TB^Xi 
 
 1 
 
 NS&-T .->; 
 
 HI
 
 THE L1BKAK* 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 THE BMT51NISTER 
 
 A SOCIAL STUDY 
 
 "If that the heavens do not their visible spirits 
 Send quickly down to tame these vile offenses, 
 'T will come, 
 
 Humanity must perforce prey on itself 
 Like monsters of the deep." 
 
 KiNG LEAR. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 
 CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED 
 
 1885
 
 COPYRIGHT 
 
 1885 
 By O. M. DUNHAM, 
 
 A II Rights Reserved.
 
 DEDICATION. 
 
 TO REV. GEORGE ALEXANDER, D.D. 
 
 Whose tender pity for all suffering humanity ; whose 
 fearless courage in denunciation of wrong-doing, and whose 
 tireless efforts to uplift the downtrodden must always keep 
 him in lively sympathy with whomsoever would strike a blow 
 at recognized evil, this book, which claims no other merit 
 than earnestness of purpose, is dedicated in token of the 
 affectionate esteem of the 
 
 AUTHOR. 
 
 2061812
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER i. A TENACIOUS MAN. . . . i 
 
 CHAPTER n. MOTES AND BEAMS. . . . .10 
 
 CHAPTER in. TWO LETTERS OF ONE DATE. . . 24 
 
 CHAPTER iv. THE DOCTOR'S PERPLEXITIES. . . 32 ' 
 
 CHAPTER v. THE DAY OF DEPARTURE. . . .46 
 
 CHAPTER vi. MR. QUINBY RECEIVES VISITORS AND 
 
 ADVICE. . . . . -57 
 
 CHAPTER vn. DISCIPLINE AND DEFEAT. . . . 71 
 
 CHAPTER vin. AN IMPORTATION FROM THE SOUTH. . 86 
 CHAPTER ix. SNAP JUDGMENT. .... 100 
 CHAPTER x. SHALL AULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT? in 
 CHAPTER xi. A SAINTLY SINNER. . . . 129 
 
 CHAPTER xn. STRICKEN HEARTS. . . .140 
 
 CHAPTER xui. MR. QUINBY'S ATTITUDE. . . 153 
 
 CHAPTER xiv. CLASS NO. i. . . . .165 
 
 CHAPTER xv. THE BLOW DESCENDS. . . .173 
 
 CHAPTER xvi. COMFORT AND MERCY. . . . 184 
 
 CHAPTER xvn. THE DEDICATION OF A LIFE. . . 196 
 
 CHAPTER xvm. TWO CLOUDS. .... 208 
 CHAPTER xix. IN DURANCE VILE. . . . 215 
 
 CHAPTER xx. FACE TO FACE. .... 225
 
 vi CON TENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER xxi. TOTTERING IDOLS. . . . 241 
 
 CHAPTER xxn. CLASS NO. 3. .... 253 
 
 CHAPTER xxm. THE PROBLEM SOLVED. . . 263 
 
 CHAPTER xxiv. AFTER MANY DAYS. . . . 275 
 
 CHAPTER xxv. STORM TOSSED. .... 289 
 CHAPTER xxvi. IN THE TOILS. .... 303 
 CHAPTER xxvu. THE END OF THE STRUGGLE. . . 323 
 
 CHAPTER xxvin. A PARTHIAN DART. . . . 328 
 
 CHAPTER xxix. A PARTIAL ATONEMENT. . . 345
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 If there be those who complain that the draught 
 herein offered is brackish to the taste, let them bear in 
 mind that men do not draw sweet waters from an 
 impure source. The fountain is brackish and the 
 bitterness of Marah is in its waters ! 
 
 If there be those who object that the shadows are 
 black and thick, while the lights are pale and shifting, 
 let them bear in mind that men do not look for sun- 
 shine under the brooding wing of the storm-cloud ! 
 
 If there be those who repine at the failure of time to 
 smooth away all furrows and ease every heart-ache 
 herein chronicled, let them bear in mind that men do 
 not gather figs of thistles, or grapes of thorns ! 
 
 It is but a sheaf of thorns and thistles bound about 
 by a withe of truth that is offered. 
 
 THE AUTHOR.
 
 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A TENACIOUS MAN. 
 
 ON a certain afternoon of a certain day in a certain 
 month of a year somewhere between 1870 and 
 1 885 Mr. John Quinby, the virtual head of the office in a 
 certain building in New York City, somewhere between 
 Central Park and the Battery, turned the handle of the 
 big office safe to throw the lock off the combination 
 with an air of hurried briskness not often observable 
 in his movements, for Mr. Quinby had reached that 
 altitude of worldly success which entitles a man to a 
 certain amount of latitude in the way of leisurely de- 
 liberation. As a rule, Mr. Quinby generally loitered 
 about his snug office after business hours with the air 
 of one whose heart was where his treasure was, and 
 whose body was quite content to linger there also. But 
 on the afternoon in question he got into his light fall 
 topcoat with a decided jerk ; crowned his abundance
 
 * THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 of short-cropped hair with his tall silk hat with an un- 
 usual disregard for its nice adjustment, and drew his 
 gloves on as he walked toward the elevator, projecting 
 an imperative " down ! " ahead of him to arrest the ma- 
 chine that threatened to descend without him. All 
 his actions on this exceptional afternoon indicated an 
 undercurrent of impatience that yet seemed entirely 
 devoid of any disagreeable element, unless, indeed, 
 unrest is a disagreeable element, which perhaps it 
 is, but is certainly not so recognized by men who have 
 placed before them a standard of worldly success that 
 they determine to live up to, or a goal they propose 
 to reach, counting all effort, all sacrifice, all privation 
 as nothing weighed in the balances against achieve- 
 ment, or, at best, as so many necessary rounds on the 
 ladder which must be toilsomely climbed to the end. 
 
 Mr. Quinby had that day not exactly reached a goal, 
 but he had gotten to a point in that long lane (whose 
 possession of a " turning " he had often doubted) from 
 which he had caught the first glimpse of the goal he 
 had been laboring toward, and the dazzling sight 
 loomed in the near perspective. 
 
 No wonder then that Mr. Quinby's usually well- 
 regulated pulse was slightly a-flutter, and no wonder 
 he was impatient to make Mrs. John Quinby a par- 
 taker of his pleasurable excitement. 
 
 There had been a Mrs. Quinby now for nearly two 
 years. A pretty, gentle-voiced, blue-eyed woman,
 
 A TENACIOUS MAtf. $ 
 
 something of the Griselda type, but a veritable sharer 
 of his sorrows and partaker of his joys. 
 
 The external signs, however, of Mr. Quinby's inward 
 Satisfaction were all expended on that brisk " click" to 
 his combination lock, that hurried investment of his 
 topcoat and the putting on of his gloves as he walked. 
 By the time he stepped out of the elevator on the 
 ground floor of Ford, Farnham & Co.'s building he 
 was to all outward seeming the same solidly composed, 
 imperturbable business man, who was as familiar an ob- 
 ject in Front street as the blue-coated policeman or the 
 gray-coated letter-carrier of his beat. So assured, in- 
 deed, was Mr. Quinby's position as a successful man, 
 that he was already, though still in his early thirties, 
 often utilized to point a moral for the benefit of young 
 men who were not doing as well as might be ex- 
 pected. 
 
 " There's Quinby now," some veteran in the ranks 
 of the bread-winners would say to some raw recruit 
 "with advisory emphasis, " look at him ! Quinby began 
 life as a messenger boy in the house of Ford, Farnham 
 & Co. when he was ten years old at two dollars a week. 
 Yes, sir, two dollars a week, and glad enough to get it 
 too. Look at him now ! Hale, handsome, happy ! 
 Pretty wife, snug home, fifteen thousand a year, not a 
 care in the world ! What did he do ? He stuck, sir ! 
 that is all. Simply stuck ; and where is he now ? Step 
 by step, round by round, he has climbed the ladder,
 
 4 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 the ladder he started on, bear in mind, sir, Ford, Farn- 
 ham & Co.'s ladder, not skipping all around town to see 
 if somebody wouldn't help him to an easier ladder to 
 climb, until he is just one round below the top. He is 
 as high in the concern now as he can be without being 
 full partner, and that will come before he is much 
 older, for he has made himself essential to them ; yes, 
 sir, absolutely essential. They couldn't do without 
 him. He knows it, and they know it, and they all 
 know they know it. That is all you have to do, sir. 
 Find your ladder, plant your feet fast on the first round, 
 take a firm grip of your hand on the next and climb. 
 Do your own climbing. Don't be calling down for 
 some other fellow to give you a boost every round. 
 There's nothing especially wonderful about John 
 Quinby, except his tenacity. He never lets go an 
 idea once he has given it a favorable hearing." 
 
 When, with a final " Yes, sir," and a go-thou-and-do- 
 likewise peroration, the veteran who, perhaps, by rea- 
 son of his own failures in life, felt peculiarly fitted for 
 the position of adviser, would dismiss the recruit with 
 a comfortable sense of having done much toward 
 starting him up the ladder of success. While the re- 
 cruit would vaguely wish himself John Quinby, or on 
 John Quinby's ladder. 
 
 Perhaps Mr. Quinby himself had not so far outlived 
 the struggles of his harder years as to have forgotten 
 the knocks and bruises he endured during the slow
 
 A TENACIOUS MAN. 5 
 
 climb which made his later paths of pleasantness all 
 the more agreeable. 
 
 Perhaps he even posed for himself as a model worthy 
 of all imitation, not offensively, you know, simply com- 
 placently, with conscious unconsciousness;- for it 
 stands to reason that each new elevation in the Hill 
 Difficulty, must leave one slightly breathless, and calls 
 a pause long enough for one to give a backward sweep 
 of the eye over the plateau just left behind. Perhaps 
 some such pleasant retrospection as this occupied Mr. 
 Quinby's mind and illumined his fine clear gray eyes 
 as he stood upon the bow of the Jersey City ferry-boat 
 awaiting the dropping of the guard that confined the 
 herded passengers and prevented their impetuous de- 
 parture from the boat before she was securely wind- 
 lassed to the pier on the Jersey side of the river, for it 
 was over in the dreamy, pretty, half-forsaken town of 
 Elizabeth that Mrs. John Quinby was nested, and 
 toward which Mr. Quinby was hastening with his 
 burden of good news. 
 
 The further behind him Mr. Quinby left the purely 
 commercial atmosphere of his New York office, where 
 every venture was put to the one single test "will it 
 pay ? " and the nearer he approached the serene environ- 
 ment of the pretty home in Broad street over which 
 the spirit of love and peace had brooded undisturbed 
 through all his married life, the more conscious he 
 became that there was one mote in the broad ray of
 
 6 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 sunshine that had fallen so suddenly across his path- 
 way that day. He wondered if Anna that was Mrs. 
 Quinby would mistake this mote for a beam women 
 are given to exaggerations of that sort, and, as a rule, 
 the better the woman the greater the exaggeration. He 
 should be sorry to have his wife magnify things un- 
 comfortably ; not that it would make any material dif- 
 ference in the result, only, he should prefer that what 
 he regarded as a mote, should be regarded as a mote, 
 and nothing more than a mote, in Mrs. Quinby's eyes 
 too. But with all her gentleness and habitual submis- 
 siveness Mrs. Quinby had great reserves of obstinacy 
 and self-will that asserted themselves at the most unex- 
 pected junctures. He smiled in perplexed amusement 
 to think what a rich juncture he was about to offer for 
 the exercise of both. To make no longer mystery of 
 Mr. Quinby's secret source of satisfaction and of appre- 
 hension he had, that day, and without the harsh inter- 
 vention of death, either, (he had long ago settled the 
 date of his co-partnership as the date of death for one 
 of the firm), been taken into full partnership with Ford, 
 Farnham & Co., who, having resolved to extend their 
 business by establishing a branch house in Salt Lake 
 City, had decided that John Quinby was better qualified 
 than the older heads of the house to take the helm in 
 those untried waters. In all of which Mr. Quinby had 
 fully agreed with them ; in fact, had experienced some 
 difficulty in hiding from his heads the full measure of
 
 A TENACIOUS MAN. f 
 
 elation he experienced. But nature does not bestow 
 the iron jaw and square-hewn chin which were among 
 Mr. Quinby's most marked physical points meaning- 
 lessly. He had received the great proposition with a 
 fine show of indifference and told Messrs. Ford, Farnham 
 & Co., that he would let them know in ten days whether 
 or not he would go. Go ! of course he would go. He 
 repeated this decision so often and with such seeming 
 disproportion of emphasis to himself, as he traveled 
 towards his quiet home in quaint Elizabeth,- that he 
 finally turned upon the opposition and stood at bay. 
 Mrs. Quinby unconsciously posed for the opposition. 
 " Anna was a sweet woman but a trifle narrow." As Mr. 
 Quinby thus mentally summed up the moral forces 
 against which he was bracing his nerves to contend, he 
 stroked the long mustache that drooped gracefully 
 away from his upper lip until its foxy red ends rested 
 on his strong, square chin, as who should say, however 
 open Mrs. Quinby might be to the charge of narrow- 
 ness, Mr. Quinby was singularly free from it. Yes, 
 Anna was rather more than a trifle narrow. More the 
 result of education, he supposed, than any constitutional 
 deficiency, but the consequences were nevertheless un- 
 pleasant. Now Mr. Quinby had not been the some- 
 what masterful husband of his wife for nearly two years 
 without having acquired an intimate knowledge of all 
 the possibilities of every conceivable situation. 
 
 The possibilities of the present situation were any
 
 8 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 thing but re-assuring. He smiled pityingly all to him- 
 self, as he left the cars and struck off afoot up the 
 quiet, shady street toward his home, as he pictured her 
 look of horror and heard her plaintive " Oh ! John, 
 Utah ! " Yes, he knew well enough beforehand, if a 
 residence in Salt Lake City struck his un-Mormonized 
 mind with just enough of repulsion to produce a mote 
 in his sunlight, it would assume the magnitude of an 
 enormous beam in his wife's view. All women were 
 incapable of taking large views on some subjects. This 
 was one of them. He wished that the grand news of 
 his advancement might have been without any draw- 
 back at all. But although arrogantly aware that he was 
 the architect of his own future, he had to build with 
 such tools as he must, not as he would. No doubt Mrs. 
 Quinby would even try to turn him from his resolve. 
 He laughed dryly at the folly of such an attempt. He 
 knew beforehand just what arguments she would use. 
 Anna was not only a trifle narrow, she was entirely 
 devoid of ambition. Perhaps that was very well in view 
 of her sex. She would argue that the house they lived 
 in had been her home ever since she was born and no 
 other spot could ever seem like home to her. Quite, 
 you know, as if a pile of crumbling bricks and mortar 
 that had the one virtue of familiarity, should be allowed 
 to compete with the colossal structure of Mr. Quinby's 
 success in life ! She would say she was as happy as she 
 could be where she was, and more comfortable than she
 
 A TENACIOUS MAN. 9 
 
 could be any where else. Anna always took such a 
 narrowly personal view of every suggestion ! Yes, he 
 flattered himself he had made her happy and comfort- 
 able. All the more reason why now she should be 
 willing to sacrifice something to his interests. She was 
 sure to say, " they were well enough as they were." But 
 a man is never well enough if a better state of affairs is 
 possible. That better possibility had after all come to 
 him rather unexpectedly after his long waiting for it, 
 and it had not come in just the shape he had asked it 
 of Fate. For the definite demand he had preferred at 
 the courts of destiny some time ago, was for a full 
 partnership in the firm of Ford, Farnham & Co., without 
 the condition of exile annexed. As, however, with all 
 his iron will, Mr. Quinby had never yet been able to 
 bend destiny into subserviency, he was content to take 
 the coveted partnership, annex and all, and pronounce it 
 altogether good. 
 
 That Anna would not, he was quite aware in advance. 
 But then, Anna and destiny were in no one particular 
 alike. He was as sure of his ability to manage the one 
 as he was of his inability to cope with the other. 
 " She's sure to kick at first," said Mr. Quinby, settling 
 his wife's status, as he fitted the latch key into his 
 front door, " but she'll soon give in." 
 
 Mr. Quinby was not unique in that he was always 
 prepared to accept the sacrifice of his wife's individuality 
 in bland unconsciousness that any sacrifice was involved.
 
 M 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 MOTES AND BEAMS. 
 
 R. QUINBY was too shrewd a humanist to under- 
 value strategy in the domestic circle, and too 
 much of an epicurean to mix emotion with his salad 
 dressing. He preferred to bide his time for the telling 
 of his important news, rather than risk cooling his soup 
 with Mrs. Quinby's tears, or taking the flavor out of 
 his roast-beef by eating it opposite a frowning spouse. 
 Arguments, he judged, were never more indigestible 
 than when served up with cold potatoes. Moreover, 
 the dinner-table is not a good strategic point. One 
 always runs the risk of having a telling point drowned 
 in the clatter of knives and forks, or the loss of dra- 
 matic pause, by the exigent hunger of his auditors. 
 So he sat at the head of his nicely appointed dinner- 
 table in self-contained serenity, beaming impartially on 
 Mrs. Quinby, who was looking prettily conscious of a 
 new blue dress just home from the dress-maker, and 
 the one other member of his small household, with 
 very much the sensations of a man whose pockets are 
 full of dynamite of which he intends presently to make 
 active use.
 
 MOTES AND BEAMS. II 
 
 The "one other, member" of Mr. Quinby's house- 
 hold was his brother Anthony, his senior by some six 
 years, and his only living relative. Only a fragment of a 
 relative after all, physically speaking, for Anthony 
 Quinby had brought back from the battle of Gettys- 
 burg scarcely more than enough of a once, handsome 
 person to contain his lofty soul and big heart, useless 
 for all the practical purposes of life, unless it was to 
 act as a sort of moral ballast to his younger and more 
 worldly minded brother. 
 
 People who dropped in of evenings on the Quinbys 
 (and, notwithstanding its close proximity to New York 
 r "ity, the social art of dropping in, is still extant in 
 Elizabeth) always went away freshly impressed with 
 the placidity of the atmosphere in the Quinby house- 
 hold. Anthony, who was saved from a galling sense of 
 dependence on his brother by his ability to write ac- 
 ceptable articles for the New York papers and maga- 
 zines, contributed to the amusement of the family-circle 
 by reading aloud of evenings. Mr. Quinby, slippered 
 and cigared, divested of his Front street activities and 
 Wall street anxieties for the time being, resolved him- 
 self, usually, into an amiable absorbent of whatever 
 his wife had to tell him verbally, or Anthony dispense 
 oracularly from the printed page, and was conscious of 
 his own extreme satisfaction with the general manage- 
 ment of his affairs by his agent Fate ; while Mrs. 
 Quinby accepted the goods the gods provided with un-
 
 12 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 questioning belief that so long as she did nothing the 
 decalogue distinctly forbade her doing, she would be 
 left in undisturbed possession of her happiness, her 
 home, and of John ! That her undivided possession of 
 this last element of happiness should ever be questioned 
 never once entered her wildest imaginings. 
 
 But on this especial evening Mr. Quinby did not feel 
 equal to listening to Felix Holt for an hour or two 
 without disburdening himself, as admirable as that 
 work of fiction was, and as well as Anthony read it. 
 
 " Suppose we give Felix a rest to-night," he sug- 
 gested, inserting one plea for the radical and two for 
 himself, as he lighted his own cigar and held the match 
 to Anthony's. " I have something to talk to you and 
 Anna about to-night, which I think will interest us all 
 much more than finding out how Felix is going to get 
 out of jail." 
 
 " And it's something very nice, I'm quite sure," says 
 Mrs. Quinby, looking at her husband with her pretty 
 head very much on one side. But Mr. Quinby's full 
 gaze just then was fixed upon the gas-flames that 
 danced over the asbestos logs in a pretty conspiracy 
 with them to cheat the ignorant into a belief that they 
 were enjoying a delightful old-fashioned wood fire. His 
 profile was non-committal, so Mrs. Quinby unpinned the 
 handkerchief she had brought from the much be-ribboned 
 work-basket in the corner, and laying its folded corners 
 back, took up a mysterious study in blue floss on white
 
 MO TES A ND BE A MS. 1 3 
 
 cashmere that had occupied her ringers for so many 
 evenings now that the most unobservant of men 
 must long since have discovered it to be a thing of 
 parts, with backs and fronts and sleeves, all of the 
 most miniature proportions and fairy-like delicacy. 
 
 " Yes ; it is something good ; something very good I 
 may say. I will give you two guesses apiece. You 
 first, Mrs. Q." 
 
 "West Shore bonds have gone way up ! " says Mrs. 
 Quinby in a voice of elated conviction that nothing 
 better could possibly happen for them all, as even she 
 and Anthony have dabbled timidly in that stock. 
 
 " No ; West Shore bonds are tumbling clean out of 
 sight." 
 
 " Why don't you sell out then ? " Anthony interpo- 
 lates practically. 
 
 " Haven't been able yet to find any body anxious 
 enough to sacrifice himself for my benefit. Guess 
 again, Anna." 
 
 "They are going to put another window in your 
 office so that you shall not die of malaria in that dark 
 hole." 
 
 Mrs. Quinby offers this second guess with moderate 
 confidence only. She feels sure that, important as it 
 has always seemed to her, and vigorously as she has in- 
 sisted on it, after every visit to her husband's rather 
 poorly lighted office, John was not likely to think it 
 worth a guess or a pleasant mystification.
 
 14 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 Mr. Quinby's contemptuous laugh told her she had 
 far undershot the mark. 
 
 " Well, Tony, it's your turn ; Anna's ideas of good 
 news are rather meek and lowly." 
 
 " You've got the partnership," says Anthony in a 
 positive voice. He was quite sure that nothing less 
 would account for the gleaming triumph in John's 
 eyes. 
 
 " But no ! " Mrs. Quinby's voice was full of awed 
 incredulity. 
 
 "But yes!" Mr. Quinby turned his illumined face 
 from the dancing gas jets full upon his wife and 
 brother. The dancing light seemed to abide in his 
 clear, gray eyes and make him adorably handsome in 
 Anna's fond estimation. 
 
 " Who is dead ? " she asks, ready to moderate her 
 transports in accordance with the demands of decency, 
 but prepared to bear the death of either one of the 
 firm with fortitude and resignation. 
 
 " Nobody ! at least, neither Ford nor Farnham, nor 
 Colfax, our ' Co.' " 
 
 " But I thought you said all along, John, that they 
 had no more use for another partner than a wagon had 
 for two tongues." 
 
 " Neither have they in New York, but they propose 
 to branch out," says Mr. Quinby. 
 
 " Branching out " had such an opulent sound that 
 Mrs. Quinby just gave a little gurgle of satisfaction,
 
 MOTES AND BEAMS. 15 
 
 and sat quite mute, ready to receive the magnificent 
 details of the scheme that promised advancement for 
 John. 
 
 " In what direction ? " 
 
 Just there Mr. Quinby found it expedient to close 
 the inside shutters to the front window immediately 
 behind his back. He said something about a draught 
 when he got up, and something else about sand bags 
 when he sat down again. He had rather Anthony 
 had not voiced his interest in the subject in form of 
 so direct a question. 
 
 " Yes," he answered, quite as if they had all had 
 time to forget every thing that had gone before, " we 
 have outgrown New York. We want more elbow- 
 room," he adds, expansively, while Anna murmurs 
 ecstatically, " delightful ! " 
 
 " It's a pretty solid concern, I guess," says Anthony, 
 contributing a generalization this time. 
 
 " I should say so. The rock of Gibraltar isn't any 
 more solid." Mr. Quinby is quite willing to dally 
 with his finale. 
 
 " There are three very solid men at the head of it, too. 
 Respectable in every way. And good sound Chris- 
 tian principle underlying all their operations. Ford 
 and Colfax are both stanch members of Dr. John Hill's 
 church. Farnham, I believe, goes to Talman's over 
 in Brooklyn. Didn't we hear Mrs. Farnham say so, 
 Anna?"
 
 1 6 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 " I really don't know. Yes, I believe she did, John, 
 but I don't feel at all positive. It's been a year since 
 I saw Mrs. Farnham." Mrs. Quinby tried to bestir 
 her one-idea'd soul to some interest in the moral welfare 
 of Ford, Farnham & Co., but was conscious of a shame- 
 ful apathy in that direction. At present the partner- 
 ship was all that her mind could chamber. 
 
 " Excellent men, all of them, who would neither do 
 themselves nor ask another man to do any thing con- 
 trary to the laws of right and wrong," says Mr. 
 Quinby, continuing the building of his fortifications 
 against the hour of attack. " I've never had occasion 
 to think any thing but well of them, collectively, and 
 individually, since the day I entered their office as a 
 messenger boy at two dollars a week." 
 
 Mrs. Quinby winced perceptibly, and gave rather a 
 spiteful twitch to the needleful of blue floss that was 
 just then defining a scallop in the white cashmere. Of 
 course it was a matter of family history that John had 
 begun thus humbly, but one's antecedents were some- 
 what like one's ancestors, only to be served up when 
 occasion required, not hauled in for daily inspection or 
 criticism. The days of John's messenger-boy-ship 
 ante-dated her acquaintance with him, and she did not 
 propose to cultivate him so far back. 
 
 "Well, to make a long story short, the house sent 
 for me this morning, and told me of the final determi- 
 nation to establish a branch-house with me as its full
 
 MO TES A ND BE A MS. I ^ 
 
 head and manager, as the 'Co.' of the New York house 
 of Ford, Farnham, Colfax & Co., with the understand- 
 ing that the death or retirement of any member of the 
 old firm was to entitle me to step into his vacant place. 
 Handsomer showing or more liberal terms, I could not 
 ask." 
 
 " But where are you to branch to, John ?" asks Mrs. 
 Quinby, naturally interested, as the branching process 
 must involve herself as well as husband. 
 
 Mr. Quinby flung the remnant of his first cigar into 
 the highly ornamental cuspadore that flanked the 
 asbestos logs on his side of the fire-place ; bit off the 
 end of a second and lighted it at Anthony's glowing 
 one ; assumed an attitude of rather over-done compos- 
 ure and projected his explosive into the bosom of his 
 family: "Salt Lake City!" 
 
 " Utah ! " Anthony and Anna both demanded in a 
 breath. 
 
 " My geography makes mention of no other," says 
 Mr. Quinby, preparing to get behind his fortifications 
 and man his guns. 
 
 " Oh ! John ! " 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 He turned his very coldest face toward his wife. He 
 had taken unusual pains, he flattered himself, to place 
 the advantages of this partnership before her. He did 
 not propose to temporize any further. Projecting his 
 vision into the future, he saw himself living in the
 
 1 8 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 iniquitous capital of the Mormons, among them but 
 not of them, setting a shining example of mono- 
 gamic virtue to the weaker brethren around him, even 
 proselyting them, by sheer force of example, to forsake 
 the error of their ways and cleave only unto one wife 
 at a time. Not that he had argued it all out on this 
 base. He simply did not care a continental for the 
 social relations or religious peculiarities of the dwellers 
 in that lovely valley. There was money and prefer- 
 ment waiting for him there and he was going after 
 them, that was all ! 
 
 Projecting her vision into the future Anna saw her 
 husband surrounded by influences confusing to the 
 most well established principles. Saw him living in an 
 atmosphere of such moral be-fogment that the forms 
 of duty and morality all became distorted and mon- 
 strous. Saw John first enduring, then pitying, then 
 embracing the hideous monster of Mormonism. Saw 
 her own husband, her own exclusive,, dear husband, 
 reduced to a sum in complex fractions, herself only 
 one of numberless numerators with John for a common 
 denominator. Salt Lake City had but one aspect for 
 her as a woman. That aspect was altogether vile. 
 She sat dumb and white while her husband proceeded 
 volubly to give Anthony a fuller idea of the scope and 
 intention of the new branch house. 
 
 Mr. Quinby was rather unprepared for this mute- 
 ness of protest on his wife's part. It threw him some-
 
 MO TES A ND BE A MS. 1 9 
 
 what out in his reckoning. He had expected wordy 
 opposition and had his ammunition all ready for a 
 return charge. But how can a man argue against the 
 white pain in a woman's face, or combat the mournful 
 plea of a troubled eye ? She sat near enough for him 
 to touch her. He laid his large warm hand on hers, 
 as she sat with them folded in her lap. Hers were as 
 cold as two little lumps of ice and as unresponsive to 
 the affectionate pressure, which, perhaps, in all their 
 married life had never before failed of its mission. 
 Strategy and coaxing are widely differing agencies. 
 Mr. Quinby frequently condescended to strategy, 
 never to coaxing. 
 
 "Your hands are cold," he said, quite as if her 
 physical temperature were the prime thing under con- 
 sideration, and left his warmer one covering them just 
 long enough to make sure that no response was coming. 
 
 " Have you quite decided ? " Anthony asked, looking 
 quickly away from Anna's white face to the asbestos 
 logs. 
 
 "Quite." 
 
 Mr. Quinby's voice was altogether uncompromising. 
 
 Mrs. Quinby folded up the study in blue floss with 
 dainty precision, pinned the corners of the handker- 
 chief together, and said as she came back empty- 
 handed from the be-ribboned work-basket : 
 
 " I think, John, if you and Anthony will excuse me, 
 I will go to bed."
 
 20 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 " Do, my dear. You look tired." Mr. Quinby got 
 up, and encircling his wife's waist with his arm, while 
 he held his cigar well out of her face, affectionately 
 kissed her good-night. There was no doubt about it. 
 Mr. Quinby rarely left undone any one of the things a 
 good husband ought to do. 
 
 When the two men were alone Anthony drew nearer 
 to the gas logs, and idly poking the shining brass tongs 
 which belonged to the fiction of the wood-fire, into the 
 shooting jets of flames, asked without looking at his 
 brother : 
 
 " Will it be a very immediate thing ? " 
 
 " The opening of the branch house ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " I presume it will. They are only waiting for my 
 answer." 
 
 A relieved look came into Anthony's face. " You 
 have not given it, then?" 
 
 " No. I have not given it to them. I have no 
 idea of letting them see how eagerly I nibble at the 
 hook." 
 
 " Anna don't like it, evidently," says Anthony. 
 
 " I was quite prepared for opposition in that quarter. 
 I'm sorry, but it can not be helped." 
 
 " Perhaps she wouldn't mind it so much at any other 
 time." 
 
 Mr. Quinby stared. 
 
 " You know it will be pretty rough on her to give up
 
 MOTES AND BEAMS. 21 
 
 her familiar surroundings and her mother and her own 
 doctor just now." 
 
 " By George, Tony, you ought to have been a 
 woman." 
 
 Anthony flushed dark red, and the shining tongs fell 
 back alongside their shining comrades, shovel and 
 poker, with a metallic ring. John reached over, and, 
 putting an apologetic hand upon his brother's knee, 
 said with affectionate warmth of voice and eye, 
 
 " Don't misunderstand me, old fellow. I simply 
 meant you were so deucedly thoughtful, just like a 
 woman for all the world. You've pointed out a hitch 
 that had never suggested itself to me." 
 
 " Perhaps you could get them to let the branching 
 out lay over until you know well, until after 
 
 A contemplative silence fell between the two men. 
 Anthony was thinking that if he succeeded in get- 
 ting the day postponed, perhaps Providence would 
 lend a helping hand to get the scheme broken up 
 altogether. John was inquiring of conscience how 
 things could be worked out so as to leave him void of 
 offense toward the wife who was the dearest woman in 
 all the world, and yet not jeopardize the partnership 
 which would elevate him to the very highest round of 
 the ladder he had been climbing so patiently and hope- 
 fully. He finally broke the silence with his most dicta- 
 torial voice : 
 
 " I have thought of a way, Anthony, to smooth mat-
 
 22 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 ters for all of us. I certainly can not afford to throw 
 away the thing I have been working up to all those 
 years, just as it lies within my grasp. I'm not going to 
 say I wouldn't rather the lines had fallen to me here in 
 New York. I am sorry Anna takes it so much to 
 heart. It is quite absurd, you know, and I beg of you 
 not to show her in any way that you share her foolish 
 prejudices in this matter. I can see that you do. I 
 confess I had looked for something a little broader from 
 you. Hang it all! am I a piece of putty to be punched 
 into any shape by a lot of latter-day saints or devils for 
 whom I haven't any more respect than for a herd of 
 cattle? If I find that in order to secure this partner- 
 ship I must go out immediately, I shall clo so. I owe it 
 to myself, to my wife and to our children," he added, 
 projecting his sense of responsibility a little in advance. 
 " Mrs. Quinby can remain here, in her own house, where 
 her mother and her own physician are within stone- 
 throw, until she is able to join me. Then you will 
 bring her out to me, and we will take up in that new 
 land, the old happy life we've led here plus another 
 element I hope. I'll talk to Anna to-night." 
 
 And with a sense of having cut the only knot he was 
 not skillful enough to untie, Mr. Quinby stretched his 
 fine legs luxuriously alongthe Smyrna rug, as he leaned 
 back in his bent-wood chair and sent long wreaths of 
 smoke silently curling ceilingward. 
 
 Booking at him as he sat there in masterful serenity,
 
 MOTES AND BEAMS. 23 
 
 Anthony Quinby gave fleeting audience to a train of 
 bitter reflection : 
 
 How would it have been if he had come back from 
 the wars whole and straight and strong as John was 
 now ? John was a mere stripling when he, Anthony, 
 had gone away from Elizabeth with his heart full of 
 patriotism and love for Anna Abbott. He had meant 
 to tell her if he got back safe, but he hadn't gotten 
 back safe, at least not sound. He had gotten back 
 lopped of an arm and with a distorted shoulder and an 
 ugly scar on his cheek. All his beauty gone ! 
 
 So he had never told Anna, or any body else, about 
 the foolish fancies he had fed his heart on, in the joy- 
 less days of bivouac and battle, and he had kissed her 
 for the first time when John had presented her to him 
 as a sister, and with God's help he would be her true and 
 loyal brother unto the bitter end. 
 
 " Well," he said aloud, rising, and reaching for his- 
 cane, " I suppose you are going to arrange matters to 
 suit yourself." 
 
 " I am most likely to do so," says John, smiling up 
 at him blandly through his smoke-wreaths. 
 
 "Goodnight!" 
 
 " Good night, Tony." 
 
 And slumberous silence soon fell on the little house 
 jn Broad street,
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 TWO LETTERS OF ONE DATE. 
 
 ON the evening of August the fifteenth of the year 
 1 88 , Mr. John Quinby, sitting at a writing table 
 in the reading room of the Walker House, Salt Lake 
 City, wrote to his brother Anthony as follows : 
 
 " My dear Tony As my last was to Anna this shall 
 be to you, but as I suppose my letters are common 
 property at least what is yours is hers, if hers is not 
 yours it will do for the family. Moreover, I expect 
 more from you in the letter line than frcm my dear 
 little wife, who, no doubt, is troubled about many 
 things at present. My best thoughts are with her and 
 of her constantly, and I take immense delight in pic- 
 turing to myself the happiness we will all take up again 
 soon, just where we dropped it a little while back. At 
 present, although living en garcon, I am altogether 
 comfortable in spite of my separation from my dear 
 ones. 
 
 " I continue to be charmed with the physical features 
 of this singularly blessed region, and my respect is also 
 imperatively demanded for the men who have in so
 
 TWO LETTERS OF ONE DA TE. 25 
 
 marvelously short a period of time, rescued a wilder- 
 ness and caused it to blossom like a garden. 
 
 " As I wrote Anna, I am located at the Walker 
 House, where I have first-class accommodations at very 
 reasonable rates. The city is well provided with good 
 hotels, and in point of thrift, honesty and neatness we 
 Gentiles might take many a lesson from these Saints. 
 The city has an altitude of four thousand two hundred 
 and sixty-one feet above the sea level and the climate 
 is absolutely perfect, in my estimation. The mean sum- 
 mer temperature is about seventy-four degrees, and, 
 although at present we have reached the maximum of 
 ninety, the heat never continues into the night, and I 
 wish I might hope that you and Anna were enjoying 
 the delightfully refreshing breeze that keeps my paper 
 a-flutter. There is no comparison between the comfort 
 of this climate and the average eastern climate of the 
 same latitude, and you know when a man has reached 
 the point of pulling down the scales at one hundred 
 and eighty pounds he is in a frame of mind to appre- 
 ciate such advantages. 
 
 " Bring my sweet wife over to me, Tony, well and 
 strong, for there is much in this curious land for her 
 bright eyes to see, and all the time I can possibly spare 
 from my business shall be devoted to winning her 
 over to a genuine liking for the spot which, in all prob- 
 ability, will be our home for a good many years to 
 come. She will never know what it cost me to come
 
 26 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 away without the supreme satisfaction of believing that 
 she finally acquiesced in the wisdom as well as the 
 necessity for this move on my part. 
 
 " Salt Lake City is in itself quite imposing, laid off 
 with geometrical precision and yet not sacrificing its 
 natural beauties. Each street is one hundred and 
 thirty-two feet wide, including the sidewalks, which are 
 twenty feet in width. The majority of the streets are 
 bordered with shade trees and running brooks, the 
 foliage of the former concealing the houses so com- 
 pletely at this season of the year that the city has the 
 appearance of an immense grove. 
 
 " Mormon architecture is characterized rather by solid- 
 ity than elegance, and the stamp of Brigham Young's 
 individuality is everywhere perceptible. One involun- 
 tarily pays tribute of respect to the mind which could 
 so dominate all other minds that fell within the scope 
 of its magic influence. 
 
 " One of the most curious objects of interest to me 
 here is the 'Tithing Store.' It is the custom of the 
 Mormons to pay their tithes and donations to the 
 church in kind. The farmer brings the products of his 
 farm, the herder of the increase of his flocks, the mer- 
 chant of his merchandise and so on ad infinitum, a 
 truly patriarchal system, which, indeed, is the system 
 upon which the entire social fabric rests, with a strong 
 under-pinning of Biblical authority ; but the result (of 
 the tithing I mean, not of Mormonism) is a complicated
 
 TWO LETTERS OF OXE DATE. 27 
 
 assortment of produce, grain, vegetables, poultry, cattle 
 and merchandise, which strikes one fresh from the 
 speculative region of Wall street as ponderously incon- 
 venient, viewed as change. 
 
 " I am told that the material thus accumulated is 
 paid out to the men who work on the Temples, the 
 public lands, clerks and others ; goes toward the sup- 
 port of the poor, is doled out to friendly Indians, and, 
 in short, answers every purpose of exchange as 
 thoroughly well as a more portable currency. 
 
 " During the summer season two trains run daily to 
 Black Rock and Garfield Landing, and you, who are 
 familiar with my amphibious nature, can imagine the 
 delight I experience in taking the late train, after busi- 
 ness hours, for the sole purpose of enjoying a bath in 
 the buoyant waters of the lake. The least possible 
 effort is necessary to keep one's equilibrium, and sink- 
 ing is out of the question. In the long sunny days of 
 mid-summer the water becomes deliciously warm, much 
 more so than ocean water. 
 
 " I am more than ever convinced that Ford, Farnham 
 & Co. did a wise thing in establishing this branch just 
 at this time. It was a necessity of the trade here, and 
 consequently is meeting with more immediate success 
 than I had dared hope for. The men with whom my 
 business brings me in contact are, as a rule, shrewd, 
 clear-headed, upright and practical, with very decided 
 views on the subject of money making and money
 
 28 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 keeping. I have no quarrel with them on that score. 
 So far Utah contains no social life for me. I am little 
 better than a machine without Anna and you, my two 
 good angels. 
 
 . " Do write to me that she is brave and cheerful and 
 reconciled. She is so thoroughly conscientious that 
 once she yields a point it is never raked up for fresh 
 discussion. That is one of her rare attributes. The 
 sweet and lovable ones are many, but you know the 
 number and the order of them as well as I do. I have 
 written thus fully so that you may see what sort of life 
 your absentee is living in his exile." 
 
 On the evening of August the fifteenth of the year 
 1 88 , Mr. Anthony Quinby, sitting at a writing table 
 under the drop-light in the little library of his brother's 
 Elizabeth home, wrote to that brother as follows : 
 
 " My dear John I have the library all to myself to- 
 night and am taking dismal comfort in rilling it with 
 tobacco smoke in hopes of driving away a few of the 
 pestiferous musquitoes that make life in New Jersey a 
 burden at this time of the year. They are laying siege 
 to every vulnerable point of me at once, and if I were 
 to write just as I feel I am afraid this would be a sting- 
 ing epistle. We are having infernally hot weather here 
 just now, which, however, distresses me more on Anna's 
 account than on my own. 
 
 " Mrs. Abbott spends most of her time with us lately, 
 and Anna keeps up a pretty fair show of cheerfulness.
 
 TWO LETTERS OF OXE DATE. 29 
 
 We miss you rather more, I think, than when you first 
 left. Then it seemed simply like one of the short 
 trips you so often took. The little woman to-day 
 wreathed your photograph that hangs over the parlor 
 mantel in smilax, remembering what I had forgotten, 
 that it was your birth-day. Thirty-five ! What an 
 ancient of years you are getting to be ! 
 
 " There is literally nothing of interest to write you 
 about. The 'haps' of Elizabeth are born moldy. 
 The only ripple on the stagnant pool that floats society 
 here is the return of Dr. Ambrose's daughter, in con- 
 sequence of which the clever old fellow seems to have 
 undergone a spiritual rejuvenescence. It is pathetic 
 to witness his happiness at having her back. He says 
 he has just begun to live, and wonders how he existed 
 so long 'without Effie.' To a stranger, Miss Ambrose 
 seems scarcely to warrant such ecstasy of devotion, 
 even in a doting old man's breast, but perhaps you will 
 remember her better and more favorably than I do, 
 for, if I do not mistake, in the callow days of your 
 school vacations she received a large proportion of 
 your attentions. But all that was before you had seen 
 Anna. She is called ' very smart ' by the boys, 
 who are afraid of her, and ' eccentric ' by the older 
 men, to whom her physical angularity does not recom- 
 mend her. She and Anna have picked up the old girl 
 friendship and knotted it together with that easy skill 
 women have for mending things that have been broken
 
 30 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 a long time. I think the episode of her return has 
 done your wife good. If you remember she left here 
 at the time of her mother's death to live with a maiden 
 aunt. Maiden aunt is gone too, now, leaving Miss 
 Ambrose quite an heiress in her own right. She is 
 here about as much as Mrs. Abbott is, which is to say 
 pretty much all the time. Dr. Ambrose hovers over 
 them both (our Anna and his Effie, I mean, not Mrs. 
 Abbott) in the most fatherly fashion. 
 
 " Veritably I ought to have been a woman, as you 
 half-contemptuously say sometimes. I have sat about 
 the house in my helpless worthlessness until there's no 
 grist left in my mental mill but the shrunken grains 
 of village gossip. 
 
 "As for commercial gossip and Wall street ondits, 
 vide The Commercial Advertiser, The Tribune, and The 
 Post, all of which I mail you with this." 
 
 An hour later, as Anthony, just returned from drop- 
 ping this letter into the nearest mail-box, was hanging 
 his hat on the rack in the hall, Mrs. Abbott suddenly 
 appeared before him with a face full of importance. 
 " Telegraph to John, please, that his son Abbott 
 Quinby is a remarkably fine child, and that Anna is 
 quite well," she said peremptorily, and vanished. 
 
 " Bless my soul ! " said Anthony, standing still, with 
 his arm upraised, quite as if nothing of the sort had 
 ever been contemplated. Then he put his hat slowly 
 on, and went out into the night again, pondering over
 
 TWO LETTERS OF ONE DA TE. 31 
 
 the ever old, ever-new mystery of life, and breathing a 
 prayer that all might be well for this last comer into a 
 world where things had such a faculty for getting 
 themselves into a snarl. " Perhaps," he said to him- 
 self a little later, as he softly tip-toed through the hall 
 to reach his bedroom noiselessly, " if the time ever 
 comes when Anna needs a comforter an earthly one 
 I mean ''she may find it in the little chap who has just 
 got here." 
 Who knows!
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 THE DOCTOR'S PERPLEXITIES. 
 
 DR. AMBROSE walked home that night from the 
 Quinbys' in a sagely reflective mood. He had time 
 to indulge in such, now that he was relieved from all 
 anxiety concerning " John's wife," which was the form 
 in which he always thought of Mrs. Quinby, who had 
 been entrusted to his guardianship by her husband 
 with great impfessiveness. 
 
 " She has fretted so," he had said, in self-excuse to 
 himself for worrying, " over this idiotic move of John'sto 
 Utah, that I did not know what the consequences might 
 be." But John's wife was all right now, and the doctor 
 walked slowly homeward through the sleeping town 
 with no harsher sound to disturb his sage reflections than 
 the fall of his own heavy tread upon the deserted side- 
 walks, or the quicker and more imperious footsteps of 
 some blue-coated policeman, who watched while honest 
 men slept. Dr. Ambrose was an old-fashioned man, 
 with an assortment of old-fashioned notions, and one 
 of his favorite topics of thought, as well as of conver- 
 sation, was woman and her destiny. Not a strikingly
 
 THE DOCTOR'S PERPLEXITIES. 33 
 
 original topic, one must admit, but one with which, in 
 his capacity as physician, the doctor came into close 
 and frequent contact. Having forewarned you that 
 he was old-fashioned, you will not expect to find him 
 entertaining any but the most orthodox views on this 
 subject. Woman's prime mission in life, he held, was 
 to marry and to rear children. And she who shirked 
 these duties was little short of reprehensible. 
 
 John Quinby's wife, as he had just left her, white, 
 languid, quiescent, with her arms folded rapturously 
 about the small atom of humanity that was so uncon- 
 scious of its own mission of comforter, such a tiny 
 thing to fill a woman's entire horizon with rosy light ; 
 with the mother-love shining in eyes that had just been 
 filled with pain and terror, was to hirri'a consecrated 
 human being. An almost perceptible halo had seemed 
 to encircle Anna's brow when the divine miracle of life 
 had been wrought out once more through her agency. 
 John Quinby's wife was no longer the peevish patient 
 over whom he kept stern watch and ward ; she was a 
 mother, consecrated to the sweetest duties that can 
 come into any woman's life, duties which, under- 
 stood and faithfully performed, would enlarge her 
 heart and brain, elevate her entire nature and leave no 
 margin for unhealthy repinings touching certain things 
 that had not gone according to her wishes of late. He 
 was glad to see Anna welcome her boy as a blessing, 
 rather than as a burden to be borne with what dignity
 
 34 i'UE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 she could assume. There was too much of the latter 
 feeling observable among women of the present day. 
 Too much downright rebellion against the decrees of 
 Heaven in this respect. Yes, Anna was fulfilling her 
 mission in life. How would it be with his own girl? 
 With his Effie, who was at once a puzzle and a delight 
 to him? He was afraid Effie had picked up some 
 queer notions from that Boston aunt of hers. Queer 
 to him at least. " Advanced notions," he supposed 
 they would be called by people who never liked to call 
 a spade " a spade." There was no denying that Effie 
 was not just what he had expected to find her, though 
 it was hard to find any specific fault with her. She 
 was gentle and good and neat, and had quite a turn for 
 housekeeping, and seemed to have perfect control of 
 what had once promised to be rather an imperious 
 temper; and she was loving enough to him, consider- 
 ing their separation of ten years, but still there was 
 something lacking! She didn't seem to have the aver- 
 age girl's appetite for beaux and admiration ; in fact, 
 seemed rather nettled than otherwise at the persistent 
 attention of some two or three " fellows " who seemed 
 a little harder to freeze out than their contemporaries. 
 To the doctor it seemed as natural for young people 
 of the opposite sexes to enjoy each other's society, and 
 to seek it, as for the birds to mate in spring. But Dr. 
 Ambrose, at best, was a simple minded old fossil. A 
 girl who turned away in manifest disapproval of beaux
 
 THE DOCTOR'S PERPLEXITIES. 35' 
 
 was a complex organism to him which it was necessary 
 to study as one would a problem in trigonometry. Dr. 
 Ambrose in his most vigorous mental days had never 
 been partial to the exact sciences, and he would infin- 
 itely have preferred not to take up the study of his 
 only child as if she were an unknown quantity, which, 
 indeed, he very much feared she was. 
 
 Perhaps, he thought, (always ready to assume him- 
 self in fault), he hadn't done the right thing by Effiein 
 handing her over so trustingly to her mother's sister. 
 But his wife had asked it of him when she was dying, and 
 he, as a busy practitioner, had so little time to bestow 
 on the lonely child, that it had seemed the only thing 
 left to do. And Effie had been very happy with her 
 aunt, until that excellent woman suddenly died and 
 the girl had been sent back upon her father's hands, 
 leaving him to grope his way into an understanding 
 of her, but ready to take her into his warm, capacious 
 heart all unexplained as she was. He had discovered 
 in the first week of her return that she was not well, 
 not quite like other young people. "A little too 
 intense," is how he would have described her, if he had 
 been compelled to put his perplexities into words. 
 Considering intensity a sort of malady, you know, sub- 
 versive of that natural joyousness that goes with all 
 healthy young organisms, he had fostered her intimacy 
 with John Quinby's wife as a most desirable antidote. 
 
 " I'd like to have some of the blue rubbed off my
 
 36 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 girl," he had informed Mrs. Abbott confidentially, " and 
 it does me good to hear Anna begin to talk John 
 whenever Effie begins to talk ethics." 
 
 He did not tell Mrs. Abbott (he was too carefully 
 courteous of that lady's feelings) that her Anna pos- 
 sessed just the element of commonplace which his 
 Effie lacked. And Mrs. Quinby's companionship had 
 seemed thoroughly acceptable to Miss Ambrose. She 
 had known Anna all her life and she seemed to shrink 
 with a most unaccountable distaste from the form- 
 ation of any new ties. "Quite unnatural, you know! 
 Altogether queer ! " the doctor had said in his despair 
 at her obstinacy on this point and her failure to account 
 for it satisfactorily. It distressed him, this unrespon- 
 sive attitude she had assumed toward the good Eliza- 
 bethans, who had flocked to welcome her home, some 
 for her " dear mother's sake," some -for "their good 
 doctor's sake," and some avowedly declaring that they 
 considered a young lady " reared in the cultivated 
 atmosphere of Boston, as quite an acquisition to poor 
 little Elizabeth." 
 
 In those lonely days of his, during his daughter's 
 Bos_ton residence, Dr. Ambrose used to console himself 
 with the building of air castles that always had their 
 foundations in Effie's early marriage, She was to 
 marry some fellow who was to love her very much 
 indeed, and be just as good to her as her merits 
 demanded (which was of course to bespeak super-ex-
 
 THE DOCTOR'S PERPLEXITIES. 37 
 
 cellence for this young man), and they were all to live 
 happily together in the old house where Effie had been 
 born and he had lived all his married life, and he was 
 to begin life all over again in Effie's boys and girls. 
 This vision of patriarchal blessedness did not present 
 itself as a remote possibility of the future. It was sim- 
 ply the finale to this time of lonely probation for him 
 and active preparation for her. For with Dr. Ambrose 
 all education for womankind tended, or should tend, to 
 prepare her for the inevitable conclusions of wife-hood 
 and maternity. As Mrs. Quinby and Effie were con- 
 temporaneous, he felt in a sense defrauded that his vis- 
 ion was still nothing but a baseless fabric, while John 
 Quinby's happiness had been an assured fact for some 
 years. 
 
 " She freezes the fellows out, one by one ; hanged 
 if I know what notion she has got in her head," said 
 Dr. Ambrose this night in a sudden culmination of 
 impatience as he stepped on to his low portico with 
 his mind still running on Effie, and her provoking in- 
 difference to the object so near his own affectionate 
 heart. " Maybe Anna's baby will fetch her round," 
 he said, smiling at the conceit as it took possession of 
 him one second, but was forgotten the next, in surprise 
 at seeing so bright a light still streaming through the 
 hall and from the open parlor door. Then he softly 
 tip-toed over the fluffy rugs that deadened nis foot-fall 
 with the stealthy habit that he had long since acquired
 
 38 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 by coming home all hours of the night and respecting 
 the slumbers of his household. 
 
 He glanced into the parlor on his way to the hat- 
 rack. Effie was not there. He hadn't expected she 
 would be. She always sat in the snug little back par- 
 lor behind the portieres. She seemed to fit into it so 
 prettily; but, since she had filled it up with the easels, 
 and brackets, and be-ribboned wicker chairs, and hand- 
 embroidered screens, and cabinets full of rare bits of 
 china, and big vases and little vases, and Japanese 
 wonders of all sorts, he had felt hulky and out of place 
 in it, and seldom staid there long, as Effie was a foe to 
 tobacco in any shape and that was one solace he could 
 not relinquish. He stopped in the triangle of light 
 made by the looped back portieres that divided the 
 -two parlors. Yes, there she was sitting by the little 
 spider-legged brass table with its lace-fringed velvet 
 cover, the bright light from the chandelier over her 
 head flooding her with brightness. Her clear cut pro- 
 file was turned toward him. Miss Ambrose was 
 slightly disappointing to people whose first glimpse of 
 her was a sidewise one. The lines about her chin and 
 the corners of her mouth were so much softer, the nose 
 so much more classic, and a certain droop to the eye- 
 brow so much more graceful than in a fuller front view. 
 She had been reading, but at the moment of her father's 
 invasion she sat with the open book face downward in 
 her lap and her folded hands rested upon its lids. How
 
 THE DOCTOR'S PERPLEXITIES. 39 
 
 pretty she looked in the old man's eyes ! She had not 
 yet lost the charm of novelty for her father. In fact, 
 physically as well as mentally, she was an altogether 
 different being from the plump girl with a voracious 
 appetite and two long plaits down her back with knots 
 of red ribbon tied on the fluffy ends, that he had de- 
 posited, frightened and sobbing, in Miss Priscilla Water- 
 man's arms a decade Before. This thin, delicate feat- 
 ured young lady chiefly noticeable for the prim erect- 
 ness of her carriage and the serious gravity of her large 
 gray eyes ; who always spoke in the measured tones and 
 the soft, cultured voice of a woman who had out-grown 
 every impulse to hurry her views into notice was ex- 
 tremely attractive, but a trifle inaccessible even to him 
 who yearned so for a fuller return of the love he had 
 waited for a long, long time. To the simple mind of 
 the doctor seriousness was but one phase of sorrow. 
 Why should his girl, who, since the far-away shock of 
 a mother's death, had never known a shadow of trouble 
 or care, take life with such tremendous gravity ? He 
 was perpetually tempted to ask her what was the mat- 
 ter, but was deterred by fear of making the puzzle still 
 more puzzling. In reality, Miss Ambrose had a most 
 embarrassing way of looking at one, if one did but say 
 the morning was a fine one, quite as if she expected 
 one to follow up that truism with a scientific exposi- 
 tion of the barometric conditions that had produced 
 the fineness in question ; and one was constantly im-
 
 40 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 pressed with the futility of one's efforts to entertain or 
 enlighten so thoroughly self-contained a 'young woman. 
 Not that the doctor's daughter was ever consciously 
 rude or lacking in gentle courtesy. She was simply 
 not interested in any thing that was going on about her, 
 and was too thoroughly indifferent to what people 
 thought or said of her to make an effort to conceal it. 
 
 "Well, my pet!" 
 
 She started convulsively and her book slipped from 
 her relaxed clasp to the floor. She must have been 
 very far away in the spirit for her father's familiar voice 
 and the familiar words to startle her so. 
 
 "Caught you napping, hey ! you ought to have been 
 in bed two hours ago. Suppose you couldn't sleep, 
 though, until you had heard the news." 
 
 The doctor stooped with creaking knee-joints to re- 
 cover the fallen book, and laid it on the table behind 
 his daughter, as he bent over and kissed her heartily. 
 
 " What news ?" she asked, in that slow, unhurried 
 way of hers, rewarding his warm caress with a shy 
 fleeting smile. " No, I wasn't asleep, I was startled, 
 you came in so noiselessly. I had just finished reading 
 about Margaret Fuller, and was thinking, that was all. 
 You have been with Anna ? " 
 
 "Yes. And she sends word you must come over 
 very early in the morning to see Mr. Abbott Quinby." 
 
 " Mr. Abbott Quinby ! oh yes, but I think I 
 will wait awhile. Babies are only interesting to their
 
 THE DOCTOR'S PERPLEXITIES. 41 
 
 very nearest relatives at this early stage of their devel- 
 opment. I am afraid I should find it very hard to 
 say any thing pleasant about it to Anna, poor child, 
 and I shouldn't care to say unpleasant truths to 
 her." 
 
 "Why I thought you liked John's wife? " says the 
 doctor with clumsy irrelevance. 
 
 "So I do, immensely!" Effie's serious eyes were 
 turned on him questioningly. The doctor had seated 
 himself in one of the most substantial chairs in the 
 room and sat curling the long ends of his iron gray 
 mustache abstractedly while he pondered his daugh- 
 ter's cold impassiveness to her friend's suffering and 
 triumph ! 
 
 Miss Ambrose's eyes saved her lips an immense 
 amount of exertion. On the present occasion they 
 impelled her father to apologize for his somewhat tart 
 tones of a moment before. 
 
 " Beg your pardon, pet, but you are so deucedly un- 
 demonstrative. Anna thinks so much of you that I 
 really would like to see you warm up a little more to 
 
 
 
 her baby. I thought all women were by all babies, as 
 all girls are by all dolls you know, took to them 
 naturally." 
 
