MZETTE
 
 L I Z E T T E 
 
 tf)e 
 
 Hatm 
 
 EDWARD ^[ARSHALL 
 
 With Illustrations by 
 C. D. WILLIAMS 
 
 AND 
 
 ;, C. FIREMAN 
 
 LEWIS, SCRIBNER & CO. 
 NEW YORK : : : ; MDCCCCII
 
 Copyright, 1902, by 
 LEWIS, SCRIBNER & Co. 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 Published October, 1908
 
 trrtrfcatrt 
 
 to mi> ttuo ofstrrs
 
 ontcnt0 
 
 i 
 
 Father and Son 
 
 1 
 
 n 
 
 TJie Cafe Domperille 
 
 4 
 
 in 
 
 A Ducking in the Seine 
 
 14 
 
 IV 
 
 An Artistic Hazing 
 
 22 
 
 V 
 
 Kentucky 
 
 27 
 
 VI 
 
 Shadows of the Past 
 
 35 
 
 VII 
 
 At the Moulin Rouge 
 
 42 
 
 VIII 
 
 In the Studio 
 
 48 
 
 IX 
 
 A Dinner Party 
 
 53 
 
 X 
 
 "Marry Her, You Idiot!" 
 
 70 
 
 XI 
 
 Kentucky's Confession 
 
 80 
 
 XII 
 
 A Summons for Murdoch 
 
 96 
 
 XIII 
 
 The Call of Duty 
 
 108 
 
 XIV 
 
 In the Toils of Circumstance 
 
 115 
 
 XV 
 
 An Unexpected Visitor 
 
 125 
 
 XVI 
 
 Lizette's Prayer 
 
 135 
 
 XVII 
 
 The Joy of Preparation 
 
 141 
 
 XVIII 
 
 Mary Markleham's Secret 
 
 153 
 
 XIX 
 
 Lizette Seeks an Answer 
 
 171
 
 Contents 
 
 XX 
 
 Gone 
 
 184 
 
 XXI 
 
 A Tangled Skein 
 
 196 
 
 XXII 
 
 Unraveling the Threads 
 
 211 
 
 XXIII 
 
 The Road to Lourdes 
 
 222 
 
 XXIV 
 
 The Great Pilgrimage 
 
 229 
 
 XXV 
 
 Face to Face 
 
 237 
 
 XXVI 
 
 Miss Markleham Again 
 
 243 
 
 XXVII 
 
 Kentucky's Great Discovery 
 
 248 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 The Story of the Old Woman 
 Who Sold Coals 
 
 265 
 
 XXIX 
 
 Defeat 
 
 271 
 
 XXX 
 
 John Murdoch, Banker 
 
 273 
 
 XXXI 
 
 A Business Transaction 
 
 278 
 
 XXXII 
 
 Kentucky's Investment 
 
 282 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 Hope Revived 
 
 286 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 At Last 
 
 292
 
 Xllustratfons 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Lizette 
 
 Frontis 
 piece 
 
 Murdoch 
 
 32 
 
 Kentucky 
 
 80 
 
 The Old Woman Who 
 Sold Coals 
 
 128
 
 LIZETTE 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 FATHER AND SON. 
 
 It is good to have a father who is rich, better to have a 
 father who is wise, and best of all to have a father who 
 is both which was John Murdoch's happy fortune. The 
 son had just come home from college, newly graduated. 
 The father looked at him with curiosity. They had been 
 good friends this father and this son but now there was 
 reserve between them. The young man's life must now 
 begin in earnest, and both paused and felt embarrassed as 
 they faced the problem. The father wanted to ask many 
 questions about future plans but hesitated. The son had 
 made his plans, but looked for scornful smiles and also 
 hesitated. 
 
 Business hours had ended at the bank. John sat in the 
 visitors' chair, across the desk from his father's larger one 
 of carved mahogany. His father was president of the 
 bank a serious matter and the chair in which he sat par 
 took in its appearance of the dignity of the position. The 
 whole room was solemn: carpet, woodwork, everything 
 about it. So also were the men. 
 
 The old man smoked, leaned far back in his chair, which 
 tipped, and gazed with musing eyes across the desk; three 
 things he never would have done in business hours. 
 
 "Well, John," he said at last, "now that you have fin 
 ished college, what do you intend to do with your sum 
 mer?" 
 
 He had wanted to say "life," but he had compromised 
 on "summer." 
 
 The son, whose face combined the solemn, practical
 
 2 LIZETTE. 
 
 features of the father with the softer, more artistic face 
 of the dead mother, sat silent for a moment, as if gather 
 ing strength to meet expected opposition. When he finally 
 spoke he did not meet his father's eyes. 
 
 "I have planned to go abroad," he said, slowly. 
 
 His father nodded with approval. 
 
 "Well, my son/' he said, "I don't see why you shouldn't. 
 It ought to be a good thing for you. I had thought, be 
 fore you came, of speaking of it to you. I should like to 
 have you see the world. I never did. We might as well 
 arrange it now. How much money do you want? How 
 long do you want to stay? When do you want to go?" 
 
 John Murdoch's father, it will be seen, was prompt. 
 He wasted neither words nor time in talking. The son 
 was also terse in his reply. 
 
 "I shall need a moderate allowance. I want to go at 
 once and I have planned to stay four years." 
 
 The old man looked at him in blank amazement, al 
 though surprise was rarely shown in the banking house 
 of John Murdoch by master or by man, being contrary to 
 the ethics of the business. Then he said calmly, with his 
 eyes fixed steadily on his son's, which were downcast: 
 
 "Humph! If there is wisdom in your plan, of course 
 it will be right for you to go. If you've gone mad you 
 will attract less notice there than here. I offer no objec 
 tion. You are not a child. Name a reasonable figure for 
 your allowance and that will be arranged. I am aston 
 ished. Four years! It is a long vacation!" 
 
 The son spoke: 
 
 "I ought to have two thousand dollars yearly to begin 
 on. I may need more. I cannot tell with any accuracy 
 what it will cost to live in Paris. I shall not waste money. 
 I shall not have time. I am going there to study art. I 
 am not lazy, sir, and have not planned for a 'vacation.' r 
 
 There had never been a hint of this before between 
 them. The old man sat silent for a moment. He turned 
 his glance away from his son's face and moved one hand 
 along the polished side of his big chair. When he spoke 
 there was a look still more foreign to the banking busi 
 ness in his eyes. That his son should want to study art
 
 FATHER AND SON. 3 
 
 was most amazing. But if he wanted to, why shouldn't 
 he? He, himself, had gone into the banking business 
 because his inclination led him to it. He thought of the 
 characteristics of this boy's mother's nature. It pleased 
 him, in a negative way, to find this strong touch of her 
 temperament in their son. It was strange that his own 
 purely practical, business nature should not have domi 
 nated in their child; but he had truly loved the mother 
 and he truly loved the son. There was an incongruity 
 about the thing, though like cashing checks by giving 
 marble statues for them at the bank. 
 
 "That's very curious," he said at last. "I am aston 
 ished, but perhaps you're not as crazy as you sound. I 
 guess it's what your mother gave you. You never got 
 such notions out of me. But if it came from her, it's all 
 right surely. So if you want to study art, my son, 
 why study art. I don't suppose that it will hurt you any, 
 and I am certain that it won't hurt me so very much. It 
 will upset the plans that I had made about the bank; but 
 human plans are often overturned. But if you study art, 
 my son, there's one thing I want clearly understood 
 you've got to be a damned good artist. If you've got that 
 in you, go ahead. If it's not there, don't be an ass and 
 waste your time. Have you thought the matter over care 
 fully?" 
 
 "Yes, sir," said John Murdoch, flushing slightly. "I 
 have thought the matter over and decided. I am glad 
 of your approval." 
 
 "I haven't said," the old man interrupted, "that you 
 had that." 
 
 "I should be sorry not to have it," said John Mur 
 doch, slowly, "but it would not change my plans. I shall 
 Ic a damned good artist, though; I promise that, sir." 
 
 The old man smiled a little. The young man's state 
 ment that his course had with finality been set, and would 
 not be altered to meet the views of any one, roused his 
 admiration. He even chuckled audibly. 
 
 "All right, my son, I'll fix the money. You keep 
 that 'damned' in mind," he said. 
 
 "I shall, sir," said John Murdoch.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE CAFE DOMPEEILLE. 
 
 John Murdoch, when he arrived in Paris, did not num 
 ber among his accomplishments the ability to speak 
 French. He did not, so far as he knew, number among 
 his acquaintances a single person in the city. And he did 
 number among his discomforts a feeling of great loneli 
 ness. He bore with him, from professors in his college, 
 letters of introduction and commendation to certain art 
 instructors; but he did not present them. He was an 
 independent young tub by nature, and he preferred to 
 stand on his own bottom. He had not been in any for 
 eign country before, and his keen, young, American eyes 
 were closely and critically observant. 
 
 In this first day he learned much of French human 
 nature. He became hardened to the look of blank, cow- 
 eyed amazement, which is generally accompanied by a 
 cold glitter of cruel mirth, when a Frenchman finds that 
 some one ignorant of French is trying to talk to him. 
 He struggled to fill his empty stomach before eleven 
 o'clock, but was unable to get a breakfast heartier than 
 rolls and coffee. He tried to board both a street car and 
 an omnibus, only to be pushed away, while the conductors 
 murmured a French word which he did not understand, 
 but which meant "full." He was regarded with amused 
 contempt by one caiman because he paid him more than 
 his fare, and villified and abused by another because he 
 paid him exactly the legal rate, but did not give him the 
 customary tip of two and one-half cents. He was dis 
 appointed by the Seine, which he found to be a narrow, 
 muddy stream. The small French soldiers, with their 
 half-way short trousers, elaborately baggy about the hips,
 
 THE CAFE DOMPERILLE. 5 
 
 did not look to him like fighting men, and he sarcastically 
 called to mind Artenras Ward's then recent explanation 
 of this brevity of their nether garments. With high con 
 tempt of the French military's somewhat unsoldierlike 
 appearance, Ward said, in writing home from Paris, that 
 he had with great interest investigated this affair. He 
 had found, he said, that the maidenly appearance of the 
 trousers was due to lack of funds. It had been the orig 
 inal intention, he had learned, to have a row of tatting 
 about the bottom of each trouser leg in all the great 
 French army. But the appropriation had run out. Mur 
 doch appreciated this as he gazed at them. The little 
 soldiers did look much like puppets, and their pantaloons 
 like pantalettes of awkward cut and uncouth color. It 
 seemed absurd to Murdoch that policemen should carry 
 swords instead of clubs. He thought that the women who 
 passed his place of observation were garishly and the men 
 badly dressed. In short, John Murdoch did not like his 
 first glimpse of Paris. 
 
 Many men do not. 
 
 All women do. 
 
 By and by, in order that he might find the place of art 
 and artists, he asked the interpreter at the hotel how he 
 might reach the Latin Quarter. The interpreter, he 
 mused, as the man in uniform jabbered at him, had prob 
 ably been selected for his place in a French hotel fre 
 quented by Americans because he could only speak Ice 
 landic. He certainly could not speak English, and Mur 
 doch had grave doubts about his French. Finally, how 
 ever, he learned through him that it was unwise to waste 
 time in the Quarter before eleven o'clock at night a 
 statement wholly false, which it is still the custom among 
 the hotel folk of Paris to tell to Americans. There were 
 hours of weary waiting before him. He spent some of 
 them in watching a play and wondering stupidly what was 
 being said upon the stage. As he was getting into a cab 
 after the theatrical performance had mercifully ended, he 
 saw a man whom he had met on the ship coming over. 
 He was named Fitzpatrick, and he was the buyer for a 
 wholesale hat house in New York. Murdoch had not been
 
 6 LIZETTE. 
 
 particularly impressed by him on the ship, but now he 
 hailed his distinctly New York English with great joy. 
 Fitzpatrick was full of fun and wholly in his element. 
 He jabbered something, which Murdoch presumed was 
 French, to the driver, for the man seemed to understand it 
 and showed that he regarded the speaker with real re 
 spect. Murdoch had begun to think that Paris cabmen 
 had respect for no one. They drove to the Cafe de la 
 Paix, where they drank beer in mugs and coffee in glasses. 
 Murdoch poured his indignation against the whole French 
 race into Fitzpatrick's amused ears. 
 
 "Pshaw," said Fitzpatrick. "The Frenchies are all 
 right. Wait till you get used to 'em. You'll only think 
 they're funny then. You won't waste time in hatin' 'em. 
 And there's a lot o' joy in gay Paree after you begin to 
 learn the ropes. You'd never find a place like this cafe, 
 for instance, in New York. Some man will start one, 
 some day, and get rich out of it. We think we're rapid 
 over there, but really we're slow in some things. Wait a 
 minute. If you'll give me time to jump into the hotel 
 and get a Frenchman I'm trying to do some business with, 
 we'll all go over to the Quarter. If it's a good night it'll 
 tickle you to death. If it ain't, it'll make you long for 
 home and mother." 
 
 By half-past eleven the three were at the Cafe Dom- 
 perille, on the Boulevard St. Michel. The young French 
 man, who was Fitzpatrick's guest, gabbled on the way 
 about the places they were passing, and Fitzpatrick threw 
 free translations of what he said into Murdoch's interested 
 ears. They clattered over the bridge, stopped for a mo 
 ment before the great fountain at the head of the Boule 
 vard, and then, after the driver had madly whipped his 
 horse, as the Parisian cocJier always does unless one is in 
 a hurry or driving by the hour, dashed up in front of their 
 selected destination. 
 
 The Cafe Domperille (which is not its real name) is a 
 low-browed establishment, fronting on two streets. It was 
 then the most popular all-night resort for the students of 
 the Latin Quarter, their girl companions and the hun 
 dreds of hangers on about the art settlement of Paris. It
 
 THE CAFE DOMPERILLE. 7 
 
 still enjoys a large prosperity, although it has lost some 
 of its old prestige. It has two or three rows of tables on 
 the sidewalk, and, within doors, benches covered with 
 cheap red plush run around the room, while the remain 
 ing floor space is crowded by chairs and tables. There is 
 always a certain kind of merriment in progress at the 
 Domperille between the hours of eight p.m. and three a.m. 
 Sometimes it consists of nothing more serious than eat 
 ing, drinking and singing, with more drinking than either 
 of the other two. Sometimes it is made up of enthusiastic 
 fights between students or between jealous grisettes. 
 Sometimes, on more serious occasions, its core is a riot, in 
 which the students combat with the police. Several stu 
 dents have been killed there in one way or another, and 
 an accurately directed earthen match-safe, sped by the 
 powerful arm of an English student, neatly cracked the 
 skull of an obstreperous gendarme within its very walls, 
 not many years ago. The students and the police are 
 natural and sworn enemies, and the students calmly left 
 the officer to writhe and die upon the sidewalk while they 
 built barricades of overturned omnibuses and street cars 
 and tore up the paving stones to use as ammunition in the 
 Ln,mg of the gendarme's fellows. Nowadays, the cars 
 passing the Domperille are enormous steam double- 
 deckers, which could not be upset without an hydraulic 
 jack, and the pavement is made of asphalt, which could- 
 only be prepared for use as ammunition with pickaxes to 
 tear it up with. Thus was a troublesome spot made com 
 paratively peaceful by the clever French police. 
 
 There was little that was exciting this night, however, 
 at the Cafe Domperille. The Frenchman pointed out to 
 Fitzpatrick and Fitzpatrick pointed out to Murdoch some 
 of the most interesting and well-known characters in the 
 crowd at the tables, both inside and out. There were men 
 there beyond middle life, but ."students" still, whose 
 straight-brimmed pot-hats appearen older than themselves 
 and whose clothes were shabby beyond easy description. 
 There were boys there, roystering, who had scarcely passed 
 their teens. Every eccentric costume which the inventive 
 mind of youths, whose pride it was to look unusual, could
 
 8 LIZETTE. 
 
 devise was worn by the men and so much regarded as the 
 regular thing that the strange garments only attracted 
 notice from the two Americans. One or two of the stu 
 dents nodded to the Frenchman, and one of them knew 
 Fitzpatrick. Fitzpatrick, by the time he saw and recog 
 nized this student, had reached the mellow stage where 
 he begged Murdoch to call him "Fitz." He beckoned to 
 the student whom he knew. 
 
 "Come here, Kentucky/' he shouted at him across the 
 tables. 
 
 "Kentucky" took beer. 
 
 While he drank it, Fitzpatrick, with a movement which 
 was almost reverential, lifted the student's pot-hat from 
 his head. 
 
 "Murdoch," he said, as he passed the hat across the 
 table, "handle this as carefully as you would the ashes of 
 your grandmother. It's a work of art, my boy, and Ken- 
 tuck's only claim to the title 'artist.' " 
 
 Kentucky ordered another beer and drank it slowly and 
 without a smile. He did not shrink from the recital of 
 his story, so long as the reciter paid the cafe checks. 
 
 "Kentucky," Fitzpatrick gossiped on, "came here with 
 the idea that he was to be a second Michael Angelo or 
 Kubens. Didn't you, Kentucky?" 
 
 "The trouble is," said Kentucky, contemplatively, "that 
 people do not know good pictures when they see them, 
 and that the hanging committees are jealous of really good 
 work. I am more than forty years old now, and have been 
 away from the State after which my intimate companions 
 invariably call me, more than half of my life. And, 
 would you believe it, gentlemen, those idiotic jurors have 
 never hung one single picture of mine in the Salon! Of 
 course, because of this, not one of them has been pur 
 chased for the Luxembourg." 
 
 "It's jealousy, Kentucky," said Fitzpatrick, gravely. 
 "That's what it is. It keeps many a good man down. 
 But here, Murdoch, look into the hat." 
 
 It had once been covered by long, fleecy nap; but this 
 had worn away until the skin showed through it as the 
 hide of a mangy dog shows through his fur. It was a
 
 THE CAFE DOMPERILLE. 9 
 
 couple of inches taller than the silk hat of to-day, and was 
 a trifle smaller at the top than it was where it joined the 
 brim. The brim was wide and projected absolutely 
 straight around the bottom of the hat. As Murdoch 
 picked it up it felt top-heavy. He looked inside and 
 found a delicate network of slender pieces of wood which 
 held the hat in shape. I have that hat in my possession 
 now, and when I look into it, it reminds me of the iron 
 beams and girders which I have seen as I have looked up 
 into the Eiffel tower. Each little stick held out a certain 
 section of its skin, and the joinery work was quite as per 
 fect as that of the most accomplished cabinet-maker. 
 
 "How long have you had that hat?" inquired Fitz- 
 patrick. 
 
 "More than twenty years," said the student, solemnly. 
 "For as long a time as that, pure envy of my real art has 
 prevented me from buying a new hat. But I have done 
 all that I could to make this one last." 
 
 Murdoch, wondering, handed the hat back to him, and 
 said that the latter statement seemed to him to be quite 
 true. 
 
 Kentucky took another beer and passed out into the 
 night, the Frenchman going also a few moments later. 
 
 Sitting on a bench not far away were half a dozen girls, 
 who had eyed Kentucky enviously while he had enjoyed 
 the hospitality of the hat buyer. They were dressed with 
 the gaudy good taste of French women and, because they 
 were French, knew how to wear their clothes in a manner 
 which made cambric seem like silk. There was an ap 
 pearance of gay elegance about them and an air of great 
 prosperity. This was strangely belied when they, with 
 much argument and searching, succeeded in combination 
 in making up a purse of twelve sous for the purchase of 
 ecrivisse, a small shellfish somewhat similar to shrimps. 
 This was the supper for the six. Presently two of them, 
 without introduction or parley, pulled their chairs into 
 the space made vacant by Kentucky. Murdoch, of course, 
 could not tell what they were saying to Fitzpatrick, but 
 the latter seemed to be much pleased by their attention, 
 and they went away neither hungry nor athirst.
 
 10 L1ZETTE. 
 
 By this time Fitzpatrick's natural geniality of temper 
 ament and a strange mixture of French intoxicants had 
 exhilarated him to the point where he called Murdoch 
 "Murdy." 
 
 Finally he rose, stretched, looked at his watch, remarked 
 that it was one o'clock, that he had an appointment to 
 play billiards at the Grand Hotel at one-fifteen, which he 
 could scarcely make, and must go. 
 
 "Do you want to come along, Murdy," he said, some 
 what thickly, "or doxyou want to stay awhile? It gets 
 livelier later. I'd stay if I were you." 
 
 Murdoch stayed. Within ten minutes he was sorry. 
 All that night life, which had been so interesting to him 
 while the genial hat buyer had been there to explain it, 
 became unintelligible again, and his loneliness increased. 
 Young fellows at the tables, some of them obviously rich 
 and some as obviously poor, were all happy. No one paid 
 the least attention to him, except, occasionally, some 
 thirsty girl, who unhesitatingly asked him to buy a beer 
 for her. Everything seemed unreal and unnatural. The 
 fellows were not the kind of chaps whom he had known 
 in college. The girls, curiously, seemed neither brazen 
 nor modest. There was a certain apparent innocence even 
 about their evident viciousness. If one of them raised 
 her skirts and danced upon a table, she did it, not wick 
 edly, but because she felt the need of some easy way of 
 showing to her friends that she was merry. High kick 
 ing had an unusual charm in its complete unconscious 
 ness of impropriety. Such exhibitions were merely trials 
 of skill and limberness. They attracted. small attention. 
 Not a person there was tipsy. The French dilute their 
 drinks and do not habitually get drunk. 
 
 Sitting in the bright glare of the gas lamps on the side 
 walk was a young fellow, evidently an East Indian. He 
 was carefully dressed and apparently had plenty of money. 
 His companion was a pretty girl of about twenty, who 
 seemed to be extremely proud of him. Other girls, as they 
 passed, threw out little jokes at her, which were answered 
 with defiant nods and shakes of her pretty head; but her 
 elation changed to watchful gravity when another girl,
 
 THE CAFE" DOMPERILLE. 13 
 
 slightly disheveled, pushed through the crowd to her and 
 said, in a voice tremulous from anger, something which 
 Murdoch knew must mean, "I want to see you you 
 you you!" 
 
 The girl, after whispering to her companion, rose from 
 the table with a forced smile, and went away with the 
 woman who had called to her. Murdoch turned again to 
 watch the others at the tables on the sidewalk. They were 
 all enjoying life after their own fashion and he thought 
 that it was a strange fashion. Suddenly a girl jumped up 
 and cried: 
 
 "Oh, la la! Louise! Louise!" 
 
 There was a rush to the side street. Murdoch joined it 
 just in time to be one of a hundred spectators who involun 
 tarily formed a ring around the two women who had left 
 the table a moment before. They were half standing, half 
 crouching, with blazing eyes and flying hair, eying each 
 other like enraged animals. In a second they were at it 
 and fighting hard. They followed no rules, observed no 
 scheme of rounds and breathing spells; but simply fought 
 with fists and finger nails, with feet and teeth. The ring 
 around the combatants was made up mostly of men. Mur 
 doch saw with surprise that many of them bore upon their 
 shoulders women, who were anxious to see the fight and 
 had climbed up to get a better view than was possible in 
 the surging crowd upon the ground. "While he was watch 
 ing this strange night spectacle in his first astonishment a 
 pair of feminine arms clasped him about the neck and a 
 soft voice murmured "Pardon, M'sieu." In a few seconds 
 more Murdoch was, himself, the enforced vantage point 
 from which a girl of the Latin Quarter watched the 
 struggle. 
 
 When it had ended, the girl slipped lightly to the 
 ground and politely thanked him. As he went over to his 
 table again she followed him as if it were a matter of 
 course as if their introduction had been quite sufficient. 
 When he sat down, she sat down also. Then, for the first 
 time, he saw her face plainly. It was a pretty little face. 
 She was not more than eighteen or nineteen years of age. 
 She was more plainly dressed than any other in the caf6
 
 12 LIZETTE. 
 
 and, somehow or other, seemed to him to be better form 
 than any of the rest. There was a refinement and a pleas 
 ing delicacy about her which was indescribable. There 
 were no lines of dissipation in her face, nor was there any 
 rouge on it. She had the air of doing the only thing there 
 was to do. It did not seem bold for her to come and sit 
 by him, which surprised him. He reflected that it must be 
 the way in which she did it. Almost in a moment she dis 
 covered that he was an American, and there was something 
 infinitely pretty in the way she smiled, nodded her well 
 shaped head and said: 
 
 "Vous ete un Americain?" 
 
 There was a query in her voice, and Murdoch under 
 stood exactly what she said, as anybody would have. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "I am an American/' 
 
 "Yais," she said, "Un Americain. I spik Engleese one 
 leetle one vairy leetle." 
 
 Murdoch was delighted, but had he known how really 
 little that "vairy leetle" was, his joy would have been tem 
 pered. If it had not been for the bright fascination of her 
 animated face and the sweet naivete" of her efforts to make 
 him understand her, he would have relapsed into dull 
 lonesomeness again, and regarded her as another of the 
 unnatural persons who formed the unreal crowd around 
 him. But there was the delicately charming fascination. 
 He sat and watched her across the small, round table for 
 another hour while she drank black coffee and ate ecrivisse 
 and small sweet cakes. He watched her eyes, which were 
 especially refined and vivacious; he watched the pretty 
 curves of her delicate lips while she tried to form them so 
 as to copy the strange sounds of his English words; he 
 watched the flashing dimples in her rosy cheeks as she 
 laughed merrily at his absurd attempts to imitate her own 
 quick French. The sleepy waiter put some of the lights 
 out. The outside tables were taken in. Almost everyone 
 had gone when he reluctantly arose. 
 
 "Vair ees eet zat you go? Yais, vair ees eet?" she asked. 
 
 "I go home," said Murdoch, yielding to that absurd 
 inclination to speak "broken English," which we all have 
 when talking to a foreigner.
 
 THE CAFE DOMPERILLE. 13 
 
 She answered daintily, with a movement of calm and 
 satisfied contentment, impossible to describe. She linked 
 her arm in his and said sweetly, in a way that finally set 
 tled the matter: 
 
 "Yais? I go, too." 
 
 And this was the beginning of John Murdoch's life in 
 Paris.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A DUCKING IN THE SEINE. 
 
 He found a studio and two large rooms, overlooking 
 the charming old Gardens of the Luxembourg. John Mur 
 doch will never forget the green of those swaying trees in 
 the Gardens of the Luxembourg, nor the twittering of the 
 birds in them, nor the faint uprising shouts of the chil 
 dren at play there when the sun shone, nor the high com 
 fort of feeling himself in his own home, when the rain 
 came down upon them or the fog rose upward from them. 
 He used to sit at a window on stormy days and thank his 
 good luck that the sun did not always shine out of doors. 
 It always shone indoors, and Lizette dainty, bewitching, 
 devoted was the sun. 
 
 Six mornings of the week at five o'clock, she gently 
 shook him and bade him dress for work. On a little table 
 in the studio were his coffee and his rolls, waiting for 
 him. He no longer yearned for the American breakfast. 
 He ate what she gave him hastily, while she chattered 
 gaily, unless she stopped and pretended to pucker up her 
 forehead in a great scowl, because he ate so rapidly. 
 
 "Of a certainty it is," she would say, "that some day you 
 will choke until you die. Be not af-raid. The rolls are 
 of the good ones. They will not taste so ver* ter-m-ble, 
 if you eat them with the slowness. You are like Us 
 p'tites oiseaux over in the trees in the Gardens of the 
 Luxembourg. When their leetle maman takes to them 
 the worm the g-r-e-a-t b-e-e-g wo-r-r-r-m les p'tites 
 oiseaux eat it so much in the haste that there can be no 
 happiness at all for the poor maman oiseau. She mus' 
 sit upon the nest's outside, an' wonder if les p'tites oiseaux 
 will die of it. An' so it is wiz you. You devour the roll
 
 A DUCKING IN THE SEINE. 15 
 
 an' coffee with such great haste that I sit by an' have the 
 worry in the heart of me, for fear that I shall soon be all 
 alone because you will go dead of it. Go dead of it!" 
 
 And, having delivered herself of the tale of this great 
 worry, Lizette would flit about busily on the affairs of his 
 first breakfast, stopping now and then to watch him eat, so 
 that she might be sure that he was obeying her and not 
 tempting the fate which she predicted for the small birds 
 in the nests across the way. She was most delightful at 
 those early morning breakfasts, as she attended to him 
 and worried over him. John Murdoch will never forget 
 that little figure in its patten slippers and its loose wrap 
 per of rich red. Lizette always wore gowns of this rich red 
 within doors. She made most merry about her long black 
 hair. It so often came down in the mornings that black 
 hair! Sometimes as she stood behind him, watching to 
 see that he did not do as the greedy little birds did, it 
 would come down and fall around his shoulders. It was 
 never taken away by hands alone. It always needed both 
 her arms to gather it again. Such hugs those were that 
 Lizette gave him when her hair came down! 
 
 In the early days of their life together she had one 
 cause for worry of which she did not speak, for the fear 
 was in her heart that he might feel resentment if she did. 
 She had heard great tales of the hazing which students 
 were sometimes put through at the schools. Always in 
 the past she had heard these stories with small laughs of 
 keen amusement, for she had not cared about the men 
 who suffered the mild tortures devised for nouveaux by the 
 older students. But now she lived in fear that Murdoch 
 would meet some such indignity. There was a tale told 
 in the Quarter of a student who had been driven mad by 
 masked fellows from the Beaux Arts, who went to his 
 studio at night and nearly killed him physically in divers 
 ways, and added to their sin by working so upon his 
 emotions in the guise of evil spirits that he was taken 
 away from Paris by friends and placed in an asylum. 
 
 But time passed and, although Murdoch told her of 
 other fellows who had been dealt with by the merry 
 makers with some roughness, he was not molested and
 
 16 LIZETTE. 
 
 her heart's load was lightened. Shortly afterward, an 
 episode brought her complete relief from worry on this 
 score. They had walked, slowly, after dinner, away out 
 the Boulevard, until they had actually reached the place 
 where grass grows and all the surface of the earth is not 
 blocked by buildings. It was a surprise to her. She had 
 never been out that way before, and she enjoyed every 
 moment among the green and pleasant things they found 
 there. She was so merry in the gathering dusk that, as 
 they were passing through a field, she ran ahead a little 
 and made a tiny leap across a narrow runway. Her ankle 
 turned "beneath her on the other side and she sank to the 
 ground with a small cry, and really in great pain. Mur 
 doch, all tenderness, picked her up, after he had found 
 that her ankle was sprained, and carried her a full mile, 
 partly through the fields and partly through the sparsely 
 settled outlying streets, until he found a cab which would 
 take them to a surgeon's. There was such solidity in the 
 arms that held her, such untiring ability to stride along 
 under a heavy burden in the man who carried her, that she 
 was greatly impressed by it, and in a moment of freedom 
 from pain, or else while she was bravely forcing back com 
 plaining exclamations, she remarked triumphantly that if 
 they attempted to haze him her strong one they would 
 find trouble and not pleasure for themselves. She did 
 not fear the hazing after that. Murdoch, too, who had 
 expected it and who had made up his mind to take it, 
 when it came, as good naturedly as possible, began to feel 
 that what was so long delayed was unlikely to come at all, 
 and forgot about the matter. 
 
 His life fell into a routine of hard work. No other 
 student in the Quarter toiled more faithfully or more in 
 telligently. While daylight lasted he worked with ever 
 increasing skill with his brushes and his canvas. When 
 night came it was Lizette's great happiness to curl herself 
 on a rug beside him and read the American stories which 
 he had taught her how to understand, even as she had 
 worked at teaching him to speak good French, while he 
 toiled steadily with charcoal and with black and white 
 oils. Only when he was at his classes were they separated.
 
 A DUCKING IN THE SEINE. 17 
 
 But one night he did not return to the studio at the 
 usual hour. There was in the class with Murdoch a 
 young Frenchman whose unpopularity was great. He was 
 a tall, thin person, with deep-set eyes and thin lips, which 
 were pressed into a tight straight line whenever the master 
 criticised his work, or when any of the other students 
 attempted to make merry with him. It was known in the 
 school that he had started to study for the priesthood, but 
 had been dismissed from the institution in which he was 
 studying because of his ungovernable temper. The Paris 
 art student is not noted above other human animals for 
 his reverence, and the classmates of the young man called 
 him by a name which indicated him as a backslider. He did 
 not like it, but there were so many of the offenders that 
 he made what pretense he could of taking it good- 
 naturedly. The pretense was unsuccessful, many times, 
 which perhaps egged the other students on. He had 
 practically no friends. This isolation among the other 
 students angered him. There was really no design or 
 concerted action in it. He had brought it on himself by 
 his bitterness of tongue and poor concealment of an outra 
 geous temper. But it made him hate the men who could 
 make friends, and Murdoch, in a way, was popular. 
 
 There is gossip among art students, as there is gossip 
 wherever human beings are gathered into groups, and the 
 gossip about this student was that he was supported and 
 his school expenses paid by an old woman who sold coals 
 in the Quarter, and who had a small shop just off the 
 Boulevard. The student said he <r boarded" with her and 
 even spoke of her with great contempt, but the gossip 
 went that she supported him and paid his way, and that 
 there were certain reasons for her doing so, not altogether 
 unconnected with maternal feelings. The old .woman 
 who sold coals was popular among the students (she freely 
 extended credit), and all spoke of her as "Madame," 
 although no one knew Monsieur. There was a tradition 
 in the Quarter that once she had been very beautiful and 
 shapely, and that then she had not sold coals, but had 
 posed for the schools and afterwards exclusively for a cer 
 tain artist, who had since then gone to England to win
 
 18 LIZETTE. 
 
 fame and fortune, leaving the model to make her way as 
 best she could without his help or his protection, but with 
 a child who had given up the priesthood for the rocky 
 road of art. When they were seen together jn the shop, 
 the old woman always treated the student, who said he 
 was her lodger, with the greatest deference and respect as 
 it was befitting that she should treat her only "boarder," 
 but sometimes she had bruises on her face, which to her 
 customers indicated beatings. Once after she had been 
 seen in her shop with an especially scarred and unwhole 
 some looking visage, the student appeared at the school 
 with a hand well bandaged. The word passed round that 
 the old woman who sold coals had for once given to her 
 son some measure of return for his abuse. This belief 
 among the students that the ex-theolog had struck a 
 woman had not added to his popularity. 
 
 All this leads up to the explanation of John Murdoch's 
 tardiness in his arrival at the studio where Lizette was 
 waiting for him that night of which I have spoken. He 
 had stopped in at the shop of the old woman who sold 
 coals, to speak to her about the supply at the studio, and 
 happened to reach there just as the young student, who 
 did such honor to her by lodging in the room over her 
 shop, was taking the privilege, a strange one for a lodger, 
 of demanding money from her. The two were in the 
 room back of the shop, but the door was open, and while 
 Murdoch could not see them, he could hear them plainly. 
 
 The crisis came when he heard the old woman tell the 
 student that she had no money and beg him not to strike 
 her, a plea which was followed by the sound of blows and 
 of a fall. The old woman did not cry out, but continued 
 to plead for mercy piteously in a muffled voice. Murdoch 
 thought that the indistinctness of her tones might be 
 caused by fingers on her throat, and so he entered. He 
 saw at once that he had been wrong in thinking that the 
 student was choking the old woman. Her indistinctness 
 of speech had not come from that. It was caused by 
 blood and some loosened teeth within her mouth, for the 
 student had struck her brutally. 
 
 Murdoch did not strike him. He merely grasped him
 
 A DUCKING IN THE SEINE. 19 
 
 with a wrestler's tackle which he knew and bore him out 
 of the back door of the shop to the side street. Then, ad 
 justing the astonished student so that he could be carried 
 with complete ease on his brawny back, Murdoch hurried 
 through the dusk with him to the river. An inclined 
 roadway runs from the level of the street there, down to 
 some baths which are anchored to the river's bank, and 
 down this Murdoch sped, with the raging, but powerless 
 student on his back. There were a number of gamins in 
 their wake by the time they reached this interesting spot, 
 and, in the distance, Murdoch could hear the labored pro 
 tests of the old woman, who ran stumbling after them, 
 breathing so hard and with her mouth so full of blood and 
 loosened teeth that she could scarcely make articulate 
 sound. He was well out on the planks by the time she 
 came up with him and had ducked the student once, with 
 great solemnity and in complete silence on his own part, 
 b-ut amid much sputtering from the helpless student and 
 many shrill cries of delight and approval from the gamins. 
 She begged him to let the student go, and tried to say 
 that she had given him great provocation and that he was 
 not at all at fault. The student himself was swearing 
 with what breath his short stay under water and his great 
 efforts to loosen Murdoch's iron hold had left in him, and 
 was vowing incoherent vengeance. 
 
 Murdoch slowly and with system ducked him again. 
 This time, when he came up, spluttering, he stopped 
 swearing at Murdoch and begged to be released. But at 
 the same time he vowed vengeance on the old woman who 
 had been the cause of it all. This failed to satisfy the 
 strong one from America. Murdoch explained to the 
 dripping victim that striking women was considered the 
 worst sort of manners in his native land, and added that 
 threats against the sex were also impolite. Then he 
 thrust the student under water once again. The man 
 showed the weakening effects of this treatment when Mur 
 doch yanked him out. His words came with great diffi 
 culty and they were conciliatory words. Murdoch sug 
 gested to him that he might avoid further immersion in 
 the waters of the Seine by apologizing to the old woman,
 
 30 LIZETTE. 
 
 and promising that he would not offend again. To this 
 proposal he demurred. Then Murdoch called upon old 
 Father Seine to help him in his argument again, and when 
 he pulled the student out upon the planks he was quite 
 limp and subdued. 
 
 In the presence of the admiring and interested gamins 
 and amid the protesting sobs of the old woman, who 
 seemed most anxious that no further punishment should 
 be inflicted on her lodger, the latter chokingly admitted 
 that he had done her wrong and now regretted it. Mur 
 doch thought that perhaps the apology might be more 
 effective if it were delivered while the student knelt. The 
 student rebelled at this humiliation and was ducked again. 
 This time Murdoch held him under until, when he was 
 hauled limply out, he could not stand without the strong 
 support of Murdoch's hand which grasped his collar. When 
 Murdoch released his hold the student sank to his knees 
 quite as much from weakness as from humility and, while 
 Murdoch stood over him ready and resolved to further im 
 merse him if he did not obey orders, poured out an apology 
 of sickening humiliation amidst the plaudits of the gamins 
 and the old woman's choking sobs. 
 
 Just as Murdoch turned away, feeling certain that the 
 student would not further assault the old woman who sold 
 coals, for that night at least (there was a reason in his 
 evident exhaustion from the struggle as well as in the 
 promise which Murdoch forced from him to sin no more), 
 a gamin, running up, handed a little dagger to him, and 
 told him that it had been dropped during the progress to 
 the Seine. Another called attention to the fact that 
 blood was oozing from his trouser leg. Then Murdoch 
 discovered what had been the cause of a sharp sting which 
 he had felt in his hip while he was bearing the student 
 Seine-ward. The man had had a knife and had cut him 
 slightly in the hip, but dropped the weapon in his excite 
 ment, before he had had further chance to use it. With 
 this discovery he turned and went back to the cringing 
 student, who whimpered as he went to him and would 
 have run away if there had been strength enough for run 
 ning in his legs, and ducked him once again.
 
 A DUCKING IN THE SEINE. 21 
 
 "That, my dear child," Murdoch explained as he 
 brought the thoroughly subdued student, limp and sput 
 tering from the water, "is for using knives. It is a 
 silly practice. Don't do it any more. Especially, don't 
 do it to Americans." 
 
 Then he went his way and left the old woman and the 
 student there upon the planks together. The old woman 
 was exhausted by the varying emotions which quarreled 
 in her breast, among which admiration for the young 
 American strove with horror at the fact that the one she 
 idolized had been the victim of his strength. 
 
 On the way home to the studio, Murdoch stopped and 
 had the small wound bandaged. He decided that he 
 would not tell Lizette about the encounter, but it had 
 left such marks of pallor and dishevelment upon him that 
 he had to tell her something of it, and, although he tried 
 to make the telling funny, and did not mention to her 
 who his victim was, her face was white and strained when 
 he had finished, and she went to him and put her arms 
 around his neck and trembled with a woman's fear of 
 dangers that are passed, while she rejoiced again in the 
 glory of his strength.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 AN ARTISTIC HAZING. 
 
 Although John Murdoch never spoke of the incident to 
 any student, the news of it was noised abroad. It had 
 two effects. In the first place it added greatly to the un 
 popularity of the immersed one, and his life became even 
 more isolated and uncomfortable than it had been before, 
 which is saying much. In the second place, it made John 
 Murdoch a much respected man, and it started -great tales 
 about his muscle. Some of these he heard and they 
 amused him. They were wildly exaggerated and included 
 vivid details of feats which might have put Sampson to 
 the blush. This probably had much to do with the mild 
 form which his hazing took, when at last it came. An 
 overwhelming number of his fellow students seized him 
 one early morning before the masters came and bound 
 him tightly to a chair back. Then they removed his 
 shoes and placed his bare feet so that the bottoms of them 
 were near enough to the great stove in the atelier to make 
 him wonder just when they would begin to burn. 
 
 A meeting was held, to whose deliberations he must 
 listen quietly, which had for its object a discussion of what 
 other things should be done to him by his fellows. Wild 
 and uncanny were the plans suggested. Blood curdling 
 proceedings were talked over in his hearing with studied 
 gravity. It was finally decided that his feet should be 
 well roasted first. Then the plans were that he should be 
 stripped and painted red. He came, the spokesman 
 argued, from the land where Indians flourished toma 
 hawks and scalped helpless ones. Therefore he was an 
 Indian, and for him to go about Paris not garbed as one 
 was for him to travel under false pretenses.
 
 AN ARTISTIC HAZING. 23 
 
 In the execution of the plan Murdoch was not stripped, 
 but his face and neck and hands were most terrifyingly 
 striped and made hideous with red paint. In his hair 
 were tied the feathers from a duster, and then about his 
 prostrate form the others danced in glee, with strange 
 imitations of the famous war-whoop, and dabbing him in 
 spots with long mawl sticks freshly dipped in paint. The 
 young student whom Murdoch had doused so effectively 
 in the waters of the Seine was present, and his small, keen 
 eyes sparkled with malicious glee when the fun first 
 started. He evidently hoped that Murdoch would resist 
 and that it would end in his being roughly handled, as 
 very often happened when students made too strong resist 
 ance to the will of the majority. While the fun was at 
 its highest and the dancing and the yelling were most 
 demoniacal, this student worked around until he got in the 
 rear of Murdoch, where the prostrate one could not see him. 
 
 Then, with a smile in which the eagerness of cow 
 ardly hatred was too thinly masked to be obscured from 
 the others, he slyly made a move as if to kick the top of 
 Murdoch's head. This called down on him the disgusted 
 wrath of the whole room and he went shamefacedly away. 
 It also stopped the fun for a few moments, but youth for 
 gets quickly, and the others soon renewed the mild torture 
 of Murdoch with paint and mawl sticks. Finally he was 
 forced (with proper hesitation on his part) to take an oath 
 that if he was released he would purchase divers drinks 
 and delicacies for the entire class when the day's work 
 should be finished, and he was also required to promise 
 that he would make no effort to remove his decorations 
 until he reached his home that night. 
 
 To these things Murdoch agreed after keeping the fun 
 (which he enjoyed as much as anybody) going as long as 
 its somewhat hysterical nature made agreeable to the par 
 ticipants. It wound up with a trial of Murdoch's 
 strength, which satisfied and surprised the other students 
 and made them add to the penalty he must pay for living 
 on the earth and studying art in Paris, the further task of 
 bearing through the streets for a prescribed distance, the 
 fattest student in the class. In case he failed to agree to
 
 24 LIZETTE. 
 
 this, other penalties were to be imposed. But he con 
 sented. 
 
 And so it was that when Murdoch returned to his studio 
 and Lizette that night, he was most picturesquely deco 
 rated, and there sat astride his neck a student, who, if his 
 art ability had been in ratio with his weight, would have 
 been a very Michael Angelo. Murdoch's hat was worn 
 over another by that member of the class who had the 
 smallest head, and his coat had been turned inside out and, 
 with sleeve linings of bright stripes, added to the interest 
 of his appearance. Two students with tin horns made 
 hideous noises at his sides, and just behind him marched 
 an orchestra whose instruments were made of combs and 
 tissue paper. 
 
 Lizette heard the tumult from above, and watched it 
 from a window of the studio. She greeted Murdoch at 
 the top of the stairs with the almost hysteric fondness 
 of a mother hen who cuddles a small chicken which has 
 escaped from deadly peril. 
 
 With difficulty she washed the paint which had had 
 hours to dry in from his face, stopping now to hug him 
 with congratulations that his trials had been no worse, 
 now to burst into long trills of laughter over the extraor 
 dinary appearance which he presented. 
 
 Suddenly she stopped work entirely. Then, to Mur 
 doch's great surprise, she hurried from the tiny kitchen, 
 where she had been conducting her scrubbing operations, 
 to the studio, and returned with paints and brushes. He 
 did not understand at first, and was too much amazed to 
 speak when she gravely began to restore, with tender 
 touches on his face, the paint which she had just suc 
 ceeded in scrubbing off. 
 
 "Hold on/' said Murdoch, in amazement. "Are you 
 going to haze me too? I had supposed that I was safe 
 when I reached the studio and you." 
 
 <r 5Tou are most safe wiz me/' she said. "I shall not 
 do to you ze one sm-a-a-11 hurt. But we forget. M'sieu 
 Kaintucky have not seen you as you were. It is not fair 
 to heem. I mus' paint you all up wiz ze niceness once 
 a^-ain, and zcn go an' fetch heem to look upon ze so vairy
 
 AN ARTISTIC HAZING. 25 
 
 funny sight. To spoil all ze beauteousness of you before 
 he see it would not of ze kindness be. One leetle, leetle 
 moment. Zen I have you fix. Zen I go to fetch heem. 
 Zen I wash you off some more an' it ees ovaire. But of 
 a certainty he mus' see you. Such is but right." 
 
 So, having painted with tender carefulness for eyes and 
 mouth, for a time upon the docile Murdoch's face and 
 arms, adding a few deft and disfiguring touches to his 
 ears and nose which even the students, in their riotous 
 ingenuity, had not thought of, she left him, all sticky with 
 the paint, but wonderingly and wonderfully meek and 
 quiet, and started out to get Kentucky. It was like Lizette 
 to think of him. She liked him, and of a certainty Mur 
 doch was most funny. The whole Quarter had had joy 
 from him. It did not hurt him to afford this joy. Ken 
 tucky had not seen him. That was unjust and must be 
 rectified. 
 
 Murdoch gazed after her, as she departed, with open 
 mouth and wondering eyes. She had new surprises for 
 him every day, and he had often thought and marvelled at 
 her watchful care for others. But this development! He 
 finally decided that it, too, was delightful. He determined 
 also to make the old student's surprise and pleasure as 
 complete as possible, and, incidentally, to further interest 
 Lizette. 
 
 He quickly made a pair of trunks by cutting the legs 
 off an ancient pair of trousers, and smeared his bare legs 
 and arms and body with as much paint as he could get on 
 in a hurry. His legs were hairy, and he reflected that the 
 coloring would come off with difficulty, but that only made 
 him lay it on the thicker. So when Kentucky and Lizette 
 came up the stairway, they were confronted by a sight 
 much more terrifying than tne one which Lizette had, 
 with fond thoughtfulness, decided that the ancient student 
 should not miss. As Murdoch heard them coming up the 
 stairs he grasped a carving knife and jumped out upon 
 the landing with it brandished in his hand. Also he 
 emitted yells. Also he performed strange dances. Ken 
 tucky and Lizette almost fell backward down the stairs. 
 But when, recovered from her astonishment at this new
 
 26 LIZETTE. 
 
 development, Lizette and the ancient student of the in 
 genious hat followed Murdoch in, she gazed critically at 
 him and decided that he made a most impressive and de 
 lightful savage. 
 
 Finally she went to him and took his face between her 
 hands. Having adjusted it at an angle which was com 
 pletely satisfactory, she kissed him on the lips, getting a 
 smudge of paint upon the tip of her own nose in the doing 
 of it. 
 
 'Is it that there are many of ze sauvages who go like zis 
 upon ze streets in New York City?" she asked of him in 
 complete and charming innocence. 
 
 Murdoch gazed at her in mild, but growing wonder. 
 
 "Lizette," he murmured softly as he gazed, "you are to 
 me a constant source of joy and peace. No, my child, 
 there are few who go like this upon the Broadway of New 
 York. Nearly all the people in the United States wear 
 shirts and trousers when they appear in public. Indeed, 
 I may almost say that the appearance of a man in such a 
 garb as this, on Broadway, would be sensational." 
 
 Kentucky was convulsed by ribald laughter. 
 
 "It was," Lizette said gravely, as she went to get the 
 cloths and soap and other things to begin anew the 
 removal of the paint, "in ze thought of me, that Indians 
 were there in New York. I was wrong. Alas! That 
 all of us should so often have the wrong in thoughts of 
 other people and in thoughts of places which we know not 
 well." 
 
 And then she cleaned him up.
 
 CHAPTER V, 
 
 KENTUCKY. 
 
 They had few close friends except Kentucky. The man 
 who had so ingeniously preserved his hat, Murdoch 
 learned to know as an unfortunate of great natural ability, 
 who had misplaced himself. It was impossible to fail to 
 like him. The pictures on which he toiled persistently 
 were terrifyingly bad. 
 
 Only once, and that had been long years before, 
 had Kentucky ever sold one of his canvases, but one of 
 his many ways of paying for his food and little room was 
 coloring on wood the small copies of famous paintings, 
 which were in those days (and are still, I presume) every 
 where for sale in Paris for five francs apiece. They were 
 especially used by the dealers to cheat tourists with. They 
 were offered to them on the plea that they were the work 
 of students in the Quarter, who did them in the schools, 
 under the direction of the greatest masters, as practice in 
 their study of the arts. A pattern of the painting to be 
 copied was made on wooden slabs. It was then the 
 artist's duty to fill this in, using as much paint as possible 
 to hide the pattern completely, and make the slab look as 
 though the picture had been painted with a free hand. 
 The dealers furnished the materials, and for each one of 
 the little pictures paid a franc and a half to the artist who 
 had colored it. 
 
 If Kentucky really settled down to it and labored indus 
 triously for a twenty-four-hour stretch, without stopping, 
 except for meals, he could copy as many as twenty in that 
 time. His mechanical ability stood him in good stead in 
 this work, for Kentucky could paint as fine and straight 
 a line as a professional carriage striper. This work he
 
 28 LIZETTE. 
 
 did, perhaps, twice a week. He locked himself into his 
 dingy little room at daybreak, with a bottle of weak wine, 
 some bread and cheese and the materials for his artistic 
 effort. He did not emerge again until the following 
 morning about ten, when he had his little pictures ready 
 for the dealers. Those delicate lines made a ready market 
 for him, but he had a grievance against the merchants in 
 that they frequently demanded of him that the pictures 
 should be dry before they were paid for. Kentucky had de 
 vised a curious light wooden box, divided into small com 
 partments. It opened by the removal of a side. By means 
 of this he was enabled to deliver his wares while the paint 
 on them was fresh, and this hard-hearted mandate of the 
 dealers who required of him that it should be quite dry 
 before they paid was to him another evidence of the de 
 sire of mercenaries to keep genius down. He used to 
 make speeches about the dangers of the monopolistic 
 tendencies in France at the cafes chantants, in Mont- 
 martre, and when he reached the close of his addresses he 
 invariably used this matter of the fresh paint upon his 
 pictures as the final illustration by which he made his 
 point. These points of his were always greeted by vocif 
 erous applause. 
 
 When Kentucky was not painting his little wooden 
 pictures, or permitting some anxious soul to purchase 
 absinthe for him, he haunted the libraries and devoured 
 their contents with an interest that amounted to a passion. 
 Everything was meat to him, from the reports of the Paris 
 Bureau of Health to the manifold volumes of French 
 romance. He had a faculty for remembering all that he 
 read with complete accuracy, and by the time John Mur 
 doch met him the learning acquired in this way amounted 
 on some subjects mostly useless to him to erudition. 
 He sometimes wrote advertising pamphlets, and he could 
 correct the French of even the most careful Parisians, as 
 to construction, although his accent was heartrending. 
 When Blank & Co. produced their English-French and 
 French-English dictionaries, he was employed upon the 
 work, so that for six months he did not need to paint little 
 pictures. He had a horror of sleeping during darkness,
 
 KENTUCKY. 29 
 
 t 
 
 and it was his great desire to miss only a very little of 
 the daylight. Probably no human being, unless it might 
 have been Napoleon, ever lived with less sleep than poor 
 Kentucky. 
 
 One of his few unpleasant eccentricities was that of 
 calling at the studios of his friends, at about the time 
 when they were preparing to go to bed, and keeping them 
 up all night by marvellously interesting discourses on all 
 sorts of things, from the fall of the Roman Empire to the 
 best method of raising mushrooms. It apparently did not 
 occur to him that while he needed little sleep, his friends 
 might not, also, be abnormal in this matter. And the 
 trouble with Kentucky was, not that he insisted on stay 
 ing all night, but that his hearers, after he once began to 
 talk, insisted on it. He could weave a romance about a 
 bit of sewer pipe in conversation, or make a poem of a 
 paving stone. Sometimes, when he did not feel in a talk 
 ative mood, he cleverly performed most amazing tricks of 
 sleight of hand or nosed around the studio, trying to devise 
 some convenience which it lacked, so that he could supply 
 it. Murdoch's studio had lamp-brackets wherever a beam 
 could be found strong enough to nail them to. It had 
 shelves; it had ingeniously devised board boxes which 
 cleverly concealed household details. An especially con 
 structed lamp globe came as near to counterfeiting sun 
 light as an electric light. All these were the work of 
 Kentucky. 
 
 One bleak night in December he climbed the four 
 flights of stairs to Murdoch's studio. Lizette and John 
 recognized his step before it reached their outer door. 
 John was tired after a long day's work, and Lizette was 
 sitting by him, gently stroking his hand and gazing 
 dreamily into a spluttering fire of caked coal-dust which 
 burned in an old Franklin stove. That stove, which 
 showed the bright burning of the coals so plainly to them, 
 was much comfort to her. She loved to make pictures 
 in the fire. Always John Murdoch was in those pictures, 
 and always in the pictures he held her hand. She loved 
 the old stove, despite its cracks and general unworthiness, 
 and when Murdoch decided one day that he should buy
 
 30 LIZETTE. 
 
 a new one she protested; so many beautiful visions had 
 the glowing coals in that one shown to her. The sound 
 of Kentucky's step that night was an interruption to very 
 pretty dreams, and she looked up at John Murdoch with a 
 rueful little smile and said: 
 
 "Eet ees Kaintucky." 
 
 "Great Scott!" said Murdoch, hastily. "Put the light 
 out, sweetheart, and perhaps he won't stay long. I'm 
 always glad to see Kentucky, but to-night we are both 
 tired. Put the lights out." 
 
 Lizette obediently put out the lights. The last one was 
 barely dimmed when Kentucky's well-known double rap 
 was heard, and Murdoch opened the door to him. The 
 fact that the studio was in darkness apparently did not 
 impress Kentucky. He entered and sat down. 
 
 "I'm awfully sorry that we can't have a talk to-night, 
 old chap," said the mendacious Murdoch. "You see my 
 allowance has run out and I couldn't buy oil to-day." 
 
 This was a lie, but in the Quarter one must sometimes 
 tell innocent lies, if one would live. And it was a good 
 lie, for that a student should be out of oil and unable to 
 buy more was not at all surprising. 
 
 "Who wants to talk?" demanded Kentucky. "Will you 
 lend me a little butter?" 
 
 Murdoch heaved a sigh of tired relief. It seemed that 
 Kentucky had not come to talk, after all. He had come 
 to borrow butter. 
 
 Lizette gave him the butter on a small saucer. Ken 
 tucky took from his pocket an old handkerchief and 
 deftly made a little bag of it, in which he placed the 
 butter. He folded three of the corners under, after he 
 had saturated the remaining one with butter by the dim 
 light of the fire, while the others looked on in wonder 
 ment. Then he pinned the bundle up so that the fourth 
 corner stood upright. 
 
 "Got a match?" he asked of Murdoch. 
 
 Murdoch gave Kentucky a match, and with it he lit 
 the lamp which he had improvised. It burned somewhat 
 smokily until almost three in the morning while he told 
 them, amidst a most outrageous smell of blazing grease,
 
 KENTUCKY. 31 
 
 about coffee in India and the old legends of the Breton 
 peasants. During all this time his eyes never once 
 wandered toward the well-filled lamps standing in the 
 brackets which he himself had put up. 
 
 Presently Kentucky wearied of these subjects. Then 
 he took two English walnuts and removed the kernels. 
 One of these he gravely ate. The other he broke in half, 
 and putting one piece into one of the empty shells, he 
 placed the other in the other, and held one in each hand. 
 
 "There is something remarkable about the kernels of 
 these nuts," he said. "You will observe that God made 
 the two halves of that broken kernel to go together and 
 stay together for all time. But you see that I, Kentucky, 
 Fate, Circumstance, or whatever you wish to call me, have 
 torn the two halves of that kernel apart and placed one- 
 half in one shell and the other in another. That was not 
 as God intended them to be. He made both halves to go 
 in the same shell, for all time, or for such time as that 
 nut should exist. But they have been torn asunder. 
 
 "You will see soon that they will re-unite. It is so 
 with human beings. Certain of them God makes to go 
 together. I believe that he made you, Murdoch, and you, 
 Lizette, to go together. And I believe that he will see 
 that you are together in spite of anything that man may 
 do. I have never seen two people so admirably mated. 
 You are a great joy to me, my children, and I love you 
 both. Now you see that I have one nutshell in one hand, 
 with one-half of that separated kernel in it, and I have 
 the other nutshell in the other hand with the other half 
 of that separated kernel in it. They belong together. You 
 will see that, despite my hands, despite the hands of Fate, 
 they will get together somehow, and you you clever ones 
 will not be able to tell how, any more than other clever 
 ones would be able to tell how, if you should be sepa 
 rated, you would find one another and join your hands 
 again. But see!" 
 
 Lizette was fascinated by the talk. The dim light and 
 the gaunt figure of Kentucky, who, when he did his tricks, 
 made himself absolutely diabolical in looks 'by ruffling his 
 long hair and rolling his eyes around fiendishly, seemed
 
 32 LIZETTE. 
 
 uncanny. And that matter of her separating from 
 John Murdoch! Why should he have hit on that? That 
 very afternoon she had sat hy the fire and wondered about 
 the days to come. Would her romance end as had so many 
 she had known of in the Quarter? Would it end with 
 Murdoch's passing on to worlds unknown beyond the 
 seas, while she stayed back, to weep for him? That she 
 could not credit, for John Murdoch was not like those of 
 whom she thought, and she knew with sweet conceit that 
 she was different from the women whom she thought of. 
 But this little nut trick of Kentucky's held her just the 
 same, after his introduction of it, as a snake's eye holds a 
 bird. 
 
 "You will see," Kentucky droned on, in the most ap 
 proved manner, "that I am cruel Circumstance, and that 
 I have torn that tender kernel apart. In one nutshell is 
 the one-half, and that is in this hand. In the other nut 
 shell is the other half, and that is in this hand. I hold 
 them tightly. Fate holds them tightly. Bear that in mind. 
 But the world moves. See, I move my hands to show the 
 movement of the world, which even Fate must bow to." 
 
 He blew solemnly upon each nutshell, and moved his 
 arms mysteriously about. Then his hands opened and he 
 showed the two nutshells there just as before. 
 
 "We will open them/' he said, "and see if natural 
 affinity has not put them again together in spite of Fate." 
 
 He opened one shell and it was empty. Lizette was 
 bending over eagerly to see. 
 
 "See?" she said, prettily, "I have left my shell. Open 
 of the other one, Kaintucky. I am no longer I. It must 
 be that I have gone to the other shell and now am him 
 my Pudgy. Open the other one, Kaintucky." 
 
 "We shall see," said Kentucky, still in the manner of a 
 conjuror, "that in spite of me, Fate, who have tried to 
 keep you from him, you have gone to join your affinity in 
 the other shell. I could not keep you from him. I, Fate, 
 could not do it. We shall see that you have gone to join 
 your other half." 
 
 And he opened the other shell. But there, within it, 
 was only the single half kernel that had been there all the
 
 MURDOCH
 
 ^KENTUCKY. 33 
 
 time. Its affinity had not gone to join it. Fate had 
 failed in the playing of her game, for the fingers of Ken 
 tucky, her representative, had slipped. 
 
 "Bah!" he said, discomfited. "I must have fumbled. It 
 is lucky for us all, my dear, that the fingers of real Fate 
 are cleverer and surer than the fingers of Kentucky." 
 
 They looked for the half kernel which had searched for 
 its affinity in the other shell and failed to find it. It was 
 lying on the floor, where Fate had dropped it, and had 
 been crushed out of all semblance to the kernel of a nut 
 by the heavy foot of the magician. 
 
 Of course, they laughed at the mishap. It was such a 
 very simple matter for Kentucky's fingers, to have slipped! 
 But there was a sign of strain and effort in Lizette's smile 
 which they would have seen if the light from Kentucky's 
 funny little lamp had been bright enough to show her 
 face, and though she pretended to make merry over Fate's 
 failure to put her with her Pudgy, the episode really scared 
 and worried her in spite of the better sense which she 
 tried to bring to bear on it. 
 
 The little lamp which Kentucky had improvised flick 
 ered and went out. He said good-night at last, although 
 he should have said good-morning, for it was within an 
 hour of dawn. Lizette threw her arms about Murdoch's 
 neck and clung to him. She said nothing of the foolish 
 pain that filled her heart such an impressionable little 
 heart it was! but it really beat fast in terror over the 
 dire failure of the two halves of the kernel to get together 
 in their appointed shell. 
 
 "Oh, Pudgy!" she said to Murdoch, as her arms clung 
 tight about his neck. 
 
 No one ever knew where she got that name "Pudgy" 
 for Murdoch. But she had it and it clung to him through 
 all his student life, and if, in after years he heard it, it 
 always filled him with a delicious thrill a thrill made up 
 of all those pleasant emotions which he had learned dur 
 ing those ecstatic years when Lizette was with him. 
 
 "Oh, Pudgy," she said to him. "You are not going to 
 let me drop and lie there till some one brings along the 
 foot and steps upon me?"
 
 34 LIZETTE. 
 
 There was a pathetic tenderness in the way she clung 
 to him with those soft arms tight about his neck. He 
 could not always understand her. No man could have 
 always understood her. 
 
 "Why, no, sweetheart!" he said, soothingly. 
 
 She heaved a happy little sigh at this assurance and 
 nestled her sweet face down in his bosom as a kittsn might. 
 
 "I am so glad/' she said. 
 
 In an instant she straightened up and looked at him 
 with the solemnity which always meant that she intended 
 to give orders to him. 
 
 "And now it is," she said, "and now it is that you must 
 sleep. Poor Pudgy! He kept you up all night, and it 
 was that you needed to go to bed. Well," and she shook 
 her head in a very charming way, "it is that you cannot go 
 to bed. But it is that you can lie you down for a few 
 moments while I get your coffee for you, and it is that I 
 can wash your face with bright cold water after you have 
 awakened up." 
 
 And it was that these things happened.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SHADOWS OF THE PAST. 
 
 John Murdoch was not a genius, but he Knew some 
 things, and what he knew, he knew. That was where the 
 father's part of him came in. Perhaps it proved to be a 
 pity later that it did not stop there. That is as one 
 judges. Poor Lizette! Poor little Lizette! She was be 
 yond the pale of society, was Lizette, but no bird among 
 all those that twittered in the Gardens of the Luxembourg 
 was more innocent of knowledge of wrong-doing than was 
 this same Lizette. She had found her life John Mur 
 doch. She lived her life as best she knew, by loving him 
 as few are loved, by caring for him as a little mother 
 might, by helping him in all he did as few are helped. 
 
 All her thoughts were thoughts for him; all her 
 plans were plans for him; she lived her life for him and 
 loved that life because he was a part of it. That he loved 
 her there was no doubt. That she loved him one might 
 have banked one's soul on that, it was so certain. He was 
 her day, he was her week, he was her year. Those four 
 years that he was all Lizette's, what a happy little 
 ignorant little, unmoral little French girl she was for those 
 four years. She was so ignorant, indeed, that she did not 
 know that she was wicked. She was so happy that at first 
 she never dreamed that happiness could have an end. 
 Poor Lizette! 
 
 The little episode of the trick that had failed because 
 Kentucky's fingers had been clumsy overshadowed her all 
 day. Almost always she was merry, was Lizette, 'but this 
 day she was not. Not that she passed the day in moping; 
 that would have been quite unlike her. But it was a 
 quiet, thoughtful day, a day of drifting thought,, as our
 
 36 LIZETTK 
 
 days are like to be when we have not slept enough at 
 night. Her thoughts were retrospective thoughts. She 
 was in that mood when any pleasant thing might bring 
 a smile, but only something very funny would have made 
 a hearty laugh. Those shells! They troubled her. She 
 had not looked much into the future. Since she had met 
 her Pudgy, each day had seemed so great a joy that there 
 was no time for the anticipation of other joyous days to 
 come. 
 
 This day her thoughts went drifting back into the 
 dreamy past. It had not been a happy past, but there was 
 an indefinite, uncertain little margin of bright days at its 
 very beginning, away back, so far that her memory could 
 only grope for it and sometimes could only grope in vain. 
 Certainly it was very strange and very happy, that little 
 bit but it was afar off in the south of France, where 
 grapes and olives grow, and where the sun shines hot and 
 where the snow storms never come, and where a great big, 
 bearded man had sometimes held her in his arms and 
 talked to her in a loud, good-natured voice, and tossed her 
 up before a painter's easel. That man, she knew, had 
 been her father. She could not recall much about him. 
 She remembered that the man had talked much to her 
 while he held her in his arms, and she remembered that 
 he had talked in English, at least at times, for now, when 
 she was studying English so very hard, that she might 
 please her Pudgy by her progress, she sometimes found a 
 word which came like an echo out of the dim past. 
 
