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 .The life within ... 
 
 3 1924 022 230 704 
 
The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022230704 
 
THE 
 
 LIFE WITHIN 
 
THE 
 
 LIFE WITHIN 
 
 ^ ^ ^ ^ 
 
 "/ PROPHESY, with feet upon a 
 grave. 
 Of death cast out, and life devouring 
 
 death 
 As flame doth wheat and stubble with 
 
 a breath; 
 Of freedom, though all mankind were 
 
 one slave ; 
 Of truth, though all the world were 
 
 liars ; of love 
 That time nor hate can raze the 
 
 witness of." 
 
 — Algernon Charles Swinburne. 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 LOTHROP PUBLISHING 
 
 COMPANY 
 
COPYRIGHT, 
 
 1903, BY 
 
 L T H R P 
 
 PUBLISHING 
 
 COMPANY. 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 ENTERED AT 
 
 STATIONERS' 
 
 HALL 
 
 Published in January, 1903 
 
TO ONE WHO 
 WAS AS DEAD 
 AND IS ALIVE 
 
PREFACE 
 
 rHIS book was written because I felt that 
 I must add to a new faith my testimony 
 of what I have seen and heard. I have 
 doubtless made mistakes in the telling. I am, not 
 of the inspired. I can only write what has 
 actually appeared to me. 
 
 I am but a reporter of the workings of the 
 wonders I have seen, and in that I may at least 
 claim to be honest, making an appeal to other 
 honest people. 
 
 Herein are facts. I have tried to put them 
 in a setting not too far from the original, in a 
 way which would appeal to many people. 
 
 The world is full of those who do not suffer 
 themselves, and who do not realise what it means 
 to try to keep from those who do, their only hope. 
 
 I desire only that this little tale may cause you 
 to wonder if it is fair to allow your intolerance, 
 of what is a mystery to you, to keep the sufferer 
 to whom hope means so much, in the shadow of 
 your disbelief. 
 
THE 
 
 LIFE WITHIN 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE snow lay deep in the street and higher 
 still on the borders of the pavements 
 before the houses. 
 Stevensburg had become a city. It had a 
 mayor, a city council, and a line of " overhead " 
 trolley-cars; but it had not reached the stage 
 in its development where street-cleaners were 
 thought necessary. All day long the delivery 
 wagons creaked their way through the frozen 
 and packed snow, and at night the shouts and 
 bells of straw-ride merrymakers came through 
 the windows, where people sat before their 
 natural gas fires. 
 
 Stevensburg's oldest inhabitant declared that 
 
 the climate had changed. At any rate, the belief 
 
 in a new climate was just now coming upon the 
 
 people, and inducing tliem to build houses in 
 
 II 
 
12 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 which they could be comfortable. In the old days, 
 an Eastern Kentuckian was apt to think that he 
 lived in the South, and build his houses accord- 
 ingly. Their wooden walls, brick foundations, 
 bay-windows loosely fitted, let the icy blasts of 
 winter sweep through the rooms, lifting the car- 
 pets in puffs from the floors. 
 
 In summer the inhabitants baked or stewed in 
 the mists from the sun-heated river. 
 
 But the new generation coming along was 
 changing the town's ways. An influx of North- 
 erners, aggressive people who had heard of the 
 great undeveloped wealth of Eastern Kentucky, 
 had done something to educate, even while they 
 were disliked and their presence resented. The 
 new houses, going up all over the town, changing 
 landmarks that had stood for two or three gen- 
 erations, making the homes of some of the " best 
 people " look shabby, were of brick, fitted with 
 tight doors and windows, and furnaces for the 
 winter-time; surrounded by deep, shady, hip- 
 roofed verandas against the summer's heat. 
 
 The hack from the railway station drew up to 
 one of these new houses, but the orderly old 
 elms and maples which surrounded it, lifting 
 their bare, cold branches against the orange 
 western sky, told that it was on the site of an 
 old home of consequence. It was an example of 
 the progressive ways which had lately come to 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 13 
 
 the townspeople; a lesson, taught them by the 
 new people. 
 
 The horses, fat and sleek, too solid and com- 
 fortable to belong to the ramshackle old carriage 
 and harness, tried to break through the drifts of 
 frozen snow on the edge of the pavement, and 
 then stood peacefully. The driver sat on the 
 front seat and beat his arms and legs, and let his 
 passenger get down as best she could. 
 
 She opened the door of the old carriage, tug- 
 ging at the rusty catch, and when it gave bounded 
 across the drift like a schoolgirl. She was so 
 light and slender that she might have been any 
 age, were it not for her hair, which was almost 
 white under the brown pheasant turban. It was 
 a sweet, delicate face, with perfect features and 
 soft brown eyes, which looked up at the driver, 
 pocketbook in hand, ready to pay him. It was the 
 first time he had seen her with her veil up, since 
 he had taken her up at the station when she left 
 the car, and as he looked, his jaw dropped and 
 he stared like a man who couldn't believe his 
 own eyes. 
 
 " How much ? " she asked again. 
 
 " My — my goodness — my ! " the man stam- 
 mered. His face grew red. 
 
 " You ain't — ? " He evidently started on 
 some question, and then concluded that he would 
 
14 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 be foolish to ask it. He had lived in the town 
 all his life, and knew every resident by sight. 
 
 Through his brain went a rapid rehearsal of 
 how he would tell that he came pretty near 
 thinking that another woman was Miss Cathie 
 Beale " come alive." It would be a dramatic 
 tale to tell the crowd about the livery-stable stove. 
 
 " A half a dollar, I guess — about," he said. 
 His eyesight must be playing him tricks. 
 
 The lady handed it up, with an extra ten cents, 
 and turned, just as the door of the house opened, 
 and a tall girl of about sixteen rushed down the 
 steps. The young girl stopped abruptly at the 
 gate with something the same look on her face 
 that the driver had shown. The lady smiled at 
 her — but there was a moisture about her brown 
 eyes and a tremble in her lips. 
 
 " Geraldine," she said, " don't you know rae? " 
 
 For answer the girl gave a scream, darted 
 toward her, and drew back, and then ran up the 
 path again and burst open the front door. 
 
 " Mamma, mamma ! Lily, Lily ! Oh, mamma, 
 Aunt Cathie is home, and she's walking! " 
 
 Then she threw herself on the stairs and burst 
 out into excited sobs, while the rest of the family 
 came to the door to see her who was as one dead 
 alive again. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 BEFORE dark the story was all over the 
 town. The driver whipped up his horses 
 and started down Chester Street, telling 
 everybody he met. It made no difference to him 
 that he had never spoken to some of the people be- 
 fore. He stopped and shouted the news. All 
 social barriers were down in the light of a general 
 interest. Men on their way home to supper, 
 some of them carrying beefsteaks in brown 
 paper parcels in their elbows, after the old fashion 
 of the town, stopped and listened. If they did 
 not know Miss Cathie Beale, they knew the 
 Judge and his family, by sight at any rate. And 
 the story of Miss Cathie's sufferings was part 
 of the town's history. She had been the beauty 
 of the town, the gayest, most popular girl, not 
 only in the State, but as far away as Pittsburg 
 and Cincinnati. The year her father, the old 
 Senator, died, she had lately made her debut 
 in Washington, and there had been rumours that 
 she was to marry the son of an ambassador. 
 Then — the stroke fell. Her father died, and 
 
 IS 
 
i6 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 she came home. At his funeral, the horses ran 
 away, Cathie was thrown under the wheels, and 
 the carriage went over her spine. They took 
 her home, and sent for the greatest specialists 
 from New York and everywhere else. These 
 came only to say that it was a hopeless hurt. 
 Some of them waited about for days, in the thrall 
 of that beautiful, pitiful, suffering face, wanting 
 with all their hearts to give some word of hope, 
 ready to exhaust the resources of human science 
 for the relief of this poor girl. No expense was 
 spared, no love was spared. But at last they 
 all went away, shaking their heads. 
 
 The greatest doctor of all said : " If I could 
 put a broken lily back on its stalk, I could cure 
 her. For the time she lives, she will live like a 
 flower in water. Her back is broken." 
 
 And weeping, trying to hide their tears, her 
 family and friends began the loving task of keep- 
 ing her alive. At first she turned her head to 
 the wall and prayed for death. Pain, sleepless 
 nights, the long agony of years lay before her. 
 
 She had one sister and one brother. As is 
 often the case, the sister-in-law was nearer and 
 dearer than the sister. Mrs. Glover was the 
 older sister, and had her house full of children. 
 
 Roger Beale, the brother, had married Cathie's 
 dearest girl friend, and the two women were of 
 the sweet nature that knew none of the petty 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 17 
 
 jealousies which divide some friends when they 
 share any love between them. So, when Cathie 
 was carried back into the home of her girlhood, 
 it was also her brother's home, and there for 
 nineteen long years she lay, unable to turn herself 
 in her bed. The baby Lily brought to her her 
 first smile. The year-old baby had known her 
 beautiful girl aunt as her gayest playmate, and in 
 the weeks she was kept from the sickroom, the 
 child did not forget her. When she saw the 
 white face on the pillow, she gave a scream of 
 delight, and said her first word: 
 
 "Mine! Mine!" 
 
 The other children, the boy and the girl. Jade 
 and Geraldine, had come along, born after the 
 accident, accepting the suffering aunt as they 
 accepted any other fact in life, as something there 
 from their creation. 
 
 A few months ago, in the spring, the judge 
 decided to build a larger and more comfortable 
 house. He talked the matter over with his sister 
 and wife, and they decided that it must be done. 
 
 When the question of Cathie's comfort came 
 up, she brought out an idea which had been 
 maturing a long time. She wanted to go to 
 the seashore. 
 
 While she was limp and paralysed in her lower 
 limbs, and able to move only her arms and head, 
 a reclining-chair with air cushions had been con- 
 
i8 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 structed for her, and she was rolled about the 
 veranda, and sometimes along the shady walks 
 of Chester Street. Sometimes for months this 
 exertion would be too great for her feeble 
 strength. 
 
 But as she lay in her bed the thought of the 
 sea came to her. She was thirsty to taste the 
 damp, salt air, longing to hear again the dash 
 of the breakers as they rolled in and broke. She 
 wanted to see the moon rise and make its silver 
 pathway glimmer across the black water. 
 
 They took a cottage at Atlantic City, and a 
 private car containing her own bed took her 
 there. 
 
 Judge Beale had no hope, but an everlasting 
 faith in new discoveries, new mechanical inven- 
 tions. And here again he called together the 
 greatest surgeons and physicians, and asked if 
 genius had done anything in all these years to 
 lighten the suffering of his sister. And then 
 again they shook their heads. Water beds, air 
 beds, oxygen in the atmosphere, the care of 
 trained attendants, all these were part of the 
 daily machinery which kept the poor plucked 
 lily from death. There was nothing more. New 
 doctors had come up in the years, and each of 
 them had said the same word. They could not 
 mend a broken spine. 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 19 
 
 " Even could we," one said, " could we force 
 life into the nerves of those limbs which have 
 been dead for nineteen years ? " 
 
 After the summer was over, Cathie begged 
 to stay a little longer. 
 
 " I love it here," she said, " and now that the 
 house is finished, I want you to do something 
 for me. The children have never had their 
 mates about them for real frolics, because they 
 must always think of jars and noise." 
 
 " My dear Cathie," said her cheerful sister-in- 
 law. " You needn't put on that air. You know 
 perfectly well that you have been the making of 
 the children's manners." Mrs. Beale was as 
 healthy as she was kind, and had kept her own 
 mind sane by treating others sanely. No 
 sickly plaints had even been allowed to enter 
 the sweet room where Cathie bore her martyr- 
 dom. The invalid smiled now upon this tender, 
 good sister and friend, in a way which spoke 
 her appreciation. 
 
 " Yes, I know," she said. " But I want you to 
 go back to the new house, and give Jerry a 
 party where they can half tear the house down. 
 Then I want you to give Jack and his friends 
 something. Then if there is any house left, let 
 Lily have her coming-out party. It has been 
 put off long enough. She is twenty." 
 
20 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 " But," said Lily, " how could I come out, 
 unless you were there to see me in my dress ? " 
 
 But it was after Cathie's plan that they ar- 
 ranged it. Reluctantly they went home, leaving 
 Cathie with her nurses and old servants, and 
 with a new friend she had made during the 
 summer, — a woman whose gentle, motherlike 
 face had drawn them all close to her. She lived 
 near by, and promised to stay until they came 
 back for Cathie. 
 
 The party for Lily was to be the next night. 
 It was early December. And here, flying over 
 frozen drifts, erect, with sparkling eyes, a pretty 
 red in rounded cheeks, stood Cathie, waiting for 
 them to greet her, while the story of the miracle 
 of her cure was travelling into every house in 
 the town. 
 
 By the time she had refused to "lie down," 
 had kissed the hysterical Geraldine, and had 
 greeted her brother, who came in and tried to 
 ask her, " How ? " and broke down into the first 
 tears he had shed since that awful day when 
 his sister was stricken, and let his voice lose 
 itself in a husky whisper of " My little sister ! " 
 women were ringing neighbours' door-bells, and 
 saying : " Miss Cathie Beale's at home, as well 
 as she ever was." And the neighbours were re- 
 ceiving the news calmly, just as the excited teller 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 21 
 
 had received it, and had made one of two re- 
 marks : " It's wonderful what doctors can do 
 nowadays," or, " I guess she wasn't as sick as 
 she thought she was." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE account of her recovery which Cather- 
 ine Beale had to give was received with 
 puzzled unhappiness by her brother and 
 sister. 
 
