her hands 
 she knelt down and laid her head upon the knees of Dr. 
 Suydam. "May I tell you all my wickedness ?" said she. 
 
 "Yes, my daughter, tell me all," and the Doctor laid 
 his hand upon her head. 
 
 "When the Duke went away and left me with nothing 
 but my wickedness to live for, when I knew that my chil- 
 dren were bastards, without a name or heritage, I went 
 mad with lust and hate, and I determined that if my son 
 could not bear the name of FitzOsborn, then no Fitz- 
 
 360
 
 A Night Watch 
 
 Osborn should ever inherit the title of Senlac. The 
 eldest son of the Duke, the Marquis of Dipford, was a 
 lovely lad, yellow hair and blue eyes, and cheeks like 
 cream. I used to watch him with all my eyes whenever 
 I saw him in the Castle or the Park, and he had eyes only 
 for me. We were like brother and sister. It was Dickie 
 this and Marie that, all the day long. The Duchess was 
 jealous of me. We grew up together until I was eighteen 
 and Dickie was sixteen. Then the Duke took me and 
 made me the mother of his bastard children. Then he 
 left me and them to struggle and to die. And I hated the 
 Duke and all his house. 
 
 "One day after the Duke left me I met Dickie on the 
 street. I was twenty and he was eighteen. Dickie was 
 glad to see me. He did not know what had become of 
 me. And I was glad to see him. I loved him, and yet 
 I hated him. I brought him to these rooms and I gratified 
 both my love and my hatred. I made Dickie know what 
 pleasure is. Not content with corrupting him, I ruined 
 him. I plunged him into all the dissipation of London, 
 trampling my love under foot. I gave him over to the 
 vilest women. I saw without pity his beauty fade and his 
 strength decay. 
 
 "My heart cried out for Dickie, but I kept trampling 
 on my heart, and said, 'It is not Dickie ; it is the Marquis 
 of Dipford, who shall never be Duke of Senlac,' and so I 
 saw him shrivel in the fires of sin until they burned him to 
 ashes. 
 
 "It broke the Duchess's heart, but what did I care for 
 the Duchess ? If the Duke had left me any heart to break, 
 my heart would have broken for Dickie. Oh, Dickie, 
 Dickie, come back, come back, and say that you forgive 
 me !" With this bitter cry of a lost soul, Marie Du Pre 
 
 361
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 slid off the knees of Doctor Suydam and writhed upon 
 the floor. 
 
 Dr. Suydam knelt down and took her in his arms and 
 kissed her on the cheek, and said : "There, there, God is 
 good, God will forgive you." 
 
 "Do you kiss me ?" said Marie Du Pre. 
 
 "Yes, I kiss you, because I love you and am sorry for 
 you," and the Doctor held her head close to his breast. 
 
 "You love me and are sorry for me, you don't want 
 me for your pleasure then." And Marie looked at him 
 with wide-open eyes. 
 
 "No, Marie, not for my pleasure, but for my joy. I 
 want to lift you out of this world of sin and sorrow into 
 a world of holiness and happiness." 
 
 Just then a faint cry was heard in the next room, and 
 Marie Du Pre rose up and said : "There, the baby is 
 awake, I must go and look after her." And Dr. Suydam 
 heard her walking up and down in the next room with the 
 baby in her arms, crooning over her as only a mother can 
 croon over her children. 
 
 And Dr. Suydam knew that Marie Du Pre had found 
 a Saviour. 
 
 And he smiled as he watched Abigail Bain sleeping, 
 as quietly as a baby, herself. 
 
 The low passionate confession of Marie Du Pre had 
 soothed her as a cradle-song soothes a little child, and she 
 had gone off into a dreamless sleep. 
 
 362
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 A SILLY SHEEP 
 
 REST, quiet, and careful nursing restored Abigail Bain 
 to life and to reason. One morning after a peaceful 
 slumber she opened her eyes and saw Dr. Suydam stand- 
 ing by her bedside. She lay quite still looking at him for 
 a long time, and then she said in a whisper: "Where 
 am I ?" 
 
 "You are with friends, my child," said Dr. Suydam. 
 
 "Who are you?" said the girl still looking at him in- 
 tently, and speaking in a whisper. 
 
 "I am Mr. Suydam, Dr. Suydam, you know, of Saint 
 Nicholas Church, New York. I come to you from Ketu- 
 rah. She wants you to come home with me," and the 
 Doctor smoothed her hair. 
 
 "But where am I?" cried the girl, now wide awake, 
 "where am I ? I feel so strange. What has happened to 
 me?" 
 
 "You are in London," said the Doctor, "in the house 
 of a friend. And your baby has been born." 
 
 "My baby," said the girl, "my baby! Did you say, 
 my baby?" 
 
 "Yes, your baby, my dear, and a beautiful baby she is." 
 
 "Where is she?" cried the girl, sitting up, "where is 
 she, can't I see her?" 
 
 363
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "Yes," said Dr. Suydam, and he went to the door, call- 
 ing to some one in the next room. 
 
 In a moment a tall woman entered carrying a little 
 bundle in her arms. She laid the child in the bosom of 
 her mother, who gave it her swollen breast, and then 
 lay back on the pillow with a look of perfect happiness. 
 
 Dr. Suydam and Marie Du Pre went out of the room 
 leaving the mother and child to themselves. 
 
 Returning an hour or two afterward Dr. Suydam 
 found the baby asleep and the mother weeping silently, 
 so as not to waken her. Dr. Suydam sat down, and took 
 her hand in his and smoothed it to quiet her. "There, 
 there, my dear." he said, "don't cry. You are with friends. 
 'You and your child will be cared for." 
 
 "But, sir," she said, "it is wrong for me to have a 
 baby. Keturah will never let me come home when she 
 knows I have a baby." 
 
 "Oh, yes, she will," answered the Doctor. "She will 
 forgive you and love the baby. She sent me over here 
 to London to look for you, until I found you, and then to 
 take you home to her. As soon as you are strong enough 
 we are going home." 
 
 "Oh, sir," said the girl, weeping, "I can't go home. I 
 am a bad woman. I deceived Keturah. I told her lies." 
 
 "Never mind that now, my child, that is over and 
 gone. You will not tell any more lies, I am sure. We 
 will take good care of you and you will not need to deceive 
 any more." And the Doctor placed his hand on the girl's 
 head as if he were absolving her from all her sins. 
 
 "But my baby," said the poor girl, "my baby will be 
 ashamed of me. There will be no one whom she can call 
 papa." And Abigail began to cry again. 
 
 "Yes, my dear," said the Doctor, "that is very sad, but 
 
 364
 
 A Silly Sheep 
 
 we will try to make it up to baby in some way. If we 
 find her father, we will make him marry you, if we can. If 
 not we will provide for you and the baby so that you shall 
 never be in want." 
 
 "Oh, sir," said the girl, "I did not mean to be bad. I 
 only wanted to have a good time. It was so dark and 
 dirty down in Mulberry Street, and the people were such 
 horrible people. Keturah sent me to school and then to 
 the Normal College, and I met nice girls girls who had 
 all the money they wanted, and dressed so beautifully, I 
 wanted to be like them." 
 
 "Yes, my child," said the Doctor, "that was a natural 
 wish. You could not help it. Your home in Mul- 
 berry Street was no place for you. Keturah knew that, 
 and meant you to leave it as soon as you had your appoint- 
 ment in the public school." 
 
 "Oh, the school, the school," said the girl. "I hated 
 the thought of the school. I couldn't bear to be shut up 
 all day, and I hated little children. I always thought I 
 would marry a rich husband and have everything I 
 wanted." 
 
 "Poor child," said the Doctor, "I do not wonder that 
 you went astray." 
 
 "Then," said the girl, continuing her own history 
 "then Robert came. I met him one Sunday at Saint Nich- 
 olas Church. He gave me a seat. The next Sunday I 
 went to church and met him again. He asked me to meet 
 him at the fountain in Union Square. I knew it was 
 wrong, but I did it. He took me to drive in the Park, and 
 gave me a dinner. After that I used to meet him every 
 day or two. He took me to drive and to sail down the 
 bay. He was very kind and said that he loved me. I 
 loved him, and I thought my dream was coming true. 
 
 365
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 T was going to marry a rich husband and have all that I 
 wanted." 
 
 "Poor child," said the doctor; "there is nothing in 
 this world so deceiving as our dreams. But you need 
 not tell me all this. Let it go. Telling can do no good." 
 
 "Oh, I must tell it !" said the girl. "It was horrible. 
 I must tell it. We went down to the seaside one after- 
 noon. In the evening we went out on the sands, and 
 we stayed so late that the last train had gone to the city 
 before we got back to the hotel. I was afraid. Robert 
 was very nice. He told me not to be afraid. He took a 
 room for me, and after supper I went to bed. I lay 
 awake a long time, because I was afraid. Then I went 
 to sleep. All of a sudden I felt somebody touch me. I 
 cried out ; but Robert put his hand over my mouth and 
 told me to be still. And I was still because I was afraid. 
 The next morning we went back to the city, and I cried 
 all the way. Robert told me not to cry. He would take 
 care of me, he said. I was afraid to tell Keturah the 
 truth, so I told her that I had spent the night with Mar- 
 garet Howard. 
 
 "After that I used to meet Robert nearly every day, 
 and we went to hotels and other places. I begged 
 Robert to marry me. He said I needn't fret, that we 
 were married already. He took me out West with him, 
 and he would leave me alone for days and days in the 
 hotel; and I didn't have any money. Once, in Chicago, 
 I was lost. They turned me out of the hotel, and I did 
 not know where to go. I had to go to the station-house. 
 It was horrible: worse than Mulberry Street. I wished 
 then for the dark room, with Keturah's hand in mine." 
 
 "Poor child, poor child!" said Dr. Suydam. "This 
 world is a hard, cold place for sheep that are lost." 
 
 366
 
 A Silly Sheep 
 
 "When Robert told me," said the girl, "that he was 
 going to London, I begged him to take me with him. 
 He said I might go if I wanted to, only not with him. 
 He would pay my way over, and I might meet him at a 
 lodging-house in a street called Craven Street. I went 
 over ; and when I got to London I went to the place that 
 Robert told me to go to, and he came to see me. But he 
 was not kind to me any more. He told me that London 
 was the best place in the world for such a woman as I 
 was. I could make lots of money and have a good time. 
 He brought a strange man with him, and they took me 
 to see a strange woman. But she laughed at me and 
 said I was too innocent. Robert took me back to our 
 lodgings ; and when I cried he struck me and left me. 
 
 "I waited for him to come back; but he never came. 
 Then one night they turned me out into the streets of 
 London. And I wanted to go somewhere and lie down 
 and die ; but I could not. Men spoke to me ; policemen 
 told me to move on; and a woman stole my coat made 
 me take it off and give it to her. Then it was so cold 
 and so dark that I was sure I would die before morning, 
 and I was glad. I could not see my way, and I went on 
 and on until I came to a wall, and then I laid my head 
 upon the wall and cried. I could not stand any longer ; 
 so I sat down on the ground and laid my cheek against 
 the wall and cried ; but nobody heard me for a long time. 
 Then I felt some one take me in his arms. He lifted me 
 up and took me away from the wall. He took me in a 
 carriage to a house and put me to bed. I had terrible 
 pains, and then I thought I heard a baby cry, and then 
 I thought I was in heaven and saw Keturah standing 
 and waiting for me. Now I wake up and find myself 
 here, and you are with me and you are going to take 
 me home." 
 
 367
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "Yes, my child; I am going to take you home, and 
 keep you safe from further harm. Be still, my child; be 
 still and go to sleep." 
 
 Dr. Suydam gave the girl a soothing drink, and sat 
 and watched her until she fell into a quiet slumber.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 A LITTLE CHILD SHALL LEAD THEM 
 
 DURING all the period of Abigail's sickness, Marie 
 Du Pre stayed at home and denied herself to all visitors. 
 Her retirement was the talk of the London clubs; and 
 great was the surprise of the men about town when it 
 was rumored that the favorite of dukes and earls had 
 taken up with an ordinary American clergyman. Dr. 
 Suydam's residence in the house of this woman was a 
 growing scandal. 
 
 Lord Erdel, of Erdelsford, expressed the common feel- 
 ing when he said: "I fancy we will have to adopt the 
 American system of protection. If things go on as they 
 are going, London society will be Americanized. Ameri- 
 can women are marrying into our noblest families, and 
 American men are carrying off our finest women. If 
 this sort of thing doesn't stop somewhere, London society 
 will be as corrupt as the society of New York. We shall 
 have a boss in place of the Lord Mayor, and the Bishop of 
 London will be keeping his mistress." 
 
 While the world outside was passing judgment on 
 the relationship of Dr. Suydam to Marie Du Pre, these 
 two were working together for the salvation of Abigail 
 Bain, and in this common work were forming the most 
 sacred bond save one that can exist between man and 
 
 369
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 woman. Marie Du Pre found in Dr. Suydam a lord and 
 saviour. In the silence of the sick chamber, and in the 
 presence of this man whose one thought was the salva- 
 tion of a soul, the life of Marie Du Pre was transformed. 
 That old life of sin fell away from her. She was so busy 
 ministering to the sick girl and taking care of the baby 
 that she did not so much as think of that wild, lawless 
 life that seemed to belong to a far-distant past. She did 
 not even remember her old pleasures. 
 
 As Abigail Bain grew stronger, and the time drew 
 near when Dr. Suydam must take her and sail away to 
 New York, Marie Du Pre began to be afraid, as she had 
 been afraid in the first days of her sinfulness. She looked 
 forward to the departure of her guest with dread ; when 
 he went away the old life of evil would come back again. 
 
 One night she and Dr. Suydam were sitting in the 
 little room where she had received him at the first. She 
 was on a low seat at his feet, and was looking into the 
 coal fire that was burning on the hearth. Without look- 
 ing at Dr. Suydam, she said sadly: "I fancy my time in 
 heaven is nearly gone, and I shall soon have to go down 
 into hell again." 
 
 "M&rie," said the Doctor, "why do you say that? 
 Why should you go back to your old life? You have 
 said nothing to me about it, but I can see that you hate 
 that life of shame and dissipation." 
 
 "Yes, I hate it ; but so does the drunkard hate his life 
 of drunkenness, but he gets drunk all the same." 
 
 "Do you mean to tell me, my dear, that you will have 
 to go back to your old life again that nothing can save 
 you?" 
 
 "No, nothing can save me," said the woman sadly. 
 "When you leave me I shall have nothing to do but to 
 go back to my old ways and live my old life." 
 
 370
 
 A Little Child Shall Lead Them 
 
 "But, my dear friend," said the Doctor, stooping down 
 and kissing her on the brow, "I do not mean to leave 
 you. I intend to keep you near me always." 
 
 "What do you mean?" said the woman, turning 
 toward the Doctor with a startled look. 
 
 "I mean that you are to go with me to my country. I 
 have a beautiful home there that looks out over a great 
 river and upon lovely mountains. I will give you that 
 home to live in until you are ready to go to a new home 
 of your own." 
 