 And those words that came back to her with a strange 
 familiarity were almost always words of endearment. She 
 decided that the man that great, big father, with the 
 deep voice and the strong arms, who had held her up and 
 hugged her in that dim past in the Southland must have 
 called her by sweet, English love names. She tried to 
 make a picture in her mind which might, perhaps, be like 
 this father, but the days when those strong arms had 
 tossed her up and caught her and when those bearded lips 
 had uttered those sweet words were too remote for that. 
 It was a sore trial to her that she could bring no picture 
 to her mind, not even an indefinite, blurred picture like
 
 SHADOWS OF THE PAST. 37 
 
 that of the tall man, which she might hang on memory's 
 walls, and love and whisper "Mother" to. But there was 
 none. She was sure the father was a painter because she 
 could remember that he had bade her look at things upon 
 an easel. There came to her during this dreamy day, also, 
 a dim vision of a quaint, old church, and a solemn grave 
 yard, guarded by sentinel poplars. What connection this 
 graveyard had with her babyhood she could not guess. 
 Perhaps the bearded father painted there in days long 
 gone. Perhaps the mother, whose faintest image would 
 not come back to her memory, lay buried there. Where 
 that half-forgotten graveyard was, she did not know. It 
 was somewhere in the South where grapes and olives 
 grow, and that was all that she could tell of it. It was a 
 faded picture in her memory, faintly outlined, dimly seen. 
 
 To grope and grope among these shadows of the past 
 and never find a solid tangibility; to wonder and to 
 speculate as to even what her name might really be; to 
 yearn to feel those great strong arms of the big English 
 painter clasped around her, while he tossed her high in air 
 or bade her look upon the glowing sunset, which kissed 
 the rough corners of the ancient church with red caresses 
 and made the martial poplars look still more like sentinels 
 as they stood black and precise against its flaming back 
 ground that was all she had, was all that she could find 
 of those long past happy days in the sunny Southland 
 where grapes grow and olives bend the low branches of 
 carefully pruned trees in orchards that seemed to her, as 
 she remembered them so vaguely, to reach miles and miles 
 on the flat plain on which the church stood, and even to 
 climb a little way up the first gentle slopes of the mount 
 ains which were somewhere near, but where she could not 
 tell. 
 
 The first sharply defined memories in her mind were all 
 of Paris. How she got there, how she left the churchyard 
 in the place where grapes and olives grow and got to 
 Paris, she could not even guess. In Paris, ever until she 
 had met her Pudgy, her lot had been a hard one. The 
 old woman with whom she lived as a small child had left 
 an ugly image on her memory. Bah! She could see her
 
 38 LIZETTE. 
 
 yet. And she was dead now. When she had lived with 
 her she had had three companions. All were little girls, 
 and all were very much afraid of the old woman, who some 
 times beat them and was often very drunk. She shud 
 dered as she thought of that old woman; but then she 
 smiled again because the old woman had gone from her 
 life and Pudgy had come into it. 
 
 Dear little Lizette! That sunny soul of yours 
 had helped you through many shadowy places be 
 fore you found safe haven in the studio whose windows 
 overlooked the Gardens of the Luxembourg. Sordid, 
 pestilential dangers, that ever lie in wait for young and 
 pretty creatures there in Paris, as in every other city on 
 this strange old earth of ours. And, indeed, she could 
 see as she sat there in the studio that day, thinking about 
 the unhappy past because it was such an amazing contrast 
 to the bright and shining present, that it had been her 
 ability to smile and suffer which had saved her for her 
 Pudgy, had saved her for herself. It had kept her from 
 grieving over sorrows which would have cast down many 
 a girl apparently of a sturdier determination, far, than she. 
 
 It had made her smile when others might have wept or 
 worse. Such hunger as she had known, for instance (and 
 there were days gone by which Lizette sometimes recalled 
 now at table with a happy shrug and inward congratula 
 tion) had never tempted her to wrong a human soul, not 
 even her own soul and they are our own souls for which 
 most of us show least consideration. When in her very early 
 conscious life, in the days, that is, of the old woman, back 
 when first she began to recall hard knocks and real priva 
 tions, she had had to work sixteen hours a day in an artifi 
 cial flower factory for fifteen francs a week, which the old 
 woman took. Then her sunny soul had helped her 
 laugh at the hard work, and her small, wise head had 
 helped her make what little money she could save from 
 Nemesis go far indeed. When, one day, an artist spied 
 her and begged her to pose for him, she was duly thankful 
 for the prosperity which came from it, but she never lost 
 the wisdom in that little head of hers, and, as the sun 
 shine in that soul was ever bright, no matter how the
 
 SHADOWS OF THE PAST. 39 
 
 clouds might lower outside of it, she could use her wisdom 
 without too much sorrow over the rebuffs and real priva 
 tions which it sometimes brought to her. 
 
 What Lizette knew she had learned with very little con 
 scious help from others. Even in Catholic France, she 
 really had not had much chance to learn about religion. 
 She had a dim knowledge of the personified Deity, and 
 with this knowledge had come a very beautiful and lovable 
 conception of the Holy Virgin, which was, perhaps, not 
 strictly orthodox, but which had been vastly comforting 
 to her on many days and nights when she had sadly needed 
 comfort. 
 
 After she had crossed the Seine from the high lofts of 
 the flower makers to the equally elevated studios of the 
 artists, her quaint, lovely Virgin, all her own (there never 
 was in any other mind a vision of the Virgin just like 
 Lizette's) had sometimes helped her greatly. Her love 
 for her personification of the Holy Mother was not coldly 
 theological. She really knew nothing definitely of the 
 arguments of any church or creed. She imagined Her as 
 a warm, loving, but invisible entity who would listen to 
 the story of her sorrows when they came, and from whom 
 emanated peace and comfort even in the face of worry and 
 privation. On this conception of the Virgin, almost 
 without other knowledge, Lizette had built a little faith 
 that was all hers; quite different it was and simpler than 
 the religion taught in churches; but it had been most help 
 ful to her. She was really a Pagan, for her ignorance of 
 the rules and rigors of religion as well as of almost all its 
 sublime beauties, was appalling. But this faith she had, 
 this faith in Mary, God's holy mother. 
 
 She became, through force of circumstances, strangely 
 self-reliant. After her flight from the old woman she had 
 been alone, and it is not good for a young girl to be alone 
 in Paris, but she trod her little way unflinchingly. At 
 first, after she had begun to pose for artists, she had been 
 wholly without friends. For a time there had been a 
 woman artist who had taught her much about the rudi 
 ments of "school knowledge," had taught her _ to read 
 easily and opened up the small world of "books which she
 
 40 LIZETTE. 
 
 could reach to her. Lizette had loved this woman artist 
 very dearly, although she was ill and often cross and 
 sometimes could find no good in Lizette's posing, no 
 matter how faithfully the little model tried with tired 
 limbs and aching head to please her. But she had gone 
 away from Paris and had not come back. 
 
 Of course, there had been the Latin Quarter girls, good- 
 natured, superficial creatures without thought of past or 
 future. They had been companions to whom she had 
 been glad to chatter when she had been tired with posing. 
 They posed in the schools, those big girls, and often told 
 Lizette that she could make more money if she would go 
 there, but she had never gone. Still she often talked with 
 them. One could not always sit in solitude, she had told 
 herself. With the artists she had been ever ready for Ion 
 camaraderie with limits. One or two had tried to over 
 step the bounds and failed. She was not afraid of them, 
 and it was with no shudders, such as come from dangers 
 dodged, that she thought of them, as she sat there, over 
 looking the Gardens of the Luxembourg. Indeed, she 
 laughed aloud, as she sat there alone, and thought of one 
 jackanapes from England. He had named her the "tiger 
 cat p'tite" and with good reason, in three flaming scars 
 which still showed plainly, two on one, the other on the 
 other, of his cheeks. When he first appeared in public, 
 after the episode, she had regarded these scars with calm 
 curiosity and, while she marveled, rejoiced greatly at their 
 emphasis. She had not dreamed that there had been such 
 potency within her finger nails. It was very satisfying. 
 When she was disconsolate she sometimes sought for a 
 glimpse of the English student and his scars. A moment's 
 gazing at them would make her feel quite gay again. 
 
 "It is hard for me to feel the certainty," she reflected, 
 "that with my so little fingers I could make the so splen 
 did stripes upon the face of him. But, of a certainty, they 
 were there. Bah! the great beast Englishman! I am 
 most happy that I did it that the Blessed Virgin and 
 myself did do it!" 
 
 The story of this fierce encounter had flown like wild 
 fire around the Quarter and cost the big Englishman
 
 SHADOWS OF THE PAST. 41 
 
 much, both in beer and peace of mind. He had left his 
 course at Julian's unfinished finally, and gone home to 
 England, where there is no law to prevent husbands from 
 beating their wives and where, Lizette commented, he 
 would doubtless tell that the scars had come to him in hon 
 orable combat with overwhelming odds of many men. 
 "And all that time, while he is saying that so 'big lie," she 
 added, "in his English heart it is that he will have the 
 know that I I, Lizette, the Blessed Virgin and the small 
 Lizette made the so pretty picture on his so ugly face." 
 
 Lizette's reward was great. Her place was fixed. 
 Ardent but misguided students never gave to her "the 
 bother" after that. Such enterprise was recognized as extra 
 hazardous. With some she was "good comrade," certainly, 
 but after that it was most firmly understood that Lizette 
 did not wish to have "the bother," and that anyone who 
 overstepped the very definite line which she had drawn 
 would be liable to such red stripes across ' his cheek 
 as those which marked the absent Englishman. Such had 
 been the position which she had made for herself in the 
 Quarter before she met John Murdoch, and the making 
 of it had required as much force and originality of charac 
 ter as many a success apparently much greater has re 
 quired of variously striving ones in this queer old world. 
 
 And so Lizette sat and thought about the past. There 
 were dreams of the future, too, within her pretty head, but 
 they were vague and half-defined. They did not go be 
 yond the studio. Pudgy was ever the central figure in 
 them, but they did not go beyond the studio which over 
 looked the Gardens of the Luxembourg. 
 
 It was with a start of real surprise that she realized, 
 suddenly, that it was almost time for the return of Pudgy. 
 
 The nutshells and the kernels one so sadly broken 
 she locked into a little desk where her small treasure 
 hoard was hidden, and her gentle melancholy induced by 
 them and by these, some sad, some happy thoughts about 
 the past, vanished in the bustle which went with the 
 preparation of Pudgy's second breakfast.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 AT THE MOULIN ROUGE. 
 
 Although John Murdoch's father was a rich man, he 
 did not send much money to his son. John Murdoch had 
 said before he went to Paris that he did not want much 
 money, and he had not taken very much. He gave little 
 to Lizette of those things which meant the expenditure of 
 money. This was not a matter which he had carefully 
 thought out. It was merely a natural circumstance. 
 Their compansionship was almost ideal. What they 
 needed that they had. He, with his work, and she with 
 him; they had no time to waste in spending money sillily. 
 
 In their living they were never extravagant. In New 
 York, indeed, their menage would have been considered 
 most simple. In the Quarter, that is, among the working 
 students of the Quarter, it was eminently, unusually, com 
 fortable. There was a solidity about it which was absent 
 from any other, among the folk they knew. It was 
 orderly and in its air of permanence differed from the 
 make-shift life which is common to the Quarter still, and 
 was even more apparent in those old days. 
 
 Lizette rarely asked for money. She had no idea that 
 Murdoch was a rich man. The knowledge would not 
 have interested her particularly had it been imparted to 
 her. He did not hide it. It simply seemed unnecessary 
 to state a fact so unimportant. But still Lizette was rich 
 in all those things which really counted to her. She was 
 rich in the contentment which comes from lack of worry 
 about material things. She was rich in this home which 
 she had made for Murdoch, and, above all, she was rich in 
 having him always with her when he was not at work. 
 What times they had. Almost always they dined at the
 
 AT THE MOULIN ROUGE. 43 
 
 studio. An old woman cooked the essentials of their 
 meals for them. The delicacies were always made by 
 Lizette herself. Every French woman knows how to 
 cook; she is born knowing how to cook. But some 
 times they went out to the little table d'hote 
 restaurants, which abound in the Quarter, and where one 
 can get a very respectable meal for a franc and a half and 
 really dine in luxury for three francs with wine! And 
 on rare, very rare, occasions, they went to such grand 
 places as the Cafe des Ambassadeurs, or the Voisin. 
 
 Generally when they dined outside the studio they 
 went elsewhere afterward; they "made a night of it." 
 These nights were varied. Sometimes during the season, 
 they meant the Grand Opera. Sometimes they meant such 
 lively places as the Jardin de Paris or the Moulin Eouge. 
 Oftener they meant some cafe chantant in Montmartre, 
 where they could very pleasantly pass an evening 
 amidst the oratorical and musical flamboyancies of the 
 students who philanthropically (or for beer) entertained 
 their fellows there with songs or extravagant oratory. 
 
 Kentucky was often one among the impromptu speak 
 ers at these cafe gatherings, which the general public dis 
 creetly kept away from, and with good reason. The pub 
 lic is not loved and never was of Paris students. The 
 appearance of a butcher and his wife in holiday attire at a 
 cafe chantant in Montmartre once caused a riot which 
 lasted for three days. The haughty students were so in 
 censed by his presence that they tabooed the cafe-keeper 
 who had let him in so thoroughly, even after they had 
 spoiled the venturesome butcher's fete-day clothes and 
 broken all the windows in his shop, that he had to sell his 
 cafe and go away. A doggerel poem of many stanzas was 
 pinned upon the ruins of the butcher shop's front win 
 dows. It informed the unfortunate man that in the artis 
 tic mind he was so closely associated with things to eat 
 that should he appear again within the purlieus of Mont 
 martre there was danger that he might be mistaken for 
 a dead pig instead of being quickly recognized as a living 
 one, and devoured upon the spot. The warning was 
 heeded and the poor butcher disappeared. Once in a very
 
 44 LIZETTE. 
 
 great while the nights of Murdoch and Lizette meant the 
 Cafe Domperille. That they had met there made the 
 place sentimentally attractive to them, although there was 
 naught in common between them and the class that fre 
 quented it. Murdoch was in Paris for hard work, and the 
 Domperille crowd was there for what it thought was play. 
 Lizette was in Paris, as it seemed to her that she was on 
 the earth, for John Murdoch and for nothing else. 
 
 On this particular evening they dined in state at the 
 Voisin. Lizette was charming in a new and pretty gown, 
 and the reaction from the afternoon of solemn meditation 
 made her unusually gay. In everything she saw there 
 was a joke. How happily she laughed, that evening, as they 
 sat in much magnificence and ate their dainty dinner! 
 She ordered it, and each dish must be greeted by great 
 surprise and much delight by Murdoch, else it would have 
 lost its flavor. The waiter entered into the spirit of the 
 little merry-making and was most grave and solemn as he 
 listened to Lizette's hushed whispers, given behind a 
 screen of menu card so that Pudgy should on no account 
 hear what was being ordered for him to eat. It was all 
 too short, that dinner at the Voisin. While they eat 
 dawdling over their black coffee at its end they discussed 
 the matter of what form of entertainment should follow it. 
 They decided on the Moulin Eouge, where they had not 
 been for months. In leaving the Voisin, Lizette gave to 
 the waiter two whole francs in tribute to his cleverness in 
 hiding what she ordered from her Pudgy. 
 
 The drive to the Moulin Eouge was jolly, but it was be 
 cause they went there that John Murdoch hurt Lizette the 
 only time he ever hurt her during all those years together. 
 The episode so impressed them both that they hated the 
 place afterwards and never went there again. 
 
 As John went in he saw some friends from America at 
 one of the little tables. There were five of them. Two 
 had been his classmates at Cornell. There were Mrs. 
 Pascoe and her niece and ward, Miss Markleham, and 
 there was old Judge Barry. They saw Murdoch as he 
 passed and Murdoch bowed and called out that he would 
 come back. He took Lizette to another table a long dis-
 
 AT THE MOULIN ROUGE. 45 
 
 tance away, and as much because she urged him as be 
 cause he wanted to himself, he went back to see his friends, 
 leaving her with some people from the Quarter whom they 
 had found. He told her that he would return to her in 
 a few moments. 
 
 Murdoch was not overjoyed at his meeting with the 
 ladies, and he had his reasons. Before he had gone to 
 college he had thought himself in love with Mary Markle- 
 ham. At all the important college games she had worn 
 his colors, and when commencement came she had jour 
 neyed to his college town, and it had been a posy sent by 
 her which had adorned his buttonhole as he had been 
 graduated. Before he left New York for Paris there had 
 been strange flutterings in his heart when her name was 
 mentioned, and a correspondence, long since ended, had 
 flourished for a time between them. She looked a very 
 lovely girl that night, and if she remembered the last letter 
 which she had written to him and he had never answered, 
 she made no sign. She was frankly pleased at seeing 
 him again, but he was, at first, uneasy in her presence. 
 Soon, though, so unaffected and delightful was her man 
 ner, so impersonal was her interest in what he told of 
 student life in Paris, that he forgot his worry and 
 thoroughly enjoyed himself. 
 
 Once or twice, as his eyes rested on her face, a quick 
 comparison of this girl with the little one who waited for 
 him back farther in the hall, flashed through his mind, but 
 there was no pleasant flutter in his breast this night as he 
 looked at Mary Markleham. His thoughts turned toward 
 Lizette, and he was glad of it. It pleased him that the 
 love he knew was genuine should stand this little test so 
 well. But time slipped by much faster than he realized. 
 He had thought very little of his home and the people in 
 it since he had been in Paris. He had rarely, even, 
 brought the old days at college to his mind, except to fcell 
 funny stories of them to Lizette when she was curled up, 
 listening, at his side, and begging that he should make her 
 laugh with the so droll tales of when and where he learned 
 so much. But this night the ladies had many things to 
 say to him of folk he knew. The Judge had seen his
 
 48 LIZETTE. 
 
 father lately, and spoke of him. His old classmates brought 
 many things which he had half forgotten to his memory 
 with a rush. 
 
 It was not especially surprising that he did not go back 
 to Lizette in a few moments. Indeed, two hours had 
 passed before he suddenly, and with an honest pang of 
 shame, remembered Lizette Lizette, whose only thought 
 was ever of him. He said his good-nights hurriedly and 
 hastened to the table where he had left her. The people 
 who had been there when he had taken her there were 
 still sitting at the table, but Lizette had gone. They said 
 that she had told them that she must go and asked one of 
 the older women to take her to a cab. This was the old 
 woman of whom they bought their coals. The students 
 were giving her a treat that night. She had trusted one 
 of them against the better judgment of the Quarter, and 
 now that he had money he was treating her to an even 
 ing's entertainment as a reward for her faith in his very 
 human nature. She was a motherly old person, who took 
 a personal interest in the affairs of all her regular cus 
 tomers. 
 
 "I went with her to the cab," she said to John, "and as 
 we went out we saw you sitting at a table with some 
 Americans. Little Madame" (you will see that the old 
 French woman did not know) "she called to you a little, 
 oh, a very little, but you did not hear. I told her to call 
 louder, but she would not. And she said to me, 'you must 
 not disturb him. He is with old friends from America. 
 I know who they are. They are to take supper with us at 
 the studio later, and that is why I must hurry away. I 
 must be ready for them/ And she made me make haste 
 to find for her a cab. It seemed strange to me that, if 
 they were to take supper with you later, she should not 
 stop to speak with them, but I found a cab for her and she 
 drove away. But, M'sieu," and here there was more than 
 a trace of anxiety in the old woman's voice, "when the cab 
 started she was crying, softly." 
 
 Murdoch understood at once the pathos of Lizette's 
 little lie about her knowledge of his friends and it made 
 him choke with guilty consciousness of his neglect. He
 
 AT THE MOULIN ROUGE. 47 
 
 hurried out. He, too, passed the table where the Ameri 
 cans were still sitting, but he only looked toward it and 
 bowed good-bye. He did not stop and gossip this time. 
 All that was decent and manly in him rose up and chided 
 him for the first thoughtless thing he had ever done to the 
 little girl who never had and never could show him one 
 thoughtless sign. Had she really gone to the studio? He 
 knew why she had told the old woman the lie about having 
 to prepare supper for the Americans. She had not wanted 
 anyone to know that he had friends to whom he would not 
 introduce her. Poor little Lizette! Not maid, nor wife, 
 nor widow, yet so true! So very true!
 
 CHAPTER VIH. 
 
 IN THE STUDIO. 
 
 On that ride to the studio Murdoch was glad, for the 
 first time in his life, that he had, by chance, hit upon one 
 of those desperate cochers who are prone to whip their 
 horses and drive like mad. He was even profane in 
 French, when he spoke to him, which was most unusual, 
 and constantly threw at him from between his teeth a 
 piece of French slang which is exactly equivalent to the 
 American "push on the lines." The driver pushed on the 
 lines with such enthusiasm that it was a very short time, 
 indeed, before the cab reached the studio. But Lizette 
 was not there. Murdoch was distressed. To place after 
 place the studios of people whom they both knew he 
 was driven as rapidly as possible, but he found her in none 
 of them. Finally, more worried and remorseful than he 
 had ever been in all his life before, he told the driver to 
 go slowly up the Boul' Miche, so that he might think of 
 some other place in which to search. 
 
 He guessed at the depths of dark despair into which his 
 lack of consideration might have plunged the little one, 
 and there were in his mind visions of the Seine that 
 muddy, narrow stream which had so disappointed him on 
 his first day in Paris. And beyond them was a picture of 
 that ghastly morgue, where they put the dead behind a 
 plate-glass window opening on the street, so that passers-by 
 may view and perhaps identify them. 
 
 On his way he passed the Domperille. He did not look 
 toward it, but as he passed the strong voice of Kentucky 
 called his name. At first he thought he would not stop. 
 He did not want to see Kentucky; he wanted to see 
 Lizette ? and he did not pause. But he bethought himself
 
 IN THE STUDIO. 49 
 
 that Kentucky might help him in his search, so he turned 
 back and called to him. Kentucky met him on the side 
 walk. 
 
 "You are looking for her?" he queried. 
 
 Murdoch's face gave answer. 
 
 "I tried to take her to the studio, but she would not go. 
 I had no idea what to do. I brought her here, finally, be 
 cause it is the only place where I have credit and I didn't 
 have a sou. I was a little frightened. She seemed to be 
 excited. You understand. I don't know what the 
 trouble is, but I hope it isn't anything very serious, old 
 man/' 
 
 "I neglected her," said Murdoch, with bitter self-accu 
 sation. "I neglected her while I talked to some people 
 from America. It was in the Moulin Eouge, and I left 
 her with others while I went and talked to them. It had 
 been such a happy evening up to then. It's a shame, 
 Kentucky, and I'm a duffer." 
 
 They turned and went inside the cafe". On the way 
 Kentucky said: 
 
 "She wanted to sit at one of the outside tables a par 
 ticular one. She seemed to have some reason for wanting 
 to sit there. She said she wanted to be there just once 
 more or something like that, but it's a pretty raw night 
 and I got her to come in. I knew you would be looking 
 for her, Murdoch. Here she is, right over here." 
 
 But there she was not, nor was she anywhere else 
 around the cafe. She had disappeared as mysteriously as 
 fog does before the wind. They were astonished. Ken 
 tucky, particularly, who had just left her sitting there, 
 was amazed and much distressed. 
 
 For hours they searched for her. They questioned the 
 police, and, along toward morning, they even went to that 
 frightful place with the ghastly show-window. Finally a 
 grave sergeant of police, who had, he said, had much ex 
 perience with women, asked them if they had been back 
 to the studio during the last few hours. They had not 
 thought it worth their while to go there. It was, appar 
 ently, the studio and its associations that she was fleeing 
 from. The sergeant advised them to go back. There
 
 50 LIZETTE. 
 
 Murdoch found her, wrapped up in her own particular 
 little rug, a small bundle of misery. 
 
 "Eet ees that I saw you as you drove up to M'sieu Ken 
 tucky on the sidewalk," she said, sobbing. "I am so vairy 
 much ash-amed; so vairy much ash-amed. So I could not 
 wait until you came into the cafe, for I knew that before 
 all those people those people whom we care not at all 
 about I should be crying. So I hurried here. I sup 
 posed that you had been with your friends all the time 
 until you went to the cafe, but when I came here I found 
 that you had been making the gr-r-rand search for me 
 that you were so meeserable. The concierge told me that 
 you woke her up and were so meeserable and so much 
 frightened! And then I felt so oh, so vairy weecked! I 
 was afraid that if I went out it was that I should miss you 
 when you came in, and when you did not come in again I 
 was afraid that I had best go and look for you, only I did 
 not know where it was that I had better go. And so all 
 that there was which I could do was to lie here and cry 
 oh, to cry so vairy much! I am so vairy weecked to you! 
 So vairy weecked to you! And why should it be that you 
 should not sit with your friends and talk of the country 
 that is your home, if you should want to? I know I 
 know that it is not for me to have the say. And if it was 
 that it was for me to have the say, my Pudgy, my say 
 would be to you that you should always do what thing 
 would be most pleasing to you. But it is not for me it 
 is for you to have the say. You are so good to me! Oh, 
 Pudgy! Pudgy!" 
 
 "What made you run away from me? Was it because 
 I was so long in coming? I am sorry I was so long. But 
 they were old, old friends, and while we talked of people 
 that I know in New York, and while we talked of the old 
 college days, I forgot how fast the time was passing. Won't 
 you forgive me, little one? Won't you?" pleaded Mur 
 doch. 
 
 "It is not you but I who should forgiveness ask," said 
 Lizette, miserably. "It is I, and, oh, I do! Please, please 
 forgive me. I must tell you something that is, oh, so 
 vairy weecked! But I must tell you. You must know
 
 IN THE STUDIO. 51 
 
 what a small imbecile is this Lizette, whom you Have think 
 you love, before you tell her that she is forgive." 
 
 And then she poured out a small confession, but by the 
 manner of her telling* of it it was plain to see that she 
 thought she had been most grievously at fault. She told 
 how her soul had been stirred with curiosity to see these 
 people from his home so far across the seas, and how she 
 had induced the old woman who sold coals to walk with 
 her, so that from the other side of a pillar, which partly 
 hid her from him, she could stand for a moment and 
 watch the party at the table. 
 
 "Oh, it was weecked/' she said over and over to him, 
 while she nestled in his arms there in the studio. "It was 
 vairy weecked, vairy, vairy weecked for me to stand and 
 look at you as if I were the spy. But so I did. And 
 when I saw that girl that girl who comes from where 
 your home is and saw you talk to her and saw her look 
 at you, I thought bad thoughts. I thought that when you 
 were with her you had forgotten me. I have the thought, 
 Pudgy, that I hard worked to make myself unhappy. I 
 have the thought that you have been so vairy good to me 
 that I tried most weeckedly to feel most meeserable. It 
 is so sometimes with women. I think I tried to give my 
 self the jealousness, and I have fear, Pudgy, that I did 
 it" 
 
 Then Murdoch foolish Murdoch told her the little 
 story of Mary Markleham. He told her that he had at 
 one time thought he loved her; but he added that he had 
 only learned what real love was when he had met and 
 known her Lizette. He told her that before he had 
 come to Paris that girl had danced with him at college 
 hops and worn his colors at the college games, but he 
 added that nowadays he did not care to dance with any 
 one, but only keep his arms around her Lizette. He 
 told her that once he had thought that he could spend his 
 life and be happy with that other girl, but he added that 
 now he knew he could not, that in all the world there was 
 only one woman for whom he cared at all, and that one 
 woman was Lizette. 
 
 This made her very happy then. This made her nestle
 
 52 LIZETTE. 
 
 in his arms and love him and feel much pride that she 
 had won him then. This made her feel that always he 
 would have his arms around her and that never would he 
 look upon another woman then.
 
 CHAPTEK IX. 
 
 A DINNEB PAETY. 
 
 It was a month after the flight of Lizette from the Mou 
 lin Eouge and Murdoch's search for her that she told him 
 she was glad it all had happened. 
 
 "If it is that you have the certainty that you are glad 
 of me and not sorry of the losing of that other girl, I am 
 most glad it happened. Of a certainty I rejoice. For 
 never, Pudgy, never once before had you told me that 
 you loved me loved me, Lizette as you told it to me 
 then, after you had found me in the studio." 
 
 "I never loved you so before," said Murdoch. 
 
 "Then shall I often run away," said Lizette, laughing, 
 "so that each time your love will grow for me." 
 
 "You must never run away from me again," said Mur 
 doch. 
 
 There came to him, as he said this, a strange feeling 
 of uneasiness. It seemed almost like a hint of evil in the 
 future. She must never run away from him again! 
 That meant that all their lives must be together, and 
 that meant many things. Not all his life would be 
 spent in Paris. That he knew. He must go home some 
 time. And when he went he must take her with him. 
 There could be no doubt of that. He thought this over 
 carefully and slowly. He must take her with him. She 
 must be ever with him. The real soul-sorrow that had 
 bitten him that night when he had lost her for a few 
 hours only taught him that he did not care to live without 
 her. 
 
 The problem was a difficult one to solve, for his people 
 in New York had never known Lizette, and he knew that 
 their opposition to his marriage to her would be hard and
 
 54 LIZETTE. 
 
 bitter. But he solemnly made up his mind fhat when 
 the time came that marriage should take place and that 
 where he went she should go, what he had she should 
 have. He had no thought that he would ever return to 
 the old home in America for an extended stay. He knew, 
 without conceit, that he was on the road to success in his 
 painting, and Paris is the place for painters Paris or 
 somewhere else in France. He thought of speaking to 
 her of it, but he did not. He reasoned that it would be 
 better for him to go home first and have the struggle, 
 which he knew would be waiting for him there when he 
 told his plans, before he told her of them. 
 
 The idea of a secret marriage he put from Him. He 
 should never give anyone the right to think that when 
 he led his loved one to the altar he did so with feelings 
 of any kind but pride. He reasoned foolishly, but his 
 foolishness was thoughtful foolishness. He did not speak 
 to her about it. They were too happy as they were for 
 him to disturb the fine serenity of their relations. But 
 when the time came then he would speak to her and tell 
 in whispered words about his plans for her. Certainly he 
 should take her to New York. She surely deserved that 
 recognition. He should take her to New York that she 
 might see America that land which was to her a land 
 of wonders so that the people in America whom he knew 
 should see her and know how proud and glad he was to 
 call her wife. On the day the very day that his work 
 in Paris ended, he would tell her all these things. How 
 happy she would be! He smiled softly as he thought 
 of it. 
 
 His progress in his work was exceptional. He was well 
 liked by his fellow students^ though one could not have 
 called him a popular man. He was too grave and earnest, 
 too little given to merriment for that. But with the mas 
 ters he was popular. His art was unmistakable. There 
 was a firmness of purpose in what he did, a certainty in 
 his conceptions of his studies and a sureness in his way 
 of painting them, that few students showed. He won 
 the Prix des Beaux Arts and rushed home to tell of it. It 
 was his picture, "Parting," that took the honors, and
 
 A DINNER PARTY. 55 
 
 surely none but he must take the news to her. The 
 other students regarded him with astonishment. He did 
 not linger to receive their high congratulations. Some 
 shook their heads and smiled. Murdoch's devotion had 
 not passed unnoticed in the Quarter. It was too unusual. 
 She was like an elf gone mad with joy when he told her 
 of the great news. Ah! But that was something! To 
 carry off the Beaux Arts! Yes! And Pudgy did he 
 know that she had posed for "Parting?" Did he remem 
 ber? Or had the memory gone from him in his joy? It 
 had not gone from him? That was very well. 
 
 She insisted on a celebration. They had etuck close at 
 home since the night when their evening at the Moulin 
 Rouge had had so bad an ending. Now they must cele 
 brate. He agreed and handed her a hundred franc note, 
 and told her that she must be cashier. She was over 
 whelmed, for a hundred francs is almost twenty dollars. 
 Tiens ! But it was wonderful, this boy of hers who won 
 great prizes and then spent such sums in celebration of his 
 victories! But she agreed. Indeed only one person in 
 all Paris was happier that afternoon than was John Mur 
 doch, and that person was Lizette. V&vla! She was 
 proud of himl 
 
 Lizette was lost in deep and solemn thought. It was a 
 problem which must be carefully considered this dinner 
 of the celebration. At last she spoke: 
 
 "Yais," she said, slowly, "it is that we must have the 
 great big fun? Is it not so? It is so. We must take with us 
 M'sieu Kaintucky. He has not many of the good times, 
 unless he gets them with the absinthe, which is bad. We 
 have so much of happiness we can surely spare some 
 pieces of it to Kaintucky. It is that we must drive around 
 and get him, and take him with us/' 
 
 And it was that they did drive around to get him, and 
 that his joy was great. Murdoch decided on a little 
 restaurant not far up the Seine. Lizette loved the water, 
 although she knew it only from the little steamboats that 
 ply up and down the muddy stream that splits Paris into 
 halves, and this plan greatly pleased her. 
 
 The steamboat landing from which they were to begin
 
 56 LIZETTE. 
 
 their water journey was at the foot of the wall of the 
 Gardens of the Tuilleries. A king had had it built for the 
 landing place of his royal barge. Now the two-sou steam 
 boats stopped at it. And as Lizette stepped from it to the 
 grimy little steamer, Murdoch thought that she was fitted 
 to its ancient uses. 
 
 A loud voice called his name and made him turn as they 
 were about to board the boat. It was Fitzpatrick's voice, 
 and he stood there at the top of the river wall, puffing and 
 blowing as a man will after he has chased a hurrying 
 Paris cab for two or three long blocks. 
 
 Murdoch stepped back from the gang-plank and 
 Lizette and Kentucky followed to the dock just as the 
 little steamer, with much ado, started on its journey. 
 
 "What upon earth are you in Paris for?" Murdoch 
 shouted to the figure on the wall. 
 
 "I'm a pilgrim and a stranger and I'm looking for a 
 friend who wants to eat," said Fitzpatrick. 
 
 Lizette went close to Murdoch and whispered in her 
 happiness, so loud that they all heard: 
 
 "And he, Pudgy," she said with earnestness. "And he. 
 He is far away from home. He has just come here. Can 
 not he go with us, too, and also have the happiness? We 
 must have many. I have so much to spend!" 
 
 "When did you get in, Fitzpatrick?" Murdoch asked. 
 
 "Just now." 
 
 "Got anything to do?" 
 
 "Not a thing on earth except to see you and your 
 friends. How are you. Hip! Hip! for the banker's son 
 that won the prize of honor. I saw it in the "Figaro," 
 not ten minutes ago." 
 
 "Come along and eat with us, in celebration of it," 
 said Murdoch. "We're going to a little place I know of 
 up the river. Come on." 
 
 "I'll do it. Murdy, you're a wonder. We're all proud 
 of yon. You do me proud. If you do me any prouder we 
 shall miss the next boat. I've already made you miss one; 
 besides, I'm hungry. Come on." 
 
 They went. 
 
 The table was on a balcony overlooking the river, which
 
 A DINNER PARTY. 57 
 
 was bright with small boats and gaily decorated little 
 steamers. On the terrace between the balcony and the 
 river the French love for gas-pipe arches dotted with 
 colored globes had had full play. As darkness came these 
 little lights made the lawn look bright and lively. This 
 little restaurant is one of the places strangers know not of, 
 but in good weather its tables are always full. Murdoch 
 had been there only a few times, but the omnipresent hat- 
 buyer seemed perfectly at home there. He was a never- 
 failing source of wonder to Lizette. While the busy, 
 happy little hat-buyer had disappeared to have a consul 
 tation with the chef, whom he boldly claimed as a friend, 
 she expressed her wonder at him. 
 
 "Some day," said Murdoch, "I shall take you to America 
 where such strange things grow/' 
 
 She looked quickly at him and smiled. It was the first 
 time he had ever said that to her. 
 
 Lizette gave the order for the dinner to the chef himself, 
 not to any waiter. The monarch of the kitchen could 
 not think of hearing what Fitzpatrick's friends wished to 
 eat, except from their own mouths. 
 
 It was a merry dinner. It began at half-past six, and 
 ten o'clock had come before it was ended. Lizette was 
 hostess and was overwhelmed by the great dignity. With 
 her own hands she served the dishes. It was agreed that 
 Murdoch must sit still and look as pretty as he could. 
 
 It was the first time Lizette had ever seen Fitzpatrick 
 for more than a moment at a time, and the breezy little 
 man delighted her. She pleased him, greatly, too, and 
 her English filled him with a wild joy which was not ap 
 proached 'by Lizette's puzzled pleasure in his Irish-French. 
 Kentucky was happy and contented. He loved that pair 
 Lizette and Murdoch and gazed proudly at them as if 
 they were his children. Ah! If he had known the truth 
 that night, as he learned about it long afterward, what 
 a dinner that would have been for him. If to the happi 
 ness of Murdoch's great success could have been added, 
 then, the knowledge of that other happiness, the news 
 of which would sometime come, when it was almost too 
 late to please him, how overflowing would have been the
 
 58 LIZETTE. 
 
 cup of joy of poor Kentucky. The failure of his youthful 
 hopes of great success would not have mattered. The 
 years of disappointment which he had even then passed 
 through and all the sorrows of his aimless, wasted life, 
 would have rested light as thistle-down upon the shoulders 
 that were that night stooped by them and, later, be 
 came so bent and burdened by them that the effort of the 
 bearing almost bore them down. 
 
 But Kentucky was most happy this night, and so spar 
 ing of the wine that he lost none of all the charm of the 
 affair. 
 
 Each year two baseball nines were, even then, organized 
 among the American students in Paris. The games were 
 not such great affairs as nowadays they are, but there was 
 much fun in them. Kentucky asked Murdoch if he had 
 been asked to play. He told of the last year's game, 
 
 "I don't believe the game this year will amount to 
 much," he said, "but there have been some great games 
 in the past. Harvey was the best player in Paris. He 
 went home this year. There was always a fight between 
 the managers of both nines to get Harvey. The funny 
 thing about it was that Harvey had a wooden leg." 
 
 "Why I knew Harvey," said Murdoch. "He limped, 
 but he couldn't have had a wooden leg." 
 
 "Yes, he had," said Kentucky, "and he's got one yet. 
 That was another funny thing about it. No one dreamed 
 that he had a wooden leg. He limped a little, but no one 
 would dream, to see him walk, that he had actually lost a 
 leg. It had been cut off in a railroad accident in Ameri 
 ca, when he was about eighteen or so, and he handled 
 the artificial substitute better than most men can use 
 their real ones. He showed that there was something 
 radically wrong with him when he went up and down 
 stairs, but at other times he merely seemed to have a 
 peculiarity in his gait, and not much of one at that. And 
 on level ground he could run like a deer. The day for 
 the great game came. We had Harvey for our nine, 
 which was otherwise pretty weak. When we went into 
 the field in the ninth, we felt reasonably certain that we 
 should be beaten. Harvey was our only hope, and he had
 
 A DINNER PARTY. 59 
 
 been playing the worst kind of ball. All our fellows felt 
 down in the dumps. There were three men on bases 
 when Harvey showed what stuff he was made of. Some 
 of the fellows thought he had been soldiering, but they 
 never charged him with such a thing again. As I said, 
 they had three on bases, just waiting for a good hit to 
 take 'em home. If they got there we were done. We 
 knew that. They had their very best batsman at the plate. 
 Harvey was playing centre field. That fellow at the bat 
 was a wonder and we knew it. He made a specialty of 
 hot grounders and they were hot ones. There wasn't a 
 man in our crowd that would think of trying to stop one 
 of them. They would have burned your hands right off 
 you. Well, he hit one out toward center field, wher? 
 Harvey was standing. You could hear it hum. Harvey 
 didn't reach for it and no one blamed him. But he did 
 hold out his wooden leg in front of it. The ball struck 
 that wooden leg with the noise of a stone hitting a board 
 fence and went straight up into the air. Harvey caught 
 it neatly and sent it home in time to make a double play 
 and we won the game. 
 
 "Well, that night the fellows and the girls all gathered 
 at the Domperille to talk about the game. Percy Plum- 
 mer was telling the story of our victory, and he got to the 
 part where Harvey saved the game for us. 'Harvey/ he 
 said proudly, 'just stuck his leg out for that grounder, and 
 it hit it with the noise of a hammer on a timber. He 
 caught it as it came down, and sent it home and saved 
 the game for us.' 
 
 "Percy expected everyone to laugh. But you see there 
 were not half a dozen people in Paris who dreamed that 
 Harvey had a wooden leg, outside of our little crowd, that 
 knew him well. Some of the girls even wasted pity on 
 him, and two or three of them exclaimed, in chorus, 'Oh, 
 poor Mr. Harvey! How it must have hurt him!' 'What,' 
 said Percy.^ 'Didn't you know that Harvey had a wooden 
 leg?' 'Oh! Go on,' or words to that effect, was the incredu 
 lous reply from pretty nearly every one, who was listening. 
 Well, Percy proposed to prove it. He pulled himself to 
 gether and kicked Harvey's leg with all the force that
 
 60 LIZETTE. 
 
 there was in him, just to show them that he was right. 
 But he didn't kick the wooden leg; he kicked the other 
 one. They have never spoken from that day to this/' 
 
 Fitzpatrick demanded more. Kentucky was plainly 
 pleased hy the success his little tale had made at this most 
 sumptuous feast. 
 
 "Did I ever tell you about Darcy and Eaton?" he asked 
 Murdoch. 
 
 "No," said Murdoch. 
 
 "Well," they were inseparables. When they first came 
 to Paris they each had a little money and they both had 
 the same old hallucination that the little money would last 
 forever. They always traveled together and it was not 
 very long before they realized that something must be 
 done. It was plain that they must pull in their horns or 
 starve to death before their next remittance came. 
 
 "They talked this over carefully and decided to re 
 trench. And right there, for the first time and the last 
 time in the lives of either one of them, so far as I know, 
 they showed sense. They found a little studio, over back 
 of where the Boullier is now, and they counted up their 
 cash. They had enough to pay a full year's rental in ad 
 vance, and they did it. Their idea was, that if the impos 
 sible should happen that is, if they should quarrel they 
 would still have the year's rent paid and thus the quarrel 
 could not possibly financially discommode either one of 
 them. Together, they could get along somehow. Apart, 
 they would certainly go under. 
 
 "I don't know whether it was because they had talked 
 about it so much or not, but the quarrel finally came. I 
 had heard nothing of it when I went up to see them one 
 day. Darcy, you know, was a sculptor, and Eaton painted, 
 principally in water colors. 
 
 "When I went into the studio, I saw at on^e that there 
 was something wrong there. Darcy's mass was of sculptor's 
 clay stopped at the middle of the floor, where there was a 
 wide white mark, which went all the way across the room. 
 Eaton's side of the room was clean and neat. I spoke to 
 Eaton first, as he was nearest to me. Then I nodded to 
 Darcy. I was never more surprised in my life. He
 
 A DINNER PARTY. 61 
 
 looked stonily above and beyond my head, and paid not 
 the least attention to me. This was rather hard on me, 
 for I had done a number of things to help the boy when 
 he had first come to Paris. You know I was an old 
 timer, even then, and I could introduce fellows and show 
 them the ropes, even if I couldn't paint, myself. Well, I 
 felt bad about his cutting me. It seemed a pity. But 
 the Paris art student is a funny creature, anyhow. There 
 was nothing I could say or do. I talked a minute with 
 Eaton and went away. 
 
 "The place was up three or four flights of stairs I for 
 get just how many and I had scarcely started on the 
 second flight from the top when I heard somebody calling 
 my name. I looked back, and there was Darcy, the man 
 who had just cut me. At first I paid no attention to his 
 calls, but at last I stopped and did my best to glare glassily 
 at him. It was no use. The boy's face showed that he 
 was really glad to see me, and, as he held out his hand I 
 had to take it. 
 
 " 'What's the matter with you?' I asked, before he had 
 a chance to speak. 
 
 "I never saw an expression of more completely injured 
 innocence on the face of any man than his wore, when he 
 answered, 'What's the matter with me? What's the matter 
 with you? Why don't you come in to see a fellow when 
 you come up to the studio?' 
 
 " 'Why, you blithering idiot,' I said, 'I have just been up 
 to see you and when I tried to say hello, you cut me dead.' 
 
 " 'The trouble is,' he answered, 'that you stayed in 
 Eaton's part of the studio. I make it a point not to see 
 any one who is on his side of the white line which runs 
 through the middle of the room. Eaton and I don't speak, 
 you know. We've quarreled. Yes, indeed. Next time 
 you come up come over on my side of the line and every- 
 thing 5 !! be all right. Eaton won't speak to you, then. 
 I'm glad you understand about it now. I thought you 
 had heard about it before.' 
 
 "And after that every time I went up there to see those 
 two boys I could talk to one of them on one side of the 
 line and to the other of them on the other side of the line.
 
 62 IIZETTE. 
 
 But the minute I stepped across that line the fellow on 
 the other side of it became as oblivious of my presence as 
 if I had not been on the earth. I tried to fool 'em by 
 sneaking across when they were not looking, and getting 
 them very much interested in something I was saying, and 
 then speaking to them. But I never worked it once. I 
 don't know whether they ever made it up or not. But 
 they had to live the year out together in the same room, 
 anyway, for they had paid a year's rent in advance." 
 
 When it had been agreed that Lizette should order din 
 ner, Murdoch had especially stipulated that it should be 
 his privilege to order the dessert, a demand which greatly 
 mystified Lizette, but which she yielded to, of course. It 
 somewhat surprised her to have him go into the small 
 hotel to order it; but this he did, and what he did was 
 right, in her eyes. While the dinner was in progress and 
 while the others were telling tales between the courses, he 
 sometimes found her hand waiting for him beneath the 
 white and ample folds of the table cloth, and constantly 
 they kept up a telegraphic communication with their feet 
 under the table. He said very little, except to her, and 
 what he said to her was mostly with his eyes. 
 
 By and by, he asked Fitzpatrick where he had been in 
 America. 
 
 "Oh, only in little old New York. It's good enough 
 for me. Say, as a town, wouldn't that one make Paris 
 sick? As a town, I mean a place to really do business 
 in." 
 
 Here he leaned back luxuriously in his chair and sur 
 veyed the table and all the people at it with an air that 
 meant he was content with all the world. Finally he let 
 his kindly little eyes rest on Lizette's face. 
 
 "But Miss Miss," he began and stammered. 
 
 "Lizette, if you please," she said, smiling. 
 
 "But," he went on, thanking her with a nod, "there is 
 nothing in New York that will equal this," and he swept 
 his hand toward the restaurant and the river. "And, may 
 I add," he went on, with Irish blarney, "that there is 
 nothing in New York which will compete wifh the beauty 
 of the Parisiennes, of whom you are the lovely representa-
 
 A DINNER PARTI. 63 
 
 rive here to-night. The hostess, the dinner, the sur 
 roundings are simply great. Murdoch, you're a lucky 
 man." 
 
 Then he turned to Murdoch. 
 
 "By the way, old boy," he said, "I saw your governor 
 while I was in New York/' 
 
 Murdoch was all interest at once. 
 
 "Dear old governor," he said. "How was he looking? 
 I got a letter from him the other day in which he said 
 everything was all right. But his letters are mighty un 
 satisfactory. They are about as lengthy as his endorse 
 ment on a check. His health, business affairs and every 
 thing else in America which would naturally interest me 
 are generally summed up in two words, 'All right/ " 
 
 "Well, that just about describes the situation, so far 
 as I could see," Fitzpatrick said. "He said you were not 
 a wonder at letter writing, either. There's no doubt 
 about his business affairs being as right as anything. I 
 understand that he pulled out a quarter of a million in 
 that last big railroad flurry, and I am told that neither he 
 nor his has any reason to go hungry. He's mighty fond 
 of you, old chap. Of course, you know that. He ques 
 tioned me very closely about you when he found that I 
 had met you in Paris. He'll be tickled to death over your 
 getting this prize. I don't believe he quite understands 
 why upon earth you should want to be a painter, though, 
 and he intimated to me that when you came back to 
 America you'd probably take his place in the bank, and, 
 I suppose, his millions also in the end." 
 
 "Ees eet zat your father is so vairy reech, Pudgy?" 
 asked Lizette, with wondering eyes. "Millions! Mon 
 Dieu! Think what you will do when you are reech." 
 
 "He'll probably buy his own pictures," said Fitzpatrick. 
 "It will never do for a respectable American banker to 
 have pictures from his brush hanging in such common 
 places as the Luxembourg and other galleries of Europe." 
 
 "If anybody buys 'em, it probably will be me," said 
 Murdoch, laughing. 
 
 "Seriously, old chap," went on Fitzpatrick, "when are 
 you going back to America? I judged from what your
 
 64 LIZETTE. 
 
 father said that it might be very soon. When shall you 
 have finished your course?" 
 
 There was nothing about this question which ought to 
 have been disturbing to anyone around the table. But it 
 certainly did disturb Murdoch, and it certainly did disturb 
 Lizette. Murdoch had not thought, definitely, about go 
 ing home. He had been living in a dream a delightful 
 dream of happiness. He loved his work, and he worked 
 hard at it. That his father might ever want him to re 
 turn to America, and take his own place as manager of 
 the bank, was a possibility which he supposed had been 
 killed when he had chosen art as his profession. The 
 problems which confront most young artists in Paris had 
 not confronted him. He had had no need to worry about 
 money. And for this very reason, perhaps this feeling 
 of security the knowledge that all he had to do was to 
 paint and that he would never have to worry about selling 
 what he painted, if the people did not want to buy, had 
 made it easier than it otherwise would have been for him 
 to do good work and do thorough work. Pot-boiling had 
 not been his portion. He was far from being an extrava 
 gant man, but what he needed he had ample money to 
 obtain. Both he and Lizette were economical in their 
 expenditures, she sometimes so much so that it made him 
 laugh, but it had not been necessary, in order for them to 
 live, for them to resort to any of those ingenious subter 
 fuges which are so interesting to read about in novels, but 
 which are really hard upon and seriously retard the 
 progress of some of the art students in Paris. 
 
 The source of all these comfortable circumstances had 
 not been brought closely to his mind for some time until 
 Fitzpatrick spoke about the fact that his father expected 
 him to go back to New York and take his hereditary place 
 at the head of the banking house of the Murdochs. It 
 seemed to him that if his father really expected that, it 
 must be that he had wholly failed to take the art work 
 which the son was doing in Paris seriously. While he 
 was sitting there at that little restaurant on the Seine, a 
 picture of the president'? room at the bank, with its dark 
 woodwork and its solemn chairs and its massive desk,
 
 A DINNER PARTY. 65 
 
 came 'back to him with intense vividness. The highly 
 polished letter cabinet and the private copying press with 
 its little safe for private letter books, the occasional, far- 
 off tinkle of the bell when the handle under the desk 
 should be pulled, the answering appearance of a sedate 
 clerk who knew just what to do and how to do it, almost 
 without being told at all all these things were plain be 
 fore him. He tried to imagine himself sitting in that 
 chair, writing on that desk, ringing that bell, and trans 
 acting the business of the bank. The picture was so in 
 congruous to his present surroundings and the life that 
 had been his among them, that his imagination was not 
 vivid enough to conjure it up with any convincing look 
 of reality. There, at that restaurant, on the Seine, with 
 Lizette's little hand pressing his beneath the table cloth, 
 with the colored gas-lamps arching overhead and with 
 Fitzpatrick and Kentucky jabbering about the Latin 
 Quarter, he could not realize that this other and different 
 life could possibly be expected of him seriously by any 
 one. It sobered him and took all the smiles away from 
 him so thoroughly that Lizette, quick in sympathetic in 
 tuition, knew at once that there were thoughts in that 
 great head of Pudgy's which were solemn, and instantly 
 she became solemn, too. He raised his eyes from his plate 
 to which they had fallen, in answer to a question from the 
 little one. There was a worried little smile on her charm 
 ing face, and he answered it as best he could with another 
 one which had more of worry in it than had hers. 
 
 "It is that you said that you, yourself, were to order 
 of the dessert, Pudgy," she said to him. "Well, if it is 
 that it is so, it would be right that you should order it at 
 the once. For we have already reached almost the time for 
 it" 
 
 "Yes," said Murdoch, gravely, "it is that the dessert 
 shall ordered be as soon as it is that I, with haste, can 
 order it. Your English is almost good enough to eat for 
 dessert, Lizette." 
 
 "It surely is that it is you that of it must not make fun," 
 said Lizette, with much mock reproach, which ended in one 
 of her rippling laughs one of those laughs which ever
 
 66 LIZETTE. 
 
 reminded Murdoch of the tinkling of the brook over the 
 green stones at Bois le Roi, in the Forest of Fontainebleu. 
 No one did and no one ever can again laugh in a way 
 that will be as delightful to the ears of John Murdoch 
 as were those liquid trills and quavers which meant in the 
 old days that Lizette was happy. Poor Lizette! Poor 
 little Lizette! She was ever happy in those days. 
 
 So Murdoch went away to order the dessert. There 
 was an air of mystery about his going which caused vast 
 speculation on the part of those who remained at the 
 table. Wild were the guesses as to what was likely to 
 appear upon the table as the result of his absence, and 
 great was the delight of Lizette, when she heard what the 
 two men said about her idol while he was away. At last 
 he returned. He was followed by the waiter. When I 
 record the fact that this waiter's name was Mola, there 
 may be those among the readers of this story who will 
 know where the restaurant was (and still is) and who will 
 be able to bring to their minds' eyes that strange and 
 devilish twinkle which lurked in those of Mola as he 
 approached. 
 
 He bore on a tray four covered dishes. 
 
 "It's hot pudding/' said Kentucky. 
 
 "It's pork and beans/' said Fitzpatrick. 
 
 But little Lizette said never a word. Her eyes turned 
 from the tray in Mola's hands to the eyes of her beloved 
 and stopped there, happily, as they ever did when his 
 sought hers. 
 
 "This one," said Murdoch, turning away from her to 
 direct the great business in hand and pointing out one 
 particular covered dish, "is for you,' Lizette. I selected 
 this dessert because I won the Prix d'Honneur and you 
 were so happy over it. I hope that you will like it. 
 
 Murdoch looked down at the covered plate which had 
 been placed before her, while Mola placed the other three. 
 Her ever obedient eyes followed his. What he said was not 
 at all in the nature of a speech. He was much embarrassed, 
 and he hesitated as he tried to find his words. 
 
 "I am glad that you fellows are here to-day/' said 
 Murdoch. "There isn't any one*else whom I would care to
 
 A DINNER PARTY. 67 
 
 have here. You chaps both know what this little girl 
 means to me. You know that whatsoever small success I 
 have made since I have been here in Paris has been due 
 more to her than it has to me. She has been the animating 
 cause of all the hard work I have done since I have been 
 here. Had it not been for her, I am sure that instead of 
 working hard and earnestly, as I have worked, I should 
 have loafed and fiddled my time away. She has given me 
 all that I have gained. Perhaps that may not be much in 
 the eyes of other people, but it is a great deal in my eyes 
 and she has given it all to me." 
 
 Lizette's face was carmine. 
 
 "Pudgy!" she said in protest, softly. 
 
 "It is all true," Murdoch went on. "But I have never 
 given her anything. We have lived our little lives, and 
 had our little sorrows and big joys. The many joys have 
 been her doings; the sorrows have, every one, been my 
 fault. I don't believe that I have made Lizette think that 
 I have been selfish or ungrateful, but I have surely not 
 shown my gratitude in many ways which I might have 
 found to show it. To-day, after I had won the prize, I 
 wanted to do something for Lizette. Perhaps it might 
 have been better for me to have done it when we were 
 alone, but you fellows know us both, and like us, I guess. 
 It has been very kind of you to come and take dinner with 
 us. And so and so let us go on with our dessert." 
 
 His voice faltered perceptibly before he stopped. They 
 all were mystified, and Lizette especially so. During all 
 of his little harangue Murdoch had evidently been more 
 or less deeply affected. His speech had often been halt 
 ing. The enthusiastic interruptions which Fitzpatrick 
 had thrown at him had not bothered him at all, but at 
 the same time it had been easy for the others to see that 
 it had often been hard for him to finish what he had 
 wanted to say when he began. When he had finished, he 
 began with real nervousness to finger his knife and fork, 
 and to break off little pieces of the long bread-sticks, 
 which form a very essential part of the meal at the little 
 restaurant on the Seine. 
 
 Perhaps because he had told them to go on with their
 
 68 LIZETTE. 
 
 
 
 dessert, not one at the table touched his plate or the cover 
 on it. All the other diners had left the little terrace. It 
 was fully ten o'clock and some of the gas lamps had been 
 turned out. Presently Murdoch arose and, going around 
 behind Lizette, himself lifted the cover from her plate. 
 
 What followed made Murdoch think of the first Christ 
 mas he could remember. There had been one thing, and 
 only one, that he had wanted. His father had not been so 
 rich in those days and had been too much absorbed in 
 business to think much about the small things of his son's 
 life. And John had never known a mother. It was a 
 big bob-sled coaster that he wanted that Christmas. His 
 father lived near the long hill on Park avenue, in those 
 days, and there were boys in the neighborhood who had 
 such sleds, but, while he longed for one, he had no idea 
 that even Santa Glaus would think of it and give him 
 one. He had never mentioned his boyish longing to a 
 soul. He was a very generous little "boy, though, and he 
 had thought of everybody and, so far as his little means 
 would go, had purchased for each member of the family 
 and all the servants what he thought they wanted most. 
 
 The Christmas tree had been his own idea; he had 
 himself arranged it, hanging all the little presents on the 
 tree. He expected all these things to come as a complete 
 surprise to everyone, although he had had the back-parlor 
 doors closed tightly all the afternoon, while he arranged 
 his little gifts upon the tree. Then he went to dinner. 
 After dinner he threw open the folding doors, so that the 
 crowd might see what had been prepared for them. He 
 had completely forgotten thoughts of gifts for himself, 
 while he was making these arrangements, but the first 
 thing that he saw after he had opened those doors was 
 the coveted bob-sled, which had been carried in without 
 his knowledge and placed at the very bottom of that tree. 
 He was like a small boy petrified. He could not speak 
 and he could not move. The surprise was complete. The 
 older people had been expecting something of this kind, 
 and no one said anything until the first shock of his boyish 
 joy had passed. They probably wanted to hear what he 
 would say. They heard, and what they heard was;
 
 A DINNER PARTY. (4 
 
 "Hully gee!" 
 
 When Lizette saw the gift that was waiting for her on 
 that plate a long gold chain from which a "beautiful 
 locket was suspended the first important gift John Mur 
 doch had ever given her, she, too, was overcome by a par 
 alyzing surprise. She did not say as the small boy had, 
 "hully gee!" but with her hands clasped and her smiles 
 stiffened, by complete amazement on her face, she said, as 
 only she could say it: 
 
 "Mon Dieu!" 
 
 And John Murdoch knew.
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 "MARRY HER, YOU IDIOT!" 
 
 Their life in Paris was, to Murdoch, as it had been be 
 fore. But the episode at the dinner had meant much to 
 Lizette, and even changed the roadway of her thinking 
 when she was alone. The things Murdoch had said, and 
 the fact that he had said them boldly before the others, 
 especially before Fitzpatrick, who had come straight from 
 New York City, made her feel that she had a place in this 
 world. I don't suppose that she thought as much about 
 the world to come as she might have. Her Heaven was 
 John Murdoch. 
 
 But sometimes, when she felt very happy, the thought 
 of what Fitzpatrick had said about John Murdoch's father 
 expecting him to go back, some day, to New York City, 
 came to her and depressed her. She did not regard this 
 as so very serious. Her life had not been one to make 
 her give much heed unto the future. But she thought of 
 it sometimes and felt a little shiver round her heart. It 
 brought so many strange problems up that possibility 
 that Pudgy might sometime have to go back to please his 
 father. Still they were very happy. 
 
 His picture, "Parting" attracted much attention. The 
 newspapers gave it extended notices, and Fleron, in his 
 feuilleton, one day wove a romance around it, which was 
 wholly without truth, but which was very pretty. Indeed, 
 the story was so charming that it caught the eye of no less 
 a person than Alphonse Daudet, then in the very zenith 
 of his fame and in the very depths of his excruciating 
 suffering from rheumatism. Despite the fact that he had 
 not left his home for weeks, he had had himself taken to 
 the Beaux Arts and, Murdoch was told, had sat in his
 
 MARRY HER, YOU IDIOT! 71 
 
 wheeled chair half an hour before the picture. On the 
 next day the young artist received a note from him, asking 
 him to come and see him. Murdoch went, of course, and 
 equally, of course, he took Lizette. The author of 
 "Sapho," received them very kindly. He was exceedingly 
 infirm, and the deep lines of suffering were drawn with 
 sharp wrinkles in his face. He managed to get about 
 his library by taking the back of a small chair in each 
 hand, and pushing them along as one might use canes. 
 
 He told Murdoch that he had been most pleasantly im 
 pressed by "Parting." He asked him about the Fleron 
 story. Murdoch told him that it was pure fiction. 
 
 "Ah," remarked the author, with a sigh. "I had feared 
 so, and yet I had had hopes that it was true. Had it been 
 true, I should have asked you to go more deeply into it 
 with me, and I should have used it as the basis for a 
 story." 
 
 "Can't you do so anyway?" asked Murdoch, clumsily. 
 
 "Oh, no," said Daudet. "You do not understand. I 
 could get facts for my fiction from you, facts are the 
 property of all the world. But I cannot base a tale upon 
 the fiction of another man. His fiction is his property. 
 The realities of our lives we do not own. The fictions 
 of our imaginations belong to us undividually. 
 
 He shuffled painfully over to his desk, a high one, such 
 as bookkeepers stand up to in making entries in their 
 heavy "books. He never sat down to his writing, he said. 
 Once before his desk he could stand there leaning on it 
 and write for three or four hours at a time, but it was a 
 great task for him to go from it to his easy chair by the 
 window. 
 
 "Would you like to paint my portrait?" he asked of 
 Murdoch, after the matter of "Parting's" story had been 
 discussed. 
 
 "Indeed, I should," said Murdoch. 
 
 "You shall do it," said Daudet, "if I can give you sit 
 tings here. I cannot possibly go to you at your studio." 
 
 Then and there the matter was arranged, and afterward, 
 when the portrait was finished, Daudet pronounced it the 
 best picture of him that anyone had ever made. I think
 
 72 LIZETTE. 
 
 that it is now in the possession of his son, one of those to 
 whom he dedicated "Sapho," with the wise proviso, that 
 they should not read their father's story until they were 
 of age. 
 
 Before Murdoch went away, he mentioned that the next 
 winter he hoped to see the south of France, where the 
 great author's childhood had been spent. 
 
 "But you shall not go south for some time, you say?" 
 asked the author. 
 
 "No," I cannot go before next winter," answered Mur 
 doch. 
 
 "Ah, I am so sorry," said the author with a sigh. "I 
 may be dead then. I had hoped that you would be going 
 soon, so that I might make some pleasure out of you. I 
 have lately made much out of one countryman of yours. 
 You know I have written some small tales about 'Tartarin 
 de Tarascon?' Yes? You have heard of them? I 
 am glad. Well your countryman was a Eoman Catholic, 
 and he was making a what we might call a 'pilgrimage 
 de luxe* to Lourdes. I knew that he was going to the 
 south of France, and as he came to me with a letter from 
 a friend, I did for him what I could. I gave him some 
 letters of introduction to people whom I once knew in 
 Tarascon. I once knew them very well, indeed, so well, 
 in fact, that I used them as the lay figures for the charac 
 ters in 'Tartarin.' 
 
 "The devil must have been in old Daudet that day," he 
 said, smiling cheerfully. "Yes, I am sure that the devil 
 must have been in me when I selected the ones to whom 
 I should give him letters. You know that I have been 
 to Tarascon only once since I wrote the little sketches, and 
 that that time I was both stoned and rotten-egged. Well, 
 I gave him letters to those who had "been most violent to 
 me. He was very grateful to me, but when he presented 
 the letters the people down there almost killed him; I laugh 
 about it many times. I had so hoped that you were going 
 south. I could have given to you letters which might 
 have made your journey very interesting to you." 
 
 The two men laughed. Lizette did not. 
 
 "Suppose," she said, one day not long afterwards,
 
 MAHRY HER, YOU IDIOT! 73 
 
 while she was reading a story by Daudet, "suppose that 
 they had thrown at you the rotten egg! Afterward Ah, 
 afterward I should have creep up to the so high study 
 of M'sieu Daudet an' keel heem wiz ze knife!" 
 
 They had carefully planned that trip to the south of 
 France as the first long journey which they should take 
 together. Alas! If they could have known what trouble 
 would have come by the time they went on it, they could 
 not even have laughed at Daudet's joke. They must have 
 shuddered at the thought of going southward. 
 
 The day they went to see a great woman painter was a 
 great day. This celebrated artist had seen Murdoch's 
 "Parting," in the Salon, and had so liked it that she had 
 written to him to come and see her. It filled Murdoch 
 with a pleasant glow to receive this letter and Lizette was 
 almost wild with pride for him. 
 
 She lived this great woman painter in a big house, 
 and was very rich. What she had, she had made for her 
 self. She was not a man-hater. She admitted that 
 human males sometimes were amusing, but she could not 
 see their paramount importance. That is, she could not 
 in her mind admit that they were so very much superior 
 to human females. 
 
 When they entered her vast studio, they found a very 
 dirty place, almost unfurnished^ except for the easels and 
 a few high stools, built out of rough lumber by the 
 painter's coachman. Paint was everywhere on the 
 floor, on the walls, on the ceiling and even on the panes 
 of glass which formed the "big skylight. For the great 
 lady had many kinds of bad temper, and whenever she 
 had any of the kinds it was her pleasure to throw paint- 
 laden brushes with much energy. Another eccentricity 
 of hers was to dress in trousers and a blouse. She was 
 verging on the sunset of her life, but her figure was still 
 shapely, and the snugness of her trousers and the good 
 cut of the blue-jeans blouse showed that she was still a 
 little proud of it. The poor lady is dead now rest her 
 soul! She no longer rants and raves about the studio. 
 She no longer shouts out to her hearers as she shouted 
 out to Murdoch and Lizette that day that the world has
 
 74 LIZETTE. 
 
 never yet seen a really great artist, or the work of one, 
 while she declares that the pictures of the "so-called old 
 masters" are as crude as the work on the first steam engine. 
 She no longer smokes a hundred cigarettes a day. They 
 had not been there that day more than ten minutes be 
 fore she said, with emphasis, that in the days to come 
 greater artists would be born than the world had ever 
 dreamed of. 
 
