FAITH.

Dunstan Times, Issue 2676, 28 July 1913, Page 7

FAITH.

(By Larry Evans.)

it wab raming. Uuili, searching oi um»X/-uuo ram strove jmucuauiig u> mo vciy oouv uuiiiAO.i , iiuU Liiu giu,) Wcunueas oi tuuiutmib as urny vvopt out tuear grim in txto iiicessaaii downpour, mieUbilieo Luo ioaiuoa vv uar'movss ot spurt oi uuu IVO V i'aiii v ainuK ami made him nit) noddy dLt.comiori ot die ram. liiaoughout the tong afternoon the yodiig clergyman had wrestled with men a Oigoury and egotasm and greed as .porwoauned by the committed, bmgieJo.au'Ued no had stormed uho wail ot inour soif-sumciency, and the sta-uggte hud ion him with soul pierced through and uirouga by the sunt us ot his ovs u disappomtinenit and bruised tlteu biuugeon-inie arguments. it was not conscious thought that led V urncK. to slop for the moment on the orlippmg pavement, betore tho entrance ot tne iuetropoittan Theatre; that was mere otuuuee. Rut as tie stood and watched tne cosmopolitan tlirong that trooped in at the glittering, arched passage —chattering, jewelled women and wlute-ami-black ciad men; little nondescript women of the offices aim business men, care-marked and still m sack suits —the man of tho Church wondered why the dreary storm brought with it uo diminution of the nightly audience. There in his church he knew that it would have meant but a- few scattered rows of the faithful for his audience, and again a wave of bitterness surged over him against the narrow, hidebound creed worship of the men whom he had just left that sought to clothe religion in sackcloth and flavor it vtth ashes, when the people were hungry foi light and starved for laughter. With the collar of his lone black raincoat turned high above his neck and the brim of his felt liat turned down all around to shed the ra.n, there was little about the appearance of the Reverend Raul Varrick to distinguish him from tho other men who streamed in unceasingly; least of all any telllaie trace of hie ecclesiastical office. Even the very freedom from cant and pose m his dress had been that afternoon a target for the carping criticism of the committee. Varrick smiled in lively remembrance as he turned at last.' thoughtfully, and approached the box-office of the playhouse Several years had passed since he had seen the inside of a theatre, and a clamoring impulse urged him to see onco more this attraction tluit drew weary women and wearier men the polyglot congregation of the whole world —and taught them to think their own thoughts for an hour or two, oi made them laugh—or forget. Tlio orchestra had hushed when he took his seat near the front of_ the house, and the big drop was rising noiselessly on tho gorgeous tableau of the first .scene. Varrick smiled the ftmt smile of *nnonpure amusement that had lighted his face that day, as he realised that a vagarious chance had chosen for him the reigning musical comedy in tho city. His eyes wont from the stage to rove eager!v over tho fact's in the crowded theatre. Twice they scanned the blurred circle of white dots standing out against tho fluttering, tinted background, to como to rest suddenly upon tho face of a girl who was sitting above and a little ahead of him, in one of ths lower boxes. Tier profile was toward him: vivid, mobile, warm with the flush of youthful womanhood, and Varrick forgot utterly the stage in the rapt smell of her face. At its first swift coining, the new emotion that swept him, baffled him and chided diagnosis. Then the realisation caino to him slowly, that she was tho first woman whose beauty had evei struck straight homo to him, and the impact of that realisation was, for tho moment, as real as the shock of an actual, physical blow. The women of his congregation, with whom his duties brought, him in contact. had all been of a single pattern to his impersonal gaze; and where they hod been only colorlessly abstract and unreal in his eves, ho marvelled that she could Ive so concrete, so completely. Inringly feminine. The girl was not watching the vivid spectacle on the stage. Once her eyes. Attn vine restlessly, met the steady eyes that worn shining transparently out of the thin, tired face of the man below her in the orchestra seats. For the moment their gaze met and held, and tho si lent, unconscious communication of it seamed to lift thorn and set them h’trh noart from all tho rest in a strangely complete communion. Varrick forgot to look away, or even to drop his eyes, in the pulsing instant of revelation that the first full view of her face brought to him. He experienced a. shock at the quiet resignation in it, the hopeless lack of faith tinged with bitterness that shone through the smooth loveliness of her face. And yet, the bitterness was wholly impersonal and detached. Without the process of a. mental analyses, Varrick knew in a quick, telephatic flash that lie was reading in hew face something of a mirrored counterpart of his own spirit weariness; a heart hunger and soul hunger that