 " I can't recall that I ever did take to dolls, as you 
 express it. Papa, can you ? I remember I had quite 
 a lot in my trunk when I went to Boston, but Aunt 
 Priscilla had so many more interesting things and was
 
 42 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 so kind in entertaining me with them that I ended by 
 giving all my dolls away." 
 
 "What were Priscilla's more interesting things?" 
 the doctor asked, always eager for any information that 
 would throw light on the mental processes that had 
 evolved this finished young lady out of his very crude 
 darling. 
 
 " Oh ! I don't know ; such a variety of things micro- 
 scopes and aquariums and geometrical puzzles, and 
 mission-schools and " 
 
 " Mission schools ! Was that among your amuse- 
 ments? " 
 
 The doctor indulged in so hearty a laugh at Miss 
 Priscilla's expense that his daughter's pale face grew 
 decidedly pink with resentment, and she said a little 
 less slowly than usual, 
 
 " You knew Aunt Priscilla was not a frivolous per- 
 son when you put me with her, didn't you, papa?" 
 
 " I shouldn't have been likely to put you with her 
 if she had been," he said, wiping away the tears that 
 had filled his eyes to overflowing ; " but, Jerusalem 
 the golden ! " He was off again, brutally merry at the 
 idea of any fun being extracted from a mission-school. 
 
 If Miss Ambrose had not been a foe to all emotion 
 that did not have its foundation in some great under- 
 lying principle of right or wrong, she would have grown 
 actively angry at this juncture, but her Aunt Pris- 
 cilla's philosophic teachings were not so far back in
 
 THE DOCTOR'S PERPLEXITIES. 43 
 
 the past that she could forget herself and show her 
 temper. She simply folded her hands and looked a 
 little graver than usual. 
 
 Dr. Ambrose, reasoning from a very narrow concep- 
 tion of the female character, had fallen into a very 
 grave error concerning this daughter of his. Her cold 
 imperturbability under the raillery which was pur- 
 posely exaggerated in order to pique her into some 
 warmth of defense, was mistaken for an indication that 
 no such warmth existed. " She has had all feeling 
 cultured out of her," was his hasty and disappointed 
 conclusion. On the contrary, it had been concentrated 
 and intensified until it filled her heart with a concrete 
 of emotions that nothing but a volcanic shock would 
 convert into a stream of molten lava, destructive in its 
 escape, perilous in its onward sweep. 
 
 There was that within this quiet-seeming girl that 
 only awaited the touch of some tremendous inspira- 
 tion to make her frail form quiver with sensibility. 
 Her nature was like a skiff in stormy weather a craft 
 badly in need of a strong helmsman. 
 
 " I was very happy with Aunt Priscilla," she said 
 presently, " and she was very, very good to me. She 
 was a grand woman, father. She tried very hard to 
 gird up my loins for the battle." 
 
 "What battle?" Dr. Ambrose asked, a trifle im- 
 patiently, for, to his seeing, there was no call for Effic 
 to do any thing but to enjoy herself like other girls and
 
 44 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 be happy in the very placid sphere of life that it had 
 pleased God to place her. He did not like to hear her 
 talk in this unsheltered fashion. 
 
 " The battle with the powers of evil, which, sooner 
 or later, I suppose, we are all called upon to engage 
 in," Effie answers with undue solemnity. 
 
 " Tut, child ! You're sleepy. You're growing owl- 
 ish. Nearly twelve o'clock. Kiss me and go to bed." 
 
 Effie obeyed him to the extent of rising immediately, 
 and as she stood before him, almost tall enough to look 
 straight into his tender eyes and rugged face, she put 
 her little hands on his shoulders, and said in that sur- 
 charged voice of hers that had so much wasted tragedy 
 in it, and yet with affectionate entreaty, 
 
 " Father, if you love me any better, or any differently 
 from what you did when I was little better than a kit- 
 ten scampering about the house for your amusement, 
 don't ever treat me so contemptuously again. I don't 
 like it. Some men think they have achieved a triumph 
 of manliness when they laugh at instead of frowning 
 down any thing a woman says or does that is not in 
 strict accordance with all their preconceived notions ; 
 but I don't want to class my dear, dear father with the 
 men who can not afford to reason with women. Good- 
 night. I foresee that we are going to differ about a 
 great many things, but we can keep on loving each 
 other straight through it all, can't we, papa, dear?" 
 
 " Straight through all and all, my darling," says Dr.
 
 THE DOCTOR 'S PERPLEXITIES. 45 
 
 Ambrose, folding his great arms about the girl's slim 
 waist and shoulders, and kissing her with pardoning 
 tenderness. 
 
 Then she went away from him leaving him more and 
 more perplexed about her. Conscious, more than 
 ever, that the element of placid comfort was not likely 
 to enter largely into his daily companionship with his 
 daughter. 
 
 " It's going to be very like living in the close neigh- 
 borhood of Mount Vesuvius," he sighed, taking his 
 own bedroom candle from the hall table, " with no 
 data by which to prognosticate eruptions. She's a sweet 
 
 child beneath it all. It all comes of that con " 
 
 even in the privacy of his own room, Dr. Ambrose hes- 
 itated over completing an entirely condemnatory sen- 
 tence upon Miss Priscilla Waterman's method of rear- 
 ing girls.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE DAY OF DEPARTURE. 
 
 ' * T WISH it didn't all look so pretty, you know, in its 
 X bright autumn dress ! I'd rather have it looking 
 uglier than ugly. Oh ! Anthony, will any spot ever be 
 to me what this one has been ? Just look at my pretty 
 tulip bed! It is dazzling !" 
 
 Mrs. Quinby did not want an answer, for which An- 
 thony was thankful in the extreme. She walked away 
 from him, where he was stooping, paste-brush in hand, 
 sticking labels on the numberless trunks and boxes 
 that were piled in the front portico of the Quinbys' 
 house, even then awaiting the city express to take 
 them down to the depot. Anna's plaintive little wails 
 were quite natural, but they were more than thrice- 
 told tales now, and since the thing had become inevi- 
 table, he discouraged all discussion of the " cons " of 
 the case, so far as was possible. He heard her go out 
 into the little garden that was ablaze with tulips and 
 scarlet geraniums and brilliant foliage plants, which 
 she gathered with reckless prof-usion, filling her hands 
 and straw hat with the costly beauties of which she 
 was generally quite niggardly.
 
 THE DA Y OF DEPARTURE. 4'f 
 
 " Who will care to-morrow how the garden looks ? " 
 she said, in extenuation of her recklessness as she came 
 back to Anthony and the luggage. " Look, Tony, the 
 tulips are bigger and brighter than ever before. I'll 
 crowd the tea-table with the beauties. Effie and the 
 doctor are coming to take away the dismalness of this 
 last meal for us. The dear old place seems to be laugh- 
 ing instead of sorrowing because we are going. Oh ! 
 Anthony, it is well John is at the other end, or my 
 heart would break at loosing its hold of this one. I 
 have to keep on saying over and over to myself, 'John 
 is there. John wants me. John is waiting. John 
 wants baby and me.' ' 
 
 Two big tears splashed down Mrs. Quinby's cheeks, 
 and fell in the gay tulips in her hands. A little chok- 
 ing sob reached Anthony's ears, and made the hand 
 that held the paste-brush tremble a little. A very big 
 and sprawling " Q" on the end of a brand new trunk 
 was the result. 
 
 " Don't let that one get lost, Tony, whatever hap- 
 pens. All baby's flannels are in it, and what would be- 
 come of us if they were lost ? " says Mrs. Quinby, anx- 
 iously, into whose consciousness it had never yet pene- 
 trated that outside New York and its environs the re- 
 quirements of a civilized life could be procured. 
 
 " We don't propose to lose any of them," said An- 
 thony, rising from his stooping posture and with paint- 
 brush in hand reviewing the mountain of luggage be-
 
 48 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 fore him in the anxious desire to impress the individual 
 features of each separate article upon his bewildered 
 memory ; "but if such a calamity should befall," smil- 
 ing re-assurance into Anna's face, " I don't imagine 
 young Quinby will have to go flannel-less all the rest 
 of his days. I am afraid that John's efforts to convince 
 you that you are going into a great center of civiliza- 
 tion, rather than a howling wilderness, have all been 
 thrown away on you." 
 
 " I am not prepared to find one good or admirable 
 thing there," Mrs. Quinby says, very positively. " John 
 has chosen to go there and I am compelled to do so." 
 Then suddenly seating herself on one of the ridgy 
 trunks, she asks abruptly : 
 
 "Tony ! do you believe in your heart that we will all, 
 you and John and baby and I, ever be so happy out 
 yonder as we could have been here ? " 
 
 "Why what a creature it is to reason in a circle ! " 
 Anthony answers vaguely. " I had come to regard 
 John's going ahead of you as quite a bit of strategy. 
 I thought your soul panted for Utah as the heart pant- 
 eth for the water-brooks. Let me see ! one, two 
 Saratogas, regular dromedaries for carrying capacity as 
 well as general humpiness. One black, flat-topped 
 trunk, one yellow ditto. Two canvas-covered of hon- 
 est old sole-leather, covers dingy enough to suggest 
 several trips around the world ; very mucn be-labeled, 
 one marked ' A. A.,' the other, bold ' Q.' I'll venture
 
 THE DA Y OF DEPARTURE. 49 
 
 to say those trunks went with you and John on your 
 bridal trip." 
 
 " They did," said Mrs. Quinby, smiling down on the 
 dingy canvas covers, " and such a trip as it was ! " 
 
 " You took in the Falls of course. And had your 
 pictures taken there?" 
 
 "Yes, oh yes, of course, and I held on to John's 
 legs while he reached far over a terrible ledge to get 
 me a piece of golden-rod." 
 
 " Of course you have it put away somewhere pressed." 
 
 " Of course ! You know it's not every man would 
 have done such a thing, Anthony, especially for his 
 wife. Men are ready enough to risk their necks or 
 heads for girls before they are sure of them, but they 
 do grow so masterful afterward." 
 
 "True!" says Mr. Quinby, abstractedly, returning 
 to his labels, while Mrs. Quinby launched into a fuller 
 description of the bridal trip, memories of which had 
 been conjured up by the old trunks. Not that he did 
 not know it all by rote, but he was satisfied to have 
 Anna talk on endlessly about any thing but the ethics 
 of their hegira. 
 
 He had done all he could to dissuade John from tak- 
 ing this step when the subject was first broached, but 
 since it had become inevitable he had equally discour- 
 aged all discussion of it, with that manly directness 
 that entered into all his sayings and doings. His 
 silent pity was poured out for John's wife abundantly.
 
 50 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 He pitied her for the wrench it gave her tender heart 
 to sever all the old home ties ; and he pitied her for 
 what he knew she would be called on to endure in the 
 strange atmosphere of her new home. He pitied her 
 for possessing in such excess the very sensibilities that 
 made her now so thoroughly sweet and lovable. As 
 for himself, this move involved no special hardship. 
 There were no ties to sunder. John, John's wife and 
 John's boy were the trinity of his acceptance. Wherever 
 they were, all that he could ever know of home life and 
 home happiness must be found. So he could very well 
 afford to be placid even in presence of the chaos that had 
 been evolved out of order in the tumult of preparation 
 for their journey. He felt culpable at not bearing a 
 larger share of the suffering involved in this move. 
 He would gladly have borne it all if possible. 
 
 Mrs. Abbott joined them presently, carrying the 
 baby on one arm, with the skill of a veteran in service, 
 while with her disengaged hand she dragged after her 
 a light rocker, which she located in the neighborhood 
 of the luggage and seated herself in it with her precious 
 burden of pink flesh and manifold draperies. Her eyes 
 were bright and dry. If she had any tears to shed 
 she did not propose to bedew the baby's new traveling 
 hood and cloak with them. Mrs. Abbott was a 
 thoroughly sensible woman. She held to the time- 
 honored patriarchal notion that the husband is the 
 judicial head. She would rather not give Anna
 
 THE DA Y OF DEPARTURE. 5 r 
 
 up so completely, but she meant when she got the 
 other children all settled off, to divide her time equally 
 among them. Salt Lake City was not so far off but 
 she could go there in an emergency. She never dis- 
 tinctly formulated any possible emergency, but she 
 held, in common with the less sensible of her sex, that 
 Utah was a land of every sort of possibilities in the 
 way of emergencies. 
 
 " It will be a mercy* Anna," she said, glancing 
 cautiously back over her shoulder toward the interior 
 of the house which they had all shunned in these last 
 moments, it was so dreadfully suggestive of a wreck in 
 its dismantled condition, " if that creature does not 
 break her own head and this precious baby's too." 
 Mrs. Abbott passed a caressing hand over the round 
 head that rested on her arm as if to assure herself it 
 had not already sustained some irreparable injury. 
 " What do you suppose I found her doing? Sitting 
 in one chair with her feet on the round of another, 
 the baby across her lap, while she plaited that long 
 yellow hair of hers ! Do look well after her, Tony." 
 
 Mrs. Quinby gave a little horrified shriek and fell 
 on her knees by baby's long skirts, cautiously feeling 
 her way up to the soft pink toes that were a perpet- 
 ual delight to her. Evidently the baby was in " good 
 condition," as we say of express packages. Anthony 
 added one English nurse-maid to the mental list of his 
 responsibilities for the next many days to come. And
 
 52 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 then they all fell into wordlessness, staring about them 
 like people who have said all they had to say to each 
 other on every conceivable topic for some time to come. 
 There was an under-current of emotion in each one of 
 their hearts that made " talk " difficult and desultory. 
 
 " There's the doctor and Effie ! " Mrs. Abbott says in 
 tones of positive relief. The sound of her lazy rocking 
 had been painfully audible for some seconds. "And 
 how handsome Effie is looking. She has quite a color 
 for her," all this, in the short space of time it takes Dr. 
 Ambrose and his daughter to walk across the narrow 
 strip of front yard that Mrs. Quinby has just despoiled 
 of flowers. 
 
 " So you will go ! we can't keep you ! " says Dr. 
 Ambrose, appropriating one of the flat-topped trunks 
 and beaming benevolently around at the disorder about 
 him. " I suppose you've telegraphed John." 
 
 " Yes. He knows we start to-night ! " says Anthony, 
 while Anna, never loosing her affectionate hold of Miss 
 Ambrose's hand, leads her straightway up to the shrine 
 of her own idolatry. 
 
 " You've never said he was pretty yet. You must 
 say something nice for him before I take him away 
 forever." 
 
 Miss Ambrose bent over, determined to be as effusive 
 as possible, and murmured something inarticulate, while 
 her heart went out in thankfulness for her father's gar. 
 rulity.
 
 THE DA Y OF DEPARTURE. 53 
 
 " Forever ! That's a stupendous word. We're think- 
 ing of coming out to pay you a visit as soon as you are 
 settled. 
 
 " Tell John to write me word how the Saints deal 
 with the question of family doctors, rather an embar- 
 rassing one, I should imagine. Effie and I are thinking 
 of going over as reformers. I'll heal their bodies while 
 she looks after their souls. We are conscious of the emp- 
 tiness of life in this overdone section of the country, 
 and we feel the premonitory symptoms of missionary 
 zeal burning in our breasts! Isn't that how it is, daugh- 
 ter?" 
 
 Miss Ambrose's grave eyes rested disapprovingly on 
 her father's laughing face for a second, then traveled 
 out to the ravaged tulip beds. " Your tulips were so 
 lovely yesterday, Anna : what has happened to them 
 all ? " she asked with no lifting of the gravity that 
 seemed part of her facial expression. 
 
 " I've buried the tea-table under them," said Anna. 
 " I was foolish enough to think the new people 
 would be getting some of my heart with my pretty 
 tulips." 
 
 " You've let the house furnished, I believe," says the 
 doctor. 
 
 " Yes, to some rich Jew ! You know the flowers would 
 be thrown away on them," says Mrs. Quinby, with Gen- 
 tile superiority. 
 
 " For how long?"
 
 54 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 " Five years," says Anthony, " a good lease. Anna 
 preferred not to sell." 
 
 " Best not burn your ships behind you. You can 
 hold it in terror over John, if wives multiply too fast, 
 that you've a house of your own to go back to. I've 
 heard it said that half those poor devils over yonder 
 the women I mean are held in bondage for the want of 
 means to get away or a place to go to." 
 
 To the doctor, as to most men, Salt Lake City was a 
 standing inspiration of poor wit, and the occasion 
 was never wasted. Anthony's nicer perception 
 showed him how the clumsy jest grated on more than 
 one of the women present. He flung himself into the 
 breach. 
 
 " By the way, doctor, perhaps it would help you and 
 Miss Ambrose to picture Anna in her new home, if I 
 were to read you John's description of it, in the letter 
 that reached us yesterday." He felt in the inside- 
 pocket of his coat and produced the letter. 
 
 " Let's have it by all means," and, clasping his arms 
 around the leg he had recklessly crossed, unmindful of 
 his precarious position on the high trunk, Dr. Ambrose 
 assumed an interested attitude. 
 
 " What a statuesque creature ; who is it ? " Miss Am- 
 brose asks in a low voice of Anna, while they are wait- 
 ing for Anthony to open his letter. It is slow work 
 with his one hand, but he is not awkward about it. 
 
 " It is Barbara! and she has come to say tea is ready.
 
 THE DA Y OF DEPAR TURE. 55 
 
 The letter will have to wait, Tony, or you can read it 
 at table. She's baby's nurse," Mrs. Quinby added 
 explanatorily to Effie, quite as if that were cause 
 enough for any one's being. 
 
 Standing with folded arms in the open door-way was 
 the girl whom Miss Ambrose had just called statuesque, 
 and whom a little while back Mrs. Abbott had called a 
 " stupid creature." Perhaps she was both. With her 
 superb figure, and full red lips, and ox eyes and crimped 
 muslin cap, she was certainly picturesque, even when 
 not posing motionlessly preferring in her slow, dull fash- 
 ion to await discovery of her presence and purpose 
 rather than to announce glibly that tea was served, and 
 bring down upon her a battery of eyes. She showed 
 the tips of her strong white teeth in a smile that illumi- 
 nated her stolid features like a burst of sunshine on a 
 stone wall, in gratitude for being saved any words, and 
 held out her hands to take the baby from Mrs. Abbott. 
 
 " For mercy's sake, Barbara, don't drop him, and 
 don't plait your hair over him, either," says Mrs. 
 Quinby, standing still to see nurse and baby safely 
 located in the chair. 
 
 Barbara's eyes dropped upon the child's head, her 
 cheeks flamed, but no smile came this time. 
 
 " You have hurt her feelings," says Mrs. Abbott, as 
 the three women walked in after the doctor and 
 Anthony, " and these foreign creatures are so resent- 
 ful."
 
 56 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 " Can't she talk at all ? " Miss Ambrose asked. 
 
 " Yes, oh yes. She can make herself understood 
 very well when she wants to. I believe she hates to 
 talk," says Anna, settling herself behind the tea-tray. 
 
 " An untenable hypothesis considering her sex," the 
 doctor says, calling on his stock of patent jests, which 
 is inexhaustible. Then, amid the subdued clatter of the 
 teaspoons and sugar tongs as Anna fills the cups, 
 Anthony reads aloud Mr. Quinby's last letter, in which 
 he describes the pretty two-storied house, delightfully 
 sheltered by rustling cotton-wood trees, and so 
 situated as to give a charming glimpse of the Lake and 
 the river Jordan, in every material respect a vast im- 
 provement on the Elizabeth house, that awaits the 
 coming of its mistress, and in which John has already 
 established himself.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MR. QUINBY RECEIVES VISITORS AND ADVICE. 
 
 \ NTHONY'S telegram to his brother, telling him 
 \ that baby and suite were on the eve of depart- 
 ure for Utah found that gentleman in his normal con- 
 dition of satisfaction with himself and his achievings. 
 His latest achievement had been the procuring and re- 
 pairing and furnishing of a house for the reception of 
 his family, which, he quite flattered himself, would com- 
 pare most favorably with the deserted nest in Eliza- 
 beth. He had taken immense interest in every detail 
 of its fitting up, and when he had located a brand new 
 sewing-machine by the sunniest window in the pretty 
 little library, and bought a lovely blue and white 
 zephyr-wool spread for the swinging cradle that cuddled 
 close by the side of the big bed in the chamber that 
 Anna was to occupy, he was morajly convinced that 
 no man could do more to insure the happiness of a 
 woman than he had done for Mrs. Quinby. Anthony's 
 telegram found him at the new address of this house, 
 where he slept of nights and was already getting to 
 feel quite as if it was his home, but which he locked up
 
 58 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 of mornings when he went off to the Cliff House for 
 his meals. The servant problem was too grave a one 
 for him to grapple. Anna must see to that when she 
 got there. He hoped the house would strike her as 
 especially delightful, coming straight to it travel stained 
 and wearied. 
 
 " In every respect an improvement on the old nest," 
 Mr. Quinby repeated, walking as far as the bay-window 
 of the front parlor and turning to observe from that 
 distance the effect of the curtains that had been put up 
 to the library windows that day. Anna's forte Avas 
 color. The portieres that divided the library from the 
 front parlor were a rich wine color striped with old 
 gold, and he had ordered the curtains should blend 
 harmoniously. Yes ! he believed they did ! By the 
 light of the soft shade over t.he drop light in the center 
 of the room all the hangings seemed to harmonize 
 delightfully. By the way, he mustn't forget to order 
 book-shelves for Anthony's room to-morrow. Tony's 
 comfort was a very important item, too. A ring at his 
 front door made Mr. Quinby start so violently that the 
 ash from the cigar he was smoking fell in a gray shower 
 over his vest front. It was so entirely unexpected, and 
 the sound of his own door-bell had, up to that moment, 
 never smitten his ear. These gongs, striking just in- 
 side a front door, were startling abominations anyhow \ 
 It could be nothing but another telegram from An- 
 thony. He had left orders at the office for them to be
 
 MR. QUINBY RECEIVES VISITORS AND ADVICE. 59 
 
 sent down if any arrived. He hoped nothing was 
 wrong. No disappointment, nor delays, nor any thing 
 of that sort. He laid his cigar down on the mantel in 
 the back library and passed out through that room into 
 the unlighted hall. It was scarcely worth the trouble 
 of lighting the gas just to take a telegram from a 
 messenger, so he left the library door open and a feeble 
 ray of light found its way along the hall to the front 
 door which Mr. Quinby opened and sent out into the 
 darkness made visible a somewhat peremptory : 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Bishop Shaw Mr. Quinby ! " came blandly from 
 the outer darkness, where Mr. Quinby could just see 
 two dimly-outlined human figures, that stood mute and 
 motionless after that blind introduction. 
 
 " A thousand pardons, Bishop Shaw. One moment, 
 if you please. Just step inside. I hadn't an idea it 
 was any one but a messenger with a telegram or some- 
 thing of that sort, you know. It would be rather in- 
 accurate to say I'm glad to see you, when I've only 
 heard you so far." All this in the fleet second it took 
 Mr. Quinby to find his match-safe in the side pocket 
 of his coat, and light the low-hanging hall-lamp, which 
 discovered to view an elderly couple, of the quietly 
 genteel order, standing just inside the front door they 
 had obligingly closed for him while he was fumbling 
 for a match. One of them he was quite sure he had 
 never seen before, the other one he had very especial
 
 6o THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 commercial reasons for desiring to propitiate. Bishop 
 Shaw was not only a power in the community, but he 
 was in an indirect way useful to the busine* concern 
 which Mr. Quinby represented. 
 
 " My wife Laetitia, Mr. Quinby the first Mrs. Shaw " 
 says the bishop, when they all stand revealed to each 
 other, affably indicating by a motion of the hat he had 
 just taken off a diminutive lady dressed in a house 
 dress of black silk, and with only a zephyr hood thrown 
 over her curly gray hair, by which Mr. Quinby knows 
 that they can not have come from much of a distance 
 to pay him this unsolicited visit. 
 
 Mr. Quinby repeats his apologies for his seeming in- 
 hospitality over the delicate white hand the bishop's 
 wife Laetitia holds out to him, and leads the way back 
 to the library, where he installs the lady in the big 
 plush easy-chair, which he has already come to think 
 of as " Anna's chair," not without a conscious qualm 
 at the thought of what Anna's attitude would be if 
 she only knew. He turned the gas well up before 
 seating himself, determined to get as much as possible 
 out of this first glimpse of the social life of which he 
 and his wife must partake in a more or less remote 
 degree. 
 
 Report had familiarized him with the number of 
 Bishop Shaw's wives only five ! He supposed it was 
 due to atmospheric influences that he felt so little of a 
 shock at receiving under his own roof a member of so
 
 MR. QUINBY RECEIVES VISITORS AND ADVICE. 61 
 
 complacent a home circle. But then, he reiterated to 
 himself, the social aspect of this community was fund 
 for his curiosity only, and unless Anna had altered 
 considerably during his few months' absence from her, 
 his chances to satisfy that curiosity would be very 
 much diminished after her arrival. He felt thankful 
 in a degree that Bishop Shaw had selected his first wife 
 for this unexpected neighborly advance. There must 
 always be an air of authenticity about number one that 
 is not transferable, in the monogamic mind, to succeed- 
 ing wives. 
 
 The bishop and his wife presented some very strik- 
 ing physical contrasts that impressed themselves upon 
 Mr. Quinby, as he, seated between them, gave them 
 his attention politely and impartially. The bishop's 
 rotundity was in sharp contrast with his wife's angular- 
 ity, his ruddiness with her pallor, his soldierly air of 
 command with her gentleness of acquiescence. Not 
 that just such suggestiveness of the man's having the 
 better of things generally was not as frequently to be 
 seen elsewhere, Mr. Quinby assured himself, for no 
 one could look into Mrs. Shaw's serene face and doubt 
 her perfect satisfaction with her lot in life as it was. 
 
 She was a pleasing object for contemplation to the 
 young man, whose acquaintance heretofore had been 
 confined to the commercial circles of Salt Lake City. 
 Her soft white hair, arranged in two little bunches of 
 crisp curls, shaded a forehead uncreased by any lines
 
 62 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 excepting those traced by the finger of Time. Her 
 clear gray eyes were as untroubled as two mountain 
 lakelets, that have never reflected any thing except the 
 blue of the skies above them. She had a sweet, patient 
 mouth, and a queer little trick of waiting, with the pro- 
 found respect of a little child, for her turn in the con- 
 versation, quite, you know, as if she had learned to be 
 satisfied with a fraction of attention, and was not im- 
 bued with any feminine spirit of exaction. But the 
 bishop's leadership, even in the matter of smiles, was 
 always promptly seconded by her wifely co-opera- 
 tion. She seemed quite content, sitting there 
 in Mr. Quinby's pretty library, with her blue- 
 veined hands clasped about a newspaper she 
 had brought with her, to absorb the chat of the 
 men and to smile her appreciation of any good point 
 made by her husband or their host. Not that Mrs. 
 Shaw lacked intelligence of her own or was deficient 
 in the matter of views : she had both in galore, and 
 was a favorite contributor to the " Woman's Expo- 
 nent," a copy of which she had brought with her 
 and to which she intended Mr. Quinby should become 
 a subscriber before she left the house. But she had out- 
 lived the age when a woman considered it necessary to 
 be constantly vindicating herself as a thinking animal 
 by the vigorous action of her tongue, in consequence 
 of which her ideas had time to crystallize, and her 
 mental conclusions were generally as clear cut as
 
 MR. QUINBY RECEIVES VISITORS AND ADVICE. 63 
 
 cameos and quite as precious in the eyes of her hus- 
 band, who was very fond of assuring his friends that 
 " Mrs. Laetitia Shaw was a very remarkable woman, a 
 very remarkable woman indeed, sir! " 
 
 While Bishop Shaw and Mr. Quinby talked stocks 
 and trade and the political outlook of Utah with 
 friendly frankness, Mrs. Shaw was taking in every 
 detail of the room they sat in, with feminine quickness 
 of approval. 
 
 All this home comfort seemed to lack a vindication. 
 Surely that selfish monster of a man, if he did come from 
 New York, where men were conceded to be more self- 
 ish and more monstrous than any where else on the 
 globe, could not have fitted up such a home as this 
 for his own exclusive use! She had heard that he was 
 a Gentile totally untouched by the teachings of the 
 New Gospel ; perhaps they had all been culpably 
 indifferent to his enlightenment. It was with a view 
 of remedying her own shortcomings in this respect 
 that she had brought with her the " Woman's Expo- 
 nent." Surely a Mormon paper in which was chroni- 
 cled the doings of Mormon women, telling about their 
 relief and charitable societies, and taking a vigorous 
 stand in defense of their political rights, edited by 
 Mormon women, ought to be a powerful agency in 
 removing the scales of ignorance and prejudice from 
 the handsome eyes of this new-comer. But perhaps 
 they the scales had already fallen, for if the fitting
 
 64 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 up of this elegant home did not mean a determination 
 on his part to be sealed soon, what did it mean ? 
 
 Thus Mrs. Shaw to herself, as her eyes traveled 
 back from a dainty little cabinet writing-desk that was 
 fit for nothing but a woman's pretty papeterie and value- 
 less little notes, to the handsome form and face of the 
 young man, who was listening with grave respect to the 
 bishop's description of the inner workings at Temple 
 Block, which is the sacred square of the Latter-day 
 Saints. 
 
 With womankind's ineradicable passion for helping 
 on all affairs of the heart, she began running over in 
 her mind the eligibility of the various unsealed girls 
 within her list of acquaintances. It was a duty she 
 owed, not only to this wanderer from the right way, 
 but to the females of her own circle, who, unsealed, 
 could never hope to attain in this world or in the 
 world to come, any position above that of a menial. 
 Beginning very close at home, she was inclined to 
 think that in classes three and five, of the bishop's 
 own flock, the sweetest and brightest girls of her 
 acquaintance were to be found. She would talk to the 
 bishop about it when they went home. He might have 
 some preferences of his own in favor of class number 
 two, for she was rather inclined to think that of all 
 his daughters, Bishop Shaw was a little fonder of 
 Eugenia in that class than of any of the others. Her 
 own offspring, all boys, enabled Mrs. Laetitia to take
 
 MA'. QUINBY RECEIVES VISITORS AND ADVICE. 65 
 
 a widely impartial view of this matter in her thoughts. 
 The discovery of a sewing-machine, whose fancy iron- 
 pedals just peeped from under the fringe of an 
 embroidered felt cover, settled her mind conclusively 
 as to Mr. Quinby's intentions. 
 
 What a pleasant voice he has ! she brought her mind 
 back from the consideration of classes three and five 
 to hear Mr. Quinby say, in a voice of amiable conces- 
 sion, apropos of what, she hadn't any idea : 
 
 " The argument is on your side there, sir. There is 
 no denying that if the economy and probity that 
 characterize the administration of your public offices 
 here were infused into similar institutions at home, we 
 would be the better for it." 
 
 Bishop Shaw was a singularly upright and fearless 
 man. He was paying no purposeless call this evening. 
 He considered that he had a duty to perform toward 
 this young man who had just become a householder in 
 the neighborhood, and it was with a view to performing 
 that duty as successfully as possible that he had 
 selected the first Mrs. Shaw as his co-adjutor. 
 
 This Mrs. Shaw was regarded by the Saints at large 
 as an embodied negation of all the slanders that had 
 been heaped upon their peculiar tenets. Her unvary- 
 ing serenity, her placid cheerfulness, her active efforts 
 for the extension and strengthening of an institution 
 which had shaped her own life and satisfied her own 
 soul, was the best possible refutation of all calumnies.
 
 66 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 And she was always eager to throw the weight of her 
 experience and conviction into the scales against 
 unbelief. 
 
 The bishop's eye had been upon Mr. Quinby ever 
 since his arrival in Salt Lake City, but he was too 
 adroit a man to jeopardize his chances of success in 
 any undertaking by bungling hastiness. The two 
 men had been thrown intimately together in business 
 circles, which had afforded the older man a golden 
 opportunity to study the younger one. 
 
 He received Mr. Quinby's indorsement of the city 
 government in placid silence. Presently he said, 
 fastening his keen eyes on his host's face : 
 
 " I am glad to hear you indorse us from a business- 
 man's standpoint, friend Quinby. We think we've got 
 the best of the outside world on the highest moral 
 grounds also, and I hope, indeed, I may say I infer 
 from what I see," embracing the apartment with ex- 
 panded arms " that you are imbibing juster views of 
 man's duty, as a social and religious being, than you 
 probably brought with you." 
 
 " Beg pardon ! " says Mr. Quinby with a mystified 
 look. 
 
 " I mean this home," the bishop explains, spreading 
 his hands expansively once more, then folding them 
 with interlocked fingers over his rotund form. 
 
 "Yes? "still questioningly. 
 
 " Of course, it means that you are preparing to go
 
 MR. QUINBY RECEIVES VISITORS AND ADVICE. 6f 
 
 through the Endowment House ! To be sealed, 
 that is." 
 
 Mr. Quinby's mustache twitched convulsively, and 
 nothing but a providential sneeze saved him from de- 
 tection. What a mercy Anna wasn't there ! he 
 thought. 
 
 " It's really all very pretty and snug, and evidently 
 arranged with a view to a woman's comfort," says 
 Mrs. Shaw in her soft, purring way, looking at John 
 so coaxingly that he had to supplement his sneeze 
 with a prolonged application of his pocket-handker- 
 chief. 
 
 " I hope my wife will like it all," he said, glancing 
 away from them to the sewing-machine for strength. 
 " I was married some two years and better ago, and 
 am just to-night in receipt of a telegram from my 
 brother, telling me he left Elizabeth at eight-thirty 
 with my wife and baby. I have never seen my boy," 
 he adds, more particularly to Mrs. Shaw, as an item 
 of special interest to her woman's ears. 
 
 " You must be very anxious," she says, but not with 
 that vivid interest that John thought the mention of 
 his boy ought to excite. There was an absent look in 
 her eyes he had not noticed before. " Elizabeth, did 
 you say, your people were coming from ?" 
 
 " Yes. It was our old home." 
 
 " And mine too. I lived there when I was a girl. 
 Oh, so many years ago ! I would like to ask you
 
 6& THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 But Bishop Shaw interrupts her in a somewhat argu- 
 mentative voice : 
 
 " This is a pretty good-sized house, I believe, friend 
 Quinby." 
 
 " Yes. A trifle larger than we will need, but unless 
 one builds one can not have things just to suit. I espe- 
 cially decided on this house, because of the fine 
 prospect from the windows in the rear." 
 
 "Always best to have plenty of room. Women like 
 plenty of space to exert their energies in. It keeps 
 them out of pecks of trouble. My wife Laetitia there 
 now can tell you how we began housekeeping in our 
 big house just across the street from the Lion House, 
 rattling around like two dies in a dice box, but how 
 we gradually grew to the house until it was a pretty 
 snug fit. My wife Laetitia there, now, is your next- 
 door neighbor. All of her boys are big grown fellows 
 that will soon be making homes for themselves. Laetitia 
 has moved out of our large house ; it's a little too noisy 
 for her." 
 
 He paused for Mrs. Shaw to complete the story of 
 their early domestic arrangements. She turned her 
 serene eyes from her husband's face to Mr. Quinby 's 
 deeply interested one. 
 
 "Yes," she said, smiling at him and absently folding 
 the Woman's Exponent into yet smaller compass. 
 " I'm not quite sure that Harriet and I could have kept 
 house so comfortably if we had not been divided into
 
 MR. QUINBY RECEIVES VISITORS AND ADVICE. 69 
 
 upper and lower stories. I took the first floor and she 
 the second. I believe this house has two stories ?" 
 
 " Yes, madam." 
 
 That was all Mr. Quinby dared trust himself to by 
 way of response. There were but two ways for him, as 
 a good Gentile husband, to treat these scarcely veiled 
 suggestions. One was to laugh at it all as a huge joke ; 
 the other, to resent it indignantly for Anna's sake ; 
 for really, in analyzing his sensations, he could not con- 
 scientiously find the due amount of horror at the 
 picture of the actual Mrs. Quinby keeping house down 
 stairs and an imaginary Mrs. Quinby holding undis- 
 puted sway over his second story, if not over his pre- 
 occupied heart. 
 
 But situated as he was, he dared neither laugh nor 
 frown. How could he laugh or frown either in the 
 faces of these two people who accepted the religious 
 tenets of the New Gospel as a direct revelation of God's 
 will, which to accept and to follow was to entitle them 
 to the reward promised the pure in heart ? How could 
 he either laugh or frown into the face of this serene 
 browed old lady into whose minutest act he did not 
 doubt there entered more of conscientious performance 
 than had ever informed his loftiest act ? How could he 
 either laugh or frown in the face of adherents to a 
 gospel which claimed that " if there is any thing 
 virtuous, lovely or of good report or praiseworthy, we 
 seek after those things " ? Was he his brother's keeper
 
 70 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 that he should decide for him what was lovely or of 
 good report or praiseworthy ? Besides, he dared neither 
 laugh nor frown at Benjamin G. Shaw, as he knew the 
 bishop best in commercial circles. No, there was 
 nothing for it but to grant them grave audience ; and 
 when, perhaps fully an hour later, he stood for a second 
 on his front stoop and watched the slowly vanishing 
 forms of Bishop Shaw and his wife Laetitia, as they 
 walked toward their own home, he was conscious that 
 he had been the object of an experiment. 
 
 And Mrs. Shaw, as soon as they were well out of 
 hearing of the young man, asked, in a voice of deepest 
 interest, "Well, husband, what do you think of the 
 soil?" And the bishop answered, sententiously: "The 
 seed has been sown in good soil. I have planted, you 
 may water and may God give the increase."
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 DISCIPLINE AND DEFEAT. 
 
 A FEW more fluttering yellow leaves from the tele- 
 graph office reporting progress, and then, toward 
 the close of a bright day made very long, however, by 
 ardent expectation, Mr. Quinby had the pleasure of 
 folding his wife and boy in one expansive embrace. 
 
 " You are looking blooming, but I don't like Anna's 
 appearance at all," he said to Anthony, after his first 
 impressions of his son had been put upon record and 
 Anna's delight over every thing in the house had been 
 breathlessly expressed, and he and Tony were facing 
 each other over their cigars, just as in the old Elizabeth 
 days. 
 
 At the moment of his making that remark, however, 
 Mrs. Quinby had gone to assure herself for the third or 
 fourth time that the baby could not by any feat of 
 agility tumble out of the new crib that had received 
 him hospitably very soon after his arrival from the depot 
 of the Utah Central Railroad. 
 
 " The boy is something of an absorbent, you know, 
 and I am afraid Anna is one of those women who think
 
 72 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 that nothing short of immolation of self will fill the re- 
 quirements of motherhood. By the way, one of many 
 last things Mrs. Abbott said to me was ' Tell John he 
 must take a very peremptory stand with Anna at 
 night. She gets no rest and is ruining the child.' I've 
 given you her message verbatim." 
 
 " I shall certainly take matters in hand," says Mr. 
 Quinby, who feels personally aggrieved at having his 
 wife come to him thin and wan, with the beauty that 
 he especially married her for evidently on the wane. 
 
 " Who or what is that you are going to take in hand 
 so promptly?" she asks, coming back just then and 
 drawing her chair very close to John's. Close enough 
 for her to lay her pretty hand upon his knee in the 
 olden fashion, sure that it will be clasped soon and 
 retained affectionately. It is very sweet to feel John 
 so close to her once more. She wonders how she 
 existed without him all these months. And how well 
 and handsome he is looking! 
 
 "You, primarily, and the boy, secondarily. I have no 
 notion of sitting opposite a hollow-eyed wife every 
 morning at breakfast. See how the rings jingle on your 
 fingers ! We must do better than this. How old is 
 our son ? Three months, or four, is it? " 
 
 " Three months and four days," Mrs. Quinby 
 answered with a woman's conscientiousness touching 
 things of little import. 
 
 " My dear, if I were in your place I should not permit
 
 DISCIPLINE AND DEFEA T. 73 
 
 myself to be made such a slave of to that child. He is 
 quite old enough now for you to begin disciplining him. 
 Fixed hours for nourishment and a little determination 
 on your part are all that is necessary to reduce order 
 out of chaos. I'll undertake him. It is nothing more 
 than right that the pains and penalties attaching to 
 such a valuable possession as a son should be shared as 
 evenly as possible between us." 
 
 " Good ! " says Anthony. " I am ready to indorse 
 you as a model father on the strength of such noble 
 utterances." 
 
 But Anna only smiled into the face of the would-be 
 reformer. It was simply delicious to have John so con- 
 cerned about her and wanting to help her this way ! 
 He wasn't weaned away from her one bit ! But the 
 idea of determination in connection with baby was too 
 funny! She was altogether too happy, however, to 
 feel like arguing the point. She must forewarn him a 
 little though. 
 
 " It might mortify your vanity arid lessen your pride 
 of paternity, John dear, to discover, if you really do 
 undertake him, as you express it, to find out how 
 curiously your boasted strength and the baby's acknowl- 
 edged weakness may become transposed. The battle 
 is not always to the strong, dear." 
 
 But Mr. Quinby was wise in his own conceit. He 
 not able to cope with that small, soft, helpless thing 
 up stairs ! The idea was too absurd !
 
 74 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 " Nothing can be simpler. There's the baby ; there's 
 the bottle ; there's the clock ! Three hours' interval 
 must be observed. It will be a little troublesome for 
 the first night or two, but after that peace will reign, 
 and you will reap the benefit of it as well as the child," 
 he says, evidently enjoying this first opportunity to 
 exercise his paternal authority. " 1 shall take com- 
 mand to-night." 
 
 " If I were an autocrat," says Anthony, laughing at 
 the consternation in Anna's face, " I would decree that 
 whenever a man recklessly remarked to his wife, ' If I 
 were in your place, I would do this, that or t'other,' 
 he should, by the majestic arm of the law, be put into 
 her place and made to suit his actions to his words, or, 
 in case of failure, be made, figuratively speaking, to 
 eat his own boastful utterances. Then we would find 
 out where the equanimity comes in and where the 
 power to suffer and be strong goes out. Nannie, if you 
 are the wise woman I take you to be, you will enjoy a 
 good night's sleep and let your autocrat wrestle with 
 that small bundle of activity up stairs. I hope you will 
 give me the benefit of your experience in the morning, 
 John. I expect to find you a sadder and a wiser man 
 at the breakfast table. Good-night." 
 
 " We are all tired enough for one day," says Mr. 
 Quinby, rising as Anthony disappears, and proceeding 
 to turn off the gas in the parlor and the library, that 
 has been lighted to the point of an illumination in
 
 DISCIPLINE AND DEFEA T. 75 
 
 this night of jubilee. Anna watches him from the soft 
 nest of her easy chair with eyes aglow with happi- 
 ness. 
 
 "Oh ! John, it isn't a bit like Utah," she says, wind- 
 ing both hands about his arm as they mount the stairs 
 together. 
 
 "What isn't a bit like Utah ? " he asks, pinching the 
 ear that nestles close to his shoulder. 
 
 "Oh ! every thing! This pretty house and you and 
 Tony and I all together again with nobody else." 
 
 " Excepting the boy and his nurse. By the way, 
 that girl Barbara is too stunningly handsome to be a 
 good servant." 
 
 " And no hateful hotel with horrid Mormon wretches 
 in it thinking themselves as good as any body and star- 
 ing at you and wondering if you are a man's real wife 
 or his his " says Anna, pursuing her own line of 
 thought rather incoherently. "You know, John, there 
 just can't be but one genuine wife in the whole lot." 
 
 " I take it your ideas are pretty crude yet, dear. I 
 don't think people waste as much time wondering over 
 every new face as you imagine. I suppose you feel 
 thankful not to find any more Mrs. Quinbys here in 
 advance of you. Is that why it isn't a bit like 
 Utah?" 
 
 It was a clumsy jest, and he could feel her wince 
 under it. He had been so elated over the result of his 
 strategic move in bringing her immediately into the
 
 76 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 sacred home atmosphere, that he felt warranted in in- 
 dulging in a little jocularity. What an immensely- 
 thin-skinned creature your good woman is at best, he 
 thought, hastening to do away with his clumsiness. 
 
 " To-morrow morning I want you to see the sunrise 
 from the bay window in your room, and then I think 
 you will really fall in love with your new home. I 
 selected your sleeping-room with a special view to that 
 outlook." 
 
 The shaded kerosene lamp on the hearth, which 
 seemed to appeal more strongly to the olfactories than 
 to any other sense, supporting its small sauce-pan of 
 simmering milk, the mysteriously stoppered bottle in 
 its close neighborhood, together with the softly undulat- 
 ing heap under the zephyr-wool cover of the crib that 
 was drawn close to the bed-side, combined to give Mr. 
 Quinby his first realizing sense of being a family man, 
 and infused the last touch of peremptoriness into the 
 tones in which he repeated as he adjusted the pillow to 
 the nape of his neck, 
 
 " Remember, Anna, twelve o'clock is the hour im- 
 mutably fixed for refreshments, which I will adminis- 
 ter. You must rest, and all I ask is non-interference 
 on your part," and with the resolution of all the Medes 
 and Persians condensed into the determination to show 
 his wife what a simple operation disciplining a baby 
 might be made, Mr. Quinby settled himself to sleep 
 the intermediate hours away.
 
 DISCIPLINE AND DEFEAT. 77 
 
 About eleven o'clock indications of activity were 
 noticeable in the enemy's camp. A pink fist struck 
 out energetically but rather aimlessly at space, followed 
 at a short interval by one pink foot, which was quickly 
 reinforced by its fellow. A soft, low-murmured pre- 
 lude, known in nursery parlance as a " fret," broke 
 upon the hush of night. A second pink fist clutched 
 wildly in the direction where the peace-offering was 
 habitually and promptly offered by Mrs. Quinby at this 
 stage of the proceedings. A moment of still surprise ! 
 It was evident the baby was reasoning from cause to 
 effect. He would not be too hard on the mother whose 
 shortcomings were so few. Perhaps the lamp had 
 gone out and the milk was cold. It was sure 
 to come. She had never failed him yet ! Indigna- 
 tion, surprise, dismay and desolation are distinctly 
 and emphatically voiced in a crescendo and acceler- 
 ando passage skillfully executed the next moment by 
 Mr. Abbott Quinby under conviction of treachery some- 
 where. Mr. Quinby senior cautiously raises himself 
 on one elbow to observe this phenomenal (to him) pro- 
 ceeding, and is thankful that poor Anna has not been 
 disturbed by the shrill outcry. He supposes that is 
 the baby's way of protesting, and of course he will go 
 to sleep again now, having protested. Mrs. Quinby's 
 tender heart is lacerated, but she too stoops to conquer 
 occasionally, and as John can only be taught by ex- 
 perience, she will not interfere until he voluntarily re-
 
 78 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 turns the usurped scepter into her maternal hands. She 
 buries her head deeper into the pillows to deaden the 
 sound of the coming storm, for no one knows better 
 than she that the boy will not go to sleep after that 
 first protest. The springs of the bed creak heavily as 
 Mr. Quinby squirms restlessly in a very un-Mede and 
 un-Persian-like disquiet, while his son makes night vocal 
 and murders sleep. Anna heroically refrains from 
 quoting, " a little determination is all that is necessary 
 to reduce order out of chaos." She feels placidly sure 
 that before thirty more minutes have rolled over her 
 husband's inexperienced head he will have been 
 brought to a knowledge of the fact that determination 
 is not peculiarly a characteristic of the adult male of 
 his species. Finding that masterly inactivity does r!bt 
 conquer a peace as promptly as, in his ignorance he 
 had calculated upon, Mr. Quinby has recourse to ter- 
 rorizing. One sonorous, baby-blood-curdling " Hush, 
 sir ! " mingles with the fray, and as it produces the 
 temporary quietude of abject fear, the semblance of 
 peace is restored and Mr. Quinby turns over on his 
 side in premature triumph, conscious of a growing 
 conviction that there never was a more tempestuous 
 infant than his son, nor a stronger smelling lamp than 
 the one then filling the atmosphere of his chamber, nor 
 a slower moving clock than the one that was deliber- 
 ately discounting the moments from the bank of time 
 into the exchequer of eternity while he was in sore
 
 DISCIPLINE AND DEFEA T. 79 
 
 travail of spirit. Also, he began to entertain a much 
 higher opinion of his wife's administrative ability. By 
 half-past eleven o'clock the slumber that had been the 
 result of terror and not of satiety, was broken into flin- 
 ders by the tempestuous wail the baby sent out in fresh 
 assertion of his rights, alongside of which the shriek of 
 the American eagle was as the cooing of a dove. The 
 question of capitulation began to assume grave pro- 
 port ions not on the part of the infantry. But could 
 a Mede and Persian, as exemplified in Mr. Quinby's 
 resolute soul, surrender unconditionally to a babe and a 
 suckling? Manhood, discipline and dignity forbade it. 
 That child must learn that there were opposing wills in 
 the world. He fell back on strategy. A feeble species 
 of parley was held with the enemy ! False promises 
 were extended ; flattering endearments were lavished; 
 coaxing insinuations flowed freely. But the enemy 
 scorned a truce. The milk bottle formed the base of 
 his exactions, and he was not to be driven therefrom. 
 The bewildered reformer stood irresolute over the crib, 
 looking down in perplexed astonishment at this tur- 
 bulent agglomeration of tiny limbs, vigorous lungs, 
 soft helplessness and unconquerable will. He wished 
 that Anna would wake up just long enough to hold a 
 council of war with him, or to suggest terms of capitu- 
 lation. But while- the baby rent the peace of night in 
 twain his mother snored in a gentle, lady-like fashion 
 that filled ME. Quinby with amazement. Could he ever
 
 8o THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 become so accustomed to this uproar ? No signs of 
 weakening or of surrender were observable on the 
 baby's part as the moments sped on. Mr. Quinby felt 
 them numerously on his own. However, according to 
 discipline and the sanitarians, supported by all the 
 best doctors and nurses in the land, three hours should 
 intervene between " drinks." That unsympathetic 
 clock pointed to quarter of twelve. Fifteen more min- 
 utes of this pandemonium. Could mortal flesh endure 
 fifteen more seconds of it ? Threadbare indeed ! 
 Small wonder Anna looked like a shadow of herself. 
 It was a wonder she had a pound of flesh on her bones. 
 Soon Mrs. Quinby hears a splashing as of milk being 
 recklessly dashed from the nursery mug into the 
 bottle, followed by a gurgling sound as of refreshment 
 rather urgently proffered. 
 
 " Don't choke him, John, dear," she says, in an in- 
 tensely wide-awake voice. 
 
 " Are you awake ? " 
 
 Mrs. Quinby laughed. The question was so super- 
 fluous. 
 
 " Oh, well ! I say, Anna, what do you do when he 
 won't take it ? " 
 
 " I never knew such a thing to happen in all my 
 life ! " Mrs. Quinby was standing over the crib by the 
 time her answer had reached it, and she hovered over 
 the small but exhausted conqueror like a dove with 
 outstretched wings.
 
 DISCIPLINE AND DEFEA T. 81 
 
 Mr. Quinby sighed as if the weight of a world had 
 suddenly been lifted from his shoulders, and was won- 
 dering if he would be derelict to his duties as a family 
 man if he should go to -sleep very immediately. He 
 felt extremely sandy about the eyes. But Anna 
 promptly settled his doubts for him. 
 
 " John ! he's sick ! Oh, he's terribly sick ! Look, it 
 must be scarlet fever. See those monstrous red 
 blotches ! Who knows what horrible diseases we 
 traveled with. Oh, John ! do get a doctor ! Oh ! if 
 mother was only here. I knew every thing would go 
 wrong as soon as I brought baby away from her. Old 
 ladies know every thing, and doctors don't know any 
 thing," said Mrs. Quinby, sweepingly, as she gathers 
 the storm-tossed baby into her lap and falls to weep- 
 ing over it profusely, " and to think how we've been 
 torturing him to-night, John." 
 
 " Don't, Anna ! Don't talk that way," says Mr. 
 Quinby, with the remorse of a convicted criminal in his 
 voice. " You know babies have to have a variety of 
 things, and no doubt this is just one of them." He 
 administers this vague comfort while getting into his 
 clothes with tremulous haste. "We'll have an old 
 lady first, and then all the doctors in town if need be. 
 Perhaps, after all, it's only bed-bugs," he says, slapping 
 his hat on his head while he stoops to take a cursory 
 glimpse of the crimson blotches that have so alarmed 
 his wife.
 
 82 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 " Oh ! John, please don't be so stupid, if you are a 
 man. I tell you something dreadful is the matter with 
 the baby." 
 
 And it is with these last words of his wife's on his 
 lips that Mr. Quinby stands apologetically in Mrs. 
 Laetitia Shaw's presence a few minutes later on beg- 
 ging her pardon for his midnight invasion. " But," he 
 added, in that winning way which always made it such 
 a pleasure for people to accommodate him, " I thought 
 you could do more toward relieving the anxiety of a 
 young mother than a score of doctors, and if I can 
 leave you with Mrs. Quinby while I hunt up a doctor, 
 I shall be so very glad." 
 
 "We had better see if a doctor is needed, first," 
 says the bishop's wife, always her most alert self when 
 somebody is to be helped out of trouble of some sort; 
 " if you'll just wait three minutes I will be ready to go 
 with you." 
 
 The three minutes seem very long to John, standing 
 there in the dimly lighted hall imagining all sorts of 
 horrible possibilities in the room at his house; but 
 when the bishop's wife comes back to him, wrapping 
 a great woolen shawl about the pretty white curls that 
 look as if they never knew disorder, and extends a lot 
 of bottles for him to carry, his spirits go up with sur- 
 prising alacrity, and he is quite sure he did the best 
 thing to be done by calling in Mrs. Shaw. 
 
 " I am thinking," she says, panting a little, but keep-
 
 DISCIPLINE AND DEFEA T. 83 
 
 ing step with his long, nervous stride, " from your de- 
 scription, that it's hives and nothing worse." 
 
 " Hives " was mystifyingly suggestive of bees, but as 
 Mr. Quinby was smarting under a sense of general de- 
 feat just then, he did not care to invite fresh mortifica- 
 tion by acknowledging to ignorance of something that 
 perhaps he ought to have known, so he just muttered : 
 " Let us hope so," and hurried the little old lady 
 through the deserted street with reckless speed. 
 
 "Anna, I've brought a friend who will prove quite 
 as knowing as Grandma Abbott, I'm sure," he says, 
 presenting Mrs. Shaw suddenly before his wife where 
 she sat moaning and rocking in a perfect frenzy of 
 helpless misery. 
 
 One look up into the sweet, motherly face that was 
 brought close enough for Mrs. Shaw to kiss her on the 
 forehead, was sufficient to inspire Anna with confi- 
 dence and a sense of relief. The women smiled into 
 each other's eyes, as Anna held out her precious bur- 
 den and motioned Mrs. Shaw to take the low rocker 
 she had just risen from. 
 
 " I'm so much obliged to your husband for think- 
 ing of me first," says the bishop's wife ; " I have a 
 much better opinion of myself than I have of the 
 doctors." 
 
 And while she began her examination with the air 
 of an expert, Anna took in every particular of her deli- 
 cate, blue-veined temples and hands, her bright eyes
 
 84 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 full of benevolence, and the gentle face that seemed 
 to radiate intelligence and sweetness. 
 
 " As I thought," Mrs. Shaw says, presently, with her 
 mouth full of pins that she has garnered from the baby, 
 " it's nothing in the world but hives." 
 
 " Hives ! And what on earth is that, or are those," 
 for the mysterious word has a plural sound, and Anna 
 is so far relieved from anxiety that she can afford 
 to be grammatical. 
 
 "An irruption, dear, that is more annoying than 
 alarming. Babies are very liable to it, especially in 
 change of atmosphere. We'll soon have him comfort- 
 able. I'm so glad you weren't foolish enough to run 
 after a doctor the first thing." She nodded approval up 
 at John, while she gently soothed the angry blotches 
 with a lotion from one of the bottles she had brought, 
 and while she lulled their baby to sleep, Mr. Quinby 
 and his wife made tremendous strides toward adoring 
 her. 
 
 " It is almost as good as having mother near me," 
 says Anna, giving the old lady's hand a little supple- 
 mentary squeeze, after they have stood together by 
 the crib, to make sure of the prospect for peace at last, 
 and Mrs. Shaw is ready to be taken home again. 
 
 " I hope you will always think so, dear, and I am 
 very much obliged to baby for bringing us together so 
 promptly. We can never feel like strangers after to- 
 night."
 
 DISCIPLINE AND DEFEA T. 85 
 
 " No, indeed," said Anna, fervently, following them 
 to the top of the stairs and warning her not to stumble 
 over the mat at the bottom. 
 
 "John," Mrs. Quinby rouses herself to ask as her 
 husband once more settles himself among the pillows 
 with a tired sigh, " she isn't, she can't be, not that 
 dear, lovely-faced old lady with the wise eyes and the 
 refined hands, can't be one of them ! Is she, John? " 
 
 "One of what?" 
 
 "Those horrid Mormons.' 7 
 
 " She is the wife of a very prominent Mormon, a 
 particular friend of mine. Do go to sleep, Anna." 
 
 " The wife ! That sounds all right. I am so glad." 
 