 "We who paint to-day," she said in English she was 
 fond of showing her perfection in the language "are but 
 beginners. How long has God Almighty been at work 
 in the making of this world we live on? ^ons of cen 
 turies. /Eons! And even now it is not so great a world. I 
 am certain that there are other planets which would 
 put our little one to shame. But ours is getting better; 
 it is getting better. A million years ago, you know, we 
 all had tails! I have always thought that it must have 
 been most unpleasant to our remote forebears to have had 
 tails. I am sure that I could not tolerate a tail. Our 
 pictures to-day are just as much better than the pictures 
 painted by the ancient Aztecs on their buildings in Mexico 
 as we are better than our forebears who had tails. But 
 we, also, are crude. Do you suppose that the enlightened 
 generations which will come will worship at our shrines, 
 as we worship at the shrines of the very bad artists who 
 have departed, and who could not pay their rent to-day, if 
 they were here? No, they won't. Old masters! Bah! 
 They could not paint. The folk that will come after us 
 will have advanced enough mentally not to be cads and 
 worshippers of what they will know is bad and crude." 
 
 But Lizette, whose whole life had been surrounded by 
 the most beautiful collections of pictures in the whole 
 world, and who had her adorations, numbered this woman 
 artist among them. It hurt her to hear her condemn her 
 own work with the rest. 
 
 "But Madame!" she protested. 
 
 "I am not Madame," the great woman artist answered. 
 
 "Ah! But it is that when I say Madame I mean my 
 respects to you my dignity of meeting and of knowing 
 you. What of your own masterpieces? Surely, they will
 
 MARRY HER, YOU IDIOT! 75 
 
 live in the time of which you speak that time which has 
 so far to come/' 
 
 The great woman artist laughed. 
 
 "The term is absurd," she said. "My pictures are 
 master nothings. They are no kind of pieces, except 
 pieces of daubed canvas. If they are, my dear," and she 
 patted Lizette's hand, for she was for a moment calm, 
 "and if you must insist upon calling me 'Madame,' why 
 then call them not masterpieces, but mistresspieces. You 
 are a dear, and you do me good." 
 
 Then she turned quickly to Murdoch, and gave him a 
 keen glance out of her sharp eyes. She was like light 
 ning, sometimes, was this woman painter. 
 
 "She's a sweet child this Lizette of yours," she said, 
 sharply. 
 
 "Indeed she is," was Murdoch's surprised rejoinder. 
 
 "I have heard about the devotion of you two," the 
 great woman artist pursued, as if she were in a hurry. "I 
 have never been in love. I like it. I wish I might have 
 been." 
 
 "Oh, Madame," said Lizette, with instant sympathy. "I 
 am sorry vairy sorry." 
 
 "Yes. So am I," the great woman artist said almost 
 with a snap at the little girl, who stood looking at her 
 with big eyes. "Yes. So am I. But I have never really 
 loved a man. You love this one, don't you child? You 
 really love this great big, hulking thing from America? 
 You love him?" 
 
 For an instant Lizette paused, puzzled. Then she 
 nodded her head solemnly and with conviction. 
 
 "Surely, Madame. Of a certainty I love him. One 
 must love liim, you know, Madame. One cannot help," 
 she said. 
 
 "There are those who could," said the great woman 
 painter. Then she turned to John. "And you," she said. 
 "Do you love this little creature? I fancy that there is 
 much in her to love. She looks so soft and fluffy that 
 one naturally calls her little, but I fancy that there is a 
 good deal of strength in her somewhere. You know what 
 a small coil they can put a Damascus sword blade into.
 
 76 LI2ETTE. 
 
 1 saw one once. Never think things are weak because 
 they are little. That sword blade was coiled into a box 
 no bigger than the one that holds powder for this charm 
 ing Lizette's face. Somewhere there is a lot t>f strength 
 in this one, this girl here. You'll see it some day, if 
 you haven't seen it yet. Do you love her? Do you love 
 her?" 
 
 The great woman painter spoke so rapidly that her 
 words had a click, like that of a typewriter, about them. 
 
 "Yes," said Murdoch, coloring. "I love her." 
 
 "All right," said the great woman painter, "I want to 
 talk to you before you go. All right." 
 
 These last two words she snapped out as if she were clos 
 ing the cover of a box, which she should open again before 
 very long, but which, for the present, she wished to very 
 tightly shut. 
 
 She moved away and changed an easel, so that they 
 might see an unfinished picture in a new fight. As she 
 moved it she took a great brush from the floor, a brush 
 so big that she could never have used it in the painting of 
 her pictures. She carefully dipped it in fresh paint, 
 which stood there in a keg not at all the kind of paint 
 that is used in making pictures. Lizette wondered what 
 she intended to do with it, but she merely held it in her 
 hand as she walked from place to place, and talked, pay 
 ing no attention to the fact that the paint fron\ it was 
 dripping on the floor, and that she had smeared much of 
 it upon those natty blue- jeans trousers. She merely toyed 
 with it and used it as another woman might have used a 
 fan in conversation. But, presently, the especial use for 
 which she kept that very large brush, which would hold 
 such quantities of paint, became apparent. A man en 
 tered quietly, with what seemed to be a card or a letter 
 on a silver tray. He stepped timidly. The great woman 
 painter stopped perfectly still, leaving a sentence unfin 
 ished. The servant paused with what appeared like 
 fright. He said not a single word, but stood as if rooted 
 to the spot. For a moment the great woman painter 
 eyed him as a hunter might eye a moose. Then she took 
 deliberate aim and threw the brush. It struck him full
 
 MARRY HER, YOU IDIOT! 77 
 
 on the chest, the paint or heavy end, of course, going first, 
 as the head of an arrow does. Some of it splattered up 
 into his face. He turned on his heels like a soldier, and 
 went out .with what dignity was left to him, making no 
 sound, except the clicking of his foot-falls on the studio 
 floor. Murdoch and Lizette gazed in amazement, which 
 the great woman painter evidently enjoyed. 
 
 "There," she said, with a small laugh. "That is what I 
 keep those great brushes and that cheap paint for. It 
 has worked me up to think about you two. It has 
 worked me up. But I am not nervous any .more. Not at 
 all. I am now calm. It is such a great pleasure to throw 
 good brushes with cheap paint at bad servants in fine 
 liveries. Now, I can talk intelligently again/' 
 
 They stayed for an hour longer and then took their 
 leave. The great woman artist kissed Lizette in a funny, 
 pecking little way, as if she did not quite know how to do 
 it, and shook hands with Murdoch, after saying more 
 very pleasant things about "Parting." 
 
 Just as their little open cab was starting away with 
 them from before her door, she appeared hurriedly on the 
 sidewalk in front of it tight trousers, blue blouse and all. 
 In her hand she held the big brush, dripping with fresh 
 paint, and Lizette involuntarily dodged as if she were 
 afraid that it would be thrown at her. But the great 
 woman artist did not throw the brush. She called to 
 Murdoch: 
 
 "You, Murdoch! Come here to see me! Come in here 
 for an instant." 
 
 Lizette made a movement to get her skirts out of his 
 way, as he climbed out of the cab, and the great woman 
 painter called to her: 
 
 "Not you, little one. Not you, my dear. It is that big 
 American of yours that I want to see. I shall not keep 
 him from you long." 
 
 She pulled Murdoch inside the door and closed it. Her 
 hand, which was wet with the fresh paint from the big 
 brush, left a stain upon his coat sleeve, which Lizette was 
 at much trouble to remove that evening. 
 
 She wasted no words,
 
 78 LIZETTE. 
 
 "You love her that sweet little one out there?" she 
 asked, with her clicking words. 
 
 "Yes/' said Murdoch. 
 
 "Are you sure that she loves you?" 
 
 "Yes," said Murdoch. 
 
 "Then marry her, you idiot! One does not love and 
 find love in return too often. Marry her, you idiot!" 
 
 Then she pushed him out of the door before he could 
 say a word in answer, leaving more smudges on his coat, 
 and closed it after him with a loud bang. 
 
 Murdoch was very silent on the drive home. It began 
 to rain a little and they had the top raised, and the rain 
 curtain put over them in front, so that they were almost 
 hidden from the street. Murdoch reached over and took 
 Lizette's hand. He held it very tightly, so tightly that it 
 hurt her, but she did not mention that. Oh, no, for he 
 held it so tightly that it pleased her, too. And pleasure 
 always overshadows pain. He did not tell her what the 
 woman painter had said to him, and she did not ask him 
 to. They were quietly happy on that homeward drive, 
 which they prolonged considerably because Lizette was 
 fond of driving in the rain. Murdoch was unusually 
 thoughtful, and after they had reached the studio he was 
 especially tender toward her. She hurried into her wrap 
 per of rich red, so that she might not "catch the cold," 
 which he ever feared for her. Then, for a long time, she 
 sat quietly by him, on the great fur rug, gazing with him 
 into the fire. Who shall tell what pictures her fond mind 
 called up for her among those glowing qoals. She was so 
 proud of him! "So vairy, vairy proud!" He would 
 be the great, great artist! Even the wonderful 
 woman painter whom they had seen that afternoon had 
 said so, and she was chary of her praise, as all the world 
 well knew. These and many other things flashed through 
 that little head of hers, and all the other things had much 
 to do with Murdoch also. 
 
 Murdoch, as was natural, turned his thoughts toward 
 what the artist had said when she had called him back. 
 
 "Marry her, you idiot! One does not love and find 
 love in return too often. Marry her, you idiot!"
 
 MARRY HER, YOU IDIOT! 79 
 
 He recalled the words exactly as he sat there and 
 thought, with Lizette's dainty head resting against his 
 knee and her hand stretched up to his. He had not 
 avoided thoughts of this perplexing matter more than 
 most men dodge the thoughts of things which bother 
 them. All men are cowards with themselves, sometimes. 
 But the great woman painter had thrown the situation at 
 him with such suddenness that he had had no time to 
 dodge, and now he faced it squarely. He knew the 
 trouble that would arise at home if he did as she told him. 
 He could imagine the hard look upon his father's face. 
 He had seen it there when other people had angered the 
 old man, and he had no wish to have it for himself. He 
 knew the way his sisters would deport themselves, if he 
 should do as both his heart and conscience told him that 
 he must do. There came the thought of all the many 
 things which Lizette had come to mean to him. He 
 turned her face up with his hands how willingly those 
 big eyes raised to his! and looked down into it and 
 smiled. After that there could be no longer any doubt of 
 what was best for him to do. Not all the people in all the 
 world could change his love, and that he knew. He de^ 
 eided that the woman painter had been right. He would 
 marry Lizette, and love her and protect her and have her 
 with him for so long as he and she should live. But that 
 night he said nothing to her of it. Oh, Murdoch! What 
 days and nights of misery and worry you would have saved 
 yourself and her if you had but spoken then.
 
 CHAPTEK XI. 
 
 KENTUCKY'S CONFESSION. 
 
 Murdoch felt very little anxiety about New York in 
 those days. His life with Lizette, in the studio which 
 overlooked the Gardens of the Luxembourg, was the same. 
 Real and notable success in his art work was on its way to 
 him and he knew it. He painted four good pictures in 
 the next ten months. Kentucky was their best friend, 
 ever, the only close friend they had, and the strength of 
 their love for him increased with the age of their acquaint 
 ance. He was a failure. Murdoch was a success. He 
 leaned on Murdoch and looked up to him as a great man. 
 But probably Murdoch had more help out of Kentucky 
 than Kentucky had out of Murdoch. Kentucky had his 
 weaknesses, his especial one was absinthe, but there was 
 much grave and good philosophy in his kindly heart, and 
 he loved Murdoch. Murdoch could sell his pictures and 
 would not because he had no need to. Kentucky would 
 sell his pictures and could not because they were so bad. 
 But the two men loved as brothers might, and what Ken 
 tucky felt for Lizette was almost more than a brother's 
 love. 
 
 One morning he hurried tremblingly up the stairs to 
 Murdoch's studio. His eyes were bleared and his hands 
 were shaking. There were, too, many other signs of a 
 night with the absinthe. Lizette .had never seen him so 
 badly shaken before, and, for a moment, she shrank from 
 him. He certainly was not a pleasant sight. But in a 
 moment she went up to him again and took his hand. 
 
 <r Y"ou are a very bad and wicked old Kentucky," she 
 said to him; "but I love you just the same. Only you 
 must, of a certainty, make me the promise that you will
 
 KENTUCKY
 
 KENTUCKY'S CONFESSION. 81 
 
 not again drink absinthe unless it is that Pudgy or myself 
 is at the same time with you. It shall ever be, here for 
 you. I do not ask it of you that you should never drink 
 it more, but I ask of you that you shall never drink so 
 much again as to make your hand so greatly shake. 
 Therefore it is that you must drink only of the absinthe 
 when Pudgy or your p'tite Lizette is with you." 
 
 She had never spoken to him quite like that before. It 
 touched him and he promised. And he kept his promise. 
 
 After Kentucky had wiped his reddened face and 
 pulled himself together, he asked Murdoch to go over to 
 his place with him and help him a little bit, assuring him 
 that what he wanted could be accomplished in ten min 
 utes. Kentucky had never asked a favor of this kind or 
 any other of Murdoch before, and, of course, the younger 
 man told him that he would be glad of anything he could 
 do to serve him. Perhaps it was with an idea of further self- 
 abasement, as a punishment for his transgressions of the 
 night before, that Kentucky asked Lizette if she would 
 not come along and wait while Murdoch did the little task 
 asked of him. The invitation surprised Lizette, for Ken 
 tucky had never even mentioned his living quarters to her 
 before, and, while she had once thought of offering to go 
 to them and see if she could not do something to make 
 him more comfortable there, she had refrained from doing 
 so, with the fear that they were so humble that the old stu 
 dent might not wish to have her see them. She went. 
 
 When they reached the bottom of the stairway leading 
 to his lofty quarters, Kentucky hesitated for a moment, 
 apparently considering whether it would not be better for 
 him to ask her to wait below or over in the Gardens of the 
 Luxembourg, until Murdoch should have helped him, but 
 he started up the stairs at last without making any such 
 proposition, and when they had reached the top of the last 
 flight, took a key from his pocket and opened a door which 
 was literally under the slope of the roof. He went in first 
 and, after opening a window, bade them come in. Lizette 
 literally gasped when she looked around the tiny place. 
 The bed was in great disorder and there was no stove or 
 other provision for heating the room on cold days except
 
 82 LIZETTE. 
 
 a little ch,arcoal brazier, which lay overturned in one cor 
 ner. The walls were bare and dirty. There was no sky 
 light. There was not even an easel in the place. But 
 over in the corner was a rickety table with three legs. 
 Kentucky, who took so much pleasure in making small 
 conveniences for their studio, had not made any for his 
 own poor room. On this table were his small stock of 
 materials those little boards on which the copies of 
 famous pictures were to be painted over and sold to tour 
 ists as original studies by the students of the Quarter. 
 
 "You see," said Kentucky, as he made a place for Lizette 
 to sit, by moving, with shaking hands, a dozen things from 
 one of the two chairs, "I had to call on somebody for help, 
 Murdoch, and so I called on you. Watch my hands shake. 
 Well, I've got these heads of a Moorish girl all done except 
 the tube of the pipe she's smoking. Those tubes must be 
 put in. You see the shaking of my hands didn't make 
 much difference anywhere else in her." He drew away a 
 little so that he could scan one of the unfinished little pict 
 ures through half closed eyes. "No, I think It rather 
 helped the things along. Made the pictures look impres 
 sionistic eh? But the tubes, Murdoch the tubes! I 
 never can get 'em in with my hands shaking like this. I 
 couldn't do it. They must be done with steady touches. 
 And I've got to get these pictures to the dealer. I'm ab 
 solutely stony broke." 
 
 Murdoch offered to lend him money so that he could 
 wait before he finished his pictures until he was in better 
 shape. But Kentucky said that he did not care to borrow 
 money. Indeed, Kentucky never borrowed money, an 
 other characteristic, which set him apart from the tribe 
 of students in the Quarter. 
 
 "No," he said; "I don't want to borrow any of your 
 money. I just want to borrow your nerves for a few 
 moments. If you'll put those tubes in for me, I'll take 
 those pictures out and get some money which will be all 
 my own. And putting tubes into my pictures will be bet 
 ter anyway than putting money in my pocket. Just lend 
 me your nerve, old man. Maybe I'll be able to pay that 
 back some day."
 
 KENTUCKY'S CONFESSION. 83 
 
 So Murdoch put in the tubes with a few deft strokes, and 
 Kentucky arranged the pictures in that little box he had 
 devised which let him take them to the dealers before the 
 paint was dry. 
 
 So shattered were the nerves of the old student that, 
 when the tubes were in, his legs shook so that he did not 
 dare to try the stairs. They had to sit there in his mis 
 erable little room with him for a few moments while he 
 pulled himself together. His voice, as he spoke to them 
 sounded full of sobs, but it was not really sobs but absinthe 
 which made it shake. That he was suffering mental 
 agonies also because Lizette had seen him in such pitiable 
 plight was quite apparent, and he made no effort to dis 
 guise his weakness or to conceal its reason or condone his 
 foolishness. 
 
 "Some day," he said, with shaking body and uncertain 
 voice, "some day, when I have not made a beast of myself 
 and am not unworthy to look at it myself, I shall ask you 
 to come up here again. I have one picture here which I 
 should sometime wish to have you see." 
 
 Here he had to stop talking for a time, because his 
 trembling got the better of him and made his words hard 
 to understand. Lizette took her own handkerchief and 
 wet it with the water in the broken pitcher on the wash- 
 stand. She softly wiped his face with it, wondering the 
 while how it was possible for liquor to have so changed it. 
 It was ordinarily a fine face, with lofty forehead and deep 
 eyes and delicate lips. But now it was swollen and almost 
 repellant. The lips were thick and flaming. The eyes 
 were red as fire and almost covered by puffed lids. Dis 
 hevelled hair hung over the high forehead and hid its mas 
 sive contour. Murdoch watched them for a moment and, 
 then saying that he would come back immediately, left 
 them together. He was sorry for Kentucky. There was 
 much in the spectacle, that would have been repellant to a 
 stranger, but to Murdoch it was only pitiful. As he hur 
 ried down the stairs he tried to put himself in the older 
 man's place. He tried to think how he would have borne 
 the burden, if, years ago, he had come to Paris full of hope 
 and zeal ? confident of success and with a mistaken sense
 
 84 LIZETTE. 
 
 of strength to do big things, only, in the end, to recognize 
 complete failure and barely live by painting little pictures 
 for the cheap dealers. He tried to think how firm his own 
 self-control would be if he could see no reward in the 
 future for him, no matter how earnestly he strove. He 
 tried to conceive his own sensations should he be as this 
 man was, without home or hope of home other than that 
 garret room, without friends or hope of friends other than 
 the few Kentucky had, without occupation that was con 
 genial, with no rational recreation save that he found in 
 those evenings at the studio which overlooked the Gardens 
 of the Luxembourg. There was nothing in Kentucky's 
 life, he reflected, as he made haste along tne street, which 
 at all approached real friendship or companionship, except 
 what went to him from him, Murdoch, and from Lizette. 
 He compared it with his own life, full of love, ambition 
 and success. 
 
 "I'd drink myself to death, if in the doing of it I could 
 forget past hopes and present disappointments," he de 
 cided, and never again did Murdoch blame Kentucky for 
 his weaknesses. 
 
 Lizette, alone with the shamed and sorry man, probably 
 went through a silent course of reasoning somewhat simi 
 lar. Her quick woman's sympathy helped her, and the 
 episode enlarged, not lessened, the place reserved in her 
 big heart for the remorseful student. It distressed her be 
 yond measure to see the long, gaunt frame of the tall man 
 shaken by such mighty sobs. Murdoch soon returned 
 with a great paper package full of shirts and collars, cuffs 
 and fresh neck-handkerchief. Lizette again bathed the 
 big man's face with the cold water, and then went out 
 while Murdoch helped him dress. His hands shook so 
 that he could not shave, so Murdoch put him in a chair 
 and shaved him. 
 
 When this operation was completed, Lizette again 
 bathed the student's face in bright, cold water, and with 
 her own fingers fixed his new neck-cloth about the rolling 
 collar which Murdoch had found after searching half a 
 dozen shops. Kentucky had never changed the fashion of 
 his dress since the days when first he had begun life in the
 
 KENTUCKY'S CONFESSION. 85 
 
 Quarter, and such old-fashioned things were hard to find. 
 Then she bade Kentucky put on his coat and waist 
 coat and stand before her. 
 
 "No," she said, with critical bobbings of her small head, 
 "I am not satisfy. Take off your shoes." 
 
 "Why?" asked Kentucky, in amazement. 
 
 "Take off your shoes!" she said, imperiously. "The 
 questions must not be asked of me. I am the the what 
 you call him? boss. Take off your shoes." 
 
 And Kentucky, wondering, did as he was bid. 
 
 "Now, Pudgy," said Lizette, as she lifted the great, mud- 
 encrusted Bluchers, "it must be you who shall take these 
 out and have them so much polish. Yais. They must 
 have the shiningness of sunlight. And while you attend 
 to this most important affair, it is that I shall sponge the 
 dear old Kentucky until he have no spots on him. Ob 
 serve! Observe the spots that now are on him! They 
 must be taken all away. I have nevaire seen so many of 
 the spots upon one human being at one time! He is like 
 the leopard, only his spots are of the grease while the 
 leopard's spots are of his skin and hair and cannot be 
 sponged out. Allans! You to the polisher of shoes, I to 
 my work of unspottationing!" 
 
 While Murdoch was away she sponged the humbled big 
 man until as many of the spots as were not permanent 
 were gone. To be sure he looked somewhat wet in places, 
 when she had finished, but she solemnly assured him that 
 that would pass away. 
 
 While they waited for Murdoch to return, she questioned 
 Kentucky about the price paid for his little pictures by the 
 dealers. He told her all about it and she thought a mo 
 ment, deeply. Then she announced that he must make 
 up his mind to paint very many of them within the next 
 two weeks. 
 
 "It is," she said, "that over what you have to earn to buy 
 the food and pay the rent, you must paint so many in the 
 coming fourteen days that you shall have francs enough 
 to buy a whole new suit of clothes. I shall order you to 
 do so now. I order you. And when I order, it must, of 
 a certainty, be done."
 
 86 LIZETTE. 
 
 "I've worn this suit so many years that I should feel a 
 stranger in new clothes," Kentucky said in protest. 
 
 "That is very well," said Lizette, gravely. "You have 
 been the most naughty boy. Of a certainty you have been 
 ires mechant! All your badness must have the stop at 
 once. All your goodness must come back. I have the 
 thought that in a suit of all new clothes there will be 
 easier times for you to be the good child. It must be 
 done." 
 
 She tapped her foot upon the dirty floor for a moment 
 in reflection, and then she said: 
 
 "This is the way in which the matter shall be accom 
 plish. Pudgy spends much time at the schools. Each 
 morning when he goes to the work I shall come here. He 
 will bring me. I shall sit by you and talk to you while 
 you paint these many small little pictures. Thus 
 voilaf you will not have the loneliness, and it shall be 
 done!" 
 
 Before Murdoch returned this plan had been consented 
 to. And the wet spots on Kentucky were pretty nearly 
 dry. He had not very much the appearance of the leopard 
 when they went out together, he with his little pictures in 
 the strange long box which let him take them to the 
 dealers before the paint was dry on them. 
 
 There were no people on the street when they reached 
 it, and the sun was shining brightly. Lizette made the 
 student turn around, slowly, so that she might get a com 
 plete view of him. 
 
 "It is pretty well," she said. "But with the new clother 
 you shall be even much better than it is now. You have 
 the handsome face and the high, strong body, which 
 Frenchmen do not have. In the new clothes it is that you 
 shall be vairy, vairy han'some." 
 
 And Lizette could not wait, now that the idea was in 
 her head, to give Kentucky time to paint the little pict 
 ures. She made Murdoch lend the student money and 
 she made him take it, and she went with him to buy the 
 clothes. They were fine clothes and they made a great 
 sensation in the Quarter. But Kentucky was not comfort 
 able in them, and only wore them when he thought that
 
 KENTUCKY'S CONFESSION. 87 
 
 she would see him. He was much happier in the old worn 
 suit and the ancient hat with its wilderness of little beams 
 inside. 
 
 One day as Lizette sat by him reading to him from the 
 New Testament for Kentucky's literary appetite had 
 turned from municipal improvement to religion for the 
 moment while he painted on the little pictures which 
 were to pay his debt to Murdoch, he interrupted her. 
 
 "Don't read any more, just now," he said. "I'd like to 
 talk to you. May I?" 
 
 "Of a certainty," Lizette responded, laying down the 
 Testament with a sigh. The Bible was all new to her, and 
 very fascinating. The promises it held out to those who 
 did not sin were wonderful. They appealed strongly to 
 her imagination, and, sometimes as she read, Kentucky ex 
 plained them very simply and, she thought, beautifully. 
 She had never had a chance to learn about religion. She 
 had seen the outward show of churches and church cere 
 monies and she had been told about the Virgin Mary by 
 some one, she knew not whom. But the beauties of it all 
 were dawning on her for the first time, as she sat there 
 in that little garret room, reading the New Testament to 
 poor Kentucky while he painted those little pictures with 
 such industry in order that he might quickly pay his debt 
 to Murdoch. 
 
 "I am trying," said Kentucky, as he bent low over his 
 work to paint some of those fine, straight lines of his, "I 
 am trying to find out why I Jove you so. You are sweet 
 and you are beautiful and good, and men love such things 
 instinctively. But my love for you is more than that. 
 John Murdoch is my friend and his affection for you, I 
 am sure, is as big as man's could be for woman. You have 
 done much for him and will do much, much more. But I 
 do not love you because you mean so much, so very much, 
 to my good friend. You are kind to me, and forgive my 
 weaknesses and find what few good points are in me, and 
 it makes me thankful. But my love for you is more than 
 gratitude." He straightened up and pushed his work 
 away. He rose and bent his great form over her and held 
 her face up with a great hand beneath her chin, so that he
 
 88 LIZETTE. 
 
 4 
 
 might gaze into her eyes. "I sometimes feel, you dainty 
 one, that sometime in another life, long gone, it was my 
 love and duty to fight for you and shelter you; to strive 
 for you and work for you; to hold you in my arms as if 
 you were a little child and toss you up to see the sunset as 
 I once did my own sweet baby, long since dead." 
 
 Lizette was astonished by the vehemence and intensity 
 of his strange manner and more so by what he said about 
 "his baby." There was a yearning look in the eyes that 
 gazed into hers so steadily, that seemed almost hungry. 
 His action was uncanny, but she had no desire to shrink 
 from him. She only gazed at him and wondered breath 
 lessly. 
 
 "1 never knew you had a baby," she said, softly. 
 
 "It was long ago," he answered. "Long ago." 
 He sat down again at his little table with its three shaky 
 legs and leaned his elbow on it. But never once did his 
 big, deep-set eyes wander from her face. 
 
 "It was long ago, and I shall tell you all about it, some 
 time. Now I must think about my love for you and try 
 to find its reason. It is real. When you asked me to stop 
 drinking, little one, it frightened me, for I did not want 
 to stop. I have much that is not pleasant in my memory, 
 and when I think of it I cannot rest or sleep. "When I 
 think of it it fills me with rebellion against everything. 
 And that is bad. The drinking has helped me at such 
 times. It has helped me to forget. I found once that 
 when I could not master my willful, agonizing 
 thoughts, and felt as if I should go crazy with 
 my sorrows, I found that absinthe would bring for- 
 getfulness and a certain sort of weak, unhealthful pleasure. 
 So I drank absinthe. You asked me not to drink it any 
 more, and now I could not drink it if I would. I don't 
 know why. That morning when you and Murdoch came 
 here, I knew that you would ask it of me, and I wanted 
 to beg you not to. I didn't and I don't know why your 
 asking it should make me stop, but I knew it would, and 
 I didn't want to stop. I wanted to have the comfort in me 
 of knowing that when the sorrow of those years gone by 
 should come to me and overwhelm me, as it does I wanted
 
 KENTUCKY'S CONFESSION. 89 
 
 to have the comfort of knowing that I could make myself 
 forget it with the absinthe. It was a comfort. But now I 
 know it was a bad comfort, and I am glad you asked it of 
 me. I can never drink the stuff again. Sometimes I 
 yearn for it. Sometimes the longing for the drink is so 
 great within me that it seems as if I should fly in^pieces if 
 I did not have it. Half a dozen times when I have felt 
 that way I have gone out and sat down at a cafe and 
 ordered it, but when the waiter brought it, I could not 
 drink it, because you had asked me not to." 
 
 Lizette looked at him in simple wonderment. When 
 she had asked him not to drink she had not gone deeply 
 into the matter. She had not dreamed that poor Ken 
 tucky had a method in his madness. It had not occurred 
 to her that he took the absinthe as an opiate which would 
 dull the misery of painful memories. 
 
 "I am vairy, vairy sorry/' she said softly, and laid her 
 little hand on his big knotted one as it lay there on the 
 table. 
 
 "You need not be," he said, "for I am glad now. 
 Nature is great and wonderful. She compensates. She 
 always compensates. And she has compensated me. 
 These days with you, while you have been here, reading to 
 me, have strangely compensated me. I don't know how. 
 I can't tell how. You see there has been very little in my 
 life for me. I have no friend in all of Paris, or all the 
 world, for that matter, but you and Murdoch. Worse yet, 
 I have and have had no wish to have. I have for years 
 turned from all intimacies, shunned all acquaintances 
 when they began to border on close friendship for some 
 reason which I have never yet been able to find analysis of. 
 But your friendship yours and that of Murdoch it is 
 satisfying. Strangely satisfying. I had nothing to 
 look forward to before you came that had a pleasant feat 
 ure in it, and that left me but the present and the past to 
 live in. The present you know what that must have 
 been before you came. It was not good. The past! Oh, 
 little one, that past! So dear! So bright! So full of life 
 and love and happiness! Until one day it all changed in 
 an hour. It changed. The life, the love, the joy all
 
 90 LIZETTE. 
 
 passed away, and in their places came death and grief. I 
 sometimes used to begin at the beginning of my life 
 away back, as far in the days gone by as I could make my 
 memory reach. I recalled myself, as best I could as a 
 small boy on a Kentucky farm. You can't conceive of 
 that. It was a rough life, but it was a happy one. It 
 ended. My people died. Every person whom I 
 loved (he spoke almost as if he were counting the dire 
 tragedies within his mind) died. I wanted to die, too. 
 When I went and stood beside the grave into which they 
 put my mother, I wanted to die, too. She was the last to 
 go, and her loss was the hardest loss. Well, I used to try 
 to recall that life before they died, and bring back to my 
 mind its littlest details, so that I could make the pleasant 
 memories last as long as possible. Sometimes I have made 
 them last as many as three days, by forcing little matters 
 to come back to me. But when those pleasant memories 
 stopped and the dreadful days of Death began it was not 
 bright and pleasant to remember them. It was very ter 
 rible. And then I drank the absinthe and forgot. My 
 first grief lasted many years. I must have had as a child 
 a large capacity for loving, for my capacity for grieving 
 was so great after the objects of my love had died. Hard 
 work on the farm at first, and afterwards in Louisville 
 that is a city, little one helped me to bear the sorrow, 
 though. I worked there for a sign painter until I came al 
 most to be a man, and, somehow, the silly notion got into 
 my head that if I might only have a chance to study I might 
 some day paint something better than mere signs to show 
 a man where he could buy sausages or get his horse shod. 
 It was funny," said Kentucky, with the first smile that had 
 lighted up his face since he had begun to talk in this 
 strain, "it was funny about that sausage-maker's sign. 
 That settled it. I felt that painting it disgraced me, and 
 I have never painted a single other sign in all my life, and 
 I never shall paint another sign before I die. I saved 
 some money and I came here. You know the rest. I 
 failed!" 
 
 There was nothing which Lizette could say to comfort 
 him. It was all so true his failure. It had been so real
 
 KENTUCKY'S CONFESSION. 91 
 
 and so complete that there could be found no saving clause 
 in it; no word of praise or even of extenuation. Lizette 
 sat helpless, and she felt it keenly. It would be the 
 veriest cant to tell him that he had not failed, and he 
 would recognize the cant and feel abhorrence for it. He 
 got up, slowly, and walked into the dormer, where the 
 little window was, which looked upon the street. He had 
 to stoop in order to enter the small place, but he went in 
 and stood there looking out, but seeing nothing, for a time. 
 Then he came back and, sitting down, began to talk again. 
 
 "It has 'been strange about this life of mine," he said. 
 "I left America with nothing there I cared for save the 
 graves. I came here to begin life over to find new 
 interests and loves. I found them for a time and then I 
 found more graves! Yes, little one, I found them for 
 a time. I found such interests as I had never dreamed 
 of. I worked. Worked hard. Worked hopefully. Worked 
 earnestly. But, alas! it was not in me to work well. It 
 was not in me, child; but that I did not dream, at first. 
 I knew my progress was much slower than the progress of 
 the other fellows, but it is so easy to deceive ourselves! I 
 thought because my advance was slow that it was also 
 sure. I was happy in that feeling. I had a small allow 
 ance and I worked and worked and worked. I married." 
 
 "Kain-tuck-yl" breathed Lizette with soft intensity, sur 
 prised beyond all measure. "You married! Oh, Kain- 
 tuck-y\ And you nevaire told me so bif-fore!" 
 
 "No. I never told you so before. I have not spoken of 
 it to anyone except myself before, in many years. Some 
 times when I am here alone I talk of it aloud and call her 
 name as if my calling her might bring her back to me. But 
 it cannot, of course. It has been at times like that that 
 I have gone and drunk the absinthe. It has been at such 
 times, child, that I have drunk until I found forgetful- 
 ness. You understand it better now?" 
 
 "I understand," Lizette said, softly. 
 
 "We were very happy. She was wonderful my wife!" 
 
 "Your wife," Lizette repeated in a low whisper. 
 
 "She was wonderful," went on the artist. "It may be 
 that I see in you some things that are a little like her.
 
 92 LIZETTE. 
 
 That may be the reason that I first began to feel toward 
 you and Murdoch as I do. I cannot tell. Sometimes, for 
 an instant, there is that about your face which makes me 
 think of her. Sometimes I catch a modulation in your 
 voice that makes me think of hers. Sometimes a ripple 
 in your laughter makes me hear again the merry laughter 
 of those days so long passed now those days when she 
 was with me, and my life held love and happiness and 
 hope." 
 
 Lizette rose softly and smoothed the long hair back 
 from his lined and rugged forehead. She said not a single 
 word, but she stooped and kissed him on his brow, and 
 then resumed her seat again. 
 
 "That was very sweet and lovely of you," said Kentucky, 
 trying hard to smile. "So sweet so lovely that it made 
 you seem again like her." 
 
 "I should be vairy proud if I could seem like one whom 
 you had loved so vairy, vairy much," replied Lizette. 
 
 "Oh, many, many times you seem so like her that it 
 makes me catch my breath," he answered. "Many, many 
 times. Her people hated me. You know the French idea 
 that a girl must marry money. She might have done so, 
 but she did not; she married me. It made them hate me. 
 That they would have killed me if they could have done 
 so safely, I have no doubt at all, for they were poor and 
 there was a man a merchant here in Paris who was pros 
 perous and wished to marry her. It would have helped 
 them all. But she married me, a poor man, and they 
 hated me. I took her and they lost the money they might 
 have sold her for, and so they hated me. Their hatred 
 was so great that we had to cross to England to get mar 
 ried. You know that here in France one must have the 
 consent of parents, if one has them. Well, we slipped 
 away one night and crossed the Channel. It was in Dover 
 that we were married in Dover, where the laws are better. 
 What a day that was that day when I first took her in my 
 arms and called her 'wife!' They would haxe killed me 
 gladly, but, of course, they did not. I sometimes think 
 that if they had, it would have been much better. If my 
 mistaken life had ended then then when it was so happy!
 
 KENTUCKY'S CONFESSION. 93 
 
 "We could not stay in Paris. She was afraid of them. 
 She was actually afraid for me. We tried to stay here, but 
 we could not. Whenever I went away from her, even for 
 ever so short a time, she was afraid. I had a small allow 
 ance then a very small one, but enough so that we could 
 buy food and shelter without selling pictures enough so 
 that I could keep on with my mistaken studying. But I 
 gave up the schools and we left Paris, because she feared 
 those who should have loved her. 
 
 "We went far away from here. We were very happy. 
 It was very little that we had except each other, but we 
 were very happy. I worked and worked and worked. Some 
 times I think that in those days my work showed promise 
 of good things to come. They used to tell me that it did, 
 but the good things came so very slowly! I know that in 
 that year with her I learned more about painting than the 
 schools could have taught me in a generation. My love 
 for her it made me learn. 
 
 "And then there came the little one." 
 
 "A baby?" asked Lizette, speaking softly but with eager 
 interest. 
 
 "Yes. Then there came our baby. How proud I was! 
 How happy! Ah, then I worked! Oh, how I worked in 
 those days! I had a double reason for it then, you know/' 
 
 "I know," his listener said, softly. 
 
 "Yes," went on Kentucky, "then I worked, and some 
 times it seemed to me that my work was not so very bad. 
 It surely grew better as the days went on. I sold one 
 picture a picture so rich in memories, so full of hints of 
 love and joy in days gone by, that afterwards I bought it 
 back, and almost starved myself to pay the price of it." 
 
 He paused again, and tears came slowly to his eyes. 
 
 "I have it here, now, in this room. And some day I shall 
 show it to you. I have tried to make a change in it, and, 
 failing, have almost spoiled it. But some day I shall show 
 it to you. Not to-day, but some day. I do not want to 
 look at it to-day. 
 
 "The only dark spots in the three years that followed 
 were those her father and her mother's sister made. I 
 never blamed the woman much. I never saw her and I
 
 94 LIZETTE. 
 
 think she did not know the truth about the matter or she 
 would never have lent herself to such persecution of us. 
 But the hatred of her father for me the man who had 
 robbed him, as he looked at it was boundless. Such 
 letters as they wrote to her. Such bitter, bitter letters! 
 They made her poor heart bleed. I say this was the only 
 cloud. That is not quite true. There was another; but 
 even the sharp eyes of my great love did not see it. She 
 was not strong after our dear baby came. I do not mean 
 that she was ill, but I feared that she might become so, by 
 and by. 
 
 "Three years passed in great happiness. "We were not 
 rich. We never hoped to be. But still we were not poor. 
 That is, we had enough to eat and wear and keep good 
 shelter over us. I might have 'boiled some pots/ and 
 wanted to, so that we could have a nurse and thus relieve 
 her of that labor. But she would never hear of it. She 
 believed in me that little woman did. God bless her! 
 She believed in me and would not let me paint cheap stuff. 
 I have often thought as I have sat here, working at these 
 miserable little things, with which I make my living now, 
 how it would distress her if she knew. 
 
 "I know now that as time passed she grew more delicate. 
 I did not know it then. I did not realize it. Little one, 
 I love to sit and dream of those days only the dreaming 
 leads to such great sorrow at its end. 
 
 "By and by there came some jugglery about my allow 
 ance. Suddenly it stopped. I had to go to the United 
 States. I had to or thought I had to. God knows how 
 bitterly I sorrowed for that journey afterwards. Better it 
 would have been that we had starved together than that I 
 should have gone. I could not take her with me, for trav 
 eling in those days was expensive much more so, even, 
 than it is now. I could not raise the money, and so, God 
 pity me! I left her behind. Every mile that came be 
 tween us as I traveled was a new grief to me; every day of 
 absence from her was a poignant sorrow. That is true.'' 
 
 He rose again; again he went to the window; again he 
 came back and sat down at the table with three legs, and 
 as he did so, Lizette saw that his eyes were full of tears.
 
 KENTUCKY'S CONFESSION. 95 
 
 They trickled slowly down his face as he finished his tale 
 of tragedy. He ended in broken sentences. He gave no 
 details, and she knew why. She knew that every word he 
 said, every thought of that dreadful time now passed by 
 more than twenty years, was like a knife-cut in his heart. 
 He spoke in jerks as if unwillingly. 
 
 "While I was gone the cholera went there and they 
 died! In America I had only graves. In France 
 more graves!" 
 
 He paused awhile before he spoke again. 
 
 "The picture which I told you of/' he said, at last, "and 
 which I shall some day show you the only really good 
 picture that I ever painted, is of the churchyard where 
 they lie. Had I but known when I was painting it that 
 my beloved ones would sleep in it so soon! Ah, how my 
 hand would then have trembled! But I did not know. I 
 did not know until I saw the graves. New graves they 
 were new graves. They were not painted in my picture. 
 I bought the picture back, and have it now. I shall show 
 it to you some day. 
 
 "And that was why," he said, "I drank the absinthe." 
 
 His head dropped to the little table. It was still bowed 
 on it when John Murdoch came to get Lizette. 
 
 Kentucky would not dine with them that night.
 
 CHAPTER XH. 
 
 A SUMMONS FOR MURDOCH. 
 
 Fitzpatrick stayed in Paris until the first of January. 
 His time was energetically occupied by the fascinating 
 business of buying hats, but he called at the studio some 
 times and was always welcomed there. One evening he 
 said that he wanted to ask a favor of Lizette. 
 
 "There is a man in this town who has some things I 
 want to buy/' he said, "but the misguided creature fails to 
 appreciate the latent beauties of my character. He hates 
 me as a snake hates Ireland, my native land. I have often 
 tried to understand how anyone could hate me, but I have 
 ever failed to. The beauties of my character are so plain 
 to me that it seems absurd for anyone to fail to see and 
 to appreciate them. But this person is either blind or 
 won't see. I don't know which. Indeed, he is so preju 
 diced against me that it is impossible for me to do any 
 business with him. He will not talk to me; he will not 
 take my money. And yet, strangely enough, he has in his 
 possession certain models that I want to purchase. Now, 
 what has come into my mind is this: Will you go and buy 
 'em for me?" 
 
 "If" inquired Lizette. 
 
 "None other," said Fitzpatrick. "He will sell to you 
 and you can sell to me. It will be the biggest kind of a 
 big favor to me if you'll do it. Honest Injun! You shall 
 have one of the hats. You shall have my gratitude for a 
 permanent possession. The hat will be adorned by the 
 face beneath it; the gratitude you may file away among 
 your assets to be referred to, if you ever need it." 
 
 He stopped his highfalutin talk for a minute, and 
 turned to Murdoch.
 
 A SUMMONS FOR MURDOCH. 97 
 
 "You see, it's this way," he said. "The art of hat buy 
 ing may not seem to you to be exalted. But it's the only 
 art I've got. This chap has got some models that I want, 
 and he won't do business with me. Now, if the little 
 woman would only go and get them for me, it would help 
 me out a lot. If there is any objection in the world to it, 
 we won't think of it any more. If there isn't, why I'd 
 like to get it over with to-morrow." 
 
 It was agreed upon and done. Lizette was delighted to 
 be able to be of service to Fitzpatrick she was ever hap 
 piest when she was working for the happiness of other peo 
 ple and she spent a long morning doing what he asked 
 her to do. She did it well and eminently to the buyer's 
 admiration and satisfaction. The hats he wanted were 
 sent to Murdoch's studio, and there, next morning, Fitz 
 patrick went to get them. They certainly were charming 
 hats and were not made less so by Lizette, who tried them 
 on for him, and showed him many beauties in the milli 
 nery Avhich he would not have dreamed of had it not been 
 for her. She also made suggestions to him about other 
 hats, and he declared that she had a genius for the decora 
 tion of the female form. He insisted that sEe should 
 keep one of the dainty bonnets for herself and she con 
 sented, provisional on Pudgy' s approval. That brought up 
 the matter of John Murdoch's father in the hat-buyer's 
 mind. 
 
 "When is Murdoch going over?" he asked Lizette. 
 
 "Going to America?" she queried. "I do not know." 
 
 "I suppose he'll have to pretty soon," Fitzpatrick said. 
 "His old man's not what he used to be. When I saw him 
 last he seemed quite infirm. He's a great big chap the 
 old man is and he's always been as straight in his body 
 as his house has in its business. And no one ever ques 
 tioned that, I tell you. I fancy that he's never been the 
 kind of chap to talk much, but he certainly does love this 
 son of his. You ought to have seen his eyes brighten up 
 when he found I knew him. He didn't seem the same old 
 man after he found that out. I'd always been a mighty 
 humble person around that banking house, although I've 
 done business there for a good many years. I'd never
 
 98 LIZETTE. 
 
 seen further inside of it than I could see through the 
 wire grating over the cashier's desk. Not many people do. 
 But when I told the cashier his name is Smith that I 
 wanted a draft on Paris, he asked me if I was coming over 
 here. I told him that I was. 
 
 " 'You spend a good deal of your time in Paris, don f t 
 you?' he asked. 
 
 " 'Yes/ said I, 'I do/ 
 
 '"Ever happen to meet the old man's son over there?' 
 he asked. 'His name's John/ says he, 'and he's studying 
 art over there. Must have surprised the old man a good 
 deal/ says he, 'to have a son of his turn out to be an artist, 
 but he don't say much about it.' 
 
 "All the time that he was talking, I was thinking that 
 if the old man should find out that he'd been gossiping 
 about his affairs he'd probably have trouble. From what I'd 
 seen of the old man, I'd made up my mind that he wasn't 
 the sort that would go mad with joy to find his family 
 matters being talked over by his employees, so I didn't 
 say very much, except that I had met young Murdoch. 
 
 " 'Is he getting on pretty well?' the cashier asked of me. 
 'You bet he is/ said I. He hadn't won the prize of 
 honor then, so I couldn't tell him about that, I didn't 
 know there was a prize of honor, as a matter of fact, but I 
 said that he was the bright and shining wonder of the 
 town, of course. I like Murdoch, and I always like to say 
 good things about the people that I like. 
 
 "'That so?' said he. 
 
 " 'That's so/ said I. 
 
 " 'Wait a minute/ said he. 
 
 "I waited and he went away. When he came back he 
 told me to go back to the other end of the room. 
 
 " 'The old man'd like to see you/ says he. 
 
 " 'All right/ says I, and went. 
 
 "He took me into the president's private office, and 
 there sat the old man at his desk. I hadn't seen him for a 
 year or two, and he has changed a lot. He showed his age. 
 I don't know just how old he is, but that morning he 
 looked a hundred. He didn't get up to shake hands with 
 me and apologized for not doing it.
 
 A SUMMONS FOR MURDOCH. 99 
 
 " 'I've got rheumatism pretty bad/ says he, 'and if you'll 
 excuse me I won't get up. But I'm glad to see you. Very 
 glad, sir.' 
 
 "I shook hands with him and he told me to sit down, 
 which I did. 
 
 " 'You've been doing business with us a long time, my 
 cashier tells me, Mr. Fitzpatrick,' he said, as a starter. 
 
 " 'Ever since I've had business to do with any "bank/ 
 I said. 'I wish I had more to do with you.' 
 
 " 'Yes/ said he, 'I wish you had. I'm always anxious 
 to see our customers get along well/ he said. 
 
 "He stopped awhile then and fooled with a pen or some 
 thing. 
 
 " 'My cashier tells me that you've known my son in 
 Paris/ said he, at last. 
 
 " 'Yes sir/ said I; 'I met him the day he landed there.' 
 
 " 'Well, well/ said he. 'That's interesting. Do you go 
 over often?' 
 
 " 'Four times a year/ I said. 
 
 " 'Indeed/ said he. 'You travel a good deal/ said he. 
 'Have you seen much of John on your other trips?' 
 
 " 'Well/ said I, 'we got to be pretty good friends that 
 time, and I always look him up when I'm in town.' 
 
 " 'Getting on pretty well, is he ?' the old man inquired. 
 'You can't tell much from his letters. He isn't the kind to 
 brag much/ he said. 'But he's a good boy, and I hope he's 
 doing well in the work that he has chosen.' 
 
 " 'I don't know much about art work/ I said, 'but if my 
 judgment is any good at all, or if what I hear about his 
 work can be believed, he's doing mighty well. I know a 
 lot of people in the Quarter and they all say that he's one 
 of the best men there.' 
 
 " 'I'm glad of that/ said the old man. 'I'm very glad 
 of that!' 
 
 "The old man is about as cold a proposition as anyone 
 could find," went on the hat-buyer to Lizette, who was 
 listening with absorbed interest. "I could see that he 
 wanted me to talk about John, but that he didn't know 
 just how to question me, so I thought I'd help by going 
 right ahead without the questions, and I made up my
 
 100 LIZETTE. 
 
 mind that Murdoch's progress shouldn't lose anything by 
 my telling of it, either. Not that I could have made it 
 any better than it really was." 
 
 "You are a vairy good Mistaire Fitzpatrick," said 
 Lizette, interrupting him for the first time. "Of a cer 
 tainty it was most nice of you to praise my Pudgy." 
 
 "Everybody praises him," said Fitzpatrick, "and I told 
 the old man so. I told him that he was the hardest work 
 ing man in all the Quarter, and I told him that everybody 
 said he was one of the best men who had ever studied 
 over here. I said that when he began to show his work 
 to the public it would get as quick recognition as it had 
 had in the schools. The old man was tickled to death. 
 He forgot his rheumatism for a moment and again said, 
 very slowly and emphatically, 'Well, now, I'm glad of that. 
 I told him that if he studied painting I wanted him to be 
 a damned good painter/ He looked at me and laughed a 
 little. 'And you say he is a damned good painter/ he 
 said, looking into my face as keenly as if I'd been a 
 stranger who was trying to work him on a bad check. 
 
 " 'He certainly is that/ said I. 
 
 " 'Dissipate any/ said he. 
 
 " 'Not a bit/ said I. 
 
 " 'I knew he wasn't that kind of a fool/ said he. 
 
 " 'He isn't/ I answered. 
 
 '"What kind of a place does he live in? Ever "been 
 there?' the old man asked. 
 
 "'Good enough/ said I. 'Comfortable enough noth 
 ing grand about it/ said I. 
 
 " 'No/ he said. 'He isn't that kind of a fool, either. I 
 wanted to get over there to see him this summer/ fhe old 
 man went on. 'I was going to surprise him. But I can't 
 get away from here. I'm tied down here tighter than a 
 dry goods clerk is tied down to his counter. And now I'm 
 all stiffened by this rheumatism. I'm getting old, too.' 
 
 "Thinking of the rheumatism seemed to make it hurt 
 him, for he twisted up his face as if he had a twinge. 
 
 "'Ever had the rheumatism?' he asked. 
 
 " 'No/ said I. 
 " 'Don't/ said he.
 
 A SUMMONS FOR MURDOCH. 101 
 
 " 'I won't/ said I, 'if I can help it/ 
 
 " "That's right/ said he. 'You're sensible/ 
 
 "He didn't say much for a minute or two. His rheu 
 matism kept him busy. Finally he "braced up and asked 
 me if Murdoch had ever said anything to me about com 
 ing back to New York. I told him that I didn't remem 
 ber that he had. But I also said that that was not sur 
 prising, for we were not together enough for him to tell 
 me everything that he thought about. 
 
 " 'I suppose he'll come when he gets a chance/ said the 
 old man. 'He's a good boy. I never was so much surprised 
 in all my life as I was when he told me that he wanted 
 to be an artist, but I knew that there was enough of me 
 in him to make it useless for me to tell him that I didn't 
 want him to be one. I'd thought/ he said, 'that he'd want 
 to come in here and take my place, but he didn't. He 
 wanted to be an artist, and I'm glad he's a good artist. It 
 would make me mad if he should turn out to be a bad one.' 
 
 " 'He won't.' I said. 'He's already turned out to be a 
 good one/ 
 
 " 'If you see him when you go back/ said the old man, 
 'tell him that I called you in to talk to you about him. 
 Tell him that I'm glad he's doing well, and tell him that 
 when he gets a chance I want him to come over and shake 
 hands. He'll never be a banker, I guess, but he'll have to 
 have something or other to do with this concern when I 
 am gone. He's got lots of sense, that boy, even if he is an 
 artist, and he'll know too much to leave his business en 
 tirely in the hands of other people. He'll have to give 
 some time, eventually, to this bank, pictures or no pictures, 
 and he'll do it well, too. I'm not afraid of that. He's 
 practical I know that. He showed it in school and col 
 lege. And now you say that he's a good artist, too. I 
 didn't suppose an artist could be practical or a practical 
 man an artist. Funny, isn't it?' 
 
 " 'Unusual, surely/ I answered. 
 
 "The old man got up then. A clerk had Brought in 
 a card or something. 'I'm glad you came in to see me, Mr. 
 Fitzpatrick/ he said to me. 'Drop in when you get back 
 from Paris. Tell John you saw me, and tell him to come
 
 102 LIZETTE. 
 
 over when he can. Tell him it won't be very long before 
 he'll have to take hold here some. I'm getting old and 
 this rheumatism is likely to end my work here before long, 
 I'm afraid. 
 
 " 'I hope not, Mr. Murdoch,' I said. 
 
 "Well, it will before very long,' he said. 'Tell John it 
 will. I'm not much on writing letters. Tell him to come 
 and see me when he can/ 
 
 " 'I will,' said I. 
 
 " 'Come in when you get back/ said he. 
 
 "'I will,' said I. 
 
 " <Good-by,' said he. 
 
 " 'Good-by,' said I. 
 
 During the telling of this story Lizette had sat entirely 
 quiet. She tried hard to call up in her mind a picture of 
 this old man who was her Pudgy's father. How proud he 
 must be. She thought that she would have liked to have 
 seen his face when he heard that Pudgy had won the Prix 
 d'Honneur. She was sure that he must have felt very 
 pleased, indeed. But then that worry came to her again 
 that worry which had been the only jarring note at the 
 little dinner party up the Seine. The father expected 
 John to go back to New York and run the bank. And 
 then? And then? And then? What would become of 
 her when that day came? 
 
 "Did did Pudgy's father speak of me?" she queried. 
 
 "Why no," Fitzpatrick answered. "Can't say that he 
 did. He don't know you, you know, as I do. He don't 
 know how much you've helped his son/*' 
 
 The hat-buyer was embarrassed and he wondered in 
 stantly if he had not been in error in telling her about the 
 interview. Fitzpatrick wondered as he sat there and 
 looked at her how the whole matter would turn out. He 
 was a shrewd, good-hearted fellow, was Fitzpatrick, and he 
 knew that Murdoch's life with the little girl who sat there 
 then before him was no mere Latin Quarter episode, to be 
 dropped when the time for it was over and forgotten. He 
 wondered how it would turn out in the end. He knew 
 how it ought to turn out, he reflected. John Murdoch 
 would never find a truer woman, if he searched his whole
 
 A SUMMONS FOR MURDOCH. JQ3 
 
 life through, to love and cherish him than was Lizette. 
 He idly speculated on what the old man in the bank would 
 think of her, and decided that he would he pleased hy her. 
 He had gained a high idea of the old man's sense. It 
 would be distinctly wretched judgment not to like Eizette, 
 he thought. He had made up his mind that day in the 
 bank that the old man wouldn't last long. He seemed 
 very old and the wearing of his pain showed more plainly 
 on him than he had told Murdoch. Fitzpatrick did not 
 believe that Murdoch would ever leave Lizette. He was 
 sorry, now, though, that he had talked about Murdoch's 
 father to her. It was not like him, he thought to himself, 
 to make a break like that, and he swore a little, noiselessly, 
 but fervently, for having been drawn into the talk about 
 the meeting in the bank. He realized that it might worry 
 her, and he was truly sorry. He tried to be gay again over 
 the hats which she had bought for him, but he could not 
 bring the bright spirits which were habitual to her back to 
 the little French girl. He could see that she tried, also, 
 to appear light-hearted, but she failed, and when he finally 
 went away he felt that he had given her poor payment for 
 the trouble she had taken for him. 
 
 That night she spoke to Murdoch about it. 
 
 "When is it that you go to see your father?" she asked 
 him, suddenly. 
 
 "To New York, you mean?" he said, surprised. 
 
 "Yais. To see your father in New York? Mr. Fitz 
 patrick talked to me of heem this morning." 
 
 And she told Murdoch the conversation in as great de 
 tail as she could remember it. 
 
 "It is that he mus' have the gr-r-reat pride of you," she 
 said, with emphasis. "And it is that he has the very great 
 big reason for to have the pride. As also I have." 
 
 Murdoch was sorry in a vague, indefinite way that the 
 hat-buyer had talked to Lizette about his father. Fitzpat- 
 rick's account of the old man's sufferings had pained him, 
 too; but he fancied that Fitzpatrick had exaggerated them. 
 Rheumatism was not often fatal. His father had been 
 bothered by it even before John had entered college. He 
 showed suffering very plainly, always. Strong men, who
 
 104 LIZETTE. 
 
 have had little illness in their lives, often do. But his 
 father had made only the lightest reference to it in his 
 letters, and he could not believe that it was very serious, 
 more serious than it often had been. He would go over 
 to see him as soon as he could, and when he did he would 
 tell him about Lizette and then come back and take her 
 over to him as his wife. Of course, he should say nothing 
 about their life in Paris. That would be foolish and un 
 necessary. 
 
 He drew Lizette, who sat thoughtful and silent on the 
 rug beside him, up into his arms, and almost told her what 
 his plans were those plans which had taken definite form 
 after that talk with the great woman painter those plans 
 which had a wedding for their central episode. But again 
 he hesitated This was not quite the time. And again 
 he waited. 
 
 Not another week had passed before the blow fell. 
 
 Murdoch knew the postman on that route, and fre 
 quently took letters from him in the morning as he went 
 to Julian's. On this particular morning Murdoch was so 
 muffled up against a blinding rain that at first he did not 
 see the postman, but the latter saw him, and called out to 
 him. He handed him a letter from New York which 
 Murdoch recognized instantly as coming from his father. 
 He opened it as he walked along, holding it under his big 
 rain cape so that it should not get wet. He had not 
 passed the Gardens of the Luxembourg before he had read 
 it all, and stopped, almost dazed. It was like all his 
 father's letters, very short. It said: 
 
 My dear son : I am not well. I hope that for your own sake, as 
 well as mine, you will find it convenient to come over to see me at 
 once. If your art work is not to claim your life, come over and 
 take the management of the bank. That is what I had planned for 
 you, as you know. My doctor tells me that I must give it up or 
 die. I have no wish to die before I have to. Please let me know 
 your pleasure in this matter. I have learned that you have taken 
 an important prize. I am glad of it. Your success gratifies me. 
 It may be that you will wish to continue as an artist. I hope not. 
 At any rate come over here to see me. Truly yours, 
 
 JOHN MURDOCH, SB. 
 
 For the second time John Murdoch missed a day at 
 Julian's. He stopped beneath the trees which extended
 
 A SUMMONS FOR MURDOCH. 105 
 
 dripping branches out over the sidewalk from the Gardens 
 of the Luxembourg. It was almost as if they knew, those 
 trees, as if they knew and wept for the little girl who sat 
 in the windows of the studio across the way so often, and 
 listened to the twittering of the birds that flew among 
 their branches and heard the soft, uprising shouts of the 
 children who played upon the sward beneath them. 
 
 He retraced his steps very slowly, and climbed the studio 
 stairs. Lizette was at work within, and singing as she 
 worked. She heard his step and heard the door-knob 
 rattle as he touched it. She thought it was the char 
 woman coming to her work and called "come in." 
 
 John Murdoch knew that matters must be very bad, in 
 deed, to have made his father write such a letter to him. 
 The story of his worry was written on his face as he went 
 in so plainly that Lizette ran to him and put her arms 
 around his great, wet shoulders with a little cry. 
 
 "Oh, Pudgy, what ees eet that has happen?" 
 
 He handed her the letter. She read it while he laid 
 aside his cloak and hat and sat down, thinking moodily. 
 After she had read the letter she went quickly to him, and 
 put her hands upon his cheeks. She raised his face and 
 looked at him. There was an expression of real pain there 
 which cut her like a knife. He looked at her and tried to 
 smile, but made bad work of it. 
 
 "When are you going?" she asked, simply. She. did not 
 question the wisdom nor the necessity for his departure. 
 She did not weep. Her eyes took on a very dry brilliance 
 from the fever of the heart within her, but she made no 
 other sign. The thing had come to her which ever comes, 
 eventually, to the Latin Quarter girl, and she tooR it as 
 Fate. Murdoch's father, who loved her idol and who was 
 beloved by him, was ill and wished to have him at his side. 
 Plainly there was but one thing to be done. Tne earth 
 seemed rising and the heavens coming down around her, 
 but the way was plain for Pudgy. Murdoch did not an 
 swer. 
 
 "When ees eet that you go?" she asked again. 
 
 "I don't know what to do," said Murdoch. 
 
 Poor little Lizette! She knew. She told
 
 106 LIZETTE. 
 
 "It is that you must make the haste," she said. "If it 
 were not that he were ill, and vairy, vairy ill, he would not 
 have written so. When it is, my Pudgy, that the first 
 steamer sails, then it is that you must be voyaging upon it." 
 
 And it was so. 
 
 There were three days for preparation. Lizette never 
 wavered. What Fitzpatrick had said had sunk more 
 deeply into her mind, even, than it had into Murdoch's. 
 He made his arrangements at his classes. He gathered 
 up his pictures at the schools and spent many hours in 
 hanging in the studio those which he liked best. "Part 
 ing" came home, and he hung it in the big front room, 
 PO that it was well lighted. Kentucky helped him hang 
 his pictures and arranged a row of gas lights over "Part 
 ing," which set it off at night. Murdoch did many things 
 to the old studio to make it bright and pleasant, which he 
 had long planned to do and long neglected. It was almost 
 feverish, the way he spent those last few days in beautify 
 ing and improving it. To Lizette it almost seemed, one 
 day, as if he were trying to make the old place more 
 attractive so that he would be certain to return. 
 
 While Murdoch and Kentucky labored at the studio, 
 making it bright and beautiful, Lizette studied those per 
 sonal belongings which he must take with him. 
 It was she who carried his shirts to the Nanchiseuse 
 and brought them back again. With a table knife 
 Bhe corrected some of the plaits and ruffles in their 
 bosoms, which did not seem to her to be properly arranged 
 for the vast remoteness and great grandeur of New York 
 City. She packed his trunks. She arranged everything. 
 She did strange darning on his socks. She was especially 
 disturbed about the underwear which he should wear on 
 board ship, and very warm garments, properly mended and 
 laundered and folded, were placed in the very top of his 
 steamer trunk, so that he could easily get at them in the 
 case of stress of weather which she thought would probably 
 afflict him on the way across that wonderful, great sea, 
 which he had told her of, but which she had never seen. 
 He asked her if she would like to go with him as far as 
 Liverpool, but she said no. She wanted to be near to the
 
 A SUMMONS FOR MURDOCH. 107 
 
 old studio, so that she could get there quickly, after he had 
 said good-by. She wept not once, although many times he 
 choked and struggled to keep back the tears as he watched 
 her at her work. 
 
 Her smiling face was the last thing that he saw as the 
 railroad train pulled out of Paris. 
 
 It was smiling until the fluttering handkerchief in his 
 hand held from the railway carriage window faded in her 
 sight from a cloth reality into a mere white speck, indefi 
 nitely seen. 
 
 But then she wept.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE CALL OF DUTY. 
 
 John Murdoch reached New York in time to ride in the 
 old family carriage, with the curtains tightly drawn, as the 
 chief mourner at his father's funeral, but too late to clasp 
 his hand in life. It was like a nightmare to him. 
 That four years had passed since he had gone away seemed 
 incredible. He could not definitely feel the changes in 
 himself, and so the changes in other people seemed all the 
 greater to him. He could not imagine his father, pale and 
 thin, worn out with age and effort as the encoffined face 
 had shown him that the dead man had been before he died. 
 It was a solemn, mournful ride. 
 
 His relations with his father had not been those of the 
 fathers and the sons in story books. They had been, even 
 in John's early childhood, good friends and good compan 
 ions. As he approached to man's estate they had been 
 undemonstrative, wholly trusting. After John had fin 
 ished college it was the summer before he had gone to 
 Paris they had been a pair of men who could sit together 
 and not talk. Each had felt a certain satisfaction in the 
 other's presence, but there had been none of that compan 
 ionable dependence of feeling which sometimes is found 
 between father and son, oftener is known by mother and 
 child,- and always exists or always ought to between 
 husband and wife. He felt no violence of grief within 
 that carriage as he drove slowly to his father's funeral. 
 That he should even have known a feeling of real loneli 
 ness is one of those psychological phenomena which scien 
 tists can best explain. As he rode along the weary way to 
 the graveyard that day he wondered what the professor of 
 psychology at college would have said about it. He had
 
 THE CALL OF DUTY. 109 
 
 thought of the governor's death before it came, but the 
 thinking of it had never meant more to him than a collec 
 tion of mere words. Their companionship had been al 
 most unconscious. They had been separated most of the 
 time since John Murdoch had been big enough to feel 
 anything strongly. But now that the old man was dead, 
 was actually in that strangely fashioned casket, in that 
 equally curiously shaped wooden wagon, which ho 
 knew was going on ahead of him, he knew that that com 
 panionship had been very real. He had scarcely recog 
 nized the body in that box. He felt that only then when 
 it was quite too late he really appreciated the mind 
 and soul and mental entity which had passed away when 
 life had left that 'body. 
 
 "When the past came to his mind he did not think of 
 college days or of his life in Paris. His thoughts were 
 only of the times he had passed with his father. They were 
 not especially delightful to look back upon, but they had 
 always been eminently satisfactory. Just before the 
 crowd had come to the house to listen to the short prayer 
 which was made there before the body was taken to the 
 church for the regular funeral service, he had passed his 
 hands along the smoothly polished sides of the casket 
 which now was in the hearse before him in that long pro 
 cession. He had said to himself, over and over again, as 
 his fingers slipped easily across the shiny surface of the 
 wood: 
 
 "Here is all that is left of my father. This is all that 
 there is now of the governor. He is dead. He is dead." 
 
 But he had not realized it fully; he had known that at 
 the time. 
 
 When he got home at last, after the short service at the 
 grave, he sat there in the solemn, still, old house, without 
 seeing anybody or really even thinking with entire coher 
 ence. The old-established order of things his art work 
 and his life with Lizette, there in the old studio, which 
 overlooked the Gardens of the Luxembourg had seemed 
 so permanent. The feeling in him that the governor was 
 over here, silent and reserved, but thinking of him always, 
 as he had always had an undercurrent of affectionate
 
 110 LIIETT& 
 
 thought for him, had been so dear to him that it was hard 
 almost to impossibility, to give it up. His heart cried out 
 within him because he had reached New York too late to 
 see him living or clasp his hand again. How he should 
 miss those letters, often dictated to a clerk and almost as 
 short as promissory notes. Eealization came very slowly 
 'to him. 
 