was starved with the lessons el 1 men’s dcficicnces. And she also felt lht> strange quality o p understanding in the man’s faee. for when she turned away, lingeringly, her Bps were patted a little it seemed ir wonder. Then Varrick remembered how steadily his eves had been contemplating her, and hj quickly turned toward the brilliant spotlight that framed a singer in the centre of the ,s( age. In that casual glance stageward Varrick learned for the first time what complete fear was like; nerve-drugging, stark-stripped fear, that makes of men brutes or mere lumps of quivering flesh. But tho first throb of terror that shook him was not for himself. It •was a sickening horror of what lie knew would follow, swiftly and inevitably—the panic-stricken, deadly fight for the exits—that took him by the throat and out off his breath. For when tho narrow, yellow-tinted ribbon of flame licked up along the tinselled decorations, he was one of the first to see it and grasp its significance. Tho fire that had started with only a faint rustling crackle was caught it the upward, fanning draft of hot air even before the first wave of comprehension swept through tho orchestra seats and shot aloft, suddenly, with a limping roar, lighting up the stage with a glare that paled the glow of the footlights. A gaudily-attired chorus, dipping am waving long, sinuous scarves, had jusi swung out upon the stage, and for an instant they swayed through their steps with a horrible abandon to the rhythm of the orchestra. From the place Varrick noted, with an odd avidity for detail, that the girl on the end of the front row had hurried her makeup. One circle of rouge was far higher on the pasty white of her cheek thar its counterpart. Then someone shouted and the madness came. On one insane impulse a struggling, sobbing mass of humanity was on it' feet, fighting in the clogged aisles a foothold, beating in blind fury against the narrow exits. The spangled, painted chorus, stir swinging giddily in their steps, wen forced further and further across the

stage until they, too broke and leaped over among the scattered chairs and musicians, driven before the searing Homes. It was not an effort of the will, or even conscious effort, that led Varnc-i to keep his seat, but a stunned immobility of muscles that lost command o. their functions. But once the not ban Oceanic an actuality, the terror tlnu had gripped him slipped away a.ud left his brain clear and keen, and filled witu a cynical wonder and scorn tor the men halfway down to the doors, who wore fighting their way, some with bare fisot that fell upon tho white faces of men and women alike. He knew that already a hopeless jamb had formed m the lobby, where the human torrent tossed men here and there like bits ol flotsam. He had not even risen in his seat. Then, with burning realisation, there came the leaping remembrance ot the girl. When ho whaled in her direction it was to encounter her eyes gazing with startling serenity into his own. Site, too, had kept her seat. \ ainck remembered that she had had an escort, a man, smooth-shaven aim blond-haired, like himself. Rut no*v sue sat alone. Even while ho clambered over the low railing that separated his seat Iron, hers, his eyes swept over the heads ol the straining mob, until far down toward tho doors he singled out the man, his blond hair looming above those about him as he cleared a path with blows that fell with a horrible, machinelike precision. A vague shadow of a smile arched the girl's lips as she followed the direction Varrick s eyes had “It isn’t pretty, is.it?” she called, lifting her voice so that ho could heat above the tumult. “And —he thinks that I am still behind him. He ton! me to cling to him and keep my feet. Ho had forgott-en this. Think of itF She leaned forward to indicate an objoct that lay at her side, and \ aiiiok ‘ breath came in a gasp of pity and horror. as ho followed her gesture. “That,” he whispered, “that—a crutch! And he left you to—to—keep your foot!” The girl now dropped back into Mw seat. Now, though she smiled huntlv the light in her eyes had changed. I'hev 1 uul been hard and glittering, but now thev dilated bottomless as they rested U(K)U the lace of tho man above her and read the meaning in the taut, white cords of his jaw. In a oivstalvlcar momeut which only a great cataclysm can bring, all breath of subterfuge, all cloaking masquerade went down between them and hdt them gazing dee]> into each others souls, tripped bare to read. Tho sudden, complete consciousness >f her glowed dully in his face, and mder that light her eyes looked up at him and swam deep and gray and limped. She put out her hand with a little questioning gesture as she leaned toward him. But during this long moment the heat had blown toward -hem in dense, suffocating puffs that reeked of boiling paint. “Not. any chance —at all?” she asked ■oftlv. shaken by the great tragedy in his face. “But you must not pity me o-—besides —1 am