 It would probably have surprised the Beale 
 family to be told that they were not religious 
 people, always excepting Judge Beale. In old 
 Episcopalian families it is generally expected that 
 the head of it shall be a little lax in observances 
 — at any rate until his later years. 
 
 The Beale children had all been " confirmed " 
 as soon as they were old enough. " It is just as 
 well to get it over," Mrs. Beale had said. " In 
 these days the very babes get such queer ideas 
 in their poor little heads. If I let Jack wait 
 until he thinks about it he will probably grow 
 shy over it, and not be confirmed at all. And 
 one never knows what excitable notions will get 
 into a girl's head." The last remark was apropos 
 of the mortification which a friend had experi- 
 enced last winter, when her young daughter, still 
 in school, had been " converted " by a Methodist 
 
 22 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 23 
 
 revivalist, and had joined that communion. So 
 Jack had his face washed, and went to the con- 
 firmation class in the same spirit that he went to 
 Sunday school, but with a little more respect in 
 his heart. Mr. Lessing, the rector, was a mild, 
 smooth man from Richmond, who was a general 
 favourite. He made religion easy to everybody, 
 including himself, and had that valuable faculty 
 in a shepherd, the ability to coax his sheep. 
 When his many parish duties and the long, hot 
 summer days made it impossible to prepare a 
 new sermon, he took from his library one that 
 had been bound in leather by a devoted parish- 
 ioner. The text was, " And she bound a scarlet 
 thread in the window." 
 
 The congregation of St. Saviour's was made 
 up chiefly of ladies, and " The Scarlet Thread " 
 always caused a thrilling flutter to pass over the 
 pews. It had several quotations from the poets, 
 and some very fine descriptions. Mr. Lessing 
 had written it in his youth, before he married 
 Mrs. Lessing and became the father of seven 
 children. He used to answer compliments upon 
 that sermon by the modest remark that he was 
 not equal to writing a sermon like that now. 
 If there was any reserve in the eye which had 
 belonged to a line of Virginia planters, his con- 
 gregation never saw it. 
 
 Sunday school was for Jack a period of mascu- 
 
24 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 line education. It would probably have bewil- 
 dered Mrs. Beale to discover that her young 
 son was learning under the influence of an hour 
 every Sunday morning a cynicism which belonged 
 to the youth of the courts of the Louis. 
 
 Mrs. Allaire was a prettyish widow, who was 
 considered by " all of the boys," including her 
 own son, to be utterly incapable of telling the 
 truth, and to be a gentle, amusing idiot. She 
 laughed at everything, and was held by these 
 children to whom she expounded the lessons to 
 be entirely irresponsible ; one to be regarded with 
 affection and contempt. They told each other 
 with chuckles, anecdotes of her silliness, and how 
 the questions became confused when a disturbing 
 element went by. When her head went a little 
 to one side and her voice grew a little sweeter, 
 those of the row of clean little boys whose backs 
 were turned to the aisle would bet their marbles 
 and Sunday-school money on the identity of the 
 passer-by. Some of them professed an ability to 
 define the shades of consciousness between Mr. 
 Lessing and Mr. Ainslee, the tenor in the choir. 
 
 The mothers of the boys held exactly the same 
 opinion of her; but they would have been 
 shocked and amazed could they have realised 
 the clear ideas of the children. What difference 
 could it make who taught infancy the legends 
 concerning Lot's wife and Moses? 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 25 
 
 The brightest boys in the class, led by Jack 
 Beale, had taken up a manner of reciting their 
 lessons upon which Mrs. Allaire put the seal 
 of high achievement, when she giggled louder 
 than usual, and said, " You naughty boy ! " with 
 half-averted face. 
 
 Jack's histrionic representation of Jonah in his 
 hut outside the wall of Nineveh, waiting for the 
 city to be destroyed, and " jawing because it 
 wasn't," was imitated for weeks afterward; and 
 probably half the boys in the class grew up be- 
 lieving that Jonah was the original sayer of " I 
 told you so." 
 
 The Beales were unaware that for generations 
 they had regarded the Baptists and Methodists 
 as very common people, given to the bad. taste 
 of emotions in public. They lived in accord with 
 their dissenting neighbours because they were 
 kindly and well-bred, but their deepest sympathies 
 could never be with these ignorant ones. 
 
 And when Cathie had her story to tell, they 
 listened uncomfortably. 
 
 Judge Beale would allow no questions asked 
 until after supper. He looked at his sister, so 
 pretty, so girlish, with the sweet look of maiden- 
 hood still in her face, brightened by a new 
 expression which he judged to be the effect of 
 her happiness in having recovered. He was 
 afraid to speak of her illness. It seemed that 
 
26 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 her being there, sitting at the table, eating beef- 
 steak and potatoes, must be a dream. There was 
 no sign of the dehcate appetite which had picked 
 at airy delicacies all these years. Here was a 
 healthy, smiling, cheerful woman. But the meal 
 was not half over when the door was fairly burst 
 open, and Mrs. Glover walked in with the air of 
 taking charge of these unusual events. 
 
 She was a large woman, with an aggressive 
 manner, and a high, cold voice, which had a 
 good deal of use. 
 
 Cathie arose to meet her, with a slight flush 
 on her round cheek. 
 
 Mrs. Glover kissed her, and then she said : 
 " Well, Catherine, I always knew that you could 
 be cured if you would only make an effort. 
 When I think of all the years you spent in bed ! " 
 She stopped as though she could not express those 
 multitudinous thoughts of nineteen years. And 
 then she went on, " How did you come to get 
 well?" 
 
 " My dear Harriet," the Judge said, " do let 
 Cathie recover from her fatigue before you begin 
 asking questions." 
 
 " Really, I am not at all fatigued. I am per- 
 fectly well. I am' only too glad to tell you about 
 it. It is very simple. I discovered that my dis- 
 ease was only lack of understanding. I found 
 that the mind of God was really my life; that 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 27 
 
 mind could not be ill or hurt ; that I was only an 
 expression of that mind; and that I was simply 
 held down by my own wrong belief. When I 
 felt the life, the divine life, which is mine, I 
 arose and walked, as the afflicted of old arose 
 when the finger of God touched them and bade 
 them rise." 
 
 She spoke with her customary gentle sweet- 
 ness, but as she finished the whole atmosphere of 
 the bright, warm room seemed to have changed. 
 A chill of reserve had fallen upon it. 
 
 The children. Jack and Jerry, looked carefully 
 away from each other, and their cheeks were red 
 from a sort of embarrassment. They felt shame- 
 faced at having " religious things " talked about 
 in this every-day way. 
 
 Judge and Mrs. Beale gave each other rapid 
 glances of dismay. Mrs. Glover stared for a 
 second, and then she burst out; 
 
 " Catherine Beale, do you mean to tell me that 
 you have lost your mind ? " Her voice was high 
 and angry. 
 
 " Yes, thank God," she said, reverently. " I 
 have lost my poor mortal mind, and I have found 
 the divine mind." And then she spoke, passion- 
 ately : 
 
 " What more proof do you want ? Did I not 
 lie, a poor miserable creature, for nineteen years? 
 Had any of you any hope for me, any more than 
 
28 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 I had for myself ? And now " — she threw out 
 her arms — "am I not well and strong? What 
 more proof do you want? " 
 
 The eldest daughter of the Judge, Lily, whose 
 place in the home was something like what her 
 aunt's had been at her age, arose and stepped 
 to Catherine's side, and put her arm across her 
 shoulder. Her eyes were shining, and she 
 looked to those who loved her like a young, pro- 
 tecting goddess. 
 
 " Proofs ! Proofs ! " Mrs. Glover stormed. " I 
 suppose you have fallen in with some of those 
 scandalous impostors who call themselves Chris- 
 tian Scientists, people that the legislatures are 
 making laws against at this moment. I suppose 
 lying in bed for nineteen years has warped your 
 judgment, but it's time you knew that / for one 
 never believed you couldn't walk if you wanted 
 to." 
 
 " Aunt Harriet, you know better," Lily cried. 
 " You know that Aunt Cathie could not. Aren't 
 you ashamed! I suppose when the blind man 
 went home after the miracle his people said that 
 he had been an impostor from his cradle." 
 
 " The days of miracles are past ! " Mrs. Glover 
 said, triumphantly. " And I should like to know, 
 Miss Lily, what Doctor Richards is going to say 
 to your taking up Christian Science." She 
 
THELIFE WITHIN 29 
 
 laughed disagreeably as she saw the colour deepen 
 in her niece's cheeks. 
 
 " None of our friends will care to criticise 
 anything we may ' take up,' I am sure," she 
 began, haughtily, but her aunt put her lips to her 
 hot cheek. 
 
 " My darling, I knew you would see. They 
 will all see in time. Your aunt is angry, and is 
 saying more than she means. Wait. Indignation 
 does no good." 
 
 " I think you will discover whether they do, 
 or not," Mrs. Glover said. " Stevensburg hasn't 
 changed its ways. At least, Catherine, keep this 
 folly to yourself." 
 
 Judge Beale went over to the fireplace, and 
 looked for the poker, which wasn't there. He 
 realised for the hundredth time what an escape- 
 valve was denied him by the use of natural gas 
 in his fireplace. 
 
 " My friends," he said, coolly, " I must say 
 again that this is no time for discussions. I 
 never believed in discussing religious matters in 
 the home, and I am going to insist that it stop. 
 We are all rejoiced at Catherine's wonderful, I 
 may say miraculous, recovery. What nature 
 or science or mental force has done, I do not 
 know — nor do any of us particularly care." 
 And then, by way of clearing the atmosphere, 
 Judge Beale sent Jack for his cigar-box, and 
 
30 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 Geraldine for a match, while he asked Lily for 
 the Evening Item^, then turned to his sister 
 Harriet and asked after her husband's rheuma- 
 tism. 
 
 Mrs. Glover could not resist saying : " Oh, he's 
 trying that bath salt Annie Low Smith talked 
 so much about. Another two dollars gone! I 
 suppose he'll be trying Christian Science next." 
 
 " Dear me ! " Mrs. Beale cried, " we are forget- 
 ting Jerry's orange souffle ! The poor child spent 
 the whole afternoon making it. She will be 
 heart-broken if we do not eat it." And with a 
 bustle of changing plates, Mrs. Beale brought 
 her husband and children and her two sisters- 
 in-law back to the table, and a discussion of 
 Geraldine's amateur efforts as a cook. 
 
 The question of Cathie's cure was tacitly 
 dropped. 
 
 After dinner Cathie insisted upon going all 
 over the house. Jack hung on to one arm and 
 Jerry to the other. With the optimism of youth 
 they accepted the fact of their aunt's cure much 
 more easily than their elders. Judge Beale sat 
 in the library with his elder sister, and parried 
 her bitter questions concerning Cathie. He 
 hadn't made up his mind, and he would not 
 commit himself. 
 
 In his heart of hearts he believed that his sister 
 Harriet was more than half right in thinking that 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 31 
 
 nature had probably been carrying on a cure for 
 nineteen years, and when a strong mental impulse 
 came, his sister was able to walk. He hadn't 
 too much faith in doctors. None of us have at 
 bottom, whatever our beliefs in other matters. 
 But this sister antagonised him by her positive 
 laying down of laws and rules. There was too 
 mudh of the same blood and nerve in them. 
 Judge Beale saw in full bloom in his sister 
 Harriet those tendencies which it had been his 
 lifelong effort to kill in himself. Back in their 
 ancestry was a New England parson, who had 
 lived in Salem in the days of the witch hanging, 
 and who had gone to Virginia to carry the gospel 
 to the godless on the James River. He was a 
 handsome young man, and he married a viva- 
 cious Virginia girl who lived only long enough to 
 bring one child into the world, and then perished 
 in a boat on Chesapeake Bay, leaving her boy 
 to be brought up in the easy ways of his mother's 
 family. But the drop of iron was still in the 
 Beale blood. In Mrs. Glover it had turned to 
 intolerance, and her brother hated it, because he 
 realised that he too held its possibilities. 
 
 Lily and her mother showed Cathie the house, 
 with joy in a new possession. 
 
 At last they came back to, Cathie's own room, 
 the largest and handsomest in the whole house. 
 The best pictures, the prettiest hangings, the 
 
32 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 finest outlook, were all here. It was as though 
 the house had been built around the apartment 
 of the invalid. 
 
 " Now, my dears," Cathie said, gaily, as she 
 stood in the centre of the room, " we must change 
 all this. All these pretty things go into the rest 
 of the house. I don't need coddling any more." 
 
 "Oh, no!" Jerry cried. "Why, we took 
 such fun in putting them here ! " 
 
 " I don't see," said Jack, " why we should take 
 things away from you because you are well again. 
 I'd like to give you something more for being 
 well." 
 
 His aunt's answer was a hug about his rather 
 slouching, boy's shouders. 
 
 Mrs. Beale, strong in her common sense, spoke 
 at once. " Indeed, Cathie, I think you are right. 
 The things were gathered in here because you 
 could not get out to see them anywhere else." 
 