 "But I shall be so lonely in your country," said Marie 
 Du Pre. "I wont know anybody there ; and even if I did 
 it could only be bad people ; good people would never 
 have anything to do with such a woman as I am ; and of 
 course you could not live with me that would not be 
 right." 
 
 "No, I could not live with you. But I will have some 
 one to live with you. And besides, you are not to go 
 alone. You are to take those who are nearest and dearest 
 with you." 
 
 "Who, pray ?" asked the woman. 
 
 "Your children," said Dr. Suydam. "Did you not 
 tell me you had two children?" 
 
 "My children," said the woman vaguely. "My chil- 
 dren. Yes, I have children ; but they are nothing to me, 
 and I am nothing to them. I sent them to Brittany almost 
 as soon as they were born, and they have been there ever 
 since. I loved them as a tiger might love its cubs. I 
 hated the man who brought them into the world, to live 
 lives of obscurity and shame. But the children I have 
 forgotten. I could not remember the children and live 
 the life I have been living." 
 
 "It is for that reason you must have the children back 
 
 37i
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 again. You must not live the old life any more; you 
 must live the life of a mother with her children." 
 
 "I cannot! oh, I cannot! The children will ask for 
 their father, and what shall I tell them then ?" 
 
 "When they are old enough, tell them the truth, if it is 
 necessary. But while they are children, love them and 
 let them love you. That is the best thing for them and 
 for you that can happen in this world. You know where 
 the children are ?" 
 
 "Yes; they are in a village near St. Malo." 
 
 "To-morrow I will go and fetch them." 
 
 Some days after this Dr. Suydam returned from Brit- 
 tany to the home of Marie Du Pre, bringing with him 
 two children a boy of six and a girl of four. The boy 
 had long, light hair falling over his shoulders, bright blue 
 eyes, and a fair complexion. The girl was dark like her 
 mother. 
 
 When Dr. Suydam led them into the room where 
 Marie Du Pre was waiting, she looked at the boy and 
 turned pale and whispered "Dipford." Then, kneeling 
 down, she cried : "Oh, Dicky, Dicky ! come to me ! Come 
 to me, my daughter!" And sweeping the children into 
 her arms she wept over them ; and she said to Dr. Suy- 
 dam: "Take me away as soon as you can from this 
 wicked place, and let me live with my children." 
 
 372
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE MYSTIC WOMAN 
 
 As Dr. Suydam was preparing to leave London and 
 return to his own country, his mind went back to that 
 terrible night when he wandered in the regions of Picca- 
 dilly, seeking among the women of the street for the lost 
 sister of Keturah Bain. He recalled vividly every inci- 
 dent of that night, and remembered with gratitude the 
 woman who had taken him to her home, who had washed 
 his wounds, and soothed him to sleep on her bosom. He 
 remembered her as one might remember a mighty angel 
 seen in a dream, she seemed so far away and unearthly. 
 
 So strong was the impression which this strange, 
 wonderful woman made upon the heart and imagination 
 of Dr. Suydam that he could not rest until he had seen 
 her again. He could not think of going to his own home 
 while his benefactor was wandering the streets of Lon- 
 don, a victim of man's passion. 
 
 Driven by a great pity, Dr. Suydam went once more 
 to watch the procession of women that winds in and out 
 and round about Piccadilly Circus, Regent Street, and 
 the Haymarket. As he walked through the throng he 
 had compassion upon this multitude of the lost. They 
 were as sheep scattered abroad, having no shepherd. Dr. 
 Suydam remembered that these sinners had a friend once 
 
 373
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 who kept company with them, and saved some of them 
 alive. But that was a long time ago. That friend of 
 sinners was dead, and now nobody seemed to care. Night 
 after night the same scene of horror presented itself to 
 the consideration of the human intelligence and to the 
 pity of the human heart; but the intelligence gave it no 
 thought, and the heart no love. The intelligence of man 
 bad solved every problem but this. Man had been able 
 to measure the distances of the stars and to tell their 
 number ; he had made ships of iron to float on the ocean ; 
 he had made instruments to carry his speech from conti- 
 nent to continent ; he had built great cathedrals and com- 
 posed exquisite music ; but he could not tell how to save 
 the soul of a woman alive. 
 
 When she was lost in the darkness, his only thought 
 was to drive her farther and farther into the darkness, 
 so that he might not see her shame nor hear her cries of 
 distress. 
 
 The more highly developed and refined the civilization 
 of man, the more hopeless and miserable was the condi- 
 tion of these poor creatures who had lost their place in 
 the social order. 
 
 As Dr. Suydam walked down Piccadilly, sadly mus- 
 ing on these things, he saw the woman he was looking 
 for walking toward him. He could not be mistaken 
 only one such woman could be found in London, only 
 one such, perhaps, in the world, so large and yet so 
 graceful. As she moved along the street she seemed to 
 glide rather than to walk. It was as if her limbs were 
 assisted by invisible wings. 
 
 When he drew near to this woman of the street, Dr. 
 Suydam lifted his hat as a token of respect and said: 
 "I beg your pardon, madam; but if I may, I would like 
 to speak to you." 
 
 374
 
 The Mystic Woman 
 
 "Certainly," said the woman. "I am here to be 
 spoken to." 
 
 "You do not remember me," said Dr. Suydam; "but 
 you have seen me before." 
 
 "Yes, I remember," said the woman. "You are the 
 man who tried to help a woman of the street, and were 
 hurt in a fight, and I took you to my room afterward. 
 Yes, I remember you. What do you want of me to- 
 night?" 
 
 "I would like very much to talk to you for a little 
 while, somewhere out of the street," said Dr. Suydam. 
 
 "Come to my room," said the woman; and leading 
 the way she went up a narrow street and up a narrow 
 stairway into a small room, meagrely furnished with a 
 table, a chair, and a bed. The woman lighted a candle 
 and placed it on the table ; then asking Dr. Suydam to be 
 seated, she sat down on the foot of the bed and waited for 
 him to speak. 
 
 "I was wondering, madam," said Dr. Suydam, "why 
 you wander through these streets of London by night. 
 You are not a wicked woman; for no wicked woman 
 could sing as you sang to me that night here in this 
 room." 
 
 "Sir," said the woman, "you are right. I am not and 
 never was a wicked woman, though I was for years a 
 common woman of the street. I was born and brought 
 up in the street, and when I was a girl I knew of no other 
 way of living. But now I know, and I do not live that 
 way any longer." 
 
 "I was sure," said Dr. Suydam, "that you did not love 
 this evil life, and I have come to ask you if you would not 
 like to go away from it all with me to my country. I 
 will give you a home there, where you can live quietly 
 and respectably for the rest of your life." 
 
 375
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "Where is your country ?" asked the woman. 
 
 "Across the ocean, in America," said Dr. Suydam. 
 
 "And have you no lost women in America," said the 
 woman; "but must come to look for them in London?" 
 
 "Yes, we have many in America," said Dr. Suydam. 
 "I came to London to find a girl who had strayed away 
 from her home and friends, who was lost here in the 
 streets. I was looking for her on the night I was hurt 
 and you took me home. I seemed to hear her crying 
 while I was lying on your bed, and that is why I got up 
 and hurried away. And I found her early in the morn- 
 ing. Her child was born that day. Now I am taking her 
 home. Another woman is going with us a woman who 
 is tired of her sinful life will you not come also?" 
 
 "I thank you kindly, sir," said the woman ; "but I can- 
 not go. I cannot leave London. It is my home. I can- 
 not leave my sisters. I cannot leave the poor Son of God." 
 
 "Have you sisters?" said Dr. Suydam. "Who is the 
 poor Son of God ?" 
 
 "Yes, many sisters," said the woman. "All the lost 
 women in London are my sisters. I must stay here and 
 help them, sir. This is my world, and I cannot leave it. 
 My mother, a north country woman, lost her virtue when 
 a girl; and, as all such girls do, she came to London. 
 While here she fell in with a Norwegian a great, tall 
 man with light hair and blue eyes. My mother tells me 
 that I am his .daughter; that I am large as he was, and 
 my eyes and hair are the color of his. It may be so. I 
 have never seen my father, and he has never seen me." 
 
 The woman paused, and Dr. Suydam looked at her 
 with tears in his eyes. He thought as he looked that 
 kings might wish for just such a daughter to give in 
 marriage to princes. He said aloud: "Madam, I pity 
 
 376
 
 The Mystic Woman 
 
 your father even more than I pity you. He does not 
 know what he has lost." 
 
 "No," said the woman, "he does not know and he 
 does not care. When I was a baby my mother was with 
 me all day, and at night she put me in a little room and 
 left me and went away. My mother was very good to 
 me. When I was older I played about with other chil- 
 dren in the street. When I was a girl grown I went out 
 with my mother on the street and we walked together. 
 Then it was that my eyes were opened, and I knew the 
 bitter life my mother was leading. The slave of vile men, 
 beaten and trampled on by drunkards, cursed by the offi- 
 cer if she stood still for a moment on the street, getting 
 drunk herself as the only way out of her misery. 
 
 "When I could endure it no longer I ran away and 
 went far out of London. But it was even worse in the 
 country. Nobody would take me in; nobody would give 
 me anything to eat; the dogs barked at me; and I had 
 to sleep under the hedgerows. One day a traveling 
 tinker saw me walking in the road, and he took me in his 
 wagon, and I lived with him for a year. He used to 
 beat me when he was drunk. One day, when we were 
 down in Surrey, near Guilford, he threw me out of the 
 wagon and drove me away. I went along till I came to a 
 hedgerow, and I hid myself under the trees to die. But 
 I could not hide myself. A dog came along and barked 
 at me. A man followed him and poked me with his stick 
 and said: 'Come, woman, get up; don't lie there.' I 
 got up, and the man looked at me and said, 'Come with 
 me,' and he took me to his house. He was a gentleman. 
 He lived alone in his lodge up Rydes Hill way. He kept 
 me until he died, three years afterwards. That was my 
 happy time. The gentleman was kind to me. I learned 
 
 377
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 to read while I was there. We had one child, a boy. At 
 the end of three years the man died. Then the new 
 owner of the house came and turned me and my boy out 
 of doors. I was a bad woman, and no one would take 
 me in. I lay all that night on the common, with my 
 child in my arms. It was cold, and my child cried. By 
 and by an old man came along and found me and took me 
 home. He was very old and very poor. He gave me a 
 corner of his cottage. There my child died. We went, 
 the old man and I, to the parson and asked the parson to 
 bury the child ; but he would not, because I did not be- 
 long to the church. He said I was a dissenter, and could 
 not bury my child in the churchyard. So we went to the 
 beadle, and he buried the child in the potter's field. I 
 lived with the old man in the cottage for a year. He was 
 a good old man, and I took care of him as his daughter. 
 He had only one book the Bible. I used to read it to him 
 in the long nights, when he could not sleep. I read all 
 about Jesus. 
 
 "One night I had a dream: I heard a knock at the 
 door. I went and opened it. There was a man standing 
 there. He was ragged and his face was bloody. I told 
 him to go away; that we were poor and could give him 
 nothing. He asked me to let him come in, for the night 
 was cold and dark. He came in and sat down on the 
 floor, and I saw that he was very poor; that he was 
 wounded in his hands and his feet. He said : 'I am the 
 Son of God. There is no place for me in the world. 
 Wherever I go they cast me out. No one has any room 
 for me.' When I heard this I was filled with sorrow for 
 him. I knew what it was to be out in the dark and cold. 
 So I said to him, 'Sir, stay here. It is a poor place ; but 
 we will make it comfortable for you. You shall eat of 
 
 378
 
 The Mystic Woman 
 
 our bread and drink of our sup.' He looked up at me 
 through his tears and said, 'I will stay ; stay with you al- 
 ways in your heart.' 
 
 "When I woke up in the morning the old man was 
 dead; and I went to the beadle, and the old man was 
 buried with the child in the potter's field. When I came 
 back I did not feel lonely. There was somebody in the 
 cottage, and I knew it was the poor Son of God. I could 
 not leave the cottage. It was winter ; the days were cold 
 and the nights were dark. If it were not for my poor 
 cottage, the Son of God would not have any place to lay 
 his head. One night I came home after a hard day's 
 work and found the cottage empty. I knew the Son of 
 God was not there any more. It was very lonely, and I 
 lay down and cried myself to sleep. In the night I saw 
 him standing by my bed. I spoke crossly to him. I said, 
 'Where have you been? You have nearly frightened me 
 to death, leaving me alone in this cottage.' 
 
 "When I looked at him again I was sorry that I had 
 scolded him ; he looked so tired, his wounds were opened 
 afresh, and were bleeding. He said, 'Do not be angry. I 
 have been in the streets of London, looking for my sheep 
 that are lost. You must come and help me.' The next 
 morning I left my cottage and came to London. Here 
 I work all day long in the bake-shop. I come home at 
 five in the afternoon and sleep till ten o'clock. Then 
 Jesus and I go out together on the street. If we find a 
 girl that nobody will do anything for, we bring her home 
 with us; and she sleeps here in my bed and has coffee 
 and bread in the morning. If she wants to leave the street 
 we find a place for her to work. But this is hard, for 
 people ,do not like to take girls who have gone wrong, 
 who have no one to say a word for them except the Son 
 
 379
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 of God and me. He and I do the best we can, and so 
 take care of the lost sheep. Sometimes we find a man 
 who is not wicked wandering about, as we found you; 
 then we bring him here and save him, if we can, from 
 himself. 
 
 "You see," said the woman, looking at Dr. Suydam 
 with a strange, unearthly gaze, "I cannot go with you. I 
 cannot leave the Son of God to do all this work alone 
 here in London. I must help Him." 
 
 The woman had spoken all this in a low, musical voice. 
 There was no excitement in her tone. What she said was 
 a simple reality to her. Dr. Suydam knew that he was in 
 the presence of one of those mystic souls, who mistake 
 dreams for realities. But he did not try to waken her 
 out of her dream. He simply said: "You are right. 
 You cannot go with me; stay here and help the Son of 
 God, who needs you." 
 
 Lifting her hand to his lips, he kissed it and went out 
 of her room once more, into the loneliness of a London 
 morning.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE COMPLIMENTS OF HIS GRACE 
 
 THE day before leaving London, Dr. Suydam went to 
 the club to see if there were any letters for him. He had 
 written Robert, in care of his bankers, and told him to 
 address his reply in care of the club which was frequented 
 by the Marquis of Dipford and the Duke of Senlac. 
 
 Entering the reading-room, he saw, to his surprise, 
 the Duke of Senlac gazing out of the window. His first 
 impulse was to turn and go away. Mastering this, which 
 he felt to be a cowardly impulse, Dr. Suydam walked 
 toward the window and attracted the attention of the 
 Duke and greeted him, saying: "I did not know that 
 your Grace had returned. I hope you had a pleasant 
 voyage." 
 
 "Oh," said the Duke, putting his glass to his eye. "As 
 I live, it is the gay parson, whose doings are the talk of 
 two continents! Allow me to congratulate you on your 
 conversion. Your new master, the devil, is a pleasant 
 gentleman, in whose company you will have lots of fun." 
 