 By and by the butler entered and put down by Murdoch 
 a little tray containing many letters. John Murdoch 
 turned them over idly in his hand. He knew that they 
 were letters of condolence and he did not care to read 
 them then. He let them lie upon the table and lapsed 
 back into the condition of sem>daze in which he had been 
 before the servant interrupted him. 
 
 The butler hovered respectfully about, putting small 
 things to rights. He had told the other servants not to 
 enter. It was kind of him to do so. He liked John and 
 had known him since he had been a little 'boy in buttons. 
 After he had finished his small duties he inquired if there 
 was anything that he could do. 
 
 "Yes," said John Murdoch, "bring me a drink." 
 
 The butler brought a decanter of whiskey and some 
 soda. In the Latin Quarter Murdoch had never drunk 
 whiskey. He had never, as a matter of fact, drunk 
 heavily before in all his life. But now he sat there 
 gloomily and drank until all the whiskey in the decanter 
 had disappeared. For half an hour afterwards he sat 
 there stupidly. Later the butler found him lying on the 
 floor and took him up to bed. It is probable that the 
 butler thought bad habits had come to his young master 
 through long residence in Paris. But, really, the drinking 
 had been purely automatic. 
 
 It was late in the afternoon of the following day when 
 he awoke and he suffered as men who have drunk too much 
 are doomed to suffer. Many cards and all the letters which 
 he had not looked at the day before, as well as many new 
 ones, lay in neat piles on a small table by his bedside. Now, 
 with his head throbbing from too much drink and an in 
 describable feeling of remorse and shame, he looked them 
 over.
 
 THE CALL OF DUTY. HI 
 
 One was in a woman's hand, and he opened it to find that 
 Mary Markleham had written to him. She was so sorry (she 
 wrote) that his home-coming had been so sad a one. She 
 hoped that he would stay long in New York, and while he 
 lingered she hoped that he would find time to come to see 
 her and her aunt, Mrs. Pascoe. The note brought back to 
 him the memory of the night when he had hurt Lizette 
 and searched all Paris for her, after he had lingered at the 
 table with this American girl who now wrote to him. He 
 never liked to think of that night and his memory hurried 
 from the pain of it to brighter days there with Lizette 
 especially to the dinner by the Seine. For half an hour 
 he sat there with Miss Markleham's open letter in his hand 
 and thought of Paris. Then he went slowly through the 
 pile of uninteresting letters until he reached its very 
 bottom. 
 
 That last letter was thick and heavy, and on it were 
 many of the postage stamps of France. It was from 
 Lizette and he turned to it eagerly. She did not know about 
 his father's death, poor, sympathetic child she would 
 have wept her eyes out had she known that he had cause 
 to suffer and so she wrote about the little gossip of her 
 life alone there in the studio. She told him all the little 
 things that she had done. She especially made merry 
 over her first experience in a bank, where she had gone to 
 cash a check which he had left with her. She recounted 
 Kentucky's last funny story, writing partly in English, but 
 branching off into French whenever she found that sh? 
 could express herself better in that language. She told 
 him of the love that was throbbing in her heart for him as 
 she wrote, and he could feel it, breathed out from every 
 line of all the closely written pages. She had only had 
 two days in which to write this wondrous letter, yet she 
 had put all the little things which she had thought might 
 interest him into it. 
 
 He took up his father's business affairs, not because he 
 wanted to take them up, but because there was no one else 
 to do it, and he felt that at least he must look after the 
 financial interests of the family. Besides, in the old 
 man's will was found a codicil, stating:
 
 112 LIZETTE. 
 
 "AND FURTHER: It is my request of my son John that sub 
 sequent to my death he reside in New York and endeavor to fit 
 himself to take charge of the business of the banking house of 
 John Murdoch, changing the business title to John Murdoch's Son. 
 I say 'endeavor,' because there is a possibility that the said son 
 John may find it impossible so to do, for his temperament and 
 abilities may lead him wholly in another direction. In the event 
 .that my said son John shall find this to be the case, it is my 
 request that he, with the assistance and advice of Jeremiah Smith, 
 my trusted cashier, Thomas Morgan, my trusted teller, and Acker, 
 Alsopp & Platt, my trusted attorneys, take such steps as he may 
 find fitting to wind up my business in such a way as shall, in his 
 judgment, be most to the interest of the heirs named in this in 
 strument. In this matter my son's judgment is to be final and is 
 not to be set aside in any particular by the judgment of the other 
 executors named in this instrument, although I trust that he will 
 take full advantage of their advice and counsel. I also wish to 
 record the fact that so far from having been distressed by my son's 
 tendency toward art, I have been highly delighted by the ability 
 he has displayed in this most admirable field, and in this, my 
 last will and testament, do hereby tender to him my heartiest con 
 gratulations, as I also tender to him my earnest love." 
 
 In the working of a banking house things must go on 
 like clock-work. There could be no delay in the accom 
 plishment of what rearrangement was necessary in the 
 affairs of his late father's business, and there in the same 
 old chair, at the same old desk, in the same old room, John 
 Murdoch was sitting the third day after the funeral, trying 
 to learn the things which his new life made it necessary 
 that he should know. He was promptly elected to fill the 
 vacancy caused by his father's death, as president of the 
 corporation. All the directors knew that this had been his 
 father's wish, and they felt that they should, at least, give 
 the son a trial. In any event, his control of a majority of 
 the stock would have settled that. There was much com 
 ment in the newspapers and elsewhere. For a young man 
 who had been devoting all his time since college to study 
 ing art in Paris to become the president of a bank seemed 
 most absurd. And, besides, this same young man had won 
 honors with his painting! This made it worse. There 
 were a few customers who withdrew their deposits, Tmt the 
 old directors, men in whom all New York had confidence, 
 told such satisfying tales of John that they soon returned 
 them again, for John Murdoch was putting the same
 
 THE CALL OF DUTY. 
 
 energy and application into the task of learning the bank 
 ing business that had won him his prize in Paris. Night 
 and day, day and night, he studied the unwelcome prob 
 lems of his new field with an energy that was untiring, 
 with rapidly growing intelligence and with what quickly 
 became a real satisfaction. It had not been genius that 
 had made Murdoch do well in Paris; it had been hard 
 work. It was not genius, but hard work, that made him 
 do well in New York. 
 
 He missed one mail in answering Lizette's letter. When 
 he did answer it he sent one to her which was shorter, far, 
 than hers had been to him, but that was to be expected of 
 a man. He told her of his father's death and he explained 
 to her about the codicil in the will in a way that touched 
 her susceptible little heart much more deeply than she 
 was able to express to him in her next letter. He told her 
 that he should be detained in New York some time, but 
 that it should not be very long before he should go back 
 to Paris, to her. He explained to her that it could not be 
 a very long time that he could stay away from her. He 
 told her in the same words which he had whispered in her 
 ear a thousand times, when they had been together, that he 
 loved her. He sent her a little money. He knew that she 
 would have been literally frightened by a large sum. He 
 asked about Kentucky, and by the same mail he wrote to 
 him, begging that faithful friend to look after Lizette and 
 watch over her as if she were his sister. And he sent the 
 large sum to Kentucky, to be used for her as might be 
 necessary, but asking him to take some of it for himself, 
 for he knew that if he did not Kentucky would have to 
 paint those little pictures and might be forced sometimes 
 to neglect his charge. She had taught him to be thought 
 ful of her, as she ever was of him, and he warned her that 
 as winter was approaching she should provide herself with 
 warm clothing and buy a new stove for the studio. The 
 old one was pretty well burned out. 
 
 Indeed, Lizette was ever in his thoughts during all those 
 moments when they were not upon his business, but those 
 moments were not many. Swarms of old friends 
 descended upon him and many new ones sought recogni-
 
 114 LIZETTE. 
 
 tion. But he was true to big old love and his old friends 
 in Paris, so far as his business would permit him to be. 
 
 But somehow that business grew ever more exacting. 
 By some strange combination in his brain, it made him for 
 get the pictures he had painted and which he had thought 
 would absorb the working interest of all his life. In one 
 letter he spoke to Lizette especially about his pictures, all 
 of which were now in his studio in Paris. John Murdoch 
 had never sold a picture. He asked her to care for them 
 and spoke of them as "our pictures," which touched her 
 tender little heart.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 IN THE TOILS OF CIRCUMSTANCE. 
 
 Kentucky wrote to Murdoch frequently, and fine, manly 
 letters he wrote. He was glad to look after Lizette, he 
 said, for she was well worth looking after. 
 
 "Old man/' Kentucky said in one of his letters, "can't 
 you come over soon? The little one is keeping up bravely, 
 but she droops, my boy, she droops. You could never 
 have known of her real devotion to you while you were 
 with her, but now that you are gone she shows it to me. 
 She does not complain, and she is not ill, but, dear old 
 fellow, her wee little smiles are sometimes almost more 
 pitiful than tears. She lives in the past. It is 'Pudgy 
 said this' and Tudgy said that,' all the time. You should 
 see the studio charming, as it always was, and always 
 ready for your home-coming. Always ready, old man! 
 Aren't you ever coming home? Damn your banking busi 
 ness! What is the use of spoiling a good artist to make a 
 bad banker? There are too many bankers already." 
 
 This letter worried Murdoch. He saw the pathos of it 
 and he told his colleagues at the bank that he must take 
 a vacation. Winter and summer had gone by this time 
 and autumn was well advanced. He told them that he 
 should only be gone a little while, and then he cabled to 
 Lizette that he should sail the next day and asked her to 
 meet him on the dock at Havre. A message from Paris 
 came back almost as quick as thought: 
 
 "No, not at Havre. At home. Oh, Pudgy!" 
 
 His eyes filled as he read her message and he sent word 
 to the big brown-stone house uptown that his traps were 
 to be packed and brought down to the bank for a long 
 absence. He planned to work all night that night in
 
 116 LIZETTE. 
 
 order that he might arrange all those matters of dignified 
 business which were concerned with that dignified bank. 
 
 His decision to take a bit of a rest met with the full 
 approval of the directors. He had heen working too hard; 
 they all saw that and they also saw that he was a very 
 extraordinary young "banker and should not be permitted 
 to overwork. 
 
 One of the directors, a venerable old gentleman, who 
 had devoted his whole life to the matter of money, patted 
 him respectfully on the back and said: 
 
 "That's right, Mr. Murdoch. Get a little sea air. It 
 will do you good. You're a chip off the old block, a chip 
 off the old block. Just like your father! Slow to think, 
 but quick to act! A chip off the old block!" 
 
 So they all thought him. They knew nothing of 
 Lizette. 
 
 It was before the end of banking hours that a respectful 
 servant brought his luggage to the bank. It was piled in 
 a neat heap in the corner of the president's room. It was 
 eminently respectable leather luggage, as should be that of 
 the president of a bank. Murdoch gave the man some in 
 structions about the management of the residence and dis 
 missed him. He knew that he should be at the bank all 
 night making the necessary preparations for his absence, 
 and he told the man to come back to the bank the next 
 morning at nine o'clock, for the steamer sailed at ten, and 
 sent him to the steamship office to buy his passage. 
 
 He had scarcely started on this errand when the cashier 
 entered the private office with as much excitement showing 
 on his face as was seemly in that banking house. 
 
 He held in his hand a little slip of paper which had just 
 been brought in by a breathless messenger. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, sir," he said, "but here is bad news 
 from Jones & Co." 
 
 Now Jones & Co. were among the largest connections 
 that the bank had, and it had been supposed for fifty 
 years that no bad news could ever come from them. But 
 here it was, notwithstanding. With the closing of its 
 doors for the day, the great firm had gone down with a 
 crash that must carry many with it.
 
 IN THE TOILS OF CIRCUMSTANCE. H7 
 
 "Hum!" said John, with the characteristic impassivity 
 of the banking house. "Yes. That is bad news. How 
 much are we involved, Mr. Smith?" 
 
 "It is impossible for me to tell without a careful account 
 ing. I can let you know by to-morrow afternoon." 
 
 "Hum!" said John Murdoch again, thinking of the 
 steamer that was to sail at ten, and thinking of Lizette, 
 to whom the ship was to have carried him. 
 
 "All right. Get it for one as soon as you can. I had 
 planned to go away to-morrow morning, you know. I dis 
 like to change my plans if a change can be avoided." 
 
 "I am afraid that it will be a very bad matter, indeed," 
 the cashier responded, with an air of one who knew for 
 certain that those plans would have to be revised. 
 
 "Hum," said John Murdoch, thoughtfully. He reached 
 for a cable blank to the little rack at the back of the 
 solemn desk at which his father had worked for so many 
 years. He wrote: 
 
 "Delayed by serious business matter last moment. Will 
 sail as soon as possible. May not be for some time." 
 
 For the more he thought about the failure the more he 
 knew that such news from Jones & Co. was likely to be bad 
 news, indeed, and that his presence would be needed in 
 New York. 
 
 When he returned to his desk he rang for a boy and sent 
 him out to cancel the steamship passage. Again business 
 had intervened to keep him from his love. 
 
 When he had hoped to sail the next morning he had 
 planned to work all night. Now that he was forced to 
 give his journey up the business of the failure kept him 
 at his desk as steadily as he would have been if the reason 
 for his industry had been that other and more pleasant 
 one. The doors were locked, but every gas jet in the great 
 offices flared and sputtered as the bookkeepers labored at 
 the figures made necessary by the failure, and in the presi 
 dent's room John Murdoch sat to hear their reports and 
 see what could be done. It was after ten o'clock when 
 a loud pounding on the door attracted the attention of a 
 clerk, who went to open it. He took a cable message in to 
 Murdoch. It was from Kentucky and it read:
 
 118 LIZETTE. 
 
 "You don't understand the situation. Your message 
 saying that you could not come has shocked her greatly. 
 Have just left her. Your delays have made her ill, but she 
 wouldn't let me tell you. Confound business. Don't let 
 anything delay you." 
 
 For the second time that night, John Murdoch sat in a 
 brown study at his desk. A great conflict went on within 
 him. His duty was in the bank. Of that there could be 
 no doubt whatever. The people whose trust his father 
 had fully earned by years of integrity and hard work now 
 placed their confidence in him. His leaving now might 
 mean much to them. He carefully thought out, and prob 
 ably with truth, that had it been so that the loss would 
 have been all his, should his departure cause loss, he would 
 have taken it and gone. But it would not be all his. The 
 people whose confidence in the bank was based upon the 
 reputation of his father for never failing vigilance and 
 faithfulness in the handling of their money, now trusted 
 him. He had accepted this confidence of theirs, and he 
 must not betray it. He had taken Lizette's confidence, too, 
 but he was not betraying that; he was only delaying His 
 groing to her until it should be possible for him to go with 
 right. 
 
 Murdoch sent for Mr. Smith. 
 
 "How are you getting along with the Jones matter?" he 
 asked. 
 
 "Much faster than I thought we could, Mr. Murdoch. 
 We shall know exactly where we stand before we open in 
 the morning." 
 
 "Look very bad?" 
 
 "Much worse than I had believed at first," responded 
 Smith. "I am more than glad that, if it did happen, it 
 happened before you had gone away, Mr. Murdoch. It's 
 a bad business." 
 
 "I'm sorry," said Murdoch, with a tired sigh. "I'm 
 very sorry that " 
 
 He had almost said that he was sorry that he had not 
 been safely on the ocean, where banking business must 
 take second place, when the crash had come, but he did not 
 finish.
 
 IN THE TOILS OF CIRCUMSTANCE. H9 
 
 He wrote another cablegram and sent it to Kentucky. 
 It said: 
 
 "Sorry. Can't leave. Very serious matter involving 
 others than self detains me. Explain to her. Get best 
 doctors. Do everything. Will cable remittance to-mor 
 row/' 
 
 Next day he received an answer which was characteristic 
 of Kentucky: 
 
 "Had, of course, done all I could before you cabled/' the 
 message read. "She don't need doctors. She needs you. 
 You make me wild with your business. Come." 
 
 When the full report of the failure of Jones & Co. was 
 turned over to him, Murdoch found that the banking 
 house of John Murdoch's Son would not lose heavily by it, 
 but he found that certain old and very highly respected 
 customers of the house were likely to, if he went away. He 
 cabled to doctors and sent one over from London to see the 
 girl in the studio, telling him to report by cable. He did, 
 as follows: 
 
 "Puzzling case. General despondency has resulted in 
 great physical depression. Very emotional and might 
 prove serious with such a temperament. Advise imme 
 diate change of air and scene. Suggest South." 
 
 Murdoch acted accordingly and cabled both Kentucky 
 and Lizette, giving the former unlimited credit. He ex 
 plained his own situation fully and felt sure they both 
 would understand and agree that he must not desert his 
 place of trust at such a time. 
 
 To this dispatch Kentucky made reply as follows: 
 
 "All right, you idiot, but it's all wrong." 
 
 So Kentucky and Lizette went down to Italy. Ken 
 tucky's letters at this time were almost as pathetic as they 
 were profane, which is saying much. He repeated that it 
 was not doctors but Murdoch's presence that Lizette 
 needed, and he said things which he would not have said 
 to any one whom he did not love in his strangely brusque 
 and ingenuous way. He told John Murdoch what he really 
 thought. 
 
 "Murdoch," he wrote, "you are an incorrigible ass. The 
 little girl is eating out her heart for a mere sight of you.
 
 120 LIZETTE. 
 
 You don't seem to understand that this is an extraordinary 
 case. I can't in my heart believe that you class it with 
 other 'affairs of the Quarter' which you and I both know 
 of. If I believed that I should damn you so that my voice 
 should reach across the ocean. And your memory? I 
 would spit on it. She does not complain in words, but in 
 lack-lustre eyes and lagging step; in languid hand and 
 paling face her heart's complaint is voiced, and if you fail 
 to hear it it means that yours is deaf deaf to the little 
 one for whose slightest sigh or whisper it should always 
 listen keenly. I have to go to some obscure cafe to write 
 these letters to you, for if she found that I was telling 
 you the truth about her it would deeply hurt her. She 
 would hate me if she thought that I was giving you 'the 
 bother/ I can't believe that you thought for a moment 
 that the money you told me to use, that damned, unlimited 
 credit that you gave me, would ease her aching heart at 
 all. What does she care for money? She wants you. 
 
 Aside from railroad fares and hotel bills on this South 
 ern trip I have only been able to spend two hundred and 
 fifty francs for her. I used to think that you were a great 
 fellow, that at last I'd found a man. But the way you're 
 acting drives me crazy. Don't you see, old man you 
 damned, unfeeling, unthinking, mercenary, rotten old 
 man of "business can't you see that you are letting the 
 greatest little girl the world ever saw go to everlasting 
 smash without you? Why don't you come, you idiot? 
 She's simply passing away from sheer love of you. It's a 
 pity and a shame. I'm going to say something to you 
 that I ought not to say, perhaps; that I had made up my 
 mind I never would say. But you need it. It ought to 
 be unnecessary for me to say it to you. You ought to 
 know it and feel it for yourself. 
 
 "You are throwing away the best part of the best life 
 that a man ever knew by your delays, and you are an idiot. 
 1 love you as I would a brother. I love you as I love Lizette, 
 and certainly no father ever loved a daughter better than 
 I love Lizette. Ah! If she were my daughter if she only 
 were the little daughter whom I lost just as I had begun 
 to learn the grandeur of a father's love so many years ago
 
 IN THE TOILS OF CIRCUMSTANCE. 121 
 
 but no, I could not love her more dearly than I do. I 
 have tried to play a little game sometimes in which part 
 of the play was that my little one had grown up and was 
 she. What happiness! What pride! If only it were true! If 
 I did not love her so, it would not tear my heart to shreds 
 to see her sorrowing in silence. If I did not love you so 
 I'd tell her to let you go, and make her do it, too. I'd 
 lie to her about you and make her think that you were a 
 scoundrel, which you're not. You're merely an abnor 
 mally developed fool. If I did not love you so I wouLl 
 not take the trouble to abuse you. It's a bother. It works 
 me up and makes my hand shake worse than absinthe used 
 to. Why don't you come over here, you great big, hulk 
 ing jackass, and marry the only woman whom you will ever 
 love the only woman who will ever love you. 
 
 "I could tell you a tale about my own beginnings, J ohn 
 Murdoch a tale with as bright an opening chapter as 
 yours has had, but with final words of tragedy, as yours 
 will have if you do not do as I tell you, and as I know your 
 own heart tells you to. If I could only get a chance to talk 
 to you! But I can't write it. It is a story of great happi 
 ness lost. Of great hopes lost. Of possibilities of joy 
 as great as yours are lost. Its ending is this sordid, sad 
 dened, sodden life of mine. Don't do it, boy. Don't risk 
 it. Don't. Throw everything aside and be glad God 
 gives to you the chance. Some day I'll tell you all about 
 it, and then you'll know why it is that my anxiety for both 
 of you is greater than any anxiety that I could possibly 
 know for myself. For her sake, come. For your sake, 
 come. For my sake, come. Your friend. KENTUCKY. 
 
 But Murdoch could not go. His new life had developed 
 characteristics which even he had not guessed at until 
 this crisis brought them out. With the coming of 
 emergency, the stubborn determination which had been his 
 father's secret of success rose uppermost. He had care 
 fully thought out his duty to his business connections, who 
 had placed their trust in him as they had placed it in the 
 father who had been before him, and despite his yearnings 
 for the little one, despite Kentucky's gloomy letters, 
 despite the fact that hers grew short and infrequent, al-
 
 122 LIZETTE. 
 
 though they never failed to breathe her love for him, he 
 held his course. He knew that it would not be long be 
 fore his business duty would release him and he could go 
 to her, and he felt really, in his heart, that he had suffered 
 from the separation, too, and that when he finally went to 
 her and told her what he had to tell about the reasons for 
 his waiting, told her what he had to tell about the unfail 
 ing faithfulness of his great love, told her, as he had re 
 solved to tell her, that he wanted her to marry him, so that 
 nothing should ever separate them more, that then her 
 grief and doubting all would pass, and she would under 
 stand and say that he had done that thing which had been 
 right for him to do. 
 
 Spring came and Kentucky wrote to him that fhey had 
 gone back to Paris. Lizette, he said, was weary of every 
 thing that did not talk to her about her happy days with 
 Murdoch in the past. She yearned so for the old sur 
 roundings that he had yielded to her pleading and in 
 stalled her in the old studio again. 
 
 "I know you'll come, old man," he wrote, "when you 
 can get that infernal conscience of yours to let your busi 
 ness slide, but when you see her you will be shocked. She 
 has changed greatly in her looks and manner." 
 
 This letter had been at the very bottom of the morn 
 ing's pile of mail, which always was the first business of his 
 day. He had scarcely finished reading it when the cashier 
 came in to tell him that before the day was over the last 
 tangle of the Jones & Co. failure would have "been straight 
 ened out and handed to him a balance-sheet which summed 
 up the details of his work in settling the affairs of the de 
 funct concern. It showed that through his careful man 
 agement he had saved from material loss all those people 
 who could rightfully look to him for help. This was balm 
 to Murdoch's spirit. 
 
 The first great struggle of his business life had been 
 creditably won. 
 
 Now he could go to her. 
 
 He felt in many ways much as he hal felt that morning 
 when he had won the Prix d'Honneur in Paris. Then he 
 had been quietly elated. He had almost failed to under-
 
 IN THE TOILS OF CIRCUMSTANCE. 123 
 
 stand Lizette's wild exuberance of joy; now his hired 
 cashier showed more outward signs of enthusiasm over 
 this new victory than he did. 
 
 On that morning he had sat looking over at the swaying 
 trees in the Gardens of the Luxembourg, quietly trium 
 phant, silently enjoying the sensations of success. But she 
 had danced around him, a crazed, delighted little elf, al 
 most beside herself with joy. He told the cashier to see 
 that no one bothered him while he examined that final 
 balance-sheet, but when he was alone he did not think of 
 it. Instead, he thought of her and wondered how she 
 would feel if she were there to share this new success with 
 him. He tried to picture her, not in the studio that 
 would be no place to think of victories of finance but in 
 a window of the solemn brown-stone mansion uptown, get 
 ting the news that he had won this fight. He could not 
 see her there, even in his imagination. She did not fit 
 the place. He wondered where he should find in all New 
 York a place fit for her daintiness. But he would find one 
 now, and go to fetch her to it. And old Kentucky he 
 should come too, if he would. He had been the genuine 
 man, the real friend. He would go at once and get them 
 both. But now, before he did another thing, he felt that 
 he must write to her, and tell her all he had to tell. It 
 was not a long letter that he wrote, but it said much to her 
 more than he had ever said before. He smiled happily 
 as he put the seal upon it, and wondered if its contents 
 would please that woman artist who had talked to him so 
 frankly while she stood there in her hallway with her 
 brush, loaded with cheap paint for worthless servants, in 
 her hand. 
 
 One or two of the directors and other business people, 
 who would naturally hear quickly of his business victory, 
 came in to congratulate the young man who had won it, as 
 his father would have won it, despite the fact that for a 
 time he had spent his days in Paris, studying a foolish 
 thing called Art. He was not effusive. To them he 
 seemed, even as he had seemed to Lizette, on that other 
 day, almost too indifferent. It occurred to many of them, 
 ae he stood there with the weary lines deepening on his
 
 124 LIZETTE. 
 
 face from the effects of relaxation, that he might be so 
 tired that he could not appreciate the taste of victory's 
 fruit. The same old director who had slapped him on the 
 back and told him, months "before, that he ought to take 
 the vacation which he had earned and then proposed to 
 take, came in again, and again went through his motions. 
 
 "Well," said Murdoch, smiling gravely, "this time I am 
 going." 
 
 He called a messenger and gave that letter to Lizeite to 
 him to mail, and then he went to work again. 
 
 It was a busy day for him. No one could see the 
 slightest reason, now, why he should not take the short 
 rest which the short trip he told them he had planned 
 would give to him. He had done wonderfully well, and 
 might go away and feel content. 
 
 He left the bank as early as he could, and as he drove 
 up Broadway went to sleep. The strain was over, and 
 now his weariness was overpowering. He scarcely waited 
 for his dinner, and went early to bed to dream about 
 Lizette and a new home for her, where she should find 
 a place for all her daintinesses.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 AN UNEXPECTED VISITOE. 
 
 Murdoch woke early the next morning, feeling bright 
 and rested. That had been rare lately. The hour at 
 which he ordered coffee surprised his cook. He read his 
 newspaper while he waited for it, and studied sailing lists. 
 A steamer was to sail that very day at noon, and he wasted 
 no time in deciding to sail with her. That leather lug 
 gage was pulled out and packed again and started down 
 town to the bank before he ate his breakfast. Now that he 
 could go, he wanted to go quickly. There must be no 
 more delays. He smiled quietly as he found himself de 
 claring inwardly that nothing should make him wait again, 
 that no failure, if it were of the bank's most solid cus 
 tomer, should keep him in New York a minute after that 
 ship sailed. He sent hurrying messengers to call an early 
 morning meeting of the Board to be held at the bank in 
 time for him to get through with it and go. He wrote a 
 few short notes to friends and hastened downtown. 
 
 His luggage reached there before he did himself, and 
 was piled neatly and with its air of eminent brown-leather- 
 bound respectability in a corner of his room. The meet 
 ing of the Board was held and ended before the hour for 
 opening came. The directors all approved of his decision, 
 and all said that he did things as his father had quickly, 
 when he once got started at them. They knew he needed 
 rest and were glad to have him go. 
 
 At about the time the bank opened a clerk came in and 
 told Murdoch that a man who refused to give his name 
 waited outside to see him. 
 
 "I am very busy and am just going away. Ask him if 
 his business can't be done by some one else." 
 
 "1 did, sir, but he told me that he was an old friend of
 
 126 LIZETTE. 
 
 yours and wished to see you personally. He would not 
 even give his name. He is a strange looking man with a 
 queer high hat " and the clerk described Kentucky. 
 
 Murdoch did not wait for the end of the description. 
 When he heard the details of the stranger's hat, he jumped 
 up from his chair with an alacrity that room had never 
 seen before. For an instant his heart throbbed with a 
 genuine and delightful joy. He would be glad, indeed, 
 to see Kentucky. But then there came a little chill and a 
 catching of his breath. Why had Kentucky left Lizette? 
 Had something dreadful happened just as he was ready 
 to carry out his plans? The thought stopped him for a 
 second at the door. Then he went out into the long cor 
 ridor. Kentucky was walking slowly down it, and Mur 
 doch paused for an instant to contemplate the old, familiar 
 back. The clothes upon it were the ones for which Mur 
 doch had advanced the money; but they were shabby now, 
 and the hat was that of beams and girders. Murdoch 
 called in a voice that startled all the staid and respectable 
 employees of that banking house. 
 
 "Kentucky," he cried, "come here!" 
 
 Kentucky turned to meet him, and there before them all 
 the president of the bank and the eccentric looking 
 stranger from the Latin Quarter greeted each other with 
 French effusiveness. They hugged and then they held 
 each other off at arms' length and looked into each other's 
 faces. The business of the bank stopped. It was a shock. 
 It came very near to scandal. Nothing like it had ever 
 happened before in all the history of that banking house. 
 But Murdoch did not care. He pulled Kentucky into his 
 room and shut the door. He forced him into his own 
 chair and gave orders that he must not be disturbed. Such 
 doings were revolutionary, and the boy backed from the 
 room, with his eyes fixed in mute wonder on the face of 
 his strangely changed employer. 
 
 Again the old friends shook hands and looked each 
 other over. 
 
 "You haven't changed," said Murdoch. 
 
 "Nor you," Kentucky said, "except that you are better 
 dressed,"
 
 AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR. 127 
 
 "You're not," said Murdoch, smiling. 
 
 And then, with an expression of eagerness and anxiety 
 which could not have been assumed and was 'balm to the 
 faithful, puzzled soul of poor Kentucky., the banker put 
 his hands upon the shoulders of the student, and, leaning 
 toward him, said quickly: 
 
 "Lizette?" 
 
 "Oh, Murdoch! I'm so glad! I am glad! It's true, then. 
 You do love her yet. You do, man, you do. Tell me so." 
 
 "I do, Kentucky; of course, I do," said Murdoch. His 
 face now wore the puzzled look. "Why? What makes 
 you ask? She does not doubt it, does she? You do not 
 doubt it, do you?" 
 
 "Oh, we had both begun to doubt or I had, anyway. 
 You didn't come. What could we think? And, man dear, 
 she was dying for you. I mean that. She was dying for 
 you. I came over to find out. To see if I could find out 
 really what the matter is. I came to take you back with 
 me to that little girl and save her happiness. You have 
 no right to ruin it." 
 
 He paused and looked intently at the banker. "And 
 Murdoch, if I had found differently, I don't know what I 
 should have done to you. And if you don't come with me, 
 I don't know what I shall do." 
 
 Murdoch was filled with a great exhilaration. The love 
 of dramatic effect which had made the conceptions of his 
 pictures good and which had been smothered since he had 
 returned to New York ran riot with him. He held the 
 gravity of his face so rigidly that Kentucky would have 
 seen the falseness of it had he not been too wrought up to 
 stop to think. 
 
 "Why, Kentucky," Murdoch forced himself to say, as 
 he waved his hand toward the outer office, "how can I go? 
 Look at all this!" 
 
 Kentucky, whose face had been radiant, when he found 
 that his old friend seemed still faithful to the past, sat, 
 after this speech, as if frozen in the chair. Murdoch 
 watched him, enjoying for a second what he had meant to 
 be a joke. But as he was about to speak and undo the 
 pleasantry, Kentucky's long, ungainly figure rose slowly
 
 128 LIZETTE. 
 
 from the chair. Its every joint stretched out. The old, 
 familiar stoop was gone. The face which topped it wore 
 an expression which Murdoch had never seen on it before. 
 He watched the change with fascination. Kentucky 
 slowly reached out for his ancient hat and placed it firmly 
 on his head. His eyes looked over Murdoch, and beyond 
 him. It did not seem as if they saw the walls of the dull 
 room. There was an impressive something it was al 
 most majestic in Kentucky's presence now which kept 
 Murdoch from speaking. 
 
 Kentucky broke the silence. He did not look at Mur 
 doch. His eyes stared into space. 
 
 "Then may the good Lord punish you as you deserve," 
 he said. "Murder is nothing to it. God!" 
 
 The agony in his face was real. The staring eyes 
 changed and filled with tears. More than the old stoop 
 came back to the tall frame nd shortened it. He turned 
 to Murdoch. 
 
 "Murdoch, man, you don't mean it. You can't mean it. 
 Think of her, Murdoch, think of her! Every day that I've 
 been with her it has always been Tudgy! Pudgy! Pudgy!' 
 Sometimes, in our talks down there in the South, I became 
 angry at you and said harsh things. And then, poor thing, 
 languishing away for love of you as sweet a woman, Mur 
 doch, as God lets live she always made excuses for you, 
 and told her love for you a thousand times in defending 
 you from me. In defending you from me, the best friend 
 that you've got, John Murdoch! 
 
 "She has said that we could not reasonably expect you 
 to come back. That it was all wrong for us to think that 
 you ever would come back. Art students never did 
 come back, she said. She has even tried, John Mur 
 doch, to put her love and yours upon the basis in 
 my eyes of the sordid affairs of the Quarter, which you 
 know, as well as I do, are as different from it as the black 
 est hole in hell is different from the brightest spot in 
 heaven. But she has tried to do it, Murdoch, in order 
 that I should not blame you. That beastly trip! It was 
 a nightmare. It did not help her any. That was not 
 what she needed. She needed you. So we went back to
 
 THE OLD WOMAN WHO SOLD COALS
 
 AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR. 129 
 
 Paris, where she could sit and mope and dream of you 
 among familiar things and places that had been common 
 to your life together there the life in which she lives in 
 memory to dull the sorrow of a painful present. And so 
 my journey is in vain! Good Lord! I cannot face her. I 
 don't know what to do/' 
 
 Murdoch spoke at last, and if the tears came to Ken 
 tucky's big old eyes as he stopped speaking, there were 
 just as many in John Murdoch's when he started. 
 
 "Kentucky," he said, "I am an ass. I tried to fool 
 you. I am going. Before I had any notion that you were 
 not in Paris I had everything arranged to sail at noon to 
 day. Now we'll sail together. I am going to her, Ken 
 tucky, and you are going with me. We'll go to her to 
 gether, old man, and then we'll all come back here to a new 
 home, where we three will be as happy as we ever were, and 
 happier. Now what are you going to do to me, or call 
 upon the Powers to do?" 
 
 It was Kentucky now who could not speak. He went 
 over to Murdoch, who had not risen. He hugged him as 
 a bear might hug. Murdoch called a man and told him to 
 buy another passage. For ten minutes he talked with the 
 cashier and told him that he would look at nothing else 
 that morning, but that he would return in six or seven 
 weeks. Even the cashier was glad that at last Murdoch 
 was really to take a rest. It seemed to him, as it seemed to 
 all his associates in the bank, that the mere thought of 
 going away had done Murdoch worlds of good, for his step, 
 which had been heavy lately, was light; his eyes, which had 
 been dull and tired looking, were bright; his voice, which 
 had been sharp and peevish, was brisk and pleasant. 
 
 There were papers which had been prepared for in 
 spection and signature before his departure. These Mur 
 doch disposed of rapidly. His carriage was waiting. The 
 luggage was piled on. Murdoch bundled Kentucky into 
 the carriage, and when, after he had joined him there and 
 the solemn servant f 'om the Madison avenue mansion had 
 closed the door (trying hard not to show surprise at the ap 
 pearance of his master's companion), they went straight to 
 the dock and left the luggage. They had an hour before
 
 130 LIZETTE. 
 
 the steamer sailed, and they drove to the cable office and 
 sent a message to Lizette. Both signed it. It read. 
 
 "We sail at noon for Paris and for you. Have a fire in 
 the new stove and some ecrivisse. Nos coeurs sont plein de 
 
 toi. "PUDGY. 
 
 "KENTUCKY." 
 
 The last sentence of the message meant, "Our hearts 
 are full of thee," and it was couched in the familiar French 
 which one uses with those he loves, but not with strangers. 
 
 And, indeed, their hearts were full of her. Of nothing 
 else they talked as they drove; of nothing else they 
 thought as they climbed the gang-plank of the steamer. 
 They did not see the beautiful panorama of New York 
 harbor as the big ship ploughed through its waters. That 
 night they sat in the smoking-room until the lights went 
 out. They did not see the poker-players. Their only in 
 terest in the day's runs came from the fact that every revo 
 lution of the big ship's paddle wheels took them nearer 
 to that other shore where they should find Lizette. 
 
 During the long days on the ship, sometimes when they 
 were sitting in the smoking-room, sometimes when they 
 were pacing the deck together and a strangely assorted 
 pair they looked Kentucky told to Murdoch's ever-eager 
 ears tales of Lizette's devotion, of her sweetness, of her un 
 selfishness. 
 
 "One day she said to me," he said, "that it seemed to 
 her unfair that so many good things should fall to her and 
 so few to other girls. That was when, dear man, we 
 looked for you almost day by day, and before your long de 
 lays had taken all the brightness out of her, as it did later." 
 
 Kentucky paused here. Murdoch could not resent the 
 rebuke that was half-hidden in the voice of his companion. 
 
 "She was very happy," the student continued, after a 
 moment's pause. "The very next day you sent to me that 
 damned 'unlimited credit.' I never told her about that. I 
 feared that its very generosity would be mistaken and 
 make her think that she would have long, indeed, to wait 
 for you. I merely told her that you had sent a sum of 
 money to me, saying that you would be over soon yourself, 
 but begging me, in the meantime, to be her banker and see
 
 AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR. 131 
 
 to it that she had means to get whatever things she needed. 
 She spent mighty little of it, Murdoch. Your money never 
 made you one whit dearer to Lizette. The only new clothes 
 even that I could make her buy were the merest, plainest 
 necessaries. It seemed as if she were unwilling even to 
 throw aside the gowns in which you had seen and loved 
 her. And that red wrapper! Do you remember that? 
 She would not get a new one. Tudgy liked me in this/ 
 she said to me when I urged her to go and buy another. 
 She had darned and sewed on it until it was almost all 
 mends and patches. But you had said you liked it, and 
 that settled it." 
 
 "I am glad," said Murdoch, "that she saved it. We shall 
 keep it always." 
 
 "It was because of her rigid economies that I was sur 
 prised one day, when she came and asked me if I thought 
 you could afford to let her have a hundred francs," went 
 on Kentucky. "If I thought it would not be wrong, she 
 said, she hoped that I could give it to her. Again she said 
 that it seemed unfair that she should have so much while 
 others had so little. She wanted just a hundred francs to 
 give away. She got it got it quick. 
 
 "You know how the girls over there love their fancy 
 petticoats? Those queer things, cut out on the hias and 
 ruffled, and all that? Well, they can't always get them. 
 They don't always have the money. Lizette used her hun 
 dred francs in buying fancy petticoats for some girls who 
 couldn't get them for themselves. You know how the 
 French woman loves to hold her outside skirt up in order 
 to show the beauty of the one beneath it? Well, there were 
 six or seven happy girls in the Quarter after she had spent 
 her hundred francs all holding up their outside skirts. 
 She was one of the happy girls, although she had no new 
 petticoat to show. The girls that did have came to the 
 studio and showed them to her, and she was happy! It 
 seems to me that she is always happiest when she is work 
 ing for another's pleasure." 
 
 Kentucky loved her as a father might. 
 
 One night, seated in a quiet corner of the deck it was 
 when only two days remained to pass before they reached
 
 131 LIZETTE. 
 
 the English shore he told to Murdoch the story of his 
 life's tragedy, and said it seemed to him as if Heaven had 
 sent Lizette to him to take the place of the baby daughter, 
 who, with the mother he had loved so well, lay buried in 
 a cholera grave in a churchyard away in the south of 
 France. 
 
 "It seems to me," he said, "that it would be easier if 
 they had not died so dreadfully; if they had perished of 
 something other than the plague. It would not help them 
 any, Murdoch, if I could go and dream of them above their 
 graves, somewhere in a quiet churchyard, where shadows 
 lay serene and flowers bloomed above them; but it would 
 help me. It seems to me that if I could have nursed her 
 in her illness and held her hand as she passed into the 
 great dark, my sorrow would be lighter. They told me 
 that they placed the p'tite cherie clasped tight within her 
 arms as if together they had gone to sleep, and only waited 
 for the morning to awaken. I am glad that they did that. 
 But, Murdoch! If only it had been my solemn privilege 
 to fix them thus the poor, dead mother and our poor, 
 dead child with their arms about each other it would be 
 easier for me now. If I could only see them in my mem 
 ory as they were when they were laid to rest! If I could 
 have the selfish satisfaction of going to a separate grave 
 and knowing that within its walls they lay alone! If I 
 could put over them some little monument on which the 
 story of my love was cut in lasting stone! But there they 
 lie my loves, my life, my hopes, ambitions, all buried in 
 that common grave where dozens, unknown, unreckoned 
 and unloved, lie with them. It made it doubly hard for 
 me, old man, to go back and find them buried in that com 
 mon grave. The very day they died, they told me when I 
 reached the place, her father a hard, incorrigible, unfor 
 giving man, he was arrived there with a woman, who said 
 she was his sister. It was a lie. He had no sister. I know 
 what he intended. Learning that I had left them there 
 alone, he planned to go and steal them from me. But 
 Death took them first." 
 
 It was late at night when Kentucky told his tale of 
 tragedy to Murdoch. They had left the smoking-room,
 
 AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR. 133 
 
 and were sitting on the open deck in solitude. The sky 
 was dark and lowering, with almost all its stars obscured, 
 but a lingering opalescent light glowed dimly beyond the 
 drooping clouds. The ship was rolling gently. Kentucky 
 arose, and his tall, ungainly figure, swaying to the motion 
 of the ship, was silhouetted black against the distant 
 radiance. 
 
 "Never may you suffer, Murdoch, as I have suffered!" 
 he said, slowly. "Never, when it is too late, may your busy 
 brain find bitter food for thought in tardy recognition of 
 neglected opportunities for kindness and for loving ser 
 vice! Never may it be your reverie, late at night, that, if 
 your chance had only been extended by a kindly God, you 
 would have done this for her, or that! Never may it be 
 your horrid fortune to reach yearning arms out into the 
 darkness and know that she whose place was in them has 
 forever gone, and that those arms have failed in their pro 
 tection in the very hour of need! Never may it be your 
 terror, Murdoch, to see life stretch before you blank and 
 empty as mine has stretched in front of me! Never may 
 existence seem so vain to you that all incentive for work 
 and effort shall have vanished and only the dogged instinct 
 of retaining life dull, joyless, dreary remain to make 
 you live! All these sensations have been mine, John Mur 
 doch, and may they never come to you!" 
 
 Kentucky sat down on the bench at Murdoch's side. He 
 put his hand upon the banker's knee, and said: 
 
 "Now you know my story. Now you know why I've 
 seemed to be interested in your doings and have bothered 
 you with my anxieties about your life and hers. Murdoch, 
 I love you both. Kemernber that. If I ever seem to med 
 dle, remember that. If I seem to take upon my shoulders 
 burdens which are rightly yours, and annoy you with offi- 
 ciousness, remember that. Eemember, Murdoch, that old 
 Kentucky, having seen his own life go to wreck and ruin, 
 is only trying to burn signals and throw out lines to you, 
 when he sees your own and hers approaching near the 
 rocks. What does this banking business in New York, 
 for which you have neglected her you have, old man, 
 you have neglected her amount to? Nothing! It was
 
 134 LIZETTE. 
 
 your father's wish that you should take it up, and your 
 sense of duty to the dead has played large part in your 
 devotion to it. Yes. Admirable. But he is dead. And 
 she is living. You can't help or please him, now. And 
 she is living living there alone and yearning for you. 
 Forgive me, Murdoch; but remember what I say." 
 
 "I shall. You are the best and truest friend I have, 
 except the little one," said Murdoch. 
 
 "I think I am. At least I try to be." 
 
 Then, while the steamship's busy paddles were pounding 
 through the waves and forcing her great bulk onward to 
 ward the other shore of that great ocean, where Lizette 
 waited, loving them and yearning for their coming, they 
 went below to sleep. Murdoch, to see her as the earnest, 
 loving soul whom he should have ever with him in the 
 future; Kentucky, to idly fancy in fleeting visions, sleep 
 born, that that little one, long dead and lying in her silent 
 mother's arms down in that Southern churchyard, was liv 
 ing still. And in his dream she came to him, and, reach 
 ing out her arms, she called him father. And when he 
 looked to see the vision of his daughter, he smiled with 
 happiness and saw Lizette.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 LIZETTE'S PBATEE. 
 
 John Murdoch's letter reached Lizette the very day they 
 sailed. It always made her happy to get letters from her 
 loved one, even in these days of deep despondency and 
 loneliness. Sometimes she sat for hours, holding a letter 
 from him unopened in her hand, hoping against hope that 
 it would tell her he was coming, longing to read his words 
 of love, but fearing to, because so often there were writ 
 ten with them other words which told of new delays. It 
 was evening when the postman brought it. She forgot 
 her dinner, but sat, grave and silent with it in her hand, 
 in one of the windows looking out upon the Gardens of 
 the Luxembourg. It was much thinner than his letters 
 generally were. Some of them, written on the heavy paper 
 of the bank, .had been so thick that they felt stiff and heavy 
 in her hand, as if the envelope were full of pasteboard. 
 But this one bent so readily that, in the sweet uncertainty 
 of wondering what it told, she almost crumpled it. Her 
 hand closed tightly on it, and the gum which held the flap 
 gave way. So when she looked down at it lying in her 
 open palm an instant later, it had opened of itself! 
 
 Before she read she saw that there were only two sheets 
 of letter-paper. Sometimes he wrote a dozen. She won 
 dered if he was now so very busy that he would no longer 
 find the time to write long letters! Then she read. 
 
 "I am coming over to you," said the letter, "very soon. 
 Just when, I cannot tell. It will be as soon as I can in 
 honor leave my work here. I cannot stay long in Paris." 
 
 She dropped the letter to her lap and sighed. So it was 
 only to be a little, little visit, after all this visit she had 
 waited for so long!
 
 136 LIZETTE. 
 
 "I cannot stay long in Paris/' she read again, "for my 
 work henceforth is here/' 
 
 The shock of this most startling statement would have 
 made her stop again, if, as the tears quickly gathered in 
 her eyes, she had not seen a few words, indistinctly, com 
 ing after it. She read them eagerly. 
 
 "But you must be here with me. My heart cries out for 
 you and needs you. You must come with me and we must 
 not separate again." 
 
 She stopped now, but only to wipe away the tears which 
 came without her bidding and had no sorrow in them. She 
 read those words again: 
 
 "You must come with me, and we must not separate 
 again. With no base motive and without intent of wrong 
 ing you, my dear one, I have done you great injustice/' 
 
 Her eyes flew over the paper now as fast as her imper 
 fect knowledge of the English words would let them. 
 
 "I realized this long ago. Just previous to the news which told 
 me of my father's illness, I realized it, and intended then to right 
 the wrong that I had unthinkingly and not stopping to consider, 
 put on you. You have been ever sweet and true to me. I know 
 that as surely as I know when the sun shines. In a blind and 
 stumbling way I have tried to merit your great love and kindness, 
 but in the very greatest thing of all I failed. I shall not fail again. 
 I love you, precious one, my wee Lizette I love you and 1 ask 
 you, beg of you as humbly as suitor ever begged, to add to the 
 great happiness you have already given to my life by marrying me. 
 My life seems preordained to lie here, not there in Paris, as we 
 had hoped and planned it would. My stay at the old studio must 
 be very short, indeed, this time. I must hurry back to go on with 
 the work which will lie waiting for me here. But when I hurr/ 
 back, come with me as my wife. I love you and I honor you. Give 
 me the right to cherish you to ever shelter and protect you. 
 Marry me, my sweet, and we will not part again. 
 
 "My heart goes out to you. 
 
 "JOHN MURDOCH." 
 
 She read this letter many times. Her heart beat fast. 
 The tears ran slowly down her cheeks. It was too great a 
 happiness that the written words had brought to her! She 
 held the letter to her heart and tried to realize it all. She 
 could not. She rose and walked about the studio, softly 
 touching little things with loving fingers. She walked 
 from room to room. Underneath his skylight stood his
 
 LIZETTE'S PRAYER. 137 
 
 easel. She paused before it, and let her finger tips move 
 softly up and down upon its wood, just touching it. It 
 was his easel! In a closet opening from the studio hung 
 his great rain coat the very one he had worn that morn 
 ing when the news came from America which carried him 
 away from her. She softly buried her small face in it and 
 snuggled up against it as a kitten snuggles in a rug. 
 
 Then there came the great necessity for telling some 
 one. Of a certainty she must share her happiness with 
 some one. It was hard to leave the studio, but it must be 
 done. She knew of no one she could tell except the old 
 woman who sold coals. She was a very good old woman 
 and, while she would not understand, she must be told. 
 Lizette wondered if in all her life the old woman who sold 
 coals had ever ridden in a cab. That day she should. Of 
 a verity she should. 
 
 She hurried to the shop and communicated eagerly her 
 plan that they should drive. The old woman who sold 
 coals could not understand such schemes. It was not clos 
 ing time. 
 
 That did not matter, said Lizette. They would drive, 
 because great happiness had come to her that day, and 
 they would drive. 
 
 Wonderfully mystified was the old woman who sold 
 coals, but such a chance must not be lost. 
 
 Standing in the little shop was the young man who had 
 lodged there so many years. It was he who once had 
 studied art, but had the ambition to paint pictures washed 
 out of him with Seine water by John Murdoch. Lizette 
 did not know about that matter. She partly knew the 
 story of the affair, but Murdoch had never told her that 
 the man whom he had ducked and who had cut him in the 
 hip that afternoon was the lodger of the old woman who 
 sold coals. It proved to be a pity that he had failed to tell 
 her, but Murdoch was not a man to boast. Lizette knew 
 the man by sight and always bowed to him when she saw 
 him in the coal shop. She often saw him there. It was 
 strange, indeed, that he should be so often there, but there 
 he often was. He seemed to be good-natured this time. It 
 may be that the old woman who sold coals had been more
 
 138 LIZETTE. 
 
 willing to furnish him with money than she had been on 
 that other past occasion. At any rate, he urged her to ac 
 cept the invitation, and laughed. He told her that the air 
 would do her good, and went himself to get a neighbor to 
 come and watch the shop. 
 
 What a pleasant drive that was! Lizette herself gave 
 orders to the cocker that no beggar should be passed with 
 out a charitable pause, and when they came to Notre 
 Dame, she told the man to stop and wait for them while 
 they went in to pray. He was suspicious. There are many 
 entrances to Notre Dame and one need not go away the 
 way one enters. It would be easy to leave him standing 
 there all night, while they went out some other way. 
 Lizette gave him his fare and told him he could wait or 
 go away as best he pleased. They should return to him or 
 to some other cocker before very long by that same door 
 by which they entered. 
 
 Early in the day she had planned to buy some little 
 luxuries. The money which she had set aside for this she 
 dropped into the poor-box as she entered. The little old 
 woman who sold coals was puzzled beyond expression by it 
 all. She was glad to have the drive, but was it to end at 
 Notre Dame, not ten minutes' walk from where she sold 
 her coals? What could this very gay young woman have 
 in that small head of hers, she wondered. Lizette sought 
 out a place where the shadow of a pillar fell, and dropped 
 slowly to her knees. 
 
 "Kneel you, also," she whispered to the old woman who 
 sold coals. "Kneel you here by me, and ask the Holy Vir 
 gin to shelter him and keep him for me, to bring him safe 
 and joyous to me, to make his pathways ever smooth and 
 bright with happiness, to give me strength to care for 
 him and cherish him and love him ever as he will ever 
 merit love; beg Her, the Blessed One, to help me to de 
 serve the great joy which this day has come to me and 
 make me worthy of it; beg Her to show me how to ever 
 think of him and not think of myself; beg Her that sor 
 rows if they fall may fall on me and not on him; beg Her 
 to cast me out and hate me if I ever by so little wrong or 
 hurt him; beg Her that I may see the way to help him ever
 
 LIZETTE'S PRAYER. 139 
 
 and to never hinder him; beg Her now to let me die, while 
 joy so great and sweet is in me, if by my living wrong or 
 harm shall come to him in that great land across the sea, 
 where he must work and live." 
 
 The old woman was impressed, and in her mind stopped 
 all complaining over the brevity of the drive. She was so 
 earnest, this little one who kneeled by her and begged the 
 prayers of her! Surely, something wondrous must have 
 happened to make her feel so strongly. She did not bow 
 her head, but, instead, looked in wonder at the little one. 
 Lizette softly put her hands across the watching eyes. 
 
 "Pray, good one, pray!" she said. "Afterwards I shall 
 tell you why, but now pray for my Pudgy." 
 
 It was most astonishing, and it is not possible that the 
 wonder of it left much thought for prayer in the busy 
 head of the old woman who sold coals. But she bowed her 
 head obediently, though not understanding in the least 
 what it was all about. 
 
 And how she prayed Lizette! In the solemn quiet of 
 the holy place she poured her heart out to the Virgin the 
 only one she knew to pray to. In her mind, untutored 
 and seeing such things very, very dimty, God Himself was 
 far too terrible a Being for her to ask a favor of. The 
 twisted and haphazard theology which she had picked up, 
 crumb by crumb, because she hungered for it, made God 
 the punisher, and Christ's mother, Mary, the beauteous 
 and gentle Influence which begged of Him for mercy for 
 poor mortals. 
 
 For a long time she kneeled there, bowed in silent sup 
 plication. It almost hurt her to breathe forth the in 
 tensity of her petition for the welfare of her loved one. 
 The tears came to her eyes and ran, unheeded, down her 
 cheeks. She knew not what she did this little one. She 
 knew most indefinitely whom it was she prayed to, and 
 there were in her supplication none of the conventional 
 ities of made-to-order prayers. But hers was real her 
 pleading. There was in it such simple faith as little chil 
 dren feel. There was in it the true devotion of complete 
 self-abnegation. There was in it, in its ignorance, a qual 
 ity that Heaven cannot always find in prayers sent up to
 
 140 LIZETTE. 
 
 it. Surely, it was but right that this day she should thank 
 the Blessed Virgin! How many joys were hers! Her hap 
 piness was boundless, scarce to be believed! How fer 
 vently she gave her thanks that hour in Notre Dame! 
 
 Can any theologian, deeply versed in the Bible and the 
 science of theology, say that that prayer of hers was not 
 as likely to be heard in Heaven as any smoothly-voiced pe 
 tition sent up from any pulpit by any ordained priest? 
 Can it be possible that Sunday prayers by cultured women, 
 who tell their beads in high-priced pews with words con 
 ventionally set for them by others, are more likely to be 
 heard of God than was this stammering, half-formed peti 
 tion, breathed in sincerity and reverence to Christ's 
 mother, by this little untaught, loving girl that day in 
 Notre Dame? Not for herself did she ask the intervention 
 of the Virgin, but for her Pudgy. It was all for him! 
 
 When she arose at last a light was in her eyes a light 
 of brilliance, such as is not often given to woman's eyes to 
 show, and she was very happy.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE JOY OF PEEPAKATION. 
 
 It was a great and wondrous period for Lizette. Her 
 half hour in Notre Dame with the old woman who sold 
 coals had been a necessity demanded by emotion. Some 
 one had to share the first uncontrollable exuberance of the 
 joy that filled her after reading Pudgy's letter. She went 
 back to the studio and was glad to be alone again. Her 
 happiness in those dear old rooms seemed sacred happiness 
 to her, such as must not be witnessed by any except the two 
 men who were absent in America. She had not heard from 
 dear Kentucky since he had left for New York City to see 
 Murdoch, and she wondered if Murdoch had told him 
 about the letter. She knew that he would be rejoiced 
 by it. 
 
 What a dear old place the studio looked, with the day 
 light softened by the heavy curtains, joining with the red 
 glare from the fire in the new stove. It was a warm day, 
 but the fire was 'burning brightly. Pudgy had written to 
 her that she must keep it burning, and she would have 
 tolerated tortures from the heat before she would have let 
 it die. Sometimes she even suffered from it, and had to 
 open every window so that the cool air from outside might 
 blow in to counteract its blazing ardor, but that she did not 
 mind, except for the great waste of coals, for when the 
 windows were opened wide there were the pleasant muffled 
 noises of the Boulevard from the front, and from the side 
 those soft, uprising shouts of the children at their play in 
 the Gardens of the Luxembourg. She listened happily to 
 them this morning and had gone to the open window to 
 look out when the concierge knocked on the door. She 
 did not hear her, so the concierge went in and handed a
 
 142 LIZETTE. 
 
 small envelope to her. It was a telegram, and she tore it 
 open eagerly. She feared for a moment that it might tell 
 of new delays, but when she read she found she had new 
 cause for happiness. It was that part of the message that 
 was written in familiar French that pleased her most, of 
 course, although the other words made definite the fact 
 that they would sail that very day. "Nos coeurs sont plein 
 de toi!" "Our hearts are full of thee!" And they had 
 sent these words of love by ocean telegraph and linked 
 them with those other words which told her of their start 
 for Paris and for her. She was most happy. It seemed 
 almost as if the message came in answer to the prayer that 
 she had said in Notre Dame. 
 
 When she had been a small girl, working in the artificial 
 flower shops, she had used few words and many gestures. 
 She had had strange ways of expressing her emotions, and 
 some of them had filled the scornful souls of other girls 
 with merriment. Especially had they shouted in derision 
 when, one day, she showed her joy about some matter really 
 trifling, but to her important, by gravely hopping on one 
 foot about the room. She had not known why this had 
 given satisfaction to her, but it had and so she hopped. 
 And this day, after she had read this message, almost un 
 consciously she gathered one foot in her down-stretched 
 hand and hopped upon the other twice around the studio. 
 When she realized what she was doing, she sat down sud 
 denly upon the floor, the red wrapper spreading out around 
 her as she sunk, and blushed and laughed, embarrassed, as 
 if someone had seen her in her childishness. But then 
 she rose and hopped again, defiantly, and would have 
 hopped in spite of all, if the whole world looked on and 
 grinned. This exhibition of her happiness attended to, 
 she began to work. 
 
 Everything must be ready when they came. Not any 
 where must there be the smallest speck of dust. In a 
 great glow of preparation she moved about to see what 
 might be done. It was a disappointment to her that there 
 was so little dust. She wished for mountains of it mount 
 ains which she might clear away, so satisfying would the 
 hard work have been. But if there were no mountains,
 
 THE JOY OF PREPARATION. 143 
 
 there were surely specks, which must be found and cast 
 severely out. And this was done. Each of the rugs upon 
 the floor was beaten by the concierge under Lizette's own 
 supervision. She might not beat the rugs herself, which 
 was a sorrow to her, for John Murdoch had found her do 
 ing so one day and asked her not to. But surely she might 
 look on without offense to him and see that the beating 
 was well done, and that she did. And all the floors were 
 scrubbed. Not that they were soiled; but of a certainty 
 they must be scrubbed. For was not Pudgy coming home 
 to them? Surely he must not find untidiness to greet 
 him. And the hangings on the walls. Each had been 
 purchased after much investigation and discussion by 
 Pudgy and herself. Kentucky also had been with them 
 when many of the purchases were made. Each one was 
 taken down with consideration for the exact way in which 
 it had hung upon the wall so that it might be put back 
 without change, and shaken out and brushed and dusted, 
 until not one mote could have been left lodging in it. 
 
 In the studio itself, particularly, all was made ready. 
 The skylight was not cleaned, for Murdoch had once said 
 that its light was better when it came softened by the dust 
 which rose up from the street and lodged on it. There 
 was more dust now than then there had been, but Lizette 
 feared that to take off just the right amount of it and still 
 leave exactly what he wanted would be too delicate a task. 
 
 Every one of his brushes was cleaned and made ready 
 for him in little pots of water to keep them soft. For 
 surely he would paint, at least, some little sketch in the 
 old studio before he went back to that strange place, New 
 York. He would paint, at least, a little sketch for Auld 
 Lang Syne. And what size would he be likely to wish to 
 make that sketch? There must 'be canvas read}' ior him. 
 He must have no bother when he came. So she gathered 
 up some stretchers and took them to the shop to have them 
 covered. It was with much delight she told the dealer 
 that M'sieu Murdoch was coming home and would wish to 
 have canvas ready for his work. It was with great pride 
 that she listened to the dealer when he said that Murdoch 
 was not only a fine painter to have taken the Prix d'Hon-
 
 144 LIZETTE. 
 
 neur (which was painted on a canvas stretched in that 
 very shop), but that of a truth he was also a fine man in 
 that he always paid his bills. 
 
 "Madame," the canvas seller said, "it is strange about 
 these painters, although it is not I, who make my living 
 from them who should speak of it. I have noticed that in 
 general the very ones who can most beautifully paint can 
 also the most beautifully lie. The students who come 
 here and are stupid, so that they cannot paint at all, are 
 those who always pay. When I hear that a man is worth 
 less at the schools I know at once that, as a customer, he is 
 safe. When I hear that a man does good work at the 
 schools I begin to wonder about money. It is very 
 strange. If one can paint, one will not pay. If one will 
 pay, one cannot paint. M'sieu Murdoch is the exception 
 needed to the rule to prove it. 
 
 "But," he went on, "if I could have my way, I would 
 sell no canvas to the stupid ones. No. I would have for 
 customers only those who can do credit to the canvases I 
 stretch, even if they never paid. Think! What joy for 
 me to go to the Salon and stand before the year's master 
 piece and reflect that it was I I who stretched the can 
 vas on which that masterpiece is painted. Ah! But that is 
 reward for work. It is as if I had helped to paint the 
 picture. Still, one must live. 
 
 "And so M'sieu Murdoch is coming back to Paris, is he? 
 I am glad of that. Be good enough to tell him, if you 
 please, that I shall be enraptured if he will step in to see 
 me. I have a new sizing that I really like. I should bo 
 proud to have him try it. Do you remember a student 
 named Kaintucky? Well, he made up for me the recipe, 
 one day, when he could not pay a little bill. It is the fine 
 sizing, I assure you." 
 
 Here was a new delight for Lizette's loving heart. 
 Praise for Kentucky, too. 
 
 "M'sieu Kaintucky he comes, too, with M'sieu Mur 
 doch," she said, delightedly. Then there came to her a dig 
 nity, for had not this canvas seller intimated that there had 
 been times when Kentucky could not pay his bills? He 
 must be crushed. So Lizette said:
 
 THE JOY OF PREPARATION. 145 
 
 "But that is droll. Of a certainty it is too bad that 
 M'sieu Kaintucky should so far forget as to pay for canvas 
 with his recipe for sizing. I am sure that now, when he 
 comes back, if you will but present to him the bill for 
 canvas and give him back the recipe he will most gladly 
 pay to you the money, two times over." 
 
 Her face showed scorn and doubt of dealers. 
 
 This was an attack from a quarter which the dealer had 
 not counted on. He hastened to correct his error. 
 
 "Pardon, madame. I did not know that M'sieu Kain 
 tucky was the particular friend of you. I have no wish to 
 say that M'sieu Kaintucky could not pay his bill. 
 I merely had the wish to say that, as the favor 
 to me, he permitted me to poorly pay him for 
 the use of his sizing recipe by stretching a few 
 small canvas for him. They were nothing, Madame 
 nothing. He was doing me the favor, I assure you." 
 
 And when she left the dealer he was bowing humbly and 
 begging her to use her influence with M'sieu Murdoch, and, 
 yes, with M'sieu Kaintucky, too, to have them buy their 
 canvases of him in future, as they had in days gone by. 
 In the history of the Quarter no dealer of whatsoever kind 
 had begged humbly for Kentucky's patronage before. 
 What she had said of Murdoch had not surprised the 
 dealer. But the idea of Kentuckj, so situated that he 
 could really pay his bills, without ingenious effort, could 
 pay his bills with money, was almost beyond belief. It 
 would be pleasant, but it would be also startling to see 
 Kentucky with real money in his pocket. But then, he 
 was an American and one never knows about Americans. 
 Perhaps in New York City he had found a lump of gold 
 on Broadway. Who could tell! It was so wonderful a 
 country that America! 
 
 Back to the studio went Lizette, with a small boy trail 
 ing after her in his blue blouse and wooden shoes, bearing 
 the canvases upon his head. She arranged them carefully, 
 so that Murdoch could see the clean, white squares when 
 he should first come in, and see again that she had been 
 thinking of and for him. 
 
 Seeing these properly deposited; having had the rugs
 
 146 LIZETTE. 
 
 relaid after being satisfied that no dust was in them; hav 
 ing re-arranged the hangings, so that they should look 
 exactly as of old; having scolded the concierge for the con 
 dition of the stairs leading to the studio and watched her 
 while she cleaned them; having made all outward things 
 look neat and fine, she thought about John's personal be 
 longings. There were many there which he had not taken 
 to America. There were some clothes and hats and shoes, 
 and there were some painters' blouses. Of a certainty, all 
 these must be arranged. 
 
 But Lizette was tired. And there also came to her the 
 thought, that if all these things were done to-day, there 
 would be nothing for her to do to-morrow, and the next 
 day, and the next, until the slow ship should bring her 
 loved ones to her. She was very happy and the afternoon 
 was fine. She decided that she would have a little cele 
 bration of her own and she engaged a cab. Driving up 
 the Champs Elysee, in the little open wagon, she went into 
 the Bois. The trees were very green, and the grass, which 
 the caretakers were cutting, was fragrant with sweet scent. 
 She sat down at a little table under the trees near one of 
 the cafes, alone, and had her glass of coffee. It was one of 
 the cafes much frequented by wedding parties and there 
 was one there then, at late breakfast. 
 
 The wedding parties of the Bourgeoisie, in the Bois, in 
 Paris, are worth seeing. Such gayety there is beneath the 
 trees. How proud the bridegroom is, and how supremely 
 shy and happy is the bride! What wondrous pastries are 
 those which tower above the waiter's head as he brings 
 them on, and what tremendous quantities of wine are 
 drunk! How proud the parents are, and how long the 
 speeches of the fathers! How blooming are the mothers, 
 each looking at her own beloved with eyes that glance 
 rapidly along the past of childhood and paint, in glowing 
 pictures, the future of maturity that stretches out before! 
 How the bride blushes and her mother bridles as the 
 orators refer to both of them. Sometimes the old French 
 custom of the garter is indulged in, though not often now 
 adays. Then some bold young man dives unexpectedly 
 beneath the table and snatches from the bride's well-
 
 THE JOY OF PREPARATION. 147 
 
 rounded leg the circlet of elastic, which, when he emerges, 
 he holds high above his head, while all the others, except 
 the bride herself, shout loud with glee. Her face, of course 
 (although she had 'bought that garter with great care for 
 the selection and just this in mind), is all suffused with 
 blushes and covered with loose fingers, through which she 
 peeps out, shyly laughing. Then coine the last speeches 
 of the day, while the young men present divide the garter 
 into bits and each pins a fraction of it in his buttonhole. 
 