not afraid - not very.” He wanted to shield her with all the hi tensity of primeval desire; and yet, before the childish interrogation in her Wes. ho spoke tho truth bluntly, where be had meant to he very gentle. “The doors are sin fix'd with bodies by ■his time. There is no chance for us — I’m afraid.” She spread her handkerchief across her throat and lips as a shield against he pungent, stinging bite of tbe heat waves and smoke. A low cry of imnrecatkm at the flames that were reaching out for her body leaped from Vnrrick’s lips. When he stoo]K'd over her, and quickly slipped his arms aßmt her to lift her, she felt the tide, of savagery that shook him and tightened Ids muscles. She lay against him, quietand quiescent, with eyes closed, as he groped lii.s way out into tho aisle. Some of the lights still shone dimly through the murk and Varrick could see that the hodv of the house was emptied almost as far a.s the inner doors of the lobby. Through them ho knew there won hi ho no passing for many long minutes, if indeed at all. An inarticulate, choking breath caught in his threat as he realised, even mere completely than ho had seen before, the utter hoplossnesa of forcing a way out of the trap. He turned his eves aloft, away from the crushed, misshapen things hat the mob had left crawling and gibbering in its path, or lying huddled and motionless, awaiting Hie fire. But, with a sudden feverish need for action, he started toward the doors. Then, when he, had barely entered the aisle on the right of the house, the girl in his arms felt him falter suddenly in his stride and almost fall. A long, filmy, scarf-like streamer that had been a part of the costume of the glittering chorus had boon swept down the passageway and become entangled in his shuffling feet. In tho same instant Varrick threw hack Ids head and drank in, through lips that were cracking with host, the swil ling draft of air that had blown it against his legs. It was the night air, blessedly cool and sweet and clean, and .smelling of the open. 'I he breath of tho fire was not in it. Foi a moment the man believed, fearfully, that his brain was already swimming with feverish hallucinations from tne heat. Then ho realised that someone, when it was almost too late, had thrown open the door that led behind tho stage entrance. He stumbled forward fiercely toward the avenue of safety that was now all but cut off. lie felt her arms tighten about Ids shoulders with sudden, spasmodic terror, and her body shrink closer against him when the torturing glare of the furnace-like stage cut through her thin clothing until the searing pain was nearly past endurance. Twice he stumbled over charred, fallen beams that brought him crashing to Ids knees in a shower of sparks. Each time n > rose to his feet and swayed forward again, with what seemed must he I In' last effort of overdriven muscles. Nor did she cry out, though burning embers scorched her body. Then the cool shock of the night air swept them, and in another moment he staggered out into the narrow alloy at the rear of the theatre —saved! She lifted her race and smiled, her childishly weary, half enigmatic smile, into his distorted, blackened face. Before ho turned from the passage and carried her into tho deserted street beyond the fire lines to a cab, the Reverend Paul Varrick, whom the elders of his church had that day scored as a heretic and a radical, did an inexplicable thing. Very gently, with a sob of thankfulness coming from his parched throat, he lifted his protege s slender body higher in his arms, and, holding her against him. touched her wanly smiling lips with his own. Two blocks away the burning AfotropoHtau Theatre was sending up a sullen glow that dyed the wet, velvety blackness of the sky with a light Mm that of a huge dying funeral pyre. The next morning, after ho had pressed the bell, Paul Varrick knew from the very attitude of the maid who answered the door and took bis card that be was expected. And oven in tho open, Celtic admiration with which the servant scanned his firemarked face, when she came hack an 1 I bade him follow, there was a quality

that welcomed and, at the same time, half embarrassed him. With her slender length enveloped in the sheer, rose-tinted folds ot a morning gown, the girl, whose face remained to him the only real thing in all the horrible, flame-lit nightmare of the night before, lay in a deep chair before the fireplace, waiting for him. The card which Varrick had given to the maid was still held between her slim fingers, and she glanced over m again, swiftly, as the man entered. “Then you are the Reverend haul Varrick?” she exclaimed, with a quick, illuminating smile. “I wondered that you seemed vaguely familiar to me. I —I have often heard of- you.” A little wave of color stole over her face as soon as the words were fairly uttered. “That is, of course, wo all- ” she began again, in delicious self-conscious-ness. when the man laughed softly and interrupted her. “I do not mind,” he assured her, hieyes filled with consciousness of her smooth, perfect loveliness. 