 "I beg your Grace's pardon, but your pleasantry is 
 far from being pleasing. I know I have laid myself open 
 to the sneers of the vulgar; but I did expect a kinder 
 judgment of a gentleman." 
 
 "My dear fellow," said the Duke, "I have for you the 
 
 381
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 kindest judgment in the world. Far from blaming you, 
 I congratulate and compliment you on your success in 
 your new role. You have taken London by storm. You 
 have cut out princes and dukes and earls, and have had 
 Marie Du Pre all to yourself for a month. It has taken 
 our breath away. But, like all converts, you are over- 
 zealous. Your zeal runs away with your discretion. 
 You have forgotten that to be successful you must do as 
 the Venetian wives did, according to their proverb, which 
 was 'not to leave undone, but to keep unknown.' " 
 
 "It is not for me to answer your Grace," said Dr. 
 Suydam. "I can only say that Marie Du Pre is a woman 
 who has been greatly wronged by one who should have 
 protected her from harm. Who that one is perhaps your 
 Grace's conscience will tell you." 
 
 "My Grace's conscience," answered the Duke, "tells 
 me a great many pleasant things. Among others, it tells 
 me of many delightful hours spent with that charming 
 but wicked Circe, Marie Du Pre." 
 
 "If Marie Du Pre is wicked, to whom does she owe 
 that wickedness?" said the Doctor, severely. 
 
 "Now, my dear fellow," said the duke, "you are as- 
 suming the privileges of your cloth and asking questions 
 which not even a fool can answer. The source of Marie 
 Du Pre's wickedness is a mystery. Better do as you 
 parsons are wont to do lay it to the devil. He wont 
 care ; it will be a credit to him to assume the responsibility 
 of giving to the world such a magnificent sinner as 
 Marie Du Pre." 
 
 "Again I say that it is not for me to answer your 
 Grace ! only as a gentleman I beg of you to speak, if not 
 with respect, at least with pity, of the mother of your 
 children." 
 
 382
 
 The Compliments of His Grace 
 
 "The mother of my children !" said the Duke, laugh- 
 ing. "Again I see you fall into the inveterate habit of 
 your cloth, and make dogmatic statements which are 
 sadly lacking in the element of proof." 
 
 "Sir," said Dr. Suydam, "does your Grace mean to 
 say that you do not know who is the father of Marie Du 
 Pre's children?" 
 
 "On that subject," said the Duke, "as on many others, 
 I am a confirmed agnostic. The paternity of Marie Du 
 Pre's children is a mystery that I have neither the power 
 nor the desire to penetrate." 
 
 "But," said the Doctor, dropping all ceremony, "the 
 woman says that while she was bearing her children she 
 was faithful to you." 
 
 "I know she says so," answered the Duke. "You 
 are yet a novice in the ways of the world, if you do not . 
 know that these women lay their fault to the most dis- 
 tinguished name within their scope of acquaintance." 
 
 "I will take care of the children," said Dr. Suydam, 
 "whom your Grace casts aside. Marie Du Pre and her 
 children are to sail with me to-morrow for America, where 
 I will make for her a home in which she can live with 
 her children in quietness and purity." 
 
 "Permit me to congratulate you once more on your 
 choice of a companion; but to rebuke the folly of the 
 method. You are playing the fool with a high hand. 
 What ,do you think Mrs. Suydam will say to all this ?" 
 
 "With this Mrs. Suydam has nothing to do. I am 
 here in the exercise of my office as a shepherd of the 
 sheep of Christ. A girl belonging to my congregation 
 was betrayed by a member of my household. She was 
 brought here and thrown on the streets of London. I 
 came here to search for her. In my search I met Marie 
 
 383
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 Du Pre. She has been very good and kind. She has 
 nursed the poor girl through her sickness. And now I 
 mean to take these women and their children home with 
 me to America and give them a chance to live." 
 
 "I have no doubt," said the duke, "of the purity of 
 your motive; but purity of motive is a small .defense 
 against the wiles of a beautiful woman. You will find 
 it hard to persuade a wicked world that you have kept 
 company for weeks with one of the loveliest of her sex, 
 visiting her at all hours of the day and night, just for the 
 good of her soul. Some things are too great a tax on 
 our faith ; this is one of them." 
 
 "I do not submit my conduct to your Grace's judgment. 
 I must act as I think best." 
 
 "Certainly," said the Duke; "but allow me to regret 
 that your action will prevent my receiving you at the 
 castle of Senlac when your beautiful step-daughter, Kath- 
 erine Bullet, enters it as the wife of the Marquis of Dip- 
 ford, heir to the name and estate of Senlac. You have 
 chosen your company, and you will have to keep it." 
 
 "Surely, your Grace," said Dr. Suydam; and for- 
 getting his letters, he went away, the Duke calling after 
 him, "Please give my compliments to Marie Du Pre." 
 
 384
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 OUT ON THE EBB-TIDE 
 
 WHILE Keturah was waiting anxiously for news 
 from Abigail, she was also in great distress over the 
 condition of her father. Under the combined influence 
 of drink and of misfortune, his mind had given way, 
 and he was no longer master of himself. He would 
 wander away from the house which Keturah had pro- 
 vided for him, and go back to his old haunts in Mul- 
 berry Bend and along the river side. Keturah was in 
 constant dread of some fatal accident. 
 
 She tried to persuade her father to stay at home with 
 Mrs. Sherwood. To every such appeal the old man would 
 reply : "I can't stay in this part o' town ; it ain't my dees- 
 trict. I ain't got no infloo'ence here. I don't know the 
 boys and I don't know the boss." 
 
 "But, father," answered Keturah, "you know you 
 haven't any influence anywhere now. That is all gone." 
 
 "Who says I aint got no infloo'ence?" cried the cap- 
 tain in anger. "Don't I vote a hundred or a hundred and 
 fifty at every 'lection; and ain't that infloo'ence? The 
 boss can't get along 'thout me, I tell you. He'll be 
 tellin' Flynn to tell Cronin to tell Captain Bain to vote 
 his men all right on lection day, and then step up and 
 get what's comin' to him. But the boss and Flynn and 
 
 385
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 Cronin ain't goin' to fool the old man no more. I'm 
 goin' to have my share 'fore 'lection, not arterward, else 
 me and Johnny Fox '11 turn the boss out and be bosses 
 ourselves." 
 
 "Don't you remember, father, dear," said Keturah, 
 "that there isn't any boss now ?" 
 
 "Aint no boss !" said the Captain indignantly. "Aint 
 no boss ! Now, that's jest like a woman. What do you 
 know about polertics? Aint no boss? I'ud like to know 
 how Noo York 'ud get along 'thout a boss. Easy as a 
 ship 'ud get along 'thout a captain, I guess." 
 
 "But father, don't you know that the boss has run 
 away, nobody knows where, and Flynn and Cronin and 
 Mr. Beekman have gone to Europe?" said Keturah 
 anxiously. 
 
 "What difference does that make, I'd like to know?" 
 said Captain Bain. "One boss goes, t'other boss comes ; 
 allers a boss. Else who's goin' to get the boys out to 
 vote, run the primaries, and all that? I tell ye, Keturah, 
 if there aint no boss, I'm jest goin' down town and be 
 boss myself; see if I don't." 
 
 Finding it impossible to persuade her father out of his 
 insane notions, Keturah had to let him follow the bent of 
 his own mind. The old man wandered about the river 
 all day, stopping now and then at Maloney's saloon, hop- 
 ing that some one would give him a drink ; and when that 
 good fortune befell him, as it sometimes did, eating a 
 little bread and cheese at the free-lunch counter and so 
 keeping soul and body together. 
 
 But this could not last forever. He was becoming 
 more and more of a nuisance every day; telling every- 
 body who would listen to him that he was boss of the city 
 and would give them any job they wanted. One night, 
 
 386
 
 Out on the Ebb-Tide 
 
 when Maloney grew tired of his drunken drivel, he turned 
 the old man out into the street. 
 
 It was a dark night and it was raining. Captain Bain 
 was dazed, and did not know where he was going. Walk- 
 ing aimlessly about the streets, he came unconsciously 
 to his old home in Mulberry Bend. Nothing had been 
 done to those rear buildings since the fire. _ Captain Bain 
 went through the passage-way into the court and stood 
 before the ruins of his house the New England cottage 
 which he had built for his wife and children in the days 
 of his young manhood. 
 
 He felt all round for the door, and stumbled over the 
 fallen bricks. As is the habit of men in his condition, he 
 was talking to himself. "What's the matter? What's 
 the matter.?" he said. "Aint this my home? Where's 
 mother, and Abigail, and Ben, and Keturah? All gone? 
 Yes, all gone. Mother's dead, and Ben he's dead, and 
 Abigail she's run away, and Keturah's gone to live with 
 John's folks. Keturah wants me to live 'long with her 
 and John; but it ain't my deestrict. I don't know the 
 boss, and I don't know the boys up there. I'd lose my 
 infloo'ence if I went up there. The boss 'ud say to Flynn, 
 'Where's Captain Bain,' and Flynn 'ud say, Til ask 
 Cronin,' and Cronin 'ud say to Flynn, 'Captain Bain, he's 
 gone uptown.' And Flynn 'ud say to Cronin, 'Strike off 
 his name ; he ain't no good no more.' 
 
 "No, I can't live up long o' John. I must live in my 
 deestrict. Here's my house burnt down, yes, burnt down. 
 It was a purty house when I built it, jest like mother's 
 house in Falmouth. White and green blinds, elm tree at 
 the gate, hollyhocks in the yard. Abby Skinner was a 
 purty girl. Pa didn't like her. I did. Kissed her on a 
 Sunday in the turning of the stairs he, he, he, he ! made 
 
 387
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 the elders mad. Pa licked me like the devil. I cussed 
 him and cussed God. Aint had no God sence. No use for 
 no God. Don't help a feller, not a bit. Bad time on the 
 river, bad, bad, sank a boat, drown three people. God 
 didn't help that time, never helps. If ye can't swim, ye 
 drown, God aint no good. The boss he's the one as does 
 it. I'm goin' to be boss, then I'll give God a job, he can 
 help me clean the streets, he, he, he, he ! 
 
 "I'm gettin' wet. Guess I'll go down to Cronin's 
 saloon, tell Cronin I'm boss, make him give me a drink." 
 
 Having formed this resolution in his maudlin brain, 
 the old man staggered to his feet, went out into the street, 
 and down to Cronin's saloon. He pushed open the door 
 and entered boldly. Madness gave him courage. The 
 wet night had kept the customers at home, and only two 
 or three were sitting about the tables drinking. Captain 
 Bain had not been in that saloon since the night he had 
 thrown the glass of whisky in Paddy Flynn's face. Since 
 that time great events had occurred. Captain Bain had 
 stolen the documents which had been used to prove the 
 rascality of the ring. The great boss was a fugitive. 
 Paddy Flynn was an exile, and Michael Cronin was in 
 hiding. 
 
 No one in the saloon knew the Captain as he went up 
 to the bar. Standing there in his dripping clothes he was 
 a pitiable object to look at. 
 
 "What do you want?" said the barkeeper. 
 
 "A little Jamacy, if it's the same to you," said the 
 Captain. The barkeeper eyed his customer suspiciously, 
 as he put down the bottle and glass. Without waiting for 
 him to give expression to his suspicions Captain Bain 
 eagerly filled the glass and drank it at a swallow. 
 
 "Well," said the barkeeper, "that was a stiff dram. 
 Now where's yer dime?" 
 
 388
 
 Out on the .Ebb-Tide 
 
 "I aint payin' to-night," said Captain Bain. 
 
 "You aint," said the barkeeper, "I 'ud like to know 
 why you aint ?" 
 
 '"Cause I'm the boss o' this city, and the boss don't 
 never pay nothin'. You ken tell Cronin that Captain Bain, 
 as aint been in his saloon since he hit Paddy Flynn, was 
 here to-night, and Captain Bain is goin' to be the boss o' 
 Noo York, and Cronin can keep his job if he wants to." 
 
 "What you givin' us ?" cried the barkeeper. "You say 
 you's Captain Bain?" 
 
 "Yes, I'm Captain Bain." 
 
 "Boys," said the barkeeper, jumping over the bar, and 
 striking Captain Bain in the face, "here's the bloke as sold 
 out the boss and drove Cronin out o' the country. Take 
 that, and that, and that," and the irate man struck and 
 kicked the poor Captain and cast him out of the door. 
 
 Dazed and bewildered, his face streaming with blood, 
 Captain Bain made his way down to the river. The rain 
 continued to fall in torrents. The blows of the barkeeper 
 had brought the Captain to his senses. He knew now 
 that he was not the boss of New York, but only poor, 
 drunken Captain Bain. He steadied himself against the 
 wall of a great warehouse and began to cry like a child. 
 "I'm beat, I'm beat," he said, "I give in, God's got the best 
 o' me arter all. I'll go and tell father as how it was 
 wrong to kiss Abby Skinner on the Sabbath day, at the 
 turning of the stairs. I wont do it no more. If God'll for- 
 give me and wont be mad at me no more I'll go to church. 
 I'll sing psalms. I wont laugh no more. I'll be solemn 
 like Deakin Hart. I wont joke. I'll jest pray and pray. 
 Oh, mother, mother," cried the broken-hearted old man, 
 "I'm comin' home to you. I know father '11 whip me. But 
 don't you care, mother, don't you care, I ken stand it. 
 
 389
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 Don't cry, mother, I'm comin'. Comin' home to you. 
 The tide's runnin' out, I'm comin' right away. Open the 
 kitchen door and give me some punkin pie and buttermilk, 
 I'm awful hungry." 
 
 Blinded by the blood that was streaming in his eyes, 
 beaten by the rain and whipped by the wind, the old man 
 staggered to the end of the pier, stepped down into the 
 water, and went out on the ebb-tide. 
 
 Three days after, his floating body was discovered in 
 the bay and taken to the morgue. There John Sherwood 
 found it, and he and Keturah buried Joshua Bain beside 
 his wife and his son in the cemetery at Union Hill. 
 
 390
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE RETURN OF THE SHEPHERD 
 
 BEFORE sailing from London, Dr. Suydam had written 
 home to his agent and secured possession of the family 
 residence in East Broadway. In this house he had lived 
 until his marriage with Mrs. Bullet, and it was his wish 
 to return to it. If his wife desired to live with him, she 
 must come to him and live in his house : he would no 
 longer consent to live in hers. 
 
 Reaching New York he was driven directly to his 
 home, taking with him Abigail Bain, Marie Du Pre, and 
 their children. He had sent word to Keturah to meet him 
 there, as he meant to avoid anything like a scene at the 
 pier. 
 
 When they reached the house in East Broadway the 
 door was opened by Keturah herself. Without saying a 
 word she took Abigail in her arms and kissed her. Both 
 of the women were overcome by deep emotion, and Dr. 
 Suydam led them into a reception room on the right of 
 the hall, and shutting the door left them to themselves, 
 while he was looking after Marie Du Pre. 
 
 Keturah and Abigail sat still for a long time holding 
 each other's hand. Keturah broke the silence, saying: 
 "I'm so glad, Abigail, to have you home again. You don't 
 know how I have missed you." 
 