 " So am I," Mr. Quinby answers with drowsy irrele- 
 vance, in allusion, perhaps, to the blessed quietude of 
 the room, and lapses into slumber, unconscious that by 
 the use of a definite for an indefinite article he has in- 
 volved his wife in a mesh of error that is likely to prove 
 misleading. 
 
 And the bishop's wife, replacing the vials of medi- 
 cine she had found no use for at the Quinby's in the 
 medicine chest that ornamented her bedroom mantle- 
 shelf, was conscious of a mild sort of dissatisfaction 
 that she didn't have the bishop on hand to discuss with 
 him this little ripple of an event. But it was the 
 bishop's week with class number three, and Mrs. Lae- 
 titia Shaw was well disciplined in patient endurance.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 AN IMPORTATION .FROM THE SOUTH. 
 
 U T WONDER why Anna Quinby don't write?" Miss 
 
 J. Ambrose said one morning, coming into the 
 dining-room about breakfast time and finding her father 
 reading the only letter that had been left by the carrier. 
 
 " Good-morning, pet. I don't know. Too much 
 taken up with John yet awhile and getting her bear- 
 ings among the Saints. Here's something curious." 
 
 Dr. Ambrose answers all in one breath, holding out 
 in his left hand an open letter which he did not offer 
 to relinquish, however, while with his right he screwed 
 his black silk skull cap around until the tassel of it 
 rested confidingly over one temple. A sure sign of 
 perturbation with the doctor. 
 
 Effie gravely surveyed the fluttering piece of paper, 
 which contained only two or three lines of writing. 
 
 " Curious ? It looks like very ordinary paper and 
 common ink with some unusually neat writing on it." 
 
 " It is good writing," says the doctor, looking at the 
 letter again over his spectacles ; " but the contents ! 
 That's the curious part of it. It's from Ferd Cosgrove's 
 son. His name, the son's I mean, is," referring to the
 
 A AT IMPORT A TION FROM THE SOUTH. 87 
 
 letter again, " Ferd, too, by the way. I see he signs it 
 Ferd, Jun." 
 
 " An abbreviation of Ferdinand, I suppose," says 
 Miss Ambrose in a tone that, condemns abbreviations 
 in general. They smacked of slovenliness in nomen- 
 clature, and the doctor's daughter was a foe to slovenli- 
 ness in any thing. 
 
 "Yes, yes, to be sure. But see here, Effie, the boy 
 will be here by the 11.30 train, and I, oh ! by George, 
 it is altogether very remarkable." The doctor's cap 
 pirouetted until the tassel reached the other temple, 
 and he stared at his daughter in that helplessly appeal- 
 ing fashion in which the strongest men indulge in 
 emergencies where quick-wittedness is demanded to 
 rescue slow judgment from a snarl. 
 
 " Suppose you read your letter aloud, father, or let 
 me read it, and then I can have a clearer understand- 
 ing of what seems to be worrying you considerably." 
 
 " Well, I don't know that you will," says the doctor, 
 moving away toward the breakfast table, where the 
 beefsteak has just been located in front of his plate ; 
 " there's precious little in this letter. It's from Ferd 
 Cosgrove's son. You know he and I, Ferd senior, I 
 mean, went to college together. He's a Mississippi 
 boy, from somewhere in Sunflower County, and can't 
 be more than twenty-six or seven at furthest. I've 
 never seen him since we parted at Cambridge old 
 Ferd I mean excepting for an hour or two, when we
 
 88 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 happened to cross each other at Washington City, he 
 going north and I south ; it was when I took your 
 poor dear mother to Florida for her health ; and here 
 he turns up in the most sudden and unexplained man- 
 ner young Ferd I mean saying" (the doctor laid 
 down the carving knife which he had been clashing 
 fiercely across the sharpener during this preliminary 
 explanation and took up the disturbing letter once 
 more) " ' My dear sir, I reached New York last night, 
 and hope to be with you by noon to-morrow at furthest. 
 Will start for Elizabeth by the 1 1.30 train. My father's 
 explanation of his wishes and my intentions were so 
 explicit that nothing remains to be said until we meet 
 in person.'" 
 
 " And what is his father's explanation ? " 
 " Hanged if I know ! This is the first atom of 
 information I've had concerning a Cosgrove since Ferd 
 and I, old Ferd of course I mean, met as I told you at 
 Washington. Then our talk was very hurried and 
 discursive. I do remember his blowing extensively 
 about the talents of his only son, and he said he 
 wanted to make a doctor of him when he was old 
 enough, and I remember I said, ' Well, send him on to 
 me when you want him licked into shape ; ' but that 
 was ten years ago, and all in fun at that." 
 
 " Well, the time has come for licking into shape, as 
 you call it, and Mr. Cosgrove has sent his talented son 
 on to you. Of course he wrote."
 
 AN IMPORT A TION FROM THE SOUTH. 89 
 
 " So his boy says ! " 
 
 "And of course you got the letter, father! I'll ven- 
 ture any thing it is in your pocket at this moment, 
 alongside of no one knows how many others. Oh ! 
 papa ! " 
 
 This in amazement at the rapidly increasing pile of 
 papers, in a more or less crumpled condition, which 
 Dr. Ambrose is piling up on both sides of his plate as 
 fast as he can empty his pockets of the accumu- 
 lation of months. She got up and brought his coffee 
 to him with a view of helping in the search. 
 
 " Miss Effie Ambrose ! " she read aloud, in tones of 
 mingled reproach and triumph, singling a letter from 
 the pile on the right of the plate while the doctor is 
 anxiously scanning those on the other side, "and," with 
 another catlike pounce, "Dr. John Ambrose! Here it 
 is, you careless, careless papa. Post-marked," turning 
 it round and round, " the dear only knows what, beside 
 ' Miss./ that's plain enough. And it's only fifteen days 
 old. Father, this is shocking." 
 
 " It is, beyond question," says the doctor, disarming 
 reproach by ready concession, while he stuffs the sur- 
 plus papers back again into his roomy pockets. " Bless 
 me if I can tell how such a thing could have happened. 
 I am very particular about letters as a general thing. 
 In fact I don't know how I came by them at all. Why 
 weren't they yes, I do too, it all comes back to me. 
 It was just as I was going out at the gate in a big rain,
 
 go THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 and I met the carrier and took them to save him a few 
 steps to the door. I was on my way to see Watson's 
 baby, I remember. It died, you know, poor little chap, 
 in convulsions. I suppose I never thought of 'em 
 from that moment to this. I'm sure I'm very sorry, 
 darling, for keeping you out of yours so long." 
 
 " It don't make the least difference," says Miss 
 Ambrose, whose interest has fallen to zero on discover- 
 ing the Boston post-mark on her own letter. A letter 
 from Utah must of necessity be very unlike a letter 
 from any other place in the world. She was surprised 
 at the vitality of her own curiosity in this direction. 
 But she had always been fond of Anna, in the com- 
 monplace Elizabeth days, and now, Anna with the 
 possibilities of a martyr's crown dimly foreshadowed 
 was an object of intensified devotion to this girl, who, 
 quite unknown to herself, was suffering from a sort of 
 heart hunger that proclaimed her altogether liable to 
 tremendous vicissitudes sooner or later. She poured 
 her own coffee out and sipped it silently while Doctor 
 Ambrose read the long letter from Mr. Cosgrove 
 senior, which explained the short one of Mr. Cosgrove 
 junior. 
 
 " Well ! no great harm done after all," he says 
 finally, looking relieved, as he puts the letter back in 
 his pocket and swallows his cold coffee in several 
 audible gulps. " Ferd says," tapping the pocket that 
 has ingulfed the letter, "that it would soon be fol-
 
 AN IMPORTATION FROM THE SOUTH. 91 
 
 lowed by his son, who has resolved, with his entire 
 approbation, to cut loose from the plantation and fit 
 himself for a professional career. He wants his son to 
 study medicine under me. He says, he is but poorly 
 equipped to battle with the world and hopes I will keep 
 him as near me as possible. That he will need to 
 exercise the most rigid economy and is prepared to 
 take my advice in any matter concerning his way of 
 living. You know, those people are all desperately 
 poor since the war, daughter. He comes, young Ferd 
 I mean, from a plantation where he has spent his entire 
 life." 
 
 " Of course he is peculiar," says Miss Ambrose, pre- 
 pared for any amount of eccentricity on the part of a 
 young man who has spent his entire life on a plantation 
 in that dark and godless region of the country known 
 as the South. 
 
 " Why so ? " asks Dr. Ambrose, who is absolutely 
 without sectional prejudices. 
 
 " He-is from Mississippi, isn't he ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " And you say his entire life has been spent on a 
 plantation?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Those people lead very queer lives at best, don't 
 they, father? " 
 
 "How?" 
 
 "Oh! I don't know just exactly, but I remember
 
 92 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 Aunt Priscilla had a great horror of all of them. I've 
 heard her tell so often of a trip she made down the 
 Mississippi River when she and mamma were little girls. 
 It must have been just terrible, you know. And I'm 
 quite sure the papers are always teeming with some- 
 thing awful that has happened down there where the 
 men shoot and chew and ku-klux and are just horrid 
 anyhow." Miss Ambrose shuddered as the vision arose 
 before her, of being brought into close personal contact 
 with the exponent of all these local vices. 
 
 " Who has crammed you with such confounded non- 
 sense, child ? " Dr. Ambrose looks his very angriest as 
 he asks this. 
 
 " I am sure I've gotten hold of a general impression 
 of that sort somehow or other." 
 
 " ' General impressions ' which are ' gotten hold of 
 somehow' are apt to prove very accurate, no doubt," 
 says the doctor, waxing sarcastic in his wrath, " but it 
 is not very difficult to trace your ignorant prejudices to 
 their source. Your Aunt Priscilla was one of the 
 earliest women movers in the abolition excitement. 
 Not that I'm charging that against her. But I'll be 
 hanged if the more earnest a genuinely good woman 
 gets in one direction, the more bitterly antagonistic she 
 doesn't get in another. And the abolitionist women, 
 saintly fanatics, as they were, were incapable of taking 
 very broad views of any subject, and nursed their sym- 
 pathies for the slaves with such one-sided vigor, that
 
 AN IMPORTATION FROM THE SOUTH. 93 
 
 they came to regard it as a religious duty to malign and 
 blacken the reputation of the masters until the devil 
 himself would hesitate about offering them hospitality. 
 But you and I, my pet, are not going to open that old 
 quarrel. The slaves are free, thank God, but the men 
 who fought for what they thought was right have 
 bitten the dust in humiliation. Far be it from us to 
 plant one more thorn in the crown they've worn so 
 long. This young fellow comes to us almost as an 
 exile. We'll just remember, won't we, daughter, that 
 he is a stranger in a strange land, and forget everything 
 else? I'm going to drive out to Bridge's this morning. 
 His wife's down again. I'll manage to get back in 
 time to bring Cosgrove up from the depot with me." 
 
 " How will you know this young man from any body 
 else?" Effie asks practically, when her father comes 
 back into the dining-room after exchanging his slippers 
 and skull-cap for his shoes and tall, stiff hat in which he 
 did professional penance for his slippered ease. " He 
 has your address. You had best let him find his own 
 way up here." 
 
 " That would look sorter chilling, you know. I'll trust 
 my intuitions for picking a Southern boy out of a New 
 York crowd. It's as easy as picking a black bean out 
 of a pan full of white ones. Then he's Ferd's son, 
 and there's nothing I wouldn't do to make him wel- 
 come. Ferd, old Ferd I mean, was a jolly good dog, 
 if he did go astray on the secession question. We
 
 94 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 chummed it for four years at college in the same room. 
 I guess this boy has had something of a hard tussle to 
 get any education." 
 
 " I doubt if he has any," not heartlessly, simply true 
 to her convictions that an altogether abnormal moral 
 and mental condition of affairs held down South. She 
 kissed her father in a perfunctory fashion, and closing 
 the front door on his retreating form, went to the 
 library that constituted the right wing of the old house, 
 where she was soon absorbed in what she called her 
 morning duties. 
 
 These consisted in reading a chapter in the Old and 
 New Testament according to the table of lessons for the 
 month as laid down in the book of common prayer, 
 after which so many pages of Carlyle's Frederick the 
 Great, and, in lighter vein, a few problems in trigonom- 
 etry were studied out. Her Aunt Priscilla had always 
 contended for mathematics as the best discipline for 
 the mind that one could possibly be under, and poor 
 Effie, vaguely conscious of a sense of insufficiency in 
 her life as it was, sought, in more perfect discipline of 
 her faculties, surcease from the spirit of restlessness 
 that haunted her through all the lonely hours that her 
 father's absence entailed upon her. 
 
 " I am no better than an aimless child," she sighed in 
 bitterness of spirit this morning, turning unrefreshed 
 from the self-imposed tasks that had filled the morning 
 hours for her, if they had not supplied any higher inner
 
 AN IMPORTATION FROM THE SOUTH. 95 
 
 need. "Surely I must be a poor bit of mechanism. 
 The life that satisfied every need of dear Aunt Pris- 
 cilla's soul leaves me dry and parched with thirst. But 
 then, hers was a grand soul, attuned to grand issues. 
 She lived for others. She lived to free the enslaved ! 
 and she died triumphant ! while I ! ah, me! I cumber 
 the earth ! " 
 
 In her enthusiasm over the aunt whose strong per- 
 sonality had dominated her own most susceptible years, 
 Miss Ambrose never stopped to inquire how infini- 
 tesimally small that lady's influence had been in bring- 
 ing about the stupendous fact of emancipation. On the 
 contrary, in her fond idolatry she was rather inclined to 
 exalt the said Boston spinster into the triumphant god- 
 dess of liberty, or the heroic exponent of the idea that 
 had carried peace and joy to four million of sable hearts. 
 And not seldom, when she closed the books that were, 
 after all, such unsatisfying companions for a fresh 
 young life, she found herself wondering enviously if her 
 opportunity would ever come to her unsought, as it 
 had come to her Aunt Priscilla. 
 
 That our golden opportunity often lies so close to 
 us that our far-reaching eyes fail to note it, was a 
 truism that had not yet presented itself to the doc- 
 tor's daughter. 
 
 The sound of a sudden rainfall that came dashing 
 against the window glass in big, noisy drops made her 
 look away from the open trigonometry in her lap
 
 96 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 toward the street. She wondered if her father had 
 gone prepared for this caprice of the elements, and 
 wished she had thought to remind him of his water- 
 proof. He was so careless about himself, so careful 
 for others. There went a foolish man now, holding 
 his unsheltered hat well down against the big patter- 
 ing drops with one hand, while the other clasped the 
 lapels of his unbuttoned coat over his breast. The 
 listless interest inspired by this rain-drenched walker 
 received no accession from his sudden stoppage at her 
 own gate, which he opened, after a quick, upward 
 glance at the door, and cleared the narrow space be- 
 tween him and shelter at a half-dozen amazingly long 
 strides. 
 
 Long-legged people and short-legged people, people 
 of all sorts and conditions, were continually making 
 pilgrimages through that gate to her father's office in 
 the wing of the house, so Miss Ambrose was well 
 back into her problem when her studious vein was 
 once more interrupted by a knock at the door. 
 
 " Come ! " she drawled the monosyllable languidly, 
 and looked up with a pencil in hand to hear what 
 Maurice had to say. 
 
 " There's a young man in the doctor's office that 
 give me this card, miss, for your pa," says Maurice, 
 extending his .lacquer-ware tray with a visiting-card on 
 it, "and he says he'll wait till the doctor comes in." 
 
 " Well, what have I to do with that ? " Miss Am-
 
 AN IMPORTATION FROM THE SOUTH. 97 
 
 brose asks, not offering to take the card ; " I suppose 
 it's some patient of my father's." 
 
 " No'm, I don't think he be," says Maurice, looking 
 down on the bit of paste-board on his tray, as i^he 
 would like very much to question it ; " he looks too 
 sorter healthy to have any needs for a doctor. He's a 
 stranger to these parts, I take it. He says his train 
 was a little ahead of time, or he reckons that's the 
 word the doctor would 'a' been on hand." 
 
 " Let me have the card," says Effie, quickly for her, 
 laying her pencil down on the open book. Maurice 
 extends his tray with relieved alacrity. Miss Ambrose 
 reads on it, penciled in good, clear characters, " F. 
 Cosgrove, Jun." 
 
 " It's all right, Maurice, my father is expecting this 
 gentleman. You can tell him Dr. Ambrose rode to the 
 depot to meet him, and 
 
 " That's the doctor now a-stampin' the water out of 
 his feet," says Maurice, as a vigorous sound of foot- 
 stamping comes to their ears, and Effie goes out to 
 meet him with the card in her hand. 
 
 " You missed your black bean after all," she says, 
 lowering her voice against all possibility of its pene- 
 trating to the stranger's ears. 
 
 " Yes. He didn't come. There wasn't but four 
 passengers got out at this station. Two old women, 
 Henry Colton, and a long-legged, thin-faced chap that 
 looked as if he might have been raised on a down-
 
 98 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 east farm, where they never ate any thing but pump- 
 kins." 
 
 Effie displayed Mr. Cosgrove's card and laughed. 
 HeTfather's acumen in tracing inherited physiognomy 
 was evidently at fault. 
 
 " Where did you get this ? " 
 
 " Mr. Cosgrove is in your office," she said, " and I 
 shouldn't wonder if the poor young man is sitting there 
 in moist misery. The rain was pouring down, and he 
 had no umbrella." 
 
 " Bless my soul," says Dr. Ambrose, making shuf- 
 fling haste along the passage-way toward his office, 
 " it does look as if I was determined to cold-water that 
 young man." 
 
 " With the assistance of the elements," says Effie, 
 going with him as far as the foot of the stairs that 
 took upward flight near the back door. " I will see 
 you and your friend at luncheon," she adds, waving 
 her hand to her father as he disappeared through a 
 side door, and bursts violently in upon Mr. Ferdinand 
 Cosgrove, Junior, where he stands coolly drying his 
 dampened legs before the doctor's stove, reading the 
 while a book he has taken from the shelves with an 
 absorption of interest that has made him forget how 
 long he has been kept waiting for the cordial welcome 
 his father had guaranteed him before he had left the 
 plantation, saying 
 
 " Things have changed up North, Ferd, no doubt,
 
 AN IMPORTATION FROM THE SOUTH. 99 
 
 tremendously, since I was a rich young college fellow, 
 with the world in a sling; but there's one thing up 
 there that can't change, any more than true gold can 
 be changed into any baser metal, and that one thing 
 is John Ambrose's heart. God bless him ! "
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SNAP JUDGMENT. 
 
 * ' ff^HIS young fellow comes to us almost as an exile. 
 J_ We'll just remember, won't we, daughter, that 
 he is a stranger in a strange land and forget every thing 
 else ? " 
 
 These words of her father haunted Effie long after 
 the sound of his creaking shoes (the doctor's shoes 
 were chronically afflicted that way), carrying him over 
 the oil-clothed hall in apologetic haste, had died away 
 in the distance and been superseded by muffled voices 
 in conversation that penetrated at intervals through the 
 ceiling and carpet, punctuated occasionally by a rollick- 
 ing laugh from the doctor. 
 
 " They seem to find plenty to say to each other," she 
 says, carefully folding up her sewing, as the clock struck 
 one, and taking a brief survey of herself in the looking- 
 glass before going down to luncheon. It was a sweet, 
 serious face reflected back at her, with a broad, serene 
 forehead from which all such frivolities as bangs, curls, 
 or even wavelets, were religiously excluded. Smoothly 
 parted, on either side her brown hair was severely out-
 
 SNAP JUDGMENT. 101 
 
 lined against the white of temple and brow ; " of course 
 he's peculiar ; but, as dear good father says, these people 
 have suffered terribly for their sins and it is the part of 
 charity to judge them leniently and treat them kindly," 
 with which mis-quotation, she left her own room fully 
 prepared to overwhelm Mr. Cosgrove with the gracious- 
 ness of her reception. It was a bit of unconscious diplo- 
 macy on the doctor's part, enlisting her pity for his pro- 
 tege. For Miss Ambrose dearly loved to be magnani- 
 mous. This young man had, innocently perhaps, but 
 none the less really, partaken of the crime of slave-hold- 
 ing, but as he had voluntarily come out from that land 
 of moral turpitude, whose dark boundaries she auto- 
 cratically traced on Mason and Dixon's line, he should 
 be treated with that gentle consideration due all con- 
 fessed prodigals ; of course, there would be a great deal 
 to shock one's finer sensibilities in associating with a 
 young man whose best must be very poor indeed, but 
 then, she hoped Aunt Priscilla's broad teachings had not 
 been so thrown away on her that she expected to 
 measure every body's corn in her own bushel measure. 
 The sight of a very broad-rimmed, soft-felt hat, bound 
 about with a somewhat dingy ribbon, hanging on the 
 hall-rack close by her father's tall silk hat, sent a throb 
 of generous pity through her heart (which was not 
 cold, only empty). 
 
 " How dreadfully poor a man must be," she said., " to 
 wear such a hat, and how courageous too," but she
 
 102 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 recoiled a little at the horrible prospect of finding 
 the whole man in keeping with that dissolute looking 
 hat ; " if it only had a stiff rim," she sighed, looking with 
 disapproval at the broad, limp brim, " it would look less 
 reckless. What a trial if he should want to go to church 
 with us to-morrow; I'm positive the faintest zephyr 
 would set that brim oscillating. It really looks brigand- 
 ish ! I wonder if he does too." It was with expecta- 
 tion at its lowest ebb that she opened the dining-room 
 door and found herself in the presence of the two men, 
 who had answered the luncheon bell much more 
 promptly than she had. They were standing on the 
 hearth rug waiting for her with a fair outward show of 
 patience. Two strongly contrasting forms and faces. 
 Young Cosgrove, tall, thin, with a certain amount of 
 supple grace about him that seemed altogether dis- 
 proportioned to the length of his legs, was leaning 
 against the mantle with both hands in his trowsers' pock- 
 ets, while he looked down into the doctor's face and 
 gave his best attention to a rather long-winded story 
 of something his father and his father's chum had done 
 in the days gone by before his birth. It was a thin, 
 brown face, lighted up by a pair of uncommonly intelli- 
 gent eyes, that the doctor was looking up into, eyes 
 which, discovering the young lady's presence before her 
 father did, left the doctor's beaming face and calmly 
 rested on that of his approaching hostess. 
 
 " Ah ! My daughter, Miss Ambrose, Ferd Mr. Cos-
 
 SNA P JUD GMEN T. 1 03 
 
 grove, I should say, but Ferd slips off the end of my 
 tongue so naturally. Effie, you've often heard me speak 
 of this young man's father, my chum, old Ferd, I mean," 
 says the doctor all in one breath, purposely making his 
 introduction very verbose in view of the fact that he 
 had, so far, no intimation of what line of conduct his 
 daughter had mapped out for herself in connection with 
 this ex-rebel, and in case of embarrassment an avalanche 
 of words might serve as a sort of bridge to cross the 
 chasm on. But there was no embarrassment and no 
 chasm. Mr. Cosgrove extended his hand quite as a 
 matter of course. Effie accepted it, condoning the lack 
 of good form in view of the Mississippian's previous 
 advantages or lack of them. 
 
 She had entered the room laudably bent upon 
 making her father's guest feel quite at his ease, but if 
 he were not already so he must be a prince of counter- 
 feiters. She quite prided herself on her abstract sense 
 of justice and was prepared to retract the obnoxious 
 adjective " peculiar " so soon as it should be proven 
 misapplied. She was slightly disconcerted at the 
 young man's placid inspection of her. Peculiar seemed 
 to fit him more snugly than ever. Far be it from her 
 to expect a man's manners and his coat to be gauged 
 one by the other, but the peculiarity of this young 
 man lay in his seeming ignorance of the fact that 
 Maurice, who opened the door for him, and who was 
 then officiating at the lunch table, was vastly better
 
 104 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 dressed than himself. Maurice, who was only part 
 white, would have, scorned to wear that blue coat, 
 grown whitish about the seams and shiny about the 
 buttons, and that did not accord with the striped 
 trowsers that puffed so at the knees with pathetic sug- 
 gestions of having been worn a very long time ! 
 Maurice would never have been caught in a turn-down 
 collar with a narrow silk tie "slightly awry, years after 
 standing collars and scarfs were considered the 
 admissible things ! She would have approved alto- 
 gether of this sublimated serenity under so much 
 shabbiness if it had seemed to spring from heroic 
 endurance, but she was afraid; from the airy uncon- 
 sciousness of the young man, that he really did not 
 know when a person was well dressed. He didn't look 
 at all like a man who was expiating the sins of his 
 fathers in a shabby coat and disreputable trowsers. 
 His manners were quietly composed, without lapsing 
 into indifference, and when he had any thing to say for 
 Doctor Ambrose, with the garrulity of age, was some- 
 thing of a monopolist he said it a little verbosely 
 (quaintly, Effie called it), as a man says things who has 
 never been under the necessity of hurrying through 
 any thing; but there were none of those lapses into 
 plantation dialect nor reckless disregard for grammar 
 that she had supposed must distinguish all Southerners 
 from more fortunate people. 
 She was glad that her father's full flow of reminis-
 
 SNAP JUDGMENT. 105 
 
 cence claimed the attention of the young man so 
 entirely that, as he sat at the side of the table, with his 
 eyes turned toward the doctor, she could satisfy her 
 curiosity concerning him fully, if a trifle furtively. 
 She brought to bear upon this furtive examination the 
 intense interest always excited by the first view of any 
 species of animal of which one has heard a great deal, 
 but with which one has never come in direct contact. 
 ThisyoungMississippian, with his brown cheeks, straight, 
 dark hair, combed smoothly behind a pair of rather 
 prominent ears ; with his long, brown mustache nearly 
 hiding a mouth of womanish sensibility ; with his 
 superfluity of neck held well up above that distress- 
 ingly obsolete collar ; with his long, nervous, brown 
 fingers that kept his napkin ring in perpetual motion, 
 while he listened or when he spoke, belonged to a type 
 that had been held up for criticism and condemnation 
 in her hearing from the earliest years of her life. 
 
 " How very different, in every particular, from the 
 young men one sees every day in Elizabeth," was her 
 mental verdict on the physical man, which may have 
 been in Mr. Cosgrove's favor and may not have been. 
 She started guiltily when her father, swerving from one 
 subject to the other with the suddenness that was 
 habitual with him, suddenly addressed himself to her. 
 
 "Well, Miss Ambrose, what do you say to taking 
 another male under your protection ? Ferd and I have 
 arranged every thing to suit ourselves, and
 
 io6 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 "Pardon me the interruption, my good sir, but I 
 can not permit you to say that any thing has been 
 arranged without consulting Miss Ambrose. That I 
 appreciate your kind offer and would gladly avail 
 myself of it, if your daughter fully approves, is the 
 more correct way of stating it." 
 
 " Oh ! of course, of course," says the doctor, starting 
 off more briskly than ever after this interruption, " but 
 there's no manner of reason in thinking about any 
 other arrangement. We've got a big house here. 
 Room for a dozen instead of two. And here's Ferd," 
 addressing himself to Effie, " who's come all the way 
 from Mississippi to study medicine with me; don't 
 know a soul this side the line. Where's the sense of his 
 knocking about in cheap boarding houses when we've 
 got two or three bedrooms locked up ? The one over 
 the library, Pet, with the morning sun, is just the thing 
 for him ; and then of nights, when I want to smoke, I 
 need not have to shut myself up like a prisoner in 
 solitary confinement or run the risk of being ordered 
 out of your room with the gim-cracks. She's down on 
 smoke, Ferd. Excuse me, but it does me good to 
 mouth the old name. Not that you look at all like 
 your father, there's where I missed it this morning at 
 the depot. Ferd, old Ferd, I mean, has red hair, white 
 though now, I guess " 
 
 " None at all, rather," Ferd junior says smilingly. 
 
 " Bald ! Hey ! To be sure, he's not been standing
 
 SNAP JUDGMENT. 107 
 
 still while I've been growing old. And blue eyes. I 
 was looking out for Ferd's broad shoulders and short 
 legs." 
 
 " I believe I take after my mother's family." 
 
 Effie made a note of that " take after," proposing 
 further on to see if its use was warranted by any good 
 authority. 
 
 " And so," says the doctor, settling every thing with 
 a final sweep of his napkin across his lips, " we'll tele- 
 graph over to New York for his baggage, and make 
 him at home." 
 
 " I protest," began Mr. Cosgrove. 
 
 "Against what?" Dr. Ambrose interrupts, tartly. 
 
 " Against your having taken Miss Ambrose at such 
 a decided disadvantage. By laying the proposition 
 before her in this way, you have virtually deprived her 
 of all power of veto." 
 
 This was so exactly what Miss Ambrose was herself 
 thinking, that she blushed furiously and denied it 
 mendaciously: 
 
 " I am sure if you think you could be comfortable 
 and happy in such a monotonous household as this, I 
 can agree with father that it would be a good arrange- 
 ment. You will not find us at all entertaining. We 
 are both very busy people, and correspondingly dull 
 company." 
 
 " I hope to be very busy, too," says the young man, 
 not nearly so much overcome by her graciousness as
 
 108 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 she had expected, but to him, fresh from the larger 
 handed hospitality of his section, this concession 
 seemed simply a display of ordinary politeness ; " and 
 while I am deeply grateful for the arrangement, I 
 should be sorry to have you feel under any necessity of 
 entertaining me. I have come North impressed with 
 an abiding sense of the necessity of making both edges 
 cut for the next few years. I have nothing to fall back 
 upon. The old place is pretty well worn out, and is 
 not inviting to free labor." 
 
 " You don't overflow," says the doctor, whose 
 knowledge of Mississippi hills and Louisiana swamps is 
 a trifle obscure. 
 
 " No. That's about the only ill we're not heir to," 
 says Ferdinand, with a ripple of careless laughter, 
 which increases Miss Ambrose's desire to know what 
 manner of man this is, who can wear shabby clothes 
 with placid indifference, and discuss his own impov- 
 erished condition with the stoicism that is generally 
 reserved for the misfortunes of one's friends. 
 
 "Well! if Miss Ambrose considers the arrangement 
 made, I may as well order my baggage at once," he 
 says, as they all come out into the hall together, 
 and he stops in front of the big shabby hat, with arm 
 upraised. 
 
 " Do so," says the doctor, "or stay, Maurice can do 
 it just as well." 
 
 " But, Miss Ambrose ! I 'm waiting for her orders."
 
 SNAP JUDGMENT. 109 
 
 "The room is entirely at your disposal, and I hope 
 you will be very comfortable in it," Effie says, a trifle 
 frigidly. 
 
 "Thank you, I don't intend to be in your way any 
 more than I can possibly help. I'm to be the doctor's 
 cub for some time to come, and hope you will make 
 use of me in any capacity. I'm not an altogether use- 
 less limb. And I am thoroughly grateful for this 
 arrangement." With a little wave of the broad 
 brimmed hat, he strode out of the gate with the same 
 long swinging stride that had brought him in out of 
 the rain. Effie and her father watched him out of 
 sight. 
 
 "Well, what do you think of him?" the doctor 
 asked. 
 
 " I think he is peculiar." 
 
 " How? Snap judgments are unkind and unreliable. 
 But how ?" 
 
 " Every way. He seems to take things very much 
 as a matter of course, even his poverty. Has he always 
 been so dreadfully poor?" 
 
 " His father was one of the richest men in the state 
 when the war broke out, and this boy was born to big 
 expectations." 
 
 " He doesn't seem to care. He rather makes a joke 
 of his extremity." 
 
 " That's not for us to say. Those people have 
 accepted the issue like men, and this boy is proud
 
 1 10 THE BAR-S1X1S TER. 
 
 enough to hide his scars ; but they must be there, 
 daughter, they must be there. I'm glad you were so 
 sweet about his coming." 
 
 " I didn't know that you gave me any opportunity 
 to be any thing else. If you had spoken to me pri- 
 vately, it could have been argued for and against.? 
 
 " But there isn't any against. It's just as if I had a 
 partner." 
 
 " As you please, father. His presence will be noth- 
 ing to me. If he is in earnest about his profession I 
 shall see little or nothing of him except at table. Of 
 course, you will not expect me to alter my evenings for 
 him." 
 
 " You'll find him earnest," says the doctor, answering 
 partially. " He comes of earnest stock. With all his 
 seeming carelessness he's fire and brimstone at bottom. 
 It's in his eyes." 
 
 " How very uncomfortable! I hope he isn't com- 
 bustible. We are very serene here at present. I sup- 
 pose it wouldn't be safe to talk as if there had been 
 a war, or a colored person, or any thing of that sort, 
 you know." 
 
 And while he is being so freely discussed, Mr. Cos- 
 grove, with due consideration for the cost of every 
 word, is telegraphing home after telegraphing for his 
 baggage. 
 
 "Am all right. Taken into bosom of family. 
 Work hard ! Doctor a trump."
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 "SHALL AULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT?" 
 
 T")ERHAPS Mr. Ferdinand will never know how 
 J_ much he was indebted to his shabby felt hat, his 
 pathetically thread-bare coat and his unconscious pose 
 as martyr, for the promptness with which he got into 
 Miss Ambrose's good graces and was treated by her 
 with a sweet cordiality that he accepted as a matter 
 of course, while her father marveled greatly thereat. 
 All the girls with whom the young man's decidedly 
 limited experience had brought him in contact were 
 cordial and friendly, totally unversed in those stiff 
 conventionalities and pointless points of etiquette 
 which would have been absurdly misplaced in the free 
 and easy intercourse of one plantation with another;" so 
 he had nothing by which to gauge the extent of the 
 thaw in his hostess's icy courtesy, that delighted and 
 amazed her father. 
 
 He, the doctor, was secretly conscious of his own 
 daring and the unexpectedly happy results therefrom. 
 He knew that if he had so introduced a spruce young 
 man, with short clipped hair, with wide-awake audacity 
 in his eyes, a dapper, conventional " derby " on his
 
 112 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 head and fashionable tweed on his back, into the bosom 
 of his family as unceremoniously as he had introduced 
 this young exile from Dixie, he would have run the risk 
 of being severely and persistently snubbed for his hasty 
 philanthropy, and life would have been made a burden 
 to the recipient of it ; for the average young man with 
 his monotony of physique and dress, his hueless mind 
 and flavorless experience was an object of especial dis- 
 like to his daughter, to whom Cosgrove, with his store 
 of tragic memories, his quaint acceptance of a lot of 
 poverty and deprivation, such as had never come with- 
 in her well-sheltered sphere of observation, his unre- 
 served indorsement of the issues of the war, and 
 his quaintly humorous acknowledgment of complete 
 defeat, assumed the proportions of a psychological 
 study ; a study which she pursued with all the more 
 eagerness when she found out, contrary to her expect- 
 ations, that he was not at all averse to talking about 
 things as they were, or had been, or might possibly yet 
 be in that " dark land, the South," a spot which her 
 imagination had always peopled with a race of men 
 lineally descended from the ogres and the earth-demons 
 of the dark ages. Perhaps (it dawned upon her) she 
 had not been doing these slave-holding people full jus- 
 tice all these years. Perhaps Aunt Priscilla's very 
 rigid views concerning them and their iniquities (the 
 correctness of which views she had never dreamed of 
 questioning) might have been a trifle over-done. Per-
 
 ' ' SHALL A ULD A CQ UAINTANCE BE FORGO T?" 113 
 
 haps, like another historical personage, between whom 
 and the slave-holder of the South there was doubtless 
 much in common, he may have been painted blacker 
 than he was. She resolved that it was her duty to give 
 unbiased heed (or as unbiased as possible) to all the 
 young man had to tell, for there was no withholding cre- 
 dence from the simple testimony he bore to the heroic 
 lives and patient endurance of the people to whom he 
 belonged. Not eager or querulous testimony, nor 
 given with importunate eagerness to excite sympathy, 
 only manfully and modestly when asked to do so. The 
 acme of interest and curiosity on her part was reached 
 one evening when Cosgrove had been with them some 
 months, and had made himself quietly entertaining in 
 a descriptive vein over the dessert and coffee. Dr. 
 Ambrose had made an abrupt move to leave the dinner 
 table on account of the heat. 
 
 " We can finish our talk in the office, Ferd, over our 
 cigars, daughter will excuse us ; " then the two men 
 had gone one way and she another, as usual, they to 
 defile and befog the atmosphere of the doctor's office 
 with cigar smoke, she to sit in dignified and unsmoked 
 loneliness in the sacred alcove where Ferd had never 
 yet penetrated, catching only fleeting and suggestive 
 hints of its splendor as he passed the drawn portiere to 
 and from the dining-room. 
 
 But on this occasion Miss Ambrose found the con- 
 templation of her pretty but familiar surroundings
 
 114 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 cruelly inadequate to her entertainment. Neither 
 plaque nor picture nor book-shelf could win one glance 
 of approval from the serious eyes that were fixed 
 abstractedly on the soft, fluffy rug under her feet while 
 she meditated a very daring step. With a sudden 
 resolve that sent a soft flush slowly up from cheek to 
 brow, she gathered into her arms a brilliant hued pile 
 of wool pierced with two long ivory needles, and 
 swooped down upon the two men where they sat in 
 wordless content over their cigars. 
 
 " You were going to tell us about your church going, 
 when father walked off with you," she said, scorning a 
 false plea for her unprecedented intrusion. " I should 
 so like to have you go on." 
 
 She smiled a little uneasily as the Mississippian 
 sprang to his feet on her entrance and stood courte- 
 ously with his hand on the back of his chair, while she 
 settled herself into the big upholstered affair that was 
 planted immovably under the drop light. This young 
 man always made it seem such a momentous affair 
 for her to come into the room ; it was really discom- 
 forting. She was afraid he was a trifle obsolete. 
 
 Ferd moved toward the open window with his cigar 
 in his fingers. 
 
 " Don't throw away your cigar, please. If you don't 
 resume it I shall feel terribly in the way. You see I 
 intruded on your cigar, not it on me. If you refuse to 
 smoke and talk I will go back to my own room."
 
 " SHALL A ULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGO T? " 115 
 
 " Thank you. Mother and the girls have spoiled 
 us father and me I mean by letting us smoke in the 
 sitting-room at home, but I'm not such a muff as to 
 expect indulgence at your hands." 
 
 " Smoke, Ferd, smoke in peace ! Depend upon it, she 
 means it, or she wouldn't have said it. It is one of my 
 daughter's most striking peculiarities (sex and age con- 
 sidered, a very striking one) that she always means what 
 she says. But as I don't want you to undervalue your 
 blessings, I will tell you that you're the first man that 
 ever got permission to smoke in her presence. It is 
 either a sign of interest in you, of which I hope you will 
 try to prove yourself worthy, or a sign of reconstruc- 
 tion in her, of which you will please make a note. I'm 
 always sure some deep internal motive is surging in 
 my daughter's heart when she appears with Penelope's 
 web in her hand. Penelope's web," leaning over and 
 spreading the gay woolen thing out over Effie's lap, 
 " is expected to eventuate in an Afghan for me. If 
 I die before it is completed, and man's age is but three- 
 score and ten, I will make you my residuary legatee, 
 Ferd." 
 
 Effie waited very patiently for this harangue to ex- 
 haust itself. The long ivory needles were click-clack- 
 ing industriously. She leaned back with a sigh. She 
 wished she could enter more heartily into her father's 
 jocularity, but Aunt Priscilla had always classed fun 
 and frivolity together. She fixed her grave eyes on
 
 1 1 6 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 the flame of the match by which Mr. Cosgrove was 
 rekindling his cigar. 
 
 " I am very much interested in all you have to tell 
 me about the South," she said, " and I hope you won't 
 think it impertinent curiosity either." 
 
 " I think I quite understand," he said, dropping the 
 burned match into the cuspadore, and resuming his chair, 
 puffing fora second in silence to make sure of his cigar, 
 then clasping one arm about his crossed leg, he added, 
 " I only wish such curiosity had been a little more 
 general before the war. It would have been better for 
 us all." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because, if there had been a little more intelligent 
 curiosity among the people of the North concerning the 
 people of the South, rather than a concentration of im- 
 bittered interest in our one accursed institution of 
 slavery, it would have led to a clearer understanding 
 on both sides. Because, if we had come face to face 
 with each other instead of being the puppets of poli- 
 ticians on both sides, greedy of self aggrandizement 
 alone, it would have been well. Because, if we had 
 reached out after each other's love and esteem with a 
 sincere desire for a better mutual undrstanding, the 
 same results might have been achieved in the long run 
 without the horrible sacrifices that went to its final 
 accomplishment." 
 
 " By the Eternal, I believe you are right, sir ! " says
 
 "SHALL AULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT?" 117 
 
 Dr. Ambrose, bringing his clenched fist mercilessly 
 down upon his own knee. 
 
 " What did the people of the North know of the people 
 of the South," Ferdinand continued, rising in his earnest- 
 ness and facing eagerly toward the girl whose sweet, up- 
 raised face glowed with answering earnestness, " but 
 what they saw of the wealthy among them, in their 
 butterfly flutterings about some Northern watering- 
 place in hot weather, or what they read about them in 
 partisan newspapers that colored and distorted every 
 statement to suit the exigencies of the times or the 
 tastes of their own constituents? What did the peo- 
 ple of the South know of the people of the North, but 
 what they, in their obscure plantation homes, heard in 
 distant echoes transmitted through agencies that lent 
 themselves to the propagation of envy, hatred, malice, 
 and all uncharitableness ? Why, sir," facing excitedly 
 upon the doctor, " since I've come North I've learned, 
 as a thousand years of theorizing over the whys and 
 wherefores of the lost cause could not have taught me, 
 the utter madness of our people. I've seen enough of 
 the material prosperity of this country to make me 
 marvel at the fatuous daring of the men who precipi- 
 tated the secession movement. The South was no 
 more prepared to grapple with the North in a death- 
 grip than a starved child could grapple with a well-fed 
 giant. I marvel at the daring, but I glory in the daunt- 
 less courage it evoked ! "
 
 Il8 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 "You speak of those men as if you were an out- 
 sider," says Effie, noting what she gladly hails as a 
 sign of regeneration. 
 
 "You mistake me entirely. I, having come to years 
 of discretion since the costly finale has been reached, 
 having been a partaker of the woes that sprung from 
 the war without having participated in the blind passion 
 of its inception, feel warranted in speaking of its results 
 rather than its causes. But it was not the political 
 aspect of the South we were discussing over our coffee. 
 It was the lives of our women." He smiled down into 
 Effie's face. This young man's smile was one of his 
 best points. It was a sort of sudden illumination gen- 
 erally quite unexpected and fleeting, leaving his 
 features all the quieter for its having been. Not that 
 his was an uncheerful face ; it was more as if he had 
 not known much occasion for laughter. 
 
 "Yes," says Erfie, with a nod of unusual eagerness, 
 " You said they never shopped, nor went to theaters, 
 nor churches, nor things, and I wondered how they 
 lived through the days." 
 
 "Happily, busily and intelligently," says Ferd, "in 
 spite of it all ; " then he found himself wondering if 
 this Boston-reared girl, with a nameless charm of sweet 
 earnestness about her that made him forget her 
 pedantry and her narrowness and her fixedness in a 
 groove that was altogether unfamiliar to him, would 
 indorse, his use of those adverbs if she could know his
 
 ' ' SHALL A ULD A CQ UAMTANCE BE FORGO T?" 119 
 
 mother and the girls as he knew them could look in 
 upon the old plantation sitting-room, with its faded 
 ante-bellum glories in such sharp contrast with its 
 cheap renovations, on evenings when the family was 
 all gathered there ; his father and his mother and the 
 three girls and himself, all clustered about the center 
 table, where were always to be found the papers and 
 magazines of the day as fast as their slow moving 
 mails could fetch them : could see mother, with 
 her soft white bands of hair tucked smoothly away 
 under her cap frill, leaning back with her still bright 
 eyes ciosed behind her gold-rimmed glasses and her 
 hands folded restfully in her lap (such busy hands they 
 were too), while father, read aloud from their favorite 
 weekly, and Annie, the pet of them all, sat playing 
 without notes, softly, so as not to drown the reader's 
 voice, on the piano that was almost disreputable for 
 want of repairs they could not afford ; and the other 
 two girls puzzled their united brains over the latest 
 fashion book, so that the dresses they must make 
 for themselves should at least approximate the 
 fashions, or Puss Puss, so intensely black that 
 she looked like a mammoth silhouette outlined 
 against the white-plastered walls, the girls' house-maid, 
 torment and pet all rolled into one stood mutely by 
 the piano, marveling at the melody " Missannie " 
 evoked from the cracked and yellow keys, with an in- 
 tensely greasy primer clasped to her bosom for Puss
 
 120 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 was undergoing the agonies that beset the tiresome 
 path of knowledge and presently when " Missannie " 
 should be tired of the disreputable piano she would 
 take the disreputable primer and hear the lesson Puss 
 was expected to know but never did. Aloud he 
 added, " But it's pretty hard lines on them and no 
 mistake. A fellow doesn't reajize quite how rough 
 until he gets away from it all himself. I think of 
 mother and the girls every Sunday morning when the 
 church bells ring and the day looks so different from 
 the other six up here, when there's something beside 
 the stoppage of a plow to mark it. And when you 
 come out of your room, Miss Ambrose, looking so 
 pretty and placid, and go off to the enjoyment of a 
 good sermon and fine music and prayers delivered in a 
 civilized tongue, that you find quite tolerable, even if 
 long, from your softly upholstered pews, I wonder 
 if you know just how smoothly the machinery does 
 work for you ? " 
 
 It was so utterly impossible to tell from this rather 
 vehemently delivered speech whether she was being 
 complimented on her prettiness or denounced as an 
 ingrate to Providence, that Effie stared at the speaker 
 helplessly for a second, then murmured: "I hope I'm 
 not unmindful of my blessings, Mr. Cosgrove." 
 
 He laughed lightly. 
 
 " I didn't in the least mean to draw any invidious 
 comparisons, Miss Effie, but I can't help wishing that
 
 " SHALL AULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT? " 121 
 
 some of the good things which come to you as a simple 
 matter of course, could go to brighten the dull lives of 
 my dear ones on the old plantation." 
 
 " What do you mean by prayers in a civilized 
 tongue ? " Effie asked. 
 
 " Oh ! well, you mustn't weigh my words too 
 particularly. We are a God-fearing people down South, 
 though you might not think so, and what I say, please 
 understand, has reference only to my own little piney 
 woods settlement, miles and miles from any town. A 
 state of affairs exists there which is inseparable from 
 the fact that it is exclusively an agricultural country, 
 with very few whites, and those so far apart that no 
 community of interest can obtain. You know there's 
 no such thing as regular church-going among us. May- 
 be two or three times a year word will be sent around 
 that some seedy parson will preach at somebody's 
 house, and we'll ride miles upon miles through the 
 mud or through the dust, as it may chance to be, to 
 hear a fellow that your man Maurice here could put to 
 the blush." 
 
 " And the poor colored people ? " Effie asks, true to 
 her earliest sympathies. 
 
 " Oh ! they're a deal better off than we are," says 
 Ferd, with a twinkle in his eyes ; " they've got about 
 ten preachers to every plantation, and a regular meet- 
 ing-house, too." 
 
 " Where do they get them ? "
 
 122 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 " Which ? The preachers or the meeting-houses ? " 
 
 "Both." 
 
 "They manufacture the first, and we build the last." 
 
 "But manufacture out of what?" 
 
 " Out of the raw material. Any fellow with a good, 
 strong pair of lungs and an easy flow of language is 
 equipped for the pulpit. You see they are not over 
 fastidious." 
 
 Here the doctor interposed a lot of questions touch- 
 ing the political aspirations of the race, and Miss Am- 
 brose subsided into a thoughtful silence. It all had 
 such an extremely barbaric sound to her, and yet this 
 young man with the delicate profile, and eyes luminous 
 with intelligence, whose voice was so pleasantly modu- 
 lated, and whose manners were rather oppressively 
 polite, wasn't in the least barbaric ! She wondered if 
 the women who never went any where, or saw any body, 
 or heard any thing, could possibly resemble other wom- 
 en in any respect. How very like oysters they must 
 feel ! Really, it was a field for missionary labor. She 
 wondered if missionaries would be well received there ? 
 It made her shudder to think how empty the souls of 
 such people must be. Somebody ought to stir in the 
 matter. 
 
 " Mr. Cosgrove " she spoke with unusual timidity, 
 but then the ground was unknown and might prove 
 treacherous, "do missionaries ever go among those 
 poor people ? "
 
 " SHALL AULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT?" 123 
 
 " Which poor people, Miss Ambrose ? " Ferd's 
 mustache twitched tremulously and he glued his eyes 
 to the spark of his cigar with absorbed interest. 
 
 " Because," says Doctor Ambrose, warding off the 
 blow, " my daughter is consumed with missionary zeal 
 and it must find a vent. If you won't let her work 
 among your darkeys, she will be starting off to Siam 
 some fine morning, leaving me desolate." 
 
 " I was not thinking of the colored people, father," 
 she says with intense gravity of voice, fixing her eyes 
 imploringly on Ferd's inscrutable countenance ; " I was 
 thinking of the poor white people, the women es- 
 pecially." 
 
 " Define the class you would like to benefit more 
 accurately, Miss Ambrose," he says, looking away from 
 her earnest eyes lest she should detect the amusement 
 in his. She leaned forward, with her smooth, white 
 hands clasped over the gay wools of the afghan ; she 
 wished she could utter the thoughts that were in her. 
 She knew she seemed cold and selfish and absorbed in 
 her own narrow circle, but there was that within her 
 that stirred restlessly at every recital of hardship and 
 deprivation endured by others. The world teemed 
 with great wrongs to be righted, and here she sat day 
 after day, dreaming, idling, wasting ! A selfish cum- 
 berer of the earth ! 
 
 " Perhaps you won't quite know what I mean, but " 
 an excited pull at the gong on the office door start-
 
 124 THE BAR- SINISTER. 
 
 led them all, and drowned her words. The doctor 
 answered the summons in shuffling haste. 
 
 " What the devil ' he began angrily, as the 
 massive form of a hackman that all the town knew 
 was thrust unceremoniously into their presence. 
 
 "No time for gettin' mad, now, doctor. I've driv' 
 up from the depot in a rattlin' hurry to fetch you. 
 There's a old lady down there in the station waitin' 
 room with some hurt about her, and you're wanted. 
 They told me to whoop you up." 
 
 " You may as well come too, Ferd," said the doctor, 
 getting hastily into his light top-coat, and reaching for 
 his case of instruments. " If there's any bones broken, 
 I may need assistance that every body can't render. 
 Who is she, any how?" he asked the driver a minute 
 later as he clambered into the waiting carriage. 
 
 " Don't know, sir. Stranger. Got off train here. 
 Dark ! Fell and broke some of her machinery. Reckon 
 'twere tol'abl* rusty, any how. She ain't no spring 
 chicken," and banging the door after Mr. Cosgrove in 
 such excited zeal that the young man's heels narrowly 
 escaped abrasion, he mounted to his box and whipped 
 his horses into a spanking trot. 
 
 " Where are your friends, madam ? " asked the 
 doctor, having satisfied himself by a thorough examin- 
 ation, that the stranger's leg was broken and her case 
 likely to prove a serious one. 
 
 "Very far away, doctor; none this side of the Rocky
 
 " SHALL AULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT?" 125 
 
 Mountains unless I can claim you. I am traveling 
 alone ; I used to live here a great many years ago. 
 My name was Stone ; Letty Stone. The pretty Letty 
 of Elizabeth they called me more than a quarter of a 
 century ago ; and you, oh ! I've not forgotten the 
 name of John Ambrose. I heard them say go for Dr. 
 Ambrose ' a spasm of pain seized her, wringing 
 moans in place of words from her quivering lips. 
 
 " Letty Stone ! " 
 
 The doctor peered inquisitorially over his glasses at 
 the delicate features now pinched and distorted with 
 suffering. It was the face of a pretty old woman, with 
 fluffy white curls clustering on the temples, and gen- 
 tle blue eyes that looked at him piteously now for 
 help. 
 
 " Fetch some men with a mattress, Ferd ! " he 
 turned from the settee to say; " and you," to the cu- 
 rious crowding loungers, " get out of here, everyone of 
 you ! " He closed the door of the waiting-room after 
 the departing crowd, and came back to the sufferer, 
 softly repeating her name more than once. 
 
 " Letty Stone ! Letty Stone ! Here in the waiting- 
 room at old Elizabeth station ! Why bless my soul, 
 where did you come from ? " 
 
 " I came back here to see sister Eliza once more, 
 John, before I died, for we're both getting old, but 
 they tell me she's gone ! And when I told them to 
 carry me to Mrs. Levison's, they told me there was not
 
 126 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 any Mrs. Levison. And how about Jenny? and brother 
 Jim ? " Tears welled in the patient eyes. 
 
 "Gone ; all your folks gone! long ago ! A new set's 
 sprung up, Letty ; you and I belong to the old ; we're 
 about the only ones left. I'll take you to my home 
 and care for you." 
 
 " No ! no ! not there." 
 
 " There's nobody there that you ever wronged. My 
 daughter never heard the name of Letty Stone." 
 
 " But that's not my name now, John Ambrose. I've 
 been married this many a year. But you mustn't 
 feel bound to take care of me. I'm not a poor woman. 
 The Lord has dealt bountifully by me. I'm able to 
 buy good nursing. It's a pity I came now, but I got 
 to hankering after a sight of the old place and a 
 glimpse of the old faces, but there's none of them here 
 to greet me, not a hand to clasp mine, not an eye to 
 recognize me. You'll cure me up as quick as you can, 
 John, and let me go away again. It was a foolish 
 woman's whim that brought me here." 
 
 " You shall be taken care of, Letty, and not grudg- 
 ingly either; but if there's any body you'd like especially 
 to have near you I'll telegraph for them, for you are 
 going to have a tedious time of it and my house is 
 open to any body you want." 
 
 " It's good of you," she said slowly, "and, it's like 
 you. No ! there's no one I want ; I can pay for 
 nursing and I can stand whatever the Lord chooses to
 
 " SHALL A ULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT?" 127 
 
 send upon me uncomplainingly. Who knows what 
 design He had in bringing me here ; and even with this 
 racking pain on me, John, I can say He doeth all 
 things well." 
 
 "You've gotten hold of a pretty strong trust in 
 Providence if you can see the Lord's hand in the midst 
 of your sufferings," said the doctor, not irreverently, 
 simply wonderingly ; " if I remember right, Letty Stone 
 wasn't so meek and unrepining." 
 
 " Laetitia Stone was a wickedly rebellious, flighty girl 
 that brought unhappiness on every body that ever loved 
 her. I can hardly think of her as my old self, John. But 
 the Lord has brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of 
 the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock and estab- 
 lished my goings ; I can see His hand in every thing 
 that befalls me and I know He has work for me to do 
 here, or He would not have stricken me so that I am 
 not free to go away again, even now that there's noth- 
 ing to stay for, humanly speaking." 
 
 " Well, if it's active work He's got for you to do, 
 I'm afraid you'll not be a satisfactory tool in the Lord's 
 hands soon. Ah ! here is my man ! " as Ferd entered 
 with four men and a stretcher; "now then, easy, 
 boys ! " 
 
 She bore the pain of removal unflinchingly, and 
 when finally they had deposited her with womanly 
 gentleness upon the bed Effie had made haste to prepare 
 for her, she smiled bravely up into the pitying faces
 
 128 THE BAR SINISTER. 
 
 around her. " You're all very good to me ! Thank you ! 
 John's daughter ? " she asked, laying her hand on Effie's, 
 that were busy with her bonnet ribbons. " My name 
 is Shaw, dear, Mrs. Laetitia Shaw ! I'm afraid I'm 
 going to be a burden to you, but the Lord's hand is in 
 it. Blessed be His name."
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 A SAINTLY SINNER. 
 
 *''T^HE Lord's hand is in it. Blessed be the name 
 _L of the Lord ! As my need is, so shall my 
 strength be. He will not forsake me." 
 
 This was the answer the bishop's wife gave to Dr. 
 Ambrose as some hours later he stood by her bedside, 
 adding a few words of pitying exhortation to patience 
 to the instructions he had just finished giving the hired 
 nurse for the night. 
 
 " I'm glad you can take it so serenely. You are sure 
 there's no one you'd like to have come? Plenty of 
 room. Daughter and I will do all we can to keep your 
 heart up." 
 
 " It's 'never down, John. Thank you, no ; there's no 
 one I want." 
 
 She smiled bravely up into his rugged, kindly face, 
 then closed her eyes wearily. The doctor tip-toed 
 laboriously out of the room to join Effie and young 
 Cosgrove in the library. It was long past midnight, 
 but anxiety for the stranger so summarily arrived with- 
 in their gates banished all idea of sleep from the three. 
 Ferd took a professional interest in the case, having
 
 130 THE. BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 tried his 'prentice hand on Mrs. Shaw's broken bones 
 and been cordially commended by his master. 
 
 "How is she, father?" Effie asked, as the doctor 
 creaked into their presence. 
 
 " Pretty comfortable, all things considered. She's 
 not as young as she once was, and bones knit slowly at 
 her time of life. I have told her that she is in for a 
 tedious siege of it, but she seems pretty well fortified." 
 