 " An' because," said Jerry, " when people came 
 to see you we wanted 'em to know that there was 
 nothing too good for you, and we took good care 
 of you." 
 
 They all laughed, and checked themselves at 
 the sound of a voice below. The two younger 
 children looked at their sister teasingly, and Lily, 
 with a hurried kiss on her aunt's cheek, ran away. 
 
 " That's Lil's new beau," Jack announced. 
 
 "It is Doctor Richards." Mrs. Beale said. 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 33 
 
 " He is really a charming young man. He has 
 just come here from Lexington. He has been 
 three years in one of the great hospitals in Vienna, 
 and they have given him the hospital here. He 
 brought letters to your brother. His uncle was 
 a classmate of the Judge's at the University of 
 Virginia. Very charming people, we under- 
 stand." Mrs. Beale looked entirely satisfied and 
 pleased as she made this explanation. " And 
 then, too," Mrs. Beale added, " he is strictly old 
 school. The Judge liked that. So many of the 
 young men are taking up homoeopathy, and you 
 know none of us could stand that." 
 
 " Dear old girl," Cathie said, " you are all 
 going to understand sometime that none of it 
 is necessary." 
 
 Down-stairs, the tall, lean, good-looking young 
 doctor was taking off his overcoat by the hall 
 fire, and making himself ready to spend the 
 evening. He had been to the country to perform 
 a surgical operation, had hurried through his 
 dinner, and into the invariable evening clothes 
 which made him a little conspicuous among the 
 young men in Stevensburg. He had heard noth- 
 ing of the miraculous cure of Miss Catherine 
 Beale, whom he had never seen. They had all 
 told him of the invalid aunt, and he had hoped 
 that he might see her upon her return. He had 
 had, like all young enthusiasts, hope that this 
 
34 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 might be his " great case." But more than any- 
 thing he hoped that he might find some sure 
 road to the heart of her niece. Richards was in 
 love with Lily Beale, and he was almost anxious 
 that his state of mind should be known. If she 
 rejected him, the least he could do, a line of 
 chivalrous ancestors had taught him, was to lay 
 his devotion upon the shrine of the lady. There 
 should be no mistake concerning his attitude. He 
 was hers to take or leave according to her sov- 
 ereign fancy. 
 
 He had even made a visit to the Judge in his 
 office, and laid bare his prospects and his hopes. 
 
 " Do I understand," Judge Beale had asked, 
 " that you are asking for my daughter's hand 
 in marriage? " 
 
 " I am not, sir. I have had no intimation of 
 any sort that I should dare to do so. I am asking 
 your permission to discover if I may do so." 
 
 " Do you mean to tell me," Judge Beale had 
 asked, gravely, " that if I told you I didn't like 
 you, and would never accept you, you would go 
 about your business ? " 
 
 " I do not, sir," firmly. 
 
 " Then — why? " the judge drawled. 
 
 " Because if you have any objections to me you 
 may know what I am about. I am going to take 
 your daughter if I can — anyway." 
 
 There was a fine flush on the lean face for all 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 35 
 
 the cocky words. The young man was in the last 
 stages of embarrassment, and the judge's gravity 
 did not help him at all. 
 
 "Have you told her?" 
 
 " Certainly not, sir." 
 
 The Judge thought a little while, looking out 
 of the window into Market-House Square, where 
 the country people were driving up to the old- 
 fashioned " general merchandise stores," where 
 they did their trading, irrespective of the newer 
 glitter of Chester Street. 
 
 " My boy," he said, " they say a father hates 
 to give up his daughter to another man. That's 
 not true. He wants his daughters to marry — 
 if he is a decent man and has been a decent hus- 
 band himself. A woman is happier married. A 
 man wants good sons-in-law — men on whom he 
 can rely. I like your family, and I like you. 
 If Lily likes you — you will have my glad per- 
 mission." 
 
 " Thank you, sir," Richards had said, and then 
 shaking the Judge's hand and again, " Thank 
 you, sir," had gone out, while the Judge looked 
 after him with pleased eyes. He did not even 
 tell his wife of this interview. He knew that 
 women give impulsive confidences, and he feared 
 the bloom being taken from Lily's love story. 
 He also feared telling his wife of his own frank- 
 ness. He was almost sure that she would say 
 
36 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 that he had held his daughter too " cheap." But 
 the Judge not only knew his young man, but he 
 knew the line he came from, — men of honour, of 
 sincerity, of clean lives, and a sense of duty. 
 That they were conservatives and hung by the 
 old order was an added virtue in these days. The 
 Judge knew himself to have impulses toward 
 new ideas. He liked to hear what the advance 
 guard thought, and giving himself the same 
 premises, let his mind arrive at conclusions. It 
 was a sort of mental gymnastics which he told 
 himself did not really change him at all. 
 Behind a row of law books on his office shelves 
 were Darwin and Huxley and a volume or two by 
 Ernst Haeckel. It was from them that he took 
 his strong belief in heredity. It amused and 
 pleased him to see Richards, who had lived in 
 the scientific world in his student days, sifting 
 out what he needed and casting away theories he 
 could not demonstrate. " Safe," the Judge called 
 him; and as the days went by, and he watched 
 his daughter and her lover with keen eyes, he 
 grew to love him. While Lily saw the devotion 
 in his eyes, and felt it surrounding her always, 
 setting her apart as the one woman to be first con- 
 sidered, there had never been a word or a look 
 to cause her a moment of self-consciousness. 
 Richards protected her sweet maidenhood and its 
 gay irresponsibility, even from himself. 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 37 
 
 The rooms of the new house were handsome, 
 and made a good setting for the good-looking 
 young people. The rugs and some of the pictures 
 had been purchased this summer. The Carolus 
 Duran portrait of Catherine, painted the year 
 she left school and her father took her to Paris, 
 hung over the new Colonial mantelpiece. Duran 
 had not painted so many American girls then, 
 and he had seized this as a new type, and had 
 idealised the very pretty girl who had come to 
 him into a wonderful creature who had kept a 
 crowd before her at the Salon, and had had a 
 struggle not to stop permanently at the Luxem- 
 bourg. The family said Cathie had grown into 
 her famous beauty, living up to her portrait. 
 
 But on the other walls were an Eastman 
 Johnson, bought by the Judge long ago, as a 
 reminder of the days which were for ever gone, 
 even then ; a view of that hipped farmhouse in its 
 cool greenery, which Mr. Henry P. Smith paints 
 for walls like this; a Thames picture by Mr. 
 Hopkinson Smith, with a willow, a boat, a spot 
 of red and a spot of white, which made you 
 think of a girl with a cushion behind her; and 
 a Helleu etching of a sophisticated, slender 
 woman with red hair. It was all frank and 
 simple and fadless — this room. 
 
 The open piano, littered with the usual silver 
 photograph-frames and bits of china, had a new. 
 
38 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 light opera score on the rack, and a vase of 
 roses at the side. Richards had his face over 
 the roses as Lily came in, only awaiting her 
 acknowledgment of them as his gift, to complain 
 of the short stem habits of the Stevensburg 
 florist. 
 
 But her air of excitement gave him a look 
 of inquiry. All the thrill of Aunt Cathie's resur- 
 rection came back to her as she thought of telling 
 him the news. 
 
 " Aunt Cathie is home ! " she said at once. 
 
 " Did you expect her ? Who brought her ? " 
 he asked, astonished. Lily's face grew pale with 
 emotion. 
 
 " Oh — She is — she came alone. She — " 
 She looked up at him with tears in her eyes. 
 " Oh — " Her voice broke, and there was a deep 
 sob in her throat. A thing had happened that 
 filled her with awe. 
 
 " My dear ! " he said, under his breath — and 
 neither of them noticed it. 
 
 " Can I do anything for her ? Is she so much 
 worse ? How could she ? " 
 
 " Oh " — Lily smiled through her tears. 
 " It isn't that. She is cured! She is well! She 
 walks! She walks as well as I. She is well! " 
 She said it over and over in every fashion. The 
 fact was so incredible, and he must be made to 
 understand it. 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 39 
 
 " But," Richards said, " you told me she was 
 incurable; that her spine was crushed." 
 
 " So it was." ^ 
 
 " But you cannot mend a broken spine. Did 
 Doctor White, and Professor Long, and all those 
 great men that you tell me saw her, say that her 
 spine was broken ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Did you hear them say so?" The profes- 
 sional man was talking now. 
 
 " No, but papa and mamma did. You know 
 when Aunt Cathie was hurt I was a baby. The 
 greatest doctors saw her then. It was this 
 summer the great surgeons saw her again. They 
 told papa that it was incurable. And now she is 
 well — she is cured!" 
 
 "Who did it?" 
 
 The girl was embarrassed for a minute, and 
 then she looked unfalteringly into his eyes. 
 " God," she said. 
 
 " Yes, I know. It is wonderful, isn't it ? " 
 He too had been brought up in the orthodox 
 way, and respected and admired the beautiful 
 faith of women. He wotdd be a vestryman some 
 day. But — he had spent a whole year once in 
 Haeckel's laboratory. He had the belief that 
 there was a Divine Creator, but he believed that 
 he had set the eternal laws in motion, and then 
 gone away and left his earth to work out its 
 
40 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 own destiny. Going to church was Hke putting 
 on evening dress for a call, — a necessary for- 
 mality. He thought now that Lily's reverence 
 of thought was beautiful. He loved her for it. 
 " What physician has been treating her ? " 
 " None. It came to her. It is a miracle." 
 The young man knitted his well-arched brows. 
 He felt vaguely disappointed. He had heard so 
 much of this Aunt Cathie. She had been the 
 town's famous patient. People had talked of 
 her spirit, her beauty, the tradition of which was 
 called up for comparison whenever a young girl 
 of the town or a girl visitor was spoken of with 
 admiration. They had always reminded each 
 other, too, of her patience and sweet sanity, 
 through all her great afflictions. And yet — 
 evidently all her suffering had been hysteria. 
 
 He had brought a chair near the fire for her, 
 and had seated himself opposite, bending forward 
 in his interest. Now he leaned back. 
 
 " Do you mean," he asked, hesitatingly, " that 
 she suddenly thought she could walk, and then 
 she could? If that is true, it seems cruel that 
 the doctors should have been so mistaken. To 
 have kept her a prisoner all those awful years! 
 And men like White — and the rest. What were 
 they thinking of ? " He arose in his agitation and 
 went across the room, picking up a silver toy 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 41 
 
 from the piano, and giving it careful examina- 
 tion. 
 
 " I suppose they never had a photograph taken 
 with X-rays ? " he said, suddenly. 
 
 " No ; father would not allow it. The spine 
 was broken, that was plain. Doctor White told 
 him that it would do Aunt Cathie no good. It 
 would simply be for the doctors to see it." 
 
 " And yet, you see — how mistaken they were ! 
 There was no fracture of the spine. There was 
 simply a bruise. She could have walked in a 
 month after she was hurt." He threw his hands 
 out. " It was cruel ! It was cruel ! " 
 
 " She could not," the girl said, indignantly. 
 " Do you suppose Aunt Cathie did not know 
 how she was suffering? Do you suppose she 
 would have lain there — beautiful, sweet Aunt 
 Cathie, with everything to live for — if she could 
 have walked? Oh — you don't know her! It 
 almost killed her. She only lived for us. She 
 was helpless. She could not move. And then — 
 the Light came. She told me. God made her 
 understand that she was not chained to disease, 
 that her body was simply a symbol. It was a 
 miracle — like the miracles in the New Testa- 
 ment." 
 
 Richards stopped in front of her. His colour 
 was high. 
 
 " I'm afraid I do not understand." 
 
42 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 " She met a lady," Lily hurried on. " She had 
 healed a great many people. She was a Christian 
 Scientist — " 
 
 " St — " said Richards. To save his life he 
 couldn't help it. The girl stopped, and rose up 
 indignant. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," he said, humbly. " It 
 hurts me to see you take up with delusions like 
 that." 
 
 " It is no delusion. My aunt was ill, and now 
 she is well. She never told the smallest untruth 
 in her life. She knows." 
 
 " She cannot know," he said, patiently. " No 
 patient can know. These quacks — these wicked 
 fakirs, who play upon the delusions of weak 
 women, have aroused her will-power. It is a 
 good thing, whoever did it. Let her think so. 
 But you — you know better. You know that 
 the miracle is simple nonsense. If I smash that 
 vase, no power on earth can make it whole again." 
 
 " That vase was made by man." 
 
 " If I cut my finger off, can a new finger 
 grow ? " 
 
 " Once," said Lily, " a soldier's ear was cut 
 off, and the Saviour touched it, and it was whole." 
 
 Richards laughed, and then arose. " I think 
 I should go and leave you with your aunt this 
 evening. I heartily congratulate you all upon 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 43 
 
 her return to health; and I sincerely hope I 
 may make her acquaintance before very long." 
 
 When the door closed after him, Lily went 
 slowly up-stairs. For the first time she had gone 
 to him for sympathy and had not found it. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HENRY RICHARDS left the Beale house 
 with a heavier heart than he had ever 
 known in his life. Sorrow had come 
 to him, but it had been sorrow without bitter- 
 ness, — the sorrow that comes from losing out 
 of our lives those who have lived theirs. Work 
 had been his solace, the builder not only of his 
 character but his happiness, as it is for nine 
 tenths of Americans. 
 
