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Show - - . , ' I i .nil , y Z' - 1 ..... .... v AUTHOR OF "THE JUNGLE" coprfKbt whoio wAlki were marked in tha moonlight moon-light bv the high gbrabbery that lined them. Some distanca beyond, down one of the paths, were two aummer-houses, and it seemed to her that tha music had-eome had-eome from one of them, probably the far one, for it had sounded very sor$. No sooner had the thought come to her than ehe turned and went quietly to the door. She ran quickly down the eteps, and seeing her aunt and Mr. Boberts-upon Boberts-upon the piazza, she turned and passed out by one of the side doors., ;, Helen had yielded to a sudden impulse im-pulse in doing thus, drawn by her yearning for the music. .when she Ihought about it as she walked on.it. seemed to her a foolish idea, for the man could not possibly know of her trouble, and moreover was probably with his friend the Lieutenant. . But she did not stop even then, for her heart 's hunger still drove her on, and she thought, "I'll see, and perhapr he will plav again without my asking; I can sit In the near summer-house and wait. . .-.- . ' . ' She went swiftly on with that purr pose in mind, not going upon the path, because she would have been in the full moonlight, and in sight of the two upon up-on the piazza. She passed silently along by the high hedge, concealed in its shadows, and her footsteps deadened by the grass." She was ae quiet as possible wishing to be in the summer-house without any one's knowing it. i CHAPTER IX. - i (Continued.) She was thinking about Arthur again, and about his fearful plight; there rushed back upon her all the memories ; of their childhood, and of tha happiness which tbey had known together. The thought of the broken figure which she fc-1 seen -by the roadside became more f s)tvrf ul to her every moment. It was ; not that it troubled her conscience, for Helen could still argue to herself that she had done nothing to wrong her friend, that there had been nothing selfish in her attitude towards him; she had wished him to be happy. It seemed to her that it was simply a result of the cruel perversity of thing that she had been trampling upon her friend's happiness happi-ness in order to reach her own, and that .- all her struggling had only served to make things worse. .The fact that it ; was not her fault, however, did. not make tha situation seem less tragic and fearful to her; it had come to such a crisis now that it drove her almost mad to think about it, yet she was completely complete-ly helpless to know what to dor and as she strode up and down the room, she clasped her hands to her aching head and cried aloud in her perplexity. ' Then, too, her surging thoughts hur-; hur-; ried on to another unhappiness to her 2 father, and what he would Bay when he - - : v- :: :, : - , ; , 1 . : found herself leaning forward and wondering. wonder-ing. VI know mora about thoi tears than most people," thi- man went on slowly, after long pause,, "for I hav hsd to build my own hit in that way : I know best of all the failuf. for that has bean my lot.' When you and I knew each othsr I w very atrong in my own heart, and I could alwsy find what joy and power I needed for tha living of my life; but then have come to m sine, ia thi year that. I nev dwelt sll alone with my great trial, times whsa I think that I hsvi stood' f see to ' face -with thia thing that we speak of, this osked trsredy and terror of ix-istence. ix-istence. There -hsve bean times when- all the yearning antt all thi prayer that I had could not save me, whin I havi known that I had not an ounce of resource left, and have aat and watched the Impulse of my soul dla within mi and all my strength go from mi, and lien myself with fesrful plainness as a spark of yearning, a living thing n all ita pitifulnesa and hunger, helpless md walled up ia darkness. To feel that is to bi riry near indeed to thi losing creatures and their sorrow,' and tha memory of on such time i enough to keep a mm merciful forever. For it i really the deepest fact about lifi that a man can. know how it is so haxaTdou and , so precious, how It keep it head above the great ocean -of the infinite only by all tha lores it can erett. It happens sometimes that maa does not discover th truth until it ia too late, and thin hi find Hf viry cruel and aavag indeed, I can tell you.' Mr.