 " She is absolutely heroic in her endurance of pain," 
 says Ferd ; " I never saw any thing like it." 
 
 " She was always a plucky one," the doctor answers, 
 gazing dreamily before him as he conjured up the vision 
 of Letty Stone's girlhood, " and tremendously set in 
 all her ways." 
 
 " Tell us about her, father. She is so pretty and 
 patient and saintly. I am quite sure I am going to 
 love her." 
 
 The doctor laughed. Mockery, mirth and tender- 
 ness all went into the make-up of that laugh. 
 
 "You knew her when she was young," says Effie, by 
 way of launching the story-teller on memory's tide. 
 
 " Yes ; I knew Letty Stone when she was young. 
 All the boys in Elizabeth knew her, and half of them 
 were in love with her. I belonged to that half. No- 
 body called her saintly then, though. She was just 
 the merriest witch that ever set a lot of boys by the 
 ears. A man never knew how big a fool he could make 
 of himself until Letty Stone got through with him.
 
 A SAINTLY SINNER. 131 
 
 She was an orphan, and lived here with a married 
 sister a little older than herself. She took the town by 
 surprise finally by going over to New York to visit 
 some relatives and never coming back. Her sister gave 
 out that Letty had gone to California with relatives. 
 I never heard of her from that day up to to-night. 
 She don't seem to be over-stocked with kin now. She 
 insists upon it there's nobody to send for. She'll be 
 plucky to the end. There's no discount on Letty 
 Stone, young or old." 
 
 " I shall love to attend to her, father," says Effie, 
 with the enthusiasm that she always held in reserve for 
 people or occasions that were not commonplace. " I am 
 quite sure she is no ordinary character. She will be a 
 study for me." 
 
 " No, she's no ordinary character. She seems to me 
 to be rather an exaggerated sort of a Christian, though. 
 The woman that can trace the hand of the Lord in the 
 breaking of her bones is certainly not the sort of 
 woman one stumbles over every day. She has the 
 spirit of endurance that demands the stake and fagot 
 for full exercise." 
 
 " Don't you think, father, that the spirit of endur- 
 ance is quite as strong now as it was in the days of the 
 early Christian martyrs, only the safe surroundings and 
 commonplace conditions of to-day hold it in abey- 
 ance ? " asks Effie, always ready to pursue the intense 
 view of the subject; "and don't you believe that
 
 132 7Y/ &AR-S1NISTER. 
 
 women are prepared to go just as far in support of con- 
 science as they ever were ? " 
 
 Dr. Ambrose yawned audibly and looked over her 
 head as she stood in front of him, to say : " I shall 
 want you to help me dress the leg, Ferd, to-morrow as 
 soon as the old lady has taken some refreshment. As 
 long as this accident was to befall (as she regards it), 
 you may as well extract all the instruction possible out 
 of it. Come, it is time we were all in bed. Good- 
 night, puss." He stooped to kiss his daughter good- 
 night, but as she turned away in silent displeasure the 
 caress lodged on the tip of her nose. 
 
 Evidently her father had not even heard what she 
 said. His whole mind was on that broken leg, and so 
 was Mr. Cosgrove's. She was nothing but a child, a 
 foolish child, to these two men ! Her views were not 
 even worth listening to ! They could do without her 
 just as well as with her. Ferd sprang to open the door 
 for her. He smiled down into her overcast face as he 
 said : 
 
 " I believe in it ! " 
 
 "In what?" 
 
 " In woman's enthusiastic advocacy of what she 
 believes to be right. I think every true, earnest woman 
 has the germ of a martyr in her bosom." 
 
 "Oh! thanks! I would quite as lief be ignored, as 
 papa ignores me, as to ' 
 
 " To what, as you won't finish ? "
 
 A SAINTLY SINNER. 133 
 
 " Be laughed at by any body else. Good-night, Mr. 
 Cosgrove." 
 
 " Please believe I am not laughing at you. I 
 shouldn't dare do so." 
 
 " You have my permission to dare it, if the inclina- 
 tion seizes 'you." It wasn't very encouraging, but she 
 looked so thoroughly handsome with the red spots of 
 suppressed excitement in her cheeks, with her solemn 
 eyes ablaze, and she was so much more comprehensible 
 when she showed temper just like an ordinary mortal, 
 that Ferd waxed bold to add : 
 
 " But, I hope you will never give your allegiance to 
 any cause that can possibly furnish scope for mar- 
 tyrdom." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because, once you think you are right, let you be 
 never so far wrong, you will out-do all the martyrs of 
 old in obstinacy. And then, you know," he added 
 with twinkling eyes, " saints and martyrs are such 
 excessively uncomfortable house-mates for ordinary 
 mortals." 
 
 " You are not likely to suffer any practical discom- 
 fort of that sort, Mr. Cosgrove, as long as you remain 
 with us. We are thoroughly commonplace and easy- 
 going. But I'm glad you think me capable of such 
 great things, any how." 
 
 And so, in the guest chamber of Dr. Ambrose's 
 house for the next two months to come Mrs. Laetiti*
 
 134 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 -* 
 
 Shaw lay a patient sufferer and cheerful convalescent, 
 ministered to by the father and the daughter with a 
 wholeness of sweet charity that knew no stint nor 
 tiring. 
 
 The sick woman wrote no letters, nor did she receive 
 any. No questions were asked her touching her own 
 home, and she volunteered no information. She had 
 come East on a mission. Elizabeth had been made the 
 objective point of her visit simply because it had been 
 her pld home. She had gravitated there naturally. 
 The longing to look upon the face of her own kindred 
 had been strong within her. But she found herself 
 more of a stranger in the old place than the young 
 medical student from the South, who helped Dr. 
 Ambrose cure her. Surely then, this drawing toward 
 the old home must have a deeper meaning than the 
 seeking of old faces, the yearning for dear voices, 
 silenced now forever. She had been led thither by the 
 hand of God, direct. There was no such thing as 
 chance. She had been cast helpless upon the mercy 
 of these people for God's own good purposes. The 
 plan of operations that had been mapped out for her 
 by those in authority, who had sent her out to recruit 
 for the ranks of the Saints, had been narrowed by 
 an act of Divine interposition down to the circle of 
 which she formed a temporary member. What was 
 she to think, but that God had sent her to rescue this 
 sweet girl, who hovered about her constantly under a
 
 A SAINTLY SINNER. 135 
 
 strange fascination, from the error of her ways ? It was 
 from the ranks of the refined and the educated that 
 the Saints must be recruited. It was a reproach which 
 she yearned to cast off from her people, that it was 
 only the ignorant and benighted, or the grossly vicious 
 who accepted the tenets of the New Gospel! This 
 was why, when in conclave of the Elders it was decided 
 to send an emissary East, Mrs. Shaw had volunteered 
 to fill that delicate position. Those whom she brought 
 into the fold should be such as would shed luster iipon 
 the Church ! Her pre-arranged plan had been to oper- 
 ate in New York City ; this coming to Elizabeth had 
 been but for a day's sojourn ! A greeting and a fare- 
 well ! But God had ordained otherwise. His meaning 
 was clearly to be traced. Her work was close at hand. 
 Helpless and crippled, she must be about the Lord's 
 bidding. She must impress the message He sent by 
 her upon the pure white tablet of Effie Ambrose's 
 heart, unmistakably and indelibly. One such earnest 
 nature rescued from the error of its ways, were worth 
 a hundred common converts. This girl once enrolled 
 among the Saints would be not only a disciple but an 
 apostle. 
 
 It is characteristic of religious fanatics that by con- 
 stant contemplation of one view of the subject judg- 
 ment and conscience become so warped that no other 
 point of view is possible. Remorselessly, persistently, 
 secretively, this woman, whose whole soul would have
 
 136 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 revolted at any act of treachery, recognized as such by 
 her own conscience, set about the task of winning Dr. 
 Ambrose's daughter over to Mormonism. Her heart 
 yearned over those who walked in darkness, while she 
 received the full effulgence shed by the New Gospel 
 on all its followers. She was ready to endure miscon- 
 struction and obloquy to an unlimited extent so long 
 as it was part of the discipline for her soul that bespoke 
 her one of the anointed. Aware that her field of use- 
 fulness, in the particular instance of the doctor's 
 daughter, would be sown with obstructive tares, if, 
 unaided and physically enfeebled, she should be com- 
 pelled to combat the fierce opposition and masculine 
 scorn of rugged John Ambrose, she wove her mesh of 
 subtle arguments and perilous sophisms about the 
 girl's bewildered fancy with a delicacy of caution and 
 a refinement of flattery that made it all the more 
 durable in the long run. 
 
 At first it was but as a listener to delightfully told 
 tales of travel that Effie, morning after morning, sat 
 with clasped hands and eyes attent, while the pretty 
 old woman, with the fluffy white curls and the gentle 
 blue eyes and the softly sympathetic voice, lay back 
 in the big invalid chair and entertained her. Per- 
 haps neither one of them could ever have told at 
 what particular juncture narrative glided into instruc- 
 tion, instruction into persuasion, persuasion into ex- 
 hortation, exhortation into warning on the one part
 
 A SAINTL Y SINNER. 137 
 
 or on the other ; curiosity into interest, interest into 
 anxiety, anxiety into approval, approval into accept- 
 ance. 
 
 It was not with any conscious purpose of deceiving 
 her father that Effie failed to enlighten him about the 
 moral convulsions that were shaking her untried soul 
 to its very center. It was not her habit to show him 
 the workings of her mind. She was only with him a 
 relaxation, she thought, never conscious of how much 
 a study he had made of her before lovingly concluding 
 to take her just as she was. He would never see this 
 thing as she began to see it. It would only be dis- 
 quieting to both of them to discuss it. She would go 
 with this lovely, refined old lady, as safe a guide as 
 one could have, and spy out this strange land for her- 
 self. 
 
 " But father, poor dear, he will miss me," she said, 
 arguing for and against before the moment of final ac- 
 ceptance. 
 
 " He gave you up for ten years for your temporal 
 welfare, can he not spare you for your spiritual gain 
 as well ? He will follow you. Never fear, dear, but 
 that the separation will be a short one. The Lord's 
 hand is in it. Plainly and unmistakably He led me 
 to you. You have heard His message, decide for your- 
 self." 
 
 Did she decide for herself? Was it of her own 
 accord that, just the night before the bishop's wife was
 
 138 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 ready to flit again from the old town that thirty years 
 before she had stolen away from so noiselessly, the 
 girl went to her, and with a trembling voice but reso- 
 lute eyes, said : 
 
 " I will go with you ! If it is as you tell me that 
 there I may find a lovelier, holier, higher consecration 
 of a woman's faculties than she can ever hope to 
 attain elsewhere, I will accept the gospel of your 
 teaching without one single reservation. For here, 
 what am I ? " 
 
 " The thrall of circumstances, dear. An imprisoned 
 soul, a wasted organism," says the bishop's wife, with 
 that positivism that seemed to the girl the embodi- 
 ment of a wisdom that was ready with a solution of 
 her every doubt, so soon as it found utterance. 
 
 Mrs. Shaw took the pliant, plastic nature into her 
 own vigorous hands. The girl found in her what she 
 had lost in the aunt to whom she had given so gener- 
 ous a share of that enthusiastic allegiance which all 
 strong, unique natures demand from imaginative ones. 
 Once committed to the step of following this silver- 
 tongued prophetess out into that strange country 
 where " God revealed Himself in special teachings to 
 His chosen people," Effie grew dreamily indifferent to 
 the minor details of the Hegira. It was the bishop's 
 wife who settled the order of their going, and timed it 
 so that no disquieting scenes might imperil the success 
 of her scheme. It was the bishop's wife who con-
 
 A SAINTLY SINNER. 139 
 
 vinced her that a letter of explanation left in her 
 father's desk was by far the most sensible form of 
 leave-taking. It was the bishop's wife who lulled her 
 remorse and strengthened her resolution by reminding 
 her of the many years her father had voluntarily fore- 
 gone her society. It was the bishop's wife who fired that 
 fervent young soul with visions of a life possible here 
 on earth wherein she, as God's chosen handmaiden, 
 might cover herself with light as with a garment. It 
 was the bishop's wife who conjured her to walk by 
 faith that faith which is the substance of things hoped 
 for, the evidence of things not seen. And it was on 
 the arm of the older woman that the rash girl leaned 
 for strength at the last moment of sore trial, when she 
 passed out from under the roof that had sheltered her 
 cradle, to return When? How? Who knows?
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 STRICKEN HEARTS. 
 
 "T 7OU don't think it shabby of Ferd and me saying 
 X good-by now, Mrs. Shaw, nor abuse us for not 
 being here to see you off this afternoon ? Effie'll drive 
 you down to the depot in the phaeton, and Maurice 
 will check your baggage through to well, wherever 
 you're going. I've got a specially interesting case over 
 in Newark this morning, and, as it's part of Ferd's 
 education to go along with me on such occasions, I'm 
 afraid we can't either one of us get back by luncheon 
 to see you to the train." 
 
 The bishop's wife looked smilingly up into her old 
 friend's face while he thus apologized for going about 
 his business, and her gentle blue eyes never quailed as 
 she answered graciously: 
 
 "Don't spend a thought on me, John. I'm used 
 to getting off and on trains by myself, and am not 
 always so awkward as I was here, getting off with a 
 broken limb. But it was a blessed accident, after all ! 
 You've been very good to me, John, and I thank you 
 for all you've done. Effie thinks of going to the city 
 with me,"
 
 STRICKEN HEAR TS. 141 
 
 " All right. She hasn't done any shopping for an 
 age. How much is it, Pet?" and with the last words, 
 the doctor's pocket-book came prominently into view, 
 
 Effie pushed it away with a trembling hand. " Noth- 
 ing, father, nothing. You mustn't be so good to me. 
 You'll break my heart." 
 
 For a second she clasped her arms about his neck in 
 a frenzy of remorseful indecision. How could she go? 
 Mrs. Shaw's voice, cool, calm, incisive, broke the spell 
 with words chosen with the wisdom of the serpent : 
 
 " I see you have yet to learn, friend Ambrose, that 
 your dear girl is not of the sort that hasn't an idea 
 above a ribbon or a yard of lace ! She has a soul that 
 refuses to be fed on froth. It knows its own higher 
 needs." 
 
 "Bless my soul! Who talks of froth?" the old 
 man laughed, as he pushed his daughter far enough 
 away to look into her troubled eyes. She was un- 
 doubtedly queer! It must be Priscilla's fault! But 
 the buggy was waiting, and putting back his rejected 
 pocket-book, he kissed her and went off to his case, with 
 never a thought of the treachery he left behind. 
 
 Coming back late that evening he turned at the gate 
 to say to Ferd, busy at the hitching-post : 
 
 " It's just ten minutes to train time, Ferd ; maybe 
 you wouldn't mind driving down to the depot for 
 Effie. If you are tired, though," he added, hypocriti- 
 cally, " Maurice can take the phaeton just as well."
 
 142 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 But Ferd had already gathered the reins once more 
 into his eager hands, and with a little laugh of amuse- 
 ment at the doctor's shallow show of apology, turned 
 the horses' heads in the direction of the station. 
 
 "It's well to throw these pleasant little opportunities 
 in young folks' way ;" and the old man smiled as he 
 recalled the young one's eager seizure of the opportu- 
 nity. " I'm sure of Ferd. He's just as far gone as a chap 
 needs to be. But the girl ! She's inscrutable. Abso- 
 lutely inscrutable, if she is my own child. She almost 
 makes me believe in changelings." 
 
 He had long since begun to look complacently on 
 Ferdinand Cosgrove in the light of a possible son-in- 
 law. Nothing, according to his way of thinking, could 
 be more suitable. A vision of himself taking a well- 
 earned rest in his old age, while Ferd stepped easily 
 and naturally into his practice, was a pleasant vision, 
 and he conjured it up again on this occasion, as he 
 congratulated himself on his bit of harmless maneuver- 
 ing. 
 
 Coming into the office half an hour later to re- 
 port his failure to find Miss Ambrose at the station, 
 Ferd found him sitting at his desk, staring fixedly at 
 an open letter in his hand. 
 
 " Here, Ferd ! " he said, in a slow, quiet voice, " read 
 that for me." He held Effie's letter out in a hand that 
 shook as if palsied. " I've read it over two or three 
 times, but it don't seem to get any clearer. Maybe
 
 STRICKEN HEAR TS. 1 43 
 
 the fault's in my glasses." He took off his eye-glasses 
 and rubbed them mechanically, while Ferd swept the 
 written lines with a surprised glance. 
 
 " Why, it's from Miss Ambrose, isn't it ? " 
 
 "Yes. Read it! It's from Miss Ambrose." 
 
 "She won't be at home, then, to-night." 
 
 " Read it ! " 
 
 " But, my dear sir, she might not ap 
 
 " Read it ! Read it, boy ! And if there is any 
 meaning in it, pick it out and hammer it into this old 
 dotard's head ! " The old man smote his thin, white 
 locks with clenched fist in fierce emphasis of his com- 
 mand. " Read it aloud, but slowly, Ferd ! Perhaps I 
 can understand it better then." 
 
 Startled and wondering Ferdinand turned his atten- 
 tion from the doctor's passionately excited face to the 
 letter in his hand. His own lips grew white and a dark 
 flush settled on either cheek as he read : 
 
 " MY DEAR FATHER Don't grieve over the step I 
 have taken, nor seek to interfere with my most fixed re- 
 solve. I believe that the Lord has spoken to me by the 
 voice of that saintly woman who was led so providen- 
 tially to our doors, led direct of God, I do believe, to bring 
 me up out of the miry clay. I have gone with her as 
 Ruth went with Naomi, to make her people my people, 
 her country my country, her creed my creed, and 
 whithersoever she goeth, there also will I go. Under 
 her apostolic leadership I hope to lead that higher and
 
 144 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 better life that can only be attained through the morti- 
 fication of our earthly affections, and the sharp pain of 
 my separation from you, father, is but one of the many 
 stripes I am prepared to endure if I may but be found 
 worthy of acceptance at last. The yearning of my 
 soul for a broader, higher life than that I have led in 
 my lonely self-absorption, (feeling within me a burning 
 zeal and boundless energy to be up and doing, with no 
 avenue for their exercise open to me,) has been more 
 intense and caused me more acute pain than you can 
 conceive of. Such a narrow, sordid, useless life, dear 
 father, I give up without one sigh for myself, but 
 many a tear for you. Tell Ferdinand (I will call 
 him so just this once) that it comforts me to think of 
 him as with you. I want him to be as a dear son to 
 you. If I could have hoped for a patient hearing from 
 you, father, I would have explained my desires and 
 intentions to you in person, but you would just have 
 looked at me with that far away, uncomprehending 
 look in your eyes that always makes me feel as if we 
 were living in two different spheres, and either have 
 laughed at me or stormed at me, and I feel too 
 unnerved to risk either. As soon as I am settled in my 
 new home you shall hear from me, provided you will 
 promise not to vex my soul with importunities for me 
 to return to the old life of unsatisfying luxury and 
 enervating indulgence. Think of me as happy, father, 
 and as stepping heavenward. Do not cast one thought
 
 STRICKEN HEARTS. 145 
 
 of reproach toward Mrs. Shaw. She has been but an 
 humble instrument in the hands of Divine Providence. 
 The scales have fallen from my eyes, father, and seeing 
 as I see now, believing as I believe now, it would be 
 the worst of weakness, if not criminal, for me to act 
 differently. You have not lost your daughter. Think 
 of me as gone to school again. Only this time the 
 Saints will be my instructors." 
 
 The young man's voice was husky with a passion that 
 made it tremble over the last few words of this cruel 
 letter. He folded it up and methodically replaced it 
 in its envelope. What could he say to that stricken 
 father to soften its cruelty or cloak the treachery of his 
 only child ? What could he say to his own heart on 
 behalf of this strangely rash act of the girl who had 
 been to him the embodiment of sweet reserve and 
 womanly dignity? 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 It was the doctor who uttered it, in such a strained, 
 eager voice, and Ferd only echoed the word dully. 
 
 "Well, sir." 
 
 " What does it all mean, Ferd ? I don't seem to be 
 able to follow it. I'd think she'd gone off to commit 
 suicide if it wasn't for that sentence about my hearing 
 from her! But what did she want to go at all for, 
 Ferd? Wasn't I good to her? Poor little thing, if she'd 
 told me she was lonely, I'd have filled the house from 
 garret to cellar with people of her own choosing. Don't
 
 146 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 she say somewhere there," pointing his palsied hand at 
 the letter in Ferd's, "something about loneliness? I 
 loved her though, Ferd ; ay boy, that I did, my pretty 
 Effie." 
 
 Two big tears rolled down his furrowed cheeks and 
 fell on the shaking hands that were folded on his lap. 
 Ferdinand sprang from his chair and walked away to a 
 window where he stood staring out on the darkening 
 street. The two men wrestled silently with their 
 mighty grief. Each heart knew its own bitterness. 
 Dr. Ambrose broke the long silence. 
 
 " Ferd ! come here, son. Have you studied it out 
 yet ? " 
 
 The young Mississippian came to him and leaned 
 over the back of his chair. He did not want to look 
 him in the face, for he knew that when he spoke it 
 would be to add shame to the old man's grief, wrath to 
 his sorrow. 
 
 " It means, sir, that you have been nursing a viper in 
 your bosom and that it has stung you ! " 
 
 "A viper!" 
 
 It was a roar of rage ! The old man was on his feet 
 now and turned upon the speaker his blazing eyes. 
 The young one looked at him with infinite pity and 
 indulgence as he said : 
 
 " You don't think I mean Effie ? not Miss Ambrose, 
 doctor! " 
 
 " Who then ? Curse me if I've got one clear idea ! "
 
 STRICKEN HEARTS. 147 
 
 Ferd opened the letter once more, and pointed with 
 his finger to a passage. " See ! let me read it to you : 
 ' Think of me as gone to school again. Only this time 
 the Saints will be my instructors.' ' 
 
 A shudder passed visibly over Doctor Ambrose's 
 stalwart frame. " Then it does mean suicide ! The 
 saints ! Oh, my little girl ! " 
 
 "It means," said Ferdinand, flinging the letter down 
 with an oath, " that you have had an accursed Mormon 
 emissary in your house, and while you were mending 
 her bones she was plotting to break your heart. Not 
 that she would put it that way ! She knew when she 
 looked up in your face this morning so guilelessly that 
 she was going to stab you in a vital place before night, 
 but her conscience never pricked her once ! She believes 
 that she was God-sent to steal your daughter from you, 
 and she has infused her own conscienceless infatuation 
 into your daughter's enthusiastic soul, but not one 
 throb of compunction stirred her pulses." 
 
 Dr. Ambrose broke into a sudden loud laugh and 
 sank down once more into his chair. 
 
 " Ferd, you are a fool ! I am a fool ! We're both 
 fools ! Infernal fools, Ferd. It's all right. Oh ! yes, 
 it's all right, Ferd." 
 
 Ferdinand looked at him in anxious alarm. Had 
 reason deserted her throne so suddenly? The doctor 
 sighed and passed his hand across his forehead with a 
 tired gesture. Then went on in a quieter voice :
 
 148 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 " I don't mean it's all right, Ferd But you've 
 relieved me immensely. I never thought of the Mor- 
 mons once, but I might have known some nonsense of 
 this sort would seize her sooner or later. I see it all 
 now, Ferd, but it can't be permitted, no sir, it can't 
 be permitted. It was a rash and foolish act and a 
 daring step to take without consulting me." 
 
 " What do you see, Dr. Ambrose? What can't be 
 permitted?" 
 
 " Why you see, Ferd, that child has had a mania for 
 reforming the world ever since she's been in it, almost. 
 She was trained by a crank, Ferd. Priscilla was a 
 crank about your slaves. If the slaves hadn't been 
 emancipated that would have been Effie's hobby, too. 
 As it is, she's taken up the Mormon hobby. My pure 
 darling, my pretty enthusiast, to think she could grap- 
 ple with that monster vice. I'm glad the Quinbys are 
 there. She's gone to see Mrs. Quinby, Ferd. Mrs. 
 Quinby was her best girl friend. But she ought to 
 have asked me. Maybe I've made my girl afraid of 
 me, Ferd. I didn't want to. Oh ! no, no. But men 
 are such rough brutes, Ferd. And she was such a shy 
 thing. I didn't quite understand her, but I loved her. 
 Oh, my little girl, my little girl ! How could you be 
 so foolish ! " 
 
 Hot tears gushed from the old man's eyes in a 
 blinding torrent, and his white head dropped heavily 
 on the lid of the desk before him. Ferdinand could
 
 S TRICK EN HEAR TS. 149 
 
 stand no more. He could find no words of comfort 
 with which to assuage this storm of grief, and his own 
 soul was stirred with wrathful emotions. He did not 
 believe that Effie had gone forth fired with missionary 
 zeal to rescue others from the horrible pit of Mormon- 
 ism. He had heard too much of the baleful fascina- 
 tion of these smooth-tongued emissaries who come 
 gliding into peaceful and happy homes devil-sent, 
 devil-inspired to do the devil's own bidding, and leave 
 them wrecked and ruined forever. How such teach- 
 ings could warp souls as pure as Effie Ambrose's or 
 reach minds as exalted, was one of the mysteries he 
 could not solve, but that they had done so he accepted 
 as a horrible and undeniable fact which must sooner or 
 later force itself upon Doctor Ambrose's comprehen- 
 sion and crush the frail cockleshell of hope the poor 
 old man had just launched upon the troubled waters. 
 He slammed his hat over his eyes and strode toward 
 the door. He would choke if he staid there listen- 
 ing to that old man's sobs. He wanted to get out in 
 the night air where he could think better than seemed 
 possible in there where Effie's cruel letter lay open on 
 the desk and the sound of her father's anguish smote 
 the silence. How long he paced up and down the 
 garden walk that flanked the house, chewing fiercely at 
 his unlighted cigar, he never knew. Long enough 
 to call himself a fool over and over again for 
 letting this cold, shy, passionless girl get such quick
 
 150 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 possession of his affections. Long enough to tell him- 
 self many times with the rash positivism of disap- 
 pointed youth, whose vision is concentrated wholly 
 upon its own petty organism, that life was a failure, 
 love a delusion, truth a myth ! Long enough to grow 
 calmer, finally, and to think very pitifully of the old 
 man who was wrestling alone with, his sorrow. " I will 
 go back to him ; but I can not comfort him," he said, 
 throwing the cigar he had chewed to a remnant far out 
 into the shrubbery and going back into the office. 
 
 The doctor's chair was vacant. Ferd hoped he had 
 gone to bed. He walked softly, as one does involun- 
 tarily in the house of mourning, toward the steps 
 that led to the upper story. Effie's alcove was lighted. 
 He stopped in front of the portiere. Could she have 
 come back suddenly? Seized with remorse had she 
 turned back from New York to heal the wounds of 
 her own making ? No ! She was not there. It was 
 her father! He was sitting in the little beribboned chair 
 where she always sat, toying with the trifles scattered 
 about the table at his elbow, Effie's belongings, all 
 of them. The quaint carved paper knife, and the 
 Japanese card-receiver, and the flat dish with violets in 
 it. She had gathered them and put them there to 
 perfume the room, and then had left the room so 
 desolate. But the perfume lingered. 
 
 " My little girl ! My little girl ! " 
 
 The words came with a moaning sound from the old
 
 STRICKEN HEARTS. 151 
 
 man's lips as he took up one trifle or laid down 
 another. -Ferd crept softly away again. He had 
 never crossed that threshold by her permission, he 
 would not intrude now. It was sacred to her. There 
 she had lived the stainless life that she had cast away 
 from her forever under the influence of a diabolical 
 infatuation. There her thoughts and reveries had 
 been all pure, womanly, feverish maybe, and restless, 
 and craving she knew not what, but pure ! There she had 
 sat enthroned in dainty sovereignty too far away and 
 above him, he had thought, for him to weave an 
 aspiration about her, much less avow a passion. And 
 now ! And now ! He groaned aloud in his pain. He 
 wanted to curse, curse loudly, curse deeply, curse the 
 smooth-tongued emissary who had beguiled this girl 
 whom he loved to her own ruin. Curse the incre- 
 dulity that had made them all accept a serpent for a 
 good woman ! Curse the weakness of a government 
 that could tamely abide such a cancer as Mormonism 
 on its body politic ! Curse all the agencies that had 
 combined to bow that honest old head, in yonder, 
 to the earth with grief and shame ! Curse his own 
 impotence to remedy the evil or solace the sufferer ! 
 He went to his own room and flung himself dressed as 
 he was on the bed. Toward midnight he roused him- 
 self from the chilled stupor into which the day's event 
 had thrown him. The doctor was his first thought. 
 Surely the old man had found temporary forgetfulness
 
 152 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 in sleep by this time. He softly descended the steps in 
 his slippered feet. The light still burned in Effie's 
 alcove. Her father was moving restlessly and heavily 
 about the room now. Ferdinand looked in upon him 
 more boldly this time. He must be gotten to bed. 
 He was softly pulling down the shades to the bay 
 window where the pretty fernery caught the early 
 morning sunlight. Then he drew the heavy inner 
 curtains from their cords and let them fall in straight, 
 graceless folds to the floor. With awkward, trembling 
 hands he drew the portieres that opened into the par- 
 lor close together, pinning them with clumsy slowness. 
 It was a shrouding of the little alcove. And through 
 it all came the moaning plaint : 
 
 " My little girl ! My little girl ! " 
 
 With a tottering, uncertain gait he crossed the 
 threshold of the alcove, softly drew the sliding door 
 from its grooves in the wall, locked it and dropped the 
 key into his pocket. It was a sealing of Effie's room. 
 Then he turned and discovered Ferdinand standing at 
 the foot of the stairs, patiently waiting, fearful of 
 intruding upon the sorrow that he shared so largely. 
 The old man's arms went suddenly outward, as if 
 reaching for the vanished form so dear to them both. 
 
 " My little girl ! My little girl ! " 
 
 A choking sound. A reeling of the massive form. 
 A heavy thud. Merciful insensibility.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 MR. QUINBY'S ATTITUDE. 
 
 " T MEANT to have taken the first train this morn- 
 1 ing, Ferd, but here I've overslept myself! I 
 ought to have spoken to Maurice ! Had your breakfast 
 yet ? My God ! I'm a log ! I'm turned to stone ! " 
 
 Dr. Ambrose turned an agonized look up to where 
 Ferdinand Cosgrove stood by his bedside, looking at 
 him with a world of anxiety in his eyes. Powerless to 
 move his lower limbs he clasped his hands in a par- 
 oxysm of despair. " Not paralysis, Ferd ! Don't tell 
 me this treacherous old body has failed me just when 
 I had such fierce need of all my energies ! " 
 
 " You have had a slight stroke, doctor, but the 
 doctors all think you will recover from it as soon as 
 your system is built up a little. I am so 
 
 " The doctors all ! How many have you had here ? " 
 
 "As many almost as you number friends. Drs. 
 Taylor and " 
 
 " But Taylor's over in New York ! " 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " How could he get here since midnight ? Oh ! I
 
 154 THE BAR SINISTER. 
 
 remember, I remember, Ferd. I remember how, just as 
 I was saying to myself, don't break down, don't break 
 down, you've got to go for Effie, I did break down 
 before I knew what I was about. Poor boy, you look 
 about as bad as can be yourself. I'm afraid I gave you 
 a troublesome night. But you needn't have sent for 
 Taylor." He put his hand up to his chin ! The beard 
 of a week's growth rasped his hand. " Ferd ! Good God ! 
 how long have I been here? How many precious 
 hours have I lost? I wanted to get there before her 
 pure soul had been contaminated by so much as a 
 breath of that sin-laden atmosphere. Ferd ! How long 
 have I lain here like a log?" 
 
 His mind was clearly vigorously wide awake at last ! 
 There was no object in deceiving him : 
 
 " Dr. Ambrose, it has been six days since that cruel 
 letter came ! If you hope to take any active steps in 
 this matter you must be quiet and obedient. Perhaps 
 in a week 
 
 " Week ! By the eternal, man, what do you think I 
 am made of ? I must go for her, Ferd ! For Effie! 
 Don't you know ! Did you tell Corson ? " 
 
 " I have told no one any thing. But all Elizabeth 
 knows," he added bitterly, " that Miss Ambrose has 
 left her home clandestinely, and that Doctor Ambrose 
 has had a stroke of paralysis." 
 
 " If it was the heart, Ferd, that had turned to stone, 
 so much the better ! so much the better. But these
 
 MR. QUINSY'S ATTITUDE. 155 
 
 accursed treacherous legs, to fail me in my sore 
 need." 
 
 Ferdinand made no answer. Why should he? That 
 any good was to be accomplished by Dr. Ambrose 
 following his daughter up, he could not see. She was 
 of age, and the government under which she had taken 
 shelter was mighty to shield and protect all who con- 
 fided their safety to its strong arm. But he was not 
 going to argue the point with the doctor. In a little 
 while he would see this whole thing differently. Not 
 calmly, for the worst had not yet penetrated his com- 
 prehension. As for himself Effie's image was so blurred 
 and blotted by her own rash hand that she no 
 longer stood for the embodiment of womanly loveliness 
 and purity that had won his most exalted esteem and 
 tenderness. Almost any other form of error he could 
 have condoned ! His pity was all for the stricken old 
 father who tried so hard to shield his child from reap- 
 ing the bitter fruits of her own folly. A somber silence 
 fell between the two men. Ferdinand was slowly 
 pacing backward and forward between the bed and the 
 mantle-piece. Glancing toward the first as he turned 
 in his restless tramp, he saw the hot tears forcing 
 themselves from under the sick man's closed lids, and 
 slowly coursing down his rugged, furrowed cheeks. 
 With the tender impulse of a girl Ferd stooped over 
 him and wiped his wet cheeks. 
 
 " Ferd ! you know it won't matter now if I say it.
 
 156 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 I had hoped, yes, I wanted to hope, Ferd, that you 
 and Effie you love her, don't you, Ferd ? " he asked 
 very eagerly. 
 
 " I loved her, sir : I think I never loved a woman so 
 before." 
 
 " Don't talk as if it were in the past tense, boy ! oh ! 
 no ! oh ! no ! we'll get her back and drive all that mis- 
 sionary nonsense out of her head. We mustn't leave 
 her so much alone next time, Ferd. Men are selfish 
 brutes, you know. My poor little girl ! My little girl ! " 
 
 To this Ferdinand had no answer. It was all in the 
 past tense. There was no future tense possible for 
 him and Effie Ambrose. The doctor called him back 
 to his bedside as he walked away from it with the 
 slow, heavy tread of an old man. 
 
 " I want you to telegraph for me, Ferd." 
 
 "To whom, sir? " 
 
 "John Quinby, Salt Lake City." 
 
 Ferdinand took out his paper and pencil and held it 
 in readiness for dictation. 
 
 " Just ask him if Miss Ambrose has reached Salt 
 Lake City in safety." 
 
 "But suppose he knows nothing about it? Aren't 
 you advertising Miss Ambrose's departure unneces- 
 sarily?" 
 
 " You're right ! you're right ! But this suspense, boy ! 
 This bondage ! I'll lose my senses under it, if I'm not 
 even to know her whereabouts."
 
 MR. QUINSY'S ATTITUDE. 157 
 
 " I might telegraph and ask if he knows a Mrs. Lae- 
 titia Shaw." 
 
 " Do it ! do it quickly ! And as much more as you 
 can ask discreetly, Ferd." 
 
 So Ferdinand went off to the telegraph office, and in 
 the course of several hours returned with the result of 
 several different messages : 
 
 " Mr. Quinby knew Mrs. Shaw well ; she was an 
 honored citizen of Salt Lake City. Yes, she had returned, 
 and Miss Ambrose with her! Both ladies were in the 
 best possible health. Dr. Ambrose might rest assured 
 his daughter was with friends." 
 
 The old man smiled as Ferd read aloud to him these 
 gleanings from the wires. It wasn't much on which to 
 satisfy a hungry heart, but when one is resolved to per- 
 form the miracle of the loaves and fishes for the benefit of 
 a beloved delinquent, satisfaction can be easily procured. 
 " It was good of John to send that last message, Ferd. 
 He knew I would be perfectly satisfied to know she was 
 with him and Anna." Then with sudden revulsion : 
 " D n Mrs. Laetitia Shaw ! serpent ! ingrate ! smooth 
 faced hypocrite ! " 
 
 "Dr. Ambrose, all unnecessary excitement only 
 retards your activity by so much," says Ferdinand, 
 startled at the frenzied energy of his passion. "If you 
 can not control yourself better you will be a prisoner for 
 life, instead of weeks." 
 
 " Right ! right ! right ! I'm hurting myself worse
 
 158 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 than any body else, but oh ! my little girl ! my little 
 girl ! " 
 
 A day passed two three, and Effie's name had 
 not been spoken by either of them. Then the doctor 
 said suddenly, "You must write a letter for me, Ferd." 
 
 The hot blood leaped in a flame to the young man's 
 forehead. He could not, would not write to her ! 
 " Well, sir ? " he said. 
 
 "To John Quinby! I must hear something more, 
 Ferd, and I want to make things as right as they 
 can be until I get there," and this was the letter 
 young Cosgrove wrote by dictation, interrupted 
 every little while by comments wrung from the old 
 man's aching heart : 
 
 " MY DEAR JOHN If I had not known you and Anna 
 from the time you were children, which makes me feel 
 almost as if I had a father's claim on you, I could not 
 bare my wounds for your inspection, but I'm coming to 
 you for help, my dear, and I'm quite sure of getting it 
 from you both." (Oh yes, Ferd, I know, even if it 
 crowds them a little, they will make room for her.) 
 "When your Anna was getting ready to join you in 
 Utah, John, I laughingly told her that Effie and I 
 would be coming over there to see you some day, for 
 I was certain nothing short of a missionary's life 
 somewhere would satisfy my girl's fantastic desire to 
 do something, she wasn't quite clear what." (You see, 
 Ferd, there's where the sting comes in ! I believe that
 
 MR. Q UINB Y'S A TTITUDE 159 
 
 infernal clumsy jest set my poor little girl to thinking 
 of this very thing). " I curse the hour when I got off 
 that senseless jest, John, and am willing to bear my full 
 share of blame for Effie's foolishness. And I curse too 
 the hour when I opened my doors to that viper, 
 Laetitia Shaw. No doubt, it was her unfolding the hor- 
 rors of Mormonism to my dear child, that wrought her 
 up to the pitch of going out there to grapple with that 
 awful vice. What idea or plan of action the poor 
 child has gotten into her poor little head, I do not 
 know, but you and Anna, I know, will take her into 
 your safe and friendly keeping until I can get there. 
 That would be immediately if I were able to travel, 
 but I am sorry to say I am confined to my bed by a 
 slight attack " (call it slight, Ferd, for he might happen 
 to let Effie see this letter, you know, and I wouldn't 
 have her made uneasy for a trifle) " brought on by im- 
 prudence. No doubt my little one expects to convert 
 all the Saints from the ejrror of their ways. Tell her she 
 will have to be very expeditious, for I shall be on for 
 her very soon." (You see, Ferd, it's as well to make 
 light of it with a view to sparing her pain. Poor dear, 
 I know she's crushed with remorse and shame, by this 
 time. I'm not going to say one word that can be con- 
 strued into a reproach.) " If I could know that she was 
 with you and Anna I would feel as well satisfied as 
 any thing could make me in my present frame of mind." 
 (You know theQuinbys are just like kin to her, Ferd.)
 
 160 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 " Don't be too hard in your judgment on my poor little 
 girl, John, you and Anna and Anthony. A good deal's 
 to be said for the way she's been reared, and I can't 
 blame myself severely enough for leaving her so much to 
 herself since she lost her aunt and then Anna. She was 
 reared by a crank whose hobby was abolition. No doubt 
 if the darkeys hadn't already been emancipated, she 
 would have found enough work for her rash head and 
 eager hands close at home. As it is she has brooded 
 no doubt over the sin of Mormonism until the desire to 
 mend matters has carried her clear out of herself 
 and away from her poor old father, to do what she ver- 
 itably believes is the Lord's bidding." (You see I am 
 being a little prolix, Ferd, but if I don't explain 
 matters fully she won't, and they are liable to put 
 wrong constructions on her conduct.) " Tell Anna I rely 
 much on her common sense, and she must exert it 
 fearlessly to prevent my foolish girl from carrying out 
 any of her wild schemes of reformation." 
 
 Ferd wrote the dictation conscientiously, wondering 
 all the while at the power for self-deception that it 
 evinced. By dint of obstinately taking one view of 
 the matter Dr. Ambrose had reduced his daughter's 
 wrongdoing and his own suffering to a minimum. 
 
 "What do you think of it, Ferd?" he asked, after 
 the letter had been read aloud to him. 
 
 " I think you have tremendous will-power," said the 
 younger man evasively, addressing an envelope.
 
 MR. QUINBY' S ATTITUDE. l6l 
 
 And this is the answer that came back with due 
 regard to promptness : 
 
 " MY DEAR DOCTOR AMBROSE Mrs. Quinby and I 
 were very glad to hear from you and to know that 
 there was even an indefinite prospect of our seeing you. 
 We had anticipated your wishes by consulting our own 
 happiness and robbing our neighbor of your daughter 
 as soon as we heard of her being here. Mrs. Quinby, 
 as you know, loves her like a sister, and no sooner heard 
 of her being in the city than she sent me to insist on 
 her becoming our guest. Sent me, I say, for I am 
 sorry to say, that in spite of that fund of common 
 sense with which you accredit her, she has imported all 
 her narrow Eastern prejudices against the institutions 
 of this country and refuses to have any thing to do with 
 Mrs. Shaw, in spite of much kindness she has shown 
 us, since she discovered that Bishop Shaw had other 
 wives. So, Miss Ambrose is with us, Mrs. Shaw yield- 
 ing gracefully in view of the old friendship and Anna's 
 piteous pleading. She, Mrs. Shaw, is a woman of rare 
 tact and intelligence, absolutely fearless in pursuit of 
 what she considers her duty. As your lovely daughter 
 has been with us but a very little while I have had no 
 opportunity to discover what her object in coming 
 was, nor what line of conduct she proposes to follow ; 
 but I feel confident that she will act judiciously and 
 wisely, and rejoice to find her absolutely free from that 
 narrowness of soul and contraction of heart that mars
 
 162 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 so many of our best women reared in the conventional 
 schools. Miss Ambrose has utilized her opportunities 
 for reflection most admirably, and I find in conversa- 
 tion with her that she is a remarkably advanced 
 thinker, age and sex considered. I only wish my dear 
 Anna was more like her in many respects. No doubt, 
 now that she is on the spot, she will be able to decide 
 clearly and finally whether to accept the new gospel in 
 all its untrammeled excellence, or whether to do feeble 
 and ineffectual battle against an institution that has 
 withstood the shock of conflict and misconstruction and 
 odium cast upon it by generations of those whose 
 prejudices are more nearly allied to blind ignorance 
 than to intelligent conviction. The less one knows of 
 this institution and its workings, naturally, the harder 
 one finds it to exercise reason or tolerance. I have 
 gone through the phase myself, and am free to say, that 
 the result of patient investigation inclines me to 
 leniency. My present attitude toward Mormonism is 
 that of a serious and unbiased inquirer. What the 
 final result will be lam not prepared to say. I hardly 
 think it will be a voluntary resumption of the old prej- 
 udices and arrogant sitting in judgment. No doubt you 
 are thinking of your daughter as environed by a God- 
 less, lustful set who make their religion a cloak for a 
 multitude of sins, to breathe the same air with whom 
 will stain the pure ermine of her womanly nature. 
 Compare a few of their precepts with those of your
 
 MR. QUINBY'S ATTITUDE. 163 
 
 orthodox Christian and see if the Saints lose by the 
 comparison. I give them to you, as Joseph Smith 
 gave them to his disciples and followers. I called them 
 precepts. They are in reality articles of faith of the 
 Church of the Latter Day Saints. 
 
 " We believe in God the Eternal Father, and in His 
 Son Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost. 
 
 " We believe that men will be punished for their own 
 sins, and not for Adam's transgression. 
 
 " We believe in the same organization that existed in 
 the primitive church, viz: apostles, prophets, pastors, 
 teachers, evangelists. 
 
 " We believe the Bible to be the Word of God, so far 
 as it is translated correctly ; we also believe the Book 
 of Mormon to be the Word of God. 
 
 " We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty 
 God according to the dictates of our conscience, and 
 allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, 
 where, or what they may. We believe in being honest, 
 true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing 
 good to all men. We follow the admonition of Paul. 
 We believe all things, we hope all things. If there is 
 any thing virtuous, lovely, or of good report, or praise- 
 worthy, we seek after these things." 
 
 Ferdinand's voice was laden with scornful emphasis 
 by the time he reached Mr. Quinby's peroration, which 
 was a virtual indorsement of the precepts he had been 
 at such pains to transcribe. .
 
 1 64 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 "Curse the fellow!" he muttered, between clenched 
 teeth ; " a pretty wolf to play shepherd to this poor old 
 man's ewe lamb." But Dr. Ambrose only saw the 
 twitching of his long mustache and the angry fire in 
 his eyes. 
 
 " Ferd ! " His voice was perplexed and troubled. 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " How does that letter of John Quinby's strike 
 you?" 
 
 " As a string of infernal rubbish ! " 
 " Nothing worse than rubbish, Ferd ? " 
 " I don't see what could be much worse, sir, in such 
 a case." 
 
 " A defense of Mormonism would." 
 
 " I think we've got it here, sir. The man who wrote 
 
 this letter is either a fool or " 
 
 " John's no fool but finish your sentence." 
 " Or he is about to adopt Mormonism." 
 " Then God help him ! God help poor Anna ! God 
 help us all, Ferd, for the times are indeed out of joint ! "
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 CLASS NO. I. 
 
 THE morning after Mr. Quinby had robbed Mrs. 
 Laetitia Shaw of her " pet lamb," as she tenderly 
 called Effie, found that lady bustling about her pretty 
 little house with a very wide-awake air of pleasurable 
 anticipation. It was not the bishop's regular week at 
 Elm Cottage (as the pretty little house was called, to 
 distinguish it from the bishop's four other homes), but 
 in his anxiety to hear all about the fruits of her trip 
 East in the service of the Church, he was anticipating 
 a little, and that was the reason she had to bustle 
 about, for she had never yet fallen into the reprehen- 
 sible habit of making her lord's homecoming a thing of 
 small moment. 
 
 She was a little lonely in these latter days with the 
 boys all married off, with wives and homes of their 
 own to lok after, and the bishop so burdened with 
 public and private interests that she felt grateful for 
 not being defrauded of her full one-fifth of him, and 
 she would greatly have preferred keeping Effie Am- 
 brose in her own home forever ; but that was a selfish, 
 wicked desire which she repressed with all the energy
 
 1 66 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 of her well-disciplined soul. Mrs. Shaw never allowed 
 her private preferences to outweigh the good of the 
 Church, and it was for the good of the Church and 
 the glory of God that she labored so zealously to bring 
 this pure, refined, intellectual girl within its fold. It 
 was meet and proper that she should place her where 
 she was likely to fill her mission on earth most satis- 
 factorily to all the Saints. So she had given Effie up 
 to the importunate demands of the Quinbyswith some 
 smiles and tears commingled. 
 
 "You know, Mr. Quinby, she has been a sweet min- 
 istering angel to me now for two months. We have 
 been together daily, and I hope the companionship has 
 been sanctifying to us both." 
 
 " I know it has been to me," Effie had said, clinging 
 around the neck of the elderly "Saint," " and I'm only 
 going to visit Anna for a few days. I love her dearly 
 oh ! so dearly, and the foolish child won't come to 
 me. But under you, dear mother Loetitia, I must take 
 my first feeble steps toward the higher, truer life I have 
 come here to find. Keep your heart and home open 
 for me." 
 
 " Always, my darling, always. But remember it is 
 under God, not under me, a poor fellow-struggler, that 
 those steps are to be taken." 
 
 " She has taught me what it is to love and to be 
 loved," says Efifie, looking up at her escort with wet, 
 solemn eyes as they walk away, leaving Mrs. Shav/
 
 CLASS NO. i. I ($7 
 
 watching them from her open door; and John Quinby 
 answers with flippant gallantry that is entirely lost on 
 the rapt young enthusiast : 
 
 " I fancy you will not lack for teachers in that branch 
 of lore." 
 
 Well, Effie was gone, but the bishop was coming. 
 Thus sunshine and cloud chased each other. And 
 now, at last, she was to have the satisfaction of 
 talking it all over w-'th the bishop. Dear, dear, 
 she hoped he would agree with her as to the 
 wisdom of having come back immediately with 
 this one choice convert. Effie Ambrose was worth 
 a hundred commoner women to the Church ; and 
 there were so many dangerous possibilities attending 
 delay in this especial instance. John Ambrose himself 
 was a creature of such extremely violent possibilities. 
 And the child's resolution might not have endured too 
 long a strain. And to have forced the company of 
 other and coarser recruits upon her during the journey, 
 might have brushed off the delicate bloom of that 
 enthusiasm that was so rare and so beautifyl. Oh ! 
 no, it would never have done ! She was quite sure the 
 bishop would approve entirely, when he came to hear 
 all the particulars. 
 
 So Mrs. Shaw hummed an ancient ditty in a crooning 
 voice, as she bound fresh ribbons about the lace cur- 
 tains in the parlor, and twitched them into more grace- 
 ful folds; and patted the cushions of the big chair
 
 j68 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 (that no one ever sat in but the bishop), into more 
 inviting plumpjiess; and ordered baked beans for din- 
 ner (the bishop would never outgrow his fondness for 
 baked-beans regular Boston baked beans, you know), 
 and floating island for dessert. (It lay on Mrs. Shaw's 
 conscience rather heavily, that when Class No. 3 had 
 sent to her for directions for making this dessert, so 
 dear to their liege's palate, she had simply sent her the 
 cooking book, with a blue pencil mark about the 
 recipe, which was not exactly the one she followed.) 
 She had so managed it for years now that the bishop's 
 sojourn at Elm Cottage should be marked by a degree 
 of calm enjoyment and aesthetic gratification procurable 
 nowhere else, and calculated to leave an aroma behind 
 it exclusively associated with Class No. I. No occa- 
 sion less imposing than his homecoming warranted the 
 bringing out of the moss-bud china with the gilt- 
 band, and the entire silver service, both a little anti- 
 quated now, but of genteel authenticity ; nor the 
 temporary displacement of the dusty pampas plumes 
 in the big^ vases on the parlor mantle, to make room 
 for costly roses and ferns from the florist's around the 
 corner; nor the doffing of her muslin cap and the 
 donning of her lace one with the blue ribbons. Blue 
 went very prettily with her silver white hair, and the 
 bishop often declared she was the handsomest of the 
 lot yet. 
 
 Well ! There she had him at last ! And, as she sat
 
 CLASS NO. i. 169 
 
 opposite him at dinner, extracting much vicarious 
 enjoyment from the rapid disappearance of the baked 
 beans, she told the story of her wanderings, of her 
 accident, of her providential placement in Effie 
 Ambrose's pathway, and of the gradual leading of 
 that pure soul to a comprehension and acceptance of 
 the teachings of the new gospel, drawing inspiration 
 throughout the recital from her husband's short, quick 
 nods, and bland " Good ! very good ! " 
 
 " And you see, my dear, the remarkable coinci- 
 dence of these two people, John Quinby and Doctor 
 Ambrose's daughter being brought together here in 
 the land of the Saints. Oh ! who can fail to detect a 
 higher agency than my poor feeble voice? " 
 " How ! I don't exactly catch your drift." 
 " Why, this sweet child, almost unknown to herself, 
 has cherished a life-long attachment to our handsome 
 young neighbor. I'm quite satisfied that if Mr. 
 Quinby had not gotten married while she was living 
 in Boston, she would have been a very different creat- 
 ure, altogether more commonplace, you know. It does 
 look, don't you agree with me, my dear, as if the Lord 
 had arranged to secure them the highest earthly good, so 
 soon as they showed a willingness to accept Him, as 
 He is revealed to and by His Saints. For, if I under- 
 stood you right, when I saw you just before I left, Mr. 
 Quinby had become an earnest seeker after light?" 
 She paused with anxious inquiry in her tones.
 
 1 70 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 "Yes! oh, yes. Quinby's all right or at least in 
 the right road. But about this previous attachment 
 business. How did you find all that out? I take it, 
 from what you tell me, that this girl is the sort that 
 would shy off from any clumsiness or coarseness." 
 
 " I hope I am incapable of either," Mrs. Shaw 
 answers with just indignation. " But how can I 
 describe the process of turning a child's heart inside 
 out, examining it and then turning it right-side out, 
 and move just precisely as one would the fingers of a 
 glove." 
 
 " Skilled labor, I suppose ! " says the bishop, divid- 
 ing his attention impartially between his wife and the 
 floating island, with that diffusion of affection which 
 had come easy by long exercise. 
 
 " Now then ! " she said, a while later on, when her 
 husband was finally installed in the big chair, the pic- 
 ture of placid content. " Let me hear your side of the 
 story." 
 
 The bishop picked his teeth ruminantly for a 
 moment or two. She was quite willing to wait until 
 the spirit moved him to revelation. They under- 
 stood each other so thoroughly well, and they had 
 long ago gotten rid of that friction that belongs to the 
 impetuous ardor and bungling impatience of youth. 
 His most prolonged attacks of silence never discon- 
 certed her. Her hands were never empty of some- 
 thing in which she could take refuge. A pair of baby
 
 CLASS A r O. i. 171 
 
 socks to be crocheted gave them occupation now, while 
 the bishop ruminated. They were for her eldest son's 
 oldest child. The blue of the big ball of yarn in her 
 lap made a bright spot of color on her black silk dress. 
 The long ivory needle was scarcely whiter than her long, 
 slender fingers. The excitement of telling about her 
 trip with its momentous results had flushed her cheeks 
 to a rosy tint. Her blue eyes expressed serene joy in 
 the happiness of the present moment. Altogether, 
 the bishop was inclined to think that the best he got 
 out of life, he got at Elm Cottage, and from Class No. i. 
 
 " Wife Laetitia," he said impressively, extending a 
 gracious hand and laying it on her lap, "you are a 
 most satisfactory wife and a pillar of strength to the 
 Church ! You have done well, exceedingly well. And 
 you deserve the commendation of the Saints." 
 
 "Oh, my dear, no! no! I trust I have been found 
 useful, but I am but an humble handmaiden ready and 
 willing to do the Master's bidding as seemeth best to 
 Him. I would like very much to hear your views con- 
 cerning Mr. Quinby. It is from the ranks of the en- 
 lightened and educated that we desire to recruit. He 
 would be a most desirable acquisition." 
 
 " I am hopeful ! very hopeful! We have had many 
 long and satisfactory conferences together. He un- 
 doubtedly began the investigations in the spirit of 
 scoffing incredulity so common to the unbeliever. But 
 I believe he is ready to accept, provided
 
 172 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 " Provided what, husband ? " 
 
 . "That no shock to his extreme fastidiousness should 
 be involved." 
 
 "Then I thank God that I have been able to 
 remove the last stumbling-block from his pathway. 
 This dear lamb that I have brought into the fold will 
 complete the good work already begun, my dear. It 
 is plain to be seen that the Lord's hand is in it." 
 
 " Doubt-less ! " says the bishop, splitting the word 
 in two syllables with a protracted yawn, after which 
 he sank peacefully into his post-prandial slumber, 
 while Mrs. Shaw patiently and gratefully fanned the 
 august brow that was all her own to cherish for a 
 little while to come at least.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE BLOW DESCENDS. 
 
 MRS. Quinby, sitting alone in her pretty library- 
 some few weeks after Miss Ambrose had become 
 her guest, engaged in the unprofitable task of idly 
 turning over the leaves of an old photograph album, 
 was suddenly reminded that to-morrow was John's 
 birthday, and she was glad of an opportunity to make 
 amends to him for some very childish outbursts that 
 she had given way to almost involuntarily lately. 
 True, her health was some excuse (if there ever was 
 an excuse for a woman being perfectly hateful and 
 unreasonable, she said to herself, accusingly). But she 
 was ashamed and remorseful and lonely, being all of 
 which, an old photograph album with its melancholy 
 reminders and dismal suggestions of change and loss, 
 was any thing but an engaging companion. 
 
 She was ashamed, because in the presence of 
 Anthony and Effie Ambrose, the one of whom had 
 looked at her with compassionate indulgence, and the 
 other with grave surprise, she had that morning 
 launched into a fierce and uncalled-for philippic against 
 the institution of Mormon ism, declaring it pollution
 
 174 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 to breathe the atmosphere of such a place, and a great 
 deal more, stung into expression by the bolder and 
 bolder defense of it that her husband was constantly 
 setting up of late. She was remorseful, because she 
 eagerly assured herself that she might have known 
 John was only saying those awful things to tease her, 
 and the more temper she displayed the more teasing 
 she was apt to get. 
 