 But into these last months he had felt coming 
 to him, growing into his very man's nature, the 
 dearest thing that a man can know, — the desire 
 to work for one woman. 
 
 Here was the flower of achievement. In and 
 around this woman was the secret of every strug- 
 gle that he had ever made. Like every lover 
 he awoke to that fact as something entirely new 
 in the philosophy of life. He was glad of every- 
 thing he had ever done that was fine, and re- 
 lentless with himself for every folly. Lily Beale 
 satisfied every one of his ideals, he told himself. 
 Her delicate, yet healthy, refined beauty, her 
 
 44 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 45 
 
 sweet gravity, her fine mind and kind heart, had 
 been constant joys to him as they were discov- 
 ered, and when he realised that all this met 
 him with a quick sympathy, it seemed too good 
 to be true. It was only because he hardly dared 
 to ask so much as she had to give that he had 
 hung so long upon the borders of offering him- 
 self to her. It was in these terms that he had 
 thought of what he had to say. He did not 
 think of asking her to marry him all at once. 
 He wanted to tell her first the simple fact that 
 he was hers, to do with as she willed. If she 
 would accept him for any service, he was ready. 
 This is what he told himself, but his hopes and 
 dreams ran far ahead of this mild programme. 
 Richards was of the strong fibre of a man meant 
 to be the head of a family. He could never have 
 had a great passion for a woman who had not 
 the qualities which met and completed his own. 
 His love for her was not less masculine because 
 it was chivalrous. 
 
 Love grows from small beginnings, and gen- 
 erally puts out as a flower from a quite different 
 root. Richards's love for Lily Beale had been the 
 flower of his admiration. He had admired her 
 more than any woman he had ever seen. Her 
 common sense, her intuitions, he had pronounced 
 infallible; and yet now, when they went counter 
 
46 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 to his own ideas, he ceased to trust them — after 
 the manner of his kind. 
 
 Richards was Hke the majority of men in 
 desiring conventionality to the standards about 
 her to be followed by his womankind, and all 
 the charm of Lily's beauty had not saved him 
 from a shock at what he called her present " ec- 
 centricity." Eccentric people are dangerous peo- 
 ple in the scientifically trained mind. He told 
 himself that he felt almost as though she had 
 become insane over some subject. 
 
 He lingered in the shade of the deep veranda 
 before the Beales's front door, and patted the head 
 of Jack's St. Bernard puppy with a craving for 
 some sort of sympathy in his trouble. He won- 
 dered once if Judge Beale were at home, and 
 if he dared go back and ask for him ; and then he 
 squared his shoulders and went on down the path 
 to the front gate. The clumsy young dog, know- 
 ing him as a family friend, would have followed 
 him, but he gently pushed him inside and shut 
 the gate, and walked down the icy street. He 
 was tired. All the glow that had come from 
 his successful work of the afternoon had faded 
 away, and he was cold and out of sorts. 
 
 Half the night he sat before his office fire — 
 as truly miserable as a man could be. Then he 
 walked out Bronson Avenue and let himself into 
 Mrs. Billings's boarding-house with his night-key. 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 47 
 
 Mrs. Billings's widowed daughter, Mrs. Allaire, 
 was in her sitting-room making hot lemonade 
 for the tenor and organiser of the choir at St. 
 Saviour's, who had just come home from a re- 
 hearsal, and she called to Doctor Richards, as he 
 went by the open door. Mrs. Allaire was past 
 forty, but she was the type of woman who is 
 careful of her reputation to the age of eighty — 
 so careful generally that the censorious sometimes 
 wonder if there are flaws in it, which might bring 
 it to smash if carelessly handled. The tenor was 
 a mild young man, tall and weedy, with the effemi- 
 nacy and attempts at personal decoration which 
 seem inseparable from the amateur musician. 
 " In real life," as they say of professional people, 
 he was a bookkeeper for a hardware store. Rich- 
 ards, kindly as he was, had a contempt for the 
 man which he was not always able to conceal, 
 and the fact that there was nothing tangible for 
 him to hang the feeling upon, did not mitigate 
 it. His comer of the table at dinner was always 
 a centre of gossip and innuendo. He was sup- 
 posed to have unusual opportunities to know what 
 was going on in the town, as his choir was an 
 amateur one. His comments were always flip- 
 pant and from the lowest standpoint. It was 
 with almost a frown of pain that Doctor Rich- 
 ards answered Mrs. Allaire's summons. He 
 stood in the doorway, the narrow, dark hall 
 
48 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 behind him, hat in hand, ready to go, after the 
 courteous excuse which he considered due to all 
 women. 
 
 " Doctor Richards, please come in," Mrs. Al- 
 laire said. " I want to ask you about mother. 
 I do not want to alarm her, but I think that 
 cough of hers needs something immediately. I 
 am going to give her some of this lemonade. 
 Had I better give her some quinine also ? " 
 
 " I am afraid I cannot answer without seeing 
 her." 
 
 " Well, come in for a moment." And perforce 
 he came. The gas fire was grateful after the 
 cold outside, and he stood a moment while Mrs. 
 Allaire hovered over the lemonade. She was 
 heating some water in a spirit kettle. 
 
 " We have been so astonished to hear of Miss 
 Catherine Beale's recovery." Mrs. Allaire and 
 Catherine Beale had gone to school together, and 
 had been girl friends, but the widow would have 
 felt that she were foolish in acknowledging that 
 fact. She had a quaint idea that she was still 
 a young girl, in the minds of men. 
 
 Doctor Richards made no reply. Holly Ainslee 
 looked at the kettle with the air of not wishing 
 to embarrass anybody. 
 
 " I should like to hear what a professional 
 man thinks of those cases. Do you consider such 
 a miracle possible?" Doctor Richards rather 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 49 
 
 liked Mrs. Allaire. She was pretty after a soft 
 fashion, kind, and bearing with genuine sweetness 
 the reverses of fortune which had left her arid 
 her mother with boarders as their only resource. 
 
 " I have never seen Miss Beale. You know 
 I came here after she left the town. I have no 
 idea what her case is." 
 
 " Professor Long said her spine was shattered." 
 
 " He should know." Richards smiled. He was 
 very tired, and every question was a flick on the 
 raw. 
 
 " But people whose spines have been shattered 
 do not recover ? " 
 
 " I never heard of one who did — before." 
 
 "Then," Mrs. Allaire asked, excitedly, "do 
 you think it was a miracle? " 
 
 " I never saw a miracle." 
 
 Ainslee gave a weak laugh. 
 
 " Doctor Richards isn't going to say he believes 
 in Christian Science. That would be unprofes- 
 sional." 
 
 " May I see your mother now, Mrs. Allaire ? " 
 Doctor Richards asked, as though the other man 
 had not spoken. Mrs. Allaire gave a hurried 
 look at her lemonade, and went into a bedroom 
 adjoining. When she came out she said her 
 mother was sleeping, and she feared to disturb 
 her, and she pressed some of her lemonade upon 
 
50 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 the doctor. He plead fatigue, and went on up- 
 stairs to his bedroom. 
 
 Mrs. Allaire, a little flustered at his refusal, 
 immediately began a coquettish ordering of Ains- 
 lee to follow him. These two played at a per- 
 petual love-making, although Ainslee was fifteen 
 years her junior. 
 
 " I wonder," she said, " if Doctor Richards 
 thought it queer your being here so late ? " 
 
 " I think he was more occupied in thinking 
 about the Beales. Lucille Glover was at the 
 rehearsal to-night. She didn't come until late. 
 She didn't want to talk about the affair, and she 
 tried to get Cale Blackburn to promise that he 
 wouldn't put it in the paper to-morrow. But 
 she did give her cousin Lily a fling. She said 
 she had swallowed her aunt's story and believed 
 that Christian Science had cured her." 
 
 Mrs. Allaire put her front teeth over her lower 
 lip and shook her head gravely at that. 
 
 " That would be terrible for Doctor Richards." 
 
 Ainslee leaned forward confidentially. " Did 
 you ever think that Lucille was a little — well, 
 had a fancy for the doctor herself ? " 
 
 Mrs. Allaire gave a little laugh, carefully mod- 
 ulated. " Men are a long time finding a thing 
 out." 
 
 " She and Lily Beale look a good deal alike. 
 For my part, I think Lucille is the handsomer." 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 51 
 
 A slight shade went over Mrs. Allaire's face. 
 She did not entertain young men past midnight 
 to hear a catalogue of the beauties of other 
 women — and Ainslee saw it. " Not that either 
 of them will ever set the river on fire. Theirs 
 is tlie kind of good looks that fade. But it 
 will be a good thing for Lucille if Lily and the 
 doctor quarrel over this, won't it?" 
 
 " I have not noticed that Doctor Richards paid 
 any particular attention to Lucille," Mrs. Allaire 
 said, reluctantly. To save her life she could not 
 allow to any woman a possible admiration. Every 
 glance that a man gave in any direction but toward 
 her she failed to see. And the most casual in 
 her direction flooded her with self-consciousness. 
 Ainslee realised that it was time to change the 
 subject. 
 
 " I saw Bob Longmore to-day. He's off on 
 another. I suppose," he added, with an air of 
 cynical wit, " he thought he was keeping sober 
 too long. Laura Shepperson might be waiting 
 for him around some corner with Mr. Lessing." 
 
 " Mr. Longmore always seemed to be a mis- 
 understood man, to me," Mrs. Allaire sighed, in 
 her softest tones. " Poor fellow ! His mother 
 held him on such a tight rein. Tell me — of 
 course a woman can never know in such a case 
 — do you think Laura just the sort of woman to 
 hold an intellectual man ? " 
 
52 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 She spoke as though Ainslee would be the 
 final judge. 
 
 " When he's — " Ainslee threw out his hands 
 and let his eyelids fall in a pantomimic repre- 
 sentation of a drunken man. Mrs. Allaire laughed 
 aloud. Her young son in a room beyond called 
 out peremptorily and ordered her to come there. 
 
 " You must go," Mrs. Allaire said, flustered. 
 
 As Ainslee went by Richards's door he stopped 
 for an instant and peered through the crack where 
 it stood slightly ajar. Richards sat before the fire, 
 looking at the gas-flames, his elbows on his knees. 
 Ainslee disliked him because he did not quite 
 dare go in and tell him what Lucille Glover had 
 said. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE Shepperson family were among their 
 rector's staunchest supporters, and one of 
 the foundation-stones of the Episcopal 
 church in Stevensburg. Their house was large, 
 and from entertaining the bishop on his visits 
 to giving room to any church committee which 
 needed privacy, it was always open. 
 
 Not that Mr. Lessing needed support. Nature 
 had made him of the fortunate type which is 
 held firm by the even pressure of public opinion 
 on every side. No storms shook him. He lived 
 in an everlasting calm, at peace with all the world. 
 If he owned any opinions not shared by you, you 
 never discovered it, and besides the love of peace 
 he had the soft answer. When dissensions came 
 in the church, he preached, " And she bound a 
 scarlet thread in the window " — which answered 
 the purpose of " gilding the dome of the In- 
 valides," in the time of Napoleon. It diverted 
 the minds of his people. 
 
 Mrs. Shepperson had been brought up a Meth- 
 odist, and she could never sufficiently express 
 
 S3 
 
54 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 her gratitude for having been socially elevated 
 into an Episcopalian family. The fact that she 
 had been very well off indeed, had palliated the 
 offence of her family to the Sheppersons. As a 
 matter of fact, her ancestry was one to be proud 
 of. While the Sheppersons had been small slave- 
 holding farmers, following the poor relations 
 of the Washington family, who were sent out 
 to the General's lands on the Ohio River a hun- 
 dred miles above Stevensburg by the iron-handed 
 Father of his Country, the Creightons had been 
 pioneer followers of John and Charles Wesley, 
 men to whom the light of the spirit made the 
 cheap frivolities of life of no account. They 
 were preachers and merchants, stern leaders of 
 " class," and loud pray-ers to a God in whom 
 they believed. 
 
 But to her dying day Mrs. Shepperson remem- 
 bered the loud extempore prayers of her father 
 with mortification. Her dying day had come a 
 few years before, leaving a maiden sister to keep 
 house for her husband and two daughters. Miss 
 Emeline Creighton was a middle-aged maid who 
 resented her lot. 
 
 The elder of the two girls, Laura Shepperson, 
 had had an attack of fever in her girlhood which 
 had kept her out of school for a year. When she 
 returned, little Lily Beale, four years her junior, 
 was in her class, and by the eternal law of pro- 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 55 
 
 pinquity, they became friends. People who were 
 once Lily Beale's friends generally remained so, 
 and one who had once had familiar entry into the 
 happy Beale household valued the privilege. And 
 then, too, the Beales were just a shade above 
 the Sheppersons socially. Only those who have 
 lived in a small city can realise that tie. 
 