 39i
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "I don't see, Keturah, how you can say you are glad 
 to have me home again. I'm nothing but a bad woman 
 now and you will have to hide me as long as I live. I 
 think you would be glad if I had died as I was dying, in 
 the streets of London, when Dr. Suydam found me." 
 Abigail spoke between her sobs, her eyes running with 
 tears. 
 
 "Hush, dear, hush," said Keturah. "You must never 
 say that again. You must never think it. Whatever has 
 happened, you are my own dear sister, and I would have 
 died of a broken heart if you had been lost to me forever." 
 
 "But, Keturah, you can never forgive me. I have 
 brought shame on you and on all the family." 
 
 "Never mind about the family, Abigail. You and I 
 are all that are left of the family, and we must hold 
 together. I not only forgive, dear, but I forget. We must 
 not think about the past any more at all." 
 
 "Keturah, dear, how can you forget? There is the 
 baby." 
 
 Keturah rose as if she had been stung. "Yes," she 
 said, "I did forget. There is the baby, that wicked man's 
 child. I did forget." 
 
 "But, Keturah dear," pleaded Abigail, "it is my baby 
 more than it is his, and though I have been very wicked 
 the baby has done no wrong." 
 
 "True," said Keturah, "the baby has done no wrong. 
 We must not let the baby suffer for the sins of its father 
 and mother. We must save the baby. I will marry John 
 right away, and we will adopt your child as our own and 
 give it a name." 
 
 "No, Keturah, no," cried Abigail. "It is my baby. 
 You must not take it away from me." 
 
 "What will you do with it?" said Keturah. 
 
 392
 
 The Return of the Shepherd 
 
 "I don't know," said Abigail, "but I must keep it." 
 
 Just then Dr. Suydam came into the room and Marie 
 Du Pre followed him, bearing the baby in her arms. 
 "Here, Abigail," she said, "here is your baby wakened 
 out of her sleep, she wants you." Keturah took the child 
 out of Marie Du Pre's arms, and looking into the great 
 blue eyes blinking in the light, her heart warmed to the 
 child, and she said: "Poor baby, you have come into 
 a cold, hard world a world that does not want you ; but 
 now that you are here we must give you welcome, and be 
 sure, dear, that your Aunt Ketty will make the world as 
 warm and as soft for you as she possibly can." And 
 kissing the child, Keturah handed her to her mother, who 
 laid the hungry little thing against her breast. 
 
 "You called yourself Aunt Ketty," said Abigail, "Aunt 
 Ketty, how funny. May I call the baby 'Ketty' now and 
 'Keturah' when she grows up ?" 
 
 "Certainly, my dear," said Keturah. "It is not a very 
 pretty name, and from all I can learn of her, Keturah 
 was not a very nice woman, that is the Bible Keturah. 
 But it was grandmother's name and mine, so we had 
 better keep it in the family." 
 
 "In the family," said Abigail, sadly. "Poor baby does 
 not belong to any family." 
 
 "Yes, she does," said Keturah, "she belongs to my 
 family and always will. John and I will take her for a 
 daughter." 
 
 "Oh, no," said Abigail, holding the baby more closely, 
 "not my baby. You and John must have children of your 
 own. My baby is my baby. I will go far away where 
 nobody will know us and will bring up my child as my 
 child." 
 
 Keturah was surprised at the strength of Abigail's 
 
 393
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 feelings. She had never expected her sister to develop 
 so strong a character. Sin and suffering had done in 
 a little while the work of years. 
 
 "You are right," said Marie Du Pre to Abigail. "You 
 are right. Keep your child with you. It is your only 
 salvation. If I had gone away with my children, and 
 lived with them I would not be the wicked woman that 
 I am to-day, nor have to repent of the crimes that lie so 
 heavily on my heart." 
 
 "You must not speak so, Marie," said Dr. Suydam, 
 "you are not wicked. You have been greatly wronged. 
 But you are right in this matter. Abigail must keep her 
 child. It is her duty and her duty will be her salvation." 
 
 "Yes," said Abigail, "I will keep her, and work for 
 her, and she need never know who her father was." 
 
 "I suppose," said Dr. Suydam, "that we might possibly 
 establish a common-law marriage between Abigail and 
 Robert. He registered her as his wife in hotels, and 
 spoke of her as such to the men on the yacht. But it 
 would be a long, tedious, and expensive process, and even 
 then we might not succeed. There is no end to the money 
 which Robert and his mother could spend in fighting the 
 case." 
 
 "Oh, no, Doctor, oh, no !" cried Keturah, "don't let us 
 ever think of that. I could not bear to have our shame 
 dragged through the court. Let that man go out of our 
 lives as far and as completely as he possibly can. I never 
 want to hear his name again." 
 
 "I think you are wise, Keturah," said Dr. Suydam. 
 "I don't think anything would be gained by taking the 
 matter into the courts. I do not think, in any event, that 
 Robert would live with Abigail again." 
 
 "Oh ! I never could live with him again," cried Abigail. 
 
 394
 
 The Return of the Shepherd 
 
 "He was very cruel to me at the last. I would rather die 
 than live with him." Abigail shuddered as she recalled 
 the scenes of shame and cruelty that filled the last days 
 of her life with Robert Bullet. 
 
 Seeing her distress, Dr. Suydam soothed her, saying : 
 "Have no fear, my dear, have no fear. Robert Bullet has 
 forgotten you. If you do not force yourself upon him 
 he will never think of you again. I think we can, how- 
 ever, easily have him make a suitable provision for the 
 child." 
 
 "Oh, no ! no ! no !" cried Keturah in alarm. "We don't 
 want his money. It would be a shame for us to take it. 
 I will provide for the child." 
 
 "No, Keturah," said Abigail, "I will work for the 
 child and support it myself." 
 
 "I do not think," said Dr. Suydam, "that we need give 
 ourselves any uneasiness about that. I will be responsible 
 for the child. It shall never want. 
 
 "And now come," he added, "let us all go down to 
 luncheon. I am sure that we are hungry." 
 
 395
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 SHE SAID, "I WILL," 
 
 THAT same evening John and Shinar came to see 
 Keturah, who was to spend the night with Abigail at the 
 home of Dr. Suydam. Keturah came down-stairs and met 
 them in the hall. She said to Shinar: "Shinar, sit down 
 for a few minutes, I want to speak to John alone." She 
 and John went into a side room and Keturah stood before 
 her lover and said : "John, I am an old woman." 
 
 "No, you aint, Keturah. You are in the prime of life. 
 You are young enough to be my wife and my wife you 
 shall be. I wont wait any longer." 
 
 "Take care, John, take care. I am an old woman. 
 See, my hair is gray, while yours has not a gray hair in 
 it. You- don't want an old woman for your wife. You 
 are young and strong and there are hundreds of young 
 girls that would be glad to have you for a husband. Go, 
 John, and find one of them and leave me to take care of 
 Abigail and her baby." 
 
 "Now, Keturah," said John in alarm, "you can't play 
 that racket on me any longer. I've waited and waited for 
 people to die, but I wont wait any longer, especially for 
 people to be born. If Abigail is to be taken care of we 
 will take care of her together." 
 
 "You mean it, John?" said she. 
 
 307
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "Yes, I mean it, John," he said. 
 
 "And you will never be sorry when you see my gray 
 hair and wish you had married some fresh young girl ?" 
 
 "No, Keturah, I wont never be sorry," said John, 
 coming over and kissing her hair. 
 
 "Then, John," said Keturah. 
 
 "Then what ?" said John. 
 
 "Here I am, take me and marry me just as soon as you 
 please, and the sooner the better for we have not long 
 to stay." John took her in his arms and kissed her and 
 said : "I will speak to Dr. Suydam." 
 
 After resting for a moment in her lover's arms, 
 Keturah went out into the hall and said solemnly: 
 "Shinar," and Shinar said: "What?" 
 
 "I am going to marry John Sherwood," said Keturah. 
 
 "You don't mean it," said Shinar jumping up, "how 
 suddint!" 
 
 "Yes, it is sudden, I have said I will." Then Keturah 
 and John went laughing up the stairs. "I know," she 
 said to Shinar, "that you want to see Abigail. I will send 
 her down. Be kind to the poor child. She is very sorry 
 for what she has done." 
 
 Shinar went into the little reception room and waited 
 with a beating heart for the girl whom he loved. Her 
 misfortune brought her nearer to him, and made it possi- 
 ble for him to win her. Shinar did not look on that mis- 
 fortune as a disgrace, but only as an accident and a lucky 
 accident for him. The other man was out and it was 
 Shinar's innings. 
 
 He heard the rustle of skirts on the stairs, and straight- 
 ened himself, smoothed his hair and twirled his mous- 
 tache, and tried to look the man he was. 
 
 When Abigail entered the room and saw a man stand- 
 
 398
 
 She Said, "I Will" 
 
 ing there she drew back in surprise, saying, "Oh, I beg 
 your pardon, sir. They told me the boy Shinar was here." 
 
 "So he is, so he is," cried Shinar. "Don't you know 
 me, Abigail? I am Shinar." 
 
 "You, Shinar/' cried the girl. "You Shinar. I can't 
 believe it. I know your voice, but I would never have 
 known you. How you have changed!" 
 
 "Yes, Abigail, I've changed," said Shinar. "I couldn't 
 help changin'. I've been livin' in the country where you 
 goes to bed early, and gets up early, where you has plenty 
 o' water to clean yourself with, and besides my moustache 
 has growed." 
 
 "I see it, Shinar, you are quite a man. I can't believe 
 you are the dirty little boy that used to run about Mulberry 
 Bend." 
 
 "I ain't that dirty little boy, that boy's gone. Never 
 comin' back. Here am I, Jesse Shinar, a proper young 
 man." 
 
 "Yes, you are a proper young man," said Abigail, 
 looking at the tall, strong young man before her. He was 
 far more manly and handsome in Abigail's eyes than the 
 young man for whom she had suffered so much. Her 
 heart warmed to him. "So you live in the country, I hear, 
 how do you like it?" 
 
 "O, bully," said the boy, with enthusiasm. "And you'll 
 like it too when you get used to it. I know you'll like it, 
 Abigail." 
 
 "I don't know," said the girl. "Isn't it very lone- 
 some?" 
 
 "Lonesome," cried the boy, "I guess not. First it is 
 lonesome. You think you'll die o' lonesomeness. You 
 think they ain't nothin' nor nobody there. But by and 
 bye you find out what a fool you are. It's just full o' folks 
 
 399
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 and they are a-talkin' all the time, the horses an' the cows 
 an' the chickens an' squirrels an' the birds. Why, when 
 you come to know 'em all, you couldn't be lonesome if you 
 tried." 
 
 "Do you know them, Shinar?" asked Abigail. 
 
 "Know 'em," said Shinar. "You bet ; I go out in the 
 mornin' and the old gray squirrel says 'Mornin' ' to me, 
 an' I says 'Fine mornin' * to him, an' he shakes his tail. 
 Then the birds say, 'Hurry up, hurry up, throw out some 
 straw, got to build our nest to-day, an' be quick about it.' 
 The old rooster he gets up on the fence and crows to the 
 rooster on the next farm. He says: 'Come over here 
 and have a fight. City feller want to see !' " 
 
 "So you really like country life ?" said Abigail. 
 
 "Like it," said Shinar, "I guess I do. I wouldn't live 
 in the city if you'd give me the whole town, and you'd 
 like it, too, Abigail, if you'd only come and try. Wont 
 you?" 
 
 "Me?" said Abigail. "What do you mean? How 
 could I live in the country ?" 
 
 "You could come and live with me." 
 
 "With you, Shinar?" cried the girl. 
 
 "Yes, with me," said Shinar, blushing, "I know I 
 aint fit for the likes o' you. I aint eddicated like you, 
 but I am goin' to school, I'm learnin' jest as fast as I can, 
 an' if you'd only come and help I'd learn a bit faster than 
 I do by myself." 
 
 "But, Shinar," said Abigail, "how could I come and 
 live with you?" 
 
 "You know how," said the boy. "You know that I've 
 been a-lovin' you ever since I was ten years old. Yes, I 
 guess I was a-lovin' you when you an' I was little things 
 playin' on the dock, and Keturah takin' care o' us. I 
 
 400
 
 She Said, "I Will" 
 
 commenced young an' I kep' it up ever since. Now you 
 ain't got nobody as loves you like I do, I say come to me 
 and we'll go to the country and live together all our 
 lives." 
 
 "But, Shinar," said the girl, flushing, "you forget that 
 I am a bad woman. You forget I have a baby." 
 
 "I don't forget nothin'," said the boy. "If a man was 
 to say to me, 'Abigail is a bad woman/ I'd smash his face 
 in. You aint a bad woman. You got fooled, that's all. 
 You are a good woman, too good for the like o' me. I 
 know I aint got no right to think you'll take up with me, 
 but if you will I'll be good to you and to the baby." 
 
 "The baby, Shinar? Would you take me and the 
 baby?" 
 
 "That's what I'm sayin'. It's the baby I'm thinkin' of. 
 I know what it is. Here am I, throwed out on the street 
 to die. No father, no mother, nobody carin' if I live or 
 die, and I would a died if Keturah hadn't took me up. 
 I tell you what it is, Abigail, that baby's on my mind. I 
 wouldn't have that baby go without a father, no, not for 
 the world !" 
 
 "But the baby has a father," said Abigail, sadly. 
 
 "What!" cried Shinar, "that duffer as t'rowed you 
 down ? He ain't fit to be that baby's father. That baby's 
 got to have a father, and I am the man." 
 
 "You, Shinar?" said Abigail, smiling. 
 
 "Yes, me. See, old Mother Magrath, she died and 
 left more than ten thousand dollars in the bank, that's 
 mine. I am learnin' farmin' and I am goin' West and buy 
 jest one of the best farms in all that bloomin' country. I 
 am goin' to build a house and have horses and cows and 
 sheep and oxen. And you and the baby are comin' to live 
 in that house and you're goin' to teach me what's what, 
 
 401
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 and we'll carry our head with the best o' them. Who 
 knows ? Keturah's dream may come true, I'll be President 
 o' somethin' before I die." 
 
 "Shinar, you foolish boy! How you run on! What 
 makes you think I will marry you?" said Abigail. 
 " 'Cause I love you, and I'll make you love me." 
 
 "And if I did," said Abigail, "you could not marry me 
 for ever so long, not till you went out West and bought 
 your farm and built your house." 
 
 "Not much," said Shinar, "I'm goin' to marry you 
 right away, all on account o' the baby. If we was to wait 
 a" year or two folks'd want to know where we got that 
 baby. Marry right away and that baby is ourn, and no 
 questions asked." 
 
 Shinar drew near and took Abigail by the hand and 
 said : "Now Abigail, say yes," and as he drew her toward 
 him she did not resist, but allowed herself to be drawn 
 into his strong embrace and gave him, not her cheek, but 
 her lips to kiss. 
 
 As soon as Shinar recovered himself he went out in 
 the hall and called Keturah. 
 
 "Keturah," he said, "I've got some news for you." 
 
 "Have you?" said Keturah, "what is it?" 
 