 Lizette sat for an hour and watched the bridal parties. 
 Those in the Bois had been the only bridal parties she 
 had ever seen. She had watched them many times, and 
 wondered if it would ever be her fortune to have one of 
 her own. She had tried to imagine, in the days gone by, 
 before she met her Pudgy, the emotions of the bride. She 
 had tried to see in fancy the lives that had led to such 
 emotions, and compare them with her own life. She had 
 tried to, but she had not been able to, so she had given up 
 the trying. The only part of all this matter of the wed 
 dings which she had been able to clearly understand had 
 been the expressions on the faces of the 'brides. They were 
 such happy faces, and she could readily understand why 
 that should be. 
 
 But now, instead of envying the bride, she felt mildly 
 sorry for her. Now, instead of wondering if she would 
 ever be as happy, she knew that she would be much 
 happier. Now, instead of wondering speculatively, 
 whether she would ever be the centre of a party like those 
 there in the Bois, she knew she would not. For her wed 
 ding to her Pudgy would be of quite another kind. There 
 would be none there except her loved one and herself, and 
 dear Kentucky. There would be no breakfast in the Bois, 
 where all the world could look and smile amusedly, but 
 after the ceremony, in some quiet church, they would go 
 gravely to the office of the Mayor for the civil service, and 
 then to the small restaurant on the Seine where they had 
 had that charming dinner when Pudgy had furnished the 
 dessert, when she had for the first time learned that he was 
 rich, when for the first time he had proclaimed his love of 
 her in strangers' presence. And then! Oh ; then! Long
 
 148 LIZETTE. 
 
 years of life with Pudgy would come then, years they 
 would be when she would write her name "Madame John 
 Murdoch," and not afterwards tear the paper up, so none 
 could see and laugh, amused, but sign herself thus boldly 
 in the conduct of the business matters of the happy house 
 hold of her Pudgy. 
 
 When she thought of all these happinesses, she looked 
 again at the wedding party in the Bois, and all its charm 
 was gone. Both fathers had drunk too much, and the 
 mothers' faces were also red from wine. The bridegroom 
 was evidently tipsy and the bride distressed by it. The 
 male guests, with their coarse jokes born of the bits of 
 garter, were abhorrent to her, and the women, young and 
 old, were common folk, who next day would start again 
 upon their routine humdrum. They had no Pudgy. 
 Therefore they had nothing. They were to be pitied in an 
 indefinite way, but of a truth they were not worth longer 
 looking at. She called her little open cab. 
 
 The drive down from the Bois was neither sad nor 
 happy. As the sun set over the great city it played many 
 pretty tricks along the Avenue. The shadows of the 
 buildings on one side stretched clear across the broad 
 street, and the many carriages seemed to jump forward for 
 a moment as they emerged from them into the bright 
 light at crossings, or where lawns broke the screen of high 
 walls, close upon the street. The dust rose in thin clouds 
 from beneath the wheels and pounding hoofs. These 
 clouds were tinged with crimson as they drifted across the 
 slanting sun-rays. She must, of necessity, drive slowly, in 
 order to keep in the deliberately moving line of vehicles, 
 and there was a restfulness about it all. She leaned back 
 against the tarnished cushions of her hired cab and 
 dreamed of Pudgy. It is certain that none of the ladies 
 in fine carriages that passed her was happier than she, 
 was looking forward with such calm content to days to 
 come. They may have had their joys. Certainly Lizette 
 hoped that all the world was happy. But they had no 
 such joys as hers for she had Pudgy. There was only 
 one of him. The thought that there might be another 
 message from him when she reached the studio made her
 
 THE JOY OF PREPARATION. 149 
 
 lean forward in the cab to tell the driver to go more 
 quickly, but she fell back again, luxuriously, before she 
 spoke. For Pudgy was already on the sea, and could not 
 send a message. 
 
 She stopped at Notre Dame and dismissed the cab. 
 There, on the stone floor of the cathedral, she spent an 
 other hour in silent prayer to the good Virgin for his 
 safety. 
 
 On the slow walk from the cathedral to the studio, she 
 stopped on the bridge to look over at the waters of the 
 Seine. They gave her peace, for they moved slow and 
 smooth, and they were going to the sea, on which was 
 Pudgy. She thought now, as she stood upon that bridge, 
 of another time when she had looked on them when it 
 was late at night and her soul had darkened as the sky had. 
 
 She watched the waters happily, not at all as she had 
 looked at them that other time when they had not run 
 slow and smooth, but fast and dreadful to her eyes, and 
 when she had thought of leaping into them, to be borne 
 away forever from her love, instead of loving them and 
 breathing kisses to them to carry toward her Pudgy. What 
 a night that had been, when she had run away from him 
 because he stopped and talked to friends. How she had 
 hurried from the Moulin Eouge that night and driven 
 wildly in a cab until she reached the Quarter. How fran 
 tically she had rushed into the studio, to wildly weep be 
 cause her Pudgy had forgotten for a moment that time 
 flew fast while he was talking with old friends from 
 America! How stealthily she had crept downstairs again, 
 all muffled in a great cape, to hurry, secretly, to this very 
 bridge, after stopping with Kentucky at the Dromperille, 
 and stand here, looking at the hurrying stream, wondering 
 if it were not best to clasp her trouble to her heart and 
 spring with it tight held there, into them. They had been 
 sombre, wicked, hurrying waters on that night, but now 
 their flow was calm and peaceful. The lights upon their 
 shores had met her gaze with wicked, leering winks that 
 night, that urged her to jump in and end it all; but now, 
 as twilight fell around her, they twinkled merrily, as if 
 they knew that Pudgy was coming home to her again.
 
 150 LIZETTE. 
 
 Slowly and happily she strolled down to the studio, 
 which the great fire in the new stove would have made too 
 warm during her absence, if she had not left every window 
 open. She was tired. While ske ate her little dinner 
 she smiled happily. It was not many little dinners now 
 that she would have to eat alone. How the silver shone. 
 She had polished it for Pudgy. How the glass sparkled. 
 She had rubbed it up for Pudgy. How the china glowed 
 and glittered in the firelight. She smiled and played that 
 it was laughing over Pudgy's coming. 
 
 When the charwoman came to clear away, Lizette was 
 busy in the bedroom, arranging on the dresser for the 
 hundredth time some sketches of herself which Pudgy 
 always liked to have there. One dropped behind the 
 dresser, and she called to the charwoman for help to move 
 it out. 
 
 She picked the sketch up, and found, besides, a pair of 
 Pudgy's socks. In her working at the contents of the 
 drawers they must have been pushed out at the back. At 
 any rate, they lay there, disgraceful with their punctured 
 heels and toes. She looked them over carefully. 
 
 "Mon Dieu!" she said. "If he should come to Paris 
 and find them so!" 
 
 Then, straightway, she seated herself by the fire in the 
 new stove, and rocking to and fro, and singing softly, she 
 mended them as no one but Lizette could mend. Finally, 
 they were finished, and she looked them over carefully. 
 The work was somewhat knobby, and she laughed a little 
 at it. 
 
 "It is true that it is very badly done," she said, softly, 
 to herself. "Alas! I cannot do the mending well, but it is 
 of my very best, and he will know." 
 
 In the corner of the room was the small desk which Mur 
 doch had bought for her when he was teaching her to 
 write English. In it she kept his letters all except that 
 last one that was in her bodice, near her heart. There 
 were many of them and they were all full of love. She had 
 read them often. Over some of them she had had to puz 
 zle long and earnestly, when they had first come, but she 
 had worked each separate word out in each one by now, so
 
 THE JOY OF PREPARATION. 151 
 
 that she reread them with a rapidity that disappointed her. 
 It was such joy to read those letters. And now, she read 
 them all so quickly that it took almost no time at all. But 
 now there was that last and most wonderful one of all to 
 read. Surely, she could almost spend her life in reading 
 that one, although it was not so very long. And soon he 
 would be here, and then there would be no more of them 
 no more mere letters. Instead there would be Him! Her 
 Pudgy! 
 
 The fire glowed bright in the new stove. The rug was 
 soft, and her little body sank luxuriously into its long fur. 
 The day had been a tiring one. She snuggled down content 
 edly as she reflected that it was one of very few which now 
 must pass before the great one came, and, smiling softly, 
 to herself, as she nestled, warm and lovable and happy, 
 she fell asleep. Scattered around her were the letters from 
 the man she loved. The darned socks, so lovingly made 
 terrible with knots, lay close by her warm, pink face upon 
 the rug. Somewhere out upon the ocean a big ship was 
 throbbing with the turning of its paddle wheels. She saw 
 it, great and majestic with its power and speed, as she lay 
 there asleep, and heard the swishing of the water at its 
 bow, and hovered over it and watched it lovingly. 
 
 Dawn had thrust delicate pink fingers through the in 
 terstices in the curtains before she woke. The fire in the 
 new stove burned dimly. She rose, warm and glowing, 
 from her dream of him. Another night had passed, and 
 so, unthinking of anything but happiness, she began the 
 day. 
 
 Poor little Lizette! If you had known what that day 
 would bring to you would you have smiled and stretched 
 your arms out toward the sunrise which smiled at you over 
 the Gardens of the Luxembourg? Poor little Lizette! If 
 you had known, would you have torn the leaf which 
 marked the happy yesterday so nimbly from the calendar, 
 and cast it with such a pretty gesture into the fire in the 
 new stove? Poor little Lizette! Would you have pouted 
 and made pretty scolding mouths at the shining daylight, 
 if you had known the sorrow you would feel when darkness 
 came? Poor little Lizette! Would your glance about the
 
 152 LIZETTE. 
 
 studio have been so careless, if you had known how few 
 the hours were which you were to pass in it? Poor little 
 Lizette! Would you have run so eagerly to the door to get 
 the roses which the florists' boy brought every morning, 
 for you to place in front of Murdoch's picture of "The 
 Parting/' if you had known that ere the night fell one of 
 those roses would rest within another woman's breast; that 
 with the evening's fall the title of that picture would have 
 a 'new and dread significance; that ere night came you 
 would have said good-by to it and all the happy hopes of 
 yesterday? Would you have hurried, had you known, and 
 worked your little head and hands so hard in order to make 
 the day seem short to you, if you had known how long 
 how very long a time would pass before such happy 
 hours could come again?
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 MARY MARKLEHAM'S SECRET. 
 
 Early in the morning a great thought came to Lizette. 
 Before he started on his loving errand, Kentucky had 
 given the key of his small room to her and asked her if 
 she would sometimes run in to look for mail for him. 
 They had made a joke out of the wild guess that a great 
 check might come to him from somewhere neither one 
 knew where and that she should be the first to pick it up 
 and have it waiting for him when he came back. From 
 the bright warmth and glow of the dear old rooms there 
 on the Boulevard, Lizette, after she had had her coffee, 
 hurried to Kentucky's quarters with the charwoman. 
 Surely, Kentucky must not come home to find that she 
 had not thought of him! Not that she would neglect one 
 atom of her loving duty to her Pudgy to attend to the 
 affairs of any one beside, but now that she had done all 
 that she could think of at their own studio, ought she not 
 to arrange some little welcome in his home for this friend, 
 who loved them both and whom they loved so well? 
 
 She climbed the steep stairs to the top of the old build 
 ing on the side street, where she had helped Kentucky 
 earn the money to pay for those new clothes by reading 
 to him while he made the little pictures on the slabs, and 
 entered the old student's attic quarters. It was as it had 
 been on those days, except for one addition. Hanging on 
 the only perpendicular wall in all the place was a picture, 
 covered by heavy curtains of rich, purple plush. They 
 seemed strangely out of place amidst the dirt and the 
 confusion. The picture was hung so that when the strag 
 gling daylight came through the small windows of the 
 room it could get what there was of it, and two oil lamps 
 in brackets stood ready to light the canvas when the sun
 
 154 LIZETTE. 
 
 would not. The curtains were arranged with cords, which 
 reached over to the miserable bed. This was evidently so 
 that when, wakeful, he was lying there and dreaming of 
 the past, he could pull the cords and see his picture that 
 only picture he had ever sold and which he had, with sac 
 rifices, bought again, because he had painted it in the 
 joyous days when his bride was with him in the south of 
 France before the cholera came and took her and the little 
 one. 
 
 Lizette and the charwoman cleaned the room, and while 
 they worked Lizette's eyes often wandered toward the pur 
 ple curtains. The picture which they hid was evidently 
 a shrine to the poor student, just as Pudgy's "Parting" 
 was a shrine to her, and her own dainty decoration of the 
 latter picture had suggested to Kentucky some of the ar 
 rangements about this. For, above it, in a vase modeled 
 cleverly of sculptor's clay, there were the withered frag 
 ments of some flowers carnations. Lizette did not know, 
 but she guessed that poor Kentucky kept them there as 
 faithfully as she kept roses over Pudgy's "Parting." And 
 if he did, she did not guess, but know, that it was only 
 done through many sacrifices, for carnations, even very 
 little bunches of them, cost much in Paris in those days. 
 
 She sent the woman out to buy some fresh carnations, 
 and then she drew the curtains back. Kentucky had told 
 her that some day he should show the picture to her, so 
 she surely had the right to look at it. 
 
 It was not particularly good, but it was by no means 
 bad, and showed a strong, bold touch, which she knew 
 Kentucky's hand had not had since she had known him. 
 The subject was not especially attractive a quaint French 
 graveyard, with a square-towered church rising in the 
 background, and over all the quiet glory of a Southern 
 sky at sunset. In the very foreground was a blot of fresher 
 paint than that which formed the balance of the picture. 
 She imagined, as she studied it, that Kentucky had tried 
 to paint something in there at a later date than when he 
 had finished the main picture, but finally, finding the old 
 touch gone and the task impossible of satisfactory accom 
 plishment, had given up and left the blot.
 
 MARY MARKLEHAM'S SECRET. 155 
 
 The girl's quick sympathy went out in a great surge to 
 the queer old student, who was coming over seas to her 
 with Pudgy. She had learned to love Kentucky with a 
 strange mixture of a mother's love for in many ways 
 Kentucky, despite his age, was more a child than she was 
 and the serious affection which a daughter feels for a 
 father tottering down the further hill of life. Many times 
 when they had been alone together he had talked to her as 
 gravely and as kindly as a parent might, helping her with 
 precepts which, in his own wrecked life, he had wholly 
 disregarded, and, best of all, showing her in many ways 
 how best to do the thing she ever strove to do please 
 Pudgy. 
 
 The charwoman came back from her pleasant errand, 
 and Lizette filled the little vase with fresh carnations. 
 Later, she gave an order to have others sent to her each 
 day with Pudgy's roses. When she left Kentucky's room, 
 it was as speckless as the studio which overlooked the Gar 
 dens of the Luxembourg. 
 
 Her dejeuner, or second breakfast, was a very pleasant 
 one. She was not merry. That could not be unless her 
 Pudgy were there, too, but she was happy in anticipation 
 of the days to come. She was pleased over what she had 
 done at the studio of Kentucky. She pictured his sur 
 prise and smiled. She knew his eyes would fill with tears 
 when he should see the little flowers and thought about 
 her love, of which they were the token. How fond she 
 was of him! She did not know it, but in Lizette's mind he 
 acted as a foil for Murdoch. One so big, so strong, con 
 vincing and successful; the other slim and bent, so hesi 
 tating, so complete a failure. While she sat she thought 
 much about that picture in his room. Kentucky had told 
 her what privations and economies he had endured to 
 buy it back. Perhaps that formless blot there in the fore 
 ground had been started for a grave. Perhaps it marked 
 the place where his loved one and their baby were sleeping 
 their eternal sleep when he came back from America to 
 find them lost to him forever. Perhaps he had tried to 
 paint their grave in after he had bought the picture back, 
 to find that with their loss had come another that of the
 
 156 LIZETTE. 
 
 cunning of his hand. Then, she reasoned, there would be 
 another sad significance to that grave. Not only would 
 his loves lie huried there, in that event, but his ambition, 
 also. Who knew what delicacies and refined vagaries of 
 troubled thought came to that splendid but misdirected 
 brain of his, when, alone in that attic room, his thoughts 
 compared the self that was with the self that might have 
 been? 
 
 After she had made one more inspection of the studio and 
 found it perfect so far as she could make it, she sat down 
 before the new stove. It was not so warm to-day, and she 
 could sit there without suffering. This was comforting. 
 She would have fried rather than have let the fire go out. 
 How true and fine her love had been to her! His short 
 comings and delays were all forgotten. He was not like 
 other men her Pudgy! There could be no question of 
 Ms love and faithfulness. Their love was perfect per 
 fect! How different it had been from that of the few peo 
 ple she had known about in life, and how different from 
 those whose loves she read about in books! So smooth 
 and fine its course had been! To be sure, there had been 
 the great sorrow of their separation, but what of that? It 
 was even now almost at its end. She recalled the little 
 storm which, for a few hours, had ruffled it. That night, 
 at the Moulin Eouge, when Pudgy stopped to talk and 
 stayed too long with the friends from America, rose up 
 before her in her memory, and she laughed softly as she 
 thought of it. She laughed very pleasantly, did Lizette, 
 sitting there in the glow from the new stove in the studio, 
 whose windows overlooked the Gardens of the Luxem 
 bourg. How she had hated that American girl that night! 
 How much more would she have hated her had she known 
 then what he told her later that once he had thought he 
 loved her and had thought of asking her to marry him. It 
 had been lucky for that girl that night, she thought, that 
 she had not known that then. If she had known. why, she 
 might have been again the "tiger cat p'tite," who had so 
 discomfited the English student. She might have been. 
 Who knew? She was so foolish, was Lizette! She was 
 glad, now, that she had not known. Pudgy had told the
 
 MARY MARKLEHAM'S SECRET. 157 
 
 story to her very simply and very earnestly. He had not 
 made light of it, but he had said to her that he was very 
 thankful that he had come to Paris and found her Lizette 
 instead. 
 
 Dear Pudgy! She could not imagine herself feeling 
 jealous of him now, as she had known some of the women 
 of the Quarter to feel jealous of the men they thought they 
 loved, as the heroines of some of the novels she had read 
 had been reported by the authors to have felt. That one 
 lesson had been enough of jealousy for her, she thought, 
 that night of the Moulin Eouge, those dark glances after 
 wards at the Seine, and the miserable hours in the studio 
 before Pudgy, flushed and anxious from his searching of 
 all Paris, had found her weeping there alone. 
 
 The concierge came in. She spoke in French, for she 
 had no knowledge at all of English. 
 
 "Two ladies are coming up the stairs," she said. 
 "They wish to see M'sieu Murdoch. I told them what you 
 told me that he was coming, but I tried to make them 
 understand that he would not be here at once, but in a few 
 days, but I could not make them understand. They speak 
 little French. You will see them, Madame, and make them 
 understand?" 
 
 "Two ladies coming up the stairs to see M'sieu Mur 
 doch?" said Lizette, wondering. "Yes. I will see them 
 and explain." 
 
 It was very strange. Such a thing had not happened in 
 the history of the studio. 
 
 She was much disturbed. How had they found where 
 his studio was? But no. That was an easy matter. Of 
 course, they were Americans. The fact that the concierge 
 had been unable to make them understand was proof of 
 that. They never could speak French Americans. The 
 English they were bad enough in that respect, but the 
 Americans! What did they want to see her Pudgy for? 
 Her heart was just beginning to flutter with those little 
 pangs of jealousy which within ten minutes she had as 
 sured herself should never make it burn again. This 
 made her angry and she tried to stop it, but she could not. 
 She hurried into her room to take off the wrapper of rich
 
 158 LIZETTE. 
 
 red and put on something more conventional. While she 
 was there dressing, she heard through the curtains the rich 
 rustle of incoming silks and some talk in English. She 
 stopped to listen. She knew exactly what the visitors did, 
 although she could not see them. She knew that one had 
 seated herself with a sigh of comfort after climbing the 
 stairs, and that the other was standing looking at her, 
 smiling. 
 
 "You always drop into the very first chair here in Paris, 
 Auntie," said the standing one. "I am sure that that one 
 over by the window is more comfortable." 
 
 "My dear," was the reply, "these French stairs always 
 wear me out. They make their rooms so high in Paris 
 that their stairs are interminable. I'm always glad to get 
 anything to sit on after a flight of them. I hope he's here, 
 after all the work we've had to get here. I haven't the 
 least idea what that poor woman was jabbering about down 
 stairs. He didn't say he'd be here now." 
 
 "He said he was coming over as soon as he could," was 
 the response, "and you know the summer is the dull time 
 in banking houses. What a lovely place he has here! And 
 look at it! He must be here. No servant would ever keep 
 it up like this if he were not. I should think he would be 
 sorry to give all this up to be a tiresome banker in New 
 York. But I suppose that when his father died, he had 
 to do it." 
 
 "I can't imagine him an artist," said the elder woman. 
 "He seems so staid and practical and earnest. He is not 
 at all what one imagines a young man who has studied art 
 in Paris to be like. They are all so wildly dissipated over 
 here, and wicked and all that! But I can't imagine John 
 Murdoch dissipating." 
 
 "You can't imagine the John Murdoch we know paint 
 ing pictures, can you, Auntie?" asked the girl. "But there 
 is another one a different John Murdoch. Sometimes I 
 have caught a glimpse of that other one." 
 
 "They say that he is very matter-of-fact and business 
 like at the bank," remarked the aunt. "And, after that 
 Jones & Co. affair, you know how he took hold and saved 
 the creditors when everybody thought there was no hope!''
 
 MARY MARKLEHAM'S SECRET. 159 
 
 The little one behind the curtain drunk this in. It 
 seemed wrong to her that strangers should invade the 
 rooms which she had not wanted any one to see until her 
 Pudgy looked at them himself, but if people came it was 
 well that they should be folk who had good things to say 
 of him. She did not realize that she was eaves-dropping. 
 Perhaps she was not. Is it not excusable for one to hear 
 what other people say in one's own home? And she was 
 glad to hear them, if they must be there, praise Pudgy 
 while they tarried. 
 
 "I wonder if he'll be long in coming," said the elder one 
 the one the other had spoken to as "Auntie." "I hope 
 not," she went on. "I've so much to do to-day. "Won't he 
 be surprised to see us, though? It's all right for me to 
 bring you here in Paris. That's the charm in Paris its 
 unconventionality. I suppose that we might have sent a 
 note to him and had him call at the hotel, but it's so much 
 more in the spirit of the place, especially the Latin Quar 
 ter, for us to stop and call on him. As soon as I can get 
 my breath I'm going to look around. Last time we were 
 in Paris you remember we met him at the Moulin 
 Rouge. I believe that it is because we can do dreadful 
 things and go to dreadful places here without ~bdng dread 
 ful, that we Americans like so much to come here." 
 
 The little one behind the curtains gave a tiny gasp. So 
 these were the American ladies who had delayed him that 
 dreadful night when she had fled and looked so darkly at 
 the Seine in passing. And that one the younger one 
 there must be she whom for a time he had thought of 
 marrying. She must study that girl carefully, while she 
 had a chance, now, for when Pudgy had spoken about her 
 he had said that she was really a splendid girl. She 
 remembered the intonation of his voice in saying it. 
 Lizette never hoped to be a splendid girl. She only 
 wanted to be all in all to Pudgy. That was quite enough. 
 But she would observe the other girl who was; she would 
 study her from behind the portiere there. Perhaps she 
 might make some mental notes for future reference. She 
 could see her plainly, now. She was tall and lithe that 
 girl in there and was beautifully gowned. Not like a
 
 160 LIZETTE. 
 
 French woman, the least tiny bit, but very simply, very 
 richly. She must be rich, that girl, and she, Lizette, was 
 poor. That did not matter, though, for Pudgy loved 
 Lizette. He did not love this rich girl. As Lizette 
 looked, the other lounged around the room, going slowly 
 to the window. She was very graceful. She was all 
 curves, that girl in there long, splendid curves and 
 almost as tall as Pudgy, Lizette reflected, as she watched 
 her closely from behind the curtain. 
 
 "Why don't you marry him, my dear?" asked the elder 
 woman. 
 
 The girl at the window did not even turn. She an 
 swered musingly and lazily: 
 
 "Why! One good reason is that he has never asked me 
 to and never will." 
 
 The question had amazed Lizette and made her gasp. 
 Wild horses could not have torn her from her place after 
 that question had been asked. Up to that instant, she had 
 intended to watch them for a little second, and then go in 
 and make them understand their error, that Mudroch was 
 not expected momentarily, but that he was on the sea and 
 would be there in a day or two. Now she could not move 
 at all. That tall girl at the window, so self-possessed, so 
 calm she was of a verity the one! Ah-h-h! She could 
 not go. She must look at her. Of a certainty he had 
 not asked her, and never would. He loved Lizette. 
 
 "Would you have married him if he had asked you?" 
 persisted the aunt. 
 
 "Oh, Auntie! What a question!" said the tall girl. "How 
 does one know what one would do if some perfectly impos 
 sible other thing should happen?" 
 
 "Why impossible?" 
 
 "I think," said the tall girl, slowly, "I think that he 
 loves some one else, and that is why it is 'impossible/ " 
 
 She turned now so that she half faced her aunt, and 
 wholly faced Lizette. The little one behind the curtain 
 noislessly drew back a bit, so that the light shining through 
 the curtains should not strike her eyes and make them 
 glitter, thus telling tales of her. The American was very 
 splendid as she turned. Her beauty almost made Lizette
 
 MARY MARKLEHAM'S SECRET. 161 
 
 cry out. It was regal. Lizette's very heart hurt as she 
 looked at it, but it jumped out toward Pudgy at the same 
 time, for had he not chosen her Lizette and passed this 
 splendid creature by? She drank her beauty in with all 
 her eyes and breathed quickly. 
 
 The elder woman was persistent. 
 
 "But you would marry him if he should ask you now?" 
 she asked. 
 
 The tall girl made no reply at first. She walked to a 
 front window and looked down at the Boulevard. For a 
 moment she stood there with her face invisible to the 
 watching one. She was close by Lizette's small desk and 
 laid a careless hand upon it. She did not know the con 
 tents of that desk, Lizette thought, triumphantly. She 
 did not know about the letters from John Murdoch that 
 were hidden there letters to his sweetheart, who waited 
 for him in Paris. Oh, no! She knew not a thing of them! 
 And that last one! If she could see the others she would 
 see from them that he could never and never would love 
 anyone except Lizette. If she could see that last one 
 most wonderful of all she would see that he would marry 
 no one except Lizette Lizette behind the curtains, who 
 was watching her. 
 
 After a moment the aunt went on. Lizette thought 
 that if she had been the tall girl she would have wished to 
 strangle the old woman. 
 
 "It seems to me," the aunt said, "that nothing could be 
 better. I shall tell you this here in his studio, before 
 he comes. You know he cares for you." 
 
 "Auntie!" the tall girl said in protest, "please!" 
 
 There was a little something in her voice which tried to 
 find Lizette's heart as she listened, but did not, quite. 
 
 "Why, my dear," said her aunt, "if you can't talk of 
 these things with me, whom can you talk them over with?" 
 
 "I don't wish to talk of them with anyone," the tall girl 
 said. 
 
 "I believe," said the aunt, "that I recognize the symp 
 toms. I believe you love him, Mary." 
 
 "So her name is Mary," thought the little one behind 
 the curtain. "That was the name."
 
 162 LIZETTE. 
 
 "You certainly were good friends before he came to 
 Paris," said the aunt. "I remember that you went to 
 commencement when he graduated. I ought to remember 
 it. I had to go with you and it nearly wore me out." 
 
 "I knew other boys who graduated that same year," the 
 girl said. "I don't see why you should say that I went es 
 pecially because he graduated." 
 
 "Did you never correspond after he came to Paris?" 
 asked the aunt. 
 
 "Yes. But that was years ago," the tall girl answered. 
 "What in the world is the use of talking of it now?" 
 
 "Who stopped the letter writing?" asked the aunt. 
 
 The tall girl hesitated for a moment. She went to an 
 other window and fingered the curtain nervously, as she 
 paused. 
 
 "He did," she said, finally. She added, as if in defense 
 of him, "but there was no reason why he should not. 
 They were simply letters that we wrote. There was never 
 any hint of anything but friendship in them. I didn't 
 blame him then and I don't blame him now. I don't see 
 why you should. He was over here, working hard and 
 deeply interested in his painting. There never had been 
 any single word of anything but friendship a kind of 
 grown-up boy and girl friendship between us. I don't see 
 why you should blame him." 
 
 "I'm not blaming him; I'm only asking," said the aunt. 
 
 "John Murdoch is the finest man I ever knew," the girl 
 said, slowly. "Yes. I was in love with him. There was 
 no need for you to drag it out of me. You knew it then, 
 and you had not forgotten, but he was not in love with me 
 and there is nothing more to say." 
 
 She went over to the curtains behind which 'Tarting" 
 hung. 
 
 "Oh, see the lovely roses!" she exclaimed.. "I wonder 
 what there is behind the curtains." 
 
 Lizette was in an agony. Her lips set tightly and her 
 hands clenched. She almost feared that if that other girl 
 who loved John Murdoch should draw the curtains that 
 hung over 'Tarting" she should run in and spring at her 
 But she did not, for the tall girl drew them softly almost
 
 MARY MARKLEHAM'S SECRET. 163 
 
 with reverence and Lizette's anger died away. The sit 
 uation gave her a strange pleasure which she knew was 
 wrong. Now this other woman, who only knew John Mur 
 doch as a banker, would see his picture and would have 
 cause to mourn. She would know when she saw his pict 
 ure, what an artist she had lost! She thought that she 
 had lost a mere commercial man a banker. Bah! Who 
 cared for bankers? Americans, perhaps, but not Lizette. 
 And now that other girl would know, when she looked on 
 Pudgy's picture, that she had lost an artist. 
 
 Lizette strained forward so in watching that she almost 
 made the portieres move, but she need not have worried 
 if she had. The aunt was absorbed in watching the tall 
 girl before the picture and the tall girl was slowly, slowly, 
 drawing back the curtains. She was very beautiful, of a 
 certainty, that tall girl. Every line was grace and her 
 face was lovely, too, in spite of its drawn, strained look of 
 pain. That look of pain was certainly upon it. Lizette 
 imagined that that face must generally be calm and placid. 
 But now, as the curtains slowly parted from before the 
 picture that the man she loved and could not have had 
 painted, it was not placid. The little one behind the por 
 tiere knew that if her own breath was coming quick and 
 sharp as she looked on, the bosom of that other girl, in 
 there, heaved, too. She knew that if the color was blazing, 
 unseen, in her cheeks, the tall girl's face was also flushing 
 painfully. She knew that if her hand was rigid with 
 emotion, the tall girl's trembled. For she saw the cur 
 tains there before the picture shake and quiver in her hold 
 as she drew them slowly back. 
 
 When the tall girl saw the picture she retreated a few 
 steps with a little gasp of admiration. 
 
 "It is beautiful!" she said. 
 
 Her aunt had risen, and confirmed her. 
 
 "Yes, it is beautiful." 
 
 This was grateful to Lizette. If this tall girl, who loved 
 John Murdoch and dared to try to find him at his studio, 
 must persist in loving him when he was hers Lizette's 
 let her know that she had reason to respect his art. It was 
 beautiful that picture. It was beautiful. Lizette en-
 
 164 LIZETTE. 
 
 joyed watching the tall girl as she looked at it and let the 
 true beauty of it sink into her, and then she longed to 
 rush in and say to her that it was she Lizette who had 
 inspired it; that it was she Lizette who had posed for 
 it; that it was she Lizette to whom it had been given 
 by the artist who would not sell a picture; that it was she 
 who kept the roses fresh above it, and loved it, and almost 
 prayed to it. She wanted to hurry in and tell the tall girl 
 that there was no hope for her the tall girl. She wanted 
 to tell her that it was she Lizette whom Murdoch loved 
 and whom he had asked to marry him. It seemed to her 
 that she would like to read that letter to the tall girl that 
 letter in which John Murdoch had said to her Lizette 
 that he should come and take her back to New York City, 
 where the tall girl lived and where she had, no doubt, 
 schemed to get him for herself. 
 
 For a moment Lizette wished to hurt the tall girl, to 
 tear her smooth, reposeful face with small, pink finger 
 nails, and make her cry out because of pain. But then 
 the tall girl turned, and when she turned Lizette could 
 see her face quite plainly. It was a pleasant face, and now 
 there was a look of agony upon it which penetrated to the 
 depths of Lizette's heart, as surely as those other and less 
 admirable emotions had rushed up to her head a moment 
 since. There was no possibility of doubt. The tall girl 
 loved John Murdoch. It was real love. Lizette almost 
 shivered as she realized that the tall girl's love was much 
 the same as hers, with the great and crushing difference 
 that it was hopeless. Poor tall girl. She did not wish to 
 scratch her any more, not after she had seen her turn away 
 from Pudgy's "Parting" with that look of pain upon her 
 face and that gesture of despair. The thought rushed 
 through her mind that she would like to run and throw 
 her arms around the tall girl's neck and comfort her. -The 
 tense muscles of the little girl behind the portieres re 
 laxed. Her head dropped forward, and she looked out, 
 pitying, with upturned eyes. She watched the tall girl 
 turn away from "Parting," and was very, very sorry for 
 her. 
 
 The aunt was chattering. She was saying that the
 
 MARY MARKLEHAM'S SECRET. 165 
 
 picture was, really, very good. Bah, what an aunt! And 
 what a thing to say of "Parting." But when the aunt, too, 
 saw the tall girl's face and noted that the tears were run 
 ning down its cheeks, she stopped her chattering, and only 
 said: 
 
 "Why, my poor girl. Forgive me. I did not know you 
 cared so much." 
 
 The tall girl shook her head hravely and looked her aunt 
 full in the face as she wiped away her tears. She said: 
 
 "You see, I do care, Auntie. I did not mean that any 
 one should know. Please don't let's talk about it. It is 
 very hard for me. It's silly for he does not even think 
 of me at all. When he left America to come here first, I 
 thought or rather hoped he did. When we met him 
 here in Paris you know that night I knew he did not. 
 If he had ever loved me, he had stopped before that night. 
 I could tell. I knew that I was not mistaken. Either he 
 had found some other girl to love, or else, in the develop 
 ment which came here, with his work, he had passed over 
 and beyond me. I do not know. But I saw then that if 
 he had ever loved me, he had stopped. I shall get over it, 
 of course. We women have to. We cannot speak. We 
 cannot tell our love. We must wait and wait until the 
 other loves, and comes to us and tells us. It doesn't seem 
 quite fair. We can do nothing to show a man. We must 
 always wait for him. 
 
 "Not," she added, hastily, "that I could do such a thing 
 as to tell him, or ever would, but it does not seem quite 
 fair." 
 
 She took her parasol, which she had leaned against a 
 chair while she was drawing back the curtains, and tapped 
 her toes with it while she went on with downcast eyes. 
 
 "Only a little while after his father's death, I met him 
 while I was driving in the park. I asked him to get in 
 with me. I had expected to find you at the Donnellsons, 
 you know, but got word there that you had gone on to 
 Mrs. Frazer's. So I was driving up alone to get you. He 
 drove with me to the exit from the Park, and I watched 
 him and what he said, oh, very closely. He was in a great 
 hurry to get back to Paris, he told me. He said it seemed
 
 166 LIZETTE. 
 
 to him as if the powers of earth and air conspired to keep 
 him from going back to Paris. He said that every time 
 he planned to go some new thing would turn up to hold 
 him back. It was just at the time of the big Jones failure, 
 you know, and he was looking dreadfully tired and jaded, 
 but he said that just as soon as he could possibly get things 
 arranged so that it would not hurt any interests but his 
 own to go, he should start, and that nothing should stop 
 him then. 
 
 "I asked him why he was so anxious to get back here, but 
 he did not tell me. I asked him if he intended to take 
 up his art again, or if he intended ever to give up the 
 business in New York at which he had been so successful. 
 He said he did not know. He said the painting was very 
 dear to him, but that he had learned to love the other 
 business, too. I asked him if he should stay long in Paris, 
 and again he said he did not know. There was something 
 in the way he spoke that made me look up sharply at him. 
 I had been looking at the trees. He seemed confused. It 
 is hard to think of him as blushing and embarrassed, but 
 he was both then, and then I knew." 
 
 "Knew what? Was that all, Mary?" asked the aunt. 
 
 "No, not quite," the tall girl answered. "It was not 
 quite all. I asked him if, when he came back to New 
 York again, as, of course, he would come back, some time, 
 he should bring with him anyone. 
 
 " 'Yes,' he said. 'I have a very dear friend there named 
 Kentucky. I shall bring him back, if he will come. He is 
 getting old and I want him to have rest and comfort be 
 fore the end comes for him. And, besides, it will give me 
 rest and comfort to have him with me/ 
 
 "Oh, I remember every word he said/' the tall girl said. 
 "And then I asked, 'Is that all? Shall you bring back 
 only your old artist chum?' 
 
 ar What do you mean?' he asked. 
 
 "I tried to be gay and to rally him a little, but I did it 
 very badly. He did not know it, though, and that's a com 
 fort. I could see by his face that he was so busy thinking 
 of something or someone far away that he did not at that 
 moment see the Park or me, or even realize, for the instant,
 
 MARY MARKLEHAM'S SECRET. 167 
 
 that he was driving with me. There was an expression on 
 his face that I would give the world if it would wear when 
 I was absent and he thought of me. He did not answer 
 and I did not ask him any more. I knew. John Mur 
 doch is in love, Auntie, and he is coming over here to get 
 the girl he loves and take her back with him." 
 
 The tall girl stood facing her aunt with blazing face 
 and eyes made brilliant by the tears in them. 
 
 "I love him! Yes, I love him!" she said, almost de 
 fiantly. "I have told you about it because I could not 
 help telling someone about it. You did not force my con 
 fidence. It was this place and these things all his that 
 made me tell. I love them all. I love everything that's 
 his or that he loves except except that other woman. 
 I am glad I told you, though. It has relieved me. I shall 
 try to get over it. I don't know why I love him. I have 
 really seen very little of him of late years, but I da love 
 him. I believe that he is the most genuine man I ever 
 met. He couldn't lie. He couldn't cheat. One cannot 
 say that of many men or many women. He is a real 
 man and that is why I love him. He is a true man and 
 that is why I love him. He is a genius of no ordinary 
 kind look at this picture and what was said about it by 
 the folk that know, and then look at that other and so 
 different work at which he has won success and that is 
 why I love him!" 
 
 She shook her head again to shake away the tears. She 
 smiled bravely at her aunt. 
 
 "Let us go, now, Auntie," she said. "You see what I 
 am doing. I am crying. I should not want him to come 
 here and find me crying. It has humiliated me to tell you 
 even. I should not want to have him know." 
 
 And as she looked at her aunt with her big eyes full of 
 tears, but with her head thrown bravely back, Lizette, who 
 was watching her unseen, gasped in admiration of her, in 
 admiration of this tall girl whom Pudgy did not love be 
 cause he loved Lizette! Why should Murdoch care for 
 her, she asked herself in real humility, when this splendid 
 tall girl loved him? It was very strange, and the tall girl's 
 pain was pitiful. Lizette was very sorry for her.
 
 168 LIZETTE. 
 
 The aunt was not unsympathetic, either, after all, for 
 she went to the tall girl with her arms out and took her 
 into them, and pulled her head down to her shoulder and 
 said again that she was very sorry. So they stood there 
 for a moment that tall girl and the aunt the tall girl 
 from America who loved John Murdoch, but whom John 
 Murdoch did not love because he loved Lizette. 
 
 "When the tall girl lifted up her head she sobbed. She 
 had wholly lost her self control. 
 
 "And it is so strange, Auntie," she said, brokenly. "I 
 cannot think of him as married to anyone but me. But I 
 earnestly wish him every good. It does not anger me 
 his loving someone else. I only hope and pray that she 
 he loves is worthy of him and will make him happy. That 
 is true, Auntie, very true. I cannot feel angry at him and 
 I cannot hate her, somehow. Of course, I do not know 
 her, but I cannot think of her except to hope that she will 
 prove worthy of a good man's love and make him very 
 happy." 
 
 This was a strange thing for the tall girl to say, thought 
 Lizette. It seemed to her, listening there behind the cur 
 tain, that it was not natural, but she liked her none the 
 less for it. 
 
 "I hope," said the aunt, less pleasantly, "that while he 
 has been here in Paris he has not become entangled with 
 any woman who is unworthy of him. I know little of 
 these French women, but what I do know is not greatly to 
 their credit. I hope that he has not become entangled 
 with someone who will harm him, who will drag him down. 
 Artists are strange people. You know Charles Fosdyck? 
 His mother was one of my friends. He married a model 
 over here and was cast off for it by his father and thrown 
 out by everyone. I hope John Murdoch is not such a fool 
 as that. I hope he did not, in the first place, come over 
 here to find his ruin, and if he did I hope that lie will not 
 return to claim it and to take it back with him." 
 
 There was more than a touch of bitterness in the old 
 woman's tone. It made Lizette flush up and burn and 
 want to scream at her. 
 
 "I thought Mrs. Fosdyek an attractive woman. I only
 
 MARY MARKLEHAM'S SECRET. 169 
 
 saw her once," said the tall girl. She was gathering her 
 skirts to go away. "I have always understood that they 
 are happy there together. She seemed wrapped up in him 
 and he in her." 
 
 "I guess they love each other," said the older woman, 
 "but it has been his ruin, just the same. Silly, youthful 
 romance doesn't wear well, dear. No one would receive 
 her. Of course, he could not be received without her. 
 His acquaintances fell away from him and he has quite 
 gone down the hill. It was his ruin, sure enough. I hope 
 your Murdoch will do nothing of that kind." 
 
 The tall girl smiled a trifle, although the sobs still rose 
 and made her catch her breath. It was the first real smile 
 her face had shown since Lizette had been watching her. 
 When she had looked around the place at first there had 
 been an eager, interested look, a pleased look, as she saw 
 the place the man she loved had lived in for so long, but 
 this was the first real smile. It was not a smile of happi 
 ness. It was a smile of confidence. 
 
 "John Murdoch will do nothing of that sort," she said. 
 "He is too true a man to love a woman who is not worthy 
 of his love. I am sure of that. Certain. He is too true 
 a man to marry any but a true woman. I shall get over 
 my distress some day, and then I am sure that I shall be 
 glad to make his wife my friend. At first I could not bear 
 it, but by and by I shall be able to, and I know that the 
 woman whom he finds good enough to marry will be good 
 enough to be my friend." 
 
 "You are a strange girl," said her aunt. "I hope so." 
 
 She started toward the door. 
 
 In a second they had passed so far that Lizette, from 
 her place behind the curtain, could not see them. She 
 waited anxiously to hear the door close so that she might 
 venture out. But she heard the tall girl say: 
 
 "You go on, Auntie. I have dropped my handkerchief. 
 I will overtake you in a moment." 
 
 And she came back into the room. 
 
 The handkerchief was lying almost before the picture. 
 The tall girl had not closed the curtains. She picked up 
 the little square of cloth, and then slowly very slowly
 
 170 LIZETTE. 
 
 closed the curtains over "Parting." She gazed intently 
 at the picture as the curtains shut on it. She was not 
 crying now. After she had closed the curtains, Lizette's 
 intense eyes saw her go once around the studio and touch 
 the chairs and table and her desk Lizette's with linger 
 ing fingers, softly, as if she said, good-by. Again she 
 stopped in front of the closed curtains which covered 
 'Tarting." She looked for a moment at the roses over it 
 and, standing on her tip-toes, reached up and took one 
 quickly. With it in her hand she gave a hasty, guilty 
 glance around. All her dignity was gone now. She took 
 the posy in her arms and hugged it hungrily. Her aunt 
 called from the top of the stairway. The tall girl loosened 
 the buttons of her bodice and thrust the rose in, thorns 
 and all, and, closing the buttons as she went, ran out. 
 
 Lizette listened until she heard the door close. Then 
 she went softly to the window. She saw them get into 
 their open cab and drive away. She watched them from 
 the window, with the curtains held before her, screening 
 her, until the last possibility of identifying their little 
 vehicle in the crowd of others on the Boulevard had 
 vanished.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 LIZETTE SEEKS AN ANSWEB. 
 
 In the first excitement of their departure and her release 
 from her strained position behind the curtains, Lizette did 
 not think very deeply or very clearly. It was a distinct re 
 lief to her to watch the disappearance of their cab as it 
 became indistinguishable among the crowd of vehicles 
 upon the old Boul' Miche'. They had had no right to come 
 to the studio in the first place, she argued. Was that the 
 \^ay of women in that far away New York, where people 
 were so very careful what they did? Of a certainty it was 
 Pudgy's studio, and, of course, was free to Pudgy's friends. 
 She made this concession quickly in her mind. It was al 
 most an apology to Pudgy. But this tall girl this tall girl 
 who dared to love him she had had no right lo come. He 
 had not invited her. One of the visitors who had gone had 
 brought into the studio a faint, sweet odor of violets. 
 Lizette threw all the windows open with sudden ve 
 hemence, so that the dainty fragrance might be blown 
 away. The perfume of her roses over "Parting" was the 
 only smell of flowers which had the right to harbor there. 
 
 She walked about the studio. Lying by the door was 
 something. The tall girl had dropped her handkerchief 
 again. She must have dropped it while she was crowding 
 that stolen rose into her bodice. Lizette stooped and al 
 most touched it with her fingers. Then she straightened 
 up, and, going to the rack by the new stove, took from it 
 a pair of small, brass tongs. "With them she picked up the 
 little square of cloth and started with it to put it in the 
 stove. She did not do it. The thought of the distress 
 which had so plainly shown upon the tall girl's face pre 
 vented her. For a moment she stood with, it, fluttering
 
 172 UZETTE. 
 
 white and limp before the door of the new stove. It 
 seemed so helpless! It was like the tall girl. She was 
 helpless, too. And hopeless. Lizette did not touch the 
 handkerchief with her fingers, hut she gently let it nutter 
 from the tongs and rest upon the mantel hack of the new 
 stove. 
 
 She sat down in a chair before the fire and thought. 
 Her anger died away against her will. Her emotions were 
 conflicting. She tried to keep her hatred for the tall girl 
 burning in her heart, but could not. The memory of those 
 tears came to her and quenched the fire of anger in her 
 heart as tears, since humanity began to shed them, have 
 quenched many fires of anger. She brought the memory 
 of the tall girl's sobs back to her mind and tried to dwell 
 on it in triumph, but she could not. She tried to rejoice 
 because the tall girl's face had flushed and her eyes red 
 dened with the weeping, but she could not. She tried to 
 wish the tall girl ill, and could not. She could only feel 
 sorry for her, very sorry for the tall girl. Indeed, but she 
 had cause to weep, that tall girl! She tried to imagine 
 herself in the other's place to guess how she would feel 
 if she loved Pudgy and Pudgy loved the tall girl. It was 
 too terrible to think of. It made her choke. She reflected 
 that in a case like that she must most certainly go mad. 
 The tall girl was very beautiful, very beautiful. There 
 could be no more doubt of that than that she loved John 
 Murdoch. And she loved him that girl of grace and ele 
 gance and beauty loved him. Her face would have re 
 vealed it to Lizette, even if her words had not confessed it, 
 never dreaming that Lizette was listening, to her aunt. But 
 John Murdoch did not love the tall girl. He loved Lizette 
 Lizette, who waited for him there to welcome him. That 
 was strange, but it was wonderfully fine. She was beauti 
 ful, and most likely rich. All Americans, it seemed, were 
 rich, except Kentucky. It was most wonderful that Pudgy 
 should love his small Lizette when he could have the tall 
 girl for the asking. 
 
 Lizette did not grudge the rose to her. At first when 
 she had seen her thrust it out of sight into her bodice, she 
 had hoped the thorns on it would hurt her. Now she
 
 LIZETTE SEEKS AN ANSWER. 173 
 
 hoped that they would not. There already was so much 
 pain in that bosom. The tall girl had thought it was 
 Pudgy's rose. Perhaps it had been in her mind that he 
 himself had placed it there above his "Parting." But it 
 was not Pudgy's rose, because he had not come as yet to 
 claim it. He did not even know about the roses which 
 were over "Parting." It had been Lizette's rose which the 
 tall girl had taken and placed within her bosom. She 
 would weep over it when she reached the room at her hotel 
 and kiss it. The tall girl would kiss and mumble over 
 Lizette's rose. It almost seemed, as if in common decency, 
 she ought to run and tell her not to. But that would put 
 too great humiliation on her. Lizette was very sorry for 
 the tall girl when she thought of that. 
 
 But the aunt! Lizette had no kind feelings for the aunt. 
 She was a most unpleasant and violent old woman. She 
 had spoken about Fosdyck. Lizette had heard of Fosdyck. 
 He had been very popular in the Quarter. He had not 
 been a particularly good artist, but he had been popular 
 in the Quarter and he had had much money. Lizette re 
 membered her dimly. She was a beautiful woman Fos- 
 dyck's wife and the aunt had said they loved each other. 
 But she had also said that in marrying her Fosdyck had 
 married ruin. If they loved each other, why had the mar 
 riage ruined Fosdyck? She wondered why. 
 
 Then there came to her an .awful thought. Would 
 Pudgy, if he married her Lizette and took her back to 
 New York City with him, be ruined by it as Fosdyck had 
 been by his marriage? Was it possible that she Lizette 
 could ruin Pudgy? It had ruined Fosdyck. Could it also 
 ruin Pudgy? Was New York such a cold and cruel place 
 as that? A new thought grew within her anci it made her 
 shiver as with cold. Was this strange talk of the two 
 women sent to her in answer to her prayer? A-h-h-h! She 
 shuddered. The dread was in her which comes to supersti 
 tious people when they think they see a sign. Her eyes 
 dilated and she felt a chilling thrill as if the socket of her 
 heart were emptying. She sank with involuntarily 
 loosened muscles to the floor and stared before her as if 
 she saw some terror in the air.
 
 174 LIZETTE. 
 
 That night at the Domperille, when Lizette had gently 
 linked her arm and life to Murdoch's, she had had no 
 knowledge of wrong-doing. But now deep down in her 
 heart she knew. It was that that made this new thought 
 dreadful to her. It was that that made the superstition 
 that this talk of the old woman's might be an awful an 
 swer to her prayer, grow coldly, like a tree of ice, within 
 her breast. Those days, when she had read the Bible to 
 Kentucky and talked to him about it, she had, without 
 realization, learned just enough so that now the twisted 
 thoughts came back to her with many misinterpretations 
 and dread meanings. Her other reading with Murdoch, 
 when she had struggled with the English to please him and 
 to understand him, had taught her more; and in these 
 things, too, she saw new meanings dreadful meanings 
 as she huddled on the floor in horror at the prospect which 
 opened now before her dazed and startled mind. When 
 once the knowledge had begun to grow, it had gathered 
 as a rolling snowball gathers, and now, with these new and 
 awful misinterpretations of it, it threatened to overwhelm 
 her. Often painful thoughts had come to her, but she 
 had pushed them back, unwilling to give them lodgment 
 in her mind. Who has not struggled to put away unpleas 
 ant truths? But now they rushed upon her like a flood. 
 The sluiceway had been opened by what the aunt had said, 
 and they rushed through it in a flood. She tried to stop 
 their coming, but she could not. She hurried, trembling, 
 about the studio, doing some of those small things which 
 had ever been absorbing and brought such pleasure to her, 
 but they did not absorb or bring pleasure to her now. She 
 went over into the Gardens of the Luxembourg, but the 
 playing children could not turn the course of her re 
 flections. 
 
 She went back to the old studio and reread Murdoch's 
 letter, that one which said so much on two small sheets 
 of paper. But its sweetness was embittered. Perhaps in 
 opening to her the door of happiness he might be closing 
 it upon himself. Perhaps that was what the Virgin had 
 meant to warn her of in the visit of the women to the 
 studio. Perhaps her prayers for guidance had been an-
 
 LIZETTE SEEKS AN ANSWER. 175 
 
 swered with an answer that bade her rend her life in twain, 
 destroy it, trample on the joy of it, that she might save 
 him from himself. Ever as she read its words those 
 words so dear to her that woman's voice, which said that 
 Fosdyck was a ruined man and hoped that Murdoch would 
 not tempt like certainty of ruin, troubled her. 
 
 "I hope he has not become entangled with some one 
 who will harm him some one who will drag him down," 
 the aunt had said. 
 
 Would it harm him? Would it drag him down to take 
 her back with him to New York City? Had she been so 
 very wicked in her love for him that that very love would 
 compass his destruction? Was this hint an answer from 
 the Virgin? 
 
 She could not put the thoughts away from her. They 
 were persistent in their clamor to be heard. Oh, why had 
 that old woman come to make her suffer so? Slowly, a 
 conviction was growing in her mind, a thought so grim 
 and terrible that it made her crouch in agony. 
 
 She must not ruin Pudgy. 
 
 If it were possible that harm should come to him 
 through taking her to New York City, she must never go. 
 It were better, it were happier that she should die than 
 that she should take ruin to her Pudgy. It was plain that 
 marriage did not save men from such ruin, for the aunt 
 had said that Fosdyck had been ruined, although he loved 
 his wife and she loved him, and they were married hard 
 and fast as laws of Church and State could bind them. She 
 must think about this awful matter. She must find out 
 what to do. Whatever that might be, it must not be that 
 she should take the ruin to her Pudgy. Not if it tore her 
 heart from out her bosom and left it, rent and bleeding, 
 in a wilderness of loneliness. She must think. She must 
 take counsel. Oh, how she wished for old Kentucky at 
 this crisis! 
 
 She quickly dressed and went to Notre Dame again. 
 Again she knelt there on the stones. Again she lifted up 
 her heart in supplication to the Blessed Virgin. Her pray 
 ers were still for Pudgy, but their point of plea was 
 changed. She did not ask the Holy Virgin to guard him
 
 176 LIZETTE. 
 
 from the dangers of the sea. She begged to know if, in 
 her own, sweet, loving self, a greater danger lurked than 
 in the waves. This prayer was not of thanks, but suppli 
 cation. She begged for definite interpretation. She asked 
 the Virgin how she might deport herself to keep all trou 
 ble from her Pudgy. She begged Christ's holy mother to 
 tell her if, by marrying him and going back with him, she 
 should take ruin to him. The wording of that other 
 prayer was in her memory that happy prayer, poured out 
 amidst the sweet excitement of the coming of his letter, 
 that prayer which she had tried to get the old woman who 
 sold coals to say also for him. 
 
 Was it possible, she asked, that the shelter which he 
 needed was shelter from her love? What a bitter, biting 
 thought! 
 
 She had begged the Blessed Virgin to show her how to 
 ever think of him and not think of herself. Would the 
 truest thought of him, the truest self-forgetfulness, be that 
 which bade her go away from him, so that by cleaving to 
 him she might not shame and injure him before the 
 world? 
 
 She had begged of her that sorrows, if they fell, might 
 fall on her and not on him. Was it true that by accepting 
 this supremest of all sorrows separation she might most 
 surely save him sadness in the days to come? She had 
 begged to be cast out and hated if she ever, in the slightest, 
 wronged or hurt him. Was it possible that by going to 
 America with him as his wife she would be most deeply 
 wronging him, most irretrievably doing him an injury? 
 Had the words of the old woman been spoken in her hear 
 ing as a warning of this possibility? She had begged that 
 death might come while joy so great and sweet was in her 
 if, by her living, wrong or harm should come to him. Was 
 it true that it were better for him that she died before he 
 came to claim her as his wife? Was it true that if they 
 married it might spoil his life across the sea? Had the 
 Virgin told her this by sending the old woman? 
 
 As she knelt the great sobs shook her so that those who 
 were nearby looked on and pitied her. She did not know 
 that they were looking. The whole world's gaze would not
 
 LIZETTE SEEKS AN ANSWER. 177 
 
 have changed the current of her thoughts. She was too 
 deeply weighted by her agony of fear that through her love 
 for Murdoch she should harm him. 
 
 So she knelt and prayed and asked these questions of 
 the Virgin many times. But there came no answer to her. 
 
 In that dim religion which she had built from shreds 
 and fragments of the truth was the belief that answer to 
 the praying soul in real distress was likely to come quick 
 and straight from Heaven. 
 
 But no such answer came to her. 
 
 She told the Blessed Virgin what her case was, and con 
 fided in her with a sweet simplicity that if she must go 
 away and leave her Pudgy for his own salvation, then the 
 going must be now, that it was in her heart that if she 
 waited until after he had come to her, her strength would 
 surely fail. 
 
 Imploring, in an agony, she asked an answer, but none 
 came. 
 
 What she really expected, whether she looked for a ma 
 terial demonstration, or some soul-convincing inward thrill, 
 unseen, unheard, she did not know herself. But nothing 
 came. 
 
 Finally, weeping noiselessly and with many little catch- 
 ings of the breath, she started to go out. In the very en 
 trance to the cathedral, where the gloom of the great pil 
 lars lay blackest on the stones, she met the young man who 
 was so often at the shop of the old woman who sold coals. 
 
 He had given up the study of art and earned that part of 
 his living which was not provided by the old woman who 
 sold coals by copying work in the libraries. But he still 
 posed as a divinity student. In his dress he imitated the 
 garb of the Church and he was frequently to be seen about 
 the great churches, the ones most frequently visited by 
 sight-seeing strangers. 
 
 Lizette knew this young man through seeing him so 
 often in the shop of the old woman who sold coals. At 
 once the thought occurred to her that he might help her. 
 She hardly dared to go to a regular priest with her tragedy, 
 so great to her, but so small in a world of tragedies. But 
 this student! Surely, he could help her; at least, he could
 
 178 LIZETTE. 
 
 advise where to seek help. She turned the matter over 
 in her mind as she followed him along the street, and when 
 he paused, leaning on the wall that runs alongside the 
 river, she approached timidly and addressed him. He 
 bowed conventionally. 
 
 "Father, will you help me?" she asked. 
 
 "I am not a priest," he answered, adding, to keep up the 
 pretence which had become a habit with him, "though I 
 hope to become one. But I shall be very glad to be of 
 help to you if I can. Only, if it is confession which you 
 wish to make, the church would be a better place and there 
 are always priests there waiting!" 
 
 "No, not confession," said the small one, "but I have 
 much to ask." 
 
 "Go on." 
 
 She did not tell him who she was, but poured her story 
 out in broken sentences and struggling words. He really 
 did not listen closely. Much of what she said was almost 
 incoherent. Much more he did not understand, because 
 she did not stop to detail surrounding circumstances. But 
 finally, he gathered enough of what she meant to under 
 stand in part the worry of her heart. Still, he did not un 
 derstand who it was that she would save from harm. He 
 did not recognize her yet. He merely thought that she 
 was a sentimental, worried French girl, almost hysterical. 
 Such mental mix-ups are not rare. She did not tell him of 
 the visit of the women. She did not tell him that she 
 feared their visit came in answer to her prayers. 
 
 "Your sin has been no greater than his sin," he said, 
 when she paused at the end of her narrative. 
 
 "But yes," Lizette broke in in protest "But yes, it has. 
 I went to him without the asking, because from the very 
 moment of my first seeing him I loved him. And then, I 
 did not know that it was sin." 
 
 "He knew," the other said. "So, at least, your sin has 
 not been greater than his own." 
 
 "He has not sinned," she said, almost in anger. "The 
 sin is mine, I tell you. It is mine!" 
 
 "Well, have it so," the young man said, smiling. "It is 
 evident I cannot change you but the fact remains,"
 
 LIZETTE SEEKS AN ANSWER. 179 
 
 "He has not sinned," Lizette repeated, "except through 
 me." 
 
 "Nor you except through him." 
 
 "Ah, yes!" Lizette said, softly. "It was I who went to 
 him. He did not seek me out and ask me to do wrong. 
 The sin is mine." 
 
 "It does not matter," said the man, now looking at 
 Lizette more closely. This was a new experience. He had 
 not met before in his experience any person who so per 
 sisted in bearing burdens which even strangers thought 
 might be carried by the shoulders of another. It was gen 
 erally the other way. Most persons wished to shift their 
 loads for other backs to bend beneath. He began to be 
 interested. 
 
 "It seems to me," he went on, "that your road is clear 
 before you. You say he comes to marry you. Be content. 
 The past is passed. If, in the future, after this marriage 
 has taken place, you so live as to give pleasure to God; 
 if you confess your sins and ask forgiveness of them; if 
 you give in charity of what you have and do allotted pen 
 ance, all will be well with you." 
 
 "It is not for that I ask," she said. 
 
 "For what, then?" asked the student, looking closely at 
 her face again and trying to remember who she was. 
 
 "It is not that all may be well with me, but that all may 
 be well with him that I would have advice. I begged 
 the Blessed Virgin that sorrows, if they fell, might fall on 
 me. I wish it. It is right. The sin is mine, not his." 
 
 "You must love much," he said, still trying to remem 
 ber. 
 
 "I do." 
 
 "Does he?" 
 
 As he asked this question, there was a keen, unpleasant 
 twinkle in the eyes of the young man. At last he had 
 placed her. Her face had been familiar, and at length he 
 recognized her as the girl who had so often been with the 
 man who once had ducked him in the Seine. A plan began 
 to form there in his mind as he looked down at her, but he 
 did not broach it yet. He went on with the religious dia 
 logue. It would be most necessary for his plan's fruition
 
 180 UZETTE. 
 
 that she should not know he had a plan or any reason for 
 one. He was not the man to strike out openly. He waited 
 for her answer to his question. He really wanted to know 
 its answer now, and the dialogue had assumed an interest 
 personal to him. He asked again: 
 
 "Does he?" 
 
 "He does. I know he does/' she answered, with a proud 
 flicker of a smile upon her anxious face. 
 
 The student was clever. 
 
 "Then if you fled from him would not that give to him 
 the greatest of all sorrows?" 
 
 He waited for her answer. He was anxious to have her 
 confirm the theory in his mind. 
 
 She hesitated. She had thought of this. But as she 
 paused a glimmering thought of final sacrifice came to her 
 mind of sacrifice so great that it made her physically 
 cold to think of it. There was that other girl! Perhaps 
 her Pudgy would be happier at last with that other girl 
 who loved him and who had not sinned. Surely, he would 
 suffer first, but it might be better for him in the end. She 
 had not sinned! That tall girl had not sinned! 
 
 He waited while she thought, and finally asked her 
 again: 
 
 "If you fled from him, would it not give to him the 
 greatest of all sorrows?" He added quickly, in consonance 
 with his rapidly-forming plan: "Not that it is not well for 
 us to suffer, sometimes." 
 
 "It might," she said. "It would" 
 
 The student was eager now, and interrupted. Here was 
 his chance to hurt the man who had forced humiliation on 
 him. He did not think so far as to believe that he could 
 permanently injure Murdoch, for he had not so much faith 
 in woman's nature as to believe that she would really run 
 away from him forever, even if she thought that doing it 
 would save his soul. But the thought was in his mind 
 that he might make her go away for a small time and worry 
 Murdoch. It was a great idea and must be carefully car 
 ried out or it would fail. When he spoke it was slowly and 
 with caution. He kept his eyes fixed closely on her face 
 so that he could see the effect of what he said. He was no
 
 LIZETTE SEEKS AN ANSWER. 181 
 
 longer in a hurry for his dinner. He felt a sort of triumph 
 as his plan was born. It was a clever plan, for if Murdoch 
 really loved the little one it would make him suffer worse 
 than he had suffered when he had been ducked that day, 
 and the suffering would last longer. 
 
 "You have prayed and asked the Virgin?" he questioned 
 again. 
 
 "I have asked and not been answered/' said Lizette, "un 
 less 
 
 She told him of the visit and the gossip of the women, 
 and asked if it might properly be taken for an answer to 
 her prayers. 
 
 "Where is he now?" 
 
 "He is coming from America." 
 
 "When will he be here?" 
 
 "Within a week, I think, or less. I cannot tell, exactly." 
 
 The student smiled a most unpleasant smile. He felt 
 it on his face and, fearing that she would see the pleasure 
 which he felt in anticipation at prospect of doing harm to 
 Murdoch, he hid it with his hand. 
 
 "Your belief in the Holy Virgin is absolute?" he in 
 quired, anxious to be certain that his plan would carry 
 through when once he launched it. 
 
 "Of a certainty," replied Lizette, "but she has not an 
 swered, unless the visit of the women and their talking 
 was the answer. Was it? Do you think it was?" 
 
 "Who knows?" he said, with calm deliberation. He 
 must make her think it might be, but he must leave the 
 matter open to some question in order that she would want 
 to ask again in other circumstances and so carry out his 
 plan. 
 
 "There is a place a shrine," he said, presently, "where 
 the Virgin especially replies to many prayers. I mean at 
 Lourdes. Have you heard of it?" 
 
 Lizette looked up with eagerness. She had not thought 
 of that. All Paris knows about the yearly pilgrimage to 
 Lourdes and she had known of it; had even seen the pil 
 grims miserably clustered around the railway station once 
 while they waited for the trains to take them to the south 
 of France to pray. It seemed almost like an inspiration
 
 182 LIZETTE. 
 
 to her. Surely, that was the thing to do. The Virgin, 
 who did not answer when she prayed at ease in the ca 
 thedral, might listen to her if she made the pilgrimage. 
 
 The young man smiled most unpleasantly. If Lizettc 
 had seen him when he was a student there, at Julian's, 
 and had tried to edge around so that he might kick the 
 head of the prostrate student who had ducked him, she 
 would have seen how like his smile was now to that he had 
 worn then. A similar plan was in his mind. Again he 
 planned to play a coward's part and strike Murdoch when 
 he could offer no defense. But this time there was not a 
 roomful of young men, who loved fair play, to watch him 
 and cry shame. He told her of the pilgrimage, and held 
 great hopes out to her. He said that he understood the 
 situation now, and realized that she was doing right to 
 hesitate. He talked cleverly and well. He found out when 
 the absent one was coming back and felt a pleasure in his 
 heart, because the annual pilgrimage began upon the mor 
 row, and, by working on her feelings, he could get her off 
 on it before Murdoch came to claim her. 
 
 The plan appealed to her. It seemed but right that she 
 should make a pilgrimage. It was a pilgrimage for Pudgy, 
 whom she loved. She listened to the student, and deter 
 mined to follow his advice. He was very kind, and even 
 secured for her a ticket for one of the official trains which 
 started on the morrow. 
 