111 was informed yesterday, and far less tactfully, that my onslaughts against the golde i calf of public opinion were common topics of discussion. Miss —Sed.gewick.” In spite of the laughter in his rotor* she felt the real bitterness that ran beneath the surface, and she remembered then how thin and tired and discouraged his face had been the night before, when she had turned ami loom! him watching her unswervingly in the theatre. She nodded her head with capricious quickness at the inflected question in his last word, and held cut Jmv hand with a quaint lack of affectation. “Evelyn Sedgewiek.” she completed the introduction. “Will draw your chair up toward the fire P I them I know why our pioneer ancestors were so utterly happy in their log-cabins. ■' was because they had such glorious, huge fireplaces. Don't you believe se Mr Varrick?” When he had drawn his own chapup beside hers in the circle of the g 1 owing hearth, and turned toward the epen fire, a low exclamation of astonishment escaped Varrick’s lips at the. sight oi the fuel that she had been piling high upon it. Croat, damp red roses lav shrivelling in the flames, twisting amt writhing slowly, to sift finally in puffy ashes through the graft'. 1 he destruction of so much perfect beauty seemed pitifully wanton to the man; hen. when the full significance oi the thing swept over bun, he would have given much to have been able to recall bus smitten gasp of amazement. When his eyes went soberly back to her face, dully tinted t)y tde nreiigtto he was keenly conscious of the same tie tacho-d, analytic light in the girl s wide grey eyes that had surprised and held him spellbound the first bane he had seen her. And she understood all tne pity in the man’s face. "I think I know what you reel, she said slowly. ‘'l used to have s.md<ii sensations myself, hut I called them ilusions, Mr Varrick.” She leaned forward with an indolent grace to poke i thick, blood-tinted bud into the embers. “I’m learning to feed the flames, how ever, almost without wincing. Resides, fire is cleansing, you know. The man only half understood' the enigmatic undercurrent of meaning in ' her words, but the steady, bitter scorn lie caught- and 14 comprehended. His thoughts leaped hack U> the picture of a man, a huge, bloml--1 mired man. in a burning theatre, who heat upon the miserably blanched laces of men and women with his hare fists because his life was so sweet to h.ni. Conversation did not run riot butweon them. . To make the usual conventional inquiry about her welfare seemed flat ami insipid, and he left it unsaid. Even as their acquaintance had been too short t<> supply a host of inconsequential topics for general palter, just to did the fierce light that hnd_ shone ufmn them loth preclude trivialities. With whimsical suddenness sin* turned toward the silent man., .sweeping hack a loose strand of hair with a half petulant motion. _ As he sat staring into the fireplace, Varrick had been vaguely conscious that the fiery, shining glow of her hair, parted hack from her forehead to run in clinging ripples along the sat my whiteness of Ini' ihroat, was halt the poignant worn.or of her. , “You ara laughing,” slip chided him, qurstioningly. “Beneath your \ ei \ jurplo ecclesiastical chiinty ioi liuiiiJ * foibles and follh s you are amused at an action that you view as childish. The roMs-tiiuoil texture ot her sleeve fell away at the elbow as alio lifted an arm in the direction of the hunting flowers. The blond-haired man flashed up before him again, vividly. “I’m sorry for Inin —truly sorry, hj ■ un id gravely, “dust a lido Loo sorry. I tldnk, < ven to smile at this.” Ho, too, motioned at the ashes of the roses on the hearth. “Vo both ought to he very charitable toward him. if we can. Fear isn’t a tabulated thing. Hue man shrieks with terror where another laughs, and sanity isn’t much jnon; than the half-weaned child of fancy, I’m afraid.” . “Charity?” alio repeated after him. “I believe 1 rather hoped you would say that. \es, we should hu chat it-i-bi,!,” She leaned forward impetuously, flushed with eager vehemence until her knee brushed against him, and the man thrilled a little at the M»it contact. “Charity is easy, for eliaritv consists half of giving and hall of forgiving. And hope < is _ eternally feminine, Air \ nrriok, isn t it ■ 1 is faith that perished there in the fire last night. It was faith that he heat down under his fists—-and oventluiMio was only an experiment. Those”pointing -:o tho roses —“are only symbolic. AA'as ! really childishly vindictive in burning his flowers? 