 "I'm goin' to marry Abigail." 
 
 "You going to marry Abigail ? What do you mean ?" 
 
 "I mean just what I say. I'm goin' to marry Abigail." 
 
 "Abigail, is it true?" said Keturah. 
 
 "Yes, it is true," said Abigail. "Shinar says he will 
 take me just as I am with the baby. Shinar is a good man 
 and maybe he'll make me a good woman." 
 
 "How strange all this is !" cried Keturah. "When do 
 you expect to be married ?" 
 
 "As soon as I can find a ring and a parson," said 
 402
 
 She Said, "I Will" 
 
 Shinar. "Taint right to keep that baby waitin' for a 
 father." 
 
 "Come, let us go and speak to Dr. Suydam," said 
 Keturah, "and we will be married together." 
 
 403
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 DESOLATION IN THE HOLY PLACE 
 
 ON the Sunday after his arrival home, Dr. Suydam 
 went down to old Saint Nicholas Church. But not for 
 the purpose of divine worship. Before going he knew 
 that the church had been abandoned by its congregation, 
 and was awaiting its final destruction. 
 
 When Dr. Suydam reached the church he found in it 
 no outward change. It stood, as it had been standing for 
 more than a century, on the crest of the hill that slopes to 
 the canal, a landmark in the city, its towers and dome ris- 
 ing high above the surrounding buildings. 
 
 Dr. Suydam had his pass-key to the vestry room and 
 by means of it entered the church. 
 
 The interior of the building was a scene of desolation. 
 The seats had been removed, memorial tablets taken down 
 from the walls, and the communion table from under the 
 pulpit. 
 
 Dr. Suydam walked up and down the empty, desolate 
 House of God to the echo of his own footfalls. His mind 
 was saddened by the contrast between what was and what 
 had been. He remembered this house when it was 
 crowded by men and women who outwardly, at least, 
 worshipped the Lord God and professed the faith of 
 Christ, and now it was empty and forlorn. The wor- 
 
 405
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 shippers had forsaken this shrine and had built for them- 
 selves a new temple near their own homes. 
 
 There were still people round about the church, crowd- 
 ing by the hundred thousand the streets immediately 
 behind it, but to these people this church had no mission. 
 It could not enter into and brighten their dark lives, it 
 had no word to speak to their suffering souls, so there was 
 nothing to do but to tear it down and build in its room 
 houses of Mammon instead of this House of God. 
 
 Full of gloomy feelings, depressed with a sense of his 
 own failure in life, Dr. Suydam went up into the pulpit 
 and looked down from it on the wide empty spaces of the 
 church. From this pulpit he had preached for ten years, 
 going up into it Sunday after Sunday with, as he thought, 
 a message from the Lord. He had sought to make his 
 message acceptable to the people by giving it perfect 
 literary form. He had spent hours in the composition 
 of his sermons, giving to them the form and finish of the 
 essay. And this was the end of it all. A church forsaken 
 by the people because it had nothing to say to the people. 
 
 Dr. Suydam thought of his pride in his preaching (for 
 he had a secret pride in those productions of his mind and 
 his pen) with a sense of shame and humiliation. A few 
 stern words from some unlettered prophet had been worth 
 them all. Not one of his sermons, to the composing of 
 which he had given so much time and care, was worth the 
 paper it was written on. 
 
 So thought the Doctor in his despondency as he stood 
 in his lonely pulpit and looked down on his lonely church. 
 Just then a gleam of sunshine came through the windows 
 and filled the church with light and the heart of Dr. 
 Suydam with cheer. He remembered Keturah Bain, and 
 was comforted by the thought that at least one soul had 
 
 406
 
 Desolation in the Holy Place 
 
 been helped and cheered by his preaching. There might 
 be many more of whom he knew nothing, who had heard 
 him speak, and who had gone away strengthened and 
 refreshed. 
 
 Dr. Suydam was sad when he remembered that he was 
 never to preach again, never to stand any more in a pulpit, 
 clothed in white raiment, vested with the outward author- 
 ity of a messenger of God. From this time forward he 
 must speak, if he were to speak at all, simply as a man to 
 men. And in his case the speaking would be all the more 
 difficult because he would speak as a man discredited, a 
 man cast out of his place in the world, and branded with 
 the brand of shame. 
 
 On his return home, Dr. Suydam had been served with 
 the complaint of his wife in her suit for divorce. In that 
 complaint his actions in the streets of London, his resi- 
 dence in the house of Marie Du Pre were set down as 
 evidence of his unfaithfulness to his marriage vows and 
 as a reason why his wife should have an absolute divorce 
 from him. 
 
 When the attorneys of Mrs. Suydam asked the Doctor 
 for the name of his counsel, he answered, "I have no 
 counsel," and when asked to whom he committed his 
 defense, he answered, "I make no defense." It was the 
 thought of this shameful outcome of his shameful mar- 
 riage that gave bitterness to his reflections on this Sabbath 
 morning. He deserved the disgrace that had come upon 
 him, not because he was guilty of the charges which his 
 wife had brought against him, but because he had married 
 his wife to save his reputation; he had entered unad- 
 visedly and lightly into the most sacred of all relation- 
 ships, and he was now paying the righteous penalty of a 
 loveless marriage. 
 
 407
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 While Dr. Suydam was musing thus sadly in the old 
 church on Broadway, a far different scene was transpiring 
 upon Murray Hill. It was the day of the consecration of 
 the new Saint Nicholas. A vast throng of fashionably 
 dressed people filled the house to its utmost capacity. A 
 great procession of bishops and clergy moved up the 
 center of the building singing hymns of triumph. The 
 organ rolled forth its sacred melody, voices, sweet and 
 angelic, rose and fell to the cadence of a sacred song. 
 
 The Bishop pronounced this house a holy place, set 
 apart forever to the use and benefit of Almighty God. 
 The old rector stood up and congratulated the people on 
 the completion of this magnificent place of worship. He 
 told them how they had been obliged to leave the old 
 church, because it was surrounded by the poor and crim- 
 inal classes, and was crowded on either side by great busi- 
 ness houses, and in the rear by haunts of vice, dangerous 
 to the morals of the younger members of the congregation. 
 
 The rector referred, indirectly, to the terrible calamity 
 which had befallen the church, in the fall of one whom 
 they had greatly honored, who had been lured to his ruin 
 by one of the low characters of that low neighborhood. 
 
 While this service of consecration was going on, the 
 congregation of Saint Nicholas sat complacent in its pew, 
 congratulating itself on the grandeur of its new home 
 which had not cost it a cent. 
 
 Meanwhile the old church, that had paid for the new, 
 stood dark and desolate and empty, and the ancestral 
 bones of this rejoicing congregation moved uneasily in 
 their graves, knowing that their resting place had been 
 sold by their children, and they must be taken out of the 
 churchyard to which they were wonted, and be carried 
 to far-away cemeteries in which they could never be at 
 home.
 
 Desolation in the Holy Place 
 
 Dr. Suydam, standing in the pulpit, saw a dark shadow 
 fall upon the dust and debris of the forsaken sanctuary ; 
 he became spiritually awake and heard strange whispering 
 sobs, the bitter crying of a despised Christ, and the weep- 
 ing of forgotten dead. 
 
 Trembling and afraid he came down out of the pulpit 
 and went out of the church. 
 
 409
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 O ABSALOM ! MY SON ! MY SON ! 
 
 THAT same afternoon Dr. Suydam was sitting in his 
 reception room looking sadly out of his window at the 
 children playing in the street, when he saw a carriage 
 stop before his house, from which an old man alighted 
 and walked up the steps to his street door. Recognizing 
 in the old man the Bishop of the Church in the City of 
 New York, he went himself to the door, and opened it and 
 let the old man in. Taking the Bishop by the hand, the 
 Doctor led him without a word into the room from which 
 he had himself just come out, and placing him in a large 
 easy chair, sat down beside him and said, "God bless you, 
 Bishop, for coming." 
 
 The Bishop was a very old man whose hands were 
 shaking with the palsy. As he sat and looked at Dr. 
 Suydam tears ran down his cheeks and he could not speak. 
 
 After a moment he mastered his emotion and said: 
 "Pardon, Jacob, the tears of an old man, but you, whom 
 I have loved and honored as a son, have broken my heart. 
 You are bringing my gray hairs in sorrow to the grave." 
 
 "I am sorry, Bishop, very sorry," said Dr. Suydam, 
 "that I have caused you any distress, but what I have done 
 has been done simply and solely in the performance of 
 duty. A girl of our congregation was betrayed and
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 thrown on the streets of London. In seeking for her I 
 went to places where the clergy do not usually go, and 
 became liable to the suspicions that now rest upon me." 
 
 "You are not guilty. Jacob," cried the Bishop, "tell 
 me that you are not guilty." 
 
 "Guilty of what, my father?" said Dr. Suydam. 
 
 "Guilty of the crimes which they charge against you ?" 
 said the Bishop. 
 
 "If you mean guilty of the accusations which are made 
 against me in the complaint of my wife in her suit for 
 divorce, I have only to answer you in the language of 
 Balaam's ass. Was I ever wont to do so? You have 
 known me from boyhood, have you ever heard it charged 
 against me that I was licentious in my youth or early 
 manhood? Answer me, Bishop, have you ever heard 
 such accusation against me?" said Doctor Suydam, still 
 stroking the Bishop's hand. 
 
 "No, no," said the Bishop, "it is that which grieves 
 me; these accusations tarnish an honorable, and, up to 
 this time, a spotless name." 
 
 "And you think that having escaped the fires of youth, 
 I have suddenly in middle life plunged into the lowest 
 forms of uncleanness ?" said Dr. Suydam. 
 
 "No, no, Jacob," said the Bishop. "I do not believe 
 it. I cannot believe it. But that is what the world is 
 saying. They say that you have brought the woman with 
 whom you staid in London here to your own house. Is 
 it true?" 
 
 "It is true that the woman is here," said Dr. Suydam. 
 "I have given her the protection of my home until she can 
 find one of her own." 
 
 "But, Jacob, my son," cried the Bishop, anxiously, 
 "have you no regard for appearances, no consideration 
 for the opinion of the world ?" 
 
 412
 
 Absalom 1 My Son! My Son! 
 
 "Just now, Bishop," said the Doctor, "I am not think- 
 ing much of the world. I am thinking how I can save 
 these women and children from the world." 
 
 "But could you not have done this without the 
 notoriety and scandal, which has brought such harm to 
 the cause of the Church ?" said the Bishop. 
 
 "For the notoriety and scandal, Bishop," said Dr. 
 Suydam, "I am as sorry as you can be. I did not seek it, 
 it was thrust upon me, and if I do harm to the cause of 
 the Church by doing the work of Christ I cannot help it." 
 
 "Jacob, Jacob," said the Bishop, "you talk and act like 
 a fool." 
 
 "It may be so, Bishop," said Jacob Suydam, "but God 
 needs some fools to correct the evils of the wise. I am 
 willing to be a fool if by my foolishness I can save a soul 
 alive." 
 
 "What do you mean to do, Jacob ?" said the Bishop. 
 
 "About what ?" said Dr. Suydam. 
 
 "About this suit of your wife for divorce?" said the 
 Bishop. 
 
 "Nothing," said Dr. Suydam. 
 
 "Nothing," cried the Bishop, "nothing? Do you mean 
 to tell me that you will make no defense ?" 
 
 "None, Bishop," said the Doctor. "Why should I? 
 Even if I were to prove my innocence to the satisfaction 
 of a court of justice, I could never prove it to the satisfac- 
 tion of the public. Men would still put their tongue in 
 their cheek and wink as I passed them and say, 'There 
 goes the parson who kept company with loose women all 
 for their good.' And besides if my wife wants a divorce 
 I want her to have it. For there, Bishop, there I am 
 guilty." 
 
 "What do you mean, Jacob ?" cried the Bishop. "What 
 do you mean?" 
 
 413
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "I mean," said Jacob Suydam, "that yielding to a 
 momentary fleshly impulse, I kissed that woman in the 
 vestry of the church. And to save myself from scandal I 
 married her. For years I have lived in degrading sub- 
 jection to her, while she has used my name to forward her 
 vulgar social ambitions. I have no respect for her, and she 
 has none for me. We are not husband and wife, we are 
 strangers, and as strangers it is best for us each to go our 
 way." 
 
 "But, Jacob," said the Bishop, "you forget that if 
 your wife gains her suit, I may be called upon to depose 
 you from the ministry." 
 
 "I mean that you shall do so," said Dr. Suydam. "I 
 know that my days of usefulness as a minister in the 
 Church are over. Whatever work I am to do for God and 
 for humanity from this time to the end of my life, I must 
 do not as a consecrated priest, standing aloof from the 
 people, but as a sinful man among sinful men." 
 
 "O Jacob, Jacob," said the Bishop, "I did not think you 
 would lay this burden upon me in my old age. I looked 
 to you to be my assistant and the next Bishop of this great 
 city, and now you say I must depose you from the ministry. 
 Can you not go away until this matter is forgotten, and 
 then come back and take up some quiet work, and so save 
 the Church the scandal of your deposition?" 
 
 "No, Bishop," said Dr. Suydam, "I cannot go away. 
 Here is my home, here are the people to whom I ought 
 to have ministered and did not. I must stay and make 
 up for the time I have lost." 
 
 "But how will you minister, Jacob," said the Bishop, 
 "if you are deposed ?" 
 
 "As I have told you. I will minister as a brother to my 
 brothers and sisters. I will be, not their priest, but their 
 friend." 
 
 414
 
 O Absalom 1 My Son ! My Son ! 
 
 "But your good name, Jacob, your good name will be 
 lost. Think of your father and your mother," said the 
 Bishop. 
 
 "My good name, Bishop," said Dr. Suydam, "will be of 
 no use to me 'in the world that I shall live in. The people 
 in that world will believe in me all the more if my name 
 is cast out by the world of fashion and respectability. I 
 belong to the under world now, the world of bad names, 
 of thieves and harlots. And as for my father and mother, 
 they are dead and will not know." 
 
 "And you are determined to leave the Church, Jacob ?" 
 said the Bishop. 
 
 "Yes, Bishop," said Dr. Suydam. "I intend to leave 
 the Church and go to the people." 
 
 "Jacob," said the old man, rising, "you have acted 
 foolishly, but you are a good man. Of that I am sure, 
 and I leave you an old man's blessings. The Church you 
 are forsaking is, I believe, the Church of God. I am not 
 to stay much longer here on the earth and my greatest 
 sorrow is that I will not leave you in my place. But go 
 your way and take an old man's blessings with you," and 
 the Bishop blessed Jacob Suydam and departed from his 
 house, weeping as he went.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THIS PRESENT WORLD 
 
 THE carriage of the Bishop had hardly turned the 
 corner of the street before an elegant brougham drew up 
 before the door of Dr. Suydam. The Doctor saw that it 
 was the equipage of his step-daughter, and from his seat 
 by the window he watched Katherine alight, and come up 
 the steps, with a feeling of terror in his heart. The emo- 
 tional excitement of his meditations in old Saint Nicholas 
 and the distress of his interview with the Bishop had quite 
 worn him out, and he was hardly equal to another strain. 
 