 With streaming eyes she wrote a little note to Murdoch, 
 and placed it on the mantel back of the new stove, where 
 he would surely see it. It was the last of many, for many 
 were torn up before she felt that she had said all that she 
 wished to say and yet had told him not too much, so that 
 he would know on what journey she had gone and, follow 
 ing, overset her plans, which she had made for his good, 
 not for hers. 
 
 It was a tear-stained , pitiful confession, indefinite 
 in what it said. And so she left it where, should her 
 love appear before she should come back, or should the 
 Holy Virgin tell her never to return, Murdoch would find 
 it and would know. She packed some necessaries in a little 
 trunk. She placed her dearest treasure that last letter
 
 LIZETTE SEEKS AN ANSWER. 183 
 
 from John Murdoch in her bosom, and, in the early 
 morning of the day before Murdoch and Kentucky eagerly 
 arrived in Paris, she began that pitiful journey with the 
 halt and lame, the palsied and the blind, to Lourdes.
 
 CHAPTEE XX. 
 
 GONE. 
 
 The ship neared the end of its journey. Kentucky be 
 came possessed of a mighty calm. He was satisfied. Big 
 soul that was his! He had accomplished his end. Through 
 his efforts the two whom he knew should be together, were 
 to be reunited, and he was satisfied. His hard rubs against 
 the world had, in their friction, rubbed his selfishness 
 away. He had filled the emptiness of the life whose early 
 fulness lay buried in the south of France, with the interests 
 of these two, for whose happiness he gladly would have 
 sacrificed his own. 
 
 Murdoch was restless. 
 
 Presently they were within a few hours of Liverpool. 
 They were in the bow upon the anchor deck and stood in 
 silence peering into the fog. How little they dreamed of 
 the depth of that fog, less palpable but more terrifying, 
 which would soon surround and baffle them, in whose som 
 bre mysteries was somewhere hidden the one to whom they 
 hastened with such joy and happy plans. There were 
 sounds of other traffic in the channel, but there was little 
 sight of it, so dense was the all-obscuring mist. The toot 
 ing of small horns and the occasional firing of a gun 
 gave the navigators news of where other craft were plying, 
 and the great steamship progressed slowly, feeling her way 
 as a frightened boy might in a dark and fearsome cellar. 
 
 They landed early in the morning and hurried through 
 the customs house formalities, and soon were on their way 
 to London in a train which rushed though the peaceful, 
 rain-wet English countryside with gratifying speed. In 
 London they drove from Waterloo to Victoria station in a 
 cab, whose driver was promised extra payment if he got
 
 GONE. 185 
 
 them there in time to catch the regular eleven o'clock ex 
 press for Dover. There they took the channel boat for 
 Calais. In the train, as they whirled along through the 
 beautiful English country, they talked of her. On the 
 dingy Channel boat they talked of her. On the train 
 again, from Calais to Paris, they spoke only of Lizette. 
 
 When the train began to pass through the environs of 
 the French capital their conversation ceased. Each was 
 eager for the moment when they should arrive in Paris. 
 Murdoch did not think that Lizette would be at the rail 
 road station to meet them. He believed that she would 
 think as he did, that the dear old studio, where there 
 would be no curious ones to look and wonder, would be a 
 better place to meet. Kentucky smiled and offered wagers 
 that she would not be strong enough to wait. 
 
 Murdoch was right. Lizette was not waiting at the 
 station. 
 
 Again they rushed their luggage through the customs as 
 rapidly as they could, and had it loaded on a cab. They 
 gave the driver the address and started gayly for the 
 studio which overlooked the Gardens of the Luxembourg. 
 Kentucky told that driver in strangely fluent French that 
 there was much cause for haste. He hastened. 
 
 As they whirled through the streets with the reckless 
 ness that comes to Parisian drivers because they and not 
 pedestrians have the right of way, they did not speak. 
 The tears were in John Murdoch's eyes as they caught wel 
 come, fleeting glimpses of the old places which had been 
 so familiar to him in past days. Each had a memory of 
 her to offer to him as he passed. The Cafe de la Paix 
 how many times had they idly sipped their coffee there as 
 the crowds passed, almost, it seemed, for the sole purpose 
 of amusing them? The great fountain at the head of the 
 Boul' Miche' recalled that first night in Paris when he 
 had driven over to the Quarter with Fitzpatrick and the 
 French hat merchant. Kentucky gripped his hand. They 
 saw ona or two students whom Murdoch recognized and 
 who waved their hands at Kentucky, but there must have 
 been some change in Murdoch, for they did not seem to 
 know him. They passed the Domperille. Murdoch
 
 186 LIZETTE. 
 
 strained his eyes to see into the place, tut it was too early 
 in the day. It was dull and unattractive. 
 
 Another moment and they were within sight of the old 
 building. The trees were swaying in the dear old Gardens 
 of the Luxembourg, the birds were twittering in them, the 
 children were at their play in them with softened shouts. 
 Nowhere was there any visible change and Murdoch's heart 
 went out to everything and everyone he saw. The very 
 griminess of the old studio building was dear to him. Dingy, 
 mansard-roofed, it leaned slightly backward as if to steady 
 itself against the jarring of the great steam trams which 
 went puffing noisily before it. They were new to Mur 
 doch. The two men peered up at the window near that sky 
 light, which had given Murdoch such fine north light for 
 his painting in the old days. They looked eagerly at the 
 street door. But in neither was that bright, expectant and 
 expected face looking out for them. Murdoch was disap 
 pointed. His first impulse was to jump from the cab and 
 run upstairs to meet Lizette and greet her, but he thought 
 that that would be unfair. Their meeting could not be too 
 sacred to be shared by Kentucky, who had crossed the 
 ocean to bring him to his love. He waited and paid the 
 cabman and helped pull the luggage off the cab, although 
 every nerve was tingling, every muscle tense to hurry up 
 the stairs and find Lizette. The withered old concierge 
 came out and greeted Murdoch with an enthusiasm which 
 might have fitted a mother's joy at a long-absent son's 
 home-coming. It delayed Murdoch five seconds, and 
 almost exasperated him. 
 
 He bounded up the stairs, two at a time, with Ken 
 tucky's ungainly long legs taking great leaps behind him. 
 He dashed into the studio with her name on his lips. There 
 was no reply, but the first thing that caught his eye was 
 the cheerful glow of the fire in the new stove. That 
 meant that she was waiting for him, surely. He hurried 
 through the other rooms. She was not in them. He 
 thought that she might have hidden in a closet to make him 
 search, and he opened each closed door, but nowhere could 
 he find her. He reasoned that she had gone to the station, 
 but had missed them and would hurry back distressed.
 
 GONE. 187 
 
 Kentucky was dumfounded. They sat down and gazed 
 at each other in bitter disappointment. Kentucky had 
 just risen to go to the concierge when the old woman 
 poked her grizzled head into the room, and said: 
 
 "You see I had the fire burning brightly in the ne\v 
 stove. She told me that I must closely look to that. There 
 is also a telegram for Madame upon the mantel shelf. It 
 came yesterday, after Madame went away." 
 
 "Went away! Yesterday!" exclaimed the two men in 
 chorus. 
 
 "Yes. Did you not expect to find her gone? She 
 seemed to feel most sorrowful about the going. She 
 kissed me as she said adieu, and told me that I must keep 
 the fire burning in the new stove so that its warmth might 
 welcome you. She kissed me as she said adieu." 
 
 The old woman plumed herself at this, as if it had been 
 a great feather in her cap. 
 
 "She was most anxious about that fire in the new stove," 
 she went on, glancing at the red gleam of its isinglass. "She 
 wept, mostly, but she told me that she had had a telegram 
 from you from far away America, bidding her to have a 
 bright fire there when you should come, and she charged 
 me to keep it burning. It seemed to me a most strange 
 thing to send a message so great a way about, but one can 
 never tell. You see, I kept it burning with the great 
 brilliance." 
 
 She pointed proudly to the fire of welcome. So Lizette's 
 hands had not been those to keep it burning, after all. 
 
 "When the second telegram came, I brought it up," she 
 went on, busily, "hoping that Madame might not yet have 
 made her departure. But the studio was empty. I knew 
 that Madame might stop at the shop of the woman who 
 sells coals, so I ran after her. The shop was closed. There 
 is a young priest in whom the old woman who sells coais 
 takes much interest you understand? She takes almost 
 as much of interest in him as if he were her son. You 
 understand? Her son? La la! Her son. But, of 
 course, that could not be. Oh, no. For the woman who 
 sells coals has never had a husband, so she could not have 
 a son. You understand? Still, she takes much interest
 
 188 LIZETTE. 
 
 in the young priest and he in her. Well, it seemed that 
 the young man was at the gate assisting those who make 
 the holy pilgrimage to Lourdes. The old woman who sells 
 coais was with him there. The shop was closed, so, of 
 course, Madame was not there. So I brought the telegram 
 back here and left it where you found it. 
 
 "Madame told me before she went that she had arranged 
 everything for you. After I had helped the cabman take 
 her box down the stairs, she came back again and stayed 
 here such a time that I came up to see if there was not 
 some way in which I could be of service, She was on her 
 knees, over there in front of the big picture. I thought at 
 first that she was praying, but then I thought that, of 
 course, she could not be praying to a picture, and then I 
 entered and asked her if she was looking for something that 
 she had lost. She was weeping aond told me that she 
 feared she had lost the greatest thing that she had ever 
 owned, but told me that I could not help her find it. She 
 said that only the Holy Virgin could tell her where and 
 how to find it, which I thought was most strange talk. 
 She told me to go away and to wait for her outside. I 
 started, and as I went out I saw that she was again on her 
 knees, looking for that something which she had lost and 
 which she told me that I could not help her find. I am 
 old, I know, but I would have been very glad to have got 
 down to help her look, for of a certainty I am very fond 
 of little Madame. But she bade me go, and so I went. 
 
 "Finally, when, almost an hour afterward, she came 
 down the stairs, I asked her if she had found that thing 
 which she had lost. She said she had not found it, and 
 I told her that if she would tell me what it was I would 
 make the most careful search for it while she was gone, so 
 that I might have it waiting for her when she came back. 
 
 " 'No/ she said to me, 'you cannot find it. It is useless 
 for you to make the search. I have left it behind me in 
 the dear old studio, and if I ever come "back to the studio 
 I know that it will be there waiting for me. But before I 
 can search for it again the Holy Virgin must tell me that 
 I have the right to it/ 
 
 "This was most strange talk and I did not understand
 
 GONE. 189 
 
 what she meant by it, but when I asked her to explain how 
 I could help her in her search, she only wept the more. She 
 drove away, but in a few moments she came back and went 
 again up to the studio. She said that she had forgotten 
 to tell me about the stove, and I came up here with her. 
 / She was still weeping. It was most strange and most dis 
 tressing. She showed me all about the stove, and said 
 that I must keep the great fire in it until you should come. 
 And while we were talking about the stove, she suddenly 
 sank down upon her knees again before that picture there, 
 the large one in front of which the curtains are, and I 
 thought at first that she had spied that thing which she 
 had lost there on the floor. I was about to say that I was 
 glad that she had found it, when I saw that she had not 
 found it at all, but that she was praying. For a second I 
 thought that she was praying to the picture, but then I 
 heard her utter the name of the Holy Virgin and I knew, 
 of course, that it was she to whom she prayed. She seemed 
 to be in great distress, and I went out upon the landing, 
 for it did not seem right for me to be there while she 
 prayed, and I thought that that was perhaps what had kept 
 her so long a time before, and that she had not really lost 
 anything, but had been kneeling in prayer and not in 
 search. 
 
 "Finally she came out into the hallway again where I 
 waited, and she said to me that I must watch everything 
 very closely, and told me again that all must be in readi 
 ness for you when you came/' 
 
 "Did she leave no word for me at all?" asked Murdoch, 
 in distress and greatly puzzled. 
 
 "Oh, yes. But I thought you would have seen it. It is 
 there the letter there on the mantel, by the sketches," 
 explained the concierge. "She told me to tell you that it 
 was there, but in my hurry and excitement I forgot." 
 
 The letter was half hidden by one of Murdoch's 
 sketches. A ring at the street bell called the concierge 
 away, and Murdoch was glad that she had gone, for when 
 he read the letter there were tears in his eyes, and so 
 strong was his emotion that he could not speak. For 
 there, in Lizette's crabbed little handwriting, he read;
 
 190 LIZETTE. 
 
 "Oh, Pudgy! I am doing this which breaks my heart. 
 I am going away, and, oh, Pudgy! I do not know if I 
 shall come back. You have been so good to me, you have 
 loved me so much and been so very good to me. And I 
 have been not grateful. I see it now. So, before I say 
 more, I must oh, Pudgy, it seems as if my heart were 
 breaking in me I must tell to you my gratitude. I am 
 grateful to you for all the days that are gone dear Pudgy 
 and I am grateful to you for all the days that are to 
 come, for no matter where I may be in them, or what I 
 may be doing, they will always have the brightness shining 
 on them from the days that are in the past. And your 
 letter, PuJgy, the one in which you tell me that you wish 
 me to be your wife! Oh, Pudgy, I thought that I should 
 go mad with joy and gratitude, when I read its so sweet 
 words. Ah, cher,. cher, cher, how I had dreamed of that! 
 How I had gazed at the weddings in the Bois and at the 
 brides as they drove through the streets of Paris in their 
 veils and wedding gowns, and dreamed and prayed in my 
 so small way that sometime I might be the wife of you 
 that some day you would tell me what you now have told 
 me in that letter that letter which shall ever rest upon 
 my heart, in life and death. My love! My love! My love! 
 I have sat for long times in the studio in many days now 
 gone, and written on the paper 'Madame John Murdoch, 
 Madame John Murdoch, Madame John Murdoch/ over 
 and again over, scarcely hoping that ever such great chance 
 of wonderful fortune would come to me. And if it had 
 not, my Pudgy, think not that I should have had the small 
 thought of anger or right to disappointment. No! So 
 great has been the happiness of my years with you that it 
 has been greater than all the happiness in all the lives of 
 twenty women. I know that. I know it. I thank you. 
 A million times I thank you. And I should be so proud, 
 if ever, Pudgy, I can think that I can be the wife of you 
 without also, being at the same time, the ruin of you in 
 your new home! Oh, Pudgy! I shall die of joy! 
 
 "You have been so good to me and I have not been 
 grateful. I see it now. I did not see it before, or before 
 I should have realized that it was wrong for me to give to
 
 GONE. 191 
 
 you the bother, to ask of you or expect more than was 
 mine already. I have often feel most guilty and to-day I 
 know why it is that I have feel so. It is because I have 
 given to you the bother. In your home there in America 
 I should not have given to you the bother, but I did, and 
 I am sorry. Forgive me, Pudgy. Give forgiveness to your 
 small Lizette. All the time I begged you to come back to 
 me, when I should not have done such things at all, but 
 should have been happy in what you had already given to 
 me the years so sweet! But you! You, with your heart 
 eo big, so tender, true, not selfish! You could not be 
 harsh enough to tell me that I was the bother. 
 
 "When your letter came to me that so darling letter, 
 full of love and asking of me that I should be your wife 
 I had no thought of going from you as I now am going. 
 My only thought was waiting, trembling with the happi 
 ness, until your great strong arms should come to me and 
 all enfold me, to take me back with you. I had no realiza 
 tion at those moments of the truth that what would be so 
 great joyousness to me might be the ruin to my Pudgy. 
 Now, when I have heard about New York, so cruel and so 
 cold, and know what distress and scorn it might bring to 
 you there to have me who have so sinned in your home 
 for wife, I halt I stop. 
 
 "I have heard how Fosdyck you remember him, per 
 haps was ruin there because he wed the one he loved, but 
 who have sinned as I have sinned. I must not bring on 
 you the ruin. The ruin must not come to you of me. It 
 is only sweetness which it is that I would give to you, my 
 beloved, my dear. It is that way that it seems to me. I 
 have ask it of the Holy Virgin that she tell me what to do, 
 but if I have had answer to my prayer it must be that the 
 word which came to me that such marriage would work 
 ruin to you was that answer. I cannot tell. I know eo 
 little of such matters. I am going now to one who, per 
 haps, will tell me what to do. I have only the very, very 
 little hope that she will tell me that I have the right to 
 take of you the great sacrifice which you out of your BO 
 big heart have offered to me. If it should be, my Pudgy, 
 that you should not see your small Lizette again, remem-
 
 192 LIZETTE. 
 
 ber that she will, so long as the breath flutters ever so 
 slightly in the bosom of her, be loving you and thinking 
 of you and thanking you. If it shall be that the one tc 
 whom I go shall not answer me, I fear it must be that I 
 shall be compel to take my doubtingness for answer from 
 her. If she shall say me TTes, it is right that you 
 should take the happiness and it shall not be the ruin to 
 your Pudgy/ then I shall fly to you and find you, though 
 the whole world is between us. 
 
 "Worry not about me, my Pudgy. If the one to whom 
 I go shall tell me that it shall be wrong for me to go to 
 you that such going shall bring the ruin to you as it 
 came to Fosdyck, surely I shall be helped in some way so 
 that I shall not have too great suffering. If I shall learn 
 that I must not go to you, worry not about the sorrow 
 which shall fill my soul. The so sweet memory of years 
 agone will help me as sweet memories have helped our dear 
 Kentucky. Tell him, Pudgy, that I love him. 
 
 "I go to find the path. 
 
 "I rain upon your face a million kisses. I fold you to 
 my heart. 
 
 "If it shall be that I shall not come back to you, it shall 
 at the same time be that ever I shall be think of you 
 and blow kisses to you from my finger tips. Again! Again! 
 A million kisses! Again I fold you to my heart. Again 
 adieu. LIZETTE." 
 
 Murdoch let his fa^e fall into his hands and sobbed. 
 Kentucky went gently to him and took the letter from him. 
 When he had read it, he, too, was weeping. 
 
 Kentucky rose and took Murdoch by the hand. 
 
 "I am glad you asked her, old man," he said. "You did 
 not tell me that you had, but I felt certain of it. Have 
 you any notion of what it is that has driven her away?" 
 
 "None." 
 
 "Someone has told her that marrying her would ruin 
 you in New York. That is plain." 
 
 "Had she ever spoken of any thoughts of this kind to 
 you, Kentucky, before you came to get me?" 
 
 "No. She often questioned me about New York, and I 
 am afraid that I gave her a bad opinion of the place. I
 
 GONE. 193 
 
 hate it. You know that. I told her that the people there 
 were mostly flunkies, which is true. I told her that they 
 were money worshippers and howers down before conven 
 tionality, which is also true. But I cannot think that any 
 thing I ever said to her could have put the notion in her 
 head that if you married her it would bring moral ruin 
 to you there. Who could have told her about Fosdyck? 
 That is where the clue is. You know the man. He mar 
 ried his model, or something of that sort, and took her to 
 New York with him. He hasn't had a very easy time, I 
 presume, but his affair was as different from yours and 
 Lizette's as daylight is from dark. Poor child! Someone 
 has taken advantage of her emotions. What is all this she 
 says about religion? We used to read the Bible together 
 and talk about the beauties of Christianity. When she 
 sat there with me in my little room, while I was painting 
 out my debt to you for those new clothes you made me buy, 
 she read to me from the New Testament and I told her 
 some Bible stories, but we had no talk which could have 
 brought her to a state of mind at all like what has evidently 
 sent the poor, mistaken child away from you. There were 
 no such notions in her head when I saw her last. I am 
 sure of that. Murdoch, it has been a woman or a priest. 
 We must find a woman or a priest." 
 
 Together the two men searched each room for signs. 
 In the studio Murdoch's easel, with his brushes in their 
 little jars of water on the floor beside it, bore a fresh, new 
 canvas. Those others which she had had the dealer 
 stretch that day in preparation for the great home-coming, 
 were neatly ranged beside the easel. The two men un 
 derstood. In her closet there still hung all her little 
 fineries. It was evident that she had taken with her only 
 the simplest of her clothes. Murdoch searched in vain for 
 the old red wrapper which had been so dear to him, and 
 which she had preserved with so many darnings. In the 
 dresser he found the little things of his over which she had 
 with such loving conscientiousness labored, and the 
 darned socks, each pair in its small round bundle, were 
 pathetic in appeal. But nowhere was there clue of where 
 the little one had flown to,
 
 194 LIZETTE. 
 
 They went back to the room where the new stove was 
 blazing with its false fire of welcome. Standing by it and 
 leaning an elbow on the mantel shelf, Murdoch tried to 
 think out some solution to the strange problem which he 
 had found where he had only thought to find Lizette. He 
 idly picked up his sketches which she had arranged upon 
 it, and as he did so found that handkerchief which Lizette 
 had lifted from the floor and placed there with the tongs, 
 while yet her hatred of the tall girl burned within her. He 
 thought, of course, that it must be Lizette's, but the em 
 broidered "M" in the corner showed at once that that 
 could not be. "Where had he seen an "M" like that on 
 some lady's handkerchief? He had seen one, and studied 
 it. For a moment the recollection struggled vainly in 
 his mind, and then he knew. He had seen it in a corner 
 of Mary Markleham's handkerchief the day when he had 
 driven through the Park with her, and, as he drove, com 
 pared her, the object of his first boyish affection, to the 
 little girl who waited for him in Paris. 
 
 "Kentucky," he said, "Mary Markleham has been here. 
 This is her handkerchief, here on the mantel." 
 
 "Who is she?" 
 
 "A New York girl whom I thought once that I should 
 some day like to marry. It seems as if she were ever to 
 be associated with all the troubles which come to Lizette 
 and me. It was she who was at the Moulin Eouge that 
 night when Lizette ran away, and we searched all Paris 
 for her. Do you remember?" 
 
 "I could never forget that night, Murdoch. She showed 
 her love for you to me that night more clearly than she 
 had ever shown it to me before. I told you that there was 
 a woman or a priest in this. Did Lizette know that you 
 had once thought of marrying that girl?" 
 
 "Yes. I told her of it." 
 
 "Is she the kind who would come here to see the little 
 girl and talk to her, if she found out that, perhaps, Lizette 
 had changed your feelings towards herself?" 
 
 "No. It would be as impossible for her to do a thing 
 like that as it would be for Lizette herself to do it." 
 
 Again they called the concierge. Had any ladies been
 
 GONE. 195 
 
 there? Yes. There had been two. The old woman told 
 them all she could about the visitors how they had mis 
 understood what she had said to them and had come up 
 stairs. The concierge presumed that little Madame had 
 seen them and explained to them, for, after awhile, they 
 had gone away again. 
 
 "Do you know where they would be likely to stay in 
 Paris?" Kentucky asked of Murdoch. 
 
 "Probably at the Grand Hotel. They were there be 
 fore. I think I had best go up and see them. I cannot 
 believe that there can be any connection between Mary 
 Markleham and the worry of the little one, but I will go 
 and see."
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 A TANGLED SKEIN. 
 
 He found them at the Grand Hotel, as he had thought 
 he would. The aunt met him first, and explained that 
 they expected to go south that night. She went to get 
 Miss Markleham, but when the latter entered to see Mur 
 doch the aunt did not return with her. She was un 
 affectedly glad to see him, and it evidently greatly pleased 
 her to. find that he had only reached Paris that morning 
 and had called on her without delay. She spoke of the 
 promptness of his visit, and then added: 
 
 "But still, it is not so very striking, after all this 
 promptness. You prohably would not have come at all if 
 we had not first gone to see you. What a splendid place 
 your studio is! I don't wonder that your mind turned 
 back from banking in prosaic old New York to your own 
 chosen labor here. What are you going to do about it? 
 Not many men have such a problem presented to them 
 the problem of choosing between two careers, at both of 
 which they have proved their worthiness." 
 
 "My work will lie in New York, I am afraid," said Mur 
 doch. "The old strings of love for the smell of paint and 
 brushes and all that goes with them are strong, but I have 
 learned to love the new work, too, and my father made it 
 something of a charge upon me. I am very sorry that I 
 was not at the studio when you came." 
 
 "We made ourselves at home, after a fashion; that is, 
 we misunderstood the concierge, because we neither of us 
 speak French beyond a few words, and when she said that 
 you were expected we thought that she meant you were at 
 once coming home. We stayed long enough to disprove 
 that, and on the way down decided that she had merely
 
 A TANGLED SKEIN. 197 
 
 told us that you would be there in a few days and had not 
 meant that you were in Paris and had merely gone out for 
 a little time. Our mistake was encouraged by the look of 
 the studio. It certainly did not seem at all like a deserted 
 place. The fire was burning brightly in the stove, and 
 and the roses over your picture were as fresh as possible." 
 She laughed and colored vividly. "I I must confess some 
 thing to you. I I took one of them. May I be forgiven?" 
 She tried to pass the matter off gayly, but made rather a 
 bad job of it. "You see, we traveling Americans are all 
 vandals. We steal stones at Stratford-on-Avon, and de 
 face the Tower of London when the beef-eaters are not 
 looking, and I have quite a handful of grass from that de 
 lightful garden back of Westminster Abbey. You will see 
 that the flower from your picture has distinguished com 
 pany in my small group of relics." 
 
 She did not tell him that while she spoke that one relic 
 was honored above all others by a place within her bosom. 
 She did not tell him that its thorns had torn her, as Lizette, 
 without her knowledge, for a wicked moment, soon re 
 pented of, had hoped they would. She did not tell him of 
 the tears which dimmed her eyesight when she looked at 
 it. She did not tell him that the flower which she had 
 taken from his picture of "Parting" was now a funeral 
 flower, and rested in the sentiment of her imagination on 
 a grave where Love lay buried. 
 
 "Did you did you see no one but the concierge?" asked 
 Murdoch. 
 
 "We saw only her," replied Miss Markleham. "Why? 
 Was there some one else whom we might have seen if we 
 had looked? I shall confess that I almost did carry my 
 wickedness, begun in the stealing of the rose, so far as to 
 go through the whole apartment. I should have loved to 
 do it. I positively longed to probe the mysteries that lay 
 behind the curtains. But I resisted the temptation and 
 did not. Should I have made terrible discoveries if I had 
 yielded to the tempter? Is there a Bluebeard mystery 
 about your Paris studio, while you are living in New York 
 and getting praised for solemn banking work?" 
 
 "No. There is no mystery; that is, there is none of that
 
 198 LIZETTE. 
 
 sort. Only only I cannot find a a friend, whom I ex 
 pected to meet when I came here to Paris and 1 thought, 
 perhaps, that my friend might have been at the studio 
 when you called. That was all." 
 
 The girl's quick eyes saw now what she might have 
 seen at first but for her own confusion. She saw that 
 Murdoch was greatly worried about something, and she 
 told him so. She asked him if she could help him. 
 
 "I am greatly worried," Murdoch confessed. "Greatly 
 worried. Thank you for your offer, but I am afraid you 
 cannot help me. You see, I came to Paris, hoping to find 
 a friend, who is whom I very, very much wish to find. 
 But I cannot. I had thought that, perhaps, .that friend 
 might have been in the studio when you called, and that 
 you could give me some news or something." 
 
 It was a poor speech, badly made, but she did not seem 
 to notice that. He could not doubt the truth of what she 
 said, but he could not reconcile it with what the concierge 
 had said. Lizette had certainly been in the studio while 
 the visitors were there, and after they had left her joyous- 
 ness had been changed to tears. Then a glimmering of 
 the truth began to come to him, although he did not know 
 it was the truth. 
 
 "I don't know what to ask of you, Miss Markleham," he 
 said, finally. "But I know you will be kind to me and for 
 give me if I make blunders. Please believe that I am in 
 great distress. Like a drowning man, perhaps, I grasp at 
 straws." 
 
 Miss Markleham was puzzled. This was an entirely new 
 John Murdoch. She had always thought of him as one 
 whose self-possession would be hard to overturn. She did 
 not in the least understand what had overturned it now, 
 but that something had was evident. The man's distress 
 was plain. She could only tell him that whatever she 
 could do to help him she would do. 
 
 "Did you did you and your aunt talk of me and of New 
 York while you were at the studio?" he asked, stumblingly. 
 "Did you say anything which, if overheard by any one, 
 might make that person believe believe that " 
 
 He could not go on. and stopped, confused and flushing.
 
 A TANGLED SKEIN. 199 
 
 "Believe what?" she asked, with richly rising color. The 
 thought that perhaps there had been some one in the 
 studio to have overheard what she had said to her aunt 
 was a dreadful thought. It was she who was worried now. 
 She spoke rapidly after she had given herself a second's 
 pause to get her hreath. 
 
 "John Murdoch, do you mean to intimate to me that 
 there was some one in that studio who might have over 
 heard what my aunt and myself said to each other; some 
 one who would have been base enough to listen to what we 
 said, even if the opportunity had been there?" 
 
 She had risen from her chair, and stood facing him with 
 flaming cheeks. The bodice beneath which that withered 
 rose was lying was moved quickly by sharp breathing. Her 
 terror that some one other than her aunt had heard the 
 confession which she had made that day of her love for 
 Murdoch, some one who would tell him of it, almost over 
 whelmed her. She lost control of herself, and took refuge 
 in an anger against that possible unknown. 
 
 "Have you among your friends an an eavesdropper?" 
 
 The change in her amazed Murdoch and added to his be 
 wilderment. 
 
 "I am sure that there was no one there who would or 
 could, knowingly, do anything that by any stretch of the 
 imagination could be termed base or unworthy of the very 
 highest and most noble delicacy and honor," he said. "But 
 there was some one there. I shall, I see, have to be most 
 frank and honest with you. I shall have to trust you with 
 a secret, but it is one with which I had intended to trust 
 all the world within a very short time. There was some 
 one in that studio, Miss Markleham. Do you remember 
 that you were good enough to pick me up and let me drive 
 with you through Central Park one day?" 
 
 Yes,' ? she said, very softly, as if the memory hurt her; 
 "I remember very clearly." 
 
 "Well, I told you that day that I was coming over here 
 to take back some one with me to New York." 
 
 "Yes," said Miss Markleham, still more softly. Indeed, 
 her voice was almost inaudible. "You told me that you 
 should take back to New York with you an old friend here
 
 200 LIZETTE. 
 
 named Kentucky. I asked you if there was any one else 
 here whom you might take back with you, and you did not 
 answer. I remember very well. You did not answer." 
 
 "There was some one else," said Murdoch. "There was 
 some one else." 
 
 "I knew it," said Miss Markleham, very softly. "I could 
 tell it that day by the look in your eyes and the dreams, un 
 spoken in your voice. I knew then that you were in love, 
 and that when you came to Paris you would get your love 
 and take her back with you. I knew it, and I told Auntie 
 so. Was I right?" 
 
 "You were wholly right. You were wholly right But 
 when I came to Paris I found that the the one whom I 
 had intended to take back with me had, filled with a 
 mistaken idea of self-sacrifice had gone away. And that 
 is why I am worried. It occurred to me that, perhaps, that 
 day you and your aunt might have said something there in 
 the studio, which the little one the one whom I had in 
 tended to take back with me whom I came over here to 
 get said something wholly unintentionally; I mean, with 
 out knowledge of the presence of of any one which 
 might have given the an idea that, perhaps, it would be 
 better for me for me, you understand an idea that, per 
 haps, it might be better for me if, when I came, I should 
 find no one waiting for me, no one to take back with me. 
 She was in the studio when you were there." 
 
 Miss Markleham turned away from him and went to the 
 window, just as she had turned away from her aunt that 
 day in the studio, and gone to the window to look out, un 
 seeing, at the Gardens of the Luxembourg. There was 
 great tumult beneath that hidden rose which she had stolen 
 from over "Parting." It was too great, for a moment, to 
 make it possible for her to speak. When she had told her 
 aunt that day that she was certain that John Murdoch was 
 in love and that he was coming over to Paris to get his 
 love and take her back with him, she had believed what she 
 had said, believed it heartily enough to suffer keenly be 
 cause of her belief. But this confirmation of it, this proof 
 from his own lips that the man she loved did, really, love 
 another, was hard to beaf just the same, and so she walked
 
 A TANGLED SKEIN. 201 
 
 for a moment to the window and looked out, unable to still 
 the tumult in her heart enough to make speech possible. 
 At last she turned and spoke to him. The flush had left 
 her face and there was pallor in its place. 
 
 "If you will be frank with me," she said, "I shall be 
 frank with you. You are in love with some one. Am I 
 right?" 
 
 "You are wholly right." 
 
 "You are afraid that the some one whom you love was 
 in the studio that day, and that she overheard something 
 which we might have said about you, or about New York, 
 or about something, which has made her run away from 
 you?" 
 
 "You are wholly right. I fear just that. I am in great 
 trouble and distress, Miss Markleham. I cannot tell just 
 what to think. Something has driven her away from me. 
 I don't know what. I only know that after your departure 
 she was in great distress, and that finally she went away, 
 because, as she said to me in the letter she left for me, she 
 had heard about a man named Fosdyck, an American 
 artist, who married his model over here and took her home 
 with him in New York City, and who, she says, was ruined 
 by so doing. She may have been told this by some busy 
 body. She was in the studio the other day when you and 
 your aunt called and intended she told the concierge that 
 she intended to tell you that you had misunderstood, and 
 that I was not in Paris, but would be in a day or two, the 
 concierge having been unable to make you understand. It 
 may be that she had intended to tell you, but that after 
 she found who it was she she could not bring herself 
 to to speak to you. There are there are especial reasons 
 why why she might hesitate to speak to you" 
 
 "To me, especially? Why?" asked Miss Markleham. 
 
 "Must I tell you why?" asked Murdoch. 
 
 "You said you would be frank. You said that you 
 were grasping at a straw. You should make the straw as 
 strong as possible. Don't you think so?" 
 
 Miss Markleham was very tense and eager. Murdoch's 
 confession was not a surprise to her; that is, the subject 
 matter of the confession was not a surprise to her. Bui
 
 202 LIZETTE. 
 
 her heart stopped in horror when she thought that of all 
 people in the world it might be that the very woman whom 
 John Murdoch loved was the very one who had heard her 
 make her own passionate confession to her aunt. She was 
 in an agony to learn all she could. 
 
 "Well, I will tell you why," said Murdoch, very slowly. 
 "Do you remember the night we met at the Moulin 
 Rouge?" 
 
 "Yes." Miss Markleham said this very softly. 
 
 "Well, that night she was with me there. And I 
 I neglected her for you. It was the first time I had ever 
 neglected her. She thought she thought that I that 
 I cared for you. That was why why I thought that if 
 you if you, especially said anything which she might 
 innocently, mind you she never would have intention 
 ally played eavesdropper, but she is human and might 
 have listened to what you said without intending to at 
 first, while she was preparing to go in to see you. Then, 
 if you said something of that sort why she might she 
 might have thought it was her was her duty to run away 
 from me for my sake. It would be like her to run 
 away from me for my sake." 
 
 Miss Markleham had never seen John Murdoch affected 
 at all like this before. She would not have believed it if 
 any one had told her that he could be so affected. 
 
 "You understand, Miss Markleham, that if my distress 
 and worry were not very real, and if I did not feel that 
 somehow, without your knowledge, your visit to the studio 
 is connected with the course that she has taken you un 
 derstand that I should not say these things to you. I am 
 sure that you will understand, and that you will help me 
 if you can." 
 
 "How would it help you in finding her, even if you knew 
 that it was something which we said which gave her an 
 idea that it would injure you to marry her?" There was 
 great tumult underneath the rose which had once been 
 over Murdoch's "Parting," the rose whose thorn had torn 
 Miss Markleham's tender flesh, the rose which tore her 
 heart more deeply than any thorn would ever tear her 
 flesh. When she went on, she spoke very rapidly. "If it
 
 A TANGLED SKEIN. 203 
 
 was not true if it was not really true, that it would injure 
 you to marry her, could anything that we could say make 
 her think so? Is a woman who would hide and listen to 
 what other women say worth marrying? I know nothing 
 of where she has gone or why." 
 
 "Was anything said that day about Fosdyck's marriage? 
 Did you say that it had ruined him in New York City to 
 have married as he did?" 
 
 "No. I said, on the contrary, that Fosdyck loved his 
 wife and she loved him. It was my aunt who said that 
 the marriage had ruined him." 
 
 Miss Markleham suddenly became much excited at a 
 thought which came to her. 
 
 "Was it she this woman whom you love who kept the 
 roses there in your studio over your big picture?" she de 
 manded. "Did she put them there? Did she?" 
 
 "Yes," said Murdoch. "The souvenir you took was 
 one of the posies that she had arranged to please me 
 when I came back to Paris and to her." 
 
 Miss Markleham was very white now. She rose from her 
 chair and went to the other end of the room. Murdoch 
 sat with his head bowed, thinking hard. He scarcely saw 
 that she had risen. When she came back her self control 
 was gone entirely. She tossed the withered rose into his 
 lap. 
 
 "Then, surely, I don't want it," she said, quickly. "There 
 it is." 
 
 He put his hand on it in surprise and felt the warmth 
 in the poor, withered posy. Her hand was at her bosom, 
 and he guessed where it had been. He was astonished be 
 yond measure. 
 
 "Bah! It is horrible," she said. "Horrible! To think 
 that I took a flower that woman bought and placed above 
 your picture. To think that I took her flower and and 
 did what I did with it. It is horrible!" 
 
 She made a little motion of disgust. 
 
 "Yes, we talked about Fosdyck there," she said. "We 
 did talk of him. And Auntie said he had ruined himself 
 by his marriage to some woman whom he came over here 
 to find. She also said that she hoped you hadn't been so
 
 204 LIZETTE. 
 
 idiotic. And I defended you. I said it was impossible. I 
 believed in you. I said it was impossible for you you 
 whom I had set upon a pedestal to ever love any woman 
 who was unworthy of you. I said that because I was mis 
 taken. I believed in you. But I was wrong, it seems. You 
 did love a woman who was unworthy of you, and you 
 you of all men had came to Paris for the very purpose of 
 marrying her and marrying ruin, just as Auntie said she 
 hoped you wouldn't. And she that very woman was 
 behind those curtains she must have been behind those 
 curtains listening to all I said. What a triumph for her! 
 It is horrible! Horrible!" 
 
 "How? A triumph over what? She has gone. I came 
 to get her and to take her back with me. She is not at all 
 what you say she is She is the sweetest, she is the truest, 
 she is the best woman I have ever known. Her very flight 
 was born of nothing but her true, unselfish love. Not wor 
 thy of me? She is worthy of the best man that ever lived. 
 She says she is not worthy and has gone away. Is that 
 the act of a woman who is selfish? She heard your talk 
 about the ruin that Fosdyck's marriage had taken to him. 
 She, not understanding, has feared that like might come 
 to me if she did as I entreated and went back with me. So, 
 to save me from herself from herself, do you understand? 
 she has run away from me. She has gone away with 
 her poor heart torn and bleeding through the idle talk of 
 women. I see the whole miserable complication now. 
 Shall I tell it to you? You can guess then whether she is 
 selfish; whether she is worthy of me or of any other man 
 that ever lived. I spoke to you a moment ago about the 
 night I saw you at the Moulin Eouge. Do you remember? 
 Well, that night I had taken her there, and I neglected her 
 to talk to you. I neglected her most shamefully, and for 
 the first time since I had known and loved her. I finally 
 found why it was that my unintentional neglect of her had 
 hurt her so tremendously. She had watched us from be 
 hind a pillar for a moment, and got the idea in her head 
 that you and I were in love with one another. You see? 
 You asked me to be frank, and I am frank. Afterwards, 
 I did what was, perhaps, a very foolish thing. I told her
 
 A TANGLED SKEIN. 205 
 
 that before I came to Paris I had been in love with you. 
 It was true. When I left New York I was in love with you 
 or thought I was. Please forgive me, Miss Markleham. 
 You told me that I was to tell you all and that then you 
 would be frank with me. She seemed very much aston 
 ished to think that any one who had known you so splen 
 did and beautiful a girl as you could ever afterwards love 
 such a modest, unassuming little one as she Lizette." 
 
 "Is that her name?" asked Miss Markleham, who was 
 listening very eagerly. 
 
 "Yes. She could not understand it. In all your life, 
 Miss Markleham, no one has ever paid you more sincere 
 and earnest compliments than has that same Lizette the 
 little one who has run away and left me because she heard 
 your aunt say in the studio that marriage to a Latin Quar 
 ter girl had ruined Fosdyck. It probably would not have 
 made so much impression on her had it come from any 
 other source in any other circumstances. But now she 
 feels poor child after seeing you again, and admiring 
 you again; and after hearing that Fosdyck's marriage 
 ruined him and after hearing your aunt say that she hoped 
 I had not come over here to make a blunder such as he 
 had made she feels that she has no right to risk my fu 
 ture; that she has no right to marry me. So she has gone 
 away. I see plainly that you cannot help me. What 
 you have told me only confirms what I had feared, 
 that's all. It shows me why she went away. It 
 shows me what changed her train of thought, which I know 
 had been very happy and exultant till you came. The 
 concierge has told me that she was most joyous in the 
 thought of my return to her before that. Can't 
 you appreciate her action as I do, Miss Markleham? Can't 
 you see the real beauty and self-sacrifice of it? Can't you 
 understand my worry now? Can't you see what has gone 
 from me and why I should wish to get it back? Don't you 
 see the graadeur of the sacrifice the poor child has at 
 tempted? 
 
 "Did she say nothing in her letter to you of what she 
 overheard us say, except that about Fosdyck?" asked Miss 
 Markleham, with anxious eye fastened on his face.
 
 206 LJZETTE. 
 
 "Nothing. You must remember that she did not even 
 say that she had overheard you say that. That is all sup 
 position, built on what the concierge has told me. 
 
 "Do you really believe that she has gone away wholly 
 with the idea of saving you from a fate like that which my 
 aunt said had come to Fosdyck?" 
 
 "I know it!" 
 
 Miss Markleham arose again, and again went to the win 
 dow to look out. Her heart was strangely troubled. Just 
 over it there was a new wound, from the thorns of the rose 
 which she had torn out too impulsively to throw back into 
 Murdoch's lap. The blood oozed slowly from the tiny 
 hurt, but she did not know it and if she had it would not 
 have mattered to her. She was trying to appreciate what 
 the other girl had done. She was trying to see if there was 
 some loophole through which she could see something that 
 was unworthy, sordid, mean or selfish in the action of the 
 other girl who loved John Murdoch. But there was noth 
 ing of that sort to see. She searched eagerly, but there 
 was no such motive there to find. If she could have found 
 a cause for hating her and declaring, in her heart, against 
 her, she would have been glad to find it, glad to have given 
 it full sway within her. But she could find nothing of 
 that sort. And even as Lizette's soft heart had changed 
 toward her that morning in the studio had changed from 
 bitter, jealous hate to soft and solemn pity so hers 
 changed now. 
 
 Miss Markleham turned back toward Murdoch slowly. 
 She saw the wonder of what the other girl had done. She 
 saw it, and the seeing hurt her. It made her feel, deep 
 in her heart, that the other girl had shown greater signs 
 of worthiness than she had. She could not bear to think 
 that in her heart. If the other girl had shown herself self- 
 sacrificing, so would she. She would not let the other 
 triumph over her in fact, even though she might be 
 wholly ignorant of the victory. This woman* whom John 
 Murdoch loved should not use her as a means of showing 
 to him such great heights of lofty love. The contrast in 
 his mind would be too great if he should ever find it out. 
 She turned to Murdoch.
 
 A TANGLED SKEIN. 207 
 
 "I am sorry that I said what I did about her listening 
 behind the curtains," she said, slowly. "I am very sorry. 
 I presume I should have done the same thing. Please for 
 give me. Let me help you find your missing one. I am 
 very sorry if we have, in ignorance, been the means of 
 bringing all this sorrow to you. I can see how deep your 
 grief is. Your face tells that most plainly. She must be 
 wonderful this sweetheart that you came to find and can 
 not. She must be wonderful, if she really loves you, to go 
 away like that because she heard what we said the other 
 day about Fosdyck." 
 
 She did not tell him what else it was that she must have 
 heard those other things which made the poor child's 
 sacrifice so much greater in her woman's eyes and so hu 
 miliated her. She did not let him see, as she could see, 
 the true grandeur of it. 
 
 "You must learn a little more before you can do very 
 much," she went on, slowly, after she had pulled herself 
 together. "You must learn a little more to base your 
 search on. Please promise me to let me help you." 
 
 "Thank you, there is no way," said Murdoch. "You 
 have helped me already, by showing me the immediate 
 cause which made her go away. Poor little child, she 
 does not understand." 
 
 "Won't you let me help you?" asked Miss Markleham 
 again. 
 
 "There is no way," said Murdoch. 
 
 "Will you promise to if you or I can find a way " 
 
 "If I find anything that you can do to help me, I shall 
 ask you to," he said. "But you are going away to-day." 
 
 "I shall wait," said Miss Markleham. "I shall wait and 
 hope that you will find a way in which I can be of use to 
 you and her." 
 
 "But there is really nothing," Murdoch said. "Besides 
 I shouldn't think of letting you sacrifice your plans." 
 
 Miss Markleham kindled for a second. 
 
 "No. Only she must be permitted to make any sacri 
 fices. Only she. No one but she must be magnanimous 
 and self -forgetful. It is not fair!" Instantly she real 
 ized that she had said more than she had intended to or
 
 208 LIZETTE. 
 
 wished to. So she added, lamely, "You see I am jealous of 
 your little one. You and I are such old friends. I should 
 like very much to feel that I had helped you. Truly I 
 should like it very much. Please let me, if I can. The 
 postponement of our journey would be absoleutly nothing. 
 What does it all amount to, anyway? We are here to 
 find amusement. We are going south for nothing else. 
 Auntie is a Catholic, as you know, and makes a polite pre 
 tense of devotion in the journey. But it is nothing. She 
 would gladly give it up if anything more interesting should 
 turn up. It would really give me pleasure to have some real 
 reason for going anywhere. That is the trouble with so 
 many of us women. We have no real reason for doing 
 anything no object except amusement to be obtained by 
 it. Please do this for me. Please let me have an object." 
 Her eyes turned downward and rested on the rose which 
 was between his fingers, hanging down at the side of his 
 chair. "Did you see where I had that rose?" 
 
 He reddened now. He had seen, and for a moment he 
 had thought about it, wonderingly, but he had forgotten all 
 about it in the worry of his thoughts about Lizette. He 
 spoke hesitatingly. The thought that this girl really 
 loved him did not come to him, exactly, but he was em 
 barrassed. He answered, hesitatingly: 
 
 "Yes. I think I know where it was. It was 
 very sweet of you to to be so good to it because be 
 cause it had been over my picture." 
 
 "I am glad you saw," she said. 
 
 It was not true. She was not glad. But she thought 
 she saw an opportunity to make the humiliation of the 
 revelation her impulsiveness had brought upon her a little 
 less poignant. 
 
 "I had it here," she said, slowly, and placed her hand 
 over the spot where the rose had lain and warmed itself 
 against her heart. "I was so glad to see the picture which 
 had made the world recognize your merit as an artist. You 
 are quite the greatest man I know, you know. Keally 
 you are a very great man, indeed. First you come over here 
 and make them all bow down to you as an artist, and give 
 you prizes and all that. Then you go over to New York and
 
 A TANGLED SKEIN. 209 
 
 set the whole world talking about you as a banker and save 
 I don't know how many people from losing money by your 
 clever work. You have dazzled all of us. It is not sur 
 prising that I should want a souvenir, is it? You know I 
 told you about the others. Well, I gave this the place of 
 honor. That was because I like you and value your 
 friendship so much. Don't you see? Now, please let me 
 have the comfort of knowing that you value mine and 
 trust me. Please please let me help you. If you would 
 tell me where to look, and how I might know her when I 
 saw her, I would go out and walk the streets and try to 
 help you find her that way," she said, earnestly. 
 
 "I could tell you how to know her," said Murdoch, 
 slowly, "if you saw my picture 'Parting* at the studio; she 
 posed for the girl in it." 
 
 Miss Markleham closed her eyes a little. She had won 
 dered if the girl in "Parting" had been the one he loved 
 so much. It made it hard for her for a moment, for, even 
 as Lizette had looked at her, and, marvelling at her beauty, 
 had wondered why John Murdoch could have thrown it 
 away to choose only her, Lizette, so when Miss Markleham 
 recalled to her mind the girl in "Parting" she thought 
 with envy of the dainty gracefulness of figure, the small 
 oval face, pathetic in the picture, but full of possibilities 
 of gayety and life; the big brown eyes, wistful in their 
 sorrow; the small hands, drooping limply at her sides. 
 From one of them there had evidently just passed to the 
 soldier lover in the picture the handkerchief which he 
 held tightly to his lips as he looked toward the ground. 
 
 "Yes," I remember very well," she said. "She is very 
 pretty. Is that she?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Ah I She is very sweet this love of yours. What is 
 her name?" 
 
 "Lizette; Lizette Merrille." 
 
 "It is a pretty name." 
 
 'It is because I love her so, perhaps, but of all names it 
 seems to me to be the sweetest," said John Murdoch. 
 
 Again Miss Markleham arose and went to the window. 
 She could not understand her own emotions they changed
 
 210 LIZETTE. 
 
 so swiftly, were so contradictory. She thought of that 
 sweet figure in the picture and the pathetic, grief stricken 
 face which looked backward at the soldier lover in it. And 
 now the grief had really come to her, just as it had come, 
 in the imagination of the artist to the painted girl there 
 in the picture. It was strangely dramatic that she should 
 have posed for that especial picture, "Parting." If Miss 
 Markleham had known the tempest of pity and sympathy 
 which had swept through Lizette's heart that day when 
 she had stood peeping at her own emotion from behind the 
 curtains, she would have been startled by its similarity to 
 the feeling of remorse and pity which filled her own heart 
 now. 
 
 "You must let me help you," she said, when she turned 
 back again from her gazing out of the window. "There 
 are reasons which you do not know of a woman's reasons 
 and very good ones why you must let me help you." 
 Mary Markleham really loved John Murdoch and she could 
 not bear the thought that that other woman who also 
 loved him should have all the privileges of sacrifice. 
 And, besides, her heart went out in pity to Lizette, just 
 as Lizette's had gone out in pity to her that day in the 
 studio. That figure in the pictufe had appealed very 
 strongly to her when she saw it on the painted canvas. 
 The thought that it was real, and, somewhere, mourning 
 for its love alone, while she was sitting there and talking 
 to him, was dramatic. It was almost tragic. 
 
 Murdoch rose and prepared to leave. He said that there 
 were many things which he must do, and, on her earnest 
 pleading, he promised to return and tell her what his 
 progress was and ask her for her help if there were any 
 way in which she could be of assistance to him. 
 
 He left the hotel but little wiser than he had been when 
 he had gone there. He knew as he slowly descended the 
 broad staircase why it was the little one had fled from 
 him, but he was no nearer to finding where she was or 
 where to look for her.
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 UNEAVELING THE THKEADS. 
 
 It had been agreed that Kentucky should remain at the 
 studio until Murdoch's return from his visit to Miss Mar- 
 kleham. They had both hoped against hope that some 
 news might reach him there; that perhaps, even, Lizette 
 might go back there, as she had done that night after her 
 flight from the Moulin Rouge. But no such good tidings 
 greeted Murdoch when he returned to find his old friend 
 sitting gloomily by the fire, with his head bowed in his 
 hands. He listened eagerly to what Murdoch had to tell 
 him. When he had finished (of course, even to Ken 
 tucky, Murdoch did not tell the little story of the rose), 
 Kentucky stretched his tall form angrily: 
 
 "You see, it was as I said," he grumbled. "There was 
 a woman in it. There always is a woman in it. Why 
 couldn't they have stayed away and kept their mouths 
 shut about Fos'dyck?" 
 
 "They didn't know that Lizette was there, you know, 
 Kentucky," said Murdoch. 
 
 "Oh, no," the old student said, complainingly. "This 
 girl, Markleham, didn't know that she was playing hob 
 that night at the Moulin Rouge. She didn't know it, but 
 she played hob quite as effectively as if she had. She has 
 a genius for making trouble without knowing that girl 
 has." 
 
 There was then, and still is, on the detective force of 
 Paris a small, dark man, named Houlier. This is his real 
 name, and I am glad of an opportunity to pay a small 
 tribute to him. I have known of many cases where 
 Houlier has helped puzzled Americans and English folk 
 in Paris. His ability to speak every language that the
 
 212 LIZETTE. 
 
 modern world has use for makes his selection by the chief 
 almost certain in any case which involves communication 
 with foreigners in Paris or traveling to other countries 
 necessary. Houlier has peculiarities. He is a small man, 
 dark as a Spaniard, and as innocent in appearance as a 
 country urchin bound for Sunday school. He differs 
 from most Frenchmen, in that he never seems to be 
 affected. There is ever an air of genuineness, of complete 
 frankness, about Houlier, which is beautiful to look at and 
 is as thoroughly convincing as it is false. Knowledge of, 
 and, indeed, some slight acquaintance with this astute 
 little prober into mysteries was among those many odds 
 and ends stored in Kentucky's mental garret. He had 
 been thinking of him during Murdoch's absence, and now 
 asked Murdoch if he might go and get him. 
 
 "He lives just on the other side of the Gardens here," 
 he said. "If anyone can find her he can. Shall I go and 
 get him?" 
 
 "Yes," said Murdoch. And Kentucky went to get him. 
 The old student seemed very bent and feeble as he left the 
 room, and Murdoch forgot his own worry, for a moment, 
 as he looked at him. The man's devotion to Lizette and 
 to him was wonderful. Murdoch thought of it and, rising, 
 hurried to him before he left the room. Kentucky turned 
 at hearing the quick step behind him. 
 
 "Is there anything else?" he asked. 
 
 "No. Only I wanted to shake hands with you. Not 
 many men have ever known a friendship such as yours, 
 Kentucky. You don't blame me, do you, old man?" 
 asked Murdoch. 
 
 "No. Damn it all, I don't. I wish I could. I'd take 
 it out of you. I tried to make out a case against you while 
 you were gone, but there isn't any case to make. I wish 
 there was. I'd like to hammer some one. If I could 
 really blame you, Murdoch, what a licking I would give 
 you. But I can't and that woman, who has made the 
 whole trouble, apparently I can't hammer her. And, be 
 sides, so far as I can see, she's just as innocent of conscious 
 wrong as you are. That's the trouble. It's such a beastly 
 mix-up. There's no one to be blamed much. And so
 
 UNRAVELING THE THREADS. 313 
 
 there is no one to be pummeled. I have hopes, though." 
 
 They both laughed a little at the extravagance of the 
 talk small, rueful laughs, that had no real amuse 
 ment in them, and Kentucky went his way down stairs to 
 find the wise detective. 
 
 Kentucky came back, presently, with Houlier. He 
 was most courteously interested while Murdoch told the 
 story, with Kentucky's help. He wished to know espe 
 cially about Madame Lizette's women friends. She had 
 none? Ah, that was bad. Was there no one? Only the 
 old woman who sold coals. Kentucky spoke of her. He 
 had often noticed that Lizette seemed to like her and 
 talked with her at her shop and when she came to the 
 studio with her supplies. 
 
 "This may be bad for us. It seems unlikely that she 
 would tell her secrets to an old woman who sells coals. 
 Still, if she had no other women friends who knows? 
 Women always tell some woman. It is a very pretty story." 
 
 The detective leaned back in his chair and puffed his 
 cigarette with keen enjoyment. 
 
 "It is a very pretty story," he went on. "It is a story 
 of the emotions wholly. Ah, but it is pretty! And it will 
 not be hard to solve it, I think. Not very hard. The 
 motive is so clear and very pretty. Very pretty. No, I 
 think it will not be so very hard. Which old woman is it 
 who sells coals? There are many in the Quarter. If it 
 is the one down here on the corner, just beyond the 
 Gardens, I think it will be easy." He stopped in thought, 
 a moment. "Yes. Is it she? Good. I have it. M'sieur 
 Kentucky suggests that there is a woman or a priest respon 
 sible for this act. Perhaps there is both a woman and a 
 priest. That old woman has a son illegitimate who is 
 not a priest, but who pretends to be studying for the priest 
 hood. I have often seen him. He tries to pose as a re 
 ligious fanatic. May I see her letter to you the one in 
 which she told you that she was going away? I should 
 like to see it for myself." 
 
 It hurt Murdoch to show it to him, but he did. 
 
 The small detective read it with a very serious face and 
 said, when he had finished:
 
 214 LIZETTE. 
 
 "I do not wonder that you want to find this little one. 
 But do not worry. We shall find her. I am very sorry 
 that I cannot be with you in your journey, but there are 
 matters here in Paris which will keep me from that pleas 
 ure. It will, however, be easy. Will you be good enough 
 to ask the old woman who sells coals to come here for a 
 moment? I should wish to see her and to hear her talk. 
 Not that it is necessary for her to see me and hear me talk. 
 Oh, no! Not at all! I can be just invisible somewhere. 
 Most of the people about here know me by my face and 
 know what my little business is. It makes them have 
 embarrassment to talk to me a little. It is a great pity 
 that one in my business must live somewhere, and some 
 where be known to the people of the neighborhood. It 
 handicaps him greatly when it is that he has the work of 
 his profession in that neighborhood." 
 
 The small detective let his eyes wander about the room. 
 They rested on the portieres where Lizette had stood con 
 cealed that day when Miss Markleham had made confes 
 sion in the sitting-room. 
 
 "Ah! It is very well," he went on with a satisfied shrug 
 of his wiry shoulders. "If you do not have objections, I 
 shall sit just there, within those curtains, while you talk 
 to the old woman who sells coals out here. She will know 
 this room. It is evidently where she brings the coals 
 every day for the stove. Yes, that will be a most excel 
 lent arrangement/' The small man paused for a moment. 
 Then he glanced at Kentucky. "If you could go to get 
 her" 
 
 Just then there was a sound of a step at the door leading 
 to the stairs and the soft thud of something dropped upon 
 the floor. Then there came a knock. 
 
 "Ah!" said Houlier. "It is probably the very person, 
 come with the supply. She has dropped the bag to the 
 floor while she raps upon the door." And, sure enough, 
 there came a rap upon the door. "I shall, with your per 
 mission " and he vanished behind the curtains. 
 
 Murdoch opened the door and the old woman who sold 
 coals came in with her bag of coal bricks. She was much 
 impressed by the presence of Murdoch and Kentucky.
 
 UNRAVELING THE THREADS. 
 
 She had only that morning heard of their return to Paris. 
 She had been very busy with her own affairs, she said, and 
 for two days had been scarcely at the shop herself, at all. 
 She gave them welcome in voluble French. There seemed 
 to be no need to question her. She was so full of her sub 
 ject that she started talking of it without the least encour 
 agement or urging. 
 
 She was so glad to see them back. Indeed, but it 
 seemed most natural that they should be again in Paris. 
 Still, the studio did not seem natural without P'tite 
 Madame. They would pardon her for saying so, but with 
 out P'tite Madame, the studio seemed quite bare and 
 empty. 
 
 "When did you see her last?" asked Murdoch. "We 
 were greatly distressed not to find her here when we came. 
 We called at your shop to ask you, but we found it closed. 
 She was fond of you, we knew." 
 
 The old woman was learned in the details of many of 
 the Quarter's sordid romances, but this was one of the 
 strangest variations she had ever known of. She had seen 
 students carefully escape from their entanglements in 
 Paris. Many, many, many times she had known the men 
 to go away to their homes beyond the seas, leaving weep 
 ing ones behind them. But this! This was not of that 
 kind. 
 
 "Ah!" she said to Murdoch. 'This is, of the very truth, 
 the strangest of all cases. But it is most marvellous! 
 Here is the case of, not the man, but the girl who runs 
 away and hides. The man and you are very rich; I have 
 seen you with my eyes with pockets filled with bank notes 
 and in every pocket more bank notes the man, in this 
 most strange of cases, is the one who seeks and cannot find 
 the girl. She has run away from riches. Of a truth, it is 
 not in the fashion of the Quarter. And more strange yet 
 she loves you! She loves you so that she must ever 
 talk of you even to me, the old woman who sells coals. 
 She bought many coals of me after she bought this new 
 stove here. She often spoke of it, and always she seemed 
 to needeven on the warmest days she seemed to need 
 ever the more coal cakes for it. I said to her one day:
 
 216 LIZETTE. 
 
 " 'Madame, you burn much in that new stove. It makea 
 me wish that all my customers had new stoves of that same 
 kind. It is a fine kind for the old woman who sells coals. 
 It will make me very rich, but it will make you poor.' 
 
 " 'Ah!' she said. 'I do not burn the coal cakes because 
 it is cold weather. They make my little fire of welcome 
 for him when he shall come. It is so strange about that 
 stove. He is so afraid that I shall take the cold that he 
 bids me ever keep the fire alight in the new stove. Fancy 
 his having fear of that when he is there and I am here, 
 three thousand miles away. And therefore it is that I buy 
 BO many coals. Not that it is cold. It is to keep alight 
 the fire of welcome/ 
 
 "Oh, la, la!" added the old woman who sold coals. "I 
 much wish that I had many customers who had friends like 
 you, who feared that they would take the cold, and for 
 whom fires of welcome must be kept burning." 
 
 "Did you know that she was going away?" asked Mur 
 doch. 
 
 "Of a certainty. Did she not come to tell me of it and 
 tell me to keep the coals here so that the concierge might 
 have a bright fire in the stove for you when you should 
 come? Yes. She told me that she was to take a long 
 journey." 
 
 "Did she say where that journey was to carry her?" 
 
 "No. I asked her, but she would not tell me. She was 
 in great distress. And that was strange, for when she 
 took me in the cab oh, yes, M'sieu, she took me for a 
 drive with her, I do assure you! she was most happy. And 
 afterwards, when we stopped at the cathedral she was 
 happy then, too, but solemn." The old woman who sold 
 coals looked archly at John Murdoch, as she went on. "Oh, 
 she loves you very much, does little Madame. She made 
 me pray for you there in the cathedral." 
 
 And she told about that prayer in Notre Dame. It is 
 natural with the French to be impressed by the dramatic, 
 and the old woman who sold coals had been so impressed 
 by that episode that she could almost repeat, word for 
 word, what Lizette had told her to repeat in that strange 
 petition to the Holy Virgin there in Notre Dame.
 
 UNRAVELING THE THREADS. 
 
 "She made me give the prayer for you/' she said. "It 
 was like this." Carried away by the subject and by the 
 interest which her listeners showed, she dropped to her 
 knees and acted out the little episode even to the repetition 
 of the substance of the prayer. 
 
 "Do you know whether she went to any priest to talk 
 about the matter?" asked Kentucky, full of his conviction. 
 
 It was plain to see that this question agitated the old 
 woman who sold coals. Her eyes jumped nervously to 
 Murdoch's face. There came into her mind a vivid pict 
 ure of the episode at the baths, when he had ducked the 
 young art student and made him beg her pardon on his 
 bent and sodden knees. She realized that she had said 
 too much. She had not thought ahead. She might have 
 known that this question would be asked if she told about 
 Lizette's sudden access of religious zeal and inquiry. Age 
 may cool the strong fires of friendship. It may soften into 
 a warm glow, hidden by gathering ashes of burned out 
 passion, the ardor of conjugal love. But it never dulls the 
 mother love. She was as fervent in her longing to protect 
 her son this day in the studio as she had been that other 
 day upon the platform of the baths when Murdoch had 
 ducked him in the Seine and forced him to apologize to 
 her for having knocked her teeth out. 
 
 She had forgiven Murdoch for that episode. It had 
 been so wholly done for her and had had such strangely 
 salutary influence upon her son's future treatment of her 
 that she could not in her heart fail to thank the American 
 for having given that effective lesson to the one she loved. 
 But it had also made her fear Murdoch. He had been so 
 merciless and so complete in the punishment of the mis 
 taken one's offense, that she regarded him as almost the in 
 carnation of physical power and able, righteous wrath. If 
 he had devised those startling and effective punishments 
 because her son had wronged her the old woman who 
 sold coals what might he do to him if the idea gained 
 force in his mind that her son had wronged him Mur 
 doch or worse, wrongly influenced Lizette, the one he 
 loved? She was frightened by the trap into which her 
 lack of forethought and her love of the dramatic, quite
 
 218 LIZETTE. 
 
 as much as her real affection for Lizette and her admira 
 tion of the man who loved her, had led her. She tried to 
 lie. She tried to say that, so far as she knew, Lizette had 
 seen no priest. She tried to protect her loved one as a 
 mother dog may strive by simple strategy to avert danger 
 from her litter and court it for herself. She protested 
 weakly that she knew nothing of any priest who had 
 spoken to Lizette. She knew that she had gone to Notre 
 Dame. Yes. Of that she had told the story. But beyond 
 that she knew nothing. 
 
 The lie showed in her face and in her manner. Even 
 Houlier, there behind the curtain, who knew nothing of 
 the episode in the past, saw that she was lying, and pricked 
 up his clever ears. Murdoch and Kentucky, who could see 
 her face, saw it plainly, and the same thought occurred to 
 each of them at once. They let her stutter out her denials 
 of all knowledge of any conversation with a priest, and 
 then Murdoch asked her where her son was. He said 
 "son" plainly, and with such evidence of complete knowl 
 edge in his manner that she did not even attempt to play 
 her pretty but transparent little comedy about her rela 
 tionship to the young man who had been ducked. She 
 did not even protest that she had no son, and assert that 
 the person who had knocked her teeth out on that dra 
 matic day had been a lodger merely. At last she said 
 she did not know just where he was. 
 
 "He went back to his studies for the priesthood, did he 
 not, after he left the schools?" asked Murdoch. 
 
 "Well, yes/' the old woman who sold coals admitted, 
 with a voice that trembled. She was too proud of that 
 fact to make it possible for her to lie about it. Yes. He 
 had gone back to study for the priesthood. It had been a 
 great mistake for him to turn from it to art. He had been 
 fitted for the priesthood by the Jon Dieu. 
 
 She wanted to run away, but did not dare. She knew 
 that Murdoch could learn all about him without very great 
 effort, and she wanted to know she wanted to stay right 
 there and learn, then if he intended to go and get him 
 by the collar and again immerse him in the Seine. 
 
 Murdoch met Kentucky in a glance of keen intelligence
 
 UNRAVELING THE THREADS. 219 
 
 and suspicion, just awakened. Neither man had much 
 faith in the ability of the young man in question to really 
 become a holy one. Neither believed that the hatred for 
 Murdoch, which he had undoubtedly gulped in with the 
 many muddy mouthfuls of Seine water which the strong 
 one from America had made him drink that day when he 
 really was not thirsty, had wholly left his heart when the 
 water left his stomach. 
 