 Laura Shepperson had grown up into a pretty 
 girl, with a face which might have suggested 
 a kitten to the thinking, with mental speculation 
 as to the later developments. When she was still 
 a schoolgirl, she became engaged. In the light 
 way in which engagements are generally taken 
 in East Kentucky, it was considered a very 
 good match. Robert Longmore, the lover, was 
 twenty-two, and already studying law in Judge 
 Beale's office. His father had been a friend 
 of Judge Beale's boyhood. He had gone away 
 after his marriage to a girl of his own class, 
 and rumours had come back of a spoiled 
 and dissipated life. At thirty he was dead. 
 His widow returned to Stevensburg, and went 
 about among her old friends swathed in the 
 deepest crepe, for almost ten years. The first 
 years she took her little boy by the hand; then 
 he broke away from the gloom of his home and 
 found a healthier life among his relatives. His 
 mother was afraid to allow him out of her sight. 
 When she had made some unusual demonstration 
 
56 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 of this, her friends looked at each other — and 
 recalled that the boy's father had died of delirium 
 tremens. When he came home from a visit to 
 a cousin, she would ask him anxiously if he had 
 eaten any mince pie. She was afraid to men- 
 tion liquor to him. It was as though the very 
 calling of its name would bring up the monster 
 which had wrecked her life. She told the boy 
 that he had a weak stomach, and must be careful 
 of what he ate and drank. He, remembering the 
 green apple tree, the cucumbers in the garden, the 
 dozens of indigestible things which were his daily 
 food, never contradicted her. He did not drink, 
 because he never saw his enemy. Any of their 
 friends would as soon have given him dynamite. 
 He went to Princeton, and developed into a bril- 
 liant, clever young man. When he was twenty- 
 five and Laura was nineteen, they would be mar- 
 ried. And then — at twenty-four the demon 
 awoke. In ajtiother year Robert Longmore was 
 an outcast among his friends. The wildest ex- 
 cesses — stories of which were barely whispered 
 — succeeded periods of sanity and sobriety. 
 
 He felt his disgrace almost as keenly as his 
 mother. His old friends, the boys and girls he 
 had grown up with, were shunned. He would 
 walk blocks to keep out of their way. When ac- 
 cident brought them together, only a chilly bow 
 and a new paleness in the worried face showed 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 57 
 
 that he recognised them. The young men who 
 had always known him followed him at first and 
 tried to draw him out of the places where he 
 drank. But he met them with wild shouts of 
 laughter when he was drinking. At other times 
 they did not dare approach him. 
 
 At the first sign of his drinking, the doors of 
 the Shepperson house had been closed to him. 
 Laura received a letter which was bitterer than 
 she could understand. Then she put the diamond 
 ring he had given her away. She did not send 
 it back, because she was sure that some day, when 
 she was older and could do as she pleased, she 
 would " reform him." It was still fashionable 
 in Stevensburg for young girls to marry men to 
 reform them, or to consider it. It was always 
 a romantic possibility. 
 
 Mrs. Longmore went back to the miseries of 
 her early days, and saw the years go by, wrecking 
 the youth of her son as her husband's had been 
 wrecked. She never said one word. She was 
 like one of those victims caught in a Greek 
 tragedy. It was the inevitable. She had fought 
 and wept once. Now she had no more tears. 
 She was not particularly fond of Laura Shepper- 
 son. Sometimes she rather resented it that Laura 
 was not marrying some one else. It was usual 
 for Stevensburg girls to marry by twenty-four. 
 Laura's spinsterhood was in some way an added 
 
58 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 reproach to her boy. And she resented, too, the 
 air of sharing her grief which Laura always 
 assumed. Once, Mrs. Longmore had said to Mrs. 
 Beale, who was one of her oldest friends, that she 
 " believed Laura Shepperson would have married 
 if she had ever had a good opportunity. Con- 
 stancy is forced upon some people." 
 
 At any rate the spirits of the Shepperson family 
 had no sense of being lowered by Bob Long- 
 more's degradation. 
 
 The morning after Miss Beale's sensational 
 arrival home. Miss Emeline came into the break- 
 fast-room fairly quivering with the news. She 
 had an open letter in her hand from Mrs. Glover. 
 
 She took a look at the breakfast-table, saw that 
 Laura was not yet down, and went back into 
 the hall and called her. 
 
 " Laura ! Come down here. I've got some 
 news for you ! " 
 
 " What is it. Aunt Em? " Virginia asked from 
 the breakfast-table. " I hope to goodness you 
 haven't any news about that Bob Longmore." 
 
 " The only news about him that I am likely 
 to give Laura, is the news that he's dead," Miss 
 Emeline replied, grimly. She had put her letter 
 down while she poured out the coffee. Her 
 brother-in-law was deep in the New York news- 
 paper, which came to him a day late, but which 
 gave him a sense of keeping up with the news 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 59 
 
 of the world. Her niece made a dash for the 
 letter, and interrupted by her aunt, succeeded in 
 receiving a stream of hot coffee on the tips of 
 her fingers. 
 
 " Oh, keep your old letter ! It's from nobody 
 except Mrs. Glover — about some mothers' meet- 
 ing or charity trash. You can get up more excite- 
 ment over nothing ! I hope when I get to be old 
 enough to have children, I'll have some, instead 
 of fussing with — " 
 
 Mr. Shepperson's paper came down. " Vir- 
 ginia, if you cannot be more respectful to your 
 aunt, leave the room." 
 
 " No, I won't leave the room. If I did, Aunt 
 Em would have me right back, telling me to get 
 through my breakfast, so the servants could have 
 the table. Aunt Em's all right. She just needs 
 a little stirring up now and then. She gets so 
 she thinks a Y. M. C. A. oyster supper is a 
 ball." 
 
 " I have nothing to do with the Y. M. C. A.," 
 said Miss Emeline, with dignity. 
 
 " No, mothers' meetings are more in your line," 
 grinned Virginia, as her sister came in, in a 
 tumbled tea-gown, which had once been an am- 
 bitious copy of a French fashion plate. 
 
 " Listen to this," said Miss Emeline, taking up 
 the letter and reading slowly and loudly. 
 
6o THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 " ' My dear Emeline : — I write to you at 
 once to tell you of a family affair, relying upon 
 your discretion. I know how intimate Laura and 
 Lily Beale are, and consequently how garbled 
 an account you may get of the matter.' " 
 
 " What matter ? " from Virginia. 
 
 " Will you hush, miss ? " And then going on, 
 " ' My sister Catherine has returned home, hav- 
 ing realised at last that she was as well as any- 
 body, and that only the foolish restrictions of 
 my sister-in-law have kept her seemingly ill all 
 these years.' " 
 
 Laura gave a gasp, and Mr. Shepperson put 
 down his coffee-cup. 
 
 " Does the woman mean that Cathie Beale 
 is well ? " he asked. 
 
 " Oh, impossible ! " Laura cried. 
 
 " That's what she seems to mean," said Miss 
 Emeline, " but she certainly isn't very clear." 
 
 " ' Unfortunately she has fallen in with some 
 of those common people who call themselves 
 Christian Scientists. And they have convinced 
 her that they cured her.' " 
 
 " Now, isn't that ridiculous ! " Laura cried. 
 " She can't be cured. I have heard of those cases 
 before. The people get up, and say they are 
 well, and then all at once they collapse." 
 
 " Well, I should like to see Cathie Beale walk 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 6i 
 
 again. There wasn't a girl in this town could 
 touch her for looks," said her father. 
 
 Laura gave him a quick look, and Miss Eme- 
 line's lips tightened. Aunt and nieces were as 
 a solid wall between their father and possible 
 matrimony. They saw an enemy in every un- 
 married woman under sixty. Miss Emeline had 
 dropped all widows from her calling list. She 
 read on. 
 
 " ' Lily seems to be as foolish as Catherine. 
 We feel the notoriety which is almost sure to 
 result if it becomes public, very keenly, and hope 
 to keep it quite among ourselves. As Laura is so 
 much older than Lily, she will, of course, influence 
 her.' " 
 
 " Well," said Laura, " I don't know that I am 
 so much older than Lily Beale ! We were in the 
 same classes at school ! " 
 
 Virginia gave a cackle of laughter. " Five 
 years, or about there." 
 
 Laura, angry with herself for having shown 
 her annoyance, said nothing. 
 
 " ' Please consider this letter confidential. 
 " ' Yours sincerely, 
 
 " ' Harriet Glover.' " 
 
 " You seem to be doing the last," Mr. Shep- 
 person said, drily, but nobody noticed him. 
 
 " I am going right up and tell Mr. Lessing. 
 
62 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 And, Laura, you ought to dress yourself and go 
 right up there. They will need you to help about 
 the party, anyway." 
 
 " I don't believe Lily would be silly enough to 
 take up Christian Science. It will mortify them 
 terribly. Of course they always have humoured 
 their aunt, and they always will," Laura said, 
 as she hastily drank her coffee, and started away. 
 
 " I don't know," said the astute Virginia. " It 
 is one thing to humour a sick person, and another 
 to humour a well one." Left alone with her 
 father, she took some more jam, and went on 
 half to herself. " Of course Mrs. Glover knew 
 that the best way to get her opinion out was to 
 tell it to Aunt Em. It will save her making a 
 lot of visits to explain her point of view." 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ALMOST everybody who was socially 
 known in the little city awoke the next 
 morning to remember that they were in- 
 vited to Judge Beale's that evening to a " coming 
 out party," given to Lily. Probably no enter- 
 tainment ever given in the town was looked for- 
 ward to with more eagerness. All day Miss Eme- 
 line Creighton had made little visits through the 
 snowy streets and told confidentially of Mrs. 
 Glover's letter to her; and the town had talked 
 of little else. 
 
 In the nineteen years of Catherine Beale's mar- 
 tyrdom, many of these women had come to sit 
 for brief moments in the sick-room. They had 
 seen the white face on the pillows, worn with 
 patient suffering. They had seen the sadness of 
 the hollow eyes, and the woodenness of the poor 
 limbs lying there under the coverlet, made beauti- 
 ful by pitiful affection, and had gone away saying 
 that they felt better for the sight of so much 
 misery so meekly borne. Now, one and all mar- 
 velled that a woman had cared to lie in bed for 
 nineteen years, with " nothing the matter." 
 
 63 
 
64 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 One or two remembered how they had men- 
 tioned, when they had seen her out in her wheel- 
 chair at times, that she seemed strong. They had 
 reading-clubs in Stevensburg, and they were keen 
 after new ideas. " Hypnotism," " Subconscious- 
 ness," " Psychological phenomena," were all 
 bandied about that day. When they dressed 
 for the party, it was with a pleased sense of a 
 novel entertainment to come. They wondered 
 if Miss Cathie would relate her experiences. They 
 had heard that Christian Scientists were always 
 trying tO make converts. And one and all won- 
 dered what effect it would all have upon Doctor 
 Richards and his admiration for Lily. They had 
 half expected that this party would be a gather- 
 ing together of friends to hear the announcement 
 of an engagement. 
 
 Judge Beale was not a man to invite question, 
 and early in the morning he had taken refuge in 
 his office, leaving the house to the decorators 
 and caterer. Mrs. Beale felt for the first time 
 in her life that she would not gladly welcome her 
 friends. She wanted to accustom herself to the 
 changed conditions, to school herself before the 
 inevitable questions. Yet when she saw Cathie, 
 her heart smote her. What could there be but 
 rejoicing in her heart? It seemed almost as 
 though Cathie's girlhood had been frozen up 
 within her broken body, and was alive again. 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 65 
 
 unimpaired by the years. Except for her gray 
 hair, she looked a girl, and it was with a girlish 
 lightness and interest that she flew from one 
 thing to another. Up on a step-ladder here, show- 
 ing the florist how to swing garlands of fern vine 
 from the chandeliers, and up-stairs in another 
 moment arranging a grill to hide the musicians. 
 Once she came whirling down the long hall where 
 they were to dance, on the polished floor, a waltz 
 popular in the long ago on her lips, her slippered 
 feet keeping time to it. Mrs. Beale turned white. 
 
 " Oh, Cathie, if you should slip ! " 
 
 " But I shall not," she said. " All that is over. 
 I am as safe as a bird in the air of a spring morn- 
 ing." She took her substantial sister-in-law 
 around the waist and tried to whirl her, too. 
 
 " I haven't danced for fifteen years." 
 
 " Neither have I," said Cathie, " but that is no 
 reason why I shouldn't begin. Come, Jack, be 
 my partner, and teach me all the new steps. I 
 have a party dress. I bought one in Philadel- 
 phia." 
 
 When Mrs. Beale saw her in it, the tears came 
 into her eyes. It was white, soft, silk muslin, 
 simply made, a woman's, not a girl's gown, but 
 it showed the sweet neck and round arms of the 
 beautiful Catherine Beale of twenty years ago. 
 
 " Now, I believe you are well," her brother 
 
66 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 said, fondly. She looked up at him, seriousness 
 in her eyes. 
 
 " The way to help me keep well is to believe it 
 with me." 
 
 The sight of the receiving party was the first 
 shock to the arriving guests. Mrs. Beale, hand- 
 some, quiet, had her elder daughter on one side 
 and Cathie on the other. They all knew her at 
 once; but this woman in the Paris gown, with 
 the poise of the great world, for all the sweet- 
 ness of her eyes and the cordiality of her manner, 
 was not a woman to meet with discussions or 
 even inquiries. Here was no lecturer upon 
 strange creeds. They moved away with a 
 curious sense of being abashed. 
 
 Later, when they saw her dancing, first with 
 her brother, the Judge, and then with various 
 of Lily's friends, there was something a little 
 unpleasant in the atmosphere. 
 