 But Katherine was at the door and he had to let her 
 in. He did not himself rise to meet her, but sat still in 
 his chair. When the girl came into the room she found 
 him sitting there looking very old and worn. His beard 
 had changed from black to silver gray, his eyes were 
 sunken, and his brow was wrinkled. He held out his hand 
 to Katherine and she went over and knelt down beside 
 him, laid her head upon his knee, and gave way to a fit of 
 weeping. 
 
 "There, there," said the Doctor, stroking her glorious 
 hair, "don't cry, don't cry, there is nothing to cry about." 
 
 "I must cry," said Katherine, "I must cry, or else I 
 must laugh and go mad." 
 
 "What is it, my dear," said the Doctor, "what is it that 
 moves you so?"
 
 "What is it?" said the girl, "it is this wretched, mis- 
 erable topsy-turvy world, where everything is wrong side 
 up and up side down." 
 
 "You have not just found that out, have you, my dear, 
 that you must needs cry about it ?" said the Doctor, sooth- 
 ingly. 
 
 "No," said the girl, "but to-day I have had it thrown 
 tn my face, and crammed down my throat. I could have 
 screamed in the church this morning with laughter at the 
 hypocrisy of it all. There we were, bishops, clergy and 
 people consecrating, as we said, a church to Almighty 
 God. We were giving it to him, we said, and it never 
 cost us a penny. We sold the old church for enough to 
 pay for the new three times over, and then to talk about 
 self-sacrifice and serving Christ, it makes me tired and 
 sick. And then to prate as the Bishop did, about its being 
 the house of God open to all his children, when every- 
 body knows that this church is set apart to the use of the 
 most exclusive set in New York City. Nobody can get 
 a seat in it without a certificate of social standing from 
 Mrs. Schuyler and Mrs. Van Horn. The poor and the 
 stranger need not apply. Oh, Daddy ! this church of yours 
 is a sorry humbug." 
 
 "I will admit," said the Doctor, smiling sadly, "that 
 there is a gap between its theory and its practice. But 
 Kathe, you have not come down here this afternoon to 
 tell your old Daddy such an old truth as that?" 
 
 "No," said Katherine, "no, but I have come down to 
 tell you that I hate it all, and I hate it all the more because 
 it slanders you, the best man I have ever known." 
 
 "Never mind that, my dear," said the Doctor. "Noth- 
 ing is said of me which I do not deserve." 
 
 "Now, now," said Katherine, "don't you talk cant as 
 
 418
 
 This Present World 
 
 the rest of them do. When old Van Antwerp was talking 
 about the sad fall of one whom we all greatly honored, led 
 astray by one of the low characters that infest old Saint 
 Nicholas, I could have thrown a hymn-book at him. The 
 old fool ! He never had a generous impulse nor a noble 
 thought in his life." 
 
 "Kathe dear," said the Doctor, "if you expect to suc- 
 ceed in a social way, either in this country or in England, 
 you must learn to bridle your tongue. You will never get 
 along if you speak evil of dignities." 
 
 "Daddy mine, I am going to be Jim Bullet's gurl just 
 long enough to say 'to the deuce' with your dignities. All 
 the humbug of the world is concentrated in its dignities, 
 for pure unadulterated humbug give me the rector of 
 Saint Nicholas Church and the Bishop." 
 
 "No, not the Bishop, Katherine," said the Doctor, "not 
 the Bishop. The Bishop is a good man." 
 
 "Oh, he is good enough," said Katherine, "he is goody- 
 goody, a nice old grandmother, but as a man, bah !" 
 
 "Katherine, dear," said Dr. Suydam, "I shall really 
 have to scoJ i you, if you do not stop talking so wildly." 
 
 "ScoM away, Daddy, scold away," said Katherine, 
 rising from her sitting posture and standing upright. "I 
 have come down here to tell you that I disapprove of your 
 conduct as much as mother or Van Antwerp or the Bishop, 
 but for a very different reason." 
 
 "Indeed, my dear, and what is your reason?" said the 
 Doctor. 
 
 "They all blame you," said Katherine, "because they 
 think you have done wrong. I blame you, Daddy, because 
 I know you have done right." 
 
 "That is a good reason," said the Doctor, laughing. 
 
 "The best in the world. Here are you, a clergyman
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 in a fashionable church, with the richest rectorship in the 
 city in your grasp, and the bishopric ahead of you, going 
 about like a knight errant of the Middle Ages, righting the 
 wrongs of fair damsels, knocking men down in the streets 
 of London, keeping company with women that are as 
 beautiful as they are naughty, hoping to save their souls. 
 Fie on you, Daddy, fie on you, for a fool !" 
 
 "That is what the Bishop said, Kathe. He said I was 
 a fool." 
 
 "And for once I agree with the Bishop," said Kather- 
 ine. "Any man who tries to do right in this world is a 
 fool, always has been. Look now at what you have done. 
 Saved a woman or two perhaps from the street, but what 
 is a woman ? pah ! We are a bad lot, all of us. We deserve 
 the street or something worse, and for one that is taken 
 away, three rush out to take her place. And what have 
 you gained by it all? A bad name. You have lost the 
 rectorship of Saint Nicholas, the bishopric of New York, 
 and the elevating society of Mrs. Suydam." 
 
 "Well, Kathe, I have for my comfort the thought that 
 I have tried to do what I can to save the world," said the 
 Doctor, meekly. 
 
 "Save the world," said Katherine, "save the world! 
 There is your cant again. Once a preacher always a 
 preacher. You can't be honest if you want to. You 
 preachers have been at work saving the world for two 
 thousand years, and what have you made of it ? It is no 
 better to-day than it was when you began, just as many 
 thieves, just as many harlots as ever. London, Paris, and 
 New York could give old Rome a hundred points and 
 beat her at the game of iniquity." 
 
 "Yes, Kathe, dear, but if we have not saved the world, 
 we have at least saved some out of the world," said the 
 Doctor. 
 
 420
 
 This Present World 
 
 "Yes, and you pride yourself upon that," said Kath- 
 erine. "You have made a few smirk, self-satisfied saints 
 to gloat over the miseries of a myriad sinners. I con- 
 gratulate you on the success of your work." 
 
 "Come, Kathe dear," said the Doctor with a look of 
 pain on his face. "Let us drop theology. Tell me about 
 yourself. Do you still mean to marry Dipford ?" 
 
 "Yes," said Katherine, "it is the best thing I can do." 
 
 "But, Kathe," said the Doctor, "I have heard things 
 about the Duke of Senlac that make me wish that you 
 would not marry into his family. I am afraid he is not 
 a good man." 
 
 Katherine broke out into a peal of bitter laughter. 
 "Oh, Daddy, Daddy !" she cried, coming over and laying 
 her hand upon his head. "You will drive me to drink with 
 your pious talk. The Duke of Senlac is the most famous 
 roue and rake of his generation. He is known all over 
 the world, has almost ruined his estate, and you tell me 
 you are afraid he is not a good man." 
 
 "And do you think, my dear," said the Doctor, "that 
 Dipford is any better ?" 
 
 "I don't care what Dipford is," said Katherine. "Dip- 
 ford shall be what I make him. I am going into this thing 
 with my eyes open. This world is a cheat and a humbug, 
 but it is the only world I have, and I am going to have 
 my fun in it. I am going to dance with it, and make it 
 dance with me. If I did not have twenty million dollars 
 to buy my place on the floor of royal palaces and ducal 
 castles I would go out and dance on the street. And if 
 you came and tried to save me I would make you dance 
 with me, and we would both dance with the foul fiend. 
 There now, there," she cried, kneeling down, "I am a 
 wicked girl in a wicked world, kiss me and let me go." 
 
 421
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 The Doctor kissed her and she went down the steps, and 
 entering her carriage, was driven away. 
 
 After Katherine left him Dr. Suydam sat still in his 
 place ; his arms outstretched on the arms of his chair ; his 
 head fallen upon his breast ; his face gray as ashes ; his 
 breathing labored and heavy. The light slowly faded from 
 his eyes and a horror of great darkness fell upon him. 
 Whispering to himself, he said, "Was it worth while? 
 Was it worth while?" 
 
 422
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 AT LAST 
 
 DR. SUYDAM hastened the marriage of John Sherwood 
 and Keturah Bain. He wanted the event to take place 
 before his divorce and deposition, while he, as a minister 
 of the Church, had authority to perform the marriage 
 service. He wished the wedding, as the last act of his 
 ministerial life, to take place at the communion rail of 
 old Saint Nicholas Church ; and so it was arranged. 
 
 One summer evening in June, when the sun had gone 
 down, and it was twilight, three carriages drove up to 
 Saint Nicholas Church, and a little party entered the 
 church by the side door. And there in the dim light that 
 filled the dismantled church with great shadows, Jesse 
 Shinar and Abigail Bain were married and immediately 
 after this John Sherwood and Keturah Bain were made 
 man and wife. The ceremony was very simple and very 
 solemn. Dr. Suydam knew the words of the marriage 
 office by heart and so, needing no light, married these 
 people in the gathering darkness ; the only witnesses to the 
 marriage were John Sherwood's mother and Marie Du 
 Pre and her children. 
 
 As soon as the ceremony was ended, the wedding party 
 passed out into the street. Shinar and Abigail, Marie Du 
 Pre and the children were driven to the Central Station 
 
 423
 
 and went by train to Tivoli and from there were driven to 
 the Suydam Manor House, which Dr. Suydam had as- 
 signed to the women as a residence until he could make 
 other arrangements. There in the morning Shinar left 
 his wife and her child in the care of Marie Du Pre while 
 he went West to make for them a home. 
 
 Dr. Suydam went back to his home in East Broadway, 
 while John and Keturah were driven down to the river, 
 and crossing the ferry in their carriage, rode up the hill 
 to their cottage which overlooked the river and the city 
 from the brow of the Jersey hills. 
 
 John, with the aid of Dr. Suydam, had bought and 
 furnished this home for his wife and his mother (but the 
 mother did not go with them on their wedding night ; she 
 let the man and his wife go to their new home alone). 
 When they reached the cottage, they found it lighted and 
 a supper laid for them, all ready, except the tea, which 
 Keturah made with her own hands. 
 
 After supper they went out upon the porch, and stood 
 hand in hand looking out into the night, with the river at 
 their feet and the city beyond them. It was a fair night 
 in June. The full moon made a bridge of light across the 
 waters of the Hudson. The city floated and shimmered 
 in the radiance of its own myriad lamps, softer and 
 brighter than the light of the moon : great boats went to 
 and fro, adding their lights to the light of the moon and 
 the light of city lamps. There was light everywhere, light 
 in the heavens and light upon the earth, light in the city 
 and light upon the waters, light that shone in the darkness, 
 revealing the soft outlines of city towers in the distance 
 and of craggy rocks in the foreground. 
 
 The wind was blowing where it listed, making music 
 with the leaves, and sleeping birds stirred in their nests. 
 
 424
 
 At Last 
 
 Keturah stood upon the porch, her hand in John's, and 
 bathed her soul in the silence and the beauty of the night. 
 After a long stillness she drew in a deep sigh of content- 
 ment and said : "Kiss me, John." And John kissed her. 
 
 "The dirty, noisy old city is beautiful from here, isn't 
 it, John ?" she said, leaning her head upon his shoulder. 
 
 "Yes, Keturah, it is," said John, kissing her once again. 
 
 "Do you know, John," she said, "I think this life of 
 ours, which is so hard and grimy now, will be like that 
 when we look back upon it from the everlasting hills." 
 
 "Maybe it will," said John, "maybe it will." 
 
 Leaving the glory of the night they went into the house 
 and came to their room. It was simply but neatly fur- 
 nished with an iron bed with brass trimmings and white 
 ash furniture, the gift of Shinar to the bridal pair. 
 
 As they came into the room Keturah looked at John 
 and said : "At last, John, at last." 
 
 "Yes, Keturah, at last," said John. 
 
 "I hope it is not too late, John," said his wife. 
 
 "Too late for what, Keturah?" said John, "too late 
 for love?" 
 
 "No, John," she said, smiling sadly. "It is never too 
 late for love. And I hope it is not too late for life. We 
 have waited long years, John, and while we have waited 
 our youth has gone with the years ; I am an old woman 
 now, most too old, John, to be a bride. But if love can 
 make up for youth, John, you shall have it. You would 
 have it so, now take me while you can and keep me as 
 long as you can." 
 
 And John took her for his wedded wife. 
 
 4*5
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 REST AND PEACE 
 
 SOON after the marriage of John and Keturah, Dr. 
 Suydam was duly divorced by his wife and deposed by 
 his bishop. The proceedings for the divorce were held 
 before a referee. The Doctor made no defense, and 
 there was no publicity connected with the case. His 
 deposition from the ministry was made by his own re- 
 quest and called for no trial. 
 
 Very little was said of either matter in the daily press, 
 and in social circles the mention of the name of Dr. Suy- 
 dam was followed by an ominous and painful silence, and 
 soon the remembrance af that name died away, and the 
 man who bore it was suffered to live, unmolested, his 
 mysterious, secluded life, in the eastern part of the city. 
 
 It was reported that he kept and visited beautiful 
 women in the Suydam Manor House on the Hudson, and 
 he walked the streets at night and was often seen speak- 
 ing to the night prowlers, and was known to have taken 
 some of the most debased to his house in East Broadway. 
 But as he was a fallen man, it was natural that he should 
 consort with fallen women. And the 'less the world of 
 fashion and respectability knew and said of him the 
 better. 
 
 As for Dr. Suydam, himself, he did not know or care 
 
 427
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 to know what was said of him by the world which he had 
 forsaken. He was dead to it. And it was dead to him. 
 
 For a year or more, Marie Du Pre and Mrs. Shinar 
 (Abigail Bain that was), with their children, lived as the 
 guests of Dr. Suydam in the Manor House on the Hud- 
 son. He visited them as often as he could leave his work 
 in the city, and cheered them by his presence. In their 
 company he was always bright and happy, and was often 
 seen by passers-by, playing with the children on the lawn 
 in front of the house. 
 
 Dr. Suydam and Keturah and John Sherwood were 
 the only visitors that these women ever had. The people 
 of the neighborhood never entered their gates. The 
 presence of these creatures in the Manor House was a 
 scandal to the whole Hudson River. From Greenbush 
 to Yonkers men smiled and women tattled of the shame- 
 ful doings in the old Suydam House near Tivoli. 
 
 Marie Du Pre found in this house that rest and peace 
 which she needed for her moral and spiritual restoration. 
 The care of her children gave her ample occupation, and 
 she found her recreation in the great world of nature 
 that surrounded her. Her delight in the river and the 
 mountains was intense and without end. She would 
 stand for hours on the west porch and watch the moun- 
 tains in their ever-varying moods. Their strength and 
 their serenity entered into her very being, making her 
 strong and serene. She had not lived with these moun- 
 tains very long before she came to understand the mean- 
 ing of the Psalmist when he says : "The mountains shall 
 bring peace." 
 