- Howard stopped and Helen drew a deep breath; (hi had been trembling (lightly (light-ly aa ahi atood listining, then as hi spoke again her heart gavi a violsnt throb. "Some dey," hi said, "this girl tht wi wira talking talk-ing about will hav to come to that part of her life'a journey. It is a very sad thug to know." . . - "(She will understand her sonata better, said th officer. ... "'o," w he reply; I wish I could vn think that. I know how sorrow affeots a person whose besrt is true, how it draw him' close to the grest hesrt of life nd teaches him its sacrednes and sends him forth merciful and humble. But aelflsh misery mis-ery and selfish fesr an no less ttgia selfish happiness; a person who suffers ignobly becomes be-comes only disgusted and disagreeable and mora selfish than ever. . . But let us not talk any more about Miss Davis, for it is not a pleasant subject. To a man who seeks as I do to keep his hsart full of worship wor-ship thi very air of this place is stifling, with Its Idleness and pride. It gives the hi to ill my fsith about rife, and I have only to go bsok into my solituds and forget it as soon as I can.' ' . "That. ought ot to bi a difficult thing to do," said thi officer. "It is for me," th other answered; "it hsunts my thoughts all the time." Be paused for a while and then he added: "I happened hap-pened to think of something I came across this morning in a collection of French verse I wss resding. William, did you ivir.read anything of Augusta Bruesuxl" "Hejias some qualities that are very ran in French poetry, went on Mr. Howard. "He makea one think of Wordsworth1. I happened hap-pened to read a homely little ballad of his a story of that tragedy of things that we spoke of. One could name hundreda of such poems quite as good, I suppose, but this happened hap-pened to be the one I came aeross, and I could not help thinking of Miss Davis and wondering if she wen reslly so cold and so hsrd thst she could have heard thia story without shuddering. For it really shook mi very much." And she bad come very close to it, indeed, within a few yards, when suddenly sud-denly she stopped short with an inward exclamation; the silence of the twilight had been broken by a voice one that seemed, almost beside her. and that startled her with a realization of the mistake she had made. The two men were themselves in the bouse to which she bad been going. It was Mr. Howard 's voice which she beard; bs was speaking very low, almost al-most in a whisper, yet Helen was near enough to hear every word that he uttered. ut-tered. , "Most people-would think it simply a happy and beautif ul piece of music, ' ' he saia. "Most, people think that of the springtime; but when a man has lived as I, he may find that the springtime, spring-time, too, is a great labor and a great suffering he does not forget that for the thousands of creatures that win the great fight and come forth rejoicing, there are thousands and tens of thousands thou-sands that go down, and have their mite of life crushed out, and find the law very stern indeed. Even those that win do it by a fearful effort, and can-jjot can-jjot keep their beauty long; so that the springtime passion takes on a kind of desperate intensity when one thinks of it." Thi voice ceased for a moment, and Helen ' learned the dreadful news. How could . she explain it to him I And bow could she tell him about her marriage f At the mere thought of that the other horror hor-ror seized upon her again, and she sank down in - a chair bv the window and hid her face in her hands. ' "Oh, how can I have done It!" she gasped to herself. "Oh, it was so t dreadful! And what am I to do now!" i That last was thn chief question, the ' lone to which all others led; yet it was i one to which she could find no answer. ,8he was convJtely confused and help-i'-M,"and att Aclaimed aloud again and Jf jkixx, "Oh, u I eould only find some T v,ne to tell me! I do not know how I "n keep Arthur from behaving in that " ' leadfuf way, and know I cannot ever lj Jarry Mr. flarrisonl w , q .. The more she tortured herself with 'these problems, the more agitated she .'became. She aat there at the window, - clutching the sill in her hands and star-.lag star-.lag out, seeing nothing, and knowing only that the time was flying, and that her anx'fty . was- building .itself up and becoming an agony which' she could not bear. "Oh, what am I to do!" she groaned Again and again and she passed hours .aking herse5 the fearful question; the wilight had closed about her, and the ' tnoon had risen behind the distant hills. . Bo oblivions to all things about her was she, that ehe failed at first to notice no-tice something else, something which would ordinarily have attracted her at-tention at-tention at once -a sound of music which came to her from somewhere near. It was the melody of Grief's ""An den TrueMing,.'