 Most of Catherine Beak's contemporaries were 
 the mothers of families. Girls of the last gen- 
 eration married young in the comparatively new 
 country of East Kentucky. Some of these women 
 had daughters here. It was an unusual thing for 
 them to go to dancing parties. They left that 
 to the daughters. To-night they had intended 
 to come for a little while, which meant until sup- 
 per, and then they would go and leave the house 
 to the dancers. Mrs. Beale had made the invi- 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 67 
 
 tations very general, as it was the first party they 
 had given since Cathie's hurt. 
 
 It is hardly to be expected that women, thin 
 and tired with the housekeeping cares and the 
 mother cares, in a small city where servants are 
 a constantly moving nuisance, should look with 
 acute sympathy upon one who seemed to have 
 slept through the years which they had found 
 hard. They had pitied her, and contrasted her 
 lot with theirs to their own advantage, for nine- 
 teen years; they had come here to-night to see 
 an eccentricity, and they had found the Catherine 
 Beale who had taken all the admiration in their 
 youth. Her very gown seemed an offence. Those 
 who had daughters had spent all their thought 
 upon the adorning of the girls. Most of the 
 married women wore the high-necked silk or 
 black lace gowns which they called reception 
 dresses. 
 
 " Well," said Mrs. Claiborne, who had come 
 with the vague idea of " taking Miss Beale's 
 part," " for my part I think staying in bed for 
 twenty years is a clever idea. I almost wish I 
 had done it." 
 
 " It certainly saves the complexion," said 
 another. 
 
 Mrs. Allaire was waiting on the edge of the 
 group, her eyes a little troubled and her teeth on 
 her lip. " I hear," she said, " that they skin the 
 
68 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 faces in the cities now. They put plasters all 
 over the face and fairly tear the old complexion 
 ofif. It is very painful, but it brings the new one 
 out exactly like a child's. Miss Cathie's is cer- 
 tainly greatly improved from what it was before 
 she went away." 
 
 " Do they do that by Christian Science, too? " 
 A group of women had gathered under the stairs 
 in the hall, arid there was a general laugh at this. 
 
 " I do not know," said Mrs. Allaire, seriously. 
 " I suppose they pretend Christian Science keeps 
 it from hurting. It seems to me, I should have 
 had my hair coloured while I was about it." 
 
 By supper-time it was in every corner of the 
 rooms that Miss Catherine Beale had had her 
 face skinned by the most approved methods, and 
 that Christian Science had kept the process from 
 being painful. 
 
 To Doctor Richards, the bits of sentences which 
 came to his ears were like the buzzing of gnats. 
 He was not a particularly patient man. He 
 scorned these gossiping women, and yet in his 
 heart he felt that they were right. He had never 
 seen Cathie before, and he had been amazed at 
 her sweet, healthy beauty. It was incredible that 
 this woman had even lived in the house all those 
 years. He put his hand on her waist, and led 
 her through a waltz after he had watched her 
 dancing indefatigably. The spine which felt so 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 69 
 
 firm and pliant under his fingers had never been 
 broken, he would swear. 
 
 Doctor Richards was physician to the families 
 of many of these wives and mothers who sat 
 under the stairs in their best gowns. He 
 knew that the lines in their faces had come from 
 sleepless nights with teething babies, or of anx- 
 ious bending over beds where croup or fever tore 
 at their hearts, while it wasted their children. 
 The arms which had lost the round grace which 
 made Cathie Beale's arms so lovely, had swept 
 floors and beaten eggs and stirred puddings. 
 Backs not so straight and lissome as this one had 
 bent over sewing-machines. His sympathies were 
 with them, although he hated their belittling of 
 their dignity. 
 
 Lucille Glover passed him after he left her 
 aunt. Mr. Shepperson, looking almost lacka- 
 daisical, had brought Miss Beale an ice, and was 
 fanning her in the most approved loverlike fash- 
 ion of the early seventies, when he had last paid 
 a lady any sentimental attentions. Miss Creigh- 
 ton sat untler the stairs and glared at her brother- 
 in-law. Mrs. Allaire smiled pleasantly. She 
 and Miss Creighton had been open foes since 
 Mrs. Shepperson's death. 
 
 " Cathie is quite a belle. It is the first time 
 I have seen Mr. Shepperson seem to notice a 
 lady particularly since your sister's death." 
 
70 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 " He hasn't been thrown with any attractive 
 women," said Miss Creighton. " Most of the 
 women are married or old widows." 
 
 " Oh, Miss Emeline, you do yourself an in- 
 justice. / always thought you were a very 
 attractive woman." Mrs. Allaire spoke with great 
 kindness, and as though she were willing to stand 
 by her opinion even in the face of a dissenting 
 world, leaving her enemy speechless. 
 
 " Do you think Aunt Cathie really cured ? " 
 Lucille asked Doctor Richards, earnestly. Lu- 
 cille was always earnest. She was much like 
 Lily in appearance at first, but a second look 
 showed her much more substantial and with the 
 blue which made Lily's eyes suggest all sorts of 
 flowery similes, dulled to a hazel gray. Lucille 
 was one of the girls who " kept up her reading," 
 as they said in Stevensburg. Since she had known 
 Doctor Richards they had read a German book 
 or two together in the summer before the Beales 
 returned, but this amusement had fallen off since 
 his devotion to Lily. 
 
 Doctor Richards felt that here was a woman 
 who at any rate had the common sense to under- 
 stand. He wondered if her sane mind would 
 not influence Lily. " Yes, I consider her a very 
 healthy woman," he said. 
 
 " You do not think there is any danger of a 
 collapse ? " Lucille asked, anxiously. " I have 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 71 
 
 heard that in these cases there is always a danger 
 of their going back at any time, the false strength 
 due to excitement giving out suddenly. Every 
 time I have looked at Aunt Cathie this evening 
 I have shuddered with dread. Do you think that 
 colour in her cheeks quite natural ? " 
 
 " Now if Mrs. Allaire had asked that — " 
 
 " You know what I mean. Isn't it due to an 
 unhealthy excitement ? " 
 
 " I should say," said Richards, deliberately, 
 " that Miss Beale was no more excited than you 
 are. She strikes me as an unusually well poised 
 woman." 
 
 " Then there is no danger of her going back 
 — to her old state?" 
 
 " I should say not. She seems determined to 
 get all there is out of life for the rest of it." 
 
 " You think she is cured, then? " 
 
 " So far as one may judge casually." 
 
 "By Christian Science?" 
 
 " Probably." 
 
 " Oh — " Lucille breathed. Her eyes grew 
 narrower as she looked at him. He must love 
 Lily a great deal to take up this theory. 
 
 " I consider that these faith cures help a great 
 many people. We know they do. They give an 
 impetus." 
 
 " To a broken spine ? " 
 
 " No," Richards said. And he and Lucille 
 
72 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 looked at each other with perfect understanding. 
 Now when a man and woman do that, the woman 
 always thinks too much of it, which is something 
 it is difficult for a man to comprehend. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE new house of the Beales had been built 
 after a design made by a young- architect 
 who had had a year in Paris, and who 
 found it difficult to keep the Little Trianon out 
 of his work. His chief fault was ambition. As 
 a consequence, Mrs. Beale found herself with a 
 conservatory, where she had always contented 
 herself with a " pit " for her flowers in winter. 
 But they made it into a pleasant place. Ste- 
 vensburg was in the transition state where new 
 ideas — or even old ones for that matter — must 
 have powerful endorsement from outside — even 
 public opinion. Mrs. Beale's beautiful rag carpet 
 on the floor of the conservatory was admired, 
 and back-country weavers were at work making 
 them for other people, because a photograph of 
 two English royalties in their conservatory with 
 a rag carpet on the floor, had lately been pub- 
 lished. 
 
 The rag carpet was gay, and the geraniums, 
 always vulgarly ready to please, were in bloom, 
 and there were some wicker chairs there. It had 
 
 73 
 
74 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 been a favourite resting-place for the dancers all 
 evening. The young people had a pleased sense 
 of being in the setting for a play or a scene in a 
 novel, and had tried to behave accordingly. There 
 were only two there when Lily and Doctor Rich- 
 ards came in, and they went off hastily to join the 
 dancers who were flying about to the old-fash- 
 ioned " My Queen " waltz which Miss Cathie 
 had laughingly insisted should be played for old 
 times' sake. Even they recognised that Richards 
 probably had something to say to Lily. 
 
 He had, and he wasted little time in coming 
 to the point. Her beauty, so delicate, so sweet, 
 made her look like a woman to be moulded to 
 a man's mind. Although the party had been given 
 for her, she had been more or less obscured by her 
 aunt. After she had received the guests by her 
 mother's side, she had gone among the young 
 people she knew and tried the old task of making 
 the wall-flowers seem popular. There was some 
 potency in her ways, for even Betty Lind, who 
 always cried when she went home from a party, 
 seemed to be having a good time. 
 
 That Lily was easily influenced, Richards was 
 sure now, from her attitude toward her aunt. 
 Last night he had been almost, he had told him- 
 self, ready to give her up. But to-night he real- 
 ised that she carried his heart with her, and he 
 determined to speak as though nothing had come 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 75 
 
 between them. He felt that it was nothing but 
 a frivolous woman's affectations, -^ something 
 that to his scientific mind was half insanity. He 
 would marry Lily at once, for he was sure that 
 she cared for him, and once under his influence she 
 would see with his eyes. He would promise him- 
 self to completely nullify any influence of Miss 
 Catherine Beale's. It was the masculine side of 
 him which made him love Lily a little more, feel 
 a little nearer to her, be fonder of himself, now 
 that she had shown that there was a place where 
 his guiding hand was necessary to her. 
 
 In Lily's consciousness there was nothing but 
 the bright mist that hides all tangible things to 
 a young girl who knows that she is loved by a 
 man to whom she is ready to turn for the best 
 that life has to give. If a girl chooses rightly, 
 this is the happy time for her to marry. A little 
 later facts begin to take form in that mist, and 
 after awhile it disappears altogether. 
 
 But with the instinct of all women Lily tried 
 to put ofif the inevitable which in her heart she 
 was glad was so sure and certain. Naturally she 
 spoke of the thing which had been in all their 
 minds for twenty-four hours, and which no one 
 had dared mention to her this evening, except 
 as a matter of congratulation. 
 
 " Now," she said, " I am sure that you see 
 that Aunt Cathie is well." 
 
76 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 " Yes, I do," Richards said. " She is un- 
 doubtedly perfectly well. She dances like you." 
 
 " That is a compliment. Thank you." 
 
 "For her?" 
 
 " For myself. Do you know that Aunt Cathie 
 was a great beauty and belle? Her fame went 
 from Washington to St. Louis. We children 
 were always told about it. They wanted to name 
 a Mississippi steamboat after her, but grandfather 
 objected. She refused a lord once, they say, al- 
 though of course she never told anybody so. I 
 can believe it." 
 
 " What became of the lord ? " Richards asked. 
 He knew she was talking against time, and he 
 loved to see the colour come and go in her cheeks, 
 and how she kept from looking him square in the 
 eyes just noW. 
 
 " I do not know. You have no idea what 
 Aunt Cathie's recovery means to us. Of course 
 we loved her dearly. She was a sort of saint. 
 We couldn't really understand that she was the 
 same as that Carolus Duran portrait of her in 
 the parlour. The stories they told of Aunt Cathie 
 all seemed to belong to the portrait, and not to 
 her, up there helpless. And how, here she is, 
 the sweet saint we have always known, and that 
 beautiful girl, too. It is very wonderful." She 
 drew a little sigh, and for the first time she looked 
 at him. 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 77 
 
 " Now that your aunt is here, your mother and 
 father can better spare you — perhaps — " Rich- 
 ards said. That was not at all what he had in- 
 tended to say, but no honest man's proposal of 
 marriage was ever a model for a hero. 
 
 " I hope not," she said. 
 
 " But I hope so, because I wjint you myself. 
 Couldn't you, Lily? I love you, and I want the 
 task of trying to make you happy. Let me, won't 
 you?" 
 
 Lily opened her mouth to speak, when Geral- 
 dine came bounding into the conservatory in a 
 state of agitation. Geraldine was at the age which 
 takes everything very hard. 
 
 " Oh, Lily," she said, " Bob Longmore is here, 
 and he is — he doesn't know what he is doing. 
 Father is up-stairs playing whist. He is aw- 
 fully — " She hung the last word in the air. 
 
 " Intoxicated " sounded affected to her ears, 
 used to Jack's free speech, and " drunk " was a 
 word tabooed in polite society. " They are danc- 
 ing, and I think he means to go right in there. 
 He asked where Laura Shepperson was, and when 
 nobody told him he asked Betty Lind to dance, 
 and she is crying up-stairs." 
 
 " I will go," Richards said. " Stay here." 
 
 " I must go and find Laura, this will hurt her 
 terribly. And his poor mother ! " 
 
 " Mrs. Longmore had just gone up-stairs to 
 
78 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 put hef things on to go home. She was talking 
 to mother up there a minute ago," Jerry ex- 
 plained. " Isn't it terrible for a grown man to 
 behave so! I'm afraid of him, Lily. Don't go 
 out there. Drunken men are awfully dangerous. 
 I always run when I see one on the street." Doc- 
 tor Richards had gone, and Jerry clung to her 
 sister. 
 