 She was lonely, because John and Effie and Anthony 
 had all gone to a concert together, but she had never 
 yet achieved that degree of maternal equanimity 
 that would enable her to enjoy any thing when baby 
 was at home with nobody but Barbara. It is true 
 baby had proudly achieved his second birthday anni- 
 versary, but he was baby yet. Anthony would have 
 staid to let her go. He was always ready to sacrifice 
 his pleasure for hers, but she wasn't attuned to music 
 any way on this night, and then and then, it might 
 have looked, you know, as if she were not willing for 
 John to take Effie anywhere unless she was along too. 
 And, of course, she was willing quite willing. She 
 hoped she did not have one grain of hateful common- 
 place jealousy in her, that sort that made a person a 
 burden to himself and to every body else ! She was 
 glad Effie was with them. Really glad, though she 
 couldn't in the least understand why any pure, good 
 woman should come to this vile place voluntarily. She 
 never talked about her reason for coming. She never
 
 THE BL IV DESCENDS. 1 75 
 
 talked about her father ! She was the most shut-up 
 creature that ever had lived any how. She supposed 
 that missionary craze had died out by this time and 
 Effie was too much ashamed to allude to it. She sup- 
 posed she would go quietly home with her father, when 
 he came, and no one would ever drag an expression of 
 opinion from her. Whenever the subject of Mormonism 
 was introduced, as it had been that morning, Effie's 
 face would become as white as marble and about as 
 rigid, and her eyes would glow like furnaces; but her 
 lips preserved a stony composure. She was so terribly 
 intense. She would butter a biscuit with such a tragic 
 air of earnestness. But on the whole yes, on the whole 
 she (Anna) was very glad to have her there. 
 
 " Very, very, very glad ! " by token of which Mrs. 
 Quinby burst into sudden and unaccountable tears, 
 bedewing the open album on her lap to the great 
 detriment of the first picture of John she had ever 
 owned, the one he had given her when they first 
 became engaged. The laughing eyes in the picture 
 mocked at her silly tears and she dried them with the 
 gusty energy that seemed to sway all her movements 
 this evening. 
 
 Suddenly Barbara, handsome, stolid, statuesque, 
 stood in the doorway, her yellow plaits lying rigidly 
 over her bosom on either side of her head, and her 
 cold blue eyes flashing furtive scorn at the mistress's 
 weakness. For under the yellow glory of hair in which
 
 176 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 Barbara took such pardonable pride, was a very acute 
 intelligence, and under the tight white bodice on which 
 the plaits reposed was a heart not nearly so sluggish as 
 the unthinking thought. She saw, understood, and 
 despised every one of those tears. 
 
 "He don't seem to breathe quite right," she said, not 
 offering to advance any further than the open door. 
 
 Mrs. Quinby sprang up in anxious alarm. " He " 
 was the baby. In the two years she had been his 
 nurse, Barbara had never been heard to call him any 
 thing else. Anna pushed by the girl and sped up stairs 
 to the baby's cradle. This heavy breathing alarmed 
 her. A hot fever-flush was on his smooth little cheeks 
 and the tiny lips were parted and crimsoned, as he 
 panted heavily for breath. What should she do ! Not 
 a soul within call but Barbara, and she worse than 
 no one ! No one to go for a doctor! Baby might die 
 before that terrible concert was over ! Awful thought 
 suppose he should die with his father at a public 
 entertainment ! Help ! Oh ! where should she turn ? 
 Mrs. Shaw? She had taken a solemn oath that no 
 Mormon woman should ever cross her threshold with 
 her knowledge or consent. Should she keep her oath 
 and let her baby die? There was one compromise 
 possible. She would send Barbara to ask Mrs. Shaw 
 for remedies until a doctor could be procured ! That 
 would be an insult ! Barbara was too big a fool to be 
 entrusted. A last resource : she must go herself.
 
 THE BLOW DESCENDS. 1 7 7 
 
 Her voice was strung to a pitch of agonized pleading 
 as she asked : " Barbara, will you watch baby very 
 carefully until I run over to Mrs. Shaw's and tell her 
 about him? Mr. Quinby may not be home for half 
 an hour, and we can't get a doctor before he comes." 
 
 " Go ! " was all the girl said, as she planted herself 
 by the crib head. 
 
 " Don't try to rouse him, Barbara. There may not be 
 much the matter. Maybe it's only measles. They're 
 not dangerous, you know. But I always get so fright- 
 ened." She stooped and laid her lips to the hot baby 
 brow, then with an appealing look at Barbara flew 
 down stairs all bareheaded as she was. The opening 
 of the front door let in a rush of fresh air, that forced 
 her to think of her unprotected head and shoulders. 
 A loose raglan of her husband's hung on the hall rack 
 and the little stiff felt hat that Effie wore in her long 
 morning walks. She seized and put them both on. 
 No one would see her. That part of the town was 
 almost deserted after nightfall. Mrs. Shaw's was just 
 diagonally across the corner. What floods of brilliant 
 moonlight illumined the earth ! It was almost as 
 light as day. The double row of shade-trees that 
 bordered both sides of the street cast somber shadows 
 earthward, but above was one liquid sea of silver light. 
 She almost ran down the steps in her feverish haste to 
 get help for her darling, then shrank back in alarm. 
 She heard footsteps. Suppose some rude, prowling
 
 178 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 man should be passing ! She peered cautiously from 
 beyond the heavy stone pillar that rose from the lower 
 step. These people had already passed. It was a 
 man and a woman. They seemed to be sauntering 
 rather than walking with a specific object. The woman 
 leaned heavily on the man's arm. Anna emerged boldly 
 into the moonlight. Their backs were turned toward 
 her now, and both heads bent in earnest conversation. 
 She cast a look of idle curiosity toward the retreating 
 figures, then stood as one turned to stone. It was 
 John her husband. It was Effie Ambrose her 
 friend. Like a hunted creature she turned her tortured 
 eyes now from them, now toward them. They would 
 turn presently and find her watching them. Whatever 
 else happened that must not. They would never know 
 why she was there, " spying on them," they would 
 call it. With one bound she was on the street side of 
 the tree-box that encircled the thick-bodied elm 
 immediately in front of her door. She had no thought 
 of her errand. No thought of her baby. No thought 
 of her own light slippered feet planted in the wet 
 grass that edged the sidewalk. Her one thought was 
 to be concealed until they should bring their earnest 
 consultation to a close and disappear within doors. 
 The end of the block reached, they faced toward her. 
 It seemed an eternity before they reached the door 
 step in their slow absorption. She could catch their 
 voices catch their words John's voice and Effie's
 
 THE BLOW DESCENDS. 1 7 g 
 
 voice. Oh! monstrous treachery ! Oh ! cruel betrayal 
 of her trust ! How distinctly the merciless night air 
 gave the tender words and the passion laden tones of 
 John's voice to her startled ears. 
 
 " I love you, my darling, and God has brought you to 
 me almost miraculously. You believe, do you not " 
 
 Then the footsteps drowned the voice once more as 
 the two sauntered past the house again. The wretched 
 wife clung to the slats of the tree-box for support. 
 What was it to her that John, her husband, the father 
 of her child, was there within reach of her hand, within 
 sound of her voice, for her to bid him fetch help for 
 their baby ? Should she ever call his name again ? 
 Should she ever again lay her hand on the arm that 
 other woman was clinging to now, as she only had a 
 right to do ? Would he dare ever to raise his treach- 
 erous eyes to her face again ? No ! no ! no ! ten 
 thousand times no ! They were coming again ! They 
 ncarcd her ambush once more! More slowly, with 
 lingering reluctance to end what was so sweet, they 
 walked toward her again. Again the voices above 
 the foot-falls. 
 
 " Then your heart has laid by its fears. There will 
 be no more shrinking?" 
 
 " None, John ! with God's help I will be to you a 
 true and loving wife, to her a true and loving sister." 
 How calm, how clear, how sweet her voice! 
 
 " My precious bride! My own ! "
 
 l8o THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 Then side by side they mounted the steps and 
 passed into their house. "Her home I Her defiled 
 home ! " she almost shrieked the words aloud in her 
 agony. Like a homeless outcast she crept from behind 
 the tree-box at last, and dragged herself up the stairs 
 like a wounded animal. All recollection of why she 
 had come down those steps had faded from her mind. 
 She peered timidly through the lace that draped the 
 glass of the front door before fitting her latch-key 
 into it. What if she should meet them on entering ! 
 Her hand trembled like a drunkard's as she fumbled 
 for the key-hole ! If she could only get to her room- 
 get to baby ! She would wrap him up and fly with 
 him ! All fevered as he was she would fly with him. 
 It would kill him it would kill her ! All the better 
 the quicker the better! Then John would not have 
 to risk his soul to gratify his passion. Bah ! To cloak 
 it under the name of religion ! Did God reign and let 
 puny man so insult His majesty ! She was back in 
 her own room. No sound but her own faltering foot- 
 steps as she dragged herself back up the stairs had 
 disturbed the silence of the darkened house. Barbara 
 was asleep at the head of the crib. No matter! She 
 stood over her child's cradle, conscious of nothing but 
 the desire to fly with him. She was too tired strangely 
 tired ! She was tottering now she did not believe she 
 could hold him. No matter she would be rested by 
 daybreak, then they could fly Tony would help her
 
 THE BLOW DESCENDS. 1 8 1 
 
 get away with baby ! The fever flush had deepened, 
 and the poor little head was tossing from side to side ! 
 No matter! She could get a doctor now for the asking. 
 John was in the next room. He did not like to sleep 
 in the room with baby of late. He said a man that 
 had to work all day didn't want to be disturbed of 
 nights. Ah! well, they wouldn't disturb him. She 
 did not touch the tiny sufferer with hand or lip. " It 
 might chill you, you know, darling ! Mother is turned 
 to ice ! " No matter ! She walked slowly away from 
 the cradle toward the fireplace. A few coals were 
 smoldering yet in the grate ! She dropped on the rug 
 in exhaustion, and clasping her hands about her knees, 
 fastened her burning eyes upon the smoldering coals. 
 The fire in the grate would die out presently, and 
 leave nothing but gray cold ashes in its stead ! Gray 
 cold ashes every where gray cold ashes in her heart 
 gray cold ashes in her home the world all turned 
 to gray cold ashes ! Hope love truth purity 
 honesty, all turned to gray cold ashes! No matter! 
 Nothing mattered ! She heard the clock strike twelve 
 and one and two ! She' shivered with cold ! No matter! 
 Barbara, cramped and uncomfortable in her chair, 
 roused herself with a start, and gazed guiltily about 
 her. How long had she slept? There was the lamp 
 burning low. The fire had gone out ! The mistress 
 sitting with clasped hands and wide strained eyes on 
 the hearth, gazing fixedly into the cold black grate.
 
 l82 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 The girl bent over the sick baby's crib. Its breath 
 came in gasping moans ! She stole softly over to the 
 silent watcher on the hearth. The dim lamp-light 
 showed her the wide-open eyes. 
 
 " He don't seem no better," she said, in what was a 
 pitying voice for her. 
 
 " No matter ! " 
 
 The strange answer made Barbara stare ! Then she 
 straightened herself from her stooping posture, and 
 said brutally, as she walked toward the door : 
 
 " If it don't matter to you, I'm sure it don't to me," 
 and went away to conclude the night in comfort. 
 
 The clock struck three and four and five! She 
 did not hear it ! She did not feel the pain of her own 
 miserable body ! She did not hear the writhing contor- 
 tions of the little forsaken one over yonder in the crib, 
 as convulsion after convulsion seized the tiny form, 
 with no pitying hand near to wipe the white froth from 
 the poor, purpled lips, nor the drops of anguish and ex- 
 haustion from the clammy little forehead ! The cold 
 gray light of morning sent its first pallid ray through 
 the unshuttered window she took no note of it ! 
 There was a rustling as of the wind through leafless 
 trees ! She did not feel it ! She did not know when 
 the angels of love and pity entered that cold, dark 
 chamber, and spreading their wings tenderly over the 
 cradle of her first-born, whispered to him, " When thy 
 father and mother forsake thee, then the Lord will
 
 THE BLOW DESCENDS. 183 
 
 take thee up," and bearing the pure little soul aloft on 
 their pinions left her bereaved indeed ! The world 
 awoke to a new day. No matter ! There was nothing 
 in it for her ! There was a strange confusion of feet 
 and voices all about her ! She was lifted in strong 
 arms they were his arms ! She shuddered and 
 wrenched herself free she heard his voice saying that 
 their baby was dead she heard him heaping re- 
 proaches on her for not summoning him. No matter ! 
 She tottered toward the cradle where the little cold, 
 still form lay. So beautiful and peaceful is death so 
 hideous and cruel is life. How good the angels had 
 been to her baby ! They asked her some meaningless 
 questions, some expression of her wishes was demand- 
 ed. She turned stonily away from the cradle. Did 
 she understand ? Yes ; she understood all they were 
 saying, but no matter ! She went away from them and 
 locked herself in with God !
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 COMFORT AND MERCY. 
 
 AND then the devils of discord, distrust, hatred and 
 jealousy entered in and took possession of that 
 home. And before very long there came an hour 
 when, up-stairs, wan of face, broken of spirit, rebel- 
 liously accusing God of having forgotten the world of 
 his own creation, lay a wife awaiting the hour of wo- 
 man's sorest travail with no voice but that of a hireling 
 to bid her be of good cheer. God seemed too far off 
 for His tender promises of help in the hour of need to 
 reach her ; while down stairs a husband, torn with con- 
 flicting emotions of pity and anger and anxiety, sullenly 
 awaited the hour when he could decently force upon 
 the victim of his ruthless treachery the subject of his 
 unalterable decision to be sealed to a second wife. 
 
 Two weeks had passed since their little Abbott had 
 been laid away in the Gentile cemetery, and John 
 Quinby had so far been unable to gain admittance to 
 his wife's presence. Anthony, his tender heart sur- 
 charged with grief for them both, had been a patient 
 but unsuccessful mediator between them. Through
 
 COM FOR T AND MERC Y. \ 85 
 
 him Mr. Quinby learned how his wife had become pre- 
 maturely informed of his monstrous intentions. 
 Through him Anna had sent the defiant message that 
 forbade him her presence. " Tell him," she had said, 
 " to send me word that he has repented of his sin and I 
 will forgive it and try to forget it, though it has cost 
 me my darling's life. If he can not or will not, tell him 
 never to ask me to look upon his face again. I will go 
 back to my mother as soon as I can gather strength to 
 leave my bed ! Go back and leave him free to wreck 
 another woman's life ; " which despairing utterance had 
 only made Mr. Quinby's lip curl with bitter scorn as he 
 answered : " Tell her, that I will never do. I do not 
 repent of what she is pleased to call my sin. I pur- 
 pose carrying out my promise to Miss Ambrose as 
 soon as it can be done with decent regard for my re- 
 cent bereavement. And as for her threat to return 
 East, that depends. If the child we are looking for 
 shall survive the tragic performances of its mother, she 
 will have to take the choice of giving it up and return- 
 ing East alone, or remaining to accept the conditions of 
 wifehood and motherhood as God Himself has imposed 
 them upon her. That is my ultimatum." 
 
 And thus matters had stood ever since. She, bruised, 
 brooding over her wrongs, shrinking from the tender- 
 est touch ! He, quiescent with a sullen masterfulness ; 
 irritable and defiant of opposition ! Anthony, in whose 
 crippled body a knightly soul found lodgment, torn
 
 1 86 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 with righteous wrath against the brother between 
 whom and himself had always existed more than a full 
 measure of brotherly love, and yet yearning with in- 
 finite pity over the shattered happiness of their little 
 home circle ! While across the way, safe under the 
 shelter of Mrs. Shaw's brooding wing, drinking in 
 comfort from those well-disciplined lips, EfHe Am- 
 brose, the pure victim of an unholy hallucination, 
 bided her time, serene in the conviction that she was 
 doing her duty by accepting the lot appointed her as 
 a vessel chosen to honor, patiently awaiting the sac- 
 rificial hour ! 
 
 Opposite each other, as they had sat through so 
 many happy, peaceful hours of companionship in the 
 old Elizabeth home, John and Anthony Quinby smoked 
 their cigars, now with only an outer semblance of the old 
 inner peace. They were both vaguely conscious that 
 the tangled destinies of three lives lay infolded in the 
 grasp of an unborn child ! The quietness of a suspense 
 that would admit of no pretense had held them spell- 
 bound for a long time. Anthony breaks the spell : 
 
 " John, if I should allow cowardice to seal my lips 
 to-night may I never hope for happiness on earth nor 
 forgiveness .in heaven," he says with startling abrupt- 
 ness. 
 
 " You were never counted a coward, Tony," the 
 younger brother answers with a disarming smile, " you 
 used to fight my battles and your own too."
 
 COMFORT AND MERCY. 187 
 
 " Don't try to soften my mood, John ! I want to be 
 merciless! It is your battle I'm aiming to fight now, 
 John." 
 
 " That's well meant of you. But don't you think 
 I'm perhaps quite able to fight my own now? I might ac- 
 cept of you as an ally but hardly as a champion ! " 
 
 " Not when you have the devil for an adversary and 
 he has his citadel in your own heart," says Anthotiy, 
 answering the question and ignoring the proffered 
 truce. 
 
 " You claim to wield weapons then against so formid- 
 able a foe ? " John asked, looking across at his brother 
 with a mocking laugh. But his light shafts of ridicule 
 glanced harmlessly from the strong armor of fierce 
 earnestness in which his brother had arrayed himself to 
 do battle against the powers of evil. 
 
 "John, I am to be deterred from my purpose by neither 
 flattery nor ridicule. Things have got to a point 
 where silence is criminal. I command you to pause and 
 ask yourself what will be the end of this monstrous step 
 that you propose taking? You are piling up such a heri- 
 tage of woe and misery for your posterity that I stand ap- 
 palled at the audacity of the act. I will not plead for 
 Anna. Poor child ! her happiness is already a wreck 
 and her heart broken. I do not plead for you ; you 
 well deserve the full bitterness of the cup your own 
 hand has flavored. I do not plead for myself ; what 
 becomes of me is neither here nor there. Nor, do I
 
 1 88 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 ask one thing for that infatuated girl, who has helped 
 you make a wreck of your own home, after breaking 
 the heart of the noblest old man who ever suffered for 
 a fool's folly. You and she deserve all that 
 
 " Stop ! not one word touching Effie ! Confine your 
 abuse, if your tongue must wag, to me. But leave 
 that pure, sweet woman's conduct to be judged by One 
 who sees not as man sees. But bear this in mind, 
 Anthony. Even you may go too far." 
 
 Anthony's face had grown deadly white, and then 
 purpled with passion during this short speech. 
 
 " No ! I can not go too far, John," he said, as soon 
 as he was sure of his voice. " You were once a gen- 
 tleman. It was the recollection of that time that im- 
 pelled you just now to shield Miss Ambrose's name. 
 Your conscience has made a coward of you ! It was 
 cowardice that furnished you with that taunt, that 
 falls blunted and pointless. You shall listen to me 
 to-night, even if your wrath makes a Cain of you. I 
 should like to compel you to answer me some ques- 
 tions. That I suppose I can not do?" He paused 
 expectant. 
 
 " As many as you please," said John, writhing with 
 remorse for the taunt he had flung at the brother whose 
 helpless condition should have made him sacred. 
 " Forgive me my boorishness." 
 
 " When did you first become interested in the ac- 
 cursed institution of Mormonism?"
 
 COMFORT AND MERCY. 189 
 
 " Don't ask conundrums ! I'm not prepared to 
 answer them. I have had my eyes and ears open 
 ever since I have been living here. I believe it to be 
 the part of common sense to divest one's self of all prej- 
 udice that springs exclusively from ignorance. I 
 seriously determined, long ago, to investigate this 
 thing called Mormonism. In my business relations I 
 have "been thrown in direct contact with many of the 
 leading minds of this community. We all know that 
 for the past twenty-eight years the question of Mor- 
 monism has been a factor in American politics." 
 
 " Say rather," Anthony interrupted with fierce 
 energy, " we all know, that, for more than twenty- 
 eight years, Mormonism has been the bar-sinister on 
 the 'scutcheon of State ! " 
 
 John shrugged his shoulders derisively and went on. 
 " So, naturally, as a man of some intelligent curiosity, 
 I applied myself to the task of solving my own doubts 
 concerning its evil influence and corrupting ten- 
 dency." 
 
 " Well," says Anthony, impatient of this meager 
 admission. 
 
 " Well ! I did not propose to enter on a defense of 
 Mormonism, nor on a defense of myself. I thought 
 you had the floor to-night. It is safe for you to con- 
 clude from the position I have lately assumed, and 
 mean to maintain, that I, at least, have found nothing 
 evil or corrupting in that influence."
 
 190 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 " No, sir, by Heaven, it is not safe to conclude that ! 
 It is safe to conclude, that having settled here and 
 found your greed of money-making growing with what 
 it feeds on, you propose to stay \vhere success, worldly 
 success, marks every effort you make ! It is safe to con- 
 clude that an unholy passion has overtaken you, when 
 you were so situated that you could gratify it without 
 making yourself amenable to the law, and that you pro- 
 pose to do so. You may deceive that self-deluded 
 girl, John ! You may deceive the corrupt and infatu- 
 ated creatures about you, who license debauchery and 
 legalize lust ! You may even try to deceive yourself, 
 but you can not deceive me ! You can not deceive 
 God ! You can not deceive that heart-broken wife up 
 stairs ! " 
 
 The younger man rose to his feet with blanched 
 cheeks and eyes that glowed with murderous passion. 
 He made one step forward ! then his clenched fist fell 
 powerless by his side ! Anthony's eyes never left his 
 face, and his voice was absolutely under control when 
 he said : 
 
 "You may strike, John, and strike to kill, but hear 
 me out first you shall. Until eighteen months ago, 
 when I brought your wife and son on here, I knew 
 absolutely nothing about Mormonism. I knew, of 
 course, that it existed to the everlasting shame of the 
 United States Government. I knew, that, as far back 
 as '56, slavery and polygamy were coupled theoreti-
 
 COMFORT AND MERCY. 191 
 
 cally as twin relics of barbarism. I offered my life 
 freely to help abolish the one and I would gladly, ay, 
 only God knows how gladly, I would offer up this poor 
 remnant of a body to help crush out the other. I 
 knew that it was a cancer gnawing at the life of the 
 nation. I knew, in the abstract, that it had wrought 
 misery for thousands of men and women ; but what I 
 did not know, John, was that it was possessed of a 
 diabolical subtlety, and a devilish sophism that could 
 pervert a man's whole moral and mental organism, and 
 make him see things as right, which in his normal con- 
 dition, he would pronounce as black as hell itself ! 
 Your own case you were a man of reason you were 
 a man with a nice sense of honor you were a kind 
 husband once and an affectionate brother!" 
 
 "Personal abuse is not argument ! Confine yourself 
 to the text!" John's voice was coarsely resentful. He 
 writhed under this lashing, but the mad impulse to 
 punish Anthony for his freedom of speech had passed 
 away forever with that one threatening gesture. 
 
 " Perverted indeed must your nature be, John, when 
 you can say you see nothing ' evil in its influence/ nor 
 'corrupting in its tendency.' It was founded in cor- 
 ruption and nourished by men's most evil passions. 
 Its pathway, from the hour of its inception up to the 
 present one of its giant growth, has been marked by 
 inhumanities, butcheries, and abominations of every 
 stripe. It has taught that murder can be committed
 
 192 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 to advance the cause of the Church, and that its fol- 
 lowers may lie in its defense ! 
 
 "And how a man reared in a Christian land in an en- 
 lightened age whose chief glory is the exaltation of its 
 women, can bow to the body and soul-debasing teachings 
 of this infernal sect, passes my comprehension ! Woman 
 nature in Utah is woman nature the world over. Do 
 you believe that one in one thousand of the women 
 that have been forced into this accursed mode of life, 
 are other than utterly wretched ? Your own case 
 again ! You say, that if the child we are looking for 
 lives, its mother poor little Anna, I wish she had died, 
 John, before you ever crossed her path ! must take 
 her choice of giving it up, or clinging to it and to you 
 too. You will lay this hard alternative upon her when 
 her heart is torn and smarting from the loss of her 
 darling son. It requires no prophet to tell how she 
 will decide. The mother instinct is the strongest in 
 her nature. Your brutal ultimatum, backed up by yet 
 more brutal laws, will give you the victory, a victory 
 that I wish you joy of a victory of wrong over 
 right a victory of man's brutality over woman's 
 helplessness a victory of malice over misery! John, 
 you were a mere b.oy when the civil war broke out, but 
 I have seen your cheek flush and your eyes flash fire 
 over the wrongs of the down-trodden slaves of the 
 South, you, who are lending the strength of your 
 matured manhood to enslave the women of your own
 
 T A XD MERC Y. 1 93 
 
 race in a bitterer, more degrading, more soul-consum- 
 ing bondage than ever a Southern black groaned under ! 
 And that, too God of power and justice, how canst 
 Thou permit such things! in the name and under the 
 cloak of religion ! Bah ! my soul sickens at it all." 
 
 He leaned back in his chair white and trembling, and 
 passed his hand across his forehead with a despairing 
 gesture. 
 
 "Have you finished?" his brother asked with a 
 sneering laugh. 
 
 " Not quite, John. I have this one thing more to 
 say." 
 
 John leaned insolently back in his chair, stretched 
 his limbs leisurely and lighted a fresh cigar, saying: 
 
 "At least you will acquit me of impatience, I hope." 
 
 " I want to ask you, John, to turn back before it is 
 too late. Let us go back to the States, brother, you 
 and poor little Anna and I, before it is too late ! Let 
 us go back to the dear old home in Elizabeth where we 
 were all so happy together and take up the sweet old 
 placid life before it is too late ! Women are so forgiv- 
 ing, John. Anna will come to thank God for taking 
 little Abbott away from her if it was the means of mak- 
 ing you stop to think. You'll get rich fast enough 
 over there, John. Let me go to Miss Ambrose for 
 you 
 
 " Stop ! once more let me warn you that even you 
 may go too far. Now then, since you have been so
 
 194 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 flattering as to allude to my ' brutal ultimatum/ let me 
 give you another ultimatum, which you are at liberty to 
 classify as you please. Not one word that you have 
 said, or can ever think to say, will in anyway affect my 
 unalterable decision to live my life to suit myself. A 
 few days will decide the case between Mrs. Quinby and 
 myself. If you will recognize that I am the master of 
 my own affairs, my own house and my own family, all 
 the bosh you have talked to-night will be forgotten, 
 and we will be, what we always have been, the very 
 best of friends and brothers. I have been uncom- 
 monly patient with you, Tony, during your long 
 tirade, recognizing, above every thing else, that you 
 meant well. But such evenings as this wouldn't bear 
 repeating, in fact, must never be repeated. Whether 
 Mrs. Quinby remains here or goes East you are always 
 welcome to a home with me. You can decide at your 
 leisure." 
 
 And Anthony knew, without taking leisure to decide, 
 that if Anna staid he would stay too ; for whom had 
 she on earth beside him to lean upon in those dark 
 days of her soul's travail those days so terrible for 
 them all ? 
 
 And even while he pleaded with his brother yet once 
 more to listen to the voice of honor and duty and 
 reason, above them, in the darkened chamber, where 
 Anna had kept herself and her anguish shut away from 
 earthly eyes ever since the night of her little Abbott's
 
 COM FOR T AND MERC Y. 195 
 
 death, the "wise-woman" who was her sole attendant 
 bent to tell her that two more little souls had entered 
 upon their earthly pilgrimage ! Two baby girls were 
 waiting for her to take up once more the ministry of 
 motherhood ! Two little hearts, waiting to warm her 
 own chilled one back into life and love and gladness! 
 Two tiny mortals, consigned to her to make or mar 
 with wise skill or clumsy unskill. Two tiny ambas- 
 sadors fresh from the realms of light, bringing mes- 
 sages of tenderness and mercy from the Chastener ! And 
 she opened every portal of her soul to give them ingress ! 
 " Call one Comfort and the other Mercy ! " she said, 
 a smile of ineffable sweetness lighting her wan face ; 
 and then she closed her eyes for very weakness, leaving 
 the wise-woman to ponder what manner of woman this 
 could be, who could fasten such remnants of puritanic 
 nomenclature upon two innocent babies.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE DEDICATION OF A LIFE. 
 
 WHEN the venerable physician who had been Mrs. 
 Quinby's almost daily attendant for six weeks 
 came to pay her his final visit, he held her wasted hand 
 in both his own for a silent moment and then asked : 
 
 " My dear, have you a father? " 
 
 " No ! " with a quick, dry sob. 
 
 " Perhaps a mother whom you do not care to burden 
 with a sorrow she can not heal." 
 
 " I expect to see her very soon. I have only been 
 waiting for your permission to undertake the journey." 
 
 " Physically, you will be able in a few more weeks." 
 
 She looked at him inquiringly if not resentfully. 
 What right had he to emphasize the word physically, 
 as if he knew of other impediments to her freedom of 
 action ? Did he know? Did all the city know ? Her 
 wan face flushed crimson. Poor child ! she did not 
 know that her heart, all bruised and bleeding with its 
 
 o 
 
 man-made wounds, had been to his long practiced eye 
 no more than an open tablet, blurred and blotted but 
 easily deciphered. Twenty years of medical practice
 
 THE DEDICATION OF A LIFE. 197 
 
 in Salt Lake City had made him wise in the sorrowful 
 lore of aching hearts, ruined lives, darkened homes, and 
 broken ties. The sullen reserve of the husband down 
 stairs and the absence of all wifely eagerness on her 
 part to have him share her anxieties or her rejoicing, had 
 told him in the first days of his ministration that the 
 tragedy so common in that fatal atmosphere was being 
 enacted afresh in the home of the Quinbys, and his 
 tender heart was full of sympathy for the woman who 
 bore her great burden with such pathetic dignity. 
 
 " Then perhaps, my dear," he went on, his great soul 
 illumining his benevolent face, " you will let an old man 
 say a few words not strictly within the line of his pro- 
 fessional duty." 
 
 She nodded her assent ; unshed tears swam in her 
 eyes and swelled in her heart and choked her voice. 
 
 " It is best to have it out, my child! Sometimes 
 when we force the suffering that is crushing our soul 
 into the very dust to our lips, it brings relief in an 
 unexpected shape. Some ray of light may stream into 
 the darkened chambers of the heart, through a window 
 accidentally opened ! Some chance word may pierce 
 the armor of the adversary where we least suspected a 
 vulnerable spot. But come what may, try to think that 
 God never lays a burden on us too heavy to be borne. 
 Try to believe that earth has no sorrows that heaven 
 can not heal. Try with all the might of your soul to 
 say ' His will be done.' "
 
 198 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 " Consenting to suffer will not annul the suffering, 
 doctor." 
 
 "True, true, true! you have been good to let me 
 speak so to you and I thank you." And it was after 
 this talk that Anna had asked her brother-in-law to tell 
 her husband that she would see him that evening. 
 John Quinby blanched to the very lips when the mes- 
 sage was delivered, and the hand that was holding his 
 after-dinner coffee cup trembled visibly. Anthony 
 looked eagerly into his brother's handsome face, its 
 beauty marred of late by a moody unrest in striking 
 contrast to the genial good humor of his old expres- 
 sion. Perhaps that blanching of his face and the 
 tremor in his hand indicated a faltering in his head- 
 long race to ruin. John interpreted that anxious look 
 of inquiry correctly and answered it with one of such 
 flashing defiance that Tony silently cursed himself for 
 a fool in hoping for any loop-hole of escape for them 
 all. 
 
 Since that long and stormy interview that had 
 resulted in nothing but heartburnings all around, the 
 subject of their domestic affairs had never been in- 
 truded between the brothers. Both consciously looked 
 at each other and held constrained intercourse with 
 each other over a stone wall of partition, that only one 
 of them was powerless to demolish, and he would not. 
 
 When Anna heard her husband's quick foot-fall that 
 in the olden days had been of itself enough to set her
 
 THE DEDICATION OF A LIFE. 199 
 
 pulse bounding joyfully approaching the door so long 
 forbidden him, all the blood in her veins seemed to 
 rush in one red current to her pallid cheeks, deserting 
 them as suddenly and settling in a full, palpitating flood 
 about her strained and aching heart. 
 
 She sat quite motionless as he came toward her 
 with outstretched hand and a brave show of the old 
 eager love in his splendid eyes. She looked so inex- 
 pressibly lovely with her pretty yellow hair gathered 
 loosely behind her small, delicate ears, her large blue 
 eyes fastened upon him with a passion of longing in 
 their tender depths, and her sweet lips quivering as he 
 had seen them quiver many a time under a hasty word 
 from him, that he could kiss into such quick oblivion. 
 He stretched out his arms with an imploring gesture 
 now. He wanted to gather her into them ; he wanted 
 her to rest her poor tired head on his bosom as she 
 had once loved so well to do ! He wanted to talk to 
 her about the little son that had gone away from them, 
 and the little daughters that had come to comfort. 
 They had wept over the one and rejoiced over the 
 others apart. That was not as it should be ! The 
 little grave in the Gentile cemetery was theirs in com- 
 mon ! The baby girls (who by his command were 
 brought to him every morning in the library before he 
 went to his office), with their quaint names and appeal- 
 ing helplessness, were theirs in common. Their tears 
 of sorrow for the one and their smiles of welcome for
 
 200 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 the others should commingle. He said to himself, and 
 wanted to say to her, that she had never been dearer to 
 him than at that moment. But beyond that first be- 
 traying glance of hungry desire (that by a stupendous 
 exercise of will-power, marvelous in such a fragile-look- 
 ing thing, had suddenly petrified in stony impassive- 
 ness) he might as well have been in the presence of a 
 marble statue for all response he won. He stopped in 
 front of her. His arms fell heavily to his sides. He 
 extended his hand formally ; her own remained tightly 
 clasped about each other. He flushed crimson, laughed 
 awkwardly, sat abruptly down in the nearest chair, and 
 asked petulantly: 
 
 " Haven't you a word for me, Anna, after banishing 
 me your presence for more than a month ? Ton honor, 
 if I'm entitled to nothing else I am to your thanks for 
 my docile obedience. I am sorry to find you looking 
 so thin. You must not let the little girls consume 
 you. I want to see you plump and rosy once more." 
 
 "What for? Why do you want to see me 'plump 
 and rosy once more,' John ?" She made the common- 
 place inquiry with tragic earnestness. She leaned for- 
 ward with breathless eagerness to catch his response. 
 Perhaps he had come to make it all right to tell her 
 she should once more enter her kingdom in undisputed 
 sovereignty. Perhaps he was going to roll away the 
 stone that was crushing out her heart's life! 
 
 "'What for!' Upon my soul you ask queer ques-
 
 THE DEDICA TION OF A LIFE. 2OI 
 
 tions. I want to see you plump and rosy, because I 
 dorit want to see you scraggy and pallid. I'm not 
 partial to scrawny wives." 
 
 Wives ! 
 
 She flinched at this use of the plural, which had been 
 entirely inadvertent on his. part. Reheard the short, 
 quick gasp of pain ; saw the sudden pallor of death 
 sweep over the sweet, worn face, and yet kept on his 
 way relentlessly. He would let the word stand for an 
 opening wedge to the understanding he and she must 
 come to before he left the room. There was always 
 this source of comfort open to him : the more 
 tragically a woman took any trouble at first the more 
 complete was her final surrender to a will stronger than 
 her own, whether it was of God or man. He wondered 
 if she was purposely leaving the line of attack with 
 him. Was it tactics or confusion that kept her so 
 mute when he had expected a tornado of reproach ? 
 These dumbly resistant women were the most difficult 
 of all to cope with. 
 
 "You have selected a most unbecoming style of 
 morning dress," he said, assuming an easy marital tone, 
 when the necessity to say something pressed him im- 
 peratively. "You know I dislike black off the street. 
 I hope you don't mean it for mourning! I disapprove 
 of ' putting on black ' for any one, but for so young a 
 child as our little Abbott "- 
 
 " I did not put it on for Abbott ! "
 
 202 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 There was no faltering of her voice over her lost 
 darling's name, though it was the first time it had 
 passed her lips since she gave him up. Her baby's 
 death seemed like a mere summer-cloud that had been 
 chased out of sight by the swift rising storm whose 
 reverberating thunders and lurid lightnings had shaken 
 her soul to its very depths. 
 
 " Did not put it on for Abbott ! For whom then ? " 
 
 " For the husband I lost on the same night ! I shall 
 never wear any thing else." 
 
 " What infernal nonsense you are talking ! " 
 
 He sprang angrily from his chair, and with his hands 
 thrust far down into his trowser pockets strode savagely 
 backward and forward. 
 
 "Is it nonsense, John? Oh, prove it to me, and let 
 me help you call me ' fool, fool, poor self-deluded fool ! ' 
 Prove to me that my place in my husband's heart has 
 not been usurped ! Prove to me that my home has not 
 been defiled ! Prove to me that my husband has not 
 made wreck of his honor and my happiness at one fell 
 swoop ! Prove to me that the sweet supremacy of 
 my wifehood has not been tampered with ! " 
 
 " I can not prove to you, Anna, that your place in 
 your husband's heart has never been usurped, unless 
 you will take my simple word of honor, dear, that you 
 were never more precious to me than you are at this 
 moment. As your home never has been in the past, 
 nor ever will in the future risk defilement through act
 
 THE DEDICA TION OF A LIFE. 203 
 
 of mine, your second exhortation is meaningless. As 
 for the wreck of my honor and your happiness, so 
 long as the anchor of mutual affection holds good, we 
 need fear no storms nor rocks! " So speciously were 
 his words chosen that a sudden glow suffused the poor 
 chilled heart of the wife only too eager to piece together 
 the shattered idol and cement it with her penitent 
 tears. " As for supremacy a man's first wife here, you 
 know, Anna, is, by right of priority, in a certain sense 
 always supreme." 
 
 She rose majestically to her feet. With one hand 
 pressed against her heart as if to still the pain that 
 threatened to snap the strained cords in twain, she 
 pointed to the door. 
 
 " Go ! I was weak enough to believe you incapable 
 of persistence in so mad a scheme ! I was weak 
 enough to think that you and I, who have been so 
 happy in the past that we might well have been joined 
 by God's own hand could not be put asunder by man 
 or devil ! I was weak enough to hope that you could 
 and would yet ward off the fatal necessity you have 
 laid upon me. Words are so absolutely useless 
 between us, that I don't see why I stand here string- 
 ing the senseless, impotent sounds together. But I 
 want never in the future for it to be possible that 
 either one of us should be able to say there was a mis- 
 take. A mistake now, John, would be the worst of 
 crimes. Your position, as I understand it ? "
 
 204 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 She paused for him to define it ! It was as if roy- 
 alty waited for guilt to plead why sentence should not 
 be passed upon it ! He took refuge in brutal direct- 
 ness : 
 
 " My position is that of a recent convert to the 
 tenets of the new gospel, a discussion of which it is not 
 necessary for us to enter into. My intention is to go 
 through the Endowment House with Miss Ambrose 
 this day week. I said that it was not necessary for me 
 to enter into a discussion of the tenets I have recently 
 given my allegiance to ; but it is necessary to give you 
 one by way of showing you your own duty, as clearly 
 defined by the great Law-giver : ' It is the duty of 
 every woman to give other wives to her husband, even 
 as Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham, but if she refuse 
 them it shall be lawful for the husband to take them 
 without her consent, and she shall be destroyed for her 
 disobedience.' " 
 
 Anna's lips had twitched convulsively while he was 
 speaking and her teeth chattered audibly. She looked 
 at him a moment after he ceased, then asked slowly : 
 
 " Do you believe that to be a Divine command?*'' 
 
 " I am no theologian ! I have neither time nor incli- 
 nation to sift the Book of Mormon through the fine- 
 wired sieve of prejudiced criticism. When I accepted 
 the new gospel, I accepted it in its entirety, and I am 
 willing to be guided by its teachings." 
 
 " Even when it teaches you to trample under foot
 
 THE DEDICA TION OF A LIFE. 205 
 
 all that is best in your own nature all that is pure in 
 woman's nature all that is true and good and beau- 
 tiful in life ! Even when it teaches you to make a 
 mock of virtue and a scoff of chastity! " 
 
 " When it does all that it will be time to enter upon 
 its defense. I believe we were agreed that our individ- 
 ual positions should be defined beyond the possibility 
 of any mistake in the future. I hope I have made 
 mine quite clear." 
 
 "Yes, quite clear, quite clear oh, so hideously 
 clear, that the marvel is we can stand one moment 
 longer in each other's presence, John, looking at each 
 other with the same eyes, talking to each other with 
 the same voices, that served once to woo us forward 
 to this dreadful hour." 
 
 She sank back among the cushions white and ex- 
 hausted. 
 
 He got up to go away from her. They had both 
 stood all they could stand for one time. She under- 
 stood him. She raised a detaining hand imperatively. 
 
 " Stop ! It does not end here, John." 
 
 He resumed his seat with sullen acquiescence. Pres- 
 ently she began, in a low, intense voice that vibrated 
 with the ground-swell of her mighty passion : 
 
 " My position is that of a betrayed woman, a sup- 
 planted wife! I have not one word of reproach for the 
 woman who has helped you work this woe for all of 
 us, for, if it was in you to do this thing, I care not who
 
 206 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 your partner in guilt may be. I ask nothing from 
 your hands, in future, but the means to take me back 
 to my own home. I will go back there and take up my 
 broken life, and make of it whatever God, my God, 
 not the false idol you and your paramour have set 
 aloft, and bow before with lying lips and sin-stained 
 hearts shall bid me make of it. I will take my babies 
 and go away from you and leave you as free as the air, 
 John ay, free to marry a hundred wives, if that be 
 your lustful ambition. I will go away and dedicate 
 the remainder of my days may God in his mercy make 
 them few in number to stamping out this foul blot on 
 our country's fair fame ! I will go back and tell them 
 that they who say Monnonism is not a curse, lie ! 
 That they who say it does not brutalize both men and 
 women, lie ! That they who say women accept it as 
 a Divine command and live placid lives under it, lie ! 
 I will go back and tell them that those who say the 
 devils themselves are not purer and better than these 
 western Saints, lie ! " 
 
 Like a pythoness aroused, she stood before him with 
 crest erect and eyes darting flames of righteous wrath 
 upon the man who had sworn to love and to cherish 
 her, and, forsaking all others, to cleave only unto her 
 until death did them part. 
 
 "All this and more you can do," he answered, never 
 once faltering in his evil purpose, "so soon as you 
 see fit."
 
 THE DEDICA TION OF A LIFE. 207 
 
 " And when," she turned and pointed toward the 
 crib where on one pillow nestled two little golden 
 heads, " when they grow older and they shall ask me 
 to tell them of their father, as children will, you know, 
 John, what shall I say to them?" 
 
 " They will never have to take me at your valua- 
 tion." 
 
 " How? What do you mean ?" 
 
 " They will learn to know me by daily association 
 with me. You can not take my children with you." 
 
 In the cruel emphasis laid upon that little word of 
 two. letters he condensed all the law and the gospel. 
 
 " Have you the right?" 
 
 " I have both the right and the might." 
 
 " And will exercise it?" 
 
 " Most unflinchingly." 
 
 With the cry of a hunted animal she sprang past 
 him, and spreading her arms over the cradle that held 
 her sleeping babes, sank slowly to her knees. Her 
 head dropped upon the pillow by theirs. A long flut- 
 tering sigh escaped her tortured lips, and then she 
 sank to the floor insensible.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 TWO CLOUDS. 
 
 IT is a fatal sign when a man finds it necessary to be 
 perpetually assuring himself that he is quite satis- 
 fied with any course he has entered upon without the 
 entire approval of his own conscience. And John 
 Quinby found himself involved in this species of 
 moral combat at the very moment when he was pre- 
 paring to extract the fullest amount of satisfaction 
 from the storied sweetness of his second honeymoon. 
 
 And yet it would have been hard for a superficial 
 observer to have pointed to one thing amiss in the 
 pretty cottage (mercifully aloof from the spot where 
 Anna brooded over her wrongs in sullen acceptance of 
 her burden) to which he had carried his new wife 
 direct from the Endowment House. 
 
 Certainly a man's most artistic cravings must be 
 satisfied with the display of unerring taste and dis- 
 ciplined refinement that entered into every detail of 
 Effie's home-keeping, making of the cottage a veritable 
 house beautiful. Carrying the intenseness that was 
 part of her very being, into the placing of a chair or 
 the draping of a window curtain, she aimed to make 
 the humblest means subserve the most exalted ends.
 
 TWO CLOUDS. . 209 
 
 It was a perpetual ministry of mind unto matter, 
 and she would arrange a dish of flowers for the break- 
 fast table, or pin a carnation to her husband's coat 
 lapel with the sweet solemnity of a priestess perform- 
 ing her vows. 
 
 Now, while Iphegenia, ministering in the spacious 
 realms of Barbary, or Aphrodite in her temple, seen 
 through the mythological mists of the centuries, may 
 be pleasing objects of contemplation, a priestess 
 behind one's own tea-tray is another and less agreeable 
 subject for consideration, and a man must be in a far 
 more highly etherealized condition mentally and 
 morally than Mr. Quinby was, to exist comfortably in 
 such a rarefied atmosphere. 
 
 But as the possession of a second wife was, in itself, 
 a somewhat uncommon condition for the new made 
 convert, he supposed it would be rather jarring on the 
 sensibilities to have the conditions of their daily life 
 any more commonplace than they already were. 
 There was no danger of the fatal element of disgust 
 attending upon satiety in the presence of a woman 
 like his wife Effie. So, perhaps, things were about as 
 well as could be, and he was quite satisfied with his 
 experiment would not undo it if he could. While 
 s"he, thoroughly and humanly in love with her hand- 
 some husband, hoping to find in him an active and 
 able coadjutor in all the good work she was laying out 
 to do among the degraded women about her, saw
 
 210 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 nothing amiss, recognized but two clouds in her serene 
 skies. 
 
 " You know, dear," she said in one of the many 
 harangues on the subject to which she invited Mr. 
 Quinby's languid attention, "to whom much is given 
 much will be expected. I have been so peculiarly 
 blessed in the mental conditions that have environed 
 my own searching after the truth and the light, that I 
 feel constrained to return it in some shape or other to 
 my less fortunate sisters. So many of these poor 
 women about us, John, are laboring either under a 
 total misapprehension of the sacrificial nature of such 
 a sealing as ours, or are content to close their eyes 
 entirely to the beauty of the celestial marriage by 
 remaining unsealed, thereby incurring the doom of 
 perpetual servitude in this world and the next." * 
 
 " I must protest, Effie, against your mixing yourself 
 up with outside matters too freely," says Mr. Quinby, 
 with aristocratic Gentile repugnance to a too demo- 
 cratic saintliness. Then, seeing the swift shadows of 
 sorrowful surprise settling about the face that for him 
 had such a wonderful fascination, he drew her down 
 upon his knee to ask : 
 
 " You are not unhappy, my wife, are you ? " 
 
 " No, oh no, John ! Perfectly, perfectly happy! and 
 
 * The Mormons hold that the unmarried or unsealed are doomed to 
 perform the service of menials for all time to come.
 
 Tiro CLOUDS. 211 
 
 yet The tears never started to Effie's eyes in the im- 
 pulsive fashion that they flood ordinary eyes. In her 
 most anguished moments, there came only into them 
 a look of pain that pierced the heart of others as no 
 tears possibly could. This look rested on her hus- 
 band's face in that moment of hesitation. 
 
 "And yet what, my St. Cecilia?" It was a pretty 
 nick-name he had given her in the early days of their 
 renewed acquaintance. 
 
 " And yet, John, if I did not believe I was being 
 persecuted for righteousness' sake, as the martyrs of 
 old were persecuted for their faith, father's silence and 
 Anna's cold estrangement would break my heart." 
 
 John Quinby gathered her close to his passionate, 
 guilty heart with an impulse of remorseful pity. So 
 pure and yet so stained, as the world of unbelievers 
 held. 
 
 " My darling," he whispered, " you know they do not 
 see as we see ; do not believe as we believe. You 
 must not let thoughts of them darken our home or 
 cast one shadow over this dear face. Your own con- 
 science and my deathless love, Effie, must be your 
 sole dependence through this earthly ordeal." 
 
 " Oh no, John. That were poor dependence, indeed ! 
 Broken reeds, dear, empty cisterns ! I look higher for 
 something to lean on, my husband," and then, with a 
 rapt look that seemed to place an infinitude of space 
 between them, she added in low, soft tones : " At my
 
 212 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook 
 me : I pray God that it may not be laid to their 
 charge ! " 
 
 " Yes, oh yes, certainly, I know," says John with 
 vague acquiescence in the propriety of her flight or 
 the impregnability of her position. 
 
 " But," she added, coming back to him and the earth, 
 "nothing can make me indifferent to the estrangement 
 of the two over whom my heart yearns so, John. I 
 had hoped father would send me one kind word in 
 answer to my last letter. I have written three and not 
 one word of reply of any sort ! I want him to come 
 here, to live with us, John. He is getting old so fast, 
 and I'm afraid he does miss me ; but then he did 
 without me all the years I lived in Boston. Do you 
 think maybe he is going to come, and means to surprise 
 me, John?" 
 
 He muttered something vague in reply. He could 
 not tell her that three letters had come for her from 
 Elizabeth, one after the other, each one couching in 
 yet stronger terms than its predecessor a father's bitter 
 malediction on the man who had sullied her life, and 
 containing his wrathful resolve to tear her from her 
 husband's house dead or alive, even if he had to fire 
 " Satan's stronghold " with his own hand, palsied as it 
 was by her cruel act of desertion. He had received 
 the letters at his office and had destroyed them as sub- 
 versive of the peace of his own household. He simply
 
 TWO CLOUDS. 213 
 
 exercised his marital rights in protecting Effie from the 
 ravings of a madman. He did not tell her that he 
 had received a more recent one written by Ferdinand 
 Cosgrove, who told him that upon him developed the sad 
 duty of informing Dr. Ambrose's daughter that her 
 father's mind was seriously impaired and that fears of his 
 losing it entirely were entertained by the attending phy- 
 sicians, unless he could be relieved of the terrible anxiety 
 concerning her, and that, therefore, he (Ferdinand Cos- 
 grove) respectfully submitted the matter to him (Mr. 
 John Quinby) as the soi-disant legal protector of Dr. 
 Ambrose's daughter, hoping that her return to the 
 States might be the result." 
 
 This letter threw him into such a paroxysm of rage 
 that he answered it in a few insolent sentences : 
 
 " Mr. Quinby could not spare time to accompany 
 his wife, Dr. Ambrose's daughter, to the States, and 
 was not willing for her to undertake so long a journey 
 unaccompanied. He regretted extremely to hear of 
 his old friend's sad condition and would recommend 
 Mr. Cosgrove (his attendant he presumed) to start for 
 Utah with him immediately, where, surrounded by his 
 old friends and ministered to by his daughter, doubt- 
 less he would soon be quite himself again." 
 
 And there the matter was resting, so far as he knew. 
 
 But at the other end of the line Ferdinand Cosgrove 
 was making active preparations to follow the insolent 
 advice given, not with a view of handing the helpless
 
 214 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 old man over to the guardianship of the Saints, but 
 because the physicians said that there was no hope of 
 any change unless he could see his daughter's face once 
 more. Once let him do that, and he would be either 
 restored or reduced to that stage of positive insanity 
 that would render the course to be pursued with him 
 sure beyond fear of error. 
 
 " If he recovers ? " Ferdinand asked. 
 
 " He will be strong enough to grapple with a legion 
 of devils." 
 
 "If not?" 
 
 " An asylum ! "
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 IN DURANCE VILE. 
 
 A NNA Quinby did not settle into an attitude of 
 ** dumb acceptance of her lot as made and marred 
 by her husband, without a fierce resistance that only 
 yielded when she was convinced that nothing could 
 come of a longer struggle against the monstrous social 
 organism that made might right, and vice virtue. She 
 had gone to Anthony first with her anguish and her 
 perplexities. 
 
 " Anthony, has the father of my children a right to 
 prevent my taking them away with me out of the foul 
 contamination of this place?" (She was never again 
 heard to call her husband any thing but the father of 
 her children.) 
 
 " Under the accursed laws of this territory he has." 
 
 " But if I should steal away with them, Tony steal 
 away some night, you know, as the slaves used to steal 
 away under cover of darkness, from a bondage so much 
 lighter than mine, Tony ! You would help me, wouldn't 
 you, brother ? " 
 
 "With all the strength of this poor shattered body,
 
 2l6 THE BAR-SINISJ^ER. 
 
 Anna, with the very best drop of blood in my veins 
 if there was any hope of your success." 
 
 " Hope of my success! Why should you doubt it ? 
 I have plenty of solitude, Tony," she said with a bitter, 
 mirthless laugh, " in which to mature my plans ; we 
 might be gone days before he would know it." 
 
 " Poor child, how very much mistaken you are ! 
 You have not drained this cup to its bitterest dregs 
 yet, Anna. Ah ! I curse the day when John ever crossed 
 your path, and I will help you ; but, unless you are 
 prepared to give up your children, cease struggling 
 against the inevitable." Great sobs shook his frame as 
 he walked abruptly away. 
 
 "But I don't in the least understand you," she said, 
 looking after him with grave wonderment. Under the 
 severest trial of his nerves she had never seen Anthony 
 give way in this helpless fashion before. 
 
 " It is hard lines for us all, Anna," he said, coming 
 back to her with a calmer exterior. " It is repugnant 
 to me to stay in a man's house and play informer. If 
 I did not think that by staying I could ameliorate 
 your hard lot in a measure, I would go this moment, 
 dear." 
 
 "Oh no, oh no, don't go, Tony;" her soft eyes 
 swam in tears as she held both hands pleadingly 
 toward him. 
 
 " I am not thinking of it. But I want you to know, 
 Anna, that you are under strict surveillance all the
 
 IN DURANCE VILE. 217 
 
 time, and any attempt to escape with your children 
 would only end in defeat and added indignity." 
 
 " Surveillance ! I ! How dare he ? " 
 
 " He dares any thing, now, Anna : it is only the 
 first step in wrong-doing that a man of honor falters 
 over. That once taken, each successive downward 
 step comes easier. I think my brother had hoped to 
 find you more tractable. Your course (the only one open 
 to you as a true woman) has inflamed his imperious 
 temper. He would have preferred retaining your 
 affection. That gone, it is simply a question of mas- 
 tery with him. I forewarned him that I should not 
 leave you in ignorance of the fact that the woman 
 whom he put here as head nurse over Barbara is 
 nothing more nor less than a spy on your every action. 
 He anticipated your desire to take the children away 
 without his knowledge. This was his way of prevent- 
 ing it. She would report your first step to him." 
 
 She stared at him incredulously a long second. The 
 new nurse had been so gentle and deferential and 
 altogether satisfactory, that she had numbered her 
 among the few sources of satisfaction left her. 
 
 " How dare he ? " she said again, crimsoning to the 
 roots of her hair with indignation. " I will dismiss 
 her this very moment." She sprang from her chair to 
 execute the threat. 
 
 A pitying smile played about his lips, but his eyes 
 glowed with an answering indignation.
 
 2l8 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 " Poor little bird, beating its heart out against its 
 prison bars, so uselessly, Anna, so uselessly ! You 
 are only unfitting yourself, sister, to take care of little 
 Comfort and Mercy ! ' You will dismiss this woman 
 only to have a less endurable one put in her place." 
 
 " Then I am to live my daily life under the vile 
 espionage of a Mormon spy ! My pure little darlings 
 are to be cradled in Mormon arms ! Oh, Anthony, is 
 there no way out of it ? Must I endure this ignominy? 
 Is there no way out of it ? " 
 
 " Only one, that I can see." 
 
 "And that?" 
 
 " Is to give your voluntary promise that you will 
 make no effort to escape with your children." 
 
 " And that is your way out of it ? " 
 
 " No ! but that is your only hope of relief from 
 espionage. Perhaps God will show us some way out 
 of it, Anna, but mortal eye can not pierce the black 
 veil now. May I tell John you need no may I say 
 you will stay?" 
 
 And so John Quinby scored one more triumph ! 
 And yet, when he came as a conqueror to the fireside 
 where he had once been lovingly acknowledged as a 
 tower of strength, and a very present help in time of 
 need, his victor's crown sat uneasily on his brow, and 
 for all the joy it brought him might have been a 
 veritable crown of thorns woven by the hand of Nemesis. 
 As perhaps it was, who knows?
 
 IN D URA NCE VILE. 2 1 9 
 
 " You are grown quite a literary character of late," 
 he said, on one of these uncomfortable occasions. " I 
 find you writing every time I come, and if I cfld not I 
 think I could tell in other ways that you were becom- 
 ing absorbed in literary pursuits." He glanced slight- 
 ingly at the plain black dress with its carelessly tied 
 black scarf and crumpled crape collar. 
 
 " I am collecting some statistics," she said, " that I 
 may find useful some day. I have not grown literary. 
 I have neither talent nor inclination for original compo- 
 sition. Life is such a fiercely earnest thing and its 
 colors so somber, that I feel like laughing the novel 
 writer's task to scorn. Why should people waste time 
 writing or reading about imagined woes or manufac- 
 tured tragedies ? " 
 
 Having cast her dart with direct aim, she bent again 
 over the portable desk in her lap. She made no effort 
 at entertaining her visiting husband. She was his 
 bond-slave, and she performed all her duties as a slave 
 in a passionless, perfunctory manner that blessed 
 neither the doer nor the receiver. He would have 
 hailed with delight the most violent outburst of temper 
 or reproach. But none ever came. Anthony and he 
 talked and smoked through the dull evenings, and 
 dallying with his pretty babies brightened a few 
 moments at a time for him ; but master as he was he 
 could not command one smile to the lips of his unfor- 
 giving wife, nor win one glance of love.
 