 It was with the greatest sorrow that Marie Du Pre left 
 this asylum among the hills to seek a new home for her- 
 self and her children in the West. She did it for the 
 
 428
 
 Rest and Peace 
 
 sake of the children. Living as they did under a cloud 
 of suspicion, the children could have no companions, and 
 could not go to school. So Marie Du Pre bade good-bye 
 to the mountains, the river, and the hills, knelt down and 
 received the blessing of Dr. Suydam, and went to the 
 pretty home in the Ohio village, which Dr. Suydam had 
 purchased for her. 
 
 This village, which was rapidly growing into a city, 
 was in the beautiful Miami Valley, in the State of Ohio, 
 and was near to the farm which Shinar had purchased, 
 and where he had made a home for Abigail and her 
 daughter. 
 
 Marie Du Pre soon became used to her new home and 
 mingled freely in the unceremonious life of the West. 
 She had not been long in the place before she was beset 
 by suitors for her hand. No one ever asked her any 
 questions about her past life, but man after man came to 
 her with an eager question about the future. Such a 
 woman as Marie Du Pre was not often seen in the West ; 
 her beauty and her grace drove the men wild, and her 
 humility and sweetness charmed the women. 
 
 429
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 SHINAR' s COUSINS 
 
 THE farm of Jesse Shinar lay upon the southern slope 
 of a range of low hills, which are little more than rolling 
 land in the Miami Valley, near to the town of Delphi, 
 where Marie Du Pre has her home. 
 
 The Shinar farm is known throughout all that region 
 as the best-appointed and the richest farm in all the valley. 
 Behind the house is a great stretch of woodland that the 
 Duke of Senlac might envy. Nowhere do trees grow as 
 they grow in the Buckeye State. There are beeches and 
 birches, walnut and butternut, elm and oak, sycamore 
 and ash, locust and poplar, buckeye, persimmon, haw- 
 thorne and pawpaw, all of which were found by the 
 hundred on the slopes of the Shinar farm, giving to the 
 young farmer timber for his buildings and wood for his 
 hearth. 
 
 Thanks to his legacy from Mother Magrath, Shinar 
 was able to begin his new life in the West without debt, 
 and, what was a marvel to all the country round, he had 
 money in the bank. The soil of the valley was fertile, 
 and every autumn that valley would stand so thick with 
 corn that it would laugh and sing. It was not long be- 
 fore Jesse Shinar was looked upon as a model farmer, 
 and as a man of substance. 
 
 43i
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 The Puritan blood in the veins of Abigail Bain 
 asserted itself, and she became a thrifty housewife, and 
 aided her husband in his efforts to provide for their chil- 
 dren children who came as fast as they could come 
 in the way of Nature, until a houseful of boys and girls 
 made the Shinar homestead a very bedlam with their 
 laughter and their shouting. Such merry children are 
 not often found in this world, as danced and sang in the 
 great barn of the Shinar farm at the husking-bee. 
 
 By reason of her beauty, her refinement, and educa- 
 tion, Abigail was able to take the lead in all social affairs. 
 "What does Mrs. Shinar say?" was the question asked 
 whenever the women of the neighborhood met in council. 
 
 The eldest daughter of the family was the belle of the 
 valley, famous for her beauty and her sweetness through 
 all the country side. She was hardly twenty years old 
 when she was taken from her father's house to a home of 
 her own. Before she was married, her mother had a 
 secret conference with the man of her choice. What she 
 said to him, he only knows, and he has never told. What- 
 ever it was it made him love, all the more tenderly, the 
 bride of his heart. If the reader of this book were to go 
 to the capital of the nation, he might see among the first 
 ladies of the land, a tall, slender woman with nut-brown 
 hair and hazel eyes, with a sensitive mouth and sad, wist- 
 ful smile, a woman whom all respect and many love, and 
 whose husband calls her "Ketty." 
 
 Jesse Shinar was often solicited to become a candidate 
 for political office. They asked him to run for sheriff of 
 the county, for member of congress, and even for gov- 
 ernor of the State, but he always refused, saying : "Farm- 
 ing is a clean business, and I guess I'll stick to it." But 
 it was written in the Book of Fate that Shinar should 
 be a president, and a president he became. 
 
 432
 
 Shinar's Cousins 
 
 First, he was president of the State Grange, and then 
 of the National Grange. No farmer in all the country 
 was more widely and honorably known than Jesse Shinar 
 of Ohio. 
 
 When he was first elected president of the State 
 Grange, he came home and told his wife ; he said to her : 
 "Abby." 
 
 She said, "What is it, Shinar?" From force of habit, 
 Abigail always called her husband Shinar. 
 
 He said: "You know, Abigail, what Keturah said o* 
 me when I was a little shaver, lying in the straw under 
 the dock?" 
 
 "No, I don't remember, Shinar ; what did she say ?" 
 
 "She said that I'd be a president before I died," said 
 Shinar. 
 
 "Well," said Abigail, "what of it?" 
 
 "Well, I am president," said Shinar. 
 
 "You, a president, Shinar; pray, what of?" said his 
 wife, with a smile. 
 
 "President of the State Grange," said Shinar, proudly, 
 "and I'd rather be president of the State Grange than 
 president of these United States." 
 
 "I am glad, Shinar, if you are glad, but I don't see 
 much in it," said his wife. 
 
 "Don't see much in it," said Shinar. "Now, that's 
 just like a woman. I see a whole lot in it. It was sort 
 o' prophesied that I'd be a president, and I had to be, and 
 I've been worryin' right along, feared I'd have to go to 
 Washington and have all the bother of running this 
 blessed country. Now, don't you see, I'm president, and 
 the prophecy is off, and I don't have no bother, no salary 
 to draw, no polerticians to please, and nothin' to do. I 
 tell ye, Abigail, I'm relieved in my mind, I am." 
 
 433
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 "Well, Shinar, said Abigail, "if you think it's all 
 right, why then it's all right, but I wish you would hand 
 on the prophecy to our boy John; maybe it would come 
 out better in his case than in yours." 
 
 "I will," said Shinar. "I will, and I tell ye, Abigail, 
 there ain't no safer prophecy to make about any boy than 
 that he'll be president if he lives to be twenty. When a 
 wise Providence created these United States of America, 
 he said, 'Every American boy 'ull want to be president, 
 and he shall be president.' And then he made presidents 
 enough to go round, presidents o' this and presidents o' 
 that, until you can lift your hat and say 'Mr. President,' 
 to any man you meet, and be sure to hit it right." 
 
 "Well, Mr. President," said Abigail, "will your ex^ 
 cellency please come in to supper?" 
 
 "That I will," said Shinar, "for now I've got to eat 
 for two, for myself and the president o' the Grange." 
 
 There was only one thing in the life of Jesse Shinar 
 that was a mystery to his neighbors, and that was the 
 number of his relations. Every now and then a girl would 
 come to the Shinar farm, and Shinar would present her 
 to the neighbors as "Miss So and So, a cousin o' mine 
 from New York. You know," he would add, "that I lived 
 in New York when I was a boy. Had a hard time. My 
 cousin has come to visit a while." That cousin would 
 stay until some farmer lad asked her to be his wife, and 
 then, after a talk with Shinar, the farmer lad would marry 
 her or leave her alone. If he left her alone, she would 
 go farther west and there would find a home. 
 
 The departure of one cousin was followed by the ar- 
 rival of another, and Shinar's relatives were to be found 
 in little farmhouses all round the country. 
 
 434
 
 Shinar's Cousins 
 
 One day, Jim Spence said : "Seems to me you've got 
 lots o' cousins, Mr. Shinar ?" 
 
 "Yes," said Shinar. "Ourn is a big family." 
 
 435
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 "KISS ME GOOD-NIGHT, JOHN" 
 
 FOR three years Keturah Bain found peace in the 
 house of her husband. After long waiting, there came 
 to her the sweet promise of motherhood. She waited 
 and watched as only a middle-aged woman can wait and 
 watch for the coming of her first child. It was her dream- 
 child coming out of the land of inward vision into the land 
 of open sight. She was to see with her eyes, and hear with 
 her ears, and handle with her hands, the incarnation of her 
 love. 
 
 Everything that mother love could devise was made 
 ready for the coming event. At last the baby was born, 
 but only to breathe and to die. Keturah saw them wrap 
 it in its swaddling clothes and carry it away, and from 
 that hour she began to follow it. 
 
 Her life slowly ebbed away. She did not suffer any 
 pain, only she fell into great lassitude from which she 
 could not rally. Everything that could be done was 
 done to give her strength and to keep her in the world. 
 
 But nothing could avail. She had fought her fight; 
 she had won her victory, but her life-force was spent in 
 the struggle. In the fall of the year it was evident that 
 the end was at hand. Word was sent to Shinar, and he 
 came on with Abigail and little Keturah. Dr. Suydam
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 came and went, and the death watch was kept in the house 
 on Union Hill. 
 
 Early one morning, after a restless night, she called 
 to her husband, who was resting on a couch beside her, 
 and said : "John." 
 
 "What is it, Keturah?" said her husband, coming to 
 her side. 
 
 "It is morning, John. I hear the birds singing. 
 Please open the shutters and let in the light." 
 
 John went and opened the shutters nd the cold, gray 
 light of the early morning filled the room. 
 
 "Lift me up, John, and let me see," she said. 
 
 John lifted her up and she saw a white mist floating 
 over the river and the distant city, beginning to glow in 
 the morning sun. 
 
 "It is going to be a bright day, isn't it, John?" she 
 said, wistfully. 
 
 "I think so, Keturah, it looks that way now," said 
 John. 
 
 "Thank you, John, put me down ; I'm tired." 
 
 John laid her head upon the pillow and gave her a 
 little water to drink. 
 
 "John, dear," she said. 
 
 "What is it, Keturah ?" said he. 
 
 "John, dear, will you forgive me?" said Keturah, 
 feebly. 
 
 "Forgive you for what, Keturah ? For being the best 
 wife a man ever had ?" said John, stroking her hair. 
 
 "No, John, not that ; I've tried to be a good wife, but 
 I couldn't, John, I couldn't; I waited too long. Wbnt 
 you forgive me John, for keeping you waiting so long?" 
 said Keturah, as she laid her face upon her husband's 
 arm. 
 
 438
 
 "Kiss Me Good-Night, John" 
 
 "Forgive you, Keturah, dear," said John. "There's 
 nothing to forgive. You couldn't help it. You did it 
 all for the best." 
 
 "Yes, John," whispered his wife. "I could have 
 helped it. I could have said, 'Go away, go away, don't 
 waste your life on me.' But I was selfish, John. Your 
 love was all I had. Wont you forgive me, John? I 
 couldn't bear to send you away." 
 
 "Forgive you, darling," said John, kissing away her 
 tears. "How foolish you are! You could not send me 
 away, because I wouldn't go." 
 
 "But, John, dear," she pleaded, "I ought to have in- 
 sisted and made you go. You could have married some 
 other woman, young and fresh, and she could have had 
 children. And see now, John, you have a dying wife 
 and no children." 
 
 "Never mind, Keturah, never mind; you would have 
 had children if you could. 
 
 "Yes, John," she said, "that is the worst of it. When 
 I could, I wouldn't, and when I would, I couldn't. Oh, 
 John, as I have been lying here, I've been thinking that 
 maybe I ought to have married you years and years ago 
 and had children when I could. But, John, dear, I was 
 afraid to have children in Mulberry Bend or Rivington 
 Street, afraid the children would be cold and hungry and 
 learn bad things. You don't blame me, do you, dear ?" 
 
 "No, Keturah, I don't blame you. You have been 
 more to me than all the children in the world," said John. 
 
 "Thank you, dear," said Keturah, kissing his hand. 
 "Now let me go to sleep." 
 
 John closed the blinds, smoothed her pillows, and 
 covered her shoulders, and she fell away into a quiet 
 morning sleep. 
 
 439
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 Later in the day Dr. Suydam came over and sat down 
 beside her bed. 
 
 She looked up at him and said: "Doctor, it was a 
 sorry day for you when the rain drove me into your 
 church. I should think you would hate me." 
 
 "Why do you say that, Keturah?" said Doctor Suy- 
 dam ; "you know it isn't true." 
 
 "Yes, it is true," said Keturah, "it is true. If it hadn't 
 been for me you would be a bishop now, riding in your 
 carriage, everybody bowing down to you. And now you 
 live alone, and everybody that doesn't know you says bad 
 things about you. It is a shame, a shame, and it is all 
 my doings." 
 
 "Never mind, Keturah," said Dr. Suydam, "never 
 mind, I would not have it otherwise if I could. I am 
 glad you came to me ; you gave me a new life." 
 
 "New life, Doctor, but such a hard one." 
 
 "Not so hard, Keturah, as it seems," said the Doctor ; 
 "not nearly so bad as the old life. If it had not been for 
 you, my dear, I might have gone on in the old life till the 
 end, and so lost my soul. I might have been rector of 
 Saint Nicholas, and have lived the life of fashion and 
 worldliness with the people; gone on preaching sermons 
 which nobody believed or practiced, and thought I was 
 serving the Lord. No, dear, no. You must not think 
 I am sorry. I thank my God that he sent you to me, to call 
 me out of that life of formality and unreality into a world 
 that is real, if it is nothing else." 
 
 "Thank you, Doctor. When I came to you I did not 
 believe in any God, at least I did not think God cared for 
 me, or for my people, or for the poor. You made me 
 feel that God was sorry for us and did the best he could. 
 Now, Doctor, I believe God is not only sorry, he is good, 
 and does the best for us." 
 
 440
 
 " Kiss Me Good-Night, John" 
 
 "Yes, dear," said the Doctor. 
 
 "Yes," said Keturah. "See what he has done for 
 me. He has given me John's love and yours; he has 
 saved Abigail. She is happy, now, with her children. 
 Father and mother and Benjamin are dead, and out of 
 harm's way. I needn't be troubled because they are left 
 behind me to suffer when I am gone. Poor father ; they 
 wont whip him in the grave where he lies to-day. If 
 there were nothing else in the world to prove the good- 
 ness of God, death would prove it. A God who gives 
 death can't be altogether bad. He is sorry for his chil- 
 dren, and when they are tired he lets them go to sleep." 
 
 "He gives life also, Keturah," said the Doctor. "If 
 he did not give life, he could not give death. Surely you 
 are glad he gave you life ?" 
 
 "Oh, yes," said Keturah. "I am very glad. I have 
 seen the world ; that is something. I have John's love 
 and yours. I have known what it is to suffer. I know, 
 too, what it is to be happy; I was happy when I was a 
 little girl, and I've been happy these three years with 
 John, but I am tired now, and will be glad to go to sleep. 
 Do you think I can go soon, Doctor?" 
 
 "Yes, dear," said the Doctor ; "very soon." 
 
 "And you will comfort John when I am gone, Doc- 
 tor, wont you?" said Keturah, wistfully. "John waited 
 a long time for me, and got nothing by waiting." 
 
 "I will be a good friend to John, always. He is a 
 good man, and I love him. But come, dear; you must 
 not talk any more ; you are tired." 
 
 Keturah smiled, and laid her head upon the pillow, 
 and went to sleep again. Later in the afternoon she 
 wakened, and said: "Call Abigail, Shinar, and little Ke- 
 turah," and they called them. 
 