.' -played pn- a- violin, and it bad stolen into Helen's heart and become part of her own stormy emotion before she had even thought of what it was or whence it came. The little piece 1b the very soul of the springtime passion, pas-sion, and to the girl it was the very utterance ut-terance of all her yearning, lifting her fceart in a great throbbing prayer. "When it had died away her hands were clenched very tightly, and her breath vas coming fast. She remained thus for a minute, for- fetful of everything; then at last she ound herself thinking ,"it must be Mr. Howard," and waiting to see if he would play again. But he did not do so, and Helen sat in silence for a long time, her thoughts turned to him. She found herself whispering "so he is a wonderful musician after all,"' and noticing no-ticing that the memory of his wan face frightened her no longer; it seemed just then that there could be no one in the world more wretched than herself. She was only wishing that he would-begin again, for that utterance of her grief had seemed like a victory, and now in . the silence she was sinking back into her despair. The more she waited, the more impatient she grew, until sud-denlv sud-denlv she rose from her seat. "He might play again if I asked riim.7 she said to herself. 'He would -f If he knew I was unhappy; I wonder , where he can bet" Helen's window was in the front of the house, opening upon a broad lawn atood gazing about her; the word wen aot without a dimly felt mianing to her just then, snd the tone of the men's voles ssemed like the music she bsd hesrd him play. 6b e wtould have liked to stay and listen, though she knew' thst she hsd no right to. She wss certain that she hsd not been seen, becsuse the little housi was thiekly wrapped sbout -with eglsntin: and she stood, uncertain as to whether sha ought to stesl back or go out and join the two men. In the meantime the voice began again: "It gives a man a new feeling of the prec-iousness prec-iousness of life to know keenly what it meana to fail, to be like a tiny spsrk struggling strug-gling to msintsin itself in the darkness and finding that all it can do is aot sufficient and that it ia sinking back into nothingness forever. for-ever. I think thst is the meaning of the wild and atartled look that tha ereatures of the forest wear; and it is a very tragic thing indeed to realm and makes one full of mercy. If he knows his own heart ha can read the ssme thing in the fsees of men, and he no longer iven laughs at their pride and their greediness, but sees them quite infinitely wretched and pitiable. I do not speak merelv of th poor snd hopeless people, snd hunted ereatures of society; for this terror is not merely physical. It is the aame imperative of life that make conscience, and so every man knows it who hss msd himself a slsve to hi body and sees th soul within him helpless and sinking; and every man who has sinned and aees his evil stamped upon the face of things outside him in shapes of terror ter-ror that must be forever. Strange as it msy seem. I think the man who lives most rightly, right-ly, tha maa of genius, knows th feeling mosj of all because his conscience is the quickest. It is bis tssk to live from his own heart, to take the power thst is within him and wTestle with it snd build new universes from it to be a pioneer of the aoul, so to speak, and to go where no man has ever been before; and ret all his victory is nothing to him, becsusi he knows so well whet he might have done. Every time that hi shrinks, as hi must shrink, from whst is so hsrd ind so high in hi own vision be knows thst yet another glory is lost forever, snd so it comes that he stands very near indeed to the 'tears of things. " Mr. Howsrd stopped sgsin. snd Helen " " ""'gwa i "What is it I" tha other asked. "I can tell you the atory in a few words," said Mr. Howard. "To me it was on of those flashes of beauty that frighten one and haunt him long afterward, and I do aot quite like to think about it again." The speaker'a voice dropped, and the girl involuntarily crept a littli nearer; to hear him. There was' a tree ia front of her, and -she leaned against ...it, breathing' very hard, ' thou it h making no sound. "The ballad is called 'Jacques the Ms-son.' Ms-son.' " said Mr. Howard. "There an three little picture! in it. In the first of them you see two men setting off to their work to-. to-. getoer, one of them bidding his wif and children good-by, ' and promuing to return with hi friend for aa evening feast, be-caue be-caue th grest building is to-be finished. Then you see them it work, swarming upon the structure and rejoieing ia their success; and then you hear the shouts of the crowd as the scaffolding breaks, and see those two men hanging over the abyss, clinging to a little plank. It