 " I am going to find Laura. Run up-stairs. 
 It isn't a good thing to see." 
 
 " It's as good for me as it is for you." 
 
 " I am going because I have to go to Laura, 
 Jerry. It makes me sick." A shudder went over 
 her, and all the colour went out of her cheeks. 
 
 " Well, I think he was very impudent to come 
 here, and I hope father tells him so." 
 
 " Yes, it was impudent, and I will try to see 
 that he never does it again," said Mrs. Long- 
 more behind her. She was shaking as with cold, 
 although she had a heavy cloak over her shoulders, 
 and a black lace scarf covered her head. The 
 folds of black gave her the look of a figure of 
 grief. She was not a strong woman, and the 
 shocks of years had undermined her nervous sys- 
 tem, until now, althoug'h she had started toward 
 her son, she had not the strength to reach him. 
 Her tortured imagination made pictures, pieced of 
 former experiences, of what he might be doing 
 in there. A gentleman with an exquisite manner 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 79 
 
 when he was sober, a very demon seemed to enter 
 into him with drink. Usually he shut himself 
 away from his friends at such times. 
 
 Laura Shepperson, her face expressing more 
 mortification than anything else, came in quickly. 
 
 " Oh, Lily, Bob is here, and — I am so angry 
 and mortified ! " The words were pushed out. 
 She did not see Mrs. Longmore. " I was stand- 
 ing there, after dancing, talking to Mr. Culvert, 
 who is almost a stranger here, when he came 
 along and took me by the arm and said — he 
 said — " She could go no further, but burst 
 into tears. " I don't see why his mother let him 
 come in such a state. I shall never speak to him 
 again." 
 
 The gay, high remarks of the intoxicated man 
 could be heard, as he parried all attempts to lead 
 him away. He was a powerful young man, with 
 a strong, square face and broad shoulders, and 
 nobody felt like making the row which they knew 
 would surely result if anything more drastic 
 than moral suasion were used. It was the first 
 time he had ever made such an exhibition of 
 himself, and there was a fearful joy in the faces 
 of some of the people there, — particularly the 
 " new " people, who had no ties of long associa- 
 tion or relationship to tug and hurt at the sight 
 of Bob Longmore's disgrace. Mr. Shepperson's 
 face was white. It was by an effort that he re- 
 
8o THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 strained himself when he heard his daughter's 
 name on the man's hps. Virginia, too young to 
 quite understand the horror of it all, wondered 
 why somebody didn't take the creature away. 
 Miss Creighton was asking in an indignant tone 
 how he came to be invited. 
 
 " I think," said Bob, " that Miss Shepperson 
 and I have been engaged long enough without 
 our engagement being announced." His voice, 
 a heavy baritone, was hardly thick at all. " When 
 I find her again, we shall make a formal announce- 
 ment." 
 
 Doctor Richards came up to him and put his 
 hand on his arm. Bob turned and shook his 
 hand efifusively. " Here is another engaged 
 man," he said, cordially, at the top of his voice. 
 
 " Come away, Longmore. You'll be sorry to- 
 morrow. I have something to tell you. Some- 
 thing of importance." 
 
 " Tell it here. These all friends." He waved 
 his hand to the company. The dancers had 
 stopped and everybody was listening. 
 
 " Now I hope, Richards, that you are not going 
 to tell me that you have broken your engagement 
 on account of Christian Science. You'll soon get 
 that silly notion out of Lily's head. She's a sweet, 
 pretty girl, too good for you — don't throw her 
 over because she believes her cranky aunt — al- 
 though it would be funny " — a grim smile dis- 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 8i 
 
 torted his pale features — " to see the popular 
 young doctor with a Christian Science wife. I 
 suppose you would turn all the hysterical cases 
 over to her, and she would say, ' Take up thy 
 bed and walk,' eh? " 
 
 A figure that seemed to walk in a halo of light 
 came through the conservatory door. It was Lily. 
 Her fair hair around her white face was like an 
 aureole, and her blue eyes seemed ablaze. None 
 of them had ever realised before how tall she 
 was, until they saw her walking toward the two 
 men, her white gown trailing around her. She 
 lifted her hand before Longmore and spoke. 
 
 " Robert Longmore, in the name of that God 
 you blaspheme, get upon your knees and pray 
 him to give you back the mind you have wilfully 
 shadowed. It is his mind, not yours." 
 
 Longmore, his pallid face set like a dead man's, 
 looked at her for one instant, and then as though 
 his knees had given way he went to the floor, 
 his face in his hands. For a space he rested there, 
 while the girl stood above him, a look as of al- 
 mighty pleading in her pure face. The crowd 
 held its breath. 
 
 Then Bob Longmore looked up at her and stood 
 upon his feet, his face a heavy crimson. 
 
 " Thank you, Lily," he said. " Is my mother 
 here ? I came to take her home." 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 TOWARD morning Judge Beale lay for 
 half an hour seemingly asleep, thinking 
 over the expression that his wife had 
 taken to bed with her. There had been a reserve 
 in her usually kind eyes which he had never seen 
 there before. 
 
 When his presence had been no longer neces- 
 sary down-stairs the night before, he had gone 
 up to the large room which he and his wife 
 shared, and had gone to bed. 
 
 He was not only a wise, but a tender husband, 
 and he intended that his wife should have her 
 own good time in which to unburden her heart. 
 That after all these years together there could be 
 anything which she would hold back from him 
 was beyond his comprehension. Mrs. Beale 
 was blaming herself for her neglect of her 
 daughter. She said, over and over", that there 
 must be some defect in the child's breeding, to 
 cause her to force herself before the public in 
 that " unladylike " way. There is nothing so 
 dreaded by the conventional mother as a deviation 
 82 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 83 
 
 from the paths of the usual girlhood's garden of 
 dreams, in which the girl is expected to walk 
 until her wedding-day. 
 
 So, all the rest of the night, Mrs. Beale, sad 
 and sore of heart, lay with open eyes, her face 
 turned from her husband, feeling unjustly, as 
 she knew, that it was in some sense his fault that 
 Lily had shown this new side of her character. 
 The impetus to it had come from his family. 
 Cathie, who had been her dearest friend, for 
 whom in these years of helplessness she had come 
 to have almost a maternal feeling, had brought 
 an influence into her family which had made her 
 daughter strange, and she was finding it hateful 
 to her. She felt that Lily's " bad taste," as she 
 called it in her own mind, was a direct reflection 
 upon her training. 
 
 The light was creeping through the curtains 
 when Judge Beale, who had slept the earlier part 
 of his hours of rest, as the nerves of a strong 
 man will allow him to sleep at most times when 
 his body is weary, turned on his pillow, and took 
 his wife's head upon his arm. They were still 
 lovers, these two, after all their twenty years of 
 married life. For almost the first time in those 
 years his wife's tears wet Roger Beale's sleeve. 
 
 " My dear, my dear," he said, in tender solici- 
 tude, " why do you cry ? There is nothing to 
 cry about. You are nervous over the work and 
 
84 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 the excitement of the past two days. Rest 
 to-day." 
 
 "Oh, Roger — Lily!" And she shook with 
 stifled sobs. 
 
 Judge Beale would have laughed had he dared. 
 
 " St — st — " he said, instead. " There is noth- 
 ing about Lily to worry you. She is young and 
 impressionable. Her aunt's coming home excited 
 her, and she was greatly stirred by Bob Long- 
 more. Confound him ! " The Judge's voice 
 changed. " He'll make us all an abject apology, 
 and I am not sure that I'll not give him a good 
 kicking, beside. Nobody pays any attention to a 
 drunken man's ravings. Almost everybody who 
 was here last night is a friend to all of us. They 
 all know what was the matter with Bob. I didn't 
 hear him, but I understand from Geraldine that 
 he tried to congratulate Richards upon his engage- 
 ment to Lily." 
 
 " He isn't engaged to Lily." 
 
 " I'm not so sure of that. If he isn't, he will 
 be. He asked my permission a good many weeks 
 ago." 
 
 " And you never told me ! " 
 
 " My dear, it was a confidence that I had no 
 right to divulge even to you. I had asked your 
 opinion of Richards before he came to me. I 
 virtually had your consent to give with my own." 
 
 " I should have been told." There was a sense 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 85 
 
 of injury in Mrs. Beale which was ready to take 
 oflfence everywhere, but her husband, sweeter and 
 stronger of nature than most men, held her head 
 against his arm until she felt her resentment dis- 
 solving in the sense of peace and security his 
 nearness brought her. It melted her reserve, and 
 haltingly she tried to tell him something of her 
 feeling over the publicity of the exhibition Lily 
 had made of her appeal to Bob Longmore. 
 
 " I was on the stairs coming down," Mrs. 
 Beale said. " It was horrible — like something in 
 a theatre. She made him get upon his knees — 
 and — Oh, Roger, I was so mortified, I wanted 
 to sink through the floor. Lily! " 
 
 " What did she make him get on his knees 
 for?" asked the Judge. Nobody had dared tell 
 him exactly what had happened. 
 
 " She told him to get on his knees and pray! " 
 Mrs. Beale spoke with utter horror. " Pray, 
 there in the ballroom, and she stood over him 
 with her eyes rolled up. Lily!" 
 
 " It seemed to have sobered him," said the 
 Judge, rather flippantly. " The only thing they 
 told me was that Bob Longmore came after his 
 mother, followed Laura Shepperson about, and 
 said they had been engaged long enough, and 
 greeted Richards as engaged to Lily; and that 
 Lily with very proper spirit, as nobody else 
 seemed to have any, called him to his senses. 
 
86 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 and sent him home sober. Culvert told me about 
 it; he said he never saw such a beauty in his 
 Hfe as Lily looked, — that she was fairly thrilling. 
 I think you will find, my dear, that nothing so 
 dreadful has happened. Lily is a girl of spirit, 
 and Bob Longmore made her good and mad, and 
 she gave him a shaking-up. He'll be around 
 to apologise, and Richards will ask that the 
 engagement may be announced. And every- 
 thing will be as it was before. If Miss Lily 
 has any theatrical tricks, it won't take Richards 
 long to rid her of them. I know no man with 
 more common sense." 
 
 " Nothing will ever be as it was before," Mrs. 
 Beale said, and in that she showed her woman's 
 intuition. 
 
 There was silence between them for a little 
 while. The heavy cook went down the stairs, 
 whispering loudly to the two maids as she passed 
 their room, and presently the sound of biscuit 
 being beaten on a block came up the stairs. All 
 the sounds of a new and usual day restored to 
 the mother of the family something of her accus- 
 tomed morning attitude toward life. The troubles 
 of the night are apt to evaporate with the morning 
 in which we can look at them squarely. 
 
 " There is one thing I am profoundly grateful 
 is different," Judge Beale said. " That is 
 Cathie." 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 87 
 
 " Roger, do you think her recovery a miracle? " 
 
 " Everything we do not understand is a 
 miracle to us, and we understand very little, com- 
 paratively speaking." 
 
 " Do you think " — it was hard to speak of 
 things like this even to her husband — " that it 
 was — supernatural ? " 
 
 " Certainly not. There is nothing super- 
 natural. Ever3rthing which happens is bound 
 to follow some law. The trouble is that we 
 sometimes do not know the law. There is a great 
 deal in this universe that we haven't the capacity 
 to understand. We are merely parasites on a 
 little ball of ashes swinging around in space — 
 and we have obtained the idea somewhere that 
 we are the chief end of the universe. We have 
 five poor defective senses, which enable us to 
 keep hold of life, by fighting, and we try to 
 explain everything by means of what they tell 
 us. Cathie is cured. How, or when, is a matter 
 of supreme indifference. She probably touched 
 the button — by chance — " and the Judge gave 
 a short laugh. 
 
 " What do you mean by ' touched the but- 
 ton ? ' " asked his practical wife. That her hus- 
 band was giving her a theory of existence directly 
 heretical to all the teachings of her lifetime she 
 hardly noticed. She was vaguely relieved to see 
 
88 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 that he had not taken up with Cathie's queerness, 
 and that was all his attitude meant to her. 
 
 " There may be a means of making everything 
 right — the crooked straight — if we only knew 
 the law. Sometimes people stumble against it, 
 without knowing it, and then they call it a miracle. 
 There is no use in our trying to understand. We 
 haven't the capacity. I'm going to sleep until 
 breakfast-time." The Judge turned over. 
 
 " Roger," his wife said, " do you think it is a 
 good thing for Cathie to be talking these new 
 ideas of hers to the children?" She wouldn't 
 speak of Christian Science. The very name 
 sounded detestable to her. 
 
 " New ideas never hurt anybody," said the 
 sleepy Judge. " When you get down to it, I 
 can't see that her ideas are any different from 
 what they get at Sunday school. They seem to 
 be pure orthodoxy — primitive Christianity. I 
 haven't been to Sunday school for a long time, 
 but I believe they have some tales about raising 
 the dead. Mrs. Allaire is Jack's teacher, isn't 
 she? " The Judge's sense of humour was carry- 
 ing him away. 
 
 " I don't like to Hear you speak of sacred 
 things in that way," Mrs. Beale said, reprovingly. 
 It gave her no real sense of shock. It had been 
 one of her earliest lessons that women must 
 always be reproving their mankind for lightness 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 89 
 
 concerning sacred things. It was only really old 
 men and clergymen who were not more or less 
 given to it. 
 