 220 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 "'Pon honor," he said, after a long silence in which 
 the scratching of her pen had become audible, " you 
 are growing shockingly indifferent to your personal 
 appearance, Anna. It is bad enough to find you 
 always in that hideous black dress, but your hair, such 
 pretty hair as you have, too, is as frowzy as a kitchen 
 maid's." 
 
 " I must be a little more particular," she said, caress- 
 ing the head of little Mercy as it lay within reach of 
 her hand on the sofa, " as soon as these pretty ones 
 begin to notice such things. I don't want them to 
 underrate the beauty of neatness." 
 
 "Then I suppose my wishes on the subject are not 
 to be taken into consideration at all," he flashed 
 angrily. 
 
 " Decidedly not," she said, with that calm look of 
 defiance that always made him feel the impassableness 
 of the gulf himself had digged between them and 
 that had served to shorten his visits to her materially. 
 
 " I, too, have a little curiosity, Anna," said Anthony 
 on this particular occasion, when Mr. Quinby had taken 
 his departure sullenly, "concerning your absorbing writ- 
 ing. I am quite sure that you know my interest is not 
 idle curiosity." 
 
 " I haven't the slightest objection to telling you. I 
 have dedicated my life to the exposure of the domes- 
 tic misery and absolute degradation existing among 
 the women of this city. If, by my persistent efforts
 
 IN DURANCE VILE. 22 1 
 
 and patient compilation of facts, I can throw one ray 
 of the light of truth upon this loathsome institution, I 
 will feel that perhaps my own sufferings have borne 
 fruits worthy of the Master's acceptance. Who knows, 
 brother ? it may be part of God's plan that my heart 
 should be pierced that others might be spared. But 
 even should nothing come of it, it gives me an occupa- 
 tion that fills full the dreadful joyless days of my life. 
 My darlings are so healthy and so good that I have too 
 much leisure. And, oh ! the worse than emptiness of 
 the hours when I look back or forward, Tony ! I must 
 work ! and into this work I can throw all the heartiness 
 that's left to me. See," she added, turning excitedly 
 to her desk and selecting some penciled slips. " I 
 have but just begun this work of visiting among the 
 Mormon women, whom I find quite ready to talk to 
 me. You know I enjoy an enviable position in their 
 estimation as wife No. I of the rich Mr. Quinby!" 
 (Oh ! the flashing scorn of eye and lip ! ) " No, I have 
 no difficulty in getting the poor things to talk to me. 
 It would tire you to read all that I have gathered in 
 the way of personal evidence, so I will give you one 
 day's gleanings only. It is only the strongest points in 
 each conversation that I have taken down, otherwise my 
 proposed expos6 might swell to the proportions of an 
 unabridged dictionary. 
 
 " In one home (God save the mark) I found a brow- 
 beaten, wretched creature trying to run her sewing-
 
 222 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 machine with a sick baby across her knees. She is one 
 of a batch of seven bah ! ' My husband tells me/ she 
 said, ' that I need not expect love from him. It was 
 sufficient honor to bear children to the Saints; but I 
 sometimes think, if this is all the honor and happiness 
 that's to come to me and it ' (then she gathered her 
 poor little mite of a baby to her bosom, Tony), ' it 
 wouldn't be very much of a sin to dash its brains out 
 against the wall yonder, and then to follow it out of 
 the world. Only I'm scared of the hereafter ! ' At 
 another place, Tony, I found seven women living 
 together in one room, the wives of one man, whom 
 they support by their united labor. They had one 
 bond in common besides their husband that was, their 
 common degradation ! But so besotted with ignorance 
 were they that it frightened them to have me cast any 
 doubt upon the divine origin of this hideous dogma of 
 polygamy ! One poor, half-crazed girl I found, who 
 firmly believes that she has been sealed to Achilles, by 
 proxy, and that the children she shall bear to the man 
 called her husband in this world, will really be the off- 
 spring of that Greek hero ! She is a devout believer in 
 the celestial marriage, but admits that if it were not 
 for the sacrificial nature of her bond here on earth she 
 would sink beneath the burden of her existence. So 
 far, I have found but one woman who will say in so 
 many words that she likes the institution, and she is a 
 low virago, who, with no appetite above the brutes of
 
 IN DURANCE VILE. 223 
 
 the field, is glad of assistance in her labors. Oh, 
 Anthony, I could go on for hours torturing your ears 
 with the revelations I have gathered in these homes 
 where bestial lust masquerades as marital affection, and 
 the glibness with which its advocates will quote you 
 scripture for authority makes one pause in shuddering 
 wonder at God's marvelous patience. But I must 
 work must work hard and fast and unceasingly. I 
 count every moment lost that is not spent on this com- 
 pilation ; and when I have gathered enough, Anthony, 
 and have strung the black facts on a single strong 
 string of statement, just enough to hold them together, _ 
 your part of the work will begin." 
 
 "Mine?" 
 
 He had followed her with minute attention. He 
 could understand how, in her sore and morbid frame 
 of mind, she might well d-erive satisfaction from this 
 dreary occupation. But what had he to do with it 
 all? 
 
 " Yes, yours ! When I get my facts into book shape 
 you will take them to the States, Tony. You are not 
 a prisoner, you know, and you will publish them, and 
 the world will know how women suffer here and drag 
 their chains about with them in helplessness. And 
 men's pulses must be stirred to break their bondage as 
 they were just a little while ago, Anthony, to break the 
 chains of those other slaves down South ; and Mormon- 
 ism will come to be known for what it is as a hellish
 
 224 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 device for the destruction of women, bodies and souls. 
 And good men will rally under Christian standards to 
 stamp it out, and I shall be free to go away with my 
 babies, where I may never again have to look upon the 
 face of the man who has broken my heart, Tony, 
 broken it broken it broken it ! " 
 
 A passion of sobs took possession of her and shook 
 her frail form convulsively, and Anthony wept with 
 her.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 FACE TO FACE. 
 
 A RRIVED in Salt Lake City with his helpless 
 \ charge Ferdinand Cosgrove found himself envi- 
 roned with difficulties. He had hoped that the jour- 
 ney through a new and attractive region might arouse 
 the old man from what seemed more like settled mel- 
 ancholia than any other phase of dementia. His 
 recovery from the paralytic stroke had been only par- 
 tial. He could walk, but it was with the slow, uncer- 
 tain step of a very old and feeble man. His impres- 
 sions of new faces and new places were vague and fleet- 
 ing. His childish prattle was all of things and people 
 belonging to his well-spent, vigorous past. His one 
 desire was for Effie always Effie. 
 
 And now they were breathing the same air with 
 Effie. Perhaps she was but a few blocks away from 
 the hotel he had selected, and how was he to bring 
 about the interview between the father and daughter 
 that meant so much to them both ? He had no desire 
 whatever to spare her one single pang. All his solici- 
 tude was for Dr. Ambrose. It was not hard to find
 
 226 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 the pretty little cottage that they told him was Mrs. 
 Effie Quinby's home. He walked by the house irres- 
 olutely three or four times on the opposite side of the 
 street. He almost hoped she might discover him and 
 come forward of her own accord and make his hard 
 task easier. But the lace curtains at the front windows 
 hung unmoved and the door remained inhospitably 
 closed. A well-formed, handsome-faced man, coming 
 from the business quarter, brushed past him, crossed 
 over and entered the gate, feeling in his pocket for his 
 latch-key, probably, thought Ferdinand, who stood 
 watching him as he mounted the steps. But the key 
 was not needed. The door opened noiselessly from 
 within, and Effie, lovelier than ever, with a certain 
 roundness of outline and glow of happiness that had 
 only come to her of late, stood waiting to be folded in 
 her husband's arms. Then they turned away and went 
 in, he with his arm around her slender waist, and 
 closed the door behind them. The man on the other 
 side of the street ground his heel fiercely into the brick 
 pavement as he turned and walked rapidly out of sight. 
 He went back to the hotel, his course resolved upon. 
 He would make no effort to soften the shock her 
 father's sad condition would be to this most unnatural 
 daughter. It was useless to confer with the doctor and 
 he would not confer with John Quinby. He would 
 simply dispatch a card to Effie telling her that her 
 father was at the Clift House. Then they might come
 
 FACE TO FACE. 227 
 
 together as they chose. No harm could come to the 
 doctor. He wished he could wash his hands of this 
 whole affair, but he felt in honor bound to stand by the 
 old man who had come out to him with such whole- 
 souled sympathy and kindness, when little over a year 
 ago, he had come North, a heart-sick stranger, bent on 
 building up the war-shattered fortunes of his house. 
 
 Mr. Quinby's noonday stay at home was always 
 short. The business of Ford, Farnham & Co. was grow- 
 ing in his hands to mammoth proportions, and he had 
 come lately to feel that his happiest moments were 
 those he spent in his office, where life was reduced to a 
 question of facts and figures, and no problems more 
 harassing than the balancing of a ledger or the prov- 
 ing of a day-book confronted him. So he had already 
 gone back to his business place when the hotel mes- 
 senger put into Mrs. Quinby's hand an envelope which 
 she tore open with nervous haste. There was no one 
 to write to her now but father, and he had been 
 cruelly silent. A card with the Clift House imprint 
 was all it contained. These words were penciled on 
 it: 
 
 " Your father is at the Clift House. He would be 
 glad to see you if you will come to him. His room 
 is 20. " F. COSGROVE." 
 
 The messenger stood stolidly waiting for a reply. 
 
 " Papa must be very angry yet," she thought, " to 
 let Ferdinand write for him, and to make me go to
 
 228 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 him. But he will not be after I have talked to him. 
 Wait," she said to the stolid messenger. " You must 
 show me the way to the Clift House. I shall not keep 
 you waiting long." She came back to him presently, 
 bonneted and gloved, and set off at once at a brisk 
 pace. 
 
 Ferdinand's room connected with the doctor's. He 
 would not stay to see Effie. He would try to prepare 
 her father and then go away and leave them to make 
 what they could of the interview. There was one 
 chance in a thousand, he thought, that any good would 
 come of this meeting. 
 
 "I saw your daughter this morning, sir," he began 
 in that slow, distinct manner necessary now to enchain 
 the poor, wandering mind. 
 
 "Effie? Yes, my daughter Effie. She's a sweet 
 girl, Effie is, but a little queer. Don't speak of it out 
 of the house, Ferd, but " and here the old man's 
 palsied hand tapped his own forehead significantly, " it 
 was all Priscilla's fault ; Priscilla was a crank, you 
 know, and " 
 
 " I think she will probably be here to see you this 
 afternoon, doctor." 
 
 No one ever waited for the doctor to finish his sen- 
 tences now. He would ramble on inconsequently for 
 a wearisome time. But his rugged face beamed with 
 pleasure at Ferd's last words. 
 
 " Coming, is she ? Effie coming to see me ? That's
 
 FACE TO FACE. 
 
 229 
 
 good. You know she went away a long time ago to 
 become a missionary among the Mormons, Ferd. She 
 was always a little visionary and wanting to do some- 
 thing out of the common, but 
 
 " It will not be necessary for me to stay with you, 
 sir. I am going to leave you now, and your daughter 
 will come very soon, I expect," says Ferd, with an in- 
 terruption that the doctor does not resent. 
 
 "Yes, oh yes. Effie will come. She's a good 
 daughter, Ferd. I knew she would come back to me, 
 oh yes." 
 
 " You won't leave the room, you know, sir, for she 
 wouldn't know where to find you." 
 
 "Oh no, here I am." The poor, palsied hands 
 clutched the arms of his chair with exaggerated show 
 of patience, while a glimmer of the old ready fun flick- 
 ered in the eyes that were raised to Ferd's face. " I 
 shan't budge, I'll just keep saying, Effie's coming, 
 Effie's coming ! " 
 
 And so Ferd left him, crooning the words to himself, 
 and went away to avoid meeting the woman who had 
 at one time been scarcely less dear to him than she 
 was yet to that doting old man in the chair. He put 
 only the closed door of his own room between them, for 
 in case the interview produced too violent an effect on 
 the doctor, he must be within call. 
 
 In uncontrollable agitation he walked the floor with 
 bowed head and hands clasped close together behind
 
 230 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 his back. He was conscious of three sensations, which 
 served at times to blot out all thoughts of his own 
 plans in the past or hopes in the future : Pity for Doc- 
 tor Ambrose, withering contempt for Effie, and a mur- 
 derous desire to deprive John Quinby of the life he 
 was leading to such evil purpose. "Bah ! " he said, in 
 a paroxysm of self-disgust, " I would throw away all 
 hope of helping those pure, sweet girls down South, 
 struggling so bravely with adversity, for the sake of 
 revenge that would promptly be punished in this sanc- 
 tified region by hanging. She's not worth it." 
 
 He stopped involuntarily as the outer door of the 
 next room was opened and closed again quickly. She 
 had come. He heard her call her father's name with 
 eager pleasure once, then again in tones of startled sur- 
 prise. He heard through the thin partition the plaint- 
 ive moan that had become so sadly familiar to him of 
 late, fraught now with the pathetic eagerness of the 
 father's welcome. 
 
 " My little girl! My little girl ! " It was followed 
 by a cry of pain in a woman's voice. Then a heavy 
 fall and silence ! 
 
 The next moment found him on his knees by Effie's 
 side, as she lay white and pulseless on the sofa where 
 he had laid her, gathering her tenderly in his arms 
 from the floor where he had found her at her father's 
 feet unconscious. The old man tottered after him 
 as he bore her to the sofa by the .open window,
 
 FACE TO FACE. 231 
 
 the unchecked tears streaming down his furrowed 
 cheeks. 
 
 " She fell all in a heap, Ferd, before I could catch 
 her. I don't seem to be very strong lately. I expect 
 she's been working too hard among the Mormons, you 
 know. My daughter's a missionary, you know, Ferd. 
 It's just a faint! Cut her stay-laces and give her air! 
 Don't be alarmed, Ferd ! Her mother used to swoon 
 just as easily. There's sal-volatile at her belt. She . 
 never went without her bottle. It was my command. 
 Effie was always an obedient child until she got this 
 missionary craze on her. It's all Priscilla's fault. Pris- 
 cilla was a crank. Don't get agitated, Ferd, she'll 
 come round presently and then we must start right 
 home with her. This place don't suit her." 
 
 " Ah ! if they only could ! If they only could ! " 
 It was only the senseless babble of an old man gone 
 daft from grief but if they only could ! If they could 
 only gather her up to their aching hearts, father and 
 lover, in a burst of forgiveness, divine in its fullness, and 
 carry her back to the home she had made desolate ! 
 How beautiful she looked in her helplessness, utterly 
 dependent on him ; him, he thought with fierce joy, 
 for ministration. At last he had held her in his arms- 
 she had lain there unresisting! If she would only die 
 in that swoon if she might never again open her 
 eyes upon a sin-stained .world if she might never 
 again return to the consciousness of her own degrada-
 
 232 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 tion ! He heard the old man babbling on unceasingly, 
 now giving directions and calling for remedies and re- 
 assuring his fears, with a ring of the old professional 
 decision in his voice, now crooning loving words as he 
 hovered tenderly over the prostrate form, with trem- 
 bling hands that only marred their own good intentions. 
 He watched the soft bosom rise and fall with the re- 
 turn of consciousness. Not yet, not yet ! With 
 consciousness would come back sin ! She would get 
 up and go away presently, back to him ! Where was 
 all the bitter wrath he had been nursing against this 
 fair fanatic all these months ! Why was it that he 
 could see in her now, as she lay there with white lips 
 and sealed lids, nothing but a broken lily, that he 
 wanted to take up with healing intent ! She would 
 never again touch his life as nearly. He would gladly 
 prolong the sweet bitterness of those moments. A 
 long, shuddering sigh a sudden up-lifting of her white 
 eyelids a look of wondering inquiry into his face, as 
 he still kneeled by her side. Then, with a smile of in- 
 effable sadness she put her hand into his and held by 
 it until she had lifted herself into a sitting posture. 
 
 "You have been very good to father! But, oh! 
 you should have told me, you should have told me ! 
 It was cruel to let the shock of his illness come upon 
 me unprepared." 
 
 She reached up both hands and drew the old man to 
 her side on the sofa. With her arms around his neck
 
 FACE TO FACE. 233 
 
 and her cheek laid against his rugged one, she poured 
 out a torrent of remorseful affection. 
 
 " He must have been very sick ; hasn't he, Mr. Cos- 
 grove ? He seemed so weak, and even now his hands 
 tremble so. Oh, papa ! you ought to have made them 
 write to me." 
 
 So, after all, the hard task of explanation was thrust 
 upon him, Ferd thought, with a soul full of bitter- 
 ness. 
 
 " Have you heard nothing at all of your father's 
 condition, Miss The difficulty of addressing her 
 overcame him with confusion. 
 
 " Mrs. Quinby," she said, with simple directness and 
 a steady glance, that meant to say, " I understand 
 your position and you must understand mine." It 
 had the effect of steeling his heart and lightening his 
 hard task. For Mrs. Quinby he felt no pity. 
 
 He moved slightly away and stood looking down 
 upon her with folded arms and eyes full of merciless 
 decision. 
 
 " You have not then received the four letters written 
 you, giving you in detail an account of the havoc you 
 have wrought there?" His glance fell on her father, 
 as he sat by her on the sofa, caressing her hands and 
 smiling broadly in the fullness of his content. 
 
 "No! Not one. Havoc! Papa is only unstrung by 
 this meeting. I know him of old ; you do not. 
 Strong agitation always made him wordless. You are
 
 234 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 well now, father, aren't you ? " She took the withered 
 face in both her hands and scanned it anxiously. 
 
 " Quite well, dearie, quite well. A little shaky yet, 
 that's all. Tell her, Ferd. You know I've been sick, 
 daughter, oh yes, quite sick. Let me see. Oh yes, 
 now I remember. It was just after she went off to be 
 a missionary among the Mormons that I took sick, 
 wasn't it, Ferd ? But I'm all right now, darling. 
 Ferd stuck to me like a man. Tell her about it, 
 Ferd." 
 
 He smiled fatuously upon them both, then fell once 
 more to patting the little hand that lay trembling in 
 his clasp. His happiness was complete. Effie was 
 once more close enough for him to touch her and he 
 asked nothing more at the hands of fate. 
 
 "What does it all mean? "she asked, turning her 
 eyes once more upon Ferdinand. " He does not seem 
 at all himself." 
 
 "No. Nor will he ever be himself again. All hope 
 for him has died out in my heart within the last half 
 hour. Your work is complete." 
 
 " My work ? Don't look at me so mercilessly, please. 
 Don't answer me so mysteriously. Remember that 
 from the moment I left my father's house impelled to 
 obey a higher mandate than that of any earthly parent, 
 up to this one, I have not heard one word from my old 
 home. I have supposed my father living the life he 
 led during the ten years I was away from him in Boston,
 
 FACE TO FACE. 235 
 
 active in all good works, blessing the poor, comforting 
 the sorrowing of all ranks and stations." 
 
 " That was the life of his own choosing ; this is his 
 life of your making! That his state of mind should 
 come on you with the shock of a surprise is not my 
 fault. On the night that you so inhumanely deserted 
 your father stop ! don't interrupt me ! You have 
 asked me to tell you all about it, and so has he. I 
 must do it my own way, and as Mr. John Quinby has 
 evidently judged best to destroy the letters written 
 you, without letting you see them, I must necessarily 
 be a trifle prolix." 
 
 "That insulting charge my husband must answer in 
 person ! " she said, flushing indignantly. 
 
 " Nothing would give me more entire satisfaction. 
 But to go on. The night of your flight your father 
 was smitten with a stroke of paralysis that rendered it 
 an even thing for weeks whether he would live or die. 
 From the moment of reading your letter,- either with a 
 view of shielding you from suspicion, or in a pitiable 
 effort at self-deception, he has insisted upon it that 
 you had come here in the capacity of a missionary. 
 I allowed the poor old man to comfort himself with 
 the delusion. It will be an act of mercy if you do not 
 undeceive him. As soon as he was able to give any 
 commands, he made me write to Mr. John Quinby 
 asking him to take you under his protection, until he, 
 your father, was able to come for you. Mr. Quinby
 
 236 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 has acquitted himself worthily of the trust reposed in 
 him." 
 
 His words came thick and hot as thunderbolts as he 
 hurled them at her with fierce rapidity of utterance. 
 
 " Just about the time when your father's naturally 
 robust physique was promising him a triumph over his 
 first attack came your letter, telling him that you had 
 been sealed to John Quinby, the recreant husband of 
 your own best friend ! And then indeed the iron 
 entered into his soul and there it rankles now ! They 
 told me that there was one hope for his recovery. It 
 lay in his seeing you again. I loved the old man so 
 that I wanted to give him that one chance. And I 
 thought oh ! while I am about it, let me lay bare my 
 soul too ! I thought that, maybe, when you saw what 
 you had done, nature would assert itself and in 
 your remorse you might heal the wounds of your own 
 making by going back to your home with him, and 
 letting time help to restore you both to the peace you 
 threw away from him and yourself too. Yes, yourself 
 too. If you do not feel it yet, you will you must, 
 as inevitably as there is a God in Heaven and a God- 
 implanted conscience in your breast ! You think, and 
 I give you credit for your hallucination, that you are 
 acting up to the instincts of that conscience now; but 
 the scales will drop from your eyes and reveal yourself 
 and your so-called religion in such monstrous hideous- 
 ness that then your very worst enemy will be com-
 
 FACE TO FACE. 237 
 
 pelled to pity you. Doubtless you think I am insult- 
 ing you, insulting your creed insulting the Saints all 
 at once ! If I thought that by heaping curse upon curse, 
 or word upon word, I could turn you from this 
 strange hallucination and give you back, all stained as 
 you are, to that poor old man, how my tongue should 
 wag ! As it is, I have brought him to you a physical 
 and mental wreck. What he is now you have made 
 him. He was meant by God to be a benefactor to his 
 kind. He was one until you, led astray by that emis- 
 sary of the devil whom your father nursed back to life, 
 broke his heart and clouded his intellect. Religion, I 
 take it, is meant as a solace for all earthly ills, as a puri- 
 fier of unclean hearts and a source of strength under the 
 assaults of the world, the flesh and the devil. What 
 has the religion (God forgive me for using the word in 
 so vile a connection) you practice done for humanity 
 done for you? It has cursed your home stained 
 your soul, and left you at the mercy of man's most 
 brutal instincts." 
 
 She raised her hands as one does when warding off 
 blows. 
 
 ." Spare me! I can not stand it! If you have no 
 mercy on me as a Mormon wife, spare me as a woman ! ' 
 
 His arms fell apart and dropped listlessly by his 
 side! She had exorcised the demon of his wrath! 
 Exorcised it in the name of that which he had held in 
 holiest veneration through all his chivalric young life.
 
 238 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 The name of woman ! Infatuated, mistaken, erring, all 
 wrong she might be, she most certainly was, but yet a 
 woman, so appealing in her very powerlessness. He 
 was himself but another sort of brute ! His eyes rested 
 on her remorsefully as she dropped her head in her 
 hands, in a sudden revulsion from angry scorn to 
 yearning pity. 
 
 "Effie!" 
 
 She raised her face to look at him. It was white 
 and drawn, but tearless. 
 
 " Go back to your old home with your father, will 
 you not ? Never mind what the man you call your 
 husband says or thinks, go back to the old life and win 
 your way back to peace of soul ! Never mind what 
 the oily tongued sorceress, who took advantage of your 
 dreamy transcendentalism to fire your undisciplined 
 imagination, says or thinks go back to the old home ! 
 Never mind what the legion of devils that encompass 
 you, blasphemously calling themselves saints, say or 
 think go back ! It is your one hope of peace on earth 
 or rest in heaven ! " 
 
 She stood up before him visibly trembling. Clasp- 
 ing her arms around her father's neck she kissed him 
 again, and again, and again ! Then she gave Ferdi- 
 nand the answer he was waiting for with sickening 
 anxiety. 
 
 " I have given you a weapon by my cowardly pas- 
 siveness. I have allowed you to say things you had no
 
 PACE TO FACE. 23$ 
 
 right to say, ignorant, cruel, wicked things. My father's 
 sad condition startled me so that I lost all command of 
 myself. Your greatest error lies in your thinking- 1 
 look upon marriage as an avenue to earthly gratifica- 
 tion of any sort. I regard our bodies as given to us 
 exclusively for purposes of divine discipline. Long 
 since, in my lonely girlhood, it came to me to believe 
 that, as worldlings talk, I could never be happy. I 
 never seemed to extract enjoyment out of things that 
 pleased others. I do believe that there is happiness in 
 store for her who sacrifices all earthly delights to attain 
 it. The more complete the sacrifice here, the more 
 refulgent the glory there ! I have a mission to per- 
 form here below, and God led me here direct to show 
 me where my work lay. My mission is to impress it 
 upon the women of my sect that the celestial and the 
 eternal marriages into which we are sealed here are 
 purely symbolical, their true significance dawning upon 
 us only after we have passed beyond. My father is 
 my natural charge. I thank you for all you have done 
 for him. My home must be his home." She turned 
 toward her father, whose face, during the while Ferdi- 
 nand had been swept away by his wrath, and when she 
 was defending herself, had been full of perplexity. It 
 was all so unmeaning to him. He grasped but one 
 idea : Ferd seemed very angry and Effie very much 
 distressed. That was enough to banish the child-like 
 smile from his mild face and leave it full of trouble.
 
 240 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 11 What is it, dears? My little girl, what is it? " 
 
 " I want you to go away with me to my home, father ; 
 will you go? " 
 
 He looked appealingly toward Ferdinand. Ferd 
 settled every thing for him these days. 
 
 "Will we go, Ferd? Goto live with Effie, always?" 
 he asked eagerly. 
 
 " You'd best think about it first, sir," Ferdinand said, 
 laying his hand tenderly on the stooping shoulders. 
 " Tell her you'll think about it." 
 
 " Yes, yes, that's best. Always best to think about a 
 thing before deciding, dearie," nodding sagaciously 
 toward his daughter. " I'm afraid my people would 
 miss me. They've got used to my ways and my pills, 
 and some of them are actual fools about the old man, 
 Ferd, yes, actual fools won't send for another doctor 
 under any circumstances. I told them my daughter 
 Effiehad gone off as a missionary, and that I was going 
 to fetch her home, but 
 
 The tears were streaming down Effie's cheeks. Her 
 father put his palsied hand up to wipe them away. 
 
 " My little girl ! Why, my little girl, what brings the 
 tears ? " 
 
 She could stand no more. Winding her veil tightly 
 about her face, she murmured something about coming 
 back for him, and then went quickly away from them, 
 sick at heart.
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 TOTTERING IDOLS. 
 
 IT was with a sense of taking shelter from a storm 
 that she once more gained her own home, and 
 locking herself into her bedroom poured out the pent- 
 up agony of her soul. The rare relief of tears came to 
 her, and she let them fall unchecked. Ferdinand Cos- 
 grove's words pursued her like so many Furies. The 
 flashing scorn in his eyes haunted her. She wished 
 that by burying her head in the pillows she could lose 
 the ringing disdain in his voice. No one had ever 
 talked to her so before. No one had ever dared. He 
 had given her faith in herself a tremendous shock. 
 Could it be that while she had only thought to step 
 heavenward by soaring above the petty loves and joys 
 and conventionalities of this world, she had been work- 
 ing woe for others above all to the venerable author 
 of her being? Oh, where should light be found! He 
 had given her faith in her husband a tremendous shock. 
 She had hardly thought John could do wrong. Her 
 idol was toppling to its fall ! To suppress her letters 
 was to show himself capable of a cowardly act. She 
 could forgive any thing in a man sooner than a lapse
 
 242 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 from moral courage. He would say, perhaps, that " it 
 was to spare her." She had never asked to be spared 
 one pang. She was ready to suffer all the pains and 
 penalties, if any attached, for her own coming out from 
 the fold of her fathers. If he had known of her father's 
 mental condition, and yet kept her in ignorance of it, 
 what excuse would he offer in self-defense? She was 
 impatient for his self-vindication. 
 
 So, it was rather with an accusing angel than the 
 officiating priestess he had come to regard her, that 
 Mr. Quinby found himself confronted that evening 
 when he got home. As child and woman Effie had al- 
 ways been singularly direct in her words and actions. 
 She only waited for him to seat himself with his slippers 
 on and his evening paper in his hand. 
 
 " John," she said, standing before him with inter- 
 locked hands, " have you ever received any letters from 
 Elizabeth for me, or to you, telling about my father's 
 having had a paralytic stroke ? " 
 
 The attack was altogether unexpected, and he quailed 
 under it perceptibly. His handsome face flushed 
 darkly. He made an unnecessary ado over the nice 
 adjustment of his paper. 
 
 " Have you, John?" 
 
 " Letters! bless me, why, I don't recall any thing of 
 the" the lie would not come with those clear, serious 
 eyes searching his face " not ah very recently, that 
 is."
 
 TOTTERING IDOLS. 243 
 
 " Not very recently then, John ! Any time since our 
 marriage ?" 
 
 Should he be badgered into telling a lie to shield 
 himself from a woman? The idea was wholly absurd. 
 He looked defiantly at her. 
 
 " Yes ! I don't know but I did ! But where was the 
 use of bothering you with them ? There was nothing 
 very cheering or pleasant in them.'' 
 
 " But they were my letters, weren't they, John?" 
 
 " Certainly, my dear, certainly ; but as the request 
 was totally unreasonable " 
 
 "What request ? ". 
 
 " The request that you should go to your father." 
 
 " Did\\e write for me then?" 
 
 " Why, of course he did, child ; but I was not going 
 to permit you to undertake such a trip by yourself, 
 and " with sudden exasperation, " what are you driv- 
 ing at, Effie, any how ? " 
 
 " Then he was right." 
 
 She had been standing in front of him with a wistful, 
 eager look in her solemn eyes ; now she slowly crossed 
 the rug, and sat down remote from him. 
 
 " Who was in the right ? " 
 
 " Mr. Cosgrove." 
 
 " Confound Mr. Cosgrove ! Who is Mr. Cosgrove ? 
 And where is Mr. Cosgrove ? And what has he to do 
 with our private affairs any way?" 
 
 " Mr. Cosgrove is the young Southerner who was
 
 244 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 studying medicine under my father. He is at the 
 Clift House with father now ! He has been like a son 
 to poor, poor papa ! " 
 
 " Your father at the Clift House ! Why, bless my 
 soul, we must have him here." He consulted his watch. 
 " I'll go for him as soon as we're through with dinner. 
 Have you seen him ? Why didn't you bring him right 
 along home with you ? " He was volubly anxious to 
 pursue this phase of the subject ! Any thing to prevent 
 he*r going. back to the intercepted letters in that per- 
 sistent, catechetical fashion of hers. " How is the old 
 gentleman looking?" 
 
 " He is a mental and physical wreck, John." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " And Ferdinand says it is my work." 
 
 " Ferdinand be d d ! I will close his intermed- 
 dling lips for him !" 
 
 " But suppose he is right, John? " 
 
 Mr. Quinby turned from her in speechless wrath. 
 Were the dragon seeds of discord to be sown here too ? 
 Was life to be one perpetual combat for him, hence- 
 forth? Effie had been a gently considerate wife to 
 him up to this moment. He owed her some recom- 
 pense for having deceived her about her father. He 
 would make the amend as far as in him lay. He would 
 even compromise with that impertinent intermeddler 
 Cosgrove, for the sake of Effie's peace of mind. It 
 would be a bitter pill, but he would do it. He had yet
 
 TOTTERING IDOLS. 245 
 
 to recognize that he who once compromises with dis- 
 honor, must consent to make of all his after life a 
 thing of shifts and subterfuges and dodges and lies ! 
 He walked over to her chair and stooped to give her a 
 placating kiss : 
 
 " My sweet wife, one's best intentions are liable to 
 misconstruction often. My chief aim, since you have 
 been my wife, has been to spare you pain. Perhaps I 
 did wrong in keeping the details of your father's suffer- 
 ings from you, but it was meant in mercy to you. We 
 must have him here. I will call at the Clift House 
 immediately after dinner, Effie, and between us we'll 
 soon bring the doctor round." And call he did and 
 sent his card up for Dr. Ambrose and Mr. Ferdinand 
 Cosgrove. The attendant returned with a blank 
 envelope on his card-tray : 
 
 " The old gentleman was asleep. The young gentle- 
 man sent that." 
 
 Mr. Quinby opened the envelope. It contained his 
 own card torn half in two, nothing more ! Purpled 
 with rage, he left the hotel. What should he do? 
 Go back and tell Effie that this insolent, fire-eating 
 Southerner had come off conqueror? In his perplexity 
 he thought of Anthony. And to Anthony he went 
 for consolation. 
 
 An hour later Mr. Anthony Quinby's card was car- 
 ried up to Mr. Ferdinand Cosgrove. Under the name 
 was penciled :
 
 246 THE BAR SINISTER. 
 
 " The interests of all concerned will be best sub- 
 served by your seeing me." 
 
 Ferdinand came down promptly. One glance into 
 the pure, clear eyes of the man who came toward him 
 with halting step, holding out his left hand in greeting, 
 for lack of any other, was enough to satisfy him that he 
 was in the presence of a gentleman. Their hands met 
 in a warm, lingering pressure. When they fell apart, 
 both men felt that a new and lasting friendship had 
 come into their lives. There was no pretense of mak- 
 ing talk. Anthony had come with a purpose. Each 
 recognized in the other an under-current of earnest- 
 ness that would brook no trifling, no skimming over 
 thin ice. 
 
 " My brother called this evening," Anthony said, 
 taking the initiative plunge, as they seated themselves 
 on one sofa. " I have just left him. He has told me 
 all about our dear old friend's condition." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " You refused to see him ? John, I mean." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 Anthony looked wistfully into the almost boyish 
 face before him. It glowed yet with the fires that had 
 been kindled by the events of the day. He laid his 
 hand on Ferdinand's knee. 
 
 " My dear Cosgrove, I hope we understand each 
 other very fully in this matter. You and I are power- 
 less to remedy the monster evil that has ingulfed so
 
 TOTTERING IDOLS. 247 
 
 many that are dear to us both. Do you not think that 
 where cure is impossible, amelioration is advisable?" 
 
 " What amelioration is possible ? God knows I would 
 gladly ameliorate matters for that poor old man up 
 stairs. It is what brought me here with him." 
 
 " There is but one way to do it And I am here to 
 advise with you about it. Dr. Ambrose seemed happy 
 to-day in his daughter's company, did he not?" 
 
 "Yes, I was pained to find that her presence stirred 
 no harrowing recollections in his mind." 
 
 " Why pained ? " 
 
 " Because his fatuous happiness precludes all hope 
 of final recovery." 
 
 " I should think that where restoration meant return 
 to misery, you would rather have him enjoy his imag- 
 inary bliss." 
 
 " I don't know but you are right." 
 
 " That being the case, if you consult the doctor's 
 happiness, you will leave him with his daughter. My 
 brother is anxious to have him with her." 
 
 " The sight of John Ouinby must inflict pain on 
 him. I do not believe, even in his crazed condition, 
 the sight of that foul destroyer of his peace and home, 
 could fail of torturing him." 
 
 " I have not one word to say in defense of John 
 Quinby. But bear in mind that Doctor Ambrose's 
 daughter declared for Mormonism in total independ- 
 ence of my brother's views."
 
 248 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 " True ! true ! Monstrous, incomprehensible infat- 
 uation ! Tell me," he went on with sudden fierce 
 fervor of eye and voice ; " you have been on this 
 accursed soil now for nearly two years, is this thing, 
 called Mormonism, any more explicable to you now 
 than it was before you came ?" 
 
 " On the contrary, the wonder grows ! The more one 
 sees of its thorough vileness, its bestial corruption and 
 wide-spreading influence for evil, the more one marvels 
 at the complacence of the United States Government. 
 Charles Sumner in speaking of your slaves long ago 
 said that it was a cancer so deep rooted in our body 
 politic that no rosewater methods would ever uproot 
 it. It was abolished by the war power, as John Quincy 
 Adams predicted it would be." 
 
 " And you think that will be the only solution of the 
 present problem? " 
 
 " It is hard to foresee any other. This institution is 
 as alien to our system of government as the cannibal- 
 ism or the fetichism of Western Africa. And, 
 although it has been a factor in our politics for many 
 years past, nothing but discussion comes of it." 
 
 " There must be some cause for this damnable 
 apathy." 
 
 " I find it in the two facts, that the horrors of Mor- 
 monism do not appeal violently to the voting class in 
 the country, and the non-voters are either Gentile 
 women, ignorant of the. true state of affairs, or Mor-
 
 TOTTERING IDOLS. 249 
 
 mon women, either sunk into the degraded indifference 
 that comes from a sort of moral paralysis, or who are 
 in such abject bondage to their superstitious fears that 
 they shrink from touching the subject which they are 
 taught to believe has a divine origin." 
 
 "But to the women one would naturally look for 
 that invincible protest of right against wrong that gives 
 the battle to the weak. No evil has ever yet with- 
 stood a determined onslaught against it by women. 
 And these women have the right of franchise ! " 
 
 "Another Mormon outrage! It is the veriest sham 
 on earth. The women are so absolutely under the con- 
 trol of the men, that granting them the franchise was 
 simply multiplying their own votes. When the Pacific 
 Railroad was completed, this city was overrun with 
 Gentile miners, who threatened to sweep the Saints 
 out. By investing their women with the privilege of 
 voting the Saints retained the balance of power in 
 their own hands. 
 
 " What the world knows of Mormon life and charac- 
 ter falls far short of the truth," he added, gloomily. 
 
 " Then whosoever sheds the light of searching inves- 
 tigation and fearless denunciation upon this dark plague 
 spot, will be hastening the hour of retribution?" 
 
 "I think so." 
 
 A thoughtful silence fell between the two men. 
 Anthony broke it by rising to go. 
 
 "To return to my errand, Dr. Ambrose has a de-
 
 250 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 voted friend in my sister-in-law Anna and in myself. 
 Effie, of course, belongs to those who have claims on 
 him." 
 
 " Forfeited claims." 
 
 " Perhaps ! But it is hardly likely that you are in a 
 position to devote your life to Dr. Ambrose." 
 
 "No! It has received an impetus in a new direc- 
 tion but the doctor 
 
 "Yes! Let us settle about the doctor first. If you 
 think well of i.t, he shall spend his time impartially 
 between Anna and Effie. He will be affectionately 
 cared for by both women and " 
 
 "And?" 
 
 " It shall be my care that John never crosses his 
 path. It will be easily enough managed under the 
 peculiar domestic regulations that hold good here." 
 
 " I have no legal right to settle this matter for my 
 friend and benefactor. It must be just as his daughter 
 says," Ferdinand said coldly. 
 
 " It is her expressed wish that the decision be left in 
 your hands. She says you have been a better son to 
 him than she has been a daughter and your decision 
 shall be accepted as final." 
 
 "She is very good to me." There was a lurking 
 irony in his voice that did not escape Tony's quick 
 ear. 
 
 "She is full of remorseful affection for her father, 
 and good may come of their companionship."
 
 TOTTERING IDOLS. 251 
 
 " Let it be as you say. I feel as if I were handing 
 him over bound into the hands of his enemies. But 
 since we have been talking my life has shaped itself to 
 a definite object." 
 
 "And that is?" 
 
 "A full, entire, truthful and absolutely fearless ex- 
 position of the workings of this foul system." 
 
 " I wish you God speed ! It is only the hidden 
 sources of corruption that defile and endanger life. 
 Once lay bare the sore and remedies may be found." 
 
 " Must be found ! " says Ferdinand with the absolut- 
 ism of youth and inexperience. 
 
 And so it was arranged that Dr. Ambrose should go 
 to his daughter Effie the next morning. Anthony was 
 to come for him. The old man's satisfaction in the 
 arrangement was without alloy. His face clouded over 
 temporarily when he found Ferdinand was not to ac- 
 company him, but cleared again when told that he 
 should see him every day at the hotel. 
 
 " I shall not return to the States yet awhile, at 
 least," he said to Anthony. " I must see how this 
 experiment affects the doctor's happiness." 
 
 So he staid on exploring, investigating, ponder- 
 ing, accumulating mountains of evidence against 
 the Saints biding his time. 
 
 While John Quinby, congratulating himself on having 
 purchased peace at home on such easy terms, devoted 
 himself more and more eagerly to the accumulation of
 
 252 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 money, waxing richer and richer, and was regarded by 
 Ford, Farnham & Co. as a thoroughly satisfactory 
 partner in every respect ; and was held in high esteem 
 by all the Saints as a man in good repute in the matter 
 of tithes and a prominent figure in the Council House 
 of the Seventies ; and, in short, had every thing in his 
 clutch but that most illusive of all phantoms happi- 
 ness ! 
 
 And what doth it profit a man if he gain the whole 
 world and lose that one thing?
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 CLASS NO. 3. 
 
 / 
 
 VERY thing in his clutch but that most illusive 
 of all phantoms happiness ! " 
 
 What was happiness after all but the adjustment of 
 one's material resources to the peculiar necessities of 
 one's material organism ? And what limit was there 
 to a man's power to so adjust matters, save the limit 
 of his capacity for enjoyment? With wealth enough 
 to warrant a certain latitudinarianism and an elastic 
 creed by which to adjust an elastic conscience, why 
 should he despair of yet wooing the phantom to be- 
 come his bosom's guest. Because it floated further and 
 further away from Anna's frozen breath, because his 
 solemn-eyed Effie frightened it .way with her sacri- 
 ficial attitude, must he give over the pursuit? He 
 never gave over any thing ! 
 
 What Juno and Iphegenia denied him, Hebe should 
 supply! There are some things that no amount of 
 preparation prepares for. So it was without any use- 
 less preamble that Mr. Quinby said suddenly to his 
 wife, Effie, one morning, standing hat in hand, ready 
 for departure :
 
 254 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 " Effie, I have decided to go through the Endow- 
 ment House in a week from to-day with Barbara 
 Hickman. It will be scarcely worth while to establish 
 her separately, we being all of one faith, and she will 
 be to you as a younger sister. You will, I am quite 
 sure, find her docile and helpful. She has much to 
 learn, and I trust in you she will find a friend both 
 willing and able to be her guide and counselor in 
 material things as well as spiritual. The small room 
 over the library will answer for her accommodation. 
 Be so kind as to see that it is put in a state of readiness 
 for her, will you, dear? " 
 
 Then he had kissed her, and gone away. She sat a long 
 time white and still where he had left her! What did 
 this wild protest in her heart mean ? Why had she not 
 borne in mind that this chalice would some day, sooner 
 or later, be presented to her own lips lips that closed 
 themselves so rebelliously against the draught ! Now 
 for the first time it dawned upon her, how bitter the 
 cup her own hand had held to Anna's lips ! She sank 
 slowly upon her knees, and implored God not to for- 
 sake her in this the hour of her sore need. She 
 reproached herself in bitter self-abasement for shrinking 
 back in cowardice when the hour for vindicating her 
 faith came upon her. She importuned Him to grant 
 her strength in proportion to her mighty need. And 
 when, a little later on, Mrs. Shaw made her appearance, 
 she thought (naturally, as she could not know that the
 
 CLASS NO. 3. 255 
 
 bishop's wife was only complying with Mr. Quinby's 
 request) that God had sent His prophetess to rebuke 
 her for her faltering faith in His divine plan of 
 redemption. 
 
 Mrs. Shaw spent the day with her. John did not 
 come home to lunch. When he did, his wife twined 
 her arms around his neck, and said, in that low, tense 
 voice of hers, that seemed forever attuned to tragedy: 
 
 " I felt rebellious this morning, husband ; but I 
 think God has forgiven me. You will find things in 
 readiness for Barbara when you bring her here as 
 your wife." Her voice faltered over the last word, and 
 she grew so ghastly white that he clasped his arms 
 tightly about her to prevent her falling. She smiled 
 faintly up into his anxious face. " It is nothing," she 
 said, " I am ashamed of my own weakness I I will be 
 better pres ent ly ! " Her head sank heavily on his 
 bosom she had fainted ! 
 
 On the morning when her husband was to bring his 
 new wife home, Effie fluttered about her pretty cottage 
 in a state of restlessness altogether uncontrollable. 
 She was glad, she told herself, with pathetic humil- 
 ity, that John had given her a week in which to prepare 
 for it. Mrs. Shaw had spent a great deal of the time 
 with her, and had said many comforting and strength- 
 ening things. Mrs. Shaw assured her that after the 
 first wrench of seeing Barbara sharing equal rights and 
 privileges with herself, she would come not to mind it.
 
 256 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 Mrs. Shaw had been through it all herself, and had 
 found peace and happiness behind what looked like a 
 very black veil. It was only her inexperience that 
 made it seem so hard to bear. Perhaps God had laid 
 this trial upon her that she might be instrumental in 
 Barbara's sanctification. Had she, Effie, been giving 
 the martyrs of old her almost envious meed of praise 
 and adoration all these years, to shrink back in terror 
 at this first opportunity of winning a like crown with 
 them ? Whatever else befell, the new wife must see 
 nothing of the commotion her coming had caused' in 
 her predecessor's bosom. 
 
 She was in the pretty bedroom over the library, 
 waiting there to receive the bride when John should 
 bring her from the Endowment House. They must 
 meet first of all alone. She had stipulated for that 
 when her husband had gone away from her to repeat 
 the vows he had made twice before. 
 
 "When you bring her back, John, tell her to come 
 up stairs and to enter, without knocking, the door that 
 has a white satin ribbon tied about the knob." 
 
 " Don't fire over her head, Effie," he had said, laugh- 
 ing nervously ; " you know Barbara is nothing but a 
 simple, modest peasant girl, and your transcendentalism 
 will be so much Greek to her. All I ask for her, and 
 all she will ask for herself, is kind treatment at your 
 hands." 
 
 But it was not a "simple, modest peasant girl " who
 
 CLASS NO. 3.. 257 
 
 entered " without knocking," and stood unabashed in 
 Effie's presence, taking in every detail of the pretty 
 room, after one cool nod toward the quiet lady, who 
 stood for a second in anguished irresolution. How 
 handsome she was, this English peasant girl, with her 
 large, unimpassioned ox eyes, her brilliant complexion, 
 and her red, red lips, now wreathed in triumphant 
 smiles! And how voluptuously beautiful the full round 
 outlines of her youthful form were ! A trifle coarse, 
 perhaps, and the face altogether unspiritual, but a 
 handsome woman by every rule of physical perfection. 
 
 " Barbara!" Effie said, walking resolutely toward 
 her with extended hands. " Your rights here are now 
 the same as mine, and, God helping me, I will try to 
 never lose sight of that fact. I will treat you as a 
 sister and ask you to do the same by me." 
 
 "Oh! I dare say we shall get on well enough 
 together," says Mrs. Barbara Quinby, seating herself 
 placidly on the side of the bed, as she wrestled with 
 her new kid gloves. " I never heard that you was par- 
 ticularly fussy, and I ain't overly given to wordiness 
 myself. I'm sure I'm very much obliged to John for 
 bringing me here, 'stead of taking me to Anna's. She 
 and me couldn't 'a' got along a week together. It's 
 real handsome of you to fix my room all ready for me." 
 
 Her gloves disposed of, she threw her new bonnet 
 beside them on the bed, and walked over to the mirror 
 to re-arrange her shining yellow hair. She was hand-
 
 25& THE BAR-SINIS7'ER. 
 
 somer without her bonnet than in it. Her fair hair was 
 so abundant and glossy, and she had made such a study 
 of its arrangement. Effie followed her motions 
 in wordless attention. What should she say next ? 
 How hard it was to have to say any thing at all 
 to that coarse, beautiful usurper, standing there 
 smoothing her pretty hair down with her large, 
 well shaped hands, that were rough from a life- 
 time of menial labor. What she did say caused the 
 new wife to stare at her in a puzzled way : 
 
 " Barbara ! will you tell me why you wished to 
 marry my husband ? " 
 
 The new Mrs. Quinby stared, laughed loudly and 
 said candidly: "Because he is the only man I ever 
 loved." 
 
 " Then you do not regard this step of yours as taken 
 in obedience to a Divine Command?" 
 
 " I don't think of it at all in that way. I'm glad 
 Mormonism has made it possible for me to be happy 
 with the only man I care for. I fell in love with 
 John's picture way back yonder in 'Lizabeth, when I 
 hired to Anna to nurse little Abbott, and if it hadn't 
 been for the hope of the very thing happening that 
 has happened to-day I shouldn't 'a' budged one step 
 out of the State. But I hope," she added irritably, 
 " we're not going to be a discussing the rights and 
 wrongs of the thing every day of our lives." 
 
 " No, oh no. That would be not only harrowing,
 
 CLASS NO. 3. 259 
 
 but very unprofitable. I hope some of these days you 
 will see the spiritual significance of the tie you have 
 formed to-day. I want to help you to that knowl- 
 edge." 
 
 " Oh, mercy ! John told me so ! " 
 
 " Told you what, Barbara ? " 
 
 " That I mustn't let you make me miserable with 
 your tran tran oh, fudge, I don't know what the 
 word was, it was so everlastingly long, only I know it 
 meant cranky. I hope you ain't cranky about every 
 thing -else too. I assure you I mean to do my part 
 toward keeping things smooth and easy for poor 
 John. Come, let's kiss and be friends. You don't know 
 how good I can be, when folks treat me right, and 
 that's what Anna never done. She was always rough- 
 ing me up the wrong way. Come now, do be jolly. 
 You know men-folks can't abide sour faces at the din- 
 ner table; it don't agree with their digestion. I'm 
 hungry as two bears. Wasn't that our bell I 
 heard ? " 
 
 She stood still waiting for Effie to take the lead. 
 She had never willingly sustained a share in an argu- 
 ment in her life. She wasn't going to begin now. She 
 was quite aware of her mental inferiority to her hus- 
 band's other wives, but, she reflected in triumph, 
 " John had married her for her beauty, and as long as 
 that lasted, she could wield an influence more potent 
 than either of her rivals." She moved suggestively
 
 260 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 toward the door. She felt restive under the spell of 
 those grave eyes following her every motion. 
 
 " I'm going to hunt up our lord and master," she 
 said with a flippant laugh, looking back over her 
 shoulder as she disappeared through the door. 
 
 Errie followed more slowly. She was just in time to 
 see Mrs. Barbara spring lightly from the third step 
 into her husband's arms as he stood in the hall below, 
 apparently waiting for them. She kissed him with 
 audible rapture, then moved on into the parlor with 
 childish curiosity to examine things. How hard it was 
 for Effie to descend the stairs and join them. How 
 hard it was for her not to refuse the kiss her husband 
 offered as token of fond impartiality.' How hard it 
 was for her to open her tightly closed lips, and assign 
 Barbara her seat at the table. How hard it was for 
 her to believe that Mrs. Shaw was right in saying all 
 the pain was in the first wrench. How hard it was 
 for her to keep from screaming aloud in her agony at 
 the thought of hourly companionship with this flippant, 
 unspiritual woman. She, who had always shrunk from 
 coarseness as from contamination. Oh, if John had 
 only brought a lady to be "her daily companion one 
 who, like herself, could have realized that life meant 
 more than eating or drinking or dallying one who 
 would have helped her, and whom she could have 
 helped to a better understanding of woman's mission 
 on earth ! How he seemed to enjoy the ignorant prat-
 
 CLASS NO. 3. 261 
 
 tie of this beautiful girl ! Even her loud laugh did not 
 seem to shock him. Was John, after all, himself of 
 the earth, earthy ? 
 
 Ferdinand Cosgrove's words rang in her ears day and 
 night. They pierced her flesh like thorns pursued 
 her like tongues of flame ! 
 
 " What has the religion you practice done for human- 
 ity, done for you ? It has cursed your home, stained 
 your soul, and left you at the mercy of man's most 
 brutal instincts ! " 
 
 Why was it that of all the fierce hot words he had 
 spoken to her on that dreadful morning those only re- 
 mained and would not be forgotten ? Was it because 
 the spirit of immortal truth informed them and they 
 could not die ? Had it cursed her home ? The re- 
 morseful tenderness with which she hovered about the 
 wrecked and ruined head of that home was her plea of 
 "guilty" to the charge. Had it stained her soul? 
 The fierce human hatred and jealousy and envy of her 
 husband's new wife that she felt stirring within her, to 
 her own shocked surprise, made her doubt for the first 
 time since her fanatical adoption of the new gospel 
 that she was achieving ,that triumph of the spiritual 
 over the carnal which was to be her reward for morti- 
 fying the flesh ! Had her religion left her at the mercy 
 of man's most brutal instincts ? She read the answer 
 writ in letters of fire upon the face dearest to her on 
 earth. She read it in her husband's fierce, consuming,
 
 262 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 sensual passion for the low-born beauty whom he had 
 taken to wife and who rapidly gained that ascendency 
 over him that is only gained by women of Barbara's 
 type when man becomes false to his own better self 
 and sinks to the level of brutes. 
 
 From the moment that doubt entered the pure, if 
 mistaken soul of Dr. Ambrose's daughter ; doubt of the 
 purity of the dogma to whose support she had given 
 the unquestioning allegiance of an undisciplined heart, 
 hungering for other food than her starved surround- 
 ings had ever furnished her; doubt of the sufficiency 
 of the new gospel to supply these cravings ; she began 
 slowly but surely to fade from off the face of the 
 earth. 
 
 Poor Effie ! the problem of her life was too hard for 
 her to solve in Christless effort.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 
 
 LOWLY but surely not flinging away the faith 
 that had proven to her but a broken reed, with 
 the petulant haste of a disappointed child not with 
 the imperative disdain of a high-strung nature thrown 
 rudely back upon itself in an anguish of despair over 
 its own blindness surely but slowly Effie was coming 
 to doubt the divine origin of the dogma which, stripped 
 from that all-sufficient cause, was revealed to her in 
 its true hideousness, leaving her bereft and comfort- 
 less. 
 
 It was only after many days that the change in her 
 became apparent to Barbara, absorbed in her own recent 
 exaltation to the pinnacle of happiness, and through 
 her was made known to Mr. Quinby in a burst of 
 petulant anxiety not altogether selfish. 
 
 No one had ever heard Effie utter a complaint. Her 
 gentle consideration for all who came within the sphere 
 of her influence was absolutely unfailing. She only 
 gave over her earnest efforts to arouse Barbara to a less 
 groveling conception of life and its terrible meaning, 
 when she found those efforts entirely thrown away on 
 the obstinate and obtuse beauty. Gradually her
 
 264 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 supremacy in the household slipped into Barbara's more 
 vigorous hands, and she was content it should be so. 
 That look in her eyes as of one still searching after the 
 unattainable, still seeking to know the unknowable, 
 deepened day by day. And the look of resignation 
 that came into her sweet, sad face was unsanctified by 
 the joyousness of the Christian's sure hope. It soon 
 got to be a formula with her "When I am gone." 
 She said it quietly like one who foresees the date of a 
 long journey, but it was depressing to the robust Mrs. 
 Barbara Quinby, and Mr. Quinby was called upon to 
 lighten her depression. 
 
 " John," she said as they two walked the veranda, 
 as he smoked his after dinner cigar, " have you noticed 
 that your wife Effie is looking white and peaked of 
 late?" 
 
 " No ! She's never particularly robust during warm 
 weather. Perhaps she's in need of a change. I'll 
 speak to her to-night about it. Has she complained 
 of any thing in particular? " 
 
 " Oh ! Lord no, she never complains. I wish she 
 would. A body would get a chance to jaw back then. 
 But she'll kill me, John, with those eyes of hers." 
 
 " I told you of Effie's peculiarities, my dear, before 
 I brought you here. She is what we may call a relig- 
 ious crank. But I hoped your good sound common 
 sense would make a counteracting influence in my 
 home that would make things a little more cheerful,"
 
 THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 265 
 
 " And haven't I, John ? " she asked, with jealous 
 resentment, " haven't I bettered things for you ? Ain't 
 you happier, John, than you was before I came?" 
 
 " Certainly, my darling, certainly. I'm not com- 
 plaining of you, Barb, my beautiful Barb ! " He 
 removed his cigar long enough to submit to one of 
 those explosive caresses that generally punctuated his 
 talks with his last wife. 
 
 " There's got to be a change some way or other, 
 John," she continued, linking her arm in his as they 
 renewed their walk. ' " If my baby's born under this 
 roof it'll be a religious crank too, and'll be a spouting 
 scripture at us before it gets through with the bottle." 
 