 441
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 Keturah looked at them, standing between her and 
 the light, and she said : "Abigail ?" 
 
 "Yes, Keturah," said Abigail. 
 
 "You remember the lamb's wool dress, don't you ?" 
 
 "Yes, dear," said Abigail. 
 
 "It was pretty, wasn't it? So soft and nice." 
 
 "Yes, dear," said her sister. 
 
 "I meant it for my wedding dress, but I gave it to 
 you ; did you like it ?" 
 
 "Yes, dear, it was very beautiful." 
 
 "Yes, it was beautiful, and you were so pretty the 
 morning you put it on. And then something dreadful 
 happened, but it is all over. You are happy now, aren't 
 you?" 
 
 "Yes, dear, very happy," said Abigail. 
 
 "And you have children?" said Keturah. 
 
 "Yes," said Abigail, "two, besides Ketty." 
 
 "And they don't live down in Mulberry Bend?" said 
 Keturah, anxiously. 
 
 "No, dear," said Abigail, "they live far away, in a 
 beautiful country. 
 
 "I am so glad," said Keturah, "I was afraid they 
 might be in Mulberry Bend. And Shinar, is he a good 
 boy now?" 
 
 "Yes, Keturah," said Abigail, "very good." 
 
 "You will always take care of him, wont you, Abi- 
 gail?" said Keturah. 
 
 "Yes, dear, always," said Abigail. 
 
 "And you will always do as Abigail says, wont you, 
 Shinar, when I am gone? You wont run away any 
 more and have dog-fights?" 
 
 "No, Keturah," said Shinar ; "I will always stay with 
 Abigail, and won't fight dogs no more." 
 
 442
 
 " Kiss Me Good-Night, John" 
 
 "Thank you, Shinar, and who is this?" said Keturah, 
 looking at the little girl. 
 
 "This is little Ketty," said Shinar. "Ketty," he 
 said, "go kiss your Aunt Keturah." 
 
 "Yes, my dear, come kiss your aunt good-by. She 
 is going far, far away." The little one crept up and 
 kissed the sick woman, and then burst out into loud 
 crying, and her mother and Shinar took her away. 
 
 The shadows of the evening fell upon the face of the 
 dying woman, and the night-lamp was lighted. Her 
 husband and Dr. Suydam sat watching the hours go by. 
 
 Keturah was restless and wandering in her mind. In 
 the early morning hour she called in a loud voice : "John !" 
 
 "What is it, Keturah ?" said John, coming to her bed- 
 side. 
 
 "The baby didn't die after all, John," she said. 
 
 "Didn't he?" said John. 
 
 "No, he is alive and calling me; may I go to him?" 
 she said, raising herself up. 
 
 "Where is he, Keturah?" said John, trying to quiet 
 her. 
 
 "He is in the next room. You won't mind if I go 
 and sleep with him to-night, will you, dear?" 
 
 "No, Keturah," said John. 
 
 "Then kiss me good-night, John, and let me go." 
 
 John stooped down and kissed her. She gave a deep 
 sigh of satisfaction, there was a quiver of the chin, and 
 the soul of Keturah Bain was gone into the next room, 
 to sleep with her sleeping child. 
 
 Three days afterward they buried her in Union Hill, 
 and as they stood at the grave, after the sexton had filled 
 it in, Dr. Suydam took the spade and marked out a grave 
 at the foot of, and transverse to the grave of Keturah 
 
 443
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 Bain, and turning to John Sherwood, he said : "John, if 
 I die before you do, bury me here." 
 
 And John said : "I will." 
 
 In due time a simple cross marked the resting-place 
 of Keturah Bain, the wife of John Sherwood. Upon the 
 stone was inscribed her name, the day of her birth and 
 of her death, and underneath, the words : 
 
 "Her Life was a Sacrifice of Sweet Savour unto 
 the Lord."
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 DR. SUYDAM IS DEAD 
 
 THE winter after the death of Keturah Bain was a 
 hard winter for the poor in the city of New York. The 
 months of December and January were very cold, and the 
 great coal barons made the severe weather an occasion for 
 raising the price of fuel. The very poor could only af- 
 ford a basket now and then. They shivered in their gar- 
 rets and their cellars, and died by the hundreds of pneu- 
 monia. 
 
 The cold snap was followed in February by a warm, 
 soggy spell of weather that melted the snow from the 
 unclean streets, and liberated the germs to do their deadly 
 work. As a consequence of all this, the black typhus 
 broke out in the region of Mulberry Bend. The typhus 
 was more fatal than the pneumonia, and numbered its 
 victims by the thousand. 
 
 John Sherwood knew that Dr. Suydam visited the 
 sick in and about Mulberry Bend, and hearing nothing 
 from him, went to his house one evening, to see if there 
 was anything he could do for him. When he came near 
 to the house, a woman said to him : "You mustn't go in 
 there." 
 
 "Why not?" said Sherwood. 
 
 '"Cause they've got the fever," said the woman. 
 
 445
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 Hearing this, John went quickly up the steps, and 
 rang the bell ; as no one answered, he tried the door, and 
 finding it on the latch, went in. There was not a sound 
 in the house, and he thought the Doctor must have gone 
 out. But to make sure, he went from room to room, 
 seeking him. 
 
 Sherwood came at last to the Doctor's bedroom, and 
 without knocking, he opened the door, and went in, and 
 there he saw a woman sitting at the head of the bed, 
 smoothing the hair of Dr. Suydam, who was lying on his 
 side with his face toward the wall. 
 
 As Sherwood entered the room, the woman looked 
 up and said : "What do you want ?" 
 
 "I want to see Dr. Suydam," said Sherwood. 
 
 "You can't see him," said the woman. 
 
 "Why not?" said Sherwood. 
 
 "'Cause he is asleep," said the woman. 
 
 "Is he ?" said Sherwood, as he walked to the bed and 
 laid his hand upon the Doctor's hand. 
 
 "Yes," said the woman, "he is, and don't you wake 
 him up." 
 
 "I can't wake him," said Sherwood; "he will never 
 wake again. He is not asleep, he is dead." 
 
 "What's that you say ?" said the woman, "dead ? I tell 
 you he ain't dead, he's only sleeping." 
 
 "No, my good woman," said Sherwood, laying his 
 hand over the Doctor's heart; "Dr. Suydam is not sleep- 
 ing he is dead." 
 
 "Dead, did you say?" said the woman, wildly. 
 "Dead? I tell ye, yer lie; the like o' him can't die." 
 
 "Who are you ?" said Sherwood. "And what are you 
 doing here alone with Dr. Suydam?" 
 
 "Who am I ?" cried the woman. "Who am I ? I'm 
 
 446
 
 Dr. Suydam is Dead 
 
 Carrie Twine. Keturah Bain turned me out o' the shop 
 all on account o' Jim Cardon. In the likes o' that the 
 woman gets it in the neck, and the man don't get nothin' 
 at all. I was t'rowed on the streets, and had to hustle. 
 I was kicked about worse 'an a dog ; the perlice took my 
 money, and when I didn't have no more, dey run me in. 
 I was starvin' half the time, and drinkin' the rest. One 
 night I was out, and it was rainin', and there wasn't a man 
 to be seen in the street. I hadn't nothin' to eat all day. 
 And when I was draggin' along, thinkin' as how I'd go 
 down to the river and drown meself, an old man came 
 along and as't me if I'd go home along o' him. Go home? 
 Why, I'd gone home that night with a mad dog to his 
 kennel, just to get warm. And the man, he called a ker- 
 ridge and put me in it. Me in a kerridge! And he 
 drove me to his house, and he took me upstairs to a 
 room, and gave me a clean night-gown, and told me to 
 go to bed. And I went to bed, and by and by, he come 
 up again, and brought me some hot milk and toast, and 
 when I was through wid it, he told me to go to sleep, 
 and he didn't come near me all that night. In the morn- 
 ing he brought me coffee and eggs, and told me as how I 
 wasn't to get up that day, but lay still and rest. I lay 
 still, and thought I was in heaven, what mother used to 
 tell me about. He brought me dinner and me supper, 
 and I slept all the day and all the night. The next day 
 I as't him if he wouldn't keep me and let me work for 
 him. I'd clean his shoes or anything. He said I might. 
 Day before yisterday he came home wid the fever and 
 everybody run away, but I stayed. I gave him water to 
 drink, and made him take off his clothes, and put him to 
 bed. He kept talkin', talkin', talkin', all the time, talkin' 
 about lost sheep, talkin' 'bout goin' arter 'em, talkin' 'bout 
 
 447
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 people bein' frozen, callin' Keturah, Kathe, and the like 
 o' that, till this mornin', when he went to sleep, and he's 
 been sleepin' ever since." 
 
 John Sherwood did not contradict the woman, but 
 went to the nearest station and sent a messenger boy to 
 the writer of this book, saying: "Dr. Suydam is dead. 
 Will you come and help me take care of him ?" 
 
 The writer went at once, and found the Doctor lying 
 as Sherwood had found him, on his right side, with his 
 face to the wall. We lifted him up and carried him to a 
 couch, to prepare him for the grave. On his face was 
 the glory of perfect rest and peace. We sent to the 
 nearest police-station and asked them to send a coroner to 
 view the body and give us permission to bury it. The 
 coroner came, and said the man had died of the fever, 
 and must be buried at once. We said we would bury him 
 as soon as it was light, in the cemetery at Union Hill, and 
 the coroner gave us a permit to take the body out of the 
 city. 
 
 We went to the nearest undertaker's shop and bought 
 a simple coffin. We took him as he was in his night-robe, 
 and wrapped him in a blanket, and laid him in the coffin. 
 Then we carried him down into the great drawing-room 
 on the second floor and placed the coffin on two chairs, 
 and sitting down, we watched him there. 
 
 In some mysterious way the news went abroad 
 through all that under world that Dr. Suydam was dead. 
 At midnight they began to come, at first by ones and 
 twos, then by threes and fours, then by tens and twenties, 
 an unending procession of men and women coming to 
 look on the face of the dead. 
 
 John Sherwood and the writer of this book sat in the 
 shadow and watched these men and women pass under 
 
 448
 
 Dr. Suydam is Dead 
 
 the light that lighted the face of the dead. Shriveled 
 hags and bedraggled girls from the street, trembling old 
 men, and men with stern, hard faces; they came and 
 looked and went away. Women stooped down and kissed 
 the dead hands, and men paused as if they would speak 
 to him ; and so it went on all the night through. 
 
 Early in the evening John Sherwood had telegraphed 
 to the keeper of the cemetery at Union Hill to open a 
 grave at the foot of and at right angles with, the grave 
 of Keturah Bain, wife of John Sherwood, and to have 
 it ready as early in the morning as possible. 
 
 As soon as it was light, we covered his face, and car- 
 ried him down the steps and placed the coffin in the 
 waiting hearse. 
 
 John Sherwood, the writer of this, and the woman, 
 Carrie Twine, followed in a single carriage until we 
 came to Union Hill. 
 
 Then we buried him in the grave that he had chosen, 
 throwing earth upon the coffin, saying: "Earth to earth, 
 ashes to ashes, dust to dust." 
 
 The woman Carrie Twine stood in blank silence, 
 while the grave-digger threw the earth in and filled up 
 the grave. We tried to draw her away, but she would 
 not come. 
 
 At last, when the grave-digger's work was finished, 
 and a mound of fresh-turned earth lay, dark and cold, 
 under the dark, cold February sky, and the rising wind 
 began to drive the falling snow in our faces, we took the 
 woman by the arms and said : "Come away, come away. 
 It is of no use to stay here any longer. We can do no 
 good. Let us be going. Dr. Suydam is dead, and we have 
 buried him." 
 
 449
 
 TWENTY years after the death and burial of Jacob 
 Suydam, a woman came and stood beside his nameless 
 grave. With her were her son and her daughter, now 
 grown to manhood and to womanhood. 
 
 That grave was no longer dark and cold, under a dark, 
 cold February sky, but was overgrown with grass and 
 bright with flowers, and lay green and warm in the sum- 
 mer light of an afternoon in June. 
 
 Standing there, the woman told her children all they 
 needed to know of her story and of theirs a sad, yet 
 wonderful story of ruin and redemption ; of ruin through 
 lust, and redemption through love. She told her chil- 
 dren, who were happy and prosperous, that their happiness 
 and prosperity had cost the man who lay at their feet, 
 his name and place in the world. His was not that love, 
 great as it is, of brother for sister, of husband for wife, 
 of father for child ; but his was that greater love which 
 spends itself for the outcast, the stranger, and the unborn. 
 
 She told them of a purpose which had been in her 
 heart through all these twenty years, which was to leave 
 them, now that they no longer needed her care, and 
 give that care to those who did need it ; to the despised 
 and the rejected ; to the oppressed and to the degraded ; 
 whose days were toil, and whose nights were shame. 
 
 So only could she pay the debt which she owed to the 
 
 45i
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 man who had given his good name that her evil name 
 might be redeemed. 
 
 As this woman stood and talked with her children, 
 the afternoon passed into the evening, and the sunlight 
 became twilight. Then there came and stood beside the 
 other grave at the foot of which the nameless grave was 
 lying, a working man, with a dinner pail in his hand. 
 His hair was gray, and his face was wrinkled; his back 
 was bowed, and he walked slowly, as one who is weary. 
 In the gathering gloom he did not see the woman and her 
 children standing by, but knelt down beside the grave, 
 and whispered to some unseen presence there. 
 
 When the woman saw him, she went and laid her hand 
 upon his head, and said : "What are you doing here, John 
 Sherwood ?" 
 
 The startled man looked long and anxiously into the 
 face of the woman, and said : "Is it you, Marie Du Pre?" 
 
 "Yes, it is I," she said, "and I ask you what you are 
 doing here, and to whom do you whisper ? Do you think 
 the dead can hear?" 
 
 "Yes, I think so, and I come every evening on my 
 way home from work, to talk to Keturah. I have been 
 asking her just now how long it will be before I can lie 
 down and sleep here beside her and the baby. I have 
 been waiting so long for Keturah to say, 'Come,' and I am 
 so tired." 
 
 "Come, John," said Marie Du Pre, "come; let us go 
 down in the great city, and live and work where Dr. 
 Suydam and Keturah Bain lived and worked. They are 
 not here ; they are there, and there we shall meet them. 
 
 "When our work is done, it will be time enough for 
 us to seek them here. We are old, you and I, John, and 
 our day's work is nearly over. In a little while we can 
 
 452
 
 The Greater Love 
 
 say, it is finished, and you can come and lie here beside 
 Keturah, and I here, at the feet of Jacob Suydam, for -so 
 I wish, and so my children have promised. 
 
 "Look, John, look," said the woman, pointing to the 
 great city that lay dark in the growing darkness of the 
 night, "the dead do not need us ; we can do nothing for 
 them ; down yonder are the living, crying for help ; let us 
 go to them." 
 
 The man and the woman went away together, and the 
 children followed after, leaving the dead to their rest and 
 their peace. 
 
 '453
 
 UCSB LIBRARY
 
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