 The old woman was in an agony. Her eyes fastened 
 themselves on Murdoch's hand, that powerful hand which 
 had held her son so helpless on that day after he had 
 beaten her. It still looked strong and capable that great 
 hand from America. 
 
 Kentucky took a hand in the questioning. 
 
 '^Madame Lizette," he said, slowly, "suddenly became 
 religious and went to Notre Dame with you." 
 
 "Tes, M'sieu," said the old woman, glad to have the 
 talk turn for a moment away from what had seemed so very 
 imminent. But in her heart she knew that this was but 
 leading up to what she dreaded. 
 
 "Did she not go to your son for religious counsel?" 
 
 The old woman, now that the question was fairly put to 
 her, protested wildly. How could that be possible? Why 
 should she go to him? He was not yet a priest. He could 
 not hear confessions nor impose penance. She became al 
 most incoherent in her protestations, for ever there was in 
 her eyes the sight of her dripping son being thrust into 
 the water by Murdoch and pulled out again, half stifled. 
 She was much escited, and her eyes wandered involuntarily 
 to the muscular hands of Murdoch. They could get her 
 to make no admissions. It was evident that she was about 
 to take refuge in tears. 
 
 In the meantime Houlier, although ignorant of the gen 
 eric motive which made the woman hesitate about turn 
 ing Murdoch's resentment again against her son, but much 
 more clever than either of the other two men in the deli 
 cate art of getting human beings to do things against their 
 will, saw that they would fail. So he stepped softly from 
 behind the curtains. The old woman started and looked 
 at him with horror. This was a case where it was well, in-
 
 220 LIZETTE. 
 
 stead of ill, that all the people in his neighborhood were 
 aware of the nature of his work. Heaven knows what wild 
 ideas floated through the old woman's brain as she saw 
 this representative of the law appear from the place where 
 it was evident that he had been in hiding. To her it 
 seemed as mysterious as the action of the trap-doors in 
 the stage seem to children who go to see the pantomime 
 at Christmas time. She was amazed, appalled! This man 
 represented to her the harsh arm of authority. The sight 
 of him brought visions of the black wagon in which pris 
 oners are driven to and from the courts of proceedings be 
 fore judges; yes, of dark and frowning prison walls. Surely, 
 there was nothing in anything her son could have done 
 in talking with the girl which would justify any legal 
 process. She must say so. Better to risk the action of the 
 strong American's fierce hands than to cast a suspicion on 
 her loved one in the eyes of this minion of the dreaded 
 law. She hesitated. Houlier spoke. His voice was soft 
 and comforting. There was real art in the attitude he so 
 readily assumed. 
 
 "Do not be worried, Madame," he said, with calmness. 
 "There is nothing over which one needs to worry. When 
 was it that your son saw and talked with P'tite Madame?" 
 
 There was a finality about his assumption that he had 
 seen and talked with her, and a frigid fearsomeness in the 
 way he spoke of him as her son. It was like to knowledge. 
 She had felt almost helpless with the others, after she had 
 told them what she had. But against this new and un 
 expected and most fearsome one she could not resist at all. 
 She felt it necessary to defend her son, but Houlier re 
 assured her. He said that, of course, if P'tite Madame 
 had gone to him it had been his duty to talk to her. Cer 
 tainly, none could blame him for the performance of his 
 duty. 
 
 The old woman looked tremblingly at Murdoch. 
 
 If M'sieu would promise not again to dip him in the 
 Seine! Oh, it had been terrible that day when M'sieu had 
 dipped him in the Seine! He had been all dampened by 
 it. And it is not good to be so dampened! He had been 
 humiliated by it. And it is most terrible to be so greatly
 
 UNRAVELING THE THREADS. 221 
 
 humbled. His strong spirit could not endure such things. 
 It hurt him in the heart of him. If M'sieu would promise 
 
 So Murdoch promised. But it was not much that the 
 old woman could tell. She admitted that Lizette had seen 
 her son, and asked advice of him. He had not told her 
 much about it; nothing, indeed, beyond that fact. 
 
 "Where is he now?" asked Murdoch. 
 
 "Who knows?" she answered. 
 
 But this answer would not do. Houlier took a brief 
 hand in the questioning again. This terrified her, but 
 made her speak. She admitted that he was among those 
 assisting the fathers detailed at the Gare de Lyons to aid 
 in sending the pilgrims off for Lourdes. 
 
 It was evident that she could tell no more, so Murdoch 
 thanked her with one of those magical bank notes of his 
 and she hurried off. 
 
 It was Kentucky who suggested that there was some 
 necessity for haste in their own actions. He cleverly be 
 lieved that she would hurry to the station, repentant of her 
 revelations, and that her son, warned and reminiscent of 
 what had happened to him once before, might think of 
 duties which would call him quickly elsewhere. 
 
 So a cab was called and the three men climbed into it 
 with haste. The driver was induced to hurry by means of 
 certain money transfers and promises of others yet to come, 
 and they rattled by the most direct routes to the low build 
 ing from which trains begin their journey from Paris to 
 the south of France.
 
 CHAPTER XXHI. 
 
 THE EOAD TO LOUEDES. 
 
 Their business at the station did not occupy them long. 
 As soon as they drew up to the crowded platform, Houlier 
 directed them to one of the retiring rooms, saying that he 
 would bring the object of their search to meet them there. 
 
 It was astonishing to see the ease with which the small 
 detective writhed his way through the crowd that blocked 
 the doors leading to the station. It was plain that every 
 gendarme knew him, and did what he could to open up a 
 path for him, but none appeared to recognize him. There 
 was no particular necessity for this minute care for detail. 
 But it was what would be done upon the stage, and the 
 French policeman's basic notion is to do in real life what 
 would be done upon the stage, just as the constant effort 
 of the new school of actors is to do upon the stage what 
 would be done in real life. 
 
 Houlier had small difficulty in finding the son of the 
 old woman who sold coals and at once brought him to the 
 room where Murdoch and Kentucky were waiting. The 
 student evidently was surprised and somewhat discon 
 certed to find who it was that awaited him, but he assumed 
 an air of cool insolence toward them and it is not likely 
 that they would have got any information out of him ex 
 cept for the presence of Houlier. He seemed almost as 
 much in awe of the little destective as the old woman had 
 been. His mind vividly dwelt upon the possibility that if 
 he proved stubborn, Murdoch might lodge a complaint 
 against him for that knife thrust given long ago. And 
 when Houlier said to him in a tone of polite insistence 
 that left room for only one answer, "I am sure that Mon 
 sieur le Pere will give us all assistance in his power," he
 
 THE ROAD TO LOURDES. 223 
 
 made up his mind that it would be better to appear per 
 fectly frank. Of course, Houlier knew that he was not a 
 priest, but it was a matter of habit with the detective to 
 be extremely polite when he was in search of information, 
 so he addressed the student as Monsieur le Pere. 
 
 In reply to their questions the student admitted that 
 Madame Lizette had spoken to him. She had seemed to 
 be in trouble and sought a sign from the Blessed Virgin. 
 She had asked him about Lourdes (this was a lie, but 
 he could not bring himself to tell quite the truth) and he 
 had told her that many went there and were rewarded 
 for the going. He lied again by telling them that she 
 had left that very morning. It was his secret hope that 
 Murdoch would follow her, and, on reaching Lourdes, 
 would find that she had returned to Paris, and so be put 
 to further trouble. 
 
 In answer to questions put by the detective, the student 
 told him as well as might be how best to go about finding 
 her when Murdoch should go to Lourdes; but he said, with 
 truth, that this might prove to be a difficult affair. Finally 
 all three decided that they had learned all that he could or 
 would tell them about the matter, and Houlier told him 
 curtly that he might go. That was another of the small 
 man's peculiarities. He could ever mask his contempt 
 for an unworthy person so long as it was wise or politic to 
 mask it; but when that time passed it gave him a certain 
 satisfaction to speak and act when dealing with a dog in 
 a way that showed that he knew and recognized the breed. 
 
 It was arranged that Murdoch and Kentucky should go 
 at once to Lourdes. Houlier expressed his regret that he 
 could not accompany them. There were matters _here in 
 Paris that required his attention. At any rate their task 
 ought not to be difficult as the crowds, though very large, 
 were greatly concentrated. He promised, too, that he 
 would ask the local police to assist them, although it was 
 not likely that they could be relied upon for much help at 
 such a time, as the incompetence usual to a provincial po 
 lice force was increased by the necessity for dealing with 
 the throngs that flocked to the pilgrimage. 
 
 The arrangements were quickly made. Kentucky went
 
 224 LIZETTE. 
 
 to engage their tickets. Houlier arranged to have a close 
 watch kept at the studio in case Lizette should appear be 
 fore they returned from their southern journey. Murdoch 
 sent some letters and cables explaining that his stay abroad 
 might be prolonged beyond his original intentions. Then 
 he went to call on Miss Markleham in fulfilment of his 
 promise to keep her informed of the progress of his search. 
 She had evidently schooled herself for the meeting with 
 Murdoch and she showed signs of real pleasure when he 
 told her that Houlier felt confident that they would find 
 the little one without great difficulty if they went to 
 Lourdes. She expressed satisfaction over the fact that his 
 journey would lie in the same direction in which her aunt 
 had planned to have theirs lead, and it was, of course, ar 
 ranged that they should make the trip together. 
 
 In all the world there is nothing else like the annual pil 
 grimage to Lourdes. Each year it occurs in August, and 
 sometimes as many as sixty thousand devout believers 
 journey to that quaint valley in the foothills of the Pyre 
 nees, where Bernadotte Soubirous avowed that the Virgin 
 appeared to her in a crevice of the rocks, and, blessing the 
 water which flowed in a tiny stream from a grotto just be 
 neath her holy feet, gave the message to the shepherd girl 
 that there might the weary find real rest; there might the 
 sorrowful find everlasting joy; there might sterile woman 
 hood be made fruitful; there might the sick be made well 
 again; there might the maimed be cured. So great was the 
 rush of pilgrims to the shrine, after the story had had the 
 formal approval of the Church, that the Government it 
 self was forced to take cognizance of the matter and as 
 sume a certain supervision over the ecclesiastically ar 
 ranged pilgrimages, which, in going from Paris, must 
 travel over a government line of railroad. Strange sights 
 are seen about the station at the season of the pilgrimage 
 strange sights and pitiful. Murdoch and Kentucky had 
 had no time to look at them when they had gone there 
 in the morning with the detective, but now, when they 
 were forced to work their way through the great crowd, 
 giving what measure of protection was in their power to 
 the two women, they looked and marveled, shuddering.
 
 THE ROAD TO LOURDES. 225 
 
 The government trains, with their many sections there 
 are officially but two trains, the "White" and the "Blue," 
 so called from the color of the garb of the sisters who at 
 tend upon the pilgrims, but so great is the pilgrimage that 
 these two trains are perforce divided into many sections 
 had been leaving for three days. There was but one sec 
 tion to leave, but that was slow in starting and delayed 
 the regular passenger train on which Murdoch's party was 
 to leave. Indeed, it was nearly midnight when the self- 
 important guards began to stride up and down the station 
 platform with their pompous cries of "en voiture si'l vous 
 plait" (in carriages, if you please), when the pillow renters 
 pushed their little carts along for the last time with their 
 dismal wailing of "Oreiller! oreiller! oreiller!" when the 
 luncheon vendors and the beer and wine sellers, with their 
 baskets, made their last noisy rounds, when the little men, 
 who pretend to sell indecent photographs, but really ply 
 a trade in most innocent little pictures, and who have an 
 especial eye for Americans as being particularly seeking 
 for wicked things when they visit Paris, winked for the 
 time their las-t wicked winks at prospective customers. 
 But finally, the long train started its slow crawl out of the 
 dingy station. It had been a distinct relief for Murdoch 
 that it had been impossible for him to find places so that 
 the whole party could make the journey in the same car 
 riage. By lavish bribery he secured a fairly comfortable 
 location for the two women, while he and Kentucky were 
 forced to be content with places in a crowded compart 
 ment in another part of the train. 
 
 The journey from Paris to Tarascon, where one must 
 change for Lourdes, is but a weary one at best. And be 
 yond Tarascon the monotony of the journey is not made 
 much more bearable by the occasional sight of great hills 
 verging into mountains and pleasant valleys. But at the 
 time of the pilgrimage this trip has new horrors added to 
 it, even in the first-class carriages on the regular trains, 
 which are not devoted to the pilgrimage by the manage 
 ment. There are prosperous folk, as well as paupers, 
 among the pilgrims who go each year to Lourdes, and even 
 as the "White" train and the "Blue" train are filled by
 
 LIZETTE. 
 
 those who must of necessity travel cheaply, the regular 
 and more expensive trains are crowded by those whose 
 money cannot stop their suffering, or who must perforce 
 consult the Holy Virgin in hope of surcease from some 
 sorrow which the contents of their pocketbooks has proved 
 powerless to assuage. The sick are everywhere. Extra 
 baggage vans are added to the regular trains to bear their 
 special burdens of sick on stretchers, sick on mattresses, 
 sick in wheeled chairs, sick in boxes like enough to coffins 
 to seem strikingly prophetic. And in the compartments o f 
 the passenger carriages are ever to be found at this season 
 of the year large numbers of the prosperous, and even some 
 in sturdy health, who still have favors to beg of Heaven 
 and who fear that their petitions will remain unanswered 
 unless the especial Virgin, "Our Lady of Lourdes," shall 
 intercede with God for them. 
 
 There were eight pilgrims in the compartment in which 
 Murdoch and Kentucky traveled. All of them were in 
 that state of mental excitement which might reasonably be 
 expected of those bound on such errands to such a place 
 at such a time. Two were a rich pair, who took their par 
 ish priest with them as extra aid. This young man was 
 keyed up to a great pitch of emotional intensity by the 
 journey and its object. His charges each bore crucifixes 
 richly carved in ivory, and while the priest chanted his 
 "Ave Marias" and "Misericordias," he held as high up as 
 the car roof would permit a third and larger image of the 
 Christ upon the cross, to which the devotions of the other 
 pilgrims turned especially. 
 
 "Oh, Lord! Give us a child!" was the husband's monot 
 onous utterance, while the priest chanted; or else he made 
 the responses to the cleric's prayers. And "Oh, Lord! 
 Grant me a son!" the poor wife prayed a thousand times, 
 oblivious in her earnestness of onlookers, careless of every 
 thing except the hope that her petition might be heard and 
 answered in the Heavens. 
 
 It was impressive, but it was pitiful. It was real and 
 earnest, but it was hard for the Americans, unused to pub 
 lic exhibition of emotion, to recognize its dignity. When 
 ever the train stopped, and its stops were long and fre-
 
 THE ROAD TO LOURDES. 227 
 
 quent, there went up from all the carriages a mighty 
 chant, which sometimes continued after the train had 
 started on again, so hearty in its mighty volume that it 
 was heard above the roaring wheels and the rattle of the 
 cars. 
 
 There was a skeptic in the compartment, who, for a long 
 time, sat silent in his corner and gazed with scorn. Once 
 he started to speak with sarcasm and laughed boorishly. 
 Then Kentucky, mighty in his height and with his un- 
 gainliness changed to dignity of bearing, rose with stretch 
 ing joints and told him, both in French and English, to 
 shut up. So stern was the American's lank face, so evident 
 the tenseness of his muscles, that the scoffing Frenchman 
 ceased his ridicule and sat silent in a corner until the train 
 stopped at a station. Then he gave the guard five francs 
 to find for him a place in other and more congenial com 
 pany, which, perhaps, was well for him. 
 
 In the middle of the night the man and his wife left 
 also. The guard had found for them a place nearer to 
 the chanting. Other changes finally left Kentucky and 
 Murdoch alone together. Neither one so much as dozed. 
 The delicate imagination of Kentucky and even the more 
 practical mind of Murdoch had not failed to be impressed 
 by the tremendous spectacle of the pilgrimage. One does 
 not need to be devout, or even to believe at all, to see the 
 dignity of this solemn turning of the thousands to their 
 Maker. And its pathos, its most piteous pathos, was every 
 where about them. For many of those who make the pil 
 grimage it is their very last appeal. For hundreds the 
 cries which they will make before the grotto will be the 
 last cries, the petitions which they will put up at Lourdes 
 the last prayers of Hope almost despairing and doomed 
 to bitter disappointmet. Doctors have failed, medicines 
 have failed everything has failed. Only the suffering has 
 gone on, and on, and on. The Virgin, merciful incarna 
 tion of love, soul of that most divine of human attributes, 
 motherhood, incarnation of Divine power for did not 
 Christ, Himelf, come from her? may, in the glory of her 
 Heavenly pity, in the tenderness of that love for all hu 
 manity taught by her Blessed Son, intercede with Him
 
 228 LIZETTE. 
 
 to save! Alas! In most of the pilgrimages to Lourdes 
 the number upon whom she bestows that grand compassion 
 seems pitifully small. 
 
 Murdoch and Kentucky, aliens in this band of the ex 
 alted, felt free to talk after they had been left alone. 
 
 "It impresses me tremendously," said Murdoch. "Think 
 b.ow this journey must have affected her! Innocent, im 
 pressionable child, ignorant of most of the great truths of 
 religion, but familiar with the gaudy show which France 
 makes in its name, knowing of its promises yery dimly, 
 and, perhaps, exaggerating them or taking them too liter 
 ally, impressed by the fear that she might harm me by 
 going home with me, and tortured by the anticipated tor 
 ment of separation if she did not, humbled, heart sick and 
 confused, such a trip as this in such surroundings is almost 
 calculated to drive her wits away. Oh, it is pitiful to think 
 of!"
 
 CHAPTEE XXIV. 
 
 THE GREAT PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 The narrow road to the village from the station at 
 Lourdes curves down a steep incline. The village, strag 
 gling upward, edges it with tall houses so eagerly that 
 there is scarcely room on either side for sidewalks, and at 
 the time of a pilgrimage what small space there is is ut 
 terly insufficient to accommodate the walking crowds. 
 They swarm into and fill the driveway with unfortunates, 
 who pour in a black and gruesome stream from the car 
 riages of the railway trains. Some walk alone. Some hob 
 ble on canes and crutches. Some stumble dangerously 
 from weakness after the hard journey's great fatigue. Many 
 are assisted on their tottering way by priests and hospital 
 lers. Hundreds cannot walk at all and must be taken down 
 in chairs with wheels, borne prone on litters, or carried in 
 those strange, long boxes which look so much like coffins. 
 It is a harvest time for the thrifty folk of Lourdes, who 
 have come to regard this influx of the miserable with 
 hardened hearts. To them a man who cannot walk is one 
 who can, perhaps, pay well for being carried. To them a 
 woman, gasping in the throes of pain, arouses pity in pro 
 portion to the contents of her purse. They are not worse 
 than other people in the main, but long familiarity with 
 the horrid sights of suffering has bred what may not be 
 contempt, perhaps, but certainly is callousness. 
 
 Miss Markleham and her aunt had engaged rooms by 
 telegraph, but they were forced to walk to the gray-stone 
 hotel, nearly a mile away, because all vehicles were en 
 gaged in the moving of the pilgrims. Murdoch and Ken 
 tucky went with them, of course, and saw them safe inside 
 the doors. Then they began their search. The crowds al 
 most discouraged them, but a very little study showed them 
 that they were, as Houlier said, concentrated in a few spots,
 
 230 LIZETTE. 
 
 which made the inspection of them much easier than it 
 otherwise might have been. The detective had tele 
 graphed to the local police and Murdoch found a report 
 waiting for him at the office. They had, as far as possible, 
 investigated the lists of the hotels, and had examined the 
 returns of such pensions or boarding houses as complied 
 with the government regulation that returns of arriving 
 and departing guests shall be made each day to the police. 
 This regulation is supposed to be in force throughout 
 France, but there is no belief, even on the part of the 
 police, that it is rigidly enough enforced at Lourdes, dur 
 ing the times of the pilgrimages to make its returns accu 
 rate records. 
 
 Aside from this they had done nothing and this work 
 had had no good result. 
 
 Murdoch quickly saw that he could look to them for 
 very little useful help. He gave them up. 
 
 With Kentucky he started out to learn, himself, about 
 the field that they must search without official aid. It was 
 quickly evident that there were four points to watch. 
 First, of course, was the space before the grotto. There 
 the pilgrims swarmed. High up in a niche in the rocks 
 above the cave the little statue of the Virgin stands robed 
 in blue and white and gold, the object of the thousands' 
 veneration. This seemed to be the most likely spot of all, 
 and the two friends decided that it was better for Ken 
 tucky to be there than it would be for Murdoch to take the 
 post. Lizette, they thought, would surely make no effort 
 to run away from old Kentucky. Murdoch thought with 
 a pang that she might try to run away from him. 
 
 The Basilica was to be closely watched and the Bureau 
 des Contestationes, where those who have been made the 
 objects of healing miracles, hurry to have their cures of 
 ficially investigated and the proofs recorded. This small 
 office is in an archway in the stone incline leading up to 
 the Basilica, and, after a cure, or the rumor of a cure, is 
 always the center of a crowd whose members press and 
 peer and try to get stolen glimpses of the fortunate object 
 of the Virgin's mercy. 
 
 Stretching along the level ground upon the Loire's right
 
 THE GREAT PILGRIMAGE. 231 
 
 bank and directly in front of the Basilica's lofty perch 
 upon the precipitous hillside, is a kind of park, marked 
 with a great cinder pathway, which curves almost in the 
 shape of an elongated race track. Within the further curve 
 there rises a great cross, which, 'at night time, is illumi 
 nated with blazing gas, and shines, a gigantic, flaming, 
 turning post for the processions of taper-bearing pilgrims, 
 who march, chanting with their myriad of paper-sheltered 
 lighted candles, in an endless line around the course, until 
 weariness or weakness brought by sickness, forces them 
 to drop out of the devotional parade. 
 
 Murdoch had no worry about the town itself. Lizette 
 would be unlikely to loiter among the unattractive board 
 ing houses or the souvenir and food shops which principal 
 ly make it up. She had gone there to pray and those who 
 pray remain near the entrance to the grotto, or in the 
 Basilica, or march in the processions. 
 
 During the two or three hours of daylight which still re 
 mained after he had left Kentucky at the grotto's mouth, 
 Murdoch made what search he could of hotels and board 
 ing houses, but so great was the confusion consequent upon 
 the vast number of people which their inadequate accom 
 modations were forced for these few days of the year only 
 to shelter, that he found that there was scarcely a pre 
 tense among them of observing the police regulations, and 
 even a house-to-house canvass had no result except to 
 worry and discourage him. 
 
 He called again at the little office of the police, but only 
 to decide again that with their press of work they would be 
 unlikely to be of use to him, although Houlier's tele 
 grams had undoubtedly impressed them with the impor 
 tance of the case, an impression which Murdoch deepened 
 by the deposit with the officer in charge of some of those 
 wondrous banknotes which had so impressed the old 
 woman who sold coals. 
 
 The crowds were terrible and crushing in their magni 
 tude and in the selfishness born of complete earnestness. 
 Murdoch wandered from place to place and watched 
 strange faces until his eyes were tired with his anxious 
 looking. Then he went to find Miss Markleham and her
 
 232 LIZETTE. 
 
 aunt and took them to the grotto, in accordance with the 
 engagement which they had made on their arrival. 
 
 When night fell, dark and damp, upon the village and 
 its restless crowds of devotees, Murdoch placed himself 
 near to the turning point of the procession at the blazing 
 cross. The pilgrims marched in pairs, with their proces 
 sion often broken by some weak and weary one who could 
 not keep up, and, lagging, delayed those who were behind. 
 There were all sorts and all conditions in the endless line, 
 from the refined women of the old regime in France, who 
 walked with innate grace and faces closely veiled, to the 
 crippled peasant from the mountains whose presence there 
 had, perhaps, for years before, necessitated such scant ex 
 penditure on other things that the suppliant's clothes hung 
 in ragged testimony to the sacrifices he had made, and 
 whose face showed traces of starvation. 
 
 There were those who had taken strange and uncouth 
 vows, such as to let their hair or beards grow without the 
 touch of comb or scissors, until they should present their 
 prayers to the Holy One at Lourdes. 
 
 One man bore upon his back a great rough timber cross, 
 and, in devotion which seemed like most horrible irrever 
 ence to the onlooker, wore upon his brow a wreath of 
 thorns which had torn his forehead's skin until the blood, 
 not washed away for many weeks, had covered his whole 
 face and neck and made him a frightful object. He had 
 marched with the burden and the disfiguring chaplet, all 
 the way from Calais, in the North of France, and had been 
 months upon the road. Behind him came his two brothers, 
 both grown men, who carried between them a handled 
 box in which lay their little sister, a paralytic. Marching 
 next to them were the father and the mother, aged peas 
 ants, bowed by woe and the awful effort of the journey, 
 with eyes uplifted and trembling limbs, chanting their 
 Ave Marias with voices shaking from emotion. This dread 
 ful family party, sublime in its grotesque devotion, touched 
 Murdoch deeply. They made the circuit of the long path 
 thrice and then dropped out, unable to bear their burdens 
 farther for the time, and rested in complete exhaustion on 
 the grass not far from Murdoch.
 
 THE GREAT PILGRIMAGE. 233 
 
 He spoke to them. 
 
 Only the one who bore the cross would answer him. The 
 others, wrapt in the fervor of their prayers and medita 
 tion, probably did not even hear him. 
 
 He asked this man when they had eaten last. 
 
 It had been a long time. 
 
 He asked him how they would get back to their far 
 distant home. 
 
 The way they came, he thought, unless the Blessed 
 Virgin found for them an easier one. 
 
 He said that the old man and woman seemed almost 
 exhausted. 
 
 Oh, yes. They had not slept or eaten since the day be 
 fore. 
 
 He asked if they would accept a gift of money from him. 
 
 They would accept it gladly and with gratitude. 
 
 Murdoch gave the money to the one who bore the cross 
 and he spoke to the others of the gift. They looked at 
 Murdoch gratefully and said a prayer for him. 
 
 Then the one who bore the cross struggled painfully 
 away, with the money tightly clenched within his hand. 
 Fifteen minutes later he came back. His face was lighted 
 by a smile of satisfaction, but Murdoch noticed that he 
 brought back no food. A glance at the mother's face made 
 the American fear that if she did not have some sustenance 
 other than religious fervor soon, she would fall fainting 
 where she sat. He asked the messenger, who had taken 
 the money away with him, where the food was. He must 
 give it to the old woman quickly and perhaps a drop of 
 wine might keep her from fainting. 
 
 The man looked at Murdoch in surprise. 
 
 Food? Wine? He had bought no food and wine. He 
 had used the money to buy candles to burn before the 
 shrine within the grotto. They had not come to Lourdes 
 to eat and drink. They had come to pray! 
 
 And all the time the procession, with its chanting thou 
 sands, was winding slowly past, around the cross and back 
 to the Basilica, around the cross and back to the Basilica. 
 
 Sometimes a little section of it stopped, while the hos 
 pitallers took some person who had fainted and bore Mm
 
 234 LIZETTE. 
 
 back with them into the village on a litter. Once during 
 the evening they carried back with them a woman wh was 
 dead. The other pilgrims saw that she was dead as she was 
 carried past them, but it had no effect upon their fervor 
 except, perhaps, to heighten it. The Holy One had 
 answered her poor pravers with the gift of everlasting rest. 
 Hail Holy One! 
 
 And the slow march went on to the solemn music of the 
 chanting thousands. 
 
 These and many other sadnesses, Murdoch saw and 
 marvelled over. All kinds of men and women passed be 
 fore him in a strange, moving show, almost incredible in 
 its weird variety. But search as he would, he could never 
 see that one face for which he looked so earnestly. His 
 eyes smarted from continued staring in the flickering light. 
 The candles of the passing devotees sometimes seemed to 
 make the marchers dance up and down before him as they 
 passed, sometimes they seemed to jump forward with a 
 jerk as they reached his station and fall back again into 
 their accustomed pace only after they had passed him by. 
 
 Three times as the strange line of pilgrims slowly 
 passed before him, he thought he saw, far down the line, a 
 face or figure which seemed to him like that he looked for. 
 But three times he was disappointed. 
 
 There was in his heart the constant fear that some per 
 son might pass him without inspection. There were so 
 many of them and the light was so uncertain ! The mental 
 strain told upon him and the fear that it might make him 
 careless in his inspection of the throng became a constant 
 worry. 
 
 One figure, veiled heavily and marching with bowed 
 head, twice attracted him as it passed by its similarity to 
 hers and he almost stepped up to call her name when it 
 appeared the third time, but by chance the veil was raised 
 before he spoke and he saw that he had been .mistaken. 
 
 The procession passed and passed in all its show of grief 
 and horrid suffering, of faith and high devotion. The 
 great bells of the Basilica had chimed for eleven o'clock 
 before the dimming of the lights upon the Cross made the 
 procession break up and swarm back again to the space be-
 
 THE GREAT PILGRIMAGE. 335 
 
 fore the grotto. He went with the crowd and wormed his 
 way among its members, searching ever, searching vainly. 
 
 Many were too tired to follow the slow and solemn 
 march of the procession with a night of prayer before the 
 grotto, but enough persisted in their purpose of petition 
 to pack the small space tightly. Murdoch found Ken 
 tucky there. The old student was tired by the strain, but 
 the excitement and enthusiasm of the scene and its strange 
 actors had keyed him to a pitch of high intensity, and, al 
 though Murdoch urged it, he would not go back to the 
 hotel to sleep. Miss Markleham was there with her aunt 
 and, like Kentucky, she was much excited by it all, and her 
 eyes gazed solemnly from deep hollows. The aunt, much 
 less affected in reality, pretended to be more so, and re 
 mained kneeling on the stones while her niece talked to 
 Murdoch. It was midnight before the ladies went to their 
 hotel, and before they left Miss Markleham called Mur 
 doch to the shadow of a tree, where the flickering glare 
 from the myriads of candles cast dancing shadows. She 
 said nothing to him at first, but looked into his eyes and 
 smiled a sadly solemn little smile. 
 
 "I am so sorry for you both," she said. "I do not often 
 pray. Before I learned of your distress, I thought of 
 Lourdes with curiosity and not devotion. But I have 
 prayed to-night, prayed earnestly for you and for your 
 little one. Good night/' 
 
 She touched his hand and vanished. 
 
 There were good things in Mary Markleham. Her 
 efforts to help the man she loved find poor Lizette had in 
 ihem some of the nobility of martyrdom. 
 
 Murdoch kneeled beside Kentucky at a bench. The space 
 before the grotto was still crowded, as the clock in the 
 Basilica tower struck midnight. The priests' bells tinkled 
 every fifteen minutes before they said their prayers. 
 
 There were some dramatic incidents. A woman fell 
 before the iron gate which bars the crowd out from the 
 grotto and writhed there on the stones in frightful pain. 
 A priest hurried to her and gave her the last sacrament 
 before ehe died. Then hospitallers took her wasted form 
 away. Her prayers were answered.
 
 236 LIZETTE. 
 
 Sometimes the pilgrims whispered to each other in the 
 pauses of devotion. There was a story, which gained detail 
 as it passed from mouth to mouth, of a cure that afternoon. 
 The pilgrims grasped it eagerly and rolled the tale beneath 
 their tongues with deep soul-hunger. It lacked certain 
 confirmation and the anxious one, unable to control his 
 longing for the truth about it, made a journey to the 
 Bureau des Contestationes, from which he returned with 
 the news that the doors were locked. This seemed strange 
 and doubtful to another pilgrim. Was not the Blessed 
 Virgin as likely to make cures at night as during day? 
 He could not believe that the Bureau's doors were locked. 
 There must be some mistake. He went, himself, to see. 
 Returning, fifteen minutes later, he confirmed the first 
 Yes, the doors were locked. 
 
 This seemed to damp the hope of some and they got up 
 from their knees and went away to sleep, perhaps to hotels 
 and boarding houses, perhaps to that barren shelter which 
 the Church furnishes without charge to those who cannot 
 pay. By three o'clock there were no more than fifty left 
 before the grotto. By five, most of these had gone, and 
 with them Murdoch went. He knew Lizette was not 
 among them and he woke Kentucky, whose head had sunk 
 in slumber on a bench beside which he was kneeling. To 
 have stood among those pilgrims would have seemed like 
 sacrilege. 
 
 They made their plans as they went to their hotel. Ken 
 tucky was to sleep till noon. He agreed to this reluctantly, 
 and only because he knew, himself, that it was necessary. 
 His great and overpowering weariness told him too plainly 
 that he could not stand such strain as ably as the younger 
 man.
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 FACE TO FACE. 
 
 Murdoch was out and again before the grotto by nine 
 o'clock. His sleep had been restless and disturbed. 
 In the room adjoining his some poor consumptive strug 
 gled with a racking cough. As he went out into the little 
 garden back of the hotel to get his morning coffee, he met 
 a group of hospitallers carrying that sort of burden which 
 is so often seen at Lourdes at times of pilgrimages. It was 
 the body of the one who in the night had coughed, the 
 waiter told him. There is a pilgrims' cemetery there at 
 Lourdes, and it has many occupants. 
 
 The second day passed as the first had passed. Murdoch 
 kept in telegraphic commuication with Houlier. They 
 both considered it most likely that if Lizette should go 
 away from Lourdes she would return to Paris, and neither 
 one believed that she could go there without at least a 
 visit to the studio. So Houlier had the place watched 
 constantly. But his message brought no good news to 
 Murdoch. 
 
 Murdoch watched the grotto. The first keen impres 
 sions of the place had begun thus soon to be dulled in him. 
 Denied the vivid intensity of religious fervor and with the 
 dramatic instincts of his artist nature cloyed within him 
 from too much feeding on the sights of yesterday, the 
 spectacle became monotonous. He called at the office of 
 the police. They were polite, but had no news. Their en 
 ergies were centered on a search for pickpockets, who had 
 come down from Paris in an organized gang to wring 
 plunder from the pilgrims. They had not found Lizette. 
 
 He went to the Basilica. There were few worshippers 
 within, and Lizette was not among them. Before the
 
 238 LIZETTE. 
 
 grotto the crowds were becoming dense, but they were 
 still thin enough so that he could search among them and 
 feel when he had finished what satisfaction he could get 
 out of the conviction that the small one was not among 
 them. 
 
 The strain had made his face look pale, and he knew that 
 his eyes were surrounded by great yellow hollows. At noon 
 Kentucky joined him. The old student looked pitifully 
 weak and tired, and acted like a discouraged man, but 
 tried to smile and appear hopeful when he saw the marks 
 of weariness and worry on the face of Murdoch. 
 
 It was afternoon before Miss Markleham and her aunt 
 appeared. They asked no questions. The faces of the two 
 friends answered them, unspoken. They did not even stop 
 to talk to Murdoch. Miss Markleham looked tired, as if 
 her night, too, had passed without a right allowance of 
 restful sleep. She smiled faintly at Murdoch and kneeled 
 with her aunt at a bench close to the grotto. 
 
 The sun beat hot upon the bowed heads of the pilgrims. 
 An early morning shower had left small pools of water 
 standing in the hollows of the stones which paved the 
 space before the grotto. But no one cared for this, and by 
 ten o'clock the space was filled by praying thousands. The 
 priests' bell tinkled as they said the masses. The sisters 
 passed among the people, giving comfort to the anxious 
 ones. Sometimes they kindly cared for some woman who 
 had fainted. Sometimes they bore out of the crowd some 
 little one whose weakness could no longer stand the strain. 
 Once or twice a great chorus started and for a time echoed 
 up against the towering rocks above for a few moments, 
 to give way to that strange, whisper-pierced silence of the 
 multitude which had preceded it. 
 
 Murdoch, as he knelt, scanned faces eagerly. He was to 
 situated that he could see those who came and those who 
 went, but those in front of him kept their faces ever to 
 ward the grotto and were a tantalizing mystery. Some 
 times there seemed to be something in the curve of a 
 kneeling figure's form which seemed to him like Lizette's, 
 and with infinite pains he worked through the crowd, al 
 ways on his knees, as was most necessary, until he could
 
 FACE TO FACE. 239 
 
 satisfy himself that he had been mistaken. And that sat 
 isfaction ever came too soon. 
 
 Once or twice during the morning he left his post for 
 Kentucky to keep watch of and made again the rounds of 
 the Basilica, the police station and the railroad depot. But 
 each time he returned to the space before the grotto, still 
 without news. 
 
 The monotony of the chants, and the great weariness, 
 which came from the really tremendous physical strain of 
 the week past, had tired him almost beyond endurance, and 
 he often drowsed as he kneeled, to come to full conscious 
 ness with little starts of fear that he had slept, and that 
 while he slumbered she might have come and gone. It was 
 during one of these periods of semi-consciousness that he 
 was roused by a touch upon his arm, and found Miss Mar- 
 kleham kneeling close beside him. He had not seen her 
 come, yet he had had no knowledge that he had been 
 asleep. Her grasp tightened on his arm. She bowed her 
 head, but still looked up at him and placed her fingers on 
 her lips. She leaned toward him and whispered. 
 
 "Don't get up. Don't say anything. I have found her. 
 She is over there." 
 
 Miss Markleham pointed with her hand held low behind 
 a pilgrim's back. 
 
 "I am sure that it is she," she continued, tensely. "I 
 saw her face quite plainly and it is the face of 'Parting.' 
 She is kneeling by a bench. There is a vacant place beside 
 her. Go there and kneel by her. It will be an answer to 
 her prayers." 
 
 Slowly, Murdoch worked his way through the great 
 crowd. Miss Markleham crept on her knees behind him. 
 She pointed out to him the figure that she meant. He gave 
 her a great and glowing glance of gratitude. It was 
 Lizette. 
 
 Sometimes he could not see her as he worked along 
 upon his knees. His progress was tormenting in its slow 
 ness. But each time that he came into a position where 
 her figure was not hidden by intervening worshippers, the 
 certainty grew in him that it was she. Slowly, slowly, 
 slowly, he worked his way until scarcely twenty feet inter-
 
 240 LIZETTE. 
 
 vened between them. Miss Markleham's plan appealed to 
 him. The small one had come to Lourdes to pray, and he 
 knew that all her prayers were for him, and that the great 
 est answer which she begged so humbly of the Blessed Vir 
 gin was assurance that without endangering his happiness 
 she might turn to him and cling forever to him. Her 
 head was bowed. Her hands were clasped before her. A 
 moving figure shut her from his sight for a second, and 
 when it passed her head was raised, her hands stretched 
 out in supplication to that statue of the Virgin above her 
 and before her. She dropped them. 
 
 A woman who was between her and Murdoch was moan 
 ing with a fervor which increased. Slowly many turned 
 to see what caused the strange sounds that came from her. 
 Her hands were upraised, and on her face there was a look 
 of ecstasy. She seemed to be slowly rising from her knees 
 without the movements ordinary to such an effort. The 
 worshippers, disturbed by the tremulous intensity of the 
 strange sound which she made, a quivering, shaking trem 
 olo, which might be either a note of overwhelming joy 
 or the last, half-hushed, despairing cry of one who per 
 ished, turned toward her. 
 
 Lizette, attracted by the sound, as were the others, 
 turned and looked, and, as she looked, saw Murdoch. A 
 great light came into her face. First, a flushing red swept 
 over it. Then came a startling pallor. Then the red 
 again. 
 
 Murdoch stretched his arms out toward her. The tense 
 excitement of his own drama took his interest away from 
 that woman who was now rising, rising; with that strange, 
 unnatural movement that seemed not to be the ordinary 
 work of human muscles. He called aloud: 
 
 "Lizette!" 
 
 She answered him: 
 
 "Oh, Pudgy!" 
 
 She almost rose with arms outstreched to go to him. 
 What quick thoughts flashed themselves through that sim 
 ple, loving brain in those few seconds! Surely, the Virgin 
 Mary had answered all her prayers, had sent her dear one 
 to her as the greatest and most satisfying of all answers!
 
 FACE TO FACE. 241 
 
 Her eyes were fixed on Murdoch's face with an ecstasy 
 almost as great as the uncanny expression of that other 
 woman's eyes, who was now slowly, slowly, rising up be 
 tween them. 
 
 Lizette stretched out her arms toward him, and as she 
 did so, the other one, who had not stood for twenty years, 
 rose wholly, with a queer, piercing cry. 
 
 "Je suis gu-e-r-i-e Je suis g-u-e-r-i-e !" 
 
 She shrieked it slowly between tense lips and waved her 
 arms. She had risen exactly between the lovers, and stood 
 there with arms stretched wildly out as if she threw away 
 the sickness which had so long oppressed her. 
 
 For a moment the crowd stopped where it was, as if in 
 petrification. Then, with a wild shout of "La guerison!" 
 "La guerison f" (the cure! the cure!) it rushed madly up to 
 crowd around the object of the miracle. Murdoch had 
 scarcely comprehended. His own joy was so great that he 
 could not have eyes or ears for anything besides it. And 
 as he paused the crowd rushed over him and bore him 
 down. 
 
 He saw Lizette's arm drop, and saw her face change 
 from joy to despair as she looked beyond him, and then 
 the instinct of self-preservation made him shield his face 
 and eyes from maddened feet. 
 
 He was in real danger, for the crowd was frantic. A 
 dozen men and women swept over him. It was Miss 
 Markleham, who was just behind him and who had al 
 ready risen to her feet, who made them keep a little clear 
 of him. She even helped him rise by putting down her 
 hands to him. He struggled, dazed and dirty, to his feet. 
 
 In his rising he had turned around, and when he turned 
 back to where Lizette had been there was a sea of faces 
 there in which he could not see her face at all. There was 
 a struggling swarm of bodies there, but he could not see 
 among them the small and delicate form he hungered 
 for. 
 
 Almost in a twinkling the place was cleared of all ex 
 cept the wholly helpless and himself and Mary Markleham. 
 Everyone who had the strength to run was panting in 
 pursuit of the weird figure of the risen one, who trailed
 
 24:2 LIZETTE. 
 
 her long wraps behind her and ran screaming with a joy 
 almost demoniacal toward the Bureau des Contefitationes. 
 Only he and Mary Markleham remained, with puzzled 
 eyes, watching the crowd as it hurried on its frantic way, 
 pursued by a great column of yellow dust, following the 
 object of the miracle. 
 
 In that little moment he had lost Lizette again, and he 
 could not find her anywhere. The rushing crowd had 
 swept her with it while he struggled on the stones to get 
 his footing. It was like a disappearance of a fairy on the 
 stage. He could not tell what to make of it. 
 
 "Where is she?" asked Miss Markleham. 
 
 "She was there," said Murdoch, pointing. "She was 
 just there when the crowd pushed me over. But when 
 I rose and turned she had gone. She must have been 
 carried with it." 
 
 Murdoch hurried to the outskirts of the crowd which 
 surged about the office of the doctors who are supposed 
 to pass on miracles and attest to them. It was impossible 
 for him to penetrate it. He did not believe that she had 
 been carried into its inner circles. It would have been al 
 most impossible for her to have been swept, unwillingly, 
 so far from where she had been kneeling when he saw her 
 just before he fell. 
 
 Kentucky and Miss Markleham were with him. They 
 watched upon the outskirts of the crowd until, disintegrat 
 ing and disappearing like sugar in warm water, it had gone. 
 Most of those who had so madly rushed to the Bureau in 
 the wake of the woman who had known the miracle, went 
 back to the grotto to pray with renewed fervor. Many 
 gathered about the grounds in small groups to talk about 
 the wonder before they returned to their own devotions, 
 to marvel over it and to get new hope from it, but nowhere 
 could they find trace of the little one whom they sought so 
 earnestly. It came with almost as great a shock as had 
 been the first quick knowledge that she had run away when 
 Murdoch read her note in the studio in Paris.
 
 CHAPTEE XXVI, 
 
 MISS MARKLEHAM AGAIN. 
 
 Again the weary search began. 
 
 Kentucky was dismayed by this new and most myste 
 rious disappearance. He could not understand it, nor 
 could Murdoch. 
 
 Miss Markleham's presence was demanded by the aunt, 
 who professed entire exhaustion after the excitement of 
 the miracle. 
 
 Miss Markleham really knew what had happened, and 
 she was glad that her aunt was so nervous that she could 
 not leave her. She shrunk from seeing Murdoch. There 
 was an agony in her mind such as a criminal might feel at 
 the prospect of meeting the one who suffered through his 
 crime. She had not wronged him knowingly but yet, 
 but yet she could not look at his sorrow-stricken face 
 without a feeling of deep guilt. 
 
 She had seen the expression of Lizette's eyes just before 
 the crowd rushed up between her and her loved one as it 
 cast Murdoch down. She had seen that look of joy on 
 Lizette's face as the small one caught sight of Murdoch 
 and had seen it change to worry and then almoit to terror, 
 as the eyes caught sight of her Miss Markleham. 
 
 Lizette's face had been very white as if from physical 
 exhaustion when she had first seen her and before the 
 little one had known that they were there. It had been 
 strained and worried in its look with that same extraordi 
 nary intensity of expression which seemed to mark the 
 faces of all the pilgrims, a look which Miss Markleham had 
 never seen before and which she recognized through the 
 intensity of her own great love, unsatisfied and hopeless. 
 
 In her heart she had known that it had been her own
 
 244 LIZETTE. 
 
 presence which had changed that look of joy ineffable that 
 had come to Lizette's face when first she had caught sight 
 of Murdoch. Her woman's sympathies and intuitions 
 were quicker even than Murdoch's understanding, born of 
 love. She tried to piece together in her own mind the 
 emotions which must have filled Lizette's heart, and she 
 was more accurate in her thinking than she dreamed. She 
 was certain that Lizette had come to Lourdes to pray about 
 John Murdoch, that she had been waiting for the answer 
 to her prayer while she knelt before the grotto and when 
 they approached. Miss Markleham could see how John 
 Murdoch's presence there had at first been taken by 
 Lizette for the very greatest and most satisfying of all 
 answers to her prayers. That explained the look of 
 supreme joy which flashed across her face when first she 
 saw him. But she could also see how the fact that she was 
 there with Murdoch might have been taken by the small 
 one for a later and more complete answer, a crushing, 
 horrifying answer which crushed her hopes and left her 
 bruised and broken in her spirit and with bleeding heart. 
 
 "It seems to me," she whispered to herself, "that I 
 should hate a God that gave me such reply in such a way!" 
 
 She shrunk within her soul as she tried to paint the 
 agony of Lizette's inward being when the conviction came 
 upon her that her prayer was answered, answered with 
 denial of the boon she craved. 
 
 She recalled with intense vividness the change which 
 had come in the expression of Lizette's face as she caught 
 sight of her Miss Markleham on her knees behind Mur 
 doch and moving with him. It must have been more than 
 startling to the little one to see him there at all. It is not 
 likely that it had occurred to her that he would find 
 whence she had flown in her distress of soul, and that an 
 answer to her prayer should come in the form of his actual 
 presence there probably had not been among her most ex 
 travagant speculations. The sight of him when she was 
 in that state of mental exaltation, which her face plainly 
 showed had hold of her at the moment of the meeting, 
 must have been a great and joyful shock. She must have 
 thought it quite as much a miracle as any cure could be.
 
 MISS MARKLEHAM AGAIN. $45 
 
 And then to see behind him, there at Lourdes, where she 
 had gone to ask the Virgin for a sign, the very one, the 
 only one who in her mind might have a better claim on 
 him than she, must have been not other than uncanny. 
 That the small one might easily take this for an answer 
 from the Virgin, Miss Markleham quickly realized. She 
 had prayed for Murdoch, had that little one, and in answer 
 to her prayer the Virgin brought him to her, but in bring 
 ing him she also brought the very one, who, unwittingly, 
 had come between them. Would not the little one believe 
 all this to be a special manifestation? 
 
 In her room at the stuffy little hotel, Miss Markleham 
 wrote a note to Murdoch. She told him that she feared 
 her presence had made Lizette run away from him and 
 outlined delicately her theory of the other's feelings. She 
 told him that she should leave Lourdes the next morning 
 and told him that she hoped he would not come to see her 
 before she went. It was a very serious note, and in it 
 Miss Markleham told him what she thought was true, that 
 while she had in her mind no wish but to serve him, Fate 
 seemed to have designed another part for her so long as she 
 should be where he was. So she should go away. Her 
 aunt opposed her going, but she should insist. She had 
 not helped him in his search, although her efforts had been 
 real and honest. She should not again allow herself to be 
 so placed that she could be a hindrance to him. 
 
 It was after she had sent this note that she had a bad 
 half-hour there with herself alone. During that half-hour 
 she was honest with herself. There was, she knew, a hid 
 den ring of self-forgetting sacrifice in what the note said, 
 which was not true in fact. She realized that she was 
 imitating, poorly, the real abnegation of the other woman. 
 She knew that she was not going away as Lizette had gone 
 away, with nothing but pure love of Murdoch, unselfish 
 love, unselfish to the point of soul-suicide, as the reason 
 for her going. She knew that she was not sublimely put 
 ting him away from her to save his happiness, as Lizette 
 honestly believed that she was. She knew that deep in 
 her heart the hope had not left her when she wrote that 
 note, that somewhere, somehow, sometime, John Murdoch
 
 246 LIZETTE. 
 
 would love her and marry her, even if the doing of it 
 robbed him of a greater and a worthier love than she could 
 ever show him. She felt that her impulse of self-sacrifice 
 was tardy, that it came after the other had made agonizing 
 renunciation. She knew she was withdrawing from the 
 field only after Fate had vanquished and driven off her 
 opponent. Yet she tried to get a sort of satisfying self- 
 commendation out of it. Murdoch might find Lizette in 
 Lourdee, but Miss Markleham quickly acknowledged to 
 herself that the likelihood of it was not great after what 
 had happened. 
 
 Murdoch saw the aunt again before they went away. 
 She did not understand. The niece, evidently, had told 
 her nothing, and she was much annoyed because the girl's 
 desire to leave was so persistent. 
 
 They stayed another day, during which Miss Markleham 
 did not stir from her hotel, and then they left. Murdoch 
 was not told what train they were to leave on, and so could 
 not see them off. He did not even think of this. His 
 worry over this new development which had come in his 
 searching for Lizette and certain cables which had come 
 to him from New York occupied his thoughts. 
 
 As best he could he made arrangements to prolong his 
 absence from the bank, and continued doggedly his search 
 at Lourdes, although he felt reasonably certain that 
 Lizette had left the city of the Holy Shrine. 
 
 It was not until he was preparing to leave Lourdes and 
 was actually about to take his disappointed way to the 
 railway station, disheartened and discouraged, that the 
 portier of the hotel handed him a note. He smiled good- 
 naturedly as he gave it to him, as one might smile who 
 gives a stick of candy to a child. 
 
 "A lady gave me this to give to you when you should 
 go away," said the impressive servant. "I was not to give 
 it to you until just before you went. That was a consid 
 eration most impressed upon me. She said it was to come 
 to you as a surprise. I promised, and you see that I have 
 kept my word." 
 
 The note was from Lizette. It said good-by. It said 
 that she had come to Lourdes to pray and that her prayers
 
 MISS MARKLEHAM AGAIN. 247 
 
 had been answered by the Blessed Virgin. She would not 
 bring the ruin on him. He was ever to remember that she 
 loved him well. He was always to think of her as smiling, 
 recalling, as she should herself, the happy days that lay 
 buried in the past. He was to search for her no more. 
 She should live and ever love him. Before the note could 
 reach him she should be far away, knowing in her heart 
 that what she did was best for him. She had so longed to 
 once more nestle in his arms! She had so longed to take 
 the happiness held out to her in that letter, sweet and 
 wondrous, in which he asked of her to be his wife! But 
 alas! This could not be. She had asked the Blessed Vir 
 gin, who had answered by a sign that the place she longed 
 and hungered for was not hers to take. She could not 
 take to him the ruin. By disappearing from his life she 
 would give to him the freedom which would mean success 
 and happiness in his new home across the sea. She 
 pressed him to her heart. She said adieu! 
 
 Of course, his eyes were tear-filled when he had read this 
 letter. Of course, his face showed that it had distressed 
 him greatly. The portier was much discomfited. 
 
 "I regret, M'sieu," he said, "that I should be the bearer 
 of ill news." 
 
 He paused a moment, thinking if he should tell about 
 another errand given to him by this same lady who had 
 given the note to Murdoch. He decided that there was 
 already enough unhappiness about the matter to put his 
 fee in danger, and did not tell Murdoch that he had also 
 handed a note to Mary Markleham as she was leaving on 
 the train.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 KENTUCKY'S GREAT DISCOVERY. 
 
 The letter changed their plans. It shocked both Mur 
 doch and Kentucky: There was an ominous finality about 
 the poor little one's farewell. At first it had seemed im 
 possible that she could evade them long, but now they had 
 lost confidence in their ability to find her. They had been 
 within a few feet of her and had missed her, although they 
 had made every effort that they could to guard against 
 such chance. They saw that if she chose to keep away 
 from them it might be easier for her to carry out her de 
 termination of self-sacrifice than they had thought it could 
 be by any possibility. 
 
 There came to Murdoch an inkling of the thought which 
 to Mary Markleham would have been a distressing cer 
 tainty, even if she had not received that note which the 
 portier had given to her. He had a dim idea of the reason 
 for Lizette's flight, but the evidence which was in his mind 
 to support his theory was so indefinite that he could feel 
 no kind of certainty about its value. 
 
 Murdoch telegraphed the facts to Houlier, and told him 
 to keep watch of Paris without regard to cost. There was 
 a new worry in his mind about Lizette's finances. She 
 could have very little money left, even if she had been 
 ever so saving in her expenditures. There was no way in 
 which he could give her money, and he feared that she 
 might suffer from the need of it. In that matter, as in 
 others, he was quite helpless, but it added to the fever of 
 his anxiety to find her. 
 
 He discussed the matter with Kentucky, and it was de 
 cided that Kentucky should remain in the south and keep 
 close watch of the search there, while Murdoch went up
 
 KENTUCKY'S GREAT DISCOVERY. 249 
 
 to Paris to see if anything could be done there which 
 Houlier was not already doing. There was another reason 
 why it was better for Murdoch's peace of mind to be in 
 Paris. There were cablegrams from home that worried 
 him, and he could manage home affairs better from Paris, 
 where he would be in direct touch by cable with the bank 
 in New York City, than he could from a remote country 
 district like that down there in the foot-hills of the Pyre 
 nees. 
 
 So Murdoch took the northern train. In a few days 
 the pilgrimage was over, and Lourdes was emptied of its 
 crowds of devotees. It was easy then to arrange with the 
 local police there to watch the grotto, where stray visitors 
 pray the whole year 'round, with some certainty that they 
 would be able to do it thoroughly, and Kentucky went to 
 Pau. There were two reasons for his selection of that 
 city. In the first place, it was the largest in that part of 
 France. In the second place, it was very near to where, 
 in days gone by, Kentucky had painted the picture of that 
 churchyard, where, afterwards, his loved ones were laid to 
 rest in that dreadful cholera grave. Kentucky had a long 
 ing to once more see this place. It was probably intensi 
 fied by his grief about the disappearance of Lizette, for 
 new sorrows bring back memories of old ones oftentimes. 
 
 He only paused at Pau a night, and put the police there 
 at work. Already all that part of France was being 
 searched closely for the little one; but, when he could, 
 Kentucky always supplemented the general instructions 
 sent out from Paris by others mouth-given. Then, by 
 diligence, he went a few miles farther to that tiny village 
 slumbering in the ardent southern sunshine ardent, but 
 crisp, invigorating, with all enervating qualities filtered 
 from it by the high peaks of the Pyrenees. 
 
 The place had changed but little since he had painted 
 there that one picture which had been good enough to sell, 
 but all too dear to part with. The small church had crum 
 bled but a trifle. The sentinel poplars kept their never- 
 failing watch as in the days gone by. He reached there 
 just at sunset, and it came and went that night as other 
 bright displays of gorgeous color had come and gone there
 
 250 LIZETTE. 
 
 in the sky when he was happy, and had held there in his 
 arms his little one, while his wife looked on at them and 
 laughed, and the old woman who cooked their meals 
 scolded across the churchyard hedge because they waited 
 there to watch instead of going in to eat the dinners which 
 were hot and waiting. 
 
 It had been years since he had seen the place, and now, 
 with sorrow softened by their passage, it did him good to 
 be there. It helped him in this new worry which had 
 come to him, this sorrow about Lizette and Murdoch. 
 Even the common grave, in which were buried all the vic 
 tims of the cholera, that grave whose rough sides of new- 
 turned earth had lingered like a wound in his sad mem 
 ory, had changed in the flying of the years and become less 
 horrible in its looks, if not in its significance. The un 
 sightly heap of yellow clay had been shaped up and sodded, 
 and over it the town had placed a simple monument. 
 There were no names cut upon the stone. It is doubtful 
 if, in those days of epidemic, records had been kept of who 
 lay buried there, but on the stone was cut a brief inscrip 
 tion, which said that 'neath it lay a hundred victims of the 
 scourge. 
 
 Kentucky thought that this was well. He reflected that 
 it would have been new sorrow to him to have found her 
 name among so many others on the monument. 
 
 The grave was tended with mechanical neatness, as all 
 public property is like to be in any part of France, but 
 there was no sign about it that anyone survived who had 
 especial care for any of the dead who lay there. On the 
 other graves throughout the churchyard there were little 
 withered posies, sometimes a wreath of stiff, tin flowers; 
 occasionally more elaborate decoration even on the graves 
 of those whose deaths had come long years before, but on 
 this common grave there were no signs that anyone ex 
 cept the vague, impersonal government remembered. 
 Kentucky thought that on the morrow he would get some 
 flowers to lay upon it. He was too weary now to make 
 the effort. 
 
 As he rose from the seat upon which he had sunk, as he 
 thought of the pleasant days gone by, he felt strangely
 
 KENTUCKY'S GREAT DISCOVERY. 251 
 
 weak, and when he got back to the small hotel the weak 
 ness grew until he had scarcely strength to get upstairs 
 alone and tumble into bed, a fever burning in his blood. 
 
 Perhaps it was because he had lingered in the night air 
 too much at Lourdes. Perhaps it was the reasonable re 
 action from the strain there. Perhaps it was only the pen 
 alty which might properly be expected for his years of .too 
 much absinthe. But, at any rate, he was definitely ill, al 
 though the village surgeon told him there was nothing 
 serious about it, that a few days' rest and dosing would 
 set him right again. He telegraphed to Murdoch that he 
 was ill, but that there was no occasion for worry. 
 
 For two days he lay there in the small hotel, not suffer 
 ing, but very weak. From his window he could gaze out 
 at the street, and even get a small glimpse of the church 
 yard and its grave beyond. 
 
 The first morning he got up he received a letter and a 
 telegram from Murdoch. The letter told him that, with 
 Houlier's help, a great search had been started for the lit 
 tle one, and that the authorities, especially in the south of 
 France, had been furnished with many copies of Mur 
 doch's sketches of Lizette. She had never posed before 
 a camera. Photographs were much less common then 
 than now. But the sketches were most careful likenesses 
 and might well serve in identification. Houlier had much 
 hope, and Murdoch told Kentucky not to feel discouraged. 
 He said that he must make an effort to get wholly well 
 again, and must take sufficient rest to help him. The time 
 was coming fast, he said, when he, Murdoch, must of ne 
 cessity go back to New York, for a time, at least. Affairs 
 there were calling with a clamor that could not be denied. 
 The telegram set the date for his departure. It said that 
 he should sail two weeks from then. 
 
 This news came to Kentucky in the small dining-room 
 of the hotel, and the rage it threw him into may have 
 helped to make him strong. He was not really surprised 
 that Murdoch should find it necessary to go back. He 
 had expected it. But it seemed to do him good to swear 
 and rage a little, and so he swore and raged. 
 
 Perhaps because he let his pent-up feelings loose in
 
 252 LIZETTE. 
 
 anger against Murdoch and that bank which claimed Mur 
 doch's time, he felt much stronger after he had eaten, and 
 went into the village to get some flowers to place upon that 
 grave. There was no florist's shop in so small a town, but 
 in a dooryard he saw some roses blossoming, and he bought 
 them, to the good wife's surprise. He went slowly to the 
 churchyard. 
 
 He entered by the path, long since almost disused, which 
 had been the main means of entrance when he had painted 
 there in the days gone by, and again there came to him a 
 rush of sweet, sad memories of the past. He paused at 
 every step to gaze again at that pleasant prospect which 
 he had known so well in days gone by. The tears came 
 to his eyes, not bitter tears, but tears of softened grief, and, 
 with head down-bent and eyes which slurred the present 
 in looking dreamily into the past, he approached the grave 
 again. 
 
 He saw again, as he approached, the wife who lay there. 
 He looked at her as she had been long, long ago, and won 
 dered if the tales of Heaven were true. He could plainly 
 understand their origin in human need for comfort, even 
 if, like the mirage of water which the thirsty desert trav 
 eler sometimes sees, they were built only of such stuff as 
 dreams are made of. He felt the need, that morning, of 
 such belief himself. It would comfort him, he thought, 
 to think that she could look down on him and see him 
 there, grief -struck and saddened by her loss even after the 
 passage of so many years. 
 
 He wondered if, in gazing at him, she would pass his 
 many errors by and understand. He wondered if there 
 had been comfort for her when she saw his great devotion 
 to the picture which hung there in his studio and told the 
 little tale of this same churchyard. He wondered if she 
 would count his faithfulness to her, a blessed memory, suf 
 ficient offset to his sins of absinthe, and if, as she looked 
 down on him, she forgave him for his failures. He won 
 dered if she could see how weak his step was, if she would 
 note the trembling of the hand that held the flowers, if 
 she would see the dullness of the eye which ortce had 
 flashed so bright with the light of love for her, if she would
 
 KENTUCKY'S GREAT DISCOVERY. 253 
 
 see the gray strands in the hair which had been so black 
 and stubborn in the days gone by when she had rumpled 
 it with loving fingers. 
 
 His eyes so filled with tears at thinking of these things 
 that he could scarcely see the grave he kneeled beside as 
 he stretched his hand out to lay the flowers upon it. He 
 placed them gently on the turf and knelt there a long 
 time beside the grave, unseeing and thinking only of the 
 past until his eyes had cleared of dimming tears. 
 
 And then he saw that he had laid his flowers beside an 
 other little nosegay! 
 
 At first this hurt him just a little. It brought to mind 
 the fact that, however, he might kneel and weep beside 
 this grave, it was a common grave where other sorrows 
 than his own lay buried. The luxury of exclusiveness was 
 even denied to him in this, his woe. 
 
 Still the flowers were a tribute from some loving heart 
 whose love had lived as long ago as his and was sacred to 
 it. He looked at them with sympathetic curiosity. They 
 were red carnations, bound with narrow, purple ribbon. 
 A little card was tied to them, with the writing on it up 
 permost. He read with startled eyes: 
 
 "Pour I'amour de cher Kentucky." 
 
 "For the love of dear Kentucky!" 
 
 He could scarcely trust his eyes. It was Lizette's hand 
 writing on the card. It was Lizette's sweet thought to 
 come here and place the posies on the grave, as she had 
 placed those other flowers above his picture in his little 
 room. 
 
 For a second the true significance of their presence there 
 did not strike him. He picked them up and kissed them, 
 and, as he held them to his lips, it rushed upon him that 
 they meant that she had been there and that his search was 
 ended. These were a trace of her so recent that they 
 could not fail to find her now. His very pilgrimage to the 
 grave of those he loved who had died had led him to the 
 finding of her he loved who lived! He must find out 
 about them. 
 
 In hurrying from the churchyard he forgot his weak 
 ness, or it had gone from him.
 
 254 LIZETTE. 
 
 It was not difficult to learn about her visit. Small 
 towns have few things to talk about, and there had been 
 that about the visitor's stay which had started many 
 tongues a-wagging. 
 
 The landlord of the hotel explained that the lady who 
 had visited the churchyard had been there during the after 
 noon of yesterday. Had they known that M'sieu would 
 have been interested in knowing of her visit they would 
 have gone to his room and told him of it. But who could 
 dream that such a thing was true? That the two stran 
 gers who should chance to visit their small town, where so 
 few strangers ever came, should know each other, though 
 neither knew about the other's presence there! It was 
 amazing! Her visit to the churchyard? The caretaker 
 would know of that. It seemed that she did not know, at 
 first, that the churchyard was familiar to her, and she had 
 thought she needed help to find the cholera grave. They 
 would send for the old man. He would tell M'sieu about 
 it exactly as it happened. This was done. 
 
 He was old and garrulous. When he finally started on 
 his story of the small one's visit, he first gave details of 
 his own emotions. When they had sent for him from the 
 hotel he had been much surprised. He had cared for the 
 churchyard many years, but had not once been called upon 
 to show it to a stranger. It was BO small a churchyard, in 
 so small a town! 
 
 He had told the lady that, he said, and she had smiled. 
 She said that she had seen the churchyard from the hotel 
 window, and that, of course, she knew the way to it, but 
 that there was one especial grave she did not know and 
 hoped that he would be kind enough to point it out to her. 
 He asked what grave it was she wanted him to point out, 
 and she said it was the one where lay the victims of the 
 cholera. Also she said that she was glad to have for guide 
 one who had lived there in the village many years, for 
 perhaps he might have known the people who lay buried 
 there and could talk to her of them. He told her that 
 the cholera grave could not be missed and that he could 
 readily talk to her of those who lay there. His memory 
 was better for the faces that he knew long, long ago than
 
 KENTUCKY'S GREAT DISCOVERY. 255 
 
 it was for many things more recent. Such, he had told 
 her, was the way with age. He also assured M'sieu that 
 such was the way with age. He would learn it for him 
 self when he should become old. 
 
 He asked her who it was among the victims that she 
 was interested in, and she told him that the wife and baby 
 of a friend of hers in Paris slumbered there in their last 
 sleep. 
 
 He took her toward the grave and was about to point 
 it out to her, when she said herself that there it was and 
 hastened to its side. 
 
 She was most pleased by the attention that had been 
 given to the grave, and said that she would tell her friend 
 of that when next she saw him. It was right there, said 
 the caretaker, that a strange thing happened. The lady, 
 who had been most interested and eager during all their 
 previous talk, now broke into furious weeping. He asked 
 her what it was that troubled her. He felt that it could 
 not be the seeing of the grave, for that had come upon 
 her without affecting her, and, besides, she had said that 
 she had never known the two relatives of her friend who 
 were there buried, so her interest in them could have only 
 been for the sake of the friend and not because of per 
 sonal grief. But when she said that she should tell her 
 friend about it when she saw him, she broke down and 
 cried most bitterly. In answer to his questions, at first 
 she only moaned inarticulately, but when she said she 
 grieved because her saying what she had about her friend 
 had recalled to her mind the bitter fact that maybe she 
 would never see him more. It had all been very strange, 
 the caretaker asserted, and he had not understood the 
 manner of the small lady. 
 