11 a sen 1 1 1 ♦ ’rc—he did not tvon como himsol . A great, warm fl od of tenderness surged up within him, urging him to put out a hand and touch her, caressingly, as one might touch a chi’d who had broken a precious toy, at tho unconcealed open hurt dial thr'dibcrl in hrr dilated eves. Vet there could never have been am thing childish in the mingled feminine sophistication and suffering that had come suddenly into her face. Varrick forgot the heavy bitterness that had h’en sapping rhe vitality of his brain, and body for days, he forget the galling restrictions that were making a spineless automaton of him, when he would he a man among oHier men, in the alleviation of her greater pain. “Wouldn’t it he a childish judgment t n condemn the whole race for the rascality of one miscreant?” he questioned steadily. “Is one experiment always conclusive ?” Varrick knew that ho was not arguing for the. sake of the man whoso roses lay perishing in the fire. It was for her own sake that he was arguing, to deaden the irregular pul so that ho could see quivering in her throat and to smooth the ten so control of her lips. And vet ho knew, with all the infallibility of unreasoned conclusions, flint she had not cored for flint man. It was the realisation of how litiTo he had Iv'on worth caring for. the sort of earing (hat is detached from body and flesh, tiiat left her groping for faith and quivering still from tho blow that ho had struck at her helplessness. “No,” she agreed quickly, “one experiment isn’t conclusive—nor am two experiments even twico as conclusive as one. But —hut one can’t forever keep putting human sentiment into the crucible. Flame does cleanse, but it do- | stroys, utterly and forever. And yet, I calk'd him just an experiment, Air i A'arrick. ' “One© I knew a hoy, and he did won-

dorful things with brushes and paints, even before he was a man. And oven then I had commenced building a pedestal for his worship— quite that. Air Varrick. I wasn’t much more than a baby; and then, too, I didn’t go about with a crutch. We danced together and ran together. My family had a camp in the wilderness, back on a lake in the north country, and we hunted tho woods and fished the lakes and rivers, season after season. I was as strong as ho was, almost, and quicker to leap and a surer shot. And where ho sometimes hesitated, 1 never learned to pause and reckon the risk. Wo grew up in just that way —until it flashed upon us one day, as it always must, that he was a man and I u woman. “And there was not a single word of promise spoken between us, when he filially went abroad to study and work. Yet I am quite sure that ho always believed that I belonged to him solely. It was apparent in his impersonal air of proprietorship, in everything that he did and said; and 1 understood it, too, and was happy to acknowledge it. “And then, just two summers ago, M> came back to our camp in the wilderness, as debonair and boyish as ever, and flushed like a school-girl over the success that had been his in Paris. ot. even in the first moment, 1 know i hat something had snapped, something was broken and out of tune, and tho iii si night after he came hack i lay awake, with lips dry with pity for him, living to think how I might toll him gently, in reply to all that 1 knew he hj id como back to say, that wo had been -imply playmates. Playmates are too unconscious of sell to be lovers —ever. “But he did not speak after all. Faro was kinder to him. AVe had planned a trout-lishiug expedition for \hc first morning—one like those of I the years before—and wo rose with tho j sun for an early start. It was a long | distance over the trail that ran around ■ (he lower end of the lake, so —so wo ; lied to cross on a log jam that had formed in the mouth of the narrow, swift stream that emptied into the up-1 per end, nearer the camp. “The logs were wet and slippery, horribly slinpery : and I was not quite so j ...nr,, of foot as in the other days. And j wo had been comrades too long for him to 1 remember always to steady me with his arms, as another man would have done. And - and so, when we reached the middle of the stream, and the logs ; caved and pitched suddenly with the wind, ami relied, 1 had no one hut my- , elf to save me, and I was not strong enough or quick enough, then. And, Hi. I was very, very horribly frightened I What 1 knew was coming! “One foot slipped between the shifting timbers, ami when a heavy surge ol Hie current lorced them together again, slowly and irresistibly, 1 had gone down Ivove my knee. And they gripp'd me Were, and ground and twisted and j rushed, mercilessly, and 1 .'creamed She stooped suddenly, her eyes glowiag with wonder as. limy took in all tlw' !