 No better proof of John Quinby's deterioration could 
 be given than his ability to laugh at this coarse wit. 
 That he was deteriorating both mentally and physi- 
 cally was unquestionable, although he still maintained 
 his position with the outer world as a man of shrewd 
 sense, strict probity, and " thoroughly reliable." 
 Messrs. Ford, Farnham & Co. never ceased to congrat- 
 ulate themselves on the success of their Utah venture. 
 They smiled in amusement at the reports which 
 reached them of Quinby's having turned Mormon and 
 taken unto himself two more wives. They exchanged 
 stale jokes about the difficulty of getting along with 
 one woman, and counted it another mark of Quinby's 
 enterprise that he should undertake three. He was 
 still quoted in Wall street for the benefit of struggling
 
 266 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 young men. It was whispered in commercial circles 
 in Salt Lake City that " Quinby was in the habit of 
 taking a little too much." The Saints are quick to 
 notice any lapse of morals in certain directions. They 
 are adepts in condoning " the sins they are inclined to 
 by damning those they have no mind to." Certainly 
 he was not the suave, genial gentleman he was when 
 he left the States. His once elegant figure had grown 
 obese in outline and his movements were correspond- 
 ingly clumsy. The ruddy freshness of his complexion 
 had deepened into a purplish tint, which, combined with 
 his short, thick neck, made apoplexy a not improb- 
 able contingency. 
 
 He looked none too refined now for the handsome 
 woman clinging to his arm with wifely devotion, as 
 they walked, and his growing carelessness in the mat- 
 ter of dress was more than counterbalanced by Barb- 
 ara's excessive dressiness. 
 
 Far back in the parlor, whose opened windows gave 
 them to her view as they paced to and fro, lay Effie on 
 a sofa, very white and tired looking, as of one who has 
 fought a hard fight, and lies acquiescent under defeat, 
 conscious of but one desire and that, for the end. She 
 wondered why she suffered no more pain at the sight 
 of those two, walking and talking and enjoying each 
 other's society, as she and John used to walk and talk 
 and enjoy each other. Not that Barbara had usurped 
 more than her share in their husband not that this
 
 THE PROBLEM SOL VED. 267 
 
 privilege of associating with John was less hers now, 
 than when she prized it so dearly. It was only that 
 her time had come to drain the cup of humiliation, 
 and the dregs had sickened her nigh unto death. She 
 had dashed the cup away of her own accord. But yet 
 a little longer tarrying on the battle-field, worn and 
 wounded> and then there came a soft, tender afternoon 
 in the spring time, when the windows were all opened 
 wide to let in the air laden with the breath of jonquils 
 and hyacinths when the elms that shaded the cottage 
 from the street were tasseled with pale green when 
 the birds were twittering and fluttering in anxious quest 
 of desirable nesting spots. When the day of resurrec- 
 tion was hailed by all Christendom with glad anthems 
 and rejoicing when Effie Quinby, propped in her easy- 
 chair, looked out upon the bright Easter sunshine, 
 knowing that no other sun would ever rise for her, and 
 rejoicing in the knowledge. 
 
 The little parlor was full. They had all come at 
 her bidding, Anna and Anthony, and the twins, 
 and Dr. Ambrose and Ferdinand Cosgrove, and 
 Bishop and Mrs. Shaw, and John Quinby and 
 Barbara, and the family physician of the Quinbys, 
 the same who, years before, had begged Anna to 
 believe that earth had no sorrows that Heaven can not 
 heal and for the time being all the warring passions of 
 their souls were, if not quelled, quieted, as they waited 
 for the end, sorrowing with a common sorrow,
 
 268 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 She- had greeted each arrival with a tender smile of 
 welcome, and then, when they were all there she 
 stretched out her poor, thin hands, the one to her 
 father, the other to Anna, and said in a clear, sweet, 
 firm voice : 
 
 " I want the two whom I have wronged most to sit 
 close by me while I talk to you all. Father Anna 
 will you hold up my hands yet a little while? I shall 
 cease from troubling soon." 
 
 Anna sank upon a hassock close by her side, and gath- 
 ered one of the little hands in both her own. Dr. Am- 
 brose, on the other side, smiled apologetically on the anx- 
 ious faces about the chair, as he patted the hand Effie 
 laid in his. " My little girl is tired, you know. She's 
 worked too hard among the Mormons ! My daughter 
 was a missionary, you know, sir," this by way of formal 
 introduction of his darling to the doctor, whom he 
 recognized as a stranger among the familiar faces. 
 " My little girl ! my little girl ! We must take her 
 home. Ferd, we must get her home." 
 
 " Thank God she is going home, sir," said Ferdi- 
 nand Cosgrove, in a burst of uncontrollable grief ; then 
 turned to leave the room. 
 
 " Don't go, Ferdinand, I want you here. I want 
 you to hear what I have to say. Perhaps it will make 
 some things a little clearer to you. Perhaps it will 
 make it a little easier for you to think kindly of me 
 when I am gone."
 
 THE PROBLEM SOL VED. 269 
 
 "You'll break my heart! Oh, Effie, Effie! Be- 
 tween us all we've killed you. I didn't mean to be so 
 savage that day, but the words leaped out of their own 
 accord, and 
 
 " I am glad they did ! oh, so glad, my friend. And 
 I am glad to go. If you could unsay those words and 
 I could go back into the error of my ways, do you 
 think I would, Ferdinand ? Do you think I would 
 give up the light and the truth that has shone upon 
 me only when all other light and comfort failed me, 
 for all the world holds dear? I am glad God did not 
 smite me hastily, in his wrath. I am glad He chose 
 rather to rack this poor frame with slowly consuming 
 weakness, else I had had no occasion for that dear 
 friend " (her eyes rested lovingly on the white haired 
 doctor, who sat with his arms intwined about Anna's 
 twins, while the unchecked tears dropped on Comfort's 
 yellow curls), "nor would I have come to feel that per- 
 sonal love for the Saviour, that makes it gain to die. 
 Yes, gain to die ! But there is so much I want to say 
 to each one of you, and I am so afraid that my 
 strength will fail me before my apology is made. Yes, 
 apology, dears an apology for my whole mistaken 
 life. 
 
 " I don't know how long ago the foolish idea got 
 into my foolish head that God had some special work 
 for me to do in this world. I think it must have been 
 after mother died and father was such a busy man and
 
 270 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 I such a lonely child, that I took to reading all sorts 
 of books. I remember reading Fox's Book of Martyrs 
 over and over again, until my fevered fancy was fired 
 as a boy's is, I suppose, when he reads of soldiers and 
 battles, and wants to do such deeds himself. Then 
 when I went to live with Aunt Priscilla, I found she- 
 was just the same sort of woman I'd been reading 
 about. She would have been a martyr if she'd lived 
 in the times when martyrdom reflected glory, and so, 
 instead of getting cured of my morbid fancies, I 
 brought them all home stronger than ever. I did not 
 know of God as a loving, tender, uplifting friend, 
 putting us into a glad world to be glad ourselves* I 
 thought I had to work out my own salvation through 
 anguish of spirit and mortification of the flesh, and 
 self-abasement, and all that sort of thing. I had no 
 one with whom to talk about my foolish fancies until you 
 came, Mrs. Shaw. I do not reproach you. You only 
 taught me what you believed yourself and what I so 
 gladly seized upon as the long looked for guidance for 
 my own walk in life. I do not blame you. But oh, I 
 beseech you to look well into it, you and John and 
 Barbara, I beseech you all, look well into it and see if 
 the religion I professed and you still hold by is not all 
 a foul imrtake, a dark tissue of lies from beginning to 
 end. It has cost me my Hie ; but I count that, too, as 
 gain, if it will be the* means of making any one of you 
 in this room turn from the error of its teachings before
 
 THE PROBLEM SOL 1 'Z>. 171 
 
 it is too late. But my life is the slightest of all the 
 penalties that have been laid upon me by an angry 
 God. This dear head" her eyes turned wistfully 
 upon her father's bowed head " has been bent and 
 whitened by my awful mistake. I left him desolate 
 
 : . broke his heart. I darkened his life and destroyed 
 his intellect. The religion I adopted cursed my 
 home." Ferdinand Cosgrove started convulsively as 
 the words of his own cruel denunciation of her flut- 
 tered over her white lips, ** Don't be sorry that you 
 said it first, Ferdinand ; it was a trumpet-call to my 
 nee. It was an awakening thought you im- 
 planted, that was all. Be good to father always, 
 dinand, won't you, for his own sake and for my 
 own, too? When I am gone, take him back to the 
 home I left desolate. Bring there one of those 
 sweet, pure girls from the South, one of the sisters you 
 used to talk to me about, and put her in my place. 
 Open my rooms and let her enter in and brighten 
 them. Ask her to minister to father as I ought to 
 have done. I leave my father and my home to you as 
 my leg.-.. 
 
 As Ferdinand, sobbing, kneeled and pressed his lips 
 reverently to the hand that rested on her father's 
 white locks, John Ouinby made a step forward, his 
 moody face flushing daricly. A smile of seraphic : 
 played around his wife's wan lips, 
 
 M My poor, unhappy husband ! John, since the true
 
 2^2 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 light shone in upon my benighted soul I have prayed 
 earnestly oh, so earnestly that God would be as good 
 to you as he has been to me. You will soon conquer 
 the grief you feel now. Yes, I know what you would 
 say," as he strove to interrupt her ; "you would ask me 
 to forgive you. Ask God, John. Your sin has been 
 against Heaven's first law of order and I was a partner 
 in your guilt. It is not too late. For the sake of all 
 you love, turn from Mormonism, take Anna and your 
 children back to the States." 
 
 A passion of angry grief from Barbara, tempestu- 
 ous and undisciplined, drowned her feeble voice. 
 
 " Peace, woman ! You are in the presence of God 
 and his angels! " 
 
 It was the Christian doctor whose stern voice sub- 
 dued the tumult of Barbara's passion and sent her 
 abashed and trembling to a far corner of the room. 
 But Effie called her back. She was too far removed 
 from all this petty strife called life, to resent the child- 
 ish outburst. 
 
 " I am talking for your good too, Barbara, and for the 
 good of your unborn child. You have been happy with 
 John so was I. You think yourself indispensable 
 to his happiness so did I. I wish I might think that 
 you, too, as I did, believed in the sacrificial nature of 
 marriage here on earth, but 'you would not let me 
 believe it of you. You laughed at me when I talked 
 to you about it. You have not been unkind to me,
 
 THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 273 
 
 Barbara, especially since I have been so weak and 
 helpless. When I am gone tjhere will be no one to 
 dispute your supremacy in my pretty home ; no one 
 to share your husband's smiles and tendernesses, but 
 oh, Barbara, what will it profit you if you gain the 
 whole world and lose your own soul ! Think of it, 
 poor, ignorant child, and go - to a long suffering Saviour 
 for guidance. He will hear you and He will help 
 you, as none on earth can, Barbara." 
 
 Her voice was growing perceptibly weaker. It had 
 sunk almost to a whisper. The words came at longer 
 and longer intervals. She turned her face toward 
 Anna silently weeping by her side. 
 
 "Tears, Anna! Tears for me! My poor Anna, 
 whose heart I helped to pierce ! What can I say to 
 you ? How can I beg your forgiveness humbly 
 enough ? I think, dear, I will know that my peace is 
 made with you, if you will let me lay my hands on the 
 heads of your darlings and ask God to bless them 
 and keep them in the hollow of His hands. They are 
 girls ! They will grow to be women, perhaps, and will 
 come into a heritage of suffering. My prayer for you 
 is that you may be made strong enough and true 
 enough, may have wisdom from on high given you to 
 help you rear them. Bring the little ones closer, 
 please." 
 
 They brought the twins to her knees. In unques- 
 tioning obedience to the mother, whose loving sway
 
 274 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 was all they knew of the law of life, they kneeled before 
 the dying penitent. Efjfie laid a hand on each shining 
 head, and with her illumined eyes upraised to Heaven 
 she asked God to fill each tiny soul with knowledge 
 and truth and love and light. 
 
 " Light ! " 
 
 She repeated the word in a clear, ringing, trium- 
 phant voice ! It was the last sound that her lips ever 
 formed ; her head fell back upon the cushions of her 
 chair ; a tired sigh fluttered from her tired heart ; 
 twice three times the soft lids rose and fell over the 
 filmy eyes. With the anguish of a condemned soul 
 traced in every lineament of his face, John Quinby fell 
 on his knees before his dying wife, and Esau's bitter 
 cry burst from his quivering lips : " I^less me ! even 
 me, also, O my wife ! " 
 
 But Anthony laid his hand upon his arm and drew 
 him upward : " It's too late, John ! She is a saint, 
 indeed, now ! " 
 
 While Ferdinand Cosgrove, liftinghis streaming eyes 
 heavenward, exclaimed in a voice of fervent rejoicing: 
 " O grave, where is thy victory ! O death, where 
 is thy sting ! " 
 
 And over it all rose the heart-broken wail of the 
 lonely father: " My little girl ! My little girl ! " 
 
 Barbara stood alone, forgotten !
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 AFTER MANY DAYS. 
 
 WHEN Ferdinand Cosgrove turned from the grave 
 where all that was mortal of Dr. Ambrose's daugh- 
 ter had just been laid, his chief desire was to take the 
 heartbroken old man back to Elizabeth with as little delay 
 as possible, and he set about making immediate arrange- 
 ments to that end. His individual affairs were easily 
 controlled. To give notice to the proprietor of the drug 
 store where he had been head clerk since a short while 
 after his arrival, that he must provide a substitute 
 within one week, and then to dispose of that week so 
 industriously as to leave no time for brooding over the 
 sorrow that had altered the entire complexion of his 
 life, was all there was to do. 
 
 This last week Anna claimed the doctor for her own, 
 so Ferdinand was alone at the hotel, and finding soli- 
 tude unendurable, haunted the reading rooms more 
 than was his habit. An unusually animated conversa- 
 tion was occupying the attention of the regular 
 loungers in that apartment one evening as he dropped 
 in, in search of better company than his own. He was
 
 276 THE BAR-SINISTER, 
 
 listlessly indifferent to it until he caught its general 
 drift, and then his eager interest outstripped that of the 
 eagerest listener there. 
 
 The arrival of three United States Commissioners to 
 enforce the new law was the topic under discus- 
 sion, and the constitutionality or the unconstitu- 
 tionally of that law was being hotly debated. 
 
 He had often, in the bitterness of his soul, stig- 
 matized the government that failed to grapple with 
 this hydra of Mormonism as cowardly and supine ! 
 He had marveled at the apathy which rendered the 
 nation at large so indifferent to this foul plague spot. 
 But since the institution of polygamy had touched his 
 own life so nearly, scorching and shriveling its freshest 
 and brightest aspirations, he had been painfully alert 
 to every word concerning it. He knew that the 
 new bill, aiming a deadly blow at polygamy, had 
 achieved the dignity of a law. But that it would ever 
 be any thing more than a dead-letter law was what he 
 most feared. The difficulties of conviction under a 
 jury system where it would be impossible to impanel 
 twelve men adverse to the system would virtually nul- 
 lify its good effects. With all his soul he wished it 
 God-speed, and with all his mind he doubted its efficacy 
 in a community where lying was regarded as admissi- 
 ble for the defense of the Church institutions, and 
 where even the women, controlled by terror, rallied to 
 its support.
 
 AFTER MANY DA YS. 277 
 
 But his heart leaped within him at this first indica- 
 tion of a decided step toward the enforcement of the 
 law against a plurality of wives ! With savage joy he 
 said to himself, that, if he could "once see John 
 Quinby's baleful eyes gazing upon the world he had 
 made so dark for others from behind prison bars, he 
 would be satisfied." 
 
 Brooding sorrow for the dead was swallowed up in 
 burning desire to visit the full penalty of this law upon 
 the guilty living. He was willing to continue on with 
 clerking in the drug store to maintain himself, while he 
 labored to Uiis end. He was willing to postpone his 
 home-going indefinitely if he could but carry away with 
 him, when he did go, John Quinby's punishment as a 
 sweet morsel to roll under his tongue. Having gath- 
 ered all there was to gather from the reading room 
 gossips he went back to his own room to mature his 
 plans. He would have to work without that coadjutor 
 in all his previous attempts, Anthony. For disapproving 
 of polygamy was one thing ; bringing a brother to 
 judgment was another. It would not be easy to work 
 up a case against John Quinby. He was a man of 
 wealth and position. He was not without influential 
 friends both in Salt Lake City and in the States. It 
 would be hard to procure an indictment against him ; 
 still harder to secure his conviction as a bigamist. But 
 the game was worth the candle, and he would play it 
 out to the bitter end, come victory or defeat !
 
 278 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 A night of sleepless meditation on the subject re- 
 sulted in a decided plan of action. He was eager for the 
 morning to come that he might put it into immediate 
 execution. His first step toward it was to ingra- 
 tiate himself promptly with the most accessible of the 
 commissioners and to intimate to him that if he had 
 come there desirous of vindicating the majesty of this 
 law, it was in his power to deal a trenchant blow in a 
 direction where the effect would be far-spreading and 
 lasting. 
 
 The commissioner was conscientiously minded to 
 perform his duty without fear or favor, ad followed 
 the Southerner to his own room, where the subject 
 could be pursued leisurely and privately. Ferdinand 
 placed a box of cigars at the officer's elbow, and light- 
 ing one himself, began bluntly enough by saying: 
 
 " I will make no pretense of disinterestedness in this 
 matter. The especial case I pfopose to assist you in 
 working up, is that of a man who has wrecked the 
 life of one of my dearest friends, and has planted 
 thorns in my own pathway. But apart from that 
 I hold it to be the duty of every man who has, by any 
 means whatever, obtained any light on this subject of 
 Mormonism, to give the world the benefit of that 
 light ; and God helping me, I shall never fail to do so. 
 You will find, if your investigations are made in the 
 spirit of earnestness, that what you have heard of 
 Mormon life and character falls far short of the truth.
 
 AFTER MANY DA YS. 279 
 
 Mormonism is a hideous menace to the institutions of 
 the rest of this country. It has taught that murder 
 can be committed to advance the cause of the Church, 
 and that its professed priests can lie to serve it. The 
 doctrine of the Church affords its devotees every op- 
 portunity to indulge in vice, if only they have a suffi- 
 cient number of wives sealed to them. Blood atone- 
 ment is a doctrine of the Church that has been openly 
 practiced and secretly taught. To the apostate the 
 dreadful doom of death will be accorded in this new 
 dispensation. It is told you that Utah women accept 
 polygamy and are satisfied with it. They are terror- 
 ized into acceptance of it as a cross put upon them for 
 their sins. When polygamy was first proclaimed, they 
 objected to it. A prophet was turned loose upon them 
 who announced that the new order was the dispensation 
 of God and must be obeyed at the peril of the Saints' 
 souls. Whoever questioned the morality of a plurality 
 of wives should be damned. They make one think 
 Brigham Young was right in saying that women have 
 not sense enough to judge a religious system intelli- 
 gently. The trouble is it is not a question of the in- 
 tellect with them. It is altogether a matter of the 
 emotions, and it is easy to see how years of terror- 
 izing debase their emotional natures into seeming ac- 
 quiescence with this vile order of things. But occa- 
 sionally the poisoned virus of Mormonism touches the 
 sensitive flesh of those who by every law of nature and
 
 280 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 of reason ought to be secure from the foul infection ; 
 and then oh, God, the subject sickens my soul ! " 
 
 " Let us come to the individual case you hinted at," 
 said the commissioner, not unkindly, for it was not 
 hard to trace the marks of personal suffering on the 
 handsome young face before him. 
 
 " Yes yes. Let us come to that. I want to place 
 in your possession the points that may, that ought to, 
 and by heaven ! I hope will, lead to the conviction of 
 one of the wealthiest men in this city as a bigamist." 
 
 " His name ? " The commissioner took out his note- 
 book with business-like alacrity. 
 
 "John Quinby." 
 
 " I suppose, Mr. Cosgrove, you are prepared to sub- 
 stantiate all the statements you make concerning this 
 Mr. John Quinby?" said the commissioner as he 
 entered the name. 
 
 Ferdinand flushed ominously and his voice was thick 
 with passion as he answered : " Not only prepared to 
 substantiate them, sir, but to be personally responsible 
 for them if need be." 
 
 The commissioner, a mild-mannered, elderly man, 
 laughed in amusement at this ready wrath. 
 
 " My dear fellow, don't fly off so readily. I merely 
 meant to intimate that the assertion of your belief that 
 Mr. John Quinby was a bigamist, as we call it, would 
 go a very short way toward accomplishing the ends of 
 justice, or," he added, significantly, " of revenge, either,
 
 AFTER MANY DA YS. 281 
 
 unless you can prove it so by the most conclusive and 
 irrefragable testimony. I suppose you are prepared 
 to do that ? " 
 
 " If the acknowledgment of a woman as a man's 
 wife, the bearer of his name, and her presence under 
 his roof during the life-time of other wives, proves any 
 thing, I am ready to prove that." 
 
 " So far, so good ! Now then, my young friend, since 
 you have declared your willingness and your ability to 
 prove this charge, perhaps you won't mind telling me 
 how you are going to prove it." 
 
 " How! " Ferdinand looked at the shrewd face be- 
 fore him with momentary perplexity. In his youthful 
 inexperience it had never come to him to observe what 
 wide margins lie between law and equity, and what 
 labyrinthine mazes one must thread to reach the crystal 
 palace of truth. 
 
 " How ! " he repeated ; " why, I can take you to one 
 of this man's houses and introduce you to a Mrs. 
 John Quinby, and then to another, and introduce you 
 to another Mrs. John Quinby. 
 
 "Good! And will?" 
 
 "And will." 
 
 " This evening let it be, then." 
 
 And that evening for the first time since the day of 
 Effie's funeral Ferdinand lifted the latch of the front- 
 gate to the house he had thought never to enter again. 
 
 " I shall simply say that two gentlemen want to see
 
 282 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Quinby," he said, as they reached the 
 front steps. 
 
 " All right. You're in command of this expedition. 
 But this looks to me uncommonly like a vacant house. 
 You don't suppose your friends have retired this early 
 in the evening ? " 
 
 No glimmer of light was visible. The shutters were 
 closed, and the side-lights to the front-door revealed an 
 impenetrably dark interior. 
 
 Ferdinand rang the bell sharply. No response 
 rewarded his repeated pulls of the handle. 
 
 " Hallo, here's a placard ! " said the commissioner 
 who had been slowly pacing the veranda, awaiting 
 developments. 
 
 Ferdinand fumbled for his match-box, hastily struck 
 a light and held it under the placard. To Let stared at 
 them in big black letters. He gazed at them silently 
 until the match burned to his fingers, and then he 
 threw it away with a wrathful imprecation on John 
 Quinby's head. 
 
 " Flown ! " said the commissioner. " It's hard to 
 catch a weasel napping." 
 
 " But he can not have left the country. He has a 
 family here a legitimate family wife and children and 
 brother." 
 
 "And doubtless," said the commissioner, with a 
 laugh, "will be for some time to come the most 
 domestic of men in the bosom of that family."
 
 AFTER MANY DA VS. 283 
 
 " But is there no other way of working this thing 
 up ? " Ferdinand asked, griitding his teeth in the bitter- 
 ness of defeat. 
 
 " None that I can think of on the spur of the moment. 
 Of course, it will be the business of the prosecuting at- 
 torney to work this material up, and, to the end that 
 justice should be meted out impartially to the wealthy 
 criminal as well as the poor one, I was disposed to help 
 gather the material. But as it is hold on though, do 
 you happen to know whether our friend" nodding 
 toward the dark house " has any children by this 
 
 " Class they call them," said Ferdinand, in a voice of 
 disgust. "No, yes, that is I don't know. Perhaps he 
 has." 
 
 " A trifle vague. I hope you have a better under- 
 standing of your own meaning than you have given 
 me." 
 
 "What if he has?" 
 
 " Proof of the paternity of the child may lead to the 
 conviction of the father: that is your only hope. And 
 your first duty is to find the mother. I wish you joy 
 of the search. But as a longer stay on this dark 
 veranda is not calculated to forward the interests of 
 society or morality, suppose we walk back to the 
 hotel." 
 
 " You don't care then that I should take you to the 
 other house there?" 
 
 "What for? I don't in the least doubt we would
 
 284 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 find everything just as it should be there. Papa in the 
 bosom of his family, a model of all the virtues for the 
 time being, etc., etc. But to go there would amount 
 to nothing more than an impertinence without an 
 object." 
 
 " Doubtless you are right. But the thing does not 
 stop here." And in crestfallen silence he led the way 
 back to the garden gate. 
 
 To find Barbara to unearth this whole affair, that 
 was his task. He was impatient of the delay forced 
 upon him by the night. The next morning, as he sat 
 moodily over his solitary breakfast, the friendly com- 
 missioner walked over from his own seat at another 
 table, and laid the morning's paper down before Fer- 
 dinand, pointing, as he did so, to an item among the 
 short paragraphs : 
 
 " Mr. John Quinby, our esteemed fellow-citizen, has 
 gone East on business for the firm of Ford, Farnham & 
 Co. We trust the trip will prove beneficial to Mr. 
 Quinby's health, which has not been as good lately as 
 his host of friends would wish." 
 
 " Curse him !" 
 
 That was Ferdinand's low spoken comment on the 
 friendly paragraph, and the officer returned to his own 
 place, ruminating over the wide reaching of the evil 
 that not only contaminated the lives of those who ac- 
 cepted it, but warped and marred all that was purest 
 and best in those who suffered from it.
 
 AFTER MANY DA YS. 285 
 
 " That boy," he said to himself, " a sweet-natured 
 soul as ever lived naturally one can see it in his face 
 is consumed by a fiery thirst for revenge. It will 
 become his ruling passion." 
 
 It was quite clear to the commissioner's mind and to 
 Cosgrove's, that John Quinby's sudden departure East 
 on business for his firm, amounted to nothing more nor 
 less than a fleeing from justice. In this they were 
 altogether mistaken. Sunken as he was from his high 
 estate of honor and manliness and probity, no overt 
 act of cowardice had yet added its lash to the many 
 with which his conscience smote him. 
 
 It was at her own request that Barbara was removed 
 from the cottage which her ignorant fancy peopled 
 with haunting sights and sounds, until her often re- 
 peated declaration that " she would go crazy if she 
 didn't get away from there " seemed in a fair way to be 
 realized. 
 
 Coming home from his business place a week after 
 Effie's death, Mr. Quinby had found her in violent hys- 
 terics. She threw herself into his arms moaning and 
 sobbing, and talking by turns : 
 
 " I can't stand it any longer, John. I can't I can't ! 
 She's looking at me all day long, with those wide-open, 
 solemn eyes that used to give me the shivers when she 
 was here in the body. She's no more silent now than 
 she was then, as far as reproaches goes but her eyes 
 oh, those eyes ! If I go back to the little room that
 
 286 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 was mine when I first came I see them looking at 
 me from the chair by the window, where she sat that 
 first day, when she asked me why I wanted to marry 
 her husband ! If I go into the room that used to be 
 hers, I see her lying back upon the pillows, so white 
 and patient, a following me about with those eyes, 
 those eyes ! If I walk on the gallery, even when you 
 are by my side, John, I catch the gleam of those big, 
 sad eyes, as she lay in yonder on the sofa, watching 
 you and me passing backward and forward ! It used 
 to hurt me a little then, John, but I could laugh it off 
 then, for I knew I had as good a right as she had to 
 you, for the Church people all say so, and if them that's 
 been studying about it all these years make it right, 
 it's not for me to say it's wrong ; and maybe, after a 
 while it will all seem right again, John. But not here ! 
 Never here! I can't laugh it off here, John. I 
 doubt whether I'll ever forget her dying words. I 
 tried to put myself in her place before she went, and it 
 helped me to wait on her more like a servant than her 
 equal in rights. I tried to think how I'd 'a' felt if I'd 
 been here first. And I know I'd a been a devil to her 
 where she was a angel to me. That's what makes it 
 hurt so bad now, John. Oh ! it's the staying on here 
 where she belonged, where her books, books that I 
 don't even know how to read, John, are laying all 
 around, like they was waiting for her to come back and 
 read in 'em again. It's the piano, staring at me like
 
 AFTER MANY DA VS. 287 
 
 nothing more than a big lump of rosewood, now she's 
 gone, and I too stupid and ignorant to bring any thing 
 but horrible discord from it. It's the flowers that she 
 tended and loved, that curl up their leaves and drop 
 dead and withered as if it weren't worth their while to 
 bloom any longer now that Effie's gone. It's the pretty 
 trumpery all about the house that seemed to feel her 
 touch and always looked their best, if she did but turn 
 one of 'em end for end. You go out to your office 
 where you never saw her in the flesh, and she don't 
 come to you in the spirit, so you can't tell what it is, 
 but it '11 kill me, John, if I stay on here. I can't stand 
 it I can't I can't ! " 
 
 And even while he soothed her in his arms and 
 promised her that she should be taken away from the 
 cottage, with all its haunting memories, his soul was 
 up in bitter protest against her childish assumption 
 that oblivion had come to him already. Did Effie 
 not come to him in the spirit ? Did she not follow 
 him away from the home where she had endured, 
 sorrowfully of late, with the pathetic dignity of a de- 
 throned queen, out into the street, out into the busi- 
 ness mart, down among the money changers? Every- 
 where, everywhere always, always. Was not his 
 daily life one frenzied effort to forget the words of 
 solemn exhortation she had addressed to him and Bar- 
 bara conjointly ? Was not his remorse-burdened con- 
 science turned into a battle-field, wherein the powers
 
 288 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 of evil and good did perpetual combat for supremacy? 
 Was not the cold and passive hand of flesh that Anna 
 conceded to his clasp, less real to him than the phantom 
 hand of his dead wife, held up in warning of the abyss 
 toward which he was plunging? Turn where he would 
 could he lose sight of her? 
 
 Barbara was right. The house had much to do with 
 it. Neither one of them could ever recover their 
 equanimity in that spot. They would give up the cot- 
 tage so soon as he could find new quarters for her. It 
 was her preference to board, for the present at least. 
 So Mr. Quinby had, without much difficulty, found a 
 desirable pl^ce for her, far in the outskirts of the 
 city, to which he removed her with as little delay as 
 possible. 
 
 That a telegram from Ford, Farnham & Co., de- 
 manding his presence in New York for consultation in 
 some proposed changes in their business, should have 
 taken him out of the city, within a few hours of the 
 arrival of the United States commissioners, of whose 
 coming he was in profound ignorance, was merely one 
 of those accidental occurrences that force of circum- 
 stances colored into circumstantial evidence of his 
 cowardly flight from the wrath to come.
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 STORM TOSSED. 
 
 BARBARA QUINBY had been for nearly a month 
 the proud mother of a son in whose tiny features 
 it was her perpetual delight to trace his father's linea- 
 ments, when the woman with whom she was boarding, 
 hitherto the most obsequious of landladies (for the 
 Quinbys had her best rooms and were "good pay"), 
 entered her room with a clouded face and asked abruptly, 
 as she closed the door after her somewhat boisterously : 
 
 " When do you expect your husband back from the 
 States, ma'am?" 
 
 Barbara looked up at her in angry surprise. She was 
 sitting, as she sat pretty much all the time now, with 
 her boy in her arms, his tiny head pressed close to her 
 round, white breast, while with her right hand she plied 
 the softest of downy brushes over the softest of downy 
 heads. It was delight enough for her to sit this way 
 hour after hour watching the boy, like some beautiful 
 leopardess with her young. She said now, with a pout 
 on her full red lips : 
 
 " I think you might be a little quieter, Mrs. Westlove, 
 when you see baby is asleep."
 
 2 po THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 " There's reason in all things," says Mrs. Westlove, 
 rather inconsequently. " I didn't mean to disturb the 
 boy and I don't see as I've done it either, seeing he's 
 never so much as batted a eyelid. But what I come 
 in here to ask you, Mrs. Quinby, and what I want a 
 answer to, is, when is your husband coming back from 
 the States, ma'am?" 
 
 There was no mistaking the acerbity of eye and voice. 
 Barbara was at a loss to account for it. 
 
 The long years of her previous servitude and 
 poverty made her peculiarly alive to such influences. 
 The rich Mr. Quinby's wife answered the aggressive 
 landlady almost timidly: 
 
 " I really can't say positively, Mrs. Westlove. You 
 know when Mr. Quinby left he told you that you must 
 look after baby and me carefully, for he was going on 
 business that might keep him from us for two months, 
 maybe, and baby was only two weeks old when he left. 
 Is it money you want? An advance, perhaps? I can 
 let you have it. I expect I have given you extra 
 trouble, my meals brought up stairs and all that, but 
 you don't need to wait for Mr. Quinby's return for 
 that. I have my own check book," she added quite 
 proudly. 
 
 " Oh ! bother your money," said Mrs. Westlove, who, 
 as is the way with coarse-grained folk, waxed ruder in 
 view of Barbara's timidity ; " money can't help a body 
 out of every sort of strait. I doubt whether it'll do
 
 STORM TOSSED. 391 
 
 any good this time, 'less," she added reflectively, " it 
 might help you to buy 'em off." 
 
 A look of alarm came into Barbara's face. The 
 steady motion of the ivory backed brush over the baby's 
 downy head ceased ; she encircled him with both arms. 
 Every possibility of danger involved harm to her boy. 
 " Please talk plainer,Mrs. Westlove, I don't seem to make 
 sense out of what you are saying. What sort of strait are 
 you in ? And who is it you think money maybe won't 
 or maybe will buy off?" 
 
 " Well, you're about right, plain talking is the best 
 way." She walked over to the window, and holding the 
 curtain cautiously aside, she peered silently out for a 
 second, then suddenly, and without turning her head, 
 she sent her voice cautiously back toward Barbara : 
 
 " Put the boy down on the bed and come here. I've 
 got something to show you." 
 
 Barbara obeyed her quickly and unquestioningly, 
 then joined her at the window. 
 
 " Do you see that fellow over yonder?" Mrs. West- 
 love asked, " directly in front of old Shannon's gate, 
 there, now he's walking toward Elm street the one 
 with the gray baggy trowsers now he's smack under 
 the lamplight." 
 
 "Yes! I see him," says Barbara, impatient of this 
 unnecessary minuteness, "but what of him?" 
 
 "A good deal of him," says Mrs. Westlove, follow- 
 ing the man in the gray baggy trowsers with resentful
 
 292 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 eyes. " He's a spy ! He'll tramp there till midnight, 
 then leave." 
 
 " A spy ! Spying what and who ? " Barbara asked 
 amazedly. 
 
 " That's what I come here to talk to you about, 
 ma'am," says Mrs. Westlove, dropping the curtain and 
 settling herself rather forcibly in a chair. Facing 
 toward Barbara, with a hard fixedness of purpose in 
 her eyes that bespoke unflinching determination to 
 unburden her mind of all that was still on it she 
 began : 
 
 " I've been supportin' myself by takin' in boarders 
 ever since Dave Westlove, that was my husband, de- 
 parted this life, and I ain't never yet had a breath of 
 scandal blow toward me or my house, which brings 
 me in a good 'nough income for a poor lone widow 
 woman with only one mouth to feed, and so, ma'am, 
 
 " Scandal ! " Barbara brought her back to her text 
 with summary decision. She was in no mood to submit 
 quietly to Mrs. Westlove's diffusive style of narration. 
 "Yes, scandal! I don't mean along of your being a 
 Mormon gentleman's wife, that's all right 'nough until 
 folks gets to stirrin' up musses with their new-fangled 
 laws and bothersome notions 'bout right an' wrong. I 
 don't say but what you've been good pay and no 
 particular trouble to me either, but folks is that squeam- 
 ish, that if it got out that there'd been an arrest made 
 from my house, it might affect my lettin' of my rooms
 
 STORM TOSSED. 293 
 
 so easy, you see, and that's what made me ask you 
 plump out when your husband was coming back." 
 
 " But I don't see yet," says Barbara, quite bewil- 
 dered, " what all your talk has to do with me or my 
 husband either! " 
 
 " Oh, bother, it takes a deal of plain talking to make 
 some folks see through a grindstone even when there's 
 a hole in the middle of it. You've been so took 
 up with that baby that you never read the paper, I 
 s'pose? " 
 
 This questioningly. Barbara blushed to the very roots 
 of her blonde hair. She did not dare to acknowledge 
 that she never read any thing, she simply said deprecat- 
 ingly : 
 
 " I reckon I have slipped behind the times since 
 John left." 
 
 " Well ! the trouble's all along of this new law that 
 makes it bigamy for a man to have more than one 
 wife. I knew there'd been no end of gabbling about 
 it, but it seems now the folks at Washington has sent 
 some men over here to carry it out, and I do hear 
 they're stirring things up purty lively for the Saints." 
 
 Barbara blanched to the very lips but said nothing ; 
 getting up and walking to the window she looked out 
 again into the lamp-lighted streets. The man in the 
 gray baggy trowsers was still pensively promenading 
 up and down on the other side. Every now and then 
 he stopped and cast an anxious glance skyward. She
 
 294 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 followed his gaze. Stormy looking clouds were scud- 
 ding after each other in wind-driven haste. 
 
 " Who do you suppose he is waiting for ? " she asked, 
 trying to make her voice sound altogether careless and 
 indifferent to Mrs. Westlove's ears. 
 
 " Your husband ! " said the woman with coarse 
 directness. 
 
 Barbara staggered back to her chair as if she had been 
 struck a mortal blow. 
 
 " My husband ! How dare you say so? No one would 
 presume to trouble Mr. Quinby. He has powerful 
 friends, and plenty of money, and you don't know that 
 that horrid wretch is even watching this house. You're 
 just trying to kill me while John's gone. Yes, you are, 
 you are ! " 
 
 Mrs. Westlove looked at the hysterical creature with 
 placid contempt for her utter lack of self-control. 
 
 " Kill you ! I'd like to know what in the name of 
 
 
 common sense I should want to kill you for? How'd 
 
 that help me to save the good name of my house, I'd 
 like to know ? And that's about all I can afford to 
 look after now. I didn't even come here to pester you 
 until I couldn't help myself. But charity begins at 
 home, Mrs. Quinby, an' I'm a poor lone widow woman 
 which can't afford to have spies hanging around her 
 house day and night like she was suspected of harborin' 
 criminals, or thieves, or murderers, or the dear knows 
 what beside."
 
 STORM TOSSED. 295 
 
 " But how do you know they are watching this 
 house ? " asks Barbara, anxiously. 
 
 " Because I've got sense 'nough to put two and two 
 together and tell whether it makes four or don't. 
 Your husband hadn't been gone out of town more'n a 
 week when a gentleman (a outer an' outer he was, too) 
 called here one morning and asked if Mrs. John Quinby 
 boarded here ? I said yes, but I didn't think you'd 
 care to receive visitors as you hadn't been down stairs 
 since your baby was born, but I'd see, an' he said he 
 was much obliged, but he didn't care specially to see 
 you. He just wanted to ask if I could tell him when 
 Mr. Quinby was expected back, an' I said I couldn't 
 just exactly, but I thought when he left he allowed to 
 be gone just about a month or perhaps six weeks or 
 thereabout, an' ever since that blessed day, there's been 
 an eye on this house." 
 
 " Mrs. Westlove," says Barbara with frightened eyes, 
 " if John was here what would they do ? " 
 
 "Arrest him for bigamy." 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 "Put him in jail." 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 " Send him to the penitentiary for life, I s'pose. The 
 folks at Washington do seem to be gettin' into purty 
 hot earnest about it." 
 
 " But you have to prove things before you can pun- 
 ish a man for them, don't you, Mrs. Westlove ! "
 
 296 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 " I s'pose you do. But there wouldn't be much 
 difficulty about that once they tracked him to this room," 
 the woman answered brutally, nodding toward the 
 sleeping child. 
 
 Barbara looked at her with eyes that seemed to 
 plead for pity, but she did not speak again for a long 
 time. Then it was to ask : 
 
 " What sort of looking man was it that asked if I 
 boarded here ! " 
 
 " Oh, bother, I don't carry a photograph gallery in 
 my head. He was tallish, and darkish and slimmish " 
 
 "With big black eyes?" 
 
 " Yes, eyes that looked like blazing coals was hid 
 behind 'em somewhere." 
 
 "And a trick of pulling at his long mustache while 
 he talks ? " 
 
 "Yes ! that's him to a dot. Know him? " 
 
 " Yes," says Barbara through her clenched teeth, " I 
 know him." 
 
 "A friend of your husband's?" 
 
 "The worst enemy he has on earth." 
 
 " Then it's a bad showing all around," says Mrs. 
 Westlove moodily. " I thought maybe it was some- 
 body that wanted to put him on his guard ; but if it's a 
 enemy I wouldn't care to stand in the Quinby shoes. 
 Now if it was a question of abstract justice your money, 
 if you used it free enough, might help you over what 
 looks to me like a purty rough row of stumps, but if
 
 STORM TOSSED. 
 
 297 
 
 there's personal spite mixed up in it, I wouldn't give 
 shucks for your husband's chances, " with which bit of 
 acrid moralizing the landlady flounced out of the room, 
 mentally resolved that so soon as day came again, she 
 would give Mrs. Quinby warning that she wanted her 
 rooms vacated immediately. She wasn't going to risk 
 the reputation of her respectable boarding house, by 
 having a man arrested for bigamy under its roof. 
 
 Barbara sat for a long time when the landlady left 
 her, stunned almost beyond the power of connected 
 thought. That Cosgrove was at the bottom of what 
 she called in her bitterness this persecution, she did 
 not doubt for a moment, nor did she doubt that he 
 would pursue her husband with the patient persever- 
 ance of a sleuth-hound. She shuddered as her imagi- 
 nation conjured up a horrible vision of John seized on 
 his return, by the merciless officers of the law. John 
 imprisoned convicted sent to the penitentiary for 
 life ! But to bring this fearful doom upon the idol of 
 her heart they must prove him a criminal. With Effie 
 dead and herself invisible how could they prove any 
 thing against John? She could save him she alone 
 could save him. She would fly with her baby ; fly this 
 very night. But where? She did not know she did 
 not care. Any where, any where, only so that, by her 
 disappearance she could blot out. all testimony against 
 John. She laughed in triumph at the thought of de- 
 feating John's enemy, and springing to her feet began
 
 298 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 excitedly to make preparations for a midnight flight. 
 She peered out into the dark night once more. The 
 flame of the street lamp flickered tremulously under 
 its glass shade as the rising wind fanned it through the 
 crevices. The rack of storm-clouds was blacker and 
 heavier than when she last looked out. The man in 
 the gray baggy trowsers was nowhere to be seen. She 
 cautiously raised the sash and leaned over to obtain a 
 better view of the street immediately under her own 
 window. He was standing motionless before Mrs. 
 Westlove's door. She drew her head back with a low 
 cry of alarm. There was no longer any room for 
 doubt as to his errand ; but she would defeat it yet. 
 The night was black and threatening. She was far 
 from strong yet. She tottered even now as she 
 went about hastily dressing herself in a plain black 
 dress and making up a bundle of clothes for her baby, 
 and concealing her money on her person and making 
 every thing ready, so that when the house should become 
 quite still and the spy out yonder should have gone 
 away for the night, she could slip out and go where ? 
 She had a vaguely defined purpose of finding her way 
 to a railroad station and taking the first train that left 
 the city for any direction, it didn't the least matter 
 which, and then, when she had put a safe distance be- 
 tween them, she would write and tell John where she 
 was and why she had done this thing. She would not 
 leave a single word in writing for him, for, in her child-
 
 STORM TOSSED. 299 
 
 ish ignorance, she did not know what sort of a missile 
 for John's destruction it might turn to in the hands of 
 his persecutors. She could not notify him beforehand 
 of her plans, for he might appear at any moment, and 
 then she moaned aloud as the horrible possibility 
 of his arrest stared her in the face. The clock on the 
 mantle struck twelve. She made one more pilgrimage 
 to the window; the street was silent and deserted. Tying 
 her bonnet-strings tightly under her chin with trem- 
 bling hands, feeling in the bosom of her dress to make 
 sure the roll of bills was where she had secreted it, 
 she gathered her sleeping baby in her arms and stole 
 silently down the stairs, feeling her way by the banis- 
 ters, fearful that a mis-step might disturb the child and 
 arouse the household. She noiselessly unbolted the 
 front door and crept through it out into the dark and 
 blustering night. She stood still for a second only and 
 trembled as the rude wind seized upon her shawl and 
 set it flapping violently about the little form she held 
 in a close, firm clasp, then she walked resolutely down 
 the steps and out into the street. She was in a part of 
 the town she knew nothing of. Her husband had 
 brought her there in a carriage from their old home. 
 She scarcely knew which way to turn to find the rail- 
 road station she aimed for. The storm that was now 
 advancing with low, distant mutterings, frightened and 
 bewildered her. All through her ignorant life a thun- 
 derstorm had been fraught with mysterious terrors for
 
 300 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 her. For one irresolute moment she harbored the 
 wish to go back to the shelter of Mrs. Westlove's 
 house and let things take their course. Then she re- 
 proached herself bitterly for treachery to John. The 
 lurid lightning flashes that illumined her way gave her 
 confused glimpses of darkened houses, closed doors, 
 deserted streets. She walked on with her head bowed 
 to ward off the big, heavy drops of rain that were be- 
 ginning to fall at long, sullen intervals with a loud 
 splash on the pavements and against the sides of the 
 houses she was passing. If she might only ring at one 
 of those bells and ask shelter for herself and baby just 
 until the storm had spent its fury. But if they did not 
 refuse it, they would take her in and question her. 
 Questions might lead to revelations that would harm 
 John. If each drop of rain that fell should turn to a 
 heavy hail stone she would stagger on and let it pelt 
 her to death rather than risk one hair of that dear 
 head. Whenever she felt her strength of purpose 
 flagging and the desire to beg shelter assailing her 
 more fiercely, she conjured up a vision of John in the 
 penitentiary, and her resolve petrified. On and on and 
 on she walked, wrapping her thick shawl more tightly 
 over her baby's head, and, as the blinding lightning 
 gave him to her view every little while, eagerly assur- 
 ing herself that he was warm and dry. On and on, 
 turning corners when she came to them, simply be- 
 cause she came to them ; peering, by the lightning's
 
 STORM TOSSED. 301 
 
 aid, far ahead of her through stony vistas of houses, 
 girded about with wet and glistening trees, she longed 
 for the coming of help in some shape or form, if only 
 in the uniform of a night watchman. Any body, some- 
 body to speak a word of human comfort to her and 
 help her in her dreary search for a railroad depot. If 
 she could stand still and cry aloud for help, she thought 
 she would 'feel stronger, but the thought of John's 
 peril sealed her lips and inspired her faltering steps. 
 She must get away from there, far away from there, so 
 no one could force her to say she was John Quinby's 
 wife. The pitiless storm drove her forward with unre- 
 sisting speed. Her skirts clung heavy with rain about 
 her tired ankles, making every step a weariness and a 
 task. Gradually the defined purpose of reaching a 
 railroad station resolved itself into a longing for rest. 
 Any where, on the wet stone steps of the houses she 
 reeled rather than walked past, if only they gave her 
 rest. The street suddenly widened into a square set 
 about with trees. A grove of shining trunks and 
 dripping branches surrounded her. There were benches 
 under the trees, cold, wet, hard, iron benches, but free, 
 free for her to rest on, to sleep on. She flung herself 
 upon one of them in a state of exhaustion bordering on 
 unconsciousness. The storm had sobbed itself out 
 and there were no electric flashes by which she could 
 examine her surroundings. The cessation of move- 
 ment disturbed the sleeping child. He murmured
 
 302 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 querulously. He would awake and cry. She bared 
 her breast to the damp night air to give him comfort. 
 She passed her icy hand over the little form in the 
 darkness to see if he were still dry and safe. No harm 
 had come to the boy from the driving rain and pitiless 
 wind. No harm should come to John. The night 
 must be almost spent now. She would rest there under 
 the wet trees until it was light enough for her to see 
 and then she would find somebody to show her the 
 way to a depot. The fierce storm that she had braved 
 with her baby clasped to her bosom had driven all the 
 rest of the world to cover. Not a human footfall had 
 comforted her ear with a sense of companionship in 
 misery, not a moving thing beside herself and the 
 spirit of the storm had been abroad that woeful night. 
 She shivered and drew the shawl closer yet about her 
 bared bosom. Oh, for daylight, that she could find 
 food and warmth for herself, shelter for her child. Her 
 head fell over to one side, the cold, iron back of the 
 bench held it and sustained. The cold, hard contact 
 made her moan with pain. Her lids dropped heavily. 
 Barbara, as undisciplined as the winds that had buf- 
 feted her weary feet and smitten her cold wet cheeks, 
 as passionate as the storm that had spent its fury on 
 her unsheltered head, loyal in her devotion, grand in 
 her self-abnegation, slept !
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 IN THE TOILS. 
 
 SHE was aroused by the flashing of a policeman's 
 " bull's eye " full in her face. She opened her 
 eyes with a start and sat bolt upright, then uttered a 
 sharp cry of pain and placed her hand on her side. 
 
 "What are you doing here? " asked the watchman, 
 laying his hand ungently on her shoulder. His face 
 was harsh and his voice threatening. 
 
 " Looking for a railroad depot," Barbara answered, 
 gasping with the pain each word produced. " I'll pay 
 you well to take me and my baby to the station." 
 
 " What station ? " 
 
 " Oh, I don't care which one. Only be quick about 
 it. I don't care where I go." 
 
 A brutal laugh was his only answer. He lifted the 
 corner of the shawl to look at the baby, then asked : 
 " What's your name ? " 
 
 " What's that to you ? I tell you man, I'll pay you, 
 pay you well if you will take me to the nearest 
 station." 
 
 " Come now, that's liberal ! But let me show you
 
 304 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 how much more liberal I can be. I'll take you to the 
 nearest station without any pay at all. Come, get up! 
 Move on ! Tain't far from here anyways." 
 
 She tried to get up, but staggered back to her seat. 
 She was stiff from the exposure to the storm, and the 
 pains that began in her side were shooting through 
 every part of her body. She moaned aloud. 
 
 " Come, none o' your gammon with me. Give me 
 the kid, and then step out lively." 
 
 " Couldn't you get a cab for me ? " she asked pite- 
 ously. " I assure you I am quite able to pay for a ride 
 to the station." 
 
 " That would be sorter stylish now," said the man, 
 preparing to take the child forcibly from her clasp ; 
 "but we don't lay much store on style at my sorter 
 station. It's a likely story for the horse-marines, that 
 a lady which can afford to ride about town in cabs, 
 would spend the night on this 'ere iron bench in Wash- 
 ington Square ! " He had the child in his arms by 
 this time, and lifting Barbara to her feet with one 
 strong hand, he retained his hold upon her arm, as he 
 propelled her along the streets that were gleaming, 
 cold and wet, under the first rays of daylight. 
 
 "Ami under arrest?" She recoiled from him as 
 the words came with almost a shriek from her lips. 
 
 " That's what we call it in this part of the country." 
 
 "But I've done nothing! I'm a perfectly innocent 
 woman ! "
 
 IN THE TOILS. 305 
 
 " Then you ain't got nothing to be skeered about. 
 We're altogether too hospitable, though, in this part of 
 the country, to let a lady set out a wet night under 
 the trees, when we've got good dry quarters for her ac- 
 commodation clos't to hand." 
 
 " But I will- pay you any thing you ask, any thing you 
 want, if you will just go away and let me find my own 
 way to the station." 
 
 She fumbled frantically in her bosom for the roll of 
 bills. The officer's voice was doubly stern as he saw 
 this action. 
 
 " Come, have done ! As it is, you'll be committed for 
 vagrancy only. How you come by the money you're 
 making such brags of I'll find out later on. Only, 
 don't you be trying to bribe honester folks than your- 
 self with it." 
 
 His words sealed her lips. Dumbly she followed 
 him a few blocks, racked with physical pain, filled with 
 horror at her situation, dazed with fright. 
 
 When they reached the police station she was 
 handed over with very little ceremony by the watch- 
 man, who had found her asleep in the Square, to the 
 station officer. "Your name?" that officer asked, 
 with that coldly investigating stare he bestowed upon 
 all such offenders against the proprieties. Barbara 
 answered his stare with a look of sullen stubbornness, 
 and silently reached out her arms to take her boy from 
 the policeman's hands.
 
 306 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 "Your name, I asked?" The thundering tones 
 frightened her from her resolve to be dumb. There 
 was no limit to the power of the law, she warned her- 
 self tremulously. She raised her eyes defiantly to the 
 officer's face, saying slowly and distinctly : 
 
 " Barbara Hickman." 
 
 And in the records of the police station books, for 
 that night, this entry was made: 
 
 "Barbara Hickman ; blue eyes, blonde hair, dressed 
 in black cashmere, child one month old in arms. Ar- 
 rested half past three A. M. in Washington Square by 
 Patrolman Larkins. Committed for vagrancy." 
 
 The next morning when the turnkey had made his 
 rounds with the prisoners' breakfasts, he reported to 
 the officer of the day, that " No. 10 seemed to be in a 
 bad way. If she wasn't wrestling with a tough case 
 of pneumonia he'd eat his hat." 
 
 Examination by the jail doctor proved the man to 
 be correct. Barbara's exposure to the storm of the 
 night before, when she was already in a reduced state, 
 had brought on that dreadful disease. Inured as he 
 was to every phase of human woe and human frailty, 
 the jail doctor found his sympathies stirred to an un- 
 usual degree as he watched this new patient, waiting 
 for her to show some recognition of his presence. He 
 had found her tossing with high fever, and moaning 
 with pain when he entered her cell. Her cheeks were 
 ablaze with the heat that was consuming her. Her
 
 IN THE TOILS. 307 
 
 lovely hair had escaped all bounds, and enveloped her 
 like a silken scarf of pale gold. Her parted, panting 
 lips were crimsoned with the fever. Her eyes were 
 closed, and her long lashes were wet with tears, that 
 she had no strength or will to brush away. Her baby 
 was clasped close to her white, bare bosom. She was 
 sleeping unrestfully from sheer exhaustion. He knew 
 this sleep would not last long. He would question 
 her when she awoke as to her friends. This was no 
 place for a woman who was probably " in " for a pro- 
 tracted siege. When Barbara opened her eyes and 
 saw him, she gave a low cry of alarm. It was another 
 one of those stony-hearted officials come to torment 
 her. 
 
 " Don't be alarmed," said the doctor in his kindest 
 manner. " I am the attending physician here. I am 
 afraid you have caught a bad cold, and maybe will be 
 sick quite a little while. If you will give me the names 
 of your friends, I will see that you are conveyed there 
 quite privately. No questions asked, you know," he 
 said reassuringly. 
 
 " I have no friends," there was more of stubborn 
 resolution than of desolation in this forlorn answer. 
 
 " Acquaintances then, or home ? Where would you 
 prefer to be taken to ? Come now, say that we are in 
 for a spell of sickness, where would you be most com- 
 fortable ? " 
 
 " Right here ! "
 
 308 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 " That's most extraordinary. You certainly must 
 have some relative." 
 
 "Not one this side of England." 
 
 " Dear me ! dear me ! " said the doctor, aghast at the 
 unavailability of such very far away kin. " Well, then, 
 now, the little boy's father ? Surely your a husband 
 would not be willing to let you be sick in a police 
 station if he knew? " 
 
 Barbara eyed him suspiciously. All this pretended 
 interest in her was just to find out where John was. 
 They were all hounding after John. If she died in 
 that prison cell they should not wrench one word from 
 her that would help them run him to earth. She 
 shook her head resolutely. 
 
 " I assure you, my poor woman, I have no desire 
 whatever to pry into your private affairs. I believe 
 that you are going to be ill. It would be best for you 
 to name some place or friend to whom I could take a 
 message for you. You might die here, and your 
 dearest friend know nothing about it. Off the station 
 books you are nothing but No. 10 even I do not 
 know your name." 
 
 A strange light, as of increasing satisfaction, came 
 into Barbara's face. If what he was saying was true, 
 she was as much out of John's way, there in her prison 
 cell, as if she had gotten away that night. And then, 
 if things straightened themselves out again, she didn't 
 exactly know how, but they might, it wouldn't take
 
 IN THE TOILS. 309 
 
 her so long to get back to John's arms. She was glad 
 she had not gotten further away. 
 
 " Doctor," she said suddenly, feeling under her pillow 
 as she spoke, " I'm not going to tell you any thing 
 about myself, except this much : I was aiming to get 
 out of Salt Lake City, last night, and brought up here 
 accidently. If it's a good hiding place, it will suit me 
 better than the finest room at the finest hotel in the 
 town. I'm not a pauper. If you'll take this money 
 and look after me and the child until I'm able to get 
 on my way, you'll be doing something God won't 
 blame you for. You say I am going to be sick. I 
 feel like I was being torn limb from limb now, when- 
 ever I draw a long breath. If I get delirious, don't 
 mind any stuff I talk. I ain't got any kin in this 
 country. My name's Hickman. My baby's name is 
 John Hickman we don't know any body of any other 
 name. I was a nurse in a lady's family I came here 
 as a nurse, and I'm tired of the place, and I want to 
 get back to the States where my baby's father is, that's 
 all that's all ; and any thing more and above it that 
 any body says, if it's me, myself, is lies lies, do you 
 hear, doctor, and nothing more ! Take care of us with 
 this." 
 
 She grasped his hand imploringly, and thrust the 
 roll of bills into it. She had used up what little 
 mental and physical strength was left her in fabricat- 
 ing a lie to protect John ; she fell back upon her pillows
 
 310 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 laughing hysterically, as she babbled in a delirious and 
 disconnected fashion, of persons and places in far away 
 England. 
 
 It would seem as if her will power to protect John 
 held good even during the wildest of her delirium, for 
 never the faintest allusion to him escaped her parched 
 and fevered lips. 
 