is not strong enough to hold them both, and it is cracking; and that means a fearful death. They try to cling to the stones of the building snd cannot, and ao there comes one of those fearful . moments that makes a man'a heart break to think of. Then in the fearful silence you hesr one of the men whisper that he has three children and a wife, and you see thi other gate at him an inatant with terror in his eyes, and then let go his bold and shoot down to the street below. And thst is all of the story." Mr. Howard stopped, and there followed a long silence. After he went on, his voice trembling: "Thst is all," he said, "except, of course, thst the man was killed. And 1 can think of nothing but that body hurled down through the air, and the' crashed figure fig-ure and the writhing limbs. I fsncy the epic grandeur of soul of thst poor ignorant lsbor-er, lsbor-er, and the glory that must have flamed up in bis hesrt st that great instant: ao I find it a dreadful poem, and wonder if it would not frighten that careless girl' to resd it." Mr. Howsrd stopped sgsin, snd the officer asked if the story were true. "I do not know thst," answered the other, oth-er, "nor do I csre. It is enougn to know thst every dsy men are celled upon to fsee the shuddering reality of existence in soma such form ss thst. And the question which it brought to my heart is: If it rsme to me ss terrible ss thst, and as sudden and implacable, im-placable, would I rhow myself the msn or the dsstardt And thst filled me with a fearful swe snd humility, and a guilty wonder won-der whether somewhere in the world there might not be a wall from which I should be throwing myself, instesd of nursing my illness ss I do, snd being ritent to resd sbout greatness. And oh, I tell you, when I think of su-h things ss thst. "snd tee the strange It is thst this form of mini should be thst which represents me to men. and I cannot find ssything they might reslly learn about me, except the one physical fact of suffering." "Tbey csn eertsinly not fsil to lesrn thst." ssid the other. (To Be Continued.) pride and wortblessness of this thing thst men call 'high lite.' it seemed to me no longer long-er heedless folly, but dsstsrdly snd fiendish crime, so thst one can only bur his fsce in his hinds snd sob to know of it. And. Wil-lism. Wil-lism. the more I reslized it. tne more unbearable un-bearable it seemed to ma that this glorious girl with all her God-given besuty. should bs plunging herself into a stream so foul. I fait ss if it were cowardice of mini that I did not take her by thi hand and try to make her tee what madness she wss doing." "Why do you not I" asked the Lieutenant. . "I think I should hsve. in my more Quixotic Quix-otic days." replied the other, ssdly; "and perhaps some dsy I msy find myself in a kind of high life where royal sincerity is understood. But in this world even an idealist hss to keep a sense of humor, unless he hsppens to be dowered with an Isiaa'a rage. Mr. Howard paused for . moment and laughed slightly; then, however, hi went "on more earnestly: "Yet, as I think of it, I know thst I could frighten her; J think thst if I should tell her of some of the days and nights thst I have spent in tossing upon up-on bed of fire, sha might find th cup of her selfishness -trifle less pleasant to drink. It ia something thst I have noticed with people, peo-ple, that they may be cosrse or shsflow enough to laugh at virtue snd earnestness, but there are very few who do not bow their heads before suffering. For thst is something physics); and they may harden their conscience if they please, but from the possibility of bodily psin they know that they can never be safe: and they. seem to know thst a man who has walked with that demon has Isid his hand upon tha grim reality re-ality of things, before which their shams and vanities shrink into nothingness. Tha eight of it ia always a kind of wanting of the seriousness of life, and so even when veenle feel no sympathy they cannot but feel fear; I ssw.fer instance. .thst the. first time this girl saw me she turned pale, and she' would not coma anywhere near me." As ths spesker paused again Lieut. Msv-nsrd Msv-nsrd ssid, very quietly. - 7,I should think thst would be a bard cross to besr, David." "No," ssid Mr. 'Howard, with a slight smile. "I had not thought that in my mind. I have seen too much of th reality of life to trouble myself or the world with vsnity of thst very crude, kind; I can sometimes imagine myself being proud of my serenity, but thst is one step. beyond at any rate. A man who Uvea in hia aoul very seldom thinka ef himself ia an external way;-when I look ia the glass it ia generally to think how |