CHAPTER III.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 8522, 15 January 1906, Page 4

CHAPTER 111.

" And you are Janet, little Janet !"

Abner Strong, sitting upright in his great four-poster bed, his old-fa6hioned night-cap pulled down over his ears, looked like some stern, well-seasoned burgher in a Holbein canvas. His skin, despite the paling of illness, had the lpathery look produced by much exposure to the elements. His knotted hands show.cd that he had worked as hard as any of the men on hie farm. His mouth — one hard, straight lineindicated an enormous capacity for silence, but the dark, deep-set eyes were full of life and fire. He gazed at his daughter with an astonishment that was not unmixed with a vague, imper- s sonal anger.

"So you've come back, Janet! What made you come home, eh?"

"I came home to Bee you," she answered, humbly. "You came home to see mo! You didn't come because you've repented of your 6ins, of your evil life?" lie said sternly, searching her face with his keen eyes.

"Repented!" Oh, father, that's not the word ! What have I done that I should repent?"

" Done! You've done devil's work for years." A look of patience crept into her face. She must make him understand, if she could, what her art meant to her.

" You call my life on the 6tage 'devil's work'?"

" Just that," he said sharply. "Just that, Janet?"

" What is your conception of the life, father?"

He was silent for a moment; then he said:

"It is a life of luxury and sin, of immodesty and feasting; of gauds and shows; of turning night into day and day into night. You couldn't oome out of it a good woman. You couldn't come out of hell unscorched !"

His voice had risen to shrill condemnation. Janet looked at him quietly; then, with the patient expression deepening in her face, she seated herself near the head of the bed, and took one of his hands in both of hers. He winced, but he did not draw his hand away. . " Father," she said gently, " I have lived on the stage as pure a life as if I had been sheltered all these years under your roof. I waa faithful to Grafton ; since his death I have done no wrong— -or what the world calls wrong. Though even if I had," she added bitterly, "it would not justify you in your harsh estimate of the stage. It is the estimate of total ignorance."

Abner Strong was too astonished to speak. He realised in that moment that a woman, not a child, stood before him.

" There has been no ease, no luxury in my life," she went on. " The art of drama is perhaps the most exacting of all the arts. What I know of it I have learned by unceasing toil, by bitter deprivations, by tears, yes, by prayers, father; prayers to the God who made the human, nature I wanted to portray."

With his free hand he made a gesture of protest, but she did not heed it.

" The struggles of those years would fill volumes. We were often hungry, we were nearly always tired. I . have been from end to end of this country, sometimes never staying but one night in a place. After a while I had to nurße Grafton every moment that I could snatch from my work. Have you ever heard of rehearsals P Do you know what they are? Do you know what it is to go over and over a part for hours, stopping not even to eat? Do you know what it is to go over and over a part until your bones ache, your head swims;. until you could shriek with nervousness, with your despair of ever gaining your goal? Do you call that luxury? Do you call that ease? Do you call that — yes, it is hell sometimes, but no* the hell you mean. Father, I've been a working woman, do you understand, a hard-working woman. God blessed work.- He didn't curse it."

The old man's face -showed signs of a struggle. He beat his free hand on the bed-cover for a minute.

"You worked hard for the devil. Would you have done as much for your Saviour, Janet?" She sighed wearily. " Oh, you can't understand. Yo" 1 ! know nothing of the claini of art. The* >. is an old Shakespeare' in the parlour. Could you read those plays and call them wicked? Oh, father, can't you see?"

He drew his hand away. " Reach me the Bible," he said. She gave him the brown leather book with the iron clasps which in her childhood had seemed to her to contain the personal warrant of her damnation. It opened of itself at the Old Testament, and amid the thunders of the law tv which her father's whole life had beea set. In a monotonous voice he began to read from Jeremiah :

" Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? Nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush; therefore shall they fall among them that fall; in the time of their visitation they shall be cast down, saith the Lord." "When he had finished he looked nx at her. " The Lord's voice and not mhw speaks," he said. " Turn ye, tur'/ -c, for why will ye die?" A sudden anger possessed her. " How dare you judge me, father f How dare you say that my way is evil because it is not your <way?. They call this 'the house with many doors ' ; but to you, life is a house that has, but one door, the iron door, the narrow door of your dreadful creed. Oh, father, there are other doors, to the east, to the west, to the beautiful south. Oh, j father, open them'!" She took his hand again, and held it in a tight grasp, as if by the very force of her will she could make form see and feel with her. But there y--»A no answering pressure. The silence xvoighing heavy upon them was broken by o timid knock at the door. . Janet's mo-

i ' ther entered, looking fearfully from . father to daughter. ■ ! "Janet, dear," she began, "you've i I told father " " Everything." I " And you're going to stay witi U6?" Janet turned to her father. ! "May I stay?" , He set his teeth doggedly for an instant ; then he said : "On condition that you never go back to the stage!" There was a silence. Mrs Strong , looked imploringly at her daughter. "1 want to bo quite clear, father. ■ Do you mean that I must give up my work wholly, absolutely?" " Wholly, absolutely. You must choose between me and your old life." "I can't give up my art!" " You love the stage better than your father!" he 6aid bitterly. " I love my work and I love my parents," she answered. " I refuse to give up either." " You will have to. If you love the stage better, go to the stage, go back to its evils." "Oh, Abner!" Her mother, trembling and tearful, put her arms around Janet. "Oh, my dear, can't you? We are old !" "Mother, how can I? Why is it neoessary ? Why can I not be with you whenever my work allows me? Why can you not stay in my life, to give me ■ something to love, to cherish? 1 need you more than you know I" She broke into passionate weeping. The old man stretched out his arms. " Come ; come, give it all up, little Janet, coin© back to us, come! ' She shook .her head. "I cannot give it up." Late- that night she sat alone in her old bed-chamber. A letter to Frederick Gwathmey lay before her. She read it again and again, because the written ■ words looked strange and unfamiliar to her tear-filled eyes. "He has put me out of his life sgain. For that matter, I was never in it, except as an instrument by which he wrought oat his own salvation— ?trangely, never mine ! And it is stiJ ds salvation of which he thinks first. Igo away to-morrow. In October my seascn begins in town, and in October you' say you are returning from the West. Come to me then." j