 She had asked him if he had lived there when he was 
 a boy, or, rather, when he was a younger man, and he had 
 told her that he had lived there all hig life except for a 
 few years. He had told her that he had left there just 
 before the cholera broke out, which had been a lucky thing 
 for him, and so had missed the scourge, but had returned 
 not long afterward and had been there ever since. She 
 asked him if he remembered an artist who once had
 
 256 LIZETTE. 
 
 painted in the churchyard, and he had laughed at her and 
 L ; aid he did remember him right well, because the artist 
 and his wife and little child had lodged above his father's 
 shop and had made his mother's temper bad by their ir 
 regularity at meals. 
 
 The old man laughed at this old memory. Kentucky 
 remembered those days well, and what had been the 
 woman's special aggravation. Each night he stayed there 
 in the churchyard until after the sunset's tints had faded, 
 for he tried to catch them there on his canvas. This had 
 made his dinners late, much to the old woman's annoyance. 
 He smiled even now, as he remembered how she had 
 scolded across the hedge at him. Her tongue had been so 
 sharp that she had sometimes frightened the young wife, 
 who then was with him, and once or twice she had even 
 made the dear small one cry with terror. He remembered 
 how he had resented that, and how sharply he had told 
 her that such goings on must stop if she wished to keep 
 her lodgers. 
 
 The caretaker went on to tell about Lizette. 
 
 "She said she wished to enter the old church, and I 
 went home to get the keys, leaving her still standing by 
 the grave. She did not stay there, though, for before I 
 reached the hedge she was there with me again. She 
 went with me to my very door, and waited down below 
 while I went up. 
 
 "When I came down with the keys she walked with me 
 to the church, ever looking all around, as if she might be 
 trying to remember some familiar thing which would not 
 come readily to her mind. The whole small village seemed 
 to be of interest to her, and she talked of it and asked 
 me many questions. She said it seemed to her as if she 
 had seen something very like it all before, almost as if 
 the town had come to her, sometime, in a dream. She 
 said her friend, an artist, had painted a picture of the 
 churchyard which she had seen, and that, of course, ac 
 counted for her memory of that. She said it must have 
 changed but little since the days when he had painted it." 
 
 "Very little," said Kentucky. 
 
 The old man looked keenly at him before he went on.
 
 KENTUCKY'S GREAT DISCOVERY. 257 
 
 "So she said/' he finally continued. "But she said that 
 there seemed to be there in her memory a picture of things 
 about the town which were not painted in the picture 
 which her friend had made. The very butcher shop, she 
 said, seemed like one that she had seen in dreams, grown 
 older. She could not understand at all, she said, the 
 strange feeling that all about the village was familiar to 
 her was familiar, although she never had set her eyes on 
 it before. 
 
 "We went from my shop to the church and entered, and 
 she looked about at the interior. It has been newly deco 
 rated, M'sieu, and is very fine now, I assure you. Before 
 you go away you must certainly look in on it. She, how 
 ever, did not seem to be impressed by it, although I told 
 her what large sums the beautification of it had cost the 
 parish. 
 
 "From the church we went back to the grave there in 
 the churchyard, and it was then she placed the flowers on 
 it. She had had them in her hand before. When she 
 had put them there she kneeled and said a prayer. 
 
 "We left the churchyard just as the sun was setting, 
 and she stopped and gazed at it until all the glory faded 
 from the sky. While she looked at it a strange change 
 came into her face, which almost frightened me. We 
 were standing at the end of the old path, just beyond the 
 hedge. It was where my mother used to stand and scold 
 M'sieu because he kept the dinner waiting with his gazing 
 at the sunsets. 
 
 " 'It is strange,' she said. 'It is very strange. It is the 
 churchyard of the picture that I know. This is the 
 churchyard that he told me of, and yet it is the church 
 yard of the memories, too! It is the churchyard of the 
 picture. It is the churchyard of the memories!' 
 
 "I asked her what memories she meant, but she did not 
 answer me. We started to go across the road there to my 
 shop, where I intended to put by my keys before I went 
 back to the hotel. She stopped there in the middle of the 
 road. 
 
 " 'You go on/ she said to me. 'After you have left the 
 keys, come back. I wish to make arrangements about
 
 258 LIZETTE. 
 
 having other flowers placed on the grave. I shall be wait' 
 ing at the entrance of the path/ 
 
 "I did just as she told me, M'sieu, and when I came 
 back, having left the keys, she was still standing in tha 
 entrance of the old path, which used to be the main way 
 into the cemetery. She asked me again if I could remenv 
 ber the artist who had painted pictures there, and I told 
 her all that I could remember of him. 
 
 " 'It is because his wife and baby are buried in the chol 
 era grave that I wish to have the flowers put upon it/ she 
 said. 
 
 "I tried to correct her mistake. I said, 'His wife is 
 buried in the cholera grave. That I know. But his baby 
 is not buried there. The baby did not die when the 
 mother died. The baby was taken away from here. It 
 did not die/" 
 
 "You were wrong," interrupted Kentucky, sadly. 
 
 "I was not wrong," the old man protested. "I ought 
 to know, for I came back here and heard about it, not long 
 after the little one had been taken away. The baby did 
 not die, M'sieu. The baby was taken by its mother's 
 relatives." 
 
 For a moment Kentucky looked at the old man with a 
 strange eagerness of expression on his face. It was as if 
 a great hope was being born within him. But he killed 
 it at its birth. 
 
 "You are mistaken," he said, slowly. "I had thought 
 you would remember me. I have waited all the afternoon 
 for you to recognize me. I am the artist who painted in 
 the churchyard and the baby died. When I came back 
 from America they both were dead the mother and the 
 little one. *They both were dead and buried in the chol 
 era grave. It is because of that that I am here." 
 
 The old caretaker could scarcely believe his ears. 
 
 "Oh, la, la, la!" he cried. "Of a certainty it is you. I 
 remember. I recognize you now. All the afternoon my 
 mind has struggled to make out who you were. All the 
 afternoon! It seemed to me that there was something 
 about you somewhere, I could not tell what, which was 
 familiar. Now I have it. And so you are the artist with
 
 KENTUCKY'S GREAT DISCOVERY. 259 
 
 whom my mother used to quarrel. Bien, bien, lien! And 
 it was because of you that the little lady left the flowers 
 there and will arrange to have more sent from Pau. Ah, 
 it is a pity that she did not know that you were ill at the 
 hotel! How strange is life!" 
 
 He reached his hand out to Kentucky, and the old artist 
 shook it heartily. 
 
 "I wondered if you would recall me/' he said, smiling. 
 "I should soon have told you who I was." 
 
 "Ah!" said the caretaker, "you wished to have a joke 
 on me. And all the time you knew who I was, and all the 
 time I had no thought that you were he at whom my 
 mother used to scold because the dinners waited. Bien! 
 Bien!" 
 
 "And so," said Kentucky, "you see that the little one 
 was right. She knew the baby died because I told her 
 of it." 
 
 The caretaker looked at him attentively for a moment. 
 He was very solemn as he spoke. 
 
 "M'sieu," he said, "I am an old man now, and my mem 
 ory is bad. But there are some things which are much 
 impressed on me, and this is one. Perhaps it seems ab 
 surd for me to say that your own child did not die to you 
 who says she did, but I am sure. When I came home 
 from sailoring the cholera had passed, and you had come 
 and found your wife was dead and gone again. But when 
 I came my mother told me that the baby had not died. 
 She told me more, but I cannot clearly recall all she said. 
 It has been many years. But she told me that the baby 
 did not die. She said that relatives of the mother came 
 from Paris and took away the baby. I cannot be mis 
 taken. She told me that the father of your wife and his 
 sister or her sister it must have been her sister, for I re 
 call my mother spoke of her as a young woman came and 
 took the child away and paid the money that was owing." 
 
 Kentucky gazed at him with great intentness and gulped 
 once or twice. The man's words impressed him greatly, 
 but he fought to keep his mind from accepting the hope 
 that was born within it. The whole thing was too im 
 possible, too incredible to think of.
 
 260 L1ZETTE. 
 
 "When I returned from America," he said, slowly, to 
 the man, "I came here quickly. I had not known about 
 the cholera here until after I had been a day upon the 
 road from Marseilles, where I landed from the ship. It 
 was then that I learned about it and hurried here by night 
 and day over roads that were very bad. I was poor, and 
 that journey by special voilures cost me much. But still 
 I made it when 1 heard that the cholera had swept this 
 little town. I came here and I found that both my wife 
 and baby had been laid to rest there in that common grave 
 with all the other victims of the cholera." 
 
 The caretaker shook his head. 
 
 "Many years have passed," said he. "It is true that 
 you ought to remember more about such things than I. 
 It seems to me that some affair most strange is hidden in 
 this matter. I will tell you how the tale was told to me 
 on my return, which was not many weeks after you had 
 come and gone. 
 
 "It was the first that I had heard about the plague here. 
 Our own household was grief-stricken. Still there was 
 room left in the mouths of folk for gossip. Tears in the 
 eyes and sorrow in the hearts will not drive gossip from 
 the mouth. Oh, I remember it so well. I wish that J 
 could tell what was last week as well as I can tell what was 
 twenty years ago! But that is the way with age to have 
 better memory for times remote than for times just passed. 
 
 "Well, when I returned there was much gossip in the 
 village about your wife and you and the child. The story 
 was that you and she had married against the wishes of her 
 family. It was even said that you had been forced to go 
 to England to get married, and that you could never have 
 been wed in France, because her family had found for her 
 another man." 
 
 "All that was true," said Kentucky, slowly, with a 
 strange look growing on his face. 
 
 "Well, when you had been gone a time and did not come 
 back as you had promised pardon, M'sieu, I am merely 
 telling you the things that were said here; I know nothing 
 of them myself " 
 
 "Go on," said Kentucky, calmly. "I know that unkind
 
 KENTUCKY'S GREAT DISCOVERY. 261 
 
 things might well be said. I was delayed in America 
 much longer than I had thought to be." 
 
 "So I was told," said the old caretaker; "so you see 
 that my memory cannot be so very bad, if I remember 
 that so accurately. 
 
 "Well, I was told that you did not come and did not 
 come, and that the people who had given lodging to your 
 wife were worried for their money. You remember, do 
 you not, that you did not pay our family for the bill that 
 you had left behind when you went off to the United 
 States, and that you did not send money to your wife. 
 Pardon, M'sieu! Such, I assure you, was the gossip. It 
 was doubtless false, but such things were said. I beg your 
 pardon." 
 
 "Go on," said Kentucky, reddening. "It was true. I 
 did not pay because I could not pay. When I came back I 
 paid. It was to get money that I went away." 
 
 "I remember that also," said the caretaker. "I remem 
 ber that they told me that you paid when you came back, 
 and that was what made them doubly frightened about the 
 thing which had happened in your absence." 
 
 "What was the thing that had happened in my ab 
 sence?" asked Kentucky, anxiously. 
 
 "Well, first of all, your wife's death," said the caretaker. 
 "And, second, that which happened to the baby. It was 
 because of that, I think, that they must have lied to you." 
 
 Kentucky, pale and trembling, stood and listened to 
 him with half-opened lips. 
 
 "What happened to my baby?" he demanded. 
 
 "She did not die," the caretaker said, slowly, with his 
 old lips twitching nervously and his old tongue moistening 
 them now and then, as if he were distressed. "I' know 
 I well remember now that they told you that she did. 
 They said to me that when you came and found your wife 
 was dead you acted like a madman." 
 
 "And well I might," said poor Kentucky. 
 
 "I remember her," the caretaker said, slowly. "And 
 she was very beautiful." 
 
 Kentucky looked at him with grateful eyes. His heart 
 thanked the old man for what he said. His talk had
 
 LIZETTE. 
 
 shocked Ketucky much, at first, and with so great a bound 
 had the emotions in his heart surged high with hope that 
 the blood, which had so deeply flushed his face as he had 
 listened, left it even whiter than it had been when it went 
 out again. 
 
 The old man spoke now with some determination, as if 
 there had come in his mind a strong resolve. 
 
 "As I think about the matter," he said, slowly, "it seems 
 to me that you have suffered great and grievous wrong. I 
 thought so at the time. I think so now." 
 
 There was such conviction and real sincerity in his voice 
 that again that surge of color came into Kentucky's face; 
 again he looked at the old caretaker with eagerness. 
 
 "It seems to me that you have suffered grievous wrong," 
 the man repeated, slowly. "The baby did not die. She 
 did not even have the cholera. Such things are strange, 
 but cholera is strange. You cannot blame my family too 
 much. You must remember that they were very po_or. 
 You must remember that you owed them much. You 
 must remember that you had been long away. You must 
 remember that artists are often strange, and that it was 
 not queer that they should think that when you did not 
 come and did not come, the gossip spread that you had 
 left your p'tite French wife and gone away to the United 
 States to come no more. Well, this is how it happened. 
 She died. Before she died she sent to Paris to tell her 
 family, from whom she was estranged, if I remember, be 
 cause she married you " 
 
 "Yes, that is true," said poor Kentucky, trembling. 
 "Go on." 
 
 "The baby did not die," the old man said again, with 
 absolute conviction. 
 
 Kentucky, overcome by this reiteration, felt strangely 
 weak. His head swam round. He trembled. The care 
 taker was frightened. 
 
 "Come with me," he said. He led him to a seat there 
 in the cemetery, where they both could plainly see the 
 cholera grave. 
 
 Kentucky spoke with thickened tongue and crackling 
 lips.
 
 KENTUCKY'S GREAT DISCOVERY. 263 
 
 "For God's sake, tell me quickly/' he said, with trem 
 bling jaws that almost made him stutter. 
 
 "This was the way it was," the old man said, with some 
 excitement. "This, indeed, was just the way it was. You 
 did not come. You owed much money. The people 
 here had made their minds up to the idea that you had 
 run away from both your debts and your wife. She died. 
 Before she died she was much worried by the fact that 
 you did not come to her or write to her. Or, if you wrote, 
 there was something in your letters that made her most 
 unhappy." 
 
 "I told her of my troubles in America," said poor Ken 
 tucky. 
 
 "Well, what it was that made her worry I do not know. 
 Nobody knew. They thought it was as I have said, and 
 that she feared as did the folk you owed that you had 
 gone to stay and would not come to pay your debts or get 
 your wife. When the cholera came and she was ill of it 
 she was worse worried than before, and it may be that the 
 worry of your silence made her worse." 
 
 "Good God, man!" said Kentucky, cowering. An 
 American or Englishman could not so calmly have gone 
 on, as did the old caretaker. The French are cruel. As 
 a race, the suffering of others interests them, but does not 
 make them sympathetic. There was in the old French 
 man now that same calm curiosity which a surgeon shows 
 in watching the effect of pain upon a patient on the oper 
 ating table. 
 
 "Before she died she sent to Paris," said the caretaker, 
 deliberately. "I think the priest here told her that it 
 would be to her soul's advantage if she sent to Paris. 
 At any rate, she sent to Paris and two members of her 
 family came down." 
 
 "Which ones?" Kentucky asked, his paleness giving way 
 again to vivid coloring. 
 
 "That I cannot tell. They had come and gone before I 
 came back here. I think it was her sister and her father. 
 At any rate, no matter who they were, our people were 
 most glad that they should come, for they paid the bills 
 and took the child with them."
 
 264 LIZETTE. 
 
 "Kemember," said Kentucky, slowly. "Kemember that 
 if you are lying or mistaken your sin is horrible!" 
 
 The old man colored now with anger. He shrugged his 
 shoulders. 
 
 "Eh bien, M'sieu!" he said. "If you do not wish to 
 have me speak, why question me? I shall say no more. 
 What reason would I have for lying? Not much, I tell 
 you, for I will also tell you that when I learned what had 
 been done, I told my people that they had done a sin, and 
 that in time their suffering would pay for it." 
 
 Here he paused again. "It is strange about this mat 
 ter of the sinning and the punishments," he said. "They 
 were not punished for it on this earth, at least. It seems 
 to me sometimes that those who sin the most the least 
 are punished." 
 
 "I know," Kentucky interrupted, "but finish, please. 
 We'll talk religion afterwards." 
 
 "I ought not to be offended," said the old man. "You 
 have been ill, and what I have said to you has affected 
 you. That I can plainly see. But, M'sieu, the baby did 
 not die. Of that you may be sure. And that it is most 
 easy for me to prove to you here in this town. I can take 
 you to others who will tell you that the baby did not die." 
 
 Kentucky was trembling violently. 
 
 "Come, then," he said. "What you have said to me 
 seems most incredible, but I must know. Come. Take 
 me to whoever in your mind can straighten this thing 
 out." 
 
 The old man led the way to a small shop, whose keeper 
 was older than himself. There, and from others in the 
 village, Kentucky learned that what the man had said had 
 been quite true. 
 
 His ~baby had not died!
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 THE STORY OF THE OLD WOMAN WHO SOLD COALS. 
 
 Poor Kentucky's emotions cannot be described. They 
 vacillated between joy and fury. That his child had not 
 been numbered with the victims of the cholera, that she 
 might still be living, was such happiness to him that he 
 could scarcely realize it. That he had been lied to and 
 cheated of a father's rights in her was maddening. But 
 there remained the possibility that he might find her yet, 
 and this filled him with a strange exhilaration. He hur 
 ried to the postoffice and sent a message to John Murdoch, 
 telling him about the matter, and then started to 
 thoroughly investigate the case. With some difficulty he 
 learned details, and got the only address those there in the 
 town could give him. It was of the aunt of his dead wife, 
 and he asked Murdoch in another telegram to have 
 Houlier see her, if she could be found. He did not go to 
 Paris for a full week, for even in the excitement of this 
 new discovery he could not cease his searching for Lizette. 
 It was hard to trace the little one in Pau, but finally he 
 learned with reasonable certainty that she had gone 
 the northward way, although he could not satisfy himself 
 that her tickets had been taken all the way to Paris. When, 
 a week later, he gave up his fruitless search^ after having 
 made such arrangements as were necessary to have it car 
 ried on by the authorities, he went finally to Paris. Mur 
 doch met him at the train. There was, indeed, community 
 of Borrow now between them. They both had suffered 
 grievous losses. 
 
 So far as lay within his power, Murdoch helped Ken 
 tucky in his own sad search, even as the aged student had 
 helped him in his searching for Lizette. The only clue
 
 266 LIZETTE. 
 
 that poor Kentucky had were the old addresses of his loved 
 one's family. These they vainly investigated. So far as 
 they could learn they all were dead or gone away, where, 
 no one seemed to know. It was when the old woman who 
 sold coals came up with the week's supply, and just be 
 fore the date when they had planned to leave for America, 
 that matters began to clear again, and in their clearing be 
 came still more confused and painful. She lingered long 
 to talk that afternoon, and wept. She seemed to share 
 acutely in their own distress, and finally told them that 
 there was a story which she ought to tell to them before 
 they went away, a story whic'h they certainly should know, 
 but a story which was not entirely to her own credit. Still, 
 she had resolved to tell it. Her distress was very keen. 
 They could not doubt the truth of that. She sobbed and 
 begged them to forgive her, before she told them why she 
 sobbed or what there was to be forgiven. 
 
 "It is strange," she said brokenly. "It is all most strange. 
 I cannot tell how God brings these things about. The' 
 ways of God are strange. I shall tell you something which 
 will not help you now, and never will, indeed, but some 
 thing which you ought to know because you love P'tite 
 Madame so well. 
 
 "P'tite Madame," she went on, tearfully, "was very good 
 to me. She did not know my real identity, or else she 
 would not have been so good. I knew her. I know now 
 who the dear child is. Ah! If only I knew where now 
 to find her! I should beg forgiveness of her. I should 
 beg forgiveness of her on my knees." 
 
 The men could not understand at all what worried the 
 old woman, and watched her, wonderingly. But her sor 
 row was so real that Murdoch said kindly to her: 
 
 "I'm sure that you are greatly over-estimating some 
 small thing." 
 
 "If that were true," she said, still weeping, "I should bo 
 happier. But it is not true. I tried, at first, to be as 
 kind to her as possible, because I knew that she had 
 suffered wrong." 
 
 "You certainly were kind to her," said Murdoch. "What 
 wrong was it that she suffered? I am sure that you had
 
 STORY OF THE OLD WOMAN WHO SOLD COALS. 267 
 
 nothing to do with her flight from Paris. That your son 
 had that I also know, but what is passed is passed. I 
 promised you that I should never harm him any more and 
 I shall keep my promise. It would not bring my small 
 one back to me to duck him in the Seine again/' 
 
 "Ah!" said the old woman who sold coals, "if my own 
 sins could be washed from me by ducking me in Seine 
 water, I should beg of you to duck me there a thousand 
 times, and not one word of complaint should come from 
 my old lips. But ducking me in Seine water would not 
 help my sin to her. I told you that I knew who she was. 
 I do. She does not. It was because I thought that I had 
 wronged her that I helped P'tite Madame once or twice, 
 and it was because I helped her that afterwards she bought 
 the coals of me and sometimes stopped to brightly chatter 
 in my poor old shop. I helped her in the first place be 
 cause I knew the wrongs she suffered under, although she 
 did not, and wished to wipe away my part of them for my 
 own souPs good. So when I could be kind to her, I was 
 kind. I tried even to do more, but that was quite beyond 
 my power. I tried to find her father for her, years after 
 the whole thing had happened, but it was too late. He 
 vanished from the south of France where I had last heard 
 of him, and never could 1 find where he had gone. P'tite 
 Madame she was my niece!" 
 
 The two men looked at her in sheer amazement. 
 
 "This was the way it was. My sister married much 
 against our parents' will. She married an American an 
 artist. I never saw him once. My parents never spoke 
 of him except to curse him, and after my poor sister ran 
 away with him her name was rarely mentioned in our 
 home, or, if it were, was mentioned coupled with unpleas 
 ant words. I am not so old, Messieurs, as I am sure I 
 look to be. Indeed, I am not quite so very old. I was the 
 youngest of the family, and when my sister ran away it was 
 that I was in the convent. She surely loved her artist 
 husband. One time when she was lying ill she wrote to 
 me a letter full of love for me and full of love for him. She 
 said that all that had been said of him was false, and that 
 there was in all the world no man so good, so kind, so tal-
 
 268 LI2ETTE. 
 
 ented as he. She wrote of him in such loving words and 
 with such praise that after that I could not quite believe 
 the hard things that my parents said of him and her. I 
 was young, too, and romantic, as young women are. It 
 may seem strange that an old woman who sells coals should 
 have an education; but I had an education and read many 
 books. I was very sorry for the way our parents thought 
 of her and him, Messieurs. It was not a few times when 
 I wished that I, too, might find an artist husband to bear 
 me to the south of France/' 
 
 Kentucky was looking at her with strained eyes. He 
 seemed to find in her recital a promise of strange things to 
 come. 
 
 "What is your name?" he asked. 
 
 "Paillard," she said. "That is my name. I have not 
 told that to a soul for many years. But Paillard is my 
 name." 
 
 Kentucky's face was white as chalk. He tried to speak. 
 He could only move his lips, which, dry almost to cracking, 
 loosed no sound. His hands twitched nervously, their 
 fingers opening and shutting with no object in their action. 
 She looked at him with worry in her face. Murdoch had 
 been watching her, but when she paused and began to 
 stare so fearsomely at poor Kentucky, he looked toward 
 him, too, and what he saw upon Kentucky's face alarmed 
 him. He sprang up quickly and went to the student's side. 
 He placed his hand upon his shoulder. He shook him. 
 He spoke to him with terror in his voice. 
 
 "Kentucky!" he cried. "Kentucky! What's the mat 
 ter with you? What's the matter tell me what's the 
 matter!" 
 
 But Kentucky did not speak. It was evident from the 
 working of the muscles of his face that he was trying to do 
 so, but no sound except some strange dry dickings came 
 from him. He merely strained forward with that face on 
 which his agony was written and looked into the face 
 of the old woman who sold coals. She gazed at him trans.- 
 fixed between fear and wonder. Murdoch and she both 
 thought the student had been taken by a fit. Murdoch 
 bade the woman go for water, and placed his arm around
 
 STOKY OF THE OLD WOMAN WHO SOLD COALS. 269 
 
 Kentucky's shoulders. The old woman got the water 
 and Kentucky let Murdoch bathe his face with it. When 
 finally he could speak he only said to her: 
 
 "Go on. Go on. Go on. Tell me about your sister. 
 Tell me about your sister, who was Lizette's mother. Tell 
 me about the artist she ran away with. Tell me every 
 thing. Tell me about the child." 
 
 "But M'sieu " said the old woman, anxiously. "I 
 
 shall run to get a doctor." 
 
 "No. No. No. Tell the story. Tell it quickly." 
 
 Still she hesitated. Murdoch kept his arm around Ken 
 tucky, and would have raised him to take him to a bed, but 
 Kentucky would not move to rise or take his strangely 
 staring eyes from off the woman's face. 
 
 "Go on. Go on," he said. "Did your sister die?" 
 
 "She died," said the old woman, wonderingly. 
 
 "Did she have a baby?" asked Kentucky. 
 
 "She had a baby," said the woman. 
 
 "Did she die of cholera?" asked Kentucky. 
 
 "She died of cholera," said the woman. 
 
 Now Murdoch began to understand. His face paled, 
 too. He waited for Kentucky's coming question in an 
 attitude almost as tense as that of the old student around 
 whose stooping shoulders his strong arms were held. 
 
 "Did the baby die?" Kentucky asked with a twitching, 
 nervous lips. 
 
 "The baby did not die," the woman said. "And that is 
 where my sin lies. We paid the people with whom they 
 had lodged to tell the father when he came that the child 
 died with the mother. It was a lie. The mother died; 
 the baby lived. The baby, Messieurs (and here the old 
 woman swayed with hands clasped tight between her 
 knees), the baby lived and was brought here to Paris by 
 my sister. It was a quarrel that we had about this thing, 
 that quarrel that made me do the thing that made my 
 people tell me to go my way and come to them no more. 
 I went it. It has not been a good way. The baby, 
 Messieurs, the baby was P'tite Madame. The baby was 
 Madame Lizette." 
 
 And now Kentucky closed his staring eyes, and, slipping
 
 270 LIZETTE. 
 
 through Murdoch's arms, themselves relaxed by great sur 
 prise slid gently to the floor. 
 
 And thus was the revelation of Lizette's origin made 
 to the two men who loved her. Thus were many things 
 revealed Kentucky's strange love for her, which he had 
 often said was like a father's love; Lizette's own love for 
 him, which she had many times declared was not like that 
 she bore for Murdoch; Lizette's strange and half -under 
 stood emotions when she looked upon that picture of the 
 churchyard in Kentucky's attic-room; her puzzled feelings 
 when she had been in that southern churchyard where the 
 sentinel poplars stood, and where the great bearded artist 
 had, in days gone by, clasped strong arms around her and 
 held her .up to watch the fading sunset.
 
 CHAPTEK XXIX. 
 
 DEFEAT. 
 
 The effect of this amazing revelation on Kentucky was 
 astonishing. It seemed to give him strength. It seemed to 
 take the years away from him even as the weary search had 
 added many to his quota. The knowledge that his baby 
 lived, and that that baby was the little one he loved so well 
 and for whom he searched with Murdoch, gave incentive to 
 his life something it had ever lacked since he was told 
 that the little one slumbered in her mother's arms there in 
 the cholera grave in the south of France. If it were possible 
 that the two men could be closer in their friendship than 
 they were before, they became so after this revelation of 
 their community of love. Paris has never seen, and is un 
 likely ever to see, such searching as was made of it by these 
 two men. Every agency which they could bring to work 
 with them was enlisted in their earnest search. Every 
 stone was turned which human guesswork could imagine 
 had underneath it some clue to this small woman who had 
 disappeared. 
 
 For the first time in his life Murdoch broke down 
 physically. Lack of sleep, worry and the tremendous 
 physical strain of the search made him ill, and for 
 three weeks he was in his bed -in the old studio. He 
 would let no woman but the old woman who sold 
 coals look after him. He did not find it in his 
 heart to feel angry with her. She had deceived Lizette, 
 but also she had cared for her when most she needed 
 friends. Many details of the poor child's lonely life 
 in Paris after she had fled from the lofts of the shops 
 where artificial flowers are made, in which she had been 
 placed by her mother's father long dead now she told
 
 272 LIZETTE. 
 
 to Murdoch. Murdoch almost felt thankful, as she talked, 
 that the old man was dead. He feared that had he lived 
 he should have wreaked on him a vengeance for his treat 
 ment of his loved one. But he was dead, and all the fam 
 ily were dead save only the old woman who sold coals. 
 
 Finally three months had passed since the two men had 
 looked up so eagerly at the windows of the studio which 
 overlooked the Gardens of the Luxembourg, expectantly, 
 and hoping to see in one of them her bright face, framed 
 and wreathed in welcoming smiles. The police had given 
 up. Newspaper advertising had done no good. Private 
 detectives had scoured all France for her. Even poor Ken 
 tucky, who had sadly aged during the search, was convinced 
 that further effort was well nigh useless. 
 
 The tragedy had brought these two old friends closer 
 together than they had been before, and neither considered 
 for a moment the idea of being parted. So, at last, tired 
 and worn, heavy hearted and sorrowful, they set their faces 
 toward America and journeyed to New York.
 
 CHAPTEE XXX. 
 
 JOHN MURDOCH, BANKER. 
 
 Once back again at the bank, Murdoch threw all that he 
 could of his energy and life into the business which had 
 robbed him of that which was dearer to him than all 
 else put together. Early he worked and late he worked, 
 and his fame as a banker spread abroad. He had never 
 touched the canvases Lizette had bought for him with 
 such merry jokings with the dealer, and arranged for him 
 so prettily by the easel in the studio. He felt certain that 
 never again could he use brush or palette. His life, had 
 not Kentucky been with him, would have become a veri 
 table desert of loneliness. The two old friends were ever 
 in each other's company, and their friendship grew with 
 the passing of years. 
 
 Years have their softening and their chastening influ 
 ence. Five of them had passed before John Murdoch and 
 Kentucky ceased to say in expectation, "When we find 
 Lizette." But the years passed, and find her they could 
 not. Each year they went to Paris, and each year they 
 made new efforts. All the efforts failed. They permitted 
 no change to be made in the old studio in Paris. Mur 
 doch, le millionaire Americain, and the romance of his 
 quest for the little one he loved became a tradition in the 
 Quarter. By and by the changing crowds forgot it and 
 did not even look with curiosity at those windows which 
 overlooked the Gardens of the Luxembourg. In New 
 York, when the story became known, it was a nine days' 
 wonder, but with the tenth day came forgetfulness, and the 
 old routine at the bank began again, while the world for 
 got the fact that the staid and solemn banker had been a 
 most romantic figure as a lover. But Murdoch did not
 
 274 LIZETTE. 
 
 forget. Had not he had his old friend with him to talk of 
 her John Murdoch might have been a misanthrope. 
 
 He permitted not one single change to he made in the 
 studio which overlooked the Gardens of the Luxembourg. 
 Everything was as it had been. The old woman who sold 
 coals closed her shop and went to live there in the studio, 
 to care for it and keep it ever bright and cheerful for the 
 coming of its mistress for they would not admit that 
 that mistress might not come at all. Kentucky did not 
 become less eccentric with the passing of the years. He 
 paid his board to Murdoch regularly, and told him that if 
 he should once refuse to take it he would take ship back 
 to Paris. Murdoch knew he meant this and never made 
 any question of it. It seemed somewhat absurd for him 
 to come home in the evenings and find the aged student 
 sitting in a lofty-ceilinged room in the old mansion there 
 on Madison avenue poring over those little pictures on the 
 wood, but each day he worked at them and regularly he 
 shipped them to the dealers to be disposed of in Paris at 
 the old rates. 
 
 "There is one thing about this all that mortifies me,*' 
 he said one night to Murdoch. 
 
 "What is it?" asked John Murdoch, looking up from his 
 newspaper. His eyes had a deeper, more steadfast ex 
 pression now than in the old days in Paris. But they 
 twinkled sometimes with .the dry humor that had been 
 characteristic of his father. They smiled now as he looked 
 at Kentucky and asked the question. 
 
 "It's this/' Kentucky said, with grumbling. "The deal 
 ers have the best of me. I hadn't thought of that before. 
 By George! they have the best of me at last." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 "Why the paint is always dry now, before they pay me 
 for my pictures," said Kentucky. "I can't work them with 
 my wooden box at such great distance. I have to have 
 them dry before they can be packed for such a voyage." 
 
 "You told me that they'd raised the price, though," said 
 Murdoch, smiling. 
 
 "Oh, that's all over now. That was only for a little 
 while. It only lasted while they could say that I was your
 
 JOHN MURDOCH, BANKER. 275 
 
 close friend and tell the tale of me that came out in the 
 newspapers. It passed with the passing of our fame. I 
 only get the same old five francs now." 
 
 He painted on in silence for a time, drawing some of 
 those marvellously fine line which would have done credit 
 to a carriage striper. It was most incongruous to see the 
 aging student employed at this small work there in the 
 luxurious surroundings of the Madison avenue house, but 
 Murdoch never hinted to him that there was no need for 
 him to work. He knew that those small pictures had much 
 to do with keeping old Kentucky happy and contented. 
 
 "By the way/' Kentucky said at last, as he held one off 
 and squinted at it through his half-closed eyes exactly as 
 he had in days gone by while he painted out his debt to 
 Murdoch, and Lizette read the Testament to him. 
 
 "Well?" said Murdoch, interrogatively. 
 
 "Are you going to be at the bank tomorrow?" 
 
 "Certainly. Am I ever anywhere else? What's the mat 
 ter with you to-night, Kentucky?" 
 
 "Nothing. Going to be there at half past ten?" 
 
 "Certainly, I'll be there at half past ten. Where in the 
 world else would I be at half past ten?" 
 
 "Don't know. Can't always tell. I'll drop in about 
 then. S'pose I'll have to give my name to that damned 
 boy!" 
 
 "No," said Murdoch. "Just wear your hat. They all 
 know it. I think that most of them are somewhat afraid 
 of it." 
 
 Kentucky became reflective. 
 
 "It's a pity about that hat, Murdoch," said Kentucky. 
 "I'm really afraid it's wearing out." 
 
 "Not really," said Murdoch. 
 
 "I really fear," went on Kentucky, gravely, "that, with 
 other old friends of my childhood, it is beginning to show 
 age." 
 
 "Why don't you get a new one, really, Kentucky," said 
 Murdoch, to whom that hat had long been sorely grievous. 
 
 "I got one once, not long ago," Kentucky said, "and 
 was going to wear it to the bank. I knew the old one 
 bothered you. I tried to wear the new one ? but I couldn't.
 
 276 LIZETTE. 
 
 The wheels here in my head stopped turning when I put 
 new covering above them, and I gave the new hat to a 
 beggar. Is it understood, then, that at half past ten to 
 morrow you have an engagement at the bank with me 
 and with my hat?" 
 
 "It is understood," said Murdoch. 
 
 "All right, then. Get up, you slothful creature, and 
 come over here and look. My brush slipped while I 
 painted in the mouth of this old pirate and it makes him 
 look like your cashier. Come and look at it." 
 
 Murdoch rose and looked. It did look much like Jere 
 miah Smith. He laughed. 
 
 "If you'll sell it to me," said Murdoch, "I'll give it to 
 him." 
 
 "I will give it to you at the regular price five francs." 
 
 Murdoch took a dollar from his pocket, and, as Ken 
 tucky had put the finishing touches on the picture, took 
 that also, and examined it. 
 
 "I think your work gets worse with the passage of years, 
 Kentucky." 
 
 "I know it," said Kentucky, with conviction, "and it 
 fills my soul with joy. You understand that that is the 
 accomplishment of the impossible. Not many men when 
 dying can look back at the past and say that they have 
 done that thing which no man else has ever done, but I 
 can. I can say with truth that I have painted pictures 
 which were worse than it was possible for human hands to 
 paint. I know it and I glory in it. Now I'm going to 
 quit." 
 
 "Quit what?" 
 
 "Quit working for to-night. I've painted out my last 
 week's board bill. It would never do for me to get too far 
 ahead. It wouldn't seem like me." 
 
 "That's right, it wouldn't. Let's talk Quarter," said 
 John Murdoch. 
 
 They often "talked Quarter." It is doubtful if they 
 found in any part of their lives together such enjoyment 
 as when they were talking of Lizette, or of the details of 
 that life in Paris which seemed so far away in banking 
 hours, but came so close when banking hours were over,
 
 JOHN MURDOCH, BANKER. 277 
 
 and they sat there in that solemn brownstone mansion, 
 going over the past. More than once, when they had fin 
 ished, Murdoch almost had to rub his eyes to make cer 
 tain that New York was not the dream and Paris the 
 reality. Even now that he had become a staid and solemn 
 banker, and had stopped winning prizes of honor and had 
 turned attention to what in the United States is consid 
 ered the much more genteel business of winning dollars, 
 the old life there in the studio which overlooked the Gar 
 dens of the Luxembourg was real to him in every detail 
 when he talked of it with old Kentucky.
 
 CHAPTEE XXXI. 
 
 A BUSINESS TRANSACTION. 
 
 It was not long after ten the next morning when Ken 
 tucky made his appearance at the bank. His quaint fig 
 ure was no longer the object of such consternation as it 
 had been that first time that he had ever entered those 
 dignified portals, when he had come to New York to get 
 Murdoch and take him back with him to Paris on that 
 sadly futile quest for poor Lizette, but it was still a matter 
 of much interest. No longer did the employees of that 
 staid and respectable banking house look on him with hor 
 ror, and consider his general appearance a public scandal, 
 but there were those there who still believed that if the 
 president of that bank was to associate with men who 
 looked like that he should keep them caged. But this day 
 Kentucky entered with a confident step. 
 
 "I have come," he said, with dignity, "on business." 
 
 "Great Scott!" said Murdoch, sitting straight up in his 
 chair. "Sit down then, my dear sir," and laughed. 
 
 Kentucky was offended, and Murdoch saw that his 
 offense was real. Strange traits Kentucky sometimes 
 showed. Murdoch had long since learned to know that his 
 old friend was a man of moods, and that these moods must 
 be carefully respected. 
 
 Kentucky gravely took the visitors' chair. 
 
 "I have come," he said, with dignity, "to borrow 
 money." 
 
 "All right, old man," said Murdoch, "how much money 
 do you want?" 
 
 "The first thing you should ask," Kentucky said, ag 
 grieved, "if you treated me as you would treat another man 
 who came here on a similar errand, is what security I've
 
 A BUSINESS TRANSACTION. 279 
 
 got. You've got no business to ask me first how much I 
 want." 
 
 The ghost of a smile wavered across Murdoch's face, but 
 he humored the old student. 
 
 "We don't ask that of a man whom we know will not ask 
 more than he can give security for. We find out first how 
 much he wants and try to see whether or not we've got 
 that much to lend. Then we talk about security after 
 wards." 
 
 "Is that the way you do with other people?" asked Ken 
 tucky, with suspicion. 
 
 "Yes, that's the way," John Murdoch answered. 
 
 "All right," Kentucky said. "I want ten thousand dol 
 lars." 
 
 Murdoch tried not to gasp. 
 
 "You see, it's this way," said Kentucky. "I've got to 
 have ten thousand dollars. I'm going into business." 
 
 "You're going into business!" said John Murdoch. 
 
 "Yes, you idiot," said Kentucky; "why shouldn't I?" 
 
 "It's no more business for you to call me an idiot, my 
 dear sir, than it was for me to say to you what you just 
 now took such exception to," said Murdoch. 
 
 "That's all right," said Kentucky, "but I'm no banker, 
 and I don't pretend to be. As a banker, you must put up 
 with the eccentricities of your customers or you'll lose your 
 trade. Your customers don't have to forgive yours. All 
 they have to do is go down the street and find another 
 bank." 
 
 "Now, old man," said Murdoch, "don't do that. We 
 can't afford to lose your business. This has been a long, 
 hard winter." 
 
 At last Kentucky laughed. 
 
 "Shut up," he said. "Now tell me. Will you lend that 
 money to me? I can give you security worth pretty nearly 
 that right away, and, within a few weeks after you have 
 loaned the money, I can give you more." 
 
 "Are you in earnest?" asked John Murdoch. 
 
 "Certainly, I am in earnest," said Kentucky. 
 
 "I'll do it, just for luck," said Murdoch. "What's your 
 security?"
 
 280 LIZETTE. 
 
 Kentucky most impressively pulled out a large and busi 
 ness-looking pocketbook, and took from it a solemn-look 
 ing paper. This he unfolded with much ceremony, smooth 
 ing out its creases as he opened it. 
 
 "You see," said he, "that I have here a deed for certain 
 building lots in New Jersey." 
 
 Murdoch hid his surprise as best he could. He took the 
 paper. One glance showed him that it was no deed, but 
 a mere contract showing that Kentucky had paid two hun 
 dred dollars on some land which he could take a title to by 
 paying two thousand dollars more, but he realized that it 
 would startle the old student if he explained this to him, 
 and he said that the papers seemed to be most satisfactory 
 and that he could make the loan. 
 
 "How much of the money can you get for me to-day?" 
 asked Kentucky. 
 
 "You should have notified me in advance if you had 
 wanted such a sum," said Murdoch, gravely. "I will see 
 what I can do." 
 
 He rose and left the room. When he came back he held 
 in his hand ten thousand dollars. While he had been get 
 ting it of the cashier, he had vainly tried to puzzle out the 
 reason for this most astonishing performance of Ken 
 tucky's. One thing he was quite certain of, and that was 
 that Kentucky would not come to him with such a proposi 
 tion unless he really believed that he would do quite as he 
 said and pay the money back. Murdoch gave it to him, 
 gravely, and told him that he must give him in return a 
 promissory note. He handed him a blank, but Kentucky 
 had to get his help in filling out the record of his obliga 
 tion. 
 
 "There," Kentucky said, as he put the money in his 
 pocket, "I've got more money in my clothes than they ever 
 held before. Do I give you this deed of mine to my prop 
 erty, also, as security, or is the note enough?" 
 
 "You must deposit the deed with me," said Murdoch, 
 "as security for the note." 
 
 "Is that the way you do with other people?" asked 
 Kentucky. 
 
 "That is the way we do with everybody," said the
 
 A BUSINESS TRANSACTION. 281 
 
 banker. "I shall do with you exactly as I do with other 
 people who come here to the bank to transact business." 
 
 "All right," Kentucky said. "All right, then. Is there 
 any written paper to go with this aside from the deed it 
 self?" 
 
 "If you look the paper over, you will find on its back two 
 blanks for transfer," said the banker. "One of those you 
 must fill out. That assigns the property to me, in case you 
 do not pay your obligation." 
 
 Kentucky read the blank most carefully. 
 
 "It looks to me," he said, "as if in signing that blank 
 there I was giving you the property." 
 
 "You are doing exactly that in case you do not pay," 
 said Murdoch. 
 
 "Is that the regular thing?" Kentucky asked. 
 
 "That is the regular thing," the banker said. 
 
 "All right," said Kentucky, and signed the paper. 
 "Good-by," he added. "I've got other business to attend 
 to. I'll see you at the house to-night." 
 
 And he went out, carrying with him in his pocket more 
 actual cash than he had ever seen before, and leaving in 
 the bank a sadly puzzled banker.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 KENTUCKY'S INVESTMENT. 
 
 When they reached their home that night the matter 
 was not referred to in any way. Murdoch asked the butler 
 when Kentucky had come in, and the butler said that the 
 old student had preceded him by only a few moments. 
 Kentucky was evidently weary, but he was also very evi 
 dently happy. That night he started in to tell a story of 
 the Quarter. It was a funny story, but he went to sleep 
 in telling it, and Murdoch aroused him only with a vigor 
 ous shaking. 
 
 "You were snoring like a beast," said Murdoch, as the 
 old student shook the sleep out of his eyes. 
 
 "Was I?" asked Kentucky. "Well, I've got a right to be 
 a beast. I own some land now. Capitalists can be beasts 
 and no one dares to tell them so. You've got to treat me 
 with more respect now that I'm a capitalist, John Mur 
 doch." 
 
 It was about three weeks after that Kentucky, evidently 
 filled with joy, unfolded some shiny, half-transparent pa 
 pers before the astonished gaze of Murdoch. 
 
 "Now, you see, this is where we're going to live in the 
 near future. This is what I got that money for. And 
 when you come with me to live there, I'm going to charge 
 you a thundering big board bill and make you pay your 
 own loan back." 
 
 Murdoch looked at the papers, which were the plans for 
 a studio on the Palisades, high up upon the Hudson's 
 banks. The plan of the main floor was the same as that 
 of the studio in Paris. 
 
 "I made up my mind," Kentucky said, "that living here 
 in this old house was too respectable for both of us. Of
 
 KENTUCKY'S INVESTMENT. 283 
 
 course, we can't go back to Paris. I wish we could, and so 
 do you. But that is quite impossible. And so, you see, 
 I've had the old place reproduced as far as that was pos 
 sible there on the bluffs. We'll have the Hudson to look 
 at instead of the Boulevard, in front, and, on the side, 
 there'll be the swaying trees of some real woods instead of 
 the pleasant greenery of the Gardens of the Luxembourg, 
 but it'll do both of us good to get away from Madison ave 
 nue and into something like the old studio in Paris again. 
 
 "I tell you, Murdoch, we're getting commonplace and 
 rotten. I knew it long ago, and tried to think about some 
 way to stop it, but it took me a long time to figure out this 
 way. I believe that it's a good way, Murdoch, and I hope 
 that you will think so. I've planned it out for both of us. 
 I've got things fixed for you so that it will be for you as it 
 was in the old days, or just as much so as it can be, with 
 out her. I've got a little place for me that will be like, in 
 all ways, except its dirt I've lost the taste for dirt since 
 I have lost the taste for absinthe like my little room 
 there underneath the roof. In other ways, you see, the 
 building is about conventional. But it's away from New 
 York City, and I'll be glad to rent you quarters in it, old 
 man." 
 
 It was like the ingenuity of Kentucky to originate such 
 a plan. 
 
 "This makes me think," said Murdoch, after he had 
 looked the plans over carefully, "of the way you made a 
 light for us the night we told you that we had no oil be 
 cause we were afraid you would make us sit up late and I 
 had to go so early to the school that I did not want to sit 
 up late. We told you that we had no oil, you know." 
 
 "Mn.rdoch, man, did you have oil that night, and was 
 that all a put-up job?" 
 
 He paused a second and looked up as the Kentucky of 
 the old days had looked up from under bushy eyebrows 
 when he made a joke. 
 
 "I am getting rapidly to know you better, now," he 
 added. 
 
 "And I am learning you," said Murdoch. "Not rapidly, 
 but slowly learning you. You're too complex to do 'quick
 
 284 LIZETTE. 
 
 study* on. But I am just beginning to get acquainted with 
 your many varied phases." 
 
 "Did you really think I swallowed that great lie of 
 yours that night, Murdoch?" said Kentucky, with re 
 proach. 
 
 "Why, didn't you?" asked Murdoch, in surprise. 
 
 "Dear boy, I'm not congenitally idiotic. I gave you a 
 proper punishment. That was all. If you had told the 
 truth and said that you were tired and wanted to go to 
 sleep, I should have let you go to sleep. I should certainly 
 have let you go to sleep. It was only because I saw that 
 you were clumsily trying to lie to me that I stayed and 
 stayed and stayed. I feel that sometimes mere man must 
 take the part of Providence, when Providence fails to pun 
 ish quickly." 
 
 John Murdoch looked at him in simple wonder. 
 
 "Did you really notice all the oil there in those lamps?" 
 he asked. 
 
 "I did, and when I saw it, and when I saw the enormity 
 of the lying you had done, I made my mind up to the fact 
 that you should suffer then and there for it. I was sorry 
 for the little one. She had not lied. I don't think that 
 she could have lied unless," he added, later by a moment 
 "unless she lied for you. She could have even lied for 
 you, John Murdoch." 
 
 "As Providence," said Murdoch, "you were merciless 
 and sly. I never once suspected that the man who pun 
 ished me really knew that he was doing so. I thought that 
 we had made you suffer." 
 
 "So you had," Kentucky answered. "So you had. But 
 don't you see, I suffered in a noble cause? I suffered in my 
 efforts to make you see that lying does not pay? You suf 
 fered, on the contrary, in trying to get sleep through it. 
 I'm glad I thought of that small business with the butter 
 and the handkerchief. I racked my brains for something, 
 and that was the first that came. It worked. I made you 
 sit up till almost daylight. Then I went home to sleep, 
 having painted my full week's quota of little pictures and 
 given them to the dealer that very day. You see, Mur 
 doch, that the transgressor's way is hard I"
 
 KENTUCKY'S INVESTMENT. 285 
 
 "It is, indeed/' said Murdoch. 
 Then he sat in thought. 
 
 "I wish Lizette were here to hear that," he said, frankly. 
 "It would make her laugh." 
 And hoth men sank to gloominess again.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 HOPE EEVIVED. 
 
 Before the new studio was ready for occupancy spring 
 had come again and Kentucky left for his annual visit to 
 Paris. Murdoch could not go that summer. There had 
 been a panic and matters in the financial world were too 
 unsettled to permit him to leave the bank for a single day. 
 But he was glad to have Kentucky make the pilgrimage 
 to the old studio in the Boul' Miche'. He made the old 
 student promise to see that everything was kept ever 
 ready for the small one. 
 
 They had almost given up their hopes by now, and no 
 longer spoke of what they'd do when Lizette again should 
 be with them. But it was a sort of solace to Murdoch's 
 aching heart to feel that the search was still kept up, even 
 though he did not expect it to lead to any definite result. 
 For the same reason he kept the studio always as it had 
 been when she went away. 
 
 Kentucky wrote to Murdoch often and reported that the 
 old woman who sold coals was keeping the studio in excel 
 lent order and that the fire was always burning in the new 
 stove. 
 
 "At this season the Gardens from the windows are most 
 beautiful," he wrote. "The trees are green and swaying in 
 them, and the birds are nesting there even as they used to 
 do when wee Lizette looked down on them and loved them. 
 I believe they must be lonely here without her. I've seen 
 Houlier and he tells me there is nothing more to do. Ho 
 will not say she may not have been in Paris. He says one 
 cannot watch all Paris, but he swears that all that could be 
 done has been done. I guess he's right. I'm certain that 
 no criminal was ever half so clever in keeping off pursuers
 
 HOPE REVIVED. 287 
 
 as this small child, imbued with the notion of self-sacrifice, 
 has been in eluding those who love her. I can't stand it 
 here, old man. It breaks me up and wears me out. I'm 
 going south to see my churchyard once again and then I'm 
 going back to New York City first and the studio on the 
 Jersey Palisades as soon afterward as it can be made fit to 
 live in. I mean as soon as I can get my little traps into 
 my own small room there under the sloping roof, so that I 
 shall feel at home there. I shall leave in a couple of weeks 
 at the most and will cable you when to expect me." 
 
 Murdoch laid this letter aside with a sigh. He had not 
 hoped for anything definite, but still he sighed over the 
 letter. The panic that had prevented him from going to 
 Paris had become more serious. Business houses were 
 falling on every side. Some of the bank's customers had 
 gone under. It was a time of hard work and severe mental 
 strain for bankers. 
 
 But all the hard work and all the worry could not drive 
 away the dull, aching pain that was in John Murdoch's 
 heart. They brought lines of care into his face and made 
 him look more than ever as his father had looked in the 
 days when John remembered him sitting in that same 
 room, but they could not make him forget. 
 
 Murdoch was presiding at a meeting of the board of di 
 rectors on the day before that which Kentucky had set as 
 the date on which he would probably sail, when a cable 
 gram was handed to him. He assumed that the message 
 merely announced Kentucky's departure and he let it lie 
 on the table until the directors had filed out of the room. 
 
 But when he had torn off the envelope and read its con 
 tents he suddenly sat erect in his chair and his face glowed 
 with a look of hope quite different from the settled weari 
 ness that had rested there a moment before. The message 
 was from Kentucky, and it read: 
 
 Have news of Lizette. Old woman received letter from her 
 saying is ill and wants news of you. No address, but Houlier has 
 taken up search. Will stay on in hope of finding her. 
 
 KENTUCKY. 
 
 The blood surged up to Murdoch's head so that the 
 words on the cable form danced before his eyes. He had
 
 288 LIZETTE. 
 
 told himself a thousand times, "There is no chance/' but 
 deep down in his heart there had remained the hope that 
 some day he should find Lizette. This message from Ken 
 tucky, it was true, might lead to nothing. It might 
 prove as baffling as a hundred clues that had been run to 
 earth without result, but it fanned into fresh life the 
 smouldering hope that was ever in Murdoch's heart. 
 
 Kentucky said nothing about his coming to Paris. But 
 Murdoch felt that he could not wait in New York even 
 though the cable could keep him informed of every step 
 in the progress of the search, even though he knew that 
 Kentucky would do all that could be done, even though 
 the safety of the bank and his own fortune might be in 
 the balance. 
 
 He could not well afford to leave the business at such a 
 time. The panic had brought about the failure of some 
 of the bank's customers and it had required all Murdoch's 
 influence and all his ability to keep its resources intact. 
 He had no fear of the ultimate result, for the bank was a 
 strong institution, stronger even than in the days of John 
 Murdoch, Sr. But there was no telling what might happen 
 if he should leave his post. 
 
 Murdoch thought long and seriously of this matter. 
 Then his thoughts drifted away to Paris, the old studio, 
 Kentucky and Lizette. He saw her face again, not happy 
 and smiling as he had last seen it, but pale and drawn with 
 suffering. She was ill, Kentucky's message said. The 
 blood rushed back to Murdoch's heart and he gripped the 
 arms of his chair as he thought of Lizette, ill, without a 
 friend near her, himself powerless to help her. He felt 
 that he could not stay. He thought of the great happiness 
 he had missed before by remaining at the bank when he 
 would have gone to her. If this new-born hope was to be 
 crushed as so many of his hopes had been before, he could 
 endure it better there in Paris, where he could take an 
 active part in the search. And if Lizette were to be found ! 
 But John Murdoch did not think beyond that possibility. 
 There was no need that Kentucky should beg of him to 
 come this time. He hastily sent a message telling Ken 
 tucky that he was coming; he telephoned to his house to
 
 HOPE REVIVED. 289 
 
 have his luggage made ready; he sent a message to engage 
 passage by a steamer that was to sail the following day. 
 Then he sent out to summon the directors and his lawyer. 
 
 The lawyer was a man who had attended to the interests 
 of the Murdochs for more years than John had lived. He 
 had loved John Murdoch's father; he loved John and he 
 had a high opinion of his business ability. This opinion 
 received a rude shock and neither he nor the directors 
 could conceal their amazement when Murdoch told them 
 that he must go to Paris and that he had decided to place 
 at their disposal his entire private fortune to be used in 
 maintaining the integrity of the bank if it should become 
 necessary to do so. 
 
 The men sitting around the table in the back room of 
 the banking house knew that that fortune ran into many 
 figures and they gazed at him in silent astonishment as 
 though he had suddenly taken leave of his senses. Mur 
 doch did not explain his reasons for going to Paris further 
 than to say that the matter which called him there meant 
 more than all his fortune, that it might mean as much as 
 life itself. They had heard his story and they understood 
 something of the reason that was calling him away. At 
 any rate his action in providing for the necessities of the 
 bank had removed the possibility of objection on their part. 
 A man who was so anxious to go to Paris that he was will 
 ing to sacrifice a million dollars in order to do so was not 
 likely to be dissuaded by any argument that could be 
 brought to bear upon him. 
 
 So it was that within twenty-four hours of the time when 
 Kentucky's message had reached him Murdoch was on the 
 deck of an ocean steamer sailing out of New York harbor, 
 his heart a tumult of hope, but outwardly staid and digni 
 fied as he ever was. No one of his fellow passengers could 
 have guessed the romantic nature of his errand or would 
 have fancied that there was room beneath that sedate ex 
 terior for thoughts beyond those of business. 
 
 Murdoch sent word to Kentucky from Havre telling the 
 hour when he would arrive, and when he alighted from 
 the railway carriage in Paris the old student was waiting 
 for him. Kentucky was all eagerness and excitement, but
 
 290 LIZETTE. 
 
 the first look at his face told Murdoch that Lizette had 
 not been found. He could not have mistaken that message 
 had it been written there. 
 
 As they clattered through the streets on their way to 
 the studio, Kentucky told Murdoch all that could be told 
 of the news that had brought the banker from New York 
 when nothing else on earth could have moved him from 
 his post. 
 
 When he had returned from the south of France, Ken 
 tucky said, he had noticed that something agitated the old 
 woman who sold coals. Her usual cheerfulness was lack 
 ing. She had appeared much troubled and distraught as 
 she went about her duties in the studio, and when Ken 
 tucky referred to Lizette in giving directions for the care 
 of the studio, at the time when he was preparing to depart, 
 she had gone hastily out of the room with her apron to her 
 eyes. 
 
 This action on the part of the old woman confirmed a 
 suspicion which had been forming in Kentucky's mind. 
 When he accused the old woman of having seen Lizette or 
 knowing something of her whereabouts she had broken 
 down and acknowledged that she had most alarming news 
 of her. 
 
 She had received a letter from the little one Kentucky 
 told this part of the story with tender emotion that made 
 it easier for Murdoch to bear, though it brought the tears 
 to his eyes in a quick rush of emotion. Lizette had written 
 that she was ill at least she had not said that she was ill, 
 but that she was "so vairy, vairy tired," she feared she had 
 not much longer to live. She was going away, and she 
 must hear once more of Pudgy yes, and of dear, old Ken 
 tucky. The old woman must not let them know of this 
 letter, but she must write and tell Lizette what she knew 
 of Murdoch if he was married if he was well and happy 
 in far distant America and if he had been recently to the 
 old studio. 
 
 It was not a long letter, but the tone of sad weariness 
 that pervaded it told even more than Lizette's confession 
 that she was "so vairy, vairy tired." The old woman had 
 answered the letter had told her that Murdoch was in
 
 HOPE REVIVED. 291 
 
 America and that Kentucky was about to go there after a 
 brief visit to the old studio. At the same time she begged 
 Lizette to release her from her promise of secrecy and to 
 write to Murdoch, who loved her and would always love 
 her. She had told her that it was not right to remain in 
 hiding from him and from Kentucky and begged her at 
 least to come to the studio that she might see her once 
 more. 
 
 All this the old woman said she had written to Lizette, 
 but afterward she had been much worried by the matter, 
 and even though it were a sin upon her soul for Lizette 
 had adjured her to say nothing of having seen her or heard 
 from her she would tell Kentucky all she knew. It was 
 not right that the little one should hide herself away, alone 
 and heart-sick, from those who loved her. 
 
 As soon as Kentucky had heard this he had sent his mes 
 sage to Murdoch and had communicated the news to 
 Houlier, who had at once caused the city to be searched 
 with all thoroughness, but without result. It was certain 
 that Lizette had been in Paris; the postmark of the letter 
 showed that it had been mailed in the city. 
 
 But it was not at all certain that she was there when the 
 search was made. She had said that she was going away 
 and very likely she had done so. The letter which the old 
 woman had written she had been directed to send poste 
 restante, so that it afforded no clue once it had been deliv 
 ered. Kentucky himself had written a letter and Houlier 
 had had the post-office watched, but no one had come to 
 claim it. The outlook apparently was most discouraging. 
 
 Murdoch was greatly cast down by this report. The 
 momentary gleam of hope caused by Lizette's letter had 
 flickered and gone out, leaving them in darkness as before. 
 The anguish of the two old friends was great. Added to 
 the knowledge that Lizette was lost to them was the fact 
 that she was ill, possibly in need, and that they were power 
 less to help her. Spurred on by this thought, Murdoch had 
 all Paris searched again. Under Houlier's direction, de 
 tectives went over the city as with a fine-toothed comb, but 
 no trace of Lizette was found. They were forced reluc 
 tantly to admit that she probably had left the city.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 AT LAST. 
 
 Murdoch aged greatly in those weeks of searching. The 
 gray began to show thickly among the brown hair that 
 Lizette had used to stroke so softly. Kentucky's grief was 
 bowing his broad shoulders, but when he saw how Murdoch 
 was eating his heart out among these familiar scenes, he 
 advised him to return to New York. 
 
 Murdoch was loath to go, but at length the calls of busi 
 ness became imperative. A month had gone by ajid he 
 had to acknowledge that the chances of finding Lizette 
 seemed more remote than ever. A couple of days before 
 the time set for his departure, the two friends left the 
 studio in the dusk of the gathering twilight to go to din 
 ner. They were unusually solemn, for Murdoch's hopes 
 had vanished. 
 
 "It is too late/' he said to Kentucky, as they walked 
 along. "We shall never see her again." And Kentucky, 
 bowed down by the weight of the same conviction, had no 
 encouragement to offer. 
 
 So absorbed were they in their own sad thoughts that 
 they did not hear their names called shrilly from behind, 
 and they had gone a block further before the puffing and 
 blowing of some one running feebly attracted their atten 
 tion. They turned to discover its cause and were aston 
 ished to see the old woman who sold coals hobbling after 
 them as fast as her rheumatic old limbs could carry her. 
 
 She was so completely out of breath when she came up 
 with them that she could not speak for several minutes. 
 Her breathing was so labored and her face of such a pur 
 plish hue from the exertion of running that Murdoch 
 feared she would fall in an apoplectic fit before she could 
 reveal the cause of her excitement.
 
 AT LAST. 293 
 
 After sitting down on the curb for a few minutes and 
 gasping for breath, while the two men anxiously bent over 
 her, she managed to ejaculate "Lizette!" 
 
 "What? Where? Have you seen her?" cried Murdoch 
 and Kentucky, growing all at once as excited as herself. 
 The old woman nodded. 
 
 "In the studio," she gasped. "She came in just 
 after you left. I saw her as I sat talking with the 
 concierge. She came in the outer door. At first I was 
 frightened. I thought she was dead that it was her 
 spirit I saw. She was so white so thin. But then she 
 started to go up the stairs toward the studio. She moved 
 oh, so slowly! She was very weak. But I knew it must 
 be she. I did not speak to her. I ran after you to bring 
 you back. I called you, but I could not make you hear. 
 Go quickly you will find her." 
 
 Murdoch waited only to learn for a certainty that Lizette 
 was in the studio. Then he set off at a run, seizing Ken 
 tucky's hand and dragging the older man after him. At 
 the street door they scarcely paused. Murdoch took the 
 stairs in leaps of three steps and Kentucky's long legs came 
 flying after him. 
 
 At the foot of the flight leading to the studio they mod 
 erated their pace and advanced more quietly. The door 
 was ajar and they pulled it softly open and looked in. 
 
 Shadows filled the room, except for the glow from the 
 stove and the dim light that came from the windows. But 
 as they peered through the deepening twilight they could 
 see the outline of a prostrate form stretched prone on the 
 floor beneath the picture, "Parting." 
 
 It was Lizette! 
 
 Kentucky stretched out his arms with a gesture of in 
 finite yearning. Then, with a sort of dry gasp, he drew 
 back, and, seizing Murdoch by the shoulders, pushed him 
 inside the room. The door closed between them. 
 
 Murdoch advanced quickly to where the prostrate figure 
 lay. The brilliant afterglow of the sunset suddenly bright 
 ened the western windows with warm color and illumined 
 the painting above the bowed head. Murdoch kneeled in 
 an ecstasy of emotion, and lifted the slight figure.
 
 294 LIZETTE. 
 
 "Lizette, little one! At last I have found you!" he 
 cried. 
 
 There was a sudden movement, a half-stifled gasp, then 
 two arms were clasped tightly about his neck, and Lizette's 
 head was buried upon his shoulder, and her sweet voice 
 oh, so weak and pitiful! murmured: 
 
 "Pudgy! Oh, Pudgy!" 
 
 Murdoch carried her how light a burden she was! 
 across to the sofa that stood along the wall. There he laid 
 her tenderly down, being compelled to kneel himself be 
 cause those encircling arms would not release their hold. 
 
 Presently, the two arms were slowly unclasped, and 
 Lizette sank softly back upon the pillows. The eyes 
 opened and gazed shyly at him with a half-frightened, 
 wholly happy look. Then she suddenly buried her face in 
 the pillow and murmured brokenly: 
 
 "Oh, Pudgy! I am so sorry to give to you the great 
 bother." 
 
 But Murdoch stopped further speech with many kisses. 
 
 After a time he gently released his hand, which was 
 clasped between Lizette's two thin white ones, and, going 
 to the door, he called Kentucky. The old student was 
 pacing back and forth upon the lower landing, his head 
 bent, his hands behind his back. When he heard Mur 
 doch's voice he came quickly up, and, without asking any 
 questions, entered the studio. He bent over Lizette with 
 streaming eyes, and, as he looked into her face, the cry of 
 his heart that had been stifled for so many years found 
 utterance. 
 
 "Oh, my daughter! Oh, my little one! God has given 
 you back to me." 
 
 Lizette said not a word, but, with the contented smile of 
 a tired, happy child still on her sweet, wan face, she 
 reached up her arms, and, pulling Kentucky's great shaggy 
 head down to her, she pressed a soft kiss on his forehead. 
 There was no need of explanation. There was no surprise 
 on Lizette's part. She had half guessed the truth in that 
 churchyard in the south of France the churchyard of the 
 picture and the churchyard of the memories. 
 
 Murdoch was shocked at Lizette's appearance, and the
 
 AT LAST. 295 
 
 old woman was dispatched without more ado to bring a 
 physician. But Kentucky was jubilant and confident. 
 
 "She's suffering from starved affections," he whispered 
 to Murdoch. "The medicine she needs is the magic medi 
 cine of love. Don't worry, old man, but thank God that 
 that damned banking business didn't keep you away this 
 time." 
 
 Together they moved the sofa in front of the new stove 
 an old stove now and there in the ruddy glow of the 
 firelight they sat, one on each side of Lizette, each with 
 one of her small hands clasped in his. Their hearts were 
 too full for words; no words were needed. As they sat 
 there in the warm firelight, Murdoch knew by the loving 
 clasp of Lizette's hand on his big fingers that his love 
 would not run away from him again.
 
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 (!N PREPARATION.) 
 
 Captain James 
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 BY 
 
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