- pen secret ol \ annek s lace, that had j ;■ crown hard and white and savagely : Hiving. She threw out both her hands j toward him in a little gesture of (h‘proaition. | "Why,” sin' murmured, “you must 1 ,:ot pity mi' like that. And I had almost* forgotten llte pain of it.” “Coinf God !” the man breathed aloud lo himself. His two hands were! , lenched until the knuckles blanched j ■ mdm- the pressure. Hie girl’s lips 101 l apart a little as she turned to scan her dim ankles that were visible at the .algc of her gown, one of which could aoT bear the weight of her body, even hutigli it was as slenderly rounded as he oilier. Her voice had changed w hen We went on, after a period of silence. ■ - lt did hurt, dreadlnlly,” she said • iii ll ,l v, "and 1 fainted. That was merciful.' Rut the greater hurt came after. The bruise healed, hut the hone ,ad been twisted. They gave it ai umbilical name all that I really undergood was that I would not walk alone again. ■ lie wrote iiia a letter, a selldehasing, self-condemning letter, in which he was almost frank enough to write without subterfuge that he was too it real a coward to marry a woman chose body was crippled. He men- ; ionod the functions that his wife would have to gnuv to maintain his new posiWui. and in that pain unconsciousness could not come to help me Invar it. \,H sIAW \ did not care not for himthat I knew, utterly and absolutely, th® ■ light before, when 1 lay awake and oniuh'ivd how to be very gentle with him, because ho had seemed lo bo bo worthy of trust and because my faith ■.,j [Hen very great then. And—and ‘ l( . scut roses "then - as now, great, red, deuvv rosebuds. And 1 burned them, Mr 'Varrick. Do you see now why I called last night just an experiment?” Except for the faint crackling of the (ire, there was no sound in tho great, dim room but the man’s quick, uneven breathing. Tho girl had straightened in her chair, arms bare and the delicate point of her chin cradled in the hollows ,',f her hands, eyes staring into nothingness. And it dawned slowly in tho man’s brain, as his eye clung to her face that there was nothing that ho could say to her, even when his bps were parched with pity and Ids throat dry with pain and ids arms^ aching for the right to comfort her. For tho moment he felt that her knowledge was greater even than his own, whose duty It was to learn to know men infallibly. T)iev sat for a long time in a wordless silence. Twice tho man would have spoken nil that in Ids heart was crying nut Mr utterance, and both times, as his eyes followed the weary little droop of her sloping shoulders, ho turned with ti'dit jaw back to the fire. \A hen finally she spoke again, it was of the catastrophe of the night before. “You looked at the papers this meriting a” she murmured softly. “Was it very, very horrible, Air Varrick? 1 dared not rend for myself.” The man nodded his head mutely, in answer to both her questions. “It was too late for many of them, he said,' and then he led the conversation awav from all topics that might hear nmm tho lire with a persistence bo marked that the girl turned thorn from time to time to scan his thin, tii« face in bewilderment, until he rose' to go. . After he had left her and was in tne hallway about to go, a voice behind him checked him, and he turned to he confronted by an old, finely uptight, white-haired man. Varrick know immediately, from the steady, luminous light that glowed in lue eyes, that he was tho girl’s father. “I W aut to thank you, the old man said in a voice that broke huskily. “I want to thank you for bringing my daughter out of that inferno, when she collill 1105 help herself. To-morrow, sir after to-morrow we hope that it will Ixl the same for her as it was before the accident that made her dependent upon tho chivalry of strangers.” Varrick stared hard at the other man’s face ns the meaning of his words drove in upon him. “You mean he exclaimed swiltly‘“y e9 that is it,” he answered eagerly. “An operation. AYeissman is t-o make it. He is the greatest specialist in the world, and ho is in this country. And ho ri very hopeful, extremely honeful, as we all are.” For a second ho stood, vacillating; then all tho decisions that he had built np during tho morning against himself went down like paper fortresses before

a gale at the import ox the other an’s words. ■•‘Might 1 know, sir, to just whom we are indebted for her present safety?” ; ursued the old man gently, as the other still stood in pensive silence. in a preoccupied, bodiless fashion that was wholly mechanical Varrick completed the introduction. He turned quickly, and as ho went swiftly b.tck down the hall to the room in which he had left her sitting before the dying fire, her father followed him with kindly eyes that were filled with understanding. She was sill sitting with her chin imprisoned by her hands, eyes wide aid pain-filled and staring into nothingness, when Varrick entered quietly. She looked up with startled, swiftness :ts he stood above her, as ho had hj st night in the burning theatre. There was a mute question in her very attitude, and Varrick gave it answer in his own interrogation. “Is it so?” ho asked softly. “You aro to - undergo an operation?” Her eyes dropped from his face, turning again to the fire. “Yes, it is so,” site said lifelessly. “Why did you not toll me?” ho demanded steadily. “Wasn’t your woman’s intuition enough to .tell you that It was my right to know:” Because she was not watching his face, 'ho lost all hut the simple interrogation in his words, all the open light that there was in his eyes for her to read. “Why should it be your right?” Her small head lifted, half defiantly, and she scanned his face with deep, searching eyes. Varrick spoke quietly, in the low, swift accents of a man who has his soul to save. “Only because I care,” he said, “aml because you know I care. Last night, when 1 looked at your face for the first ;ime, vou must have felt it, too. 1 did not know what it was then —now I know, t thought it was the spell of your loveliness and pity for tne sadness in your eyes, until I came fo you in the fire. And then I realised that ic was you, all of you —body and brain and soul —that 1 wanted. 