 Long, fiercely and successfully she wrestled with 
 the malignant disease that had seized upon her with 
 what at one time seemed a fatal grip. Her magnifi- 
 cent constitution helped her fight back death. When 
 the fever abated and the fogs of delirium cleared from 
 her brain, she looked around her apartment in lan- 
 guid amazement. She was still an inmate of the 
 county jail, but her apartment had been converted into 
 a luxurious bed-chamber as far as a prison cell was 
 susceptible of such conversion. Soft, crimson woolen 
 hangings hid the sinister iron bars of the window gay 
 rugs covered the hard, bare floor flowers occupied 
 every available coign of vantage a basket of mixed 
 fruits occupied a little center table that had also been 
 added mysteriously to her belongings. The coarse 
 prison fare that had been brought her on her first 
 morning had given place to delicate nourishment 
 suited to an invalid's capricious appetite. Books and 
 pictures began to come in so soon as it was observed 
 by the doctor that she needed some sort of entertain- 
 ment,
 
 IN THE TOILS. 311 
 
 "Doctor," said Barbara, motioning the nurse to leave 
 them alone, " when I asked you to take care of me and 
 my child, I didn't expect you to be so free handed 
 with the money." She glanced disapprovingly at her 
 improved surroundings. " I could have weathered it 
 out in No. 10 just as it was, so you'd paid for a nurse 
 for my child, but when it comes to gim-cracks 
 
 "You are making a mistake," said the doctor; " not 
 an unnatural one, probably. Your friends, it seems, 
 have found you out, and testified to their interest in 
 your case, as you see." 
 
 Barbara's eyes dilated with terror. Was John ex- 
 pressing himself in this rash way to make her more 
 comfortable ? 
 
 " I told you I had no friends," she said, with savage 
 impatience, "and you've been letting some impertinent 
 stranger meddle in my affairs, when I was too sick to 
 protect myself." 
 
 " Tut, tut ! don't go to working yourself into another 
 fever. You have a friend if not more, and I've prom- 
 ised her she may sit with you for half an hour this 
 morning, if she does all the talking." 
 
 " Her ! " 
 
 "Yes, her. A very nice old white haired lady, 
 who has taken a good deal of interest in your case. 
 She was to be here by ten this morning. It is three 
 minutes of that now, and ah ! punctuality itself, 
 madam."
 
 312 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 This last to Mrs. Shaw, who bustled into the room 
 at this juncture, laden with fresh flowers and more 
 fruit. " Here is your friend of the flower mission," he 
 said to Barbara ; "now then, I will leave my patient in 
 your hands, madam. The condition of your being 
 permitted to stay a second time as long as you please, 
 is, that you do all the talking. The patient is naturally 
 excitable, I take it He paused, hoping Mrs. 
 Shaw would volunteer some information. She merely 
 nodded in the affirmative, so he concluded his sentence 
 rather tamely: " and must not be excited." 
 
 " And so it's you," said Barbara, as soon as the doc- 
 tor was out of hearing, " that's been taking such kind 
 care of me. But I'd rather you hadn't." 
 
 " In the first place," says Mrs. Shaw, briskly, " it's 
 not me. It's all the faithful who glory in the stand 
 you are making for the faith. They've been sending 
 you these things by me." 
 
 " But I'm not making any stand for the faith," says 
 Barbara, with creditable honesty. " The woman where 
 I boarded told me that they were watching the house 
 to arrest my husband for bigamy, and I ran away so 
 they shouldn't be able to prove any thing on him." 
 
 "Yes, yes, yes! It was easy enough for us to 
 understand why you got out of the way. These 
 wretches would like the best in the world to strike a 
 fatal blow at John Quinby. They want a shining 
 mark. But if you'll only stand firm, they'll not make
 
 IN THE TOILS. 313 
 
 as big a haul as they expect," says Mrs. Shaw, pro- 
 ceeding to feed the sick woman on some jelly she has 
 brought with her. 
 
 " Stand firm ! Why, what more is there for me to 
 do? What connection can they make out between 
 John Quinby and the vagrant Barbara Hickman? " 
 
 Mrs. Shaw got up and looked cautiously out into 
 the corridor. No one was within hearing. She came 
 back to the bedside and said impressively: " Effie's 
 old lover, Cosgrove, is giving them all the points they 
 want. But spying is a double game. We are pretty 
 well up in points ourselves. One week from this is 
 the day they've set for examining you. I wanted to 
 let you know long enough beforehand for you to be 
 prepared." 
 
 "Who is 'they'? And what do they want to 
 examine me about? " 
 
 " They are the commissioners who have been sent 
 over here with powers to work up cases against our 
 people by any means in their power, and they don't 
 care how they get evidence just so they get it. Their 
 intention is to force you to tell who the father of your 
 child is. They fancy that rather than be kept in jail 
 you'll make a clean breast of it." 
 
 " Then they don't know me, that's all," Barbara inter- 
 rupts fiercely, "and neither do you, if you thought it 
 was necessary to ask me to stand firm. If they was to 
 chop me limb from limb I wouldn't tell 'em any thing."
 
 314 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 " Well said ! " says Mrs. Shaw, enthusiastically. 
 " You are of the stuff God's chosen people are made 
 of. The enemies of the Saints can not prevail against 
 such a spirit. The saints are praying for you day and 
 night." 
 
 "Rut I want to know only one thing. John 
 where is he ? Has he been heard from ? " 
 
 Mrs. Shaw smiled mysteriously: "The children of 
 this world think they have all the wisdom. We Saints 
 think we have a small share ourselves. Our spies are 
 everywhere. Anthony Quinby has done the Church 
 he despises one good turn without meaning it. He 
 does not know that every telegraph line in Salt Lake 
 City is under the control of our Taylor. He tele- 
 graphed to Quinby's heads to keep his brother in New 
 York City at all hazards, until they heard from him 
 again. He meant only to protect his own name from 
 the disgrace of having one who bore it arrested for 
 bigamy, but we thank him all the same. If John was 
 here he's just hot-headed enough to stand up and pro- 
 claim his rights in you and the boy. Nothing could 
 keep him from it. He's better out of the way. The 
 Lord is permitting his Saints to be sorely tried just 
 now. But praised be His name, we will come out 
 triumphant ! " 
 
 Barbara clasped her hands fervently together. 
 
 "Thank God!" she said, "for Anthony Quinby's 
 wise act. Now let them do their worst." She lay
 
 IN THE TOILS. 3,5 
 
 back upon her pillows with a peaceful smile on her 
 lips. 
 
 " My half hour is up," said Mrs. Shaw, placing an 
 orange she had just skillfully peeled within Barbara's 
 reach. " I'm not coming here again until I'm ready to 
 take you away." 
 
 " Take me away ! But I don't want to be taken 
 away ! As long as they keep me here where John 
 can't find me, he's in no danger. Besides, you talk as 
 if you could." 
 
 " I can ; only if those commissioners give over both- 
 ering you they'll turn you out of their own accord. 
 It's the Grand Jury that's having you held now. And, 
 whatever comes, bear this in mind: I'm working for 
 you and the Saints are praying for you. You are the 
 greatest woman in Salt Lake City this day." Mrs. 
 Shaw kissed the woman who had had heroism thus 
 thrust upon her, and went away after a few more 
 impressively delivered injunctions. 
 
 As soon as Barbara was pronounced strong enough 
 to leave her room and well, beyond any fear of relapse, 
 she was conducted to the Grand Jury room, where she 
 was severely and judicially catechised as to her ante- 
 cedents, her marriage and the paternity of her child. 
 
 To the string of carefully-worded questions that were 
 meant to beguile some damaging admissions from her, 
 she returned a defiant stare and mute resistance. 
 
 44 Do you know that you arc rendering yourself
 
 316 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 liable for contempt of court?" asked one of her 
 examiners severely, when all hope of opening her lips 
 failed. 
 
 " What's done to people when they show the con- 
 tempt they feel? " she asked with an ugly sneer. 
 
 " They are imprisoned." 
 
 "Until when?" 
 
 " Until such time as the offender shall come to his 
 or her senses and answer the questions put by the 
 Court." 
 
 " Then," said Barbara, with a flashing smile that 
 showed all her strong white teeth, " you may as well 
 commit me for life and be done with it. For we'll all 
 die natural deaths right here in this room before I 
 answer you a single question." 
 
 Such displays of defiance 'were not very impressive, 
 taking into consideration the sex of the offender, so it 
 was with full expectation of bringing her to speedy 
 terms that Barbara was remanded to her cell by the 
 United States District Attorney, and an early date fixed 
 for her second examination. But when a second and a 
 third, a fourth and a fifth time the farce of questioning 
 on the one part and defiant dumbness on the other 
 left the matter where it had been in the beginning, 
 the attorney began to think then that it was more 
 than mortal obstinacy against which he was waging 
 such futile warfare. The day fixed for Barbara's sixth 
 appearance before the Board of Examiners dawned to
 
 IN THE TOILS. j! 7 
 
 find her once more prostrate with fever. The strain 
 on her nerves had been too great. 
 
 With sullen acquiescence in the doctor's commands 
 that she must not be disturbed, the men who were 
 zealously anxious to bring to justice so prominent an 
 offender as John Quinby, turned their attention to 
 other parties for the time being, holding the case of 
 Barbara Hickman in abeyance. 
 
 It had been through the services of Ferdinand Cos- 
 grove that the identity of Barbara Hickman, arrested 
 for vagrancy, and the third wife of the rich John 
 Quinby, had been established. 
 
 Waking up from a long sleep that partook largely of 
 exhaustion, Barbara found Mrs. Shaw sitting quietly by 
 her side with the baby in her lap. Her troubles had 
 worn out what little of unselfish mother love had ever 
 found lodgment in her undisciplined soul. She looked 
 at the child almost savagely. 
 
 " I could 'a' done it but for him," she said. " I could 
 'a' got away. He broke me down. I slept when I ought 
 to have been walking. If I don't get away they'll do 
 something to John any way, they're just that bent on 
 it." 
 
 "Yes," says Mrs. Shaw musingly, "that is your 
 husband's only chance. Once you're out of the city 
 they've got no case. He's coming back in two 
 days." 
 
 " But if I couldn't do it when I was well and
 
 318 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 strong and free, how can I do it now ? " Barbara asked, 
 wringing her hands in impatient misery. 
 
 " I am going to accomplish it for you," says the 
 bishop's wife with that placid air of confidence in her- 
 self that always inspired it in others. " That's what 
 I'm here for to-day. That's what I've staid away on 
 purpose for until to day. I didn't care to seem too 
 much interested in you. The rest of them could bring 
 you flowers and jellies and pictures. I've been saving 
 myself to save your husband yes, and to save the 
 Church, too, the loss his conviction would bring on 
 it. We need more such : we can not afford to lose 
 John Ouinby." 
 
 Barbara raised the hand that lay in hers to her lips 
 and kissed it fervently : " Save him ! Save John ! I 
 don't care what becomes of me." 
 
 " I knew I had a sensible woman to deal with. How 
 long do you suppose it will be before you can walk ? " 
 
 "How far?" Barbara asked, conscious of total lack 
 of strength. 
 
 Mrs. Shaw laughed softly to herself, much as if she 
 were enjoying a joke too good to be shared with any 
 body. 
 
 " Oh! not very far. Say from your bed here, to a car- 
 riage down about Washington Square." 
 
 "Soon! Just as soon as you please. If it's for 
 John's security, I could do it this moment." 
 
 " Not so fast ! Not so fast ! There must be no
 
 IN THE TOILS. 3 ! 9 
 
 failure this time." Suddenly leaving her chair by the 
 bedside, Mrs. Shaw .went into the outer corridor, and 
 beckoning to her the nurse who took advantage of the 
 visitor's presence in the sick room to get a little change 
 of scene herself, requested her to summon the jail phy- 
 sician. 
 
 When that functionary stood in her presence, Mrs. 
 Shaw said, in a gently judicial manner: 
 
 "-Doctor, I suppose the officials have no moral nor 
 political ends to achieve by detaining this poor little 
 baby within prison boundaries, have they?" 
 
 " I answer no questions aimed at the prison officials, 
 madam. In my own capacity as physician, I would 
 have sent the child away long ago, both for its own 
 sake and the mother's, but she has resisted every effort 
 to that end fiercely." 
 
 "Yes," says Barbara, with blazing eyes, "you 
 would have sent it to some institution for pauper 
 orphans, I suppose." 
 
 "Hush! child, hush!" says Mrs. Shaw, soothingly. 
 " Then I shall take the little thing home with me. It is 
 pining away in this atmosphere. I only wanted to be 
 authorized by you, doctor," says the bishop's wife, 
 with a fine show of moral obligation to obey the powers 
 that be which was calculated to impose on any one. 
 
 The physician bowed stiffly, examined Barbara's 
 tongue and pulse, and went his way. Mrs. Shaw busied 
 herself getting the baby ready for removal.
 
 326 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 " I shall be here day after to-morrow," she said, 
 almost whispering the words to Barbara, as she bent 
 over her, smoothing the tangled waves of her hair. " I 
 shall come about dark. Bishop Shaw will be with me. 
 You must be very strong that night, for John's sake. 
 The baby would spoil all." 
 
 A look of passionate determination illumined Bar- 
 bara's eyes. And the smile which was her only answer 
 spoke volumes. 
 
 Mrs. Shaw carried out her programme to the letter. 
 At dusk of the day appointed she and Bishop Shaw 
 craved and obtained permission to visit Barbara Hick- 
 man in her cell. They staid perhaps an hour, and then 
 walked out as they had come in, arm and arm, a quiet, 
 slow-walking, elderly couple. The nurse had been dis- 
 missed some days before. The inmate of the sick 
 ward remained undisturbed until breakfast time the 
 next morning. 
 
 When the turnkey reached that room with the pris- 
 oner's morning cup of muddy coffee, Mrs. Shaw's 
 mild blue eyes and fluffy white curls and serene face 
 confronted him in place of Barbara Hickman's more 
 youthful beauty and turbulent glances. 
 
 She smiled placidly at his consternation and 
 requested him to summon the station officials. When 
 they came she said to them with unruffled eyes and 
 voice : 
 
 " You have cruelly imprisoned an innocent woman, and
 
 IN THE TOILS. 321 
 
 have been holding her to persecute her yet further for no 
 other reason than that she advocates and practices 
 a religious system that you disapprove of. I have 
 assisted her to escape. The Lord never forsakes him 
 who puts his trust in Him as the angel delivered 
 Peter from the hands of his persecuters, even as he lay 
 fast bound between two armed soldiers, so have I, the 
 humble handmaiden of that same all powerful One, 
 been chosen to free His chosen servant from your 
 hands. You can mete unto me whatsoever punish- 
 ment you see fit. I rejoice to know that Barbara 
 Hickman is beyond the reach of your malice. At 
 eleven o'clock last night she left Salt Lake City with 
 her child bound for With a rippling little laugh 
 
 of the most exasperating merriment, Mrs. Shaw closed 
 her incomplete confession. Folding her hands in affec- 
 tation of patient submission she regarded the out- 
 witted officials with her most benignant smile. 
 
 "Well, gentlemen?" This questioningly, as the men 
 stood dumb before her. 
 
 " I suppose you know your own way home ? " one of 
 them said, with a sense of the ludicrous fast getting 
 the better of his wrath. 
 
 " Yes, quite well, thank you." 
 
 " And I suppose you know this isn't a case for 
 vicarious atonement ? " 
 
 " Yes, I know that, too." 
 
 " Then I guess we may as well sing a doxology. It's
 
 322 THE BAR-SlNtSTER. 
 
 plain to be seen whose friend you are ; and that ain't 
 the United States government. You've used your gray 
 hairs and smooth tongue to help a rogue defeat justice. 
 I hope you'll enjoy your reward among the Saints." 
 
 Says the bishop's wife, raising her soft eyes heaven- 
 ward : 
 
 "Young men, I look higher for my reward ! "
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE END OF A STRUGGLE. 
 
 WHEN Bishop Shaw had accompanied Barbara as 
 far as Logan, one of the outlying strongholds of 
 Mormonism in the Territory of Utah, and had established 
 her and her child in comfortable quarters, and supplied 
 her with money for her immediate wants, and return- 
 ing to Salt Lake City, had himself gone to Mrs. West, 
 love and put a note into her hands for instant delivery 
 to Mr. Quinby on his return, he considered that he had 
 performed his entire duty to his neighbor and to the 
 imperiled institution so dear to his own heart, and 
 subsided into a species of monogamic domesticity in 
 the home of his wife Laetitia, which he found more 
 than usually congenial after the exertion and excite- 
 ment attendant upon Barbara's affair, and altogether 
 expedient for the time being. 
 
 In consoling classes two, three, four, and five for 
 their enforced isolation from his benignant presence 
 temporarily, the patriarch said : 
 
 "This flare-up on the part of the authorities will 
 expire soon for want of fuel. Convictions with neither 
 proof nor witnesses will be hard to make. Bear in
 
 324 THE BAk-SINISTER. 
 
 mind that you are being persecuted for your faith's 
 sake. Stand firm as Barbara Hickman stood, pre- 
 ferring imprisonment and exile before yielding one jot 
 or one tittle, and we will prevail. The constitution 
 protects the sacredness of contracts ; plural marriage 
 is a contract of the most sacred character, being for 
 time and eternity. Fear not what evil men may say 
 of you. Abide in the faith and all will yet be well 
 with you." 
 
 And, as terror of the law as expounded to them by 
 the priests of the new gospel, was a much- more real 
 and powerful element in their lives than terror of the 
 law as set forth by the malicious intermeddlers who 
 had come from the States to persecute the Latter Day 
 Saints, Bishop Shaw's wives held themselves in readi- 
 ness to endure buffetings, and scorn, and persecutions ; 
 yea, even stripes, if need be, for the glory of the faith 
 or curdling fear of the horrors of blood atonement ! 
 
 Mrs. Westlove being one of those complaisant mor- 
 tals who never permit principle to militate against 
 profit, had cordially consented to charge herself with 
 the secret delivery of a letter to Mr. Quinby, the more 
 readily when informed that it was to explain his wife's 
 sudden departure. She was thankful enough to be 
 absolved from all necessity for making explanations 
 that might not explain her own share in Barbara's 
 flight. If things should settle down and leave the 
 " Saints on top," it would be a pity not to be found on
 
 THE END OF A STRUGGLE. 325 
 
 the good side of such people as the Shavvs and the 
 Quinbys. 
 
 This is the note that sent John Quinby, all tired and 
 travel stained as he was, straight from Mrs. Westlove's 
 to Bishop Shaw's house immediately on his return to 
 the city, before even he had ventured into the frigid 
 atmosphere of Anna's home. The ardent embraces of 
 his impassioned Barbara had promised much in the 
 way of welcome to a returned traveler, and he had 
 made no halt on his arrival. The note was from Bishop 
 Shaw's own august hand : 
 
 "You are to feel no uneasiness at not finding your 
 wife where you left her, but are to come to me imme- 
 diately on your arrival, no matter what the hour, for a 
 full explanation. You will find me at Mrs. Laetitia's. 
 Your true friend and brother in the Church." 
 
 It was midnight by the time Mrs. Shaw and the 
 bishop had put him in possession of all that had hap- 
 pened during his absence, and explained to him the 
 situation as it then was. Told in Mrs. Shaw's soft, 
 purring fashion, whose desire was to rob it of every 
 detail calculated to disgust, he saw in Barbara the sen- 
 sation of the hour the heroine of the day ! Had his 
 adoption of the new gospel tenets been tinctured with 
 more of spirituality and less of sensualism, this glorifi- 
 cation of his wife might have added to her value in his 
 eyes. As it was, he was conscious of nothing but a 
 severe nervous shock that he was in nowise relieved from
 
 326 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 when Bishop Shaw, taking from his side pocket a letter, 
 extended it to him, saying : " The brave girl said, 
 just as I was about telling her good-by, that ' she was 
 afraid I wouldn't put it strong enough that she didn't 
 want you to follow her so long as these fellows were 
 here,' so she had written you herself." 
 
 A flood of burning mortification swept over John 
 Quinby's clouded face as his eyes rested on the almost 
 illegible scrawl in his hand. Barbara had never before 
 had occasion to write to him. Her natural quickness, 
 which during the silent years of her servitude she had 
 expended in intense observation of women whose ad- 
 vantages had been greater than her own, had enabled 
 her to cover her own educational deficiencies to a great 
 extent. Every word in the rude scrawl before him had 
 been dictated by the most unselfish devotion for him- 
 self, but, stripped of the dazzling blandishments of her 
 voluptuous beauty and lavish caresses, the fact of his 
 wife's woeful ignorance struck him with the force of a 
 blow. After one hasty perusal of the letter he crushed 
 it savagely in his hand with a sense of absolute disgust, 
 which obliterated all appreciation of her sublime self- 
 sacrifice. And this was the mother of his only son ! 
 This the woman who was to rear the future bearer of the 
 name of Quinby ! Poor child, she had not ventured 
 very far in the thorny, epistolary path. It was a short 
 note, but a potential one. It ran : 
 
 "Mv PRESIIUS HUSBAN. I'm fraid Bisshup Shaw
 
 THE END OF A STRUGGLE. 327 
 
 won't make it cleer to you that I'm purfectly happy here 
 in Logun with my deer little babie. Dont frett about 
 us deer John, until things blow over, and then we will 
 be happy together agane. Your loving Barb." 
 
 Why was it that as John Quinby crushed this scrawl 
 deep into his pocket, there arose before him Anna's 
 image ? Anna, as he had seen her just before he went 
 East, and as he would see her again to-morrow ; calm 
 in her resignation ; majestic in her self-poised dignity ; 
 ministering to the wants of her household with wise 
 discretion ; swaying her little daughters to her lightest 
 wish by the gentle firmness of her rule ; shedding *a 
 halo of peaceful happiness about the stricken head of 
 Effie's father ! A beautiful embodiment of virtue and 
 purity, the hem of whose garment he was not worthy 
 4:o kiss ! Thinking of Anna he felt as one who, prone 
 in the bottom of a horrible pit, looks up and sees the 
 stars shining above him serene, cold, divine, far, far 
 away ! 
 
 He would be under the same roof with her to-mor- 
 row, but would any thing ever bring them nearer 
 together than the stars to the pit? The night was one 
 of tumultuous unrest for him, the demons of remorse 
 and self-reproach and perplexity holding high carnival 
 in his breast. 
 
 The next morning found him installed with his 
 family. Anthony, careful only to protect the name of 
 Quinby from fresh defilement, urged upon him the
 
 328 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 necessity of walking circumspectly while he was under 
 espionage. And it was not hard to persuade him to 
 follow Bishop Shaw's advice and take no steps to com- 
 municate with Barbara at that time. 
 
 Any one chancing to look into the Quinby library 
 on a night of the week following Mr. Quinby's return 
 from New York, without knowing any thing of their 
 family affairs, would have pronounced it a serenely 
 happy family gathering. Mr. Quinby, known to his 
 children as the never-failing source of all sorts of 
 
 material blessings, and, in consequence, an object of 
 
 
 tumultuous affection to them, was sitting under the 
 
 gas-light by the center-table, with the little Comfort 
 curled up luxuriously in his arms, joyously amusing 
 herself with his watch, now held to her tiny ear, now 
 slowly swung backward and forward by its glittering 
 chain. Anthony near by, with Mercy between his 
 knees, was telling her a wondrous story to which the 
 tiny mite was listening with fascinated ears. Dr. 
 Ambrose, whose long white hair flowed in waves 
 nearly to his shoulders, dozed placidly in the most 
 comfortable chair in the room. The old man was 
 slowly and restfully sinking into oblivion of every 
 thing that pained him. Anna's sewing lay neglected 
 in her lap ; her hands folded about it, her eyes follow- 
 ing the motions of Mercy's restless feet, but her 
 thoughts far, far away. 
 
 She was thinking with the divine pity of one who
 
 THE END OF A STRUGGLE. 329 
 
 has passed through the fiery furnace, and come out as 
 silver tried and purified by the ordeal of Barbara, 
 ignorant, passionate, misled, suffering ! She was think- 
 ing of the monstrous crime of Mormonism, which 
 selected for its victims women always women ! The 
 more helpless, the more credulous, the more ignorant, 
 the more degraded the more acceptable ! It was 
 women who bore the brunt of its curse ! It was 
 women who suffered in its success ! It was women 
 who would be crushed when the temple should fall and 
 bury them under its ruins ! It was women who must 
 cower beneath the obloquy that wrapped it about as 
 with a pall ! 
 
 As the clock struck nine, the twins, the one gliding 
 from her father's arms, the other demurely leaving her 
 place by Anthony's knee, approached their mother with 
 eager expectancy in their faces. Anna, roused from 
 her reverie by the touch of their little hands, said to 
 her husband in that coldly even voice she reserved for 
 him alone: "I always sing to the children the last 
 thing before putting them to bed. If it will annoy 
 
 you 
 
 " On the contrary, I have been hungering to hear 
 your voice in one of the old tunes. May I select the 
 tune to-night, Anna? " 
 
 He caught her hand as she passed him on her way 
 to the piano, and held it while he looked up pleadingly 
 into her face.
 
 330 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 It was a long time since he had pleaded to her for 
 any thing. It was a long time since she had allowed 
 her eyes to rest on his face in any thing but the most 
 cursory glance. As she stood immediately over him 
 now. she could see the gray thickly flecking the brown 
 hair with which once she had dearly loved to toy! His 
 eyes too looked haggard and worn ! Perhaps, after all, 
 he was learning that the way of the transgressor is 
 indeed hard. 
 
 " You may select the tune," she said, " but Mercy 
 and Comfort must not lose Home, Sweet Home, it is 
 
 their favorite. After that " she drew her hand 
 
 away and walked toward the piano. Ah, what a 
 mockery this very man had made of home, sweet home 
 for her. Tears were in her voice as she sang the ten- 
 der old melody. 
 
 And outside, her face pressed close to the cold glass 
 that divided her as by an impassable gulf from all this 
 brightness and refinement and melody, stood Barbara 
 Hickman ! 
 
 Poor, storm-tossed Barbara, who could not stay at 
 Logan because it was too far away from John ! Indis- 
 creet Barbara, who had come back to the city that 
 morning, and taking up her quarters in a mean hostelry 
 that was full of the noisy, brawling miners who had in- 
 undated the place on completion of the Southern Pa- 
 cific Railroad, had crept out to her old home eager to 
 verify with her own eyes the grief with which she
 
 THE END OF A STRUGGLE. 331 
 
 fancied John overwhelmed, bereft of her society! 
 Tortured Barbara, who, taking her stand where she 
 had often taken it in the days when she had loved this 
 man so passionately, with no dream of ever being 
 exalted to the bearing of his name, saw now how easily 
 he had found consolation, realized for the first time 
 how soon we are forgot. 
 
 She stood motionless for a full hour secure from dis- 
 covery. The lights were all in the library, the parlor 
 windows were in darkness. When John seized his 
 wife's hand and held it while he looked up so plead- 
 ingly into her face, that tortured soul out there in the 
 dark night found relief in a stifled moan ! She turned 
 and fled back to the tavern where she had left her baby 
 in charge of a friendly miner. 
 
 In the quietness of her own room that night she 
 calmed her anguish of jealousy by all the fond argu- 
 ments of a woman's heart when it wishes to shield its 
 idol of clay from blame. What did she want ? Hadn't 
 she begged him not to fret, and now was she to make 
 herself miserable because he was obeying her? She 
 was a most exacting, unreasonable simpleton ! 
 she want John to run his neck into a noose just to sat- 
 isfy her that he loved her? Of course he loved her! 
 Had he not said so over and over again ? And so, 
 night after night, tortured, fascinated, driven back to 
 her spying in an agony of longing, driven away from it 
 in a passion of jealousy, Barbara paced the weary
 
 33 2 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 way from the tavern to the Quinby cottage and back 
 again, more desolate for every going. 
 
 Returned from one of these harrowing pilgrimages 
 one night, the miner who always volunteered to " watch 
 over the kid" for her while she was away looked boldly 
 down into her face as she took the child from him, and 
 asked : 
 
 " How much longer is you going to keep up that 
 blamed foolishness?" 
 
 Barbara blanched to the lips, and fastened a fright- 
 ened gaze on him. 
 
 " I don't I don't know what you mean," she stam- 
 mered. 
 
 " Oh, gammon ! yes, you do. If you don't, I'll tell 
 you. Maybe you think I don't know you're Quinby 's 
 handsome wife, that old Shaw run out of town. Least- 
 ways you're not his wife, you know : a fellow can't 
 have but one wife." 
 
 Barbara turned as if to fly out again into the dark 
 night. Was there no more rest in this world for her? 
 His strong hand was laid on her arm. He drew her 
 down on the bench by his side and said, not harshly, 
 but in a roughly masterful fashion : 
 
 " Hold on, now. Don't go to making matters any 
 worse. I'm free to say you've struck my fancy. Blast 
 John Quinby's eyes, if it was only him was concerned, 
 I'd 'a' peached on you, long ago. I see what you're 
 wearing your heart out about. I tell you, it's a relief
 
 THE END OF A STRUGGLE. 333 
 
 to the scoundrel to be shet of you. There's one com- 
 fortable and safe road out of this mess for you, and 
 only one. You needn't hope them commissioners is 
 going to go back where they come from and let this 
 rotten old concern called Mormonism go on crushing 
 out women's lives just for the beastly pleasure of a lot 
 of beastly men. I tell you, polygamy's got to go. I'm 
 sorry for you, blest if I ain't. I'm sorry for every wo- 
 man that's been took in like you have. I like you, 
 you're as handsome as a picture. You've got go in 
 you, too. Say the word and we'll be out of this ac- 
 cursed hole in twenty-four hours. I'll look out for 
 you." 
 
 A tigress about to leap upon her prey could look or 
 feel no fiercer than Barbara Hickman as she sat look- 
 ing up at the man who made this insulting proposition 
 to her. Gleams of light flashed from her eyes, her 
 hands writhed in and about each other in a fury of 
 restlessness. Her bosom rose and fell tumultuously, 
 but no words came to her relief. 
 
 The miner regarded her curiously. She made him 
 think of a beautiful panther at bay. Then he said 
 coolly : 
 
 " I see you're on fire now. But the time will come 
 when you'll think it good luck to be asked in decent 
 marriage by a miner. Only this one thing : don't you 
 go to try to get away from here. You can't succeed. I 
 ain't a going to lose sight of you, that's all. You'd best
 
 334 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 go to bed now. You can't slip me, you needn't to 
 try." 
 
 A week had passed since this strange offer had been 
 made Barbara. Night after night the miner, hold- 
 ing the child of John Quinby as hostage for the 
 mother's return, watched Barbara's departure for the 
 house from which she always returned more haggard 
 and miserable than when she went. On this night her 
 whole appearance was that of one worn to the last 
 edge of endurance. 
 
 "Something more'n common 's up," he said, looking 
 at her with contemptuous pity, " and I can tell you 
 what it is." 
 
 "You don't need to tell me," she said, in a slow, 
 stubborn voice. Then without any change of mien, no 
 more brightness coming into her tones, she added, 
 " Does your offer hold good ? I'm worn out ! I'm 
 worn out body and soul ! He don't care for me any 
 more than he does for the mat he wipes his foot on. 
 If polygamy didn't come from divine command, as 
 they made me believe, then my soul's lost any how, and 
 it don't make much difference what else happens, I 
 reckon." 
 
 " My offer holds good," said the miner. " I'll make 
 you happier than you are now, any ways." 
 
 It was a strange wooing and a stranger winning. 
 
 A low, bitter laugh escaped Barbara's lips, then she 
 sat quite still for a long time lost in reverie. What
 
 THE END OF A STRUGGLE. 
 
 335 
 
 was to be the end of it ? For two months now she had 
 led the life of a stray dog. If polygamy was to go as 
 this man and so many others were insisting, what had 
 she left to hope for from John Quinby ? Had she not 
 heard him that very night, the window being open, say 
 to his brother, that if he could find " that poor girl 
 Barbara and make matters smooth for her ' She had 
 not wanted to hear more. She was only that " poor 
 girl Barbara," he did not say "his wife Barbara." 
 It would be no hard task for any man to make her 
 happier than she was now. She was too tired of brain, 
 too sick of soul to map out a future for herself. 
 
 "Will you give me one more night?" she asked of 
 the miner, getting up to go away from him, with her 
 baby in her arms. 
 
 " Yes. But don't you try my patience to be helping 
 that " 
 
 " Don't call him names, please. I don't never expect 
 to see him after to-morrow night. Good-night, 
 Williams, and thank you." 
 
 The next night Barbara did not bring the child to be 
 cared for by the miner. He saw her go out of the 
 tavern door with it in her arms. He followed. What 
 was she up to now? Did she have it in her poor head 
 to destroy herself and the kid too ? No ; she went 
 straight up to John Quinby's door. Stooping, she laid 
 her folded shawl on the cold stone threshold, then lay- 
 ing her child upon it, she kneeled over him, kissed him
 
 33 6 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 once, twice, three times, then stood up and raising her 
 clenched hands high over her head, called down 
 heaven's curse on that house and all its inmates. Giv- 
 ing the door bell one fierce ring she turned to fly and 
 ran faint and gasping into the miner's arms. 
 
 " Don't be scared, my girl, it's me, Williams. I fol- 
 lowed you to see you done yourself no hurt." 
 
 " Take me away from here ! Quick, quick, quick ! 
 Any where, any where only so it's where I'll never 
 hear of him again ! " 
 
 He took her at her word took her away from there, 
 out of John Quinby's life, out of the ken of this 
 chronicler. Poor Barbara, untutored of mind and heart 
 and soul ; more sinned against than sinning. 
 
 Drawn to his front door by the violent ringing of its 
 bell, Mr. Quinby almost stumbled over a bundle lying 
 there. Stooping to examine it, his hand passed over 
 the soft, smooth cheeks of a little child. Hastily gath- 
 ering the bundle into his arms he carried it to the hall 
 lamp. A thick veil almost concealed the baby face. A 
 note was pinned to the shawl. He staggered under 
 the weight of the child as he recognized Barbara's 
 handwriting. Laying the waif upon the hall settee, he 
 unpinned the note and read it by the light over his 
 head. This was all there was in it : 
 
 "You hate me and I've gone where you will never 
 hear of me again. You're better able to take care of 
 our child than I am. I would get to hating it after 
 awhile, for its likeness to you."
 
 THE END OF A STRUGGLE. 337 
 
 That was all. How long he stood there he never 
 knew. The child awoke and lifted up its voice. The 
 strange sound brought Mrs. Quinby and Anthony out 
 into the hall with amazed faces. Mr. Quinby laid 
 Barbara's letter in his wife's hand. She read it once 
 and again, then stood with hands clasped and head 
 bowed as if in prayer. Whatever the conflict in that 
 pure soul God gave her the victory. Going over to the 
 settee she kneeled by the wailing infant, and gathering 
 it in her arms said, in a sweet, solemn voice : 
 
 " Child of sin and sorrow, I adopt you for my very 
 own. God helping me, you shall never know of the 
 cloud that has enveloped your infancy." 
 
 And surely if the recording angel had aught set 
 down in his book against Anna Quinby's name, in that 
 moment he must have blotted it out forever.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 A PARTHIAN DART. 
 
 IT soon got noised abroad that Mr. Quinby's wife 
 Barbara had fled to parts unknown, leaving her 
 child at her husband's door. When Ferdinand Cosgrove 
 corroborated this rumor by the direct testimony of 
 Anthony Quinby, he relinquished all hope of seeing 
 John Quinby brought to justice. There was no longer 
 any reason why he should linger in a place fraught with 
 nothing but painful associations. He began to make 
 preparations for his immediate return to Elizabeth, 
 where he proposed to settle as a practitioner, taking 
 Dr. Ambrose with him, of course. 
 
 In consultation with Anna and Anthony Quinby, 
 between whom and himself a warm and abiding friend- 
 ship had sprung up, it was decided that Dr. Ambrose's 
 happiness would best be secured by the carrying out of 
 Effie's wishes that one of Ferdinand's sisters should 
 take her place in the home she had deserted, and fill a 
 daughter's place toward her father. 
 
 In numerous letters home, Ferdinand had made the 
 quiet dwellers in that obscure plantation house far away 
 in Mississippi familiar with the darkly exciting ex-
 
 A PARTHIAN DART. 339 
 
 periences that had come to him since leaving New 
 Jersey. Effie's desire had long since been submitted 
 to them, and now there was nothing for him to do but 
 to write and let them know the date of his proposed 
 return to Elizabeth, petitioning that the sister of his 
 choice should be there in advance to make the home- 
 coming as bright as possible for the desolate old man 
 whose own life, until its darkening, had been one long 
 ministry to the comfort and happiness of others. 
 
 It was the night before leaving Salt Lake City. The 
 doctor was spending his last evening with Anna, his 
 packing all over. Ferdinand Cosgrove paced the narrow 
 confines of his dismantled hotel room in moody abstrac- 
 tion. He was writhing under a sense of defeat ! The 
 failure of the case against John Quinby made him feel 
 savage. He was also bitterly conscious how much 
 more largely revenge entered into his motives than a 
 sense of abstract-justice. 
 
 "Heavens!" he exclaimed, in loud self-denuncia- 
 tion, "am I too becoming dehumanized in this vitiated 
 atmosphere? Can any creature breath under the Upas 
 tree of Mormonism and not lose all sense of honor, 
 virtue, purity and justice? If I could but make the 
 world see it as I have seen it, feel it as I have felt it 
 in my heart and soul and life, I'd speed one Parthian 
 dart!" 
 
 Suddenly seating himself, he drew writing materials 
 close to him and began writing with fierce rapidity.
 
 340 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 Without pause or hindrance he wrote on and on, and 
 in due course of time the closely written pages lay 
 piled up before him ready for mailing to the New York 
 paper, that accepted his article on Mormonism as they 
 would have accepted any item of novelty, touching the 
 king of the Cannibal Islands or the fabled sea serpent ! 
 
 Few who read his fiery denunciations of the Mor- 
 mons in the columns of the daily Argus from time to 
 time, ever knew how much of an ardent young soul's 
 bitterest disappointment lent lurid force to those 
 denunciations. Few who read his bitter tirades against 
 the mockery of justice, as meted out to polygamists, 
 knew that it was from the fullness of an embittered 
 heart that Ferdinand Cosgrove wrote such lines as 
 these : 
 
 " No one who has spent any time in Utah, or whose 
 opinions are based on personal observation, can ever 
 hope to see polygamy abolished without bloodshed. 
 No amount of legislation, no amount of public pres- 
 sure was found sufficient to stamp out slavery until put 
 to the arbitrament of arms. The passage of laws 
 against this institution must perforce remain only par- 
 tially remedial so long as the farce of trial by jury, 
 where it is next to impossible to empanel a jury of 
 twelve men opposed to it, stands in the way of justice, 
 or where, priest-ridden as they are. the Mormons 
 openly boast of their contempt for such legal efforts. 
 Doubtless if the Endowment House books were as
 
 A PARTHIAN DART. 341 
 
 accessible as the records of our civil courts, convictions 
 by the thousand could be made and the Saints would 
 crowd the jails. But these destroyers of men's con- 
 sciences and women's souls keep sleepless vigil over 
 their own. I have heard it said that these records are 
 surrounded by dynamite, so that in event of danger, 
 all written, evidence against the Saints can be blown 
 out of existence. Without proof what hope of convic- 
 tions ! Nowhere is a man called on to criminate him- 
 self, and here to lie in defense of one who holds the 
 tenets of the New Gospel is esteemed a prime virtue. 
 Controlled by a terror of their bishops and elders, which 
 far surpasses any a civil magistrate can impose, the 
 women are worse than valueless as witnesses. They 
 are but so many tools in the hands of the men. 
 
 " Believing, as the most intelligent Mormons must, 
 that it is but a question when the institution so dear 
 to their own souls shall become utterly untenable in a 
 country to whose religious and civil regulations it is so 
 utterly antagonistic, there is an under-current of tre- 
 mendous fear pervading all ranks, which is produced 
 by the attitude of the authorities at Washington. 
 
 " Taylor denies being a practicing polygamist ; also, 
 that he does not inculcate it in the doctrine of his 
 church. Taylor has seven wives, and is, it is rumored, 
 about to be sealed to an eighth. What credence can 
 be eiven to the statements of a sect which approves of 
 
 o 
 
 lying in defense of its Church ? What hope of a com-
 
 342 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 munity where priests, the conservators (or should be 
 conservators) of public morals compel polygamy? 
 Yes, compel! It is not simply optional. Intimida- 
 tions and threats are brought to bear upon the vacil- 
 lating or the doubtful. Parental authority is brought 
 to bear upon the young and malleable. They are 
 early taught to regard this devilish institution as the 
 embodiment of wisdom and purity. Women, steeped 
 in spiritual ignorance are taught that they can not 
 enter the kingdom of heaven unless they are sealed to 
 a polygamist. To readers of such statements at a dis- 
 tance they seem marvelous, and that intelligent 
 beings in the nineteenth century can be brought into 
 such mental servitude surpasses the marvelous, but 
 the facts are as here stated and are the common prop- 
 erty of any intelligent observer of life among the 
 Mormons. 
 
 " And what would you expect from the homes of such 
 a people? What could you hope from an institution 
 that permits such beastly practices ? What would you 
 think of seven families in one room ? What hope for 
 children reared in such an atmosphere? Oh, men and 
 women of Christian lives and Christian hopes and 
 Christian fears, arise in your might and demand that 
 this foul blot be wiped from the fair fame of our 
 country ! Do not enter your feeble protests, and then 
 subside once more with a criminal indifference ! Unite 
 in one resistless onslaught. Demand, and refuse to be
 
 A PARTHIAN DART. 343 
 
 denied, that the country you live in and love, the land 
 your children are to be reared in shall not be contami- 
 nated by the foul infection of Mormonism. Yes, infec- 
 tion ! Choose which you will. Either stamp it out or 
 submit quietly to its spread! For the spirit of 
 Mormonism is the spirit of unresting conquest. To-day 
 your cities swarm with its emissaries. North, South, 
 East and West, the serpent brood glides, noiselessly, 
 secretively, fatally, poisoning the pure fountain of 
 home affection, destroying, everywhere the hallowed 
 bonds of domesticity, leaving desolation and ruin 
 always in their track. Is the religion that makes the 
 daughter desert the father, the mother abandon her 
 offspring, the wife turn in abhorrence from the father 
 of her children, the brother heap curses upon a brother, 
 a religion to be fostered or even endured in the same 
 land that knows Jesus of Nazareth, and accepts His 
 law of love for its law of life ? Is the word Liberty, 
 the watch-word of a nation's security, to be travestied 
 and besmirched into meaning license for a bestial form 
 of worship that degrades humanity and insults the 
 majesty of Heaven? If ignorance of its blackness lies 
 at the root of the nation's apathy, then let whomsoever 
 can, lend his might to rend the veil of mystery from 
 this hideous thing called Mormonism. Let no one 
 handle it with kid-gloved caution. Let none hope to 
 heal the cancerous sore with gentle emollients. Let 
 him who knows it in the depth and breadth and loath-
 
 344 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 someness of its reality paint it in the colors of truth, 
 though the words flame and scorch wheresoever they 
 may fall. Dante's Inferno is not to be depicted in the 
 smooth moving measure of the madrigals, nor does one 
 warn his fellow creature from the brink of a precipice 
 by crooning a lullaby over him ! " 
 
 This impassioned plea for the purging of our land 
 from the crime of polygamy off his mind, Ferdinand 
 flung himself on his bed and slept heavily until late in 
 the morning of his last day in Utah !
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 A PARTIAL ATONEMENT! 
 
 THE 10.30 P. M. train was the one Ferdinand had 
 tickets for. A long, idle day stared him in the face, 
 when he finally awakened. It was in early June, and 
 he thought with satisfaction for the doctor, of how 
 pretty the flowers, in the little garden at Elizabeth, 
 would be looking on their arrival. The old man was 
 filled with the prattling delight of a child at the pros- 
 pect of returning to the homelike place! As for him- 
 self, there was nothing specially alluring in any direc- 
 tion for him. Conscious of excessive mental and phys- 
 ical heaviness on this morning his mind reverted, 
 somewhat eagerly, to his chief source of physical en- 
 joyment since his enforced residence in Salt Lake 
 City. It had consisted in running down, by train, to 
 Black Rock, to bathe in the delightfully buoyant 
 waters of the great Salt Lake. The day promised to 
 be a sultry one. At this season of the year the waters 
 were of a delightful temperature. The thought of one 
 more plunge off the pier at Black Rock assailed him in 
 form of a temptation. It would brace him for the
 
 346 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 coming ordeal by rail, with its wearisome guardianship 
 of his helpless fellow-traveler. He would run down 
 and take one more glorious plunge. There was ample 
 time. It was only a swift ride of twenty miles by rail. 
 He would be back by six at the furthest. 
 
 Arrived at Black Rock, he walked leisurely toward 
 the long wooden pier that stretched far out into the 
 waters of the lake. He congratulated himself that it 
 was both too early in the season and the day for many 
 bathers to be on hand. Before reaching the pier he 
 became aware of some excitement among the few 
 loungers to be found there at all times. There were 
 wild gesticulations and excited cries ! Then, rapidly 
 advancing toward him, one after another, three men, 
 who, from rapid walking, increased their speed by rapid 
 running before they got abreast of him. 
 
 " What is it ?" Ferd asked, halting the first runner, 
 who stopped only long enough to gasp out, " Man 
 drowning! Hunting boat! Never to be found when 
 wanted ! " 
 
 " But a man can't drown in this water unless it is his 
 preference," says Ferdinand, incredulously, "and what 
 are you running this way for? why don't you swim 
 out to him?" 
 
 " Maybe it is his preference," says the second runner, 
 halting to mop his forehead, " but if it is, he's about 
 gratified ! Couldn't swim in for him. He's too heavy ! 
 He'd a been a dead weight on any man in his fix."
 
 A PARTIAL ATONEMENT. 347 
 
 " If he drowns, you're all responsible for it," says 
 Cosgrove, speeding forward toward the pier, divest- 
 ing himself of his coat and vest as he ran. The 
 swimmer might have been seized with cramps, or he 
 might have inadvertently inhaled the salt water into 
 his mouth and nostrils, and was strangling. That was 
 th-e only element of danger in bathing in this lake. 
 Be the trouble what it might, a plunge after him was 
 a speedier rescue than a boat. Hatless and coatless 
 he reached the end of the pier. Only one man was to 
 be seen on it, and he was kneeling motionless, his body 
 bent far forward, and his strained eyes fastened in an 
 agony of terrible apprehension upon a spot where the 
 disturbed waters gurgled and boiled, but no swimmer 
 was visible ! At the sound of Ferdinand's rushing 
 advance and panting breath, the watcher on the pier 
 staggered to his feet, and turned a white face toward 
 him ! It was Anthony Quinby ! Ferdinand spoke 
 without taking his eyes from the water. He was 
 watching for the bather's reappearance: 
 
 " Ah ! Quinby, you here ! They tell me a bather's 
 gone down. How many times has he sunk ? " 
 
 "Once! It's John! My God, he's gone !" It was a 
 brother's cry of agony. 
 
 "John Quinby!" 
 
 Cosgrove's eyes left the lake for the first time, as he 
 faced toward the helpless cripple whose strained gaze 
 had gone back to the water. A dark, ugly gleam came
 
 348 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 into his black eyes. He folded his arms rigidly, as he 
 muttered between clenched teeth: "John Quinby, 
 out there in the bubbling waters! Thief! Murderer! 
 Liar! Let him sink! Let him be swept from the 
 world he contaminated ! " 
 
 Anthony seized the locked arms and shook them in 
 his torture, as he cried hoarsely, " Cosgrove, it is a 
 demon in you that uttered those words ! You would 
 not let a dog die so ! If you fail to use your strength 
 to save him, loathsome as he is in your eyes, this hour 
 will haunt you to the day of your own death ! Help- 
 less cumbererof the earth that I am, I could not succor 
 him. But for Anna I would be willing to try it ! Save 
 him, Cosgrove! Save him, as you would a dog thrown 
 helpless on your mercy ! " 
 
 "You are right ! I have saved a dog's life before ! " 
 This fierce colloquy had consumed but a moment of 
 time. The two men stood side by side on the edge of 
 the pier. Ferdinand was stripped for the plunge to 
 rescue his enemy from death. In the gleaming sun- 
 light a pallid face shone once more on the surface of 
 the dancing wavelets. Swinging his agile arms far 
 above' his bared head, the Mississippian leaped boldly 
 into the buoyant waters, then with long, swift strokes 
 of arms and legs struck out for the exhausted swimmer. 
 He was by his side just as the waters parted to ingulf 
 him again ! Clutching him firmly by the collar, he 
 swam back with his heavy burden to the pier, where
 
 A PARTIAL ATONEMENT. 349 
 
 crowds were now flocking to see the end of the tragedy. 
 Strong hands lifted both men from the water on to the 
 planks of the pier. Ferdinand stood for a second, 
 looking down upon the limp and motionless body of 
 the man he hated no less in death* than in life, then 
 turned toward where he had thrown his garments. 
 There was no sign of life in John Quinby's body. 
 There were plenty of hands ready to engage in the 
 task of resuscitation, if resuscitation were possible. 
 Anthony kneeled by his brother's side, forgetful of 
 everything but that it was John lying there cold and 
 white and still ! John ! the brother whom he had 
 loved with more than a brother's affection all his life ! 
 Erring, gone astray, but John still. Ferdinand drew 
 him away from the prostrate form, apart from the 
 crowd ! He held out his hand as he said : 
 
 " I'm going, Quinby, and I want to say good-by. 
 Perhaps we may never see each other again. As you 
 stay and I go, I'm glad for your sake that I mastered 
 the devil in me just now ! " His glance turned toward 
 the form on the pier. " Perhaps he did it on purpose ! 
 If he was anything of a swimmer he must have done it 
 on purpose. Perhaps, after all, it has been my good 
 fortune to thwart John Quinby's desire? I should 
 think life would be fuller of terrors than death to a 
 man with his stained conscience ! You said it was a 
 demon that held me back from saving him. Perhaps 
 it was, but it was a demon of his creation
 
 35 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 there, in that wet, limp form only the destroyer of the 
 woman I loved, and the wrecker of my own happiness. 
 Whether he lives or dies, I do not care a toss-up ! 
 What I did I think I did for your sake. If he lives, tell 
 him I hope it will* add one drop of gall to his cup to 
 know that he owes his life to a man for whom he has 
 blighted life ! If he dies " 
 
 Anthony's lips finished the sentence in feverish 
 haste : 
 
 " May God have mercy on his soul ! Say it, Cos- 
 grove ! Say it and it will exorcise the demon of his 
 creation. Say it for my sake, Ferd ! " 
 
 Tony's sad eyes rested pleadingly on the dark young 
 face before him : " After all, my lad, you will come to 
 pity him ; I don't wonder at the hard things that have 
 been wrung from you in your pain ; but shall mortal 
 man be more just than God ? " 
 
 Ferdinand's relenting gaze met that upward, plead- 
 ing look. He laid his hand on Tony's shoulder. " God 
 bless you, Tony! You restore a man's faith in his 
 kind. If he dies, may God have mercy on his soul. 
 Good-by and God keep you ! " 
 
 With long, quick strides he walked away from the 
 group of men who were laboring with all the devices 
 known to them to restore the drowned man to life. A 
 few hours later on he had shaken the dust of Salt Lake 
 City from his feet forever. 
 
 John Quinby had done it on purpose. In an agony
 
 A PARTIAL ATONEMENT. 351 
 
 of remorse, intensified by the drinking he had done to 
 drown reflection, he had taken the rash step which his 
 worst enemy rendered futile. Gosgrove had thwarted 
 him at last. He did not die. Slowly winning his way 
 back to health and strength he had ample leisure for 
 reflection on the misery he had instilled into the lives 
 of others, on the wreck he had made for those who 
 should have been spared every pain at his hands. In 
 bitter self-abasement he reproached God for allowing 
 him alone to go scathless : he, the only one who should 
 have punishment meted him with merciless severity. 
 
 " You should have let me die, Tony," he. said re- 
 morsefully. " It would have seemed like some sort of 
 expiation. It is hard to face life again as things are. 
 It is hard to endure Anna's calm scorn. It is hard to 
 know that I've reached the summit of worldly pros- 
 perity only to find that all my hoard can not purchase 
 me one little half hour of unalloyed happiness." 
 
 " Perhaps, John," says Anthony, with the persuasive 
 gentleness of a woman, "God has some good end of 
 His own to subserve in sparing your life. Remember 
 that He does not judge as finite man judges. It is in 
 your power still to make atonement to the greatest suf- 
 ferer of all by your strange apostasy from the faith of 
 our mother." 
 
 "You mean Anna." 
 
 " I mean our saintly Anna." 
 
 "And the atonement?"
 
 35 2 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 " Is to return to the States with her and your chil- 
 dren to live." 
 
 " It is her wish? " 
 
 " Her most ardent wish." 
 
 "Will she ask it of me herself? Oh, Tony! if I 
 could but once more in life hear her say 'dear John/ 
 in the coaxing, winning fashion of the early days, how 
 gladly my heart would respond to her lightest request. 
 If I could only win the light of other days back to her 
 dear eyes! If I could only bask once more in the 
 sweet smiles and tender words she lavished on me 
 before I threw them away in my cursed infatuation. 
 If I could win Anna back to my heart, Tony; win my 
 pure, serene, star-like wife a little closer ! " 
 
 " That you may never hope for, John. The iron has 
 entered her soul too deeply. You brought her here a 
 loving, tender, dependent wife. You will take her 
 away from here a strong woman, purified as by fire 
 from all the petty weaknesses and frivolities that made 
 her dependent upon you for her happiness. She will 
 never lean upon you again. Her heart, the heart that 
 you trampled upon in your insolent surety of posses- 
 sion, and laid aside to be used at your own masterful 
 convenience, has soared above your reach forever. You 
 can never again make it throb with anguish or pulse 
 with joy. It has found a surer foundation for its trust 
 and love than you could ever afford. And the joys 
 that are now hers are such as earth can neither give nor
 
 A PARTIAL ATONEMENT. 353 
 
 take away. While you have been groveling in the mire 
 of sensuality, she has been stepping steadily and surely 
 heavenward. Your only hope of happiness lies, not in 
 uselessly striving to win her back, but in seeking to 
 mount to higher planes of morality yourself. That is 
 your only hope of lessening the immeasurable distance 
 yourself has placed between your wife and you." 
 
 It was his own vision of the pit and the star voiced 
 by Anthony. 
 
 " One source of gratitude to God you have that can 
 not be over-estimated," says Anthony, breaking the 
 long silence that fell between them. 
 
 "And that is?" 
 
 " The inestimable privilege of having your son 
 reared by such a woman. All that is true and good 
 and noble in manhood your boy will learn at the knees 
 of his more than mother. For him, I have heard Anna 
 say, she asked God to grant the prayer of Socrates: 
 ' Make me beautiful within.' " 
 
 And thus it came about that the Quinbys once more 
 became citizens of Elizabeth. People flocked to see 
 them on their return and commented freely on them 
 behind their backs. All agreed in saying that Mrs. 
 Quinby was lovelier than ever, although much graver 
 and older, but then, "the loss of little Abbott and the 
 care of three more children would account for that. 
 All agreed that a more considerate or devoted husband
 
 354 THE BAR-SINISTER. 
 
 no woman ever possessed than was Mr. Quinby, who 
 was quoted as of old as the ensample worthy of all 
 emulation, a man who gave freely of his wealth to 
 every form of charity. All agreed that it was a species 
 of injustice done the community that the vague rumors 
 concerning Effie Ambrose's death on the other side of 
 the Rocky Mountains should not be cleared up by the 
 Quinbys. But no one ever suspected the tragedy that 
 the two households had played out to its bitter end in 
 that far away theater. 
 
 THE END.
 
 HAVE YOU READ 
 
 The New American Novel 
 
 TRAJAN. 
 
 The History of a Sentimental Young Man, 
 
 with some Episodes in the Comedy of 
 
 many Lives' Errors. 
 
 By HENRY F. KEENAN. 
 
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 Press, Albany. 
 
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 FOR SUMMER READING. 
 
 RED RYVINGTON. 
 
 By WILLIAM WESTALL. 
 
 Author of 141 LARRY LOHENGRIN," " THE OLD FACTORY," Etc., Etc. 
 1 Vol., 12mo., Cloth, New Style. Price, $1.00. 
 
 There is more of incident and adventure in this story than in 
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 POVERTY CORNER. 
 
 ("A LITTLE WORLD.") 
 A CITY STORY, 
 
 By G. MANVILLE FENN, 
 
 Author of " The Vicar's People I* " Sweet Mace," " My Patients," Etc., Ete. 
 1 Vol., 12mo., Cloth, New Style. Price, $1.00. 
 
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 SWEET MACE 
 
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 By G. MANVILLE FENN. 
 
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 THE OLD FACTORY. 
 
 A LANCASHIRE STORY. 
 
 By WILLIAM WESTALL, 
 
 Author of "RED RYVINGTON," etc., etc. 
 
 I Vol. 1 2mo. Cloth, New Style. Price. Sl.OO. 
 
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