1 had not meant to tell you this —yet. Now I tell you because I must—because tomorrow would bo too late.” Tie girl’s face had flushed softly, Irom her throat to the shining hue ol her hair. Then her face whitened slowly, as the delicate color faded, and grew inexplicably older. Her hands dropped and she throw back her head, smiling wanly and a little bitterly. “Are you, then, so sure that it will be a success —the operation?” she queried levelly. Varriek’s face paled a little and his lips tightened spasmodically under the direct implication of her question. “1 do not ask that you have faith in me,” lie said. “I could not ask that you have faith in any man, yet. And it was not an answer that I was asking for. I did not hope For that. I meant only that you should know that I am coming hack to you again, when it is over, whether it is a success or —or a failure. May I come to you thenP” Ills very gentleness in the face ol her stinging, hitter unbelief hurt her She smiled, the old wary enigmatic smilo. “Yes, co mo if you wish,’ she answered quietly. Then she leaned very close to him. “It i-s very hopeless,” she breathed passionately. “Believe me. friend of mine, it is utterly so. You have done much—yon have helped greatly. But there is no more that you can do. They have tried the operation before, and have failed. Tips last time 1 am submitting Irecause it is the happiness of him who told you of t. but it will fail again. So you must come back simply as a friend who has never spoken—for——for I like to thinu that yon would not send roses, even though you waked to find yourself I>omid to—-a cripple! And were I to get well—oh, 1 am of little raith. You brought me out of the fire. I y ouki not have yon go through it again ior mv suite. When von come again ■ shall have forgotten that you ever tolu me this—all but the sweetness of it—and the bitterness will not he quite so great. That is best—and wisest—and easiest for me.” Her words trailed off into silence, the quintessonco of hopelessness. The innn stood for a long time beside her immobile and white of face. She did not hear him pass from the room. ” hen she looked up at last he had gene and she was alone in the fvveglow. The rosetinted folds of the morning gown clung close to the slenderly full lines rtf her trirlish hodv as she turned, with a little inarticulate gasp, and buried her heart in her arms. Lor weeks Evelyn Sedgewick lay back in tho cleop, soft eluvir before the open fire-place in ihe big, dim liviugloom, gazing unceasingly at the names, Th u vague smile upon her lips had grown a. little wearier and the stiain ot the operation had felt the loveliness of her taco even more fragile and dolio a to and Uowerlike. And in all that intervening time Varrick had not come. A month had passed since the great lire in the Metropolitan Theatre, and: ho night, like that of a month before, was chi!!’and black and choked with mist-lino rain. Had in a spirit of caprice, hall led by an emotion that she denied to herself. -mi choked over and fi,Hl from, incontinently, she had put on the satiny, white and gold gown that she had worn the night of tho lire. It was discolored and burned through in tiny spots where the embers had dropped mi on it, but it left tho smooth beauty of her throat and arms undimmed. The old, whUo-hiaimt man who was standing before her. turning his hands slowly in the warmth, stirred uneasily and she lifted her dark, troubled eyes. “Do \ou think that ho will over come again?” who asked softly. “Will ho never come?” ‘Some day he will come,” he answered surely, and his voice quavered as luis eyes rested upon the slender white crutch that lay half hidden in the folds of her dress. Tho boll in tho hall rang distantly as if in fulfi’meut of thu promise in his words. . , Tho white haired man himself opened tho door, and as Paul Varrick entered the hall, it seemed to his eyes, that sought, to anticipate all in one glance, that the face which before had been deeply lined was doubly age marked and pitifully oldler. Varrick was very sure what he would find in tho big, dim living-room, and his cheeks went gray. Together, the two men went silently down the length of the hall, but the older man paused and turned back at the door, and the young man entered alone. For a. moment Varrick stood m the entrance, his eyes fastened upon the little white crutch that lay against her before he crossexl swiftly, with head bowed, and knelt beside her chair. A dry. rasping breath shook his shoulders spasmodically. The smile went from the girl’s lips, and the vivid tide of color”that had leaped into her cheeks at his doming ran slowly out and left them white, as she looked down upon him. “You see, Mr Varrick,” she said, with a strange soft note in her voice that was very near to breaking, “I was wise —wise with the wisdlom of experience. Tt, was hopeless, quite utterly hopeless for me. But vou must not despise yourself or suffer so. Yon were not even bound to come back —and ask for my crippled body. So —so you have

spared roe till© roses —rosea for tiro burning. And. I ... I have quite forgotten, ns 1 said I would, all but the sweetness of it.” She Laughed a soft thrill that was filled with woman’s bravery. The man raised bis head then, for the first tim®, and she saw how much his face had changed. There were hollows in it, gaunt deep-lined hollows, and his eyes were feverishly bright. And there was one more Quality there that she could understand infallibly. It was a tightlipped, wordless unbelief, a bitter Jack of faith in men, that hardened his haggard face. He laughed softly and the girl shrank a little from its harsh mirthless ness. “Vos, it was utterly hopeless,” he said hoarsely. “For a week I have fought to stay away, but to-night I think lam tired out. And .. . and so, I came to tell you, even without roses for the flames, that I am only a coward like the others, who dtjres not ne a whole man.” The girl bad half risen before the burning misery in the eyes of him who knelt before her. She sank back again, her head tilted far back and her eyes < [used and blinded with mist. “And that is not true,” she whispered; “that is not true.” “It is ihe truth,” ho cried softly, "i am too great a coward to go away and leave you to think that I dared not c. mo back like the others. Before, when you were helpless, I wanted you to care for always. . . I wantid to teach you faith in man’s gentleness coward women. And now 1 am a greater coward than the others, for I am not even strong enough to go without telling you again that 1 want you —want you more than anything in the world—-when 1 have nothing now to give to make it easier for you.” She did not speak, but there was a question throbbing in her eyes waiting for an answer. “I am not a man of the church any longer,” he went on dully. “I have been judged unworthy. Even on that night, when I first saw you, they had warned me that their old, dogmatic ways, which made bitter rebels and deserters of good men, must he my ways. To-morrow lam going into tho West. Jtis a new beginning,'new work, not even reconstruction, but building from the bottom up. And I had to come and tell you that, before 1 go. and then, to tell you in the same breath that, with nothing to give—I want .ten.” “And do you think, now that; you have come, that that could make any difference to me, ever?” she asked, her voice unsteady with wonder. A flush that was more than the reflection of the embers tinted her face and the rounded curves of her throat. “Will you go across the room for me.” she asked, “just twelve steps —and —and . hurt ones? They must not be very long. And you must not look back or ask questions. Will you go, please?” The man stared at her, dazedly, still not comprehending. But even in his bewilderment he turned and obeyed her, mechanically counting off the short ■strides across tho carpet. He stood with his face turned away from her for what seemed interminable hours. Then tho shook of her voice close behind him set him trembling. “Will you never, never turn,” she quavered, softly, “and look at me?” Varrick whirled. She was standing alone, without support, slender and tine and erect, so close to him that her breath touched his cheek. Her face was very rosy, but her wide, swimming eyes met bis with level bravery. “You have charity,” she breathed, “and can forgive me for testing you so, for it has brought mo faith again—-world-old faith in men. And I sent you away from me, just a little way, that 1 might follow you . . that I might come to you myself, now that you need me greatly. I —l have more than faith to bring to you . . '. I have a new, straight body that is young and gloriously strong again . . and 1 have love. Oh, do you . . . want me?” The man would have spoken, but his dry throat choked over all that his eves were uttering. "She lifted her hands and put them on his face, and the man’s arms encir- - ded her and took her to him. When they were again together in the glowing circle of the fireplace, and he would have leaned forward suddenly to draw back tho slender white support that had fallen into the flames when she had risen, he drew back instead, and turned and held her closer to him and smiled into her eyes. “The crutch —it is afire,” he said.