 " I leave all that to you. Women should regu- 
 late the religion of a household. Most men keep 
 theirs in the wife's name," and the Judge laughed 
 again. 
 
 " I think," said Mrs. Beale, " I will get Mr. 
 Lessing to see Cathie about this. We are taught 
 that the age of miracles is past. And really it 
 cannot be good taste for her to say that she was 
 cured by those quacks. And I consider Lily too 
 impressionable toward them." 
 
 But her mind was relieved about Lily. She 
 was practically engaged to Doctor Richards, who 
 was amply able to take care of his wife in every 
 way. And Mr. Culvert, who came from cities, 
 had seemed to see only her spirit and beauty 
 the night before. 
 
 " I would ask Lessing up. Have him stay 
 to dinner. And I'll get out some of that old 
 whiskey Bingham sent me from Louisville." 
 
 Geraldine put her head in at the door after 
 a light knock. 
 
 " Mamma, the man is here to take the palms. 
 He has to decorate the church for old Mr. Grey's 
 funeral at ten o'clock. I told Emily I thought 
 you wanted to keep some of them for the con- 
 servatory." 
 
90 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 " I shall be there in a moment," Mrs. Beale 
 said. " Don't awaken your father." She went 
 toward the bathroom hastily, full of the cares of 
 the day, against which spiritual experiences 
 counted for nothing. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CALLING, by young men in Stevensburg, 
 was generally confined to the evening 
 hours. Sometimes on Sunday afternoons 
 young men made visits; married men never did 
 so under any circumstances, except upon other 
 men. Stevensburg was in that state of progress 
 in which there is supposed to be no possible at- 
 traction between men and women except the one 
 which should rightly end in a legitimate pro- 
 longation of the race. Women met together to 
 read and study, and were proud of their intellec- 
 tuality, but any suggestion that a man and woman 
 found pleasure in a close association that was 
 not on the path to matrimony would have been 
 received with incredulity. 
 
 The morning after the party, the neighbours of 
 the Beales were interested at seeing Robert Long- 
 more standing on the Judge's front door-step 
 at ten o'clock. Judge Beale had gone to his office 
 at nine. 
 
 It was with some embarrassment that Lily went 
 down to see him. Although she had known him 
 
 91 
 
92 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 all her life, he had been a young man at college 
 when she was a little girl, and seemed to her to 
 belong to an older generation. 
 
 He was standing by the mantelpiece in the 
 library when she entered. Although the Beales 
 had been for generations people of consequence 
 in the world, who had known the social life of 
 cities, Mrs. Beale was too long accustomed to 
 the ways of the town to break over one of its 
 social rules. Young girls received callers alone. 
 
 Mrs. Beale was disturbed when she heard who 
 the visitor was. She felt sure that before he 
 departed he would ask for her and apologise for 
 the evening before, and she left the new plants 
 she was displaying in the conservatory, and 
 hastily went up-stairs to arrange her dress with 
 a trifle more ceremony. With all her annoyance, 
 she remembered that Bob Longmore was sup- 
 posed to be critical of women's dress. 
 
 Lily came through the library door and closed 
 it behind her. She looked very young in her 
 cotton waist and short skirt, as she hesitated half- 
 way across the room. Longmore had put his hat 
 on the table, and thrown his overcoat open, and 
 stood drawing his thick walking-gloves through 
 nervous fingers. His square face was pale and 
 serious, and there were heavy rings under his 
 black eyes. 
 
 With ready courtesy he sprang forward and 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 93 
 
 brought a chair for Lily toward the gas fire. 
 The Hbrary was a dark room, after the fashion 
 of Hbraries, which seem arranged to give an idea 
 of dusk and quiet, instead of light for the enjoy- 
 ment of books. 
 
 Lily seated herself, and Longmore fell heavily 
 on to a leather couch which ran at right angles 
 to the fire. For a long minute neither said a 
 word. When Longmore spoke, his voice had in 
 it some of that embarrassment which Lily felt. 
 
 " What did you do to me last night? " 
 
 " I hardly know myself. Father says this 
 morning that I recalled you to yourself." The 
 girl spoke with the exquisite gentleness which 
 was one of her charms. 
 
 " It was something more than that. I was 
 drunk. Nobody knows quite what that means 
 but me. I never before owned even to myself 
 that I could get into a state like that. I only felt 
 it. I had been drinking a little for days. I 
 am always drinking a little. I was started on 
 a way that once before has led to the great 
 torment, — that shattering of the nerves that 
 means — " His eyebrows were drawn together 
 until they made a solid black bar across his fore- 
 head, giving a look of pain to his face. " I knew 
 yesterday morning that I was on the way down, 
 but I could no more pull up than a man in an 
 avalanche can stop." He got up and walked 
 
94 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 across the room once, and stopped in front of 
 Lily as he came back. 
 
 " Nobody can know the horror of being in 
 that grip. People blame me. They say I am 
 breaking my mother's heart, and I know that I 
 am. Do they suppose I want to? " 
 
 Lily looked at him mutely. It seemed to be 
 given to this young girl to enter into this man's 
 soul and see what was there. Words were not 
 for him. 
 
 " Last night I came here, — a madman. I 
 was worse than a brute, because I had human 
 intelligence. If you had not saved me, by to-day 
 I should have been — what I am afraid to think 
 of. You did something to me. What was it? 
 I found myself out there on my knees, in my 
 right mind. All night I have waited for my 
 demon to come back. It hasn't come. I feel 
 like a free man. Since I was a boy I have been 
 fighting that devil in me, — the devil that killed 
 my father; and last night you drove it out. I 
 am afraid of its return, and I ask you in God's 
 name to tell me what you did." 
 
 " It was in God's name that it went," Lily 
 said, reverently. "It is only God who can cast 
 out devils." 
 
 A deeper frown went over Longmore's face. 
 " I am not a religious man. I haven't been what 
 the Methodists call ' converted.' I have seen too 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 95 
 
 many men ' reformed ' by excitement. Don't tell 
 me that I have nothing better than that." 
 
 " You have — if you will but keep it — the 
 best thing there is." Lily's tones were full of 
 the deepest earnestness. There was none of the 
 hushed affectation of the usual talk about sacred 
 things. She spoke as a physician might speak. 
 
 " Sit down and let me tell you. Let us counsel 
 together." It was with relief that Longmore 
 slipped again on to the lounge. 
 
 " I suppose you have heard that Aunt Catherine 
 has been cured ? " 
 
 " I had heard it, yes — But, Lily, let me 
 tell you that I have no faith in such things." 
 
 " Yes, you have. If you had not had faith 
 last night, if the real you inside had not felt 
 that your mind was God's, and that if you would 
 let it, the spiritual part of you would throw off the 
 mortal cloud, you could not have gone away with 
 the devil cast out. Can't you see ? It was exactly 
 like the old story. I was the instrument used for 
 the moment to cast that mortal thing out. Wait 
 a moment — " for Longmore started to speak. 
 " Aunt Cathie told me how she had been cured. 
 Oh, I had seen her. I lived with her all those 
 terrible years when every hour was an hour of 
 suffering. I had lifted her poor shrunken limbs 
 that had no more life in them than this chair 
 arm. When I saw her, strong and well, as I am, 
 
96 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 do you suppose I could not see that it was some 
 Life outside of us that had made her whole and 
 strong again? The doctors could not do that. 
 It was not difficult for me to see. I seemed to 
 understand all at once, even before Aunt Cathie 
 explained the wonderful thing to me, which she 
 did that first night. God created us in his own 
 image spiritually. We live because he lives, and 
 we are the reflection of his mind. It is all — 
 this universe is but his thought. How can we go 
 wrong or be sick or sorry except as we get out 
 of harmony with him ? You know — they taught 
 me at school that everything in nature, rocks 
 even, is always vibrating. They exist in their 
 present forms by vibrations. We originally 
 vibrate to the harmony of God's thought. It is 
 when we get away from it that we go wrong." 
 Her face looked, as she went on, as it had looked 
 the night before, almost like that of a prophetess 
 inspired. 
 
 " I do not understand," the man said. " I was 
 brought up to believe those old Bible stories. 
 Of course I know them all, but they seem far 
 away from us, and I have thought of them as 
 I have thought of other childish fairy tales. That 
 we were made of nothing was merely a figure 
 of speech. I am afraid I cannot follow you. I 
 had rather think that nature had given you some 
 strong power of hypnotism, — do not misunder- 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 97 
 
 stand me," he said, as he saw the aversion on 
 the young girl's face, — " some magnetism, some 
 voice of authority, that could bring out the better 
 side of me. I came here humbly this morning to 
 beg you to try to save me from the return of 
 my enemy, to help me to be strong enough to 
 conquer it myself. Will you?" He had arisen 
 again, and had come over and taken her hand, 
 and she was looking into his face with all her 
 pure, sweet soul in her eyes, while the man had 
 almost an agony of pleading in his, when the 
 door opened quickly, and Laura Shepperson stood 
 for an instant there. " Oh, I beg your pardon," 
 she said, icily, and was gone. Neither of them 
 seemed to notice her. 
 
 " You have the strength of all the ages in your 
 own mind. You carry the strength of Omnipo- 
 tence with you," the girl said. " You cannot fail. 
 It is only necessary that you should understand 
 it. You shall. Do you remember how in one 
 of those old stories there were three men who 
 walked through a fiery furnace and came out 
 unhurt? You have in you, in you, Robert Long- 
 more, the same power. It is the mind of the 
 very God who blew his breath into us." 
 
 The man drew a long breath and let her hand 
 drop. 
 
 " Help me to keep it there." 
 
 " I will." 
 
98 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 Emily, the second girl, had been knocking at 
 the door, but neither of them heard her ; now she 
 pushed it open reluctantly, and ushered Doctor 
 Richards into the room. 
 
 Richards looked at Longmore as though he did 
 not see him, and went forward to speak to Lily, 
 who greeted him pleasantly, and then turned to 
 Longmore, as he took his hat and walked toward 
 the door. 
 
 "Come again — when you like," she said. 
 
 " Thank you," and he was gone. 
 
 Then Lily turned a face to her lover that 
 asked for tenderness. But Richards had felt 
 the sweetness of his heart curdle a little in Long- 
 more' s presence. He would have flouted the 
 idea that jealousy was possible to him. He would 
 have carefully analysed that passion, and said 
 that it was only possible toward one you did 
 not trust. But his nerves hardened at the sight 
 of the man who had publicly shown how powerful 
 an influence Lily had had over him the night be- 
 fore. That his awakening had been due to any- 
 thing else, Richards could not have understood. 
 
 " I am sorry to hear you asking that man to 
 come here again," he said. He had thought of 
 Lily as his own property, particularly since the 
 night before. If her lips had not answered him, 
 her eyes had, and he felt the possessive. 
 
 " I hope he will come many times. He came 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 99 
 
 to-day to ask for help. He has been suffering, 
 and he has had relief. He cannot let it go away 
 from him." 
 
 It may be forgiven Richards that something 
 between a laugh and a groan came from him. 
 Longmore was famous for a style of flirtation 
 which has always been more or less common. Ill- 
 natured people who were not particularly fond 
 of Laura Shepperson had hinted that he had gone 
 just a fraction too far on one of these amatory 
 flights, and that he had discovered himself 
 engaged before he quite understood his ground. 
 They had also fixed his engagement as the date 
 from which his later recklessness had started. 
 The man who wants a good young girl, particu- 
 larly a pretty and popular one, to " reform " him, 
 is a type known and disliked of all honest men. 
 Lily's ready acceptance of Bob Longmore in this 
 role angered Richards, while it amused him. 
 
 " And you propose to try to keep him sober ? " 
 
 Lily looked at him with something like aston- 
 ishment. 
 
 " He must do that for himself, but I shall help 
 him if I can." 
 
 " Pardon me — I know you will pardon me — 
 but I do not think it well for you to do anything 
 for Mr. Longmore. He is not the sort of young 
 man for an associate for you. I should leave 
 this for your father to say, but I hope I may 
 
lOO THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 show my interest, too. A man who has led the 
 life that Longmore has led of late years, has his 
 sensibilities blunted. What he did last night 
 proves this. If he wants a woman to help him, 
 he has a fine mother, and I understand he is 
 engaged to be married to Miss Shepperson. That 
 is her task." 
 
 " She told me last night that she would never 
 speak to him again." 
 
 " In that I commend her good sense. He can 
 only make her utterly miserable. He is not fit 
 to be the friend of any woman." 
 
 " He may not have been yesterday, but to-day 
 he came to tell me that the devil had been cast 
 out." 
 
 "That you had cast it out?" Richards had 
 a smile on his face. He despised Longmore. He 
 felt that his dislike could only be eased by doing 
 him some personal injury. How dare he come 
 here and try to keep the hold that he had gained 
 on an impressionable girl by being suddenly 
 shocked into soberness by her indignation? And 
 yet he felt that he must treat the matter lightly 
 to Lily. 
 
 " I felt myself to be the instrument of God 
 to cast it out," she said, solemnly. " It came to 
 me like an inspiration. It was God speaking 
 to me. I knew that it could be done. I had 
 seen my aunt. She had told me how one who 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN loi 
 
 knew and understood the divine harmony had 
 shown her that she was only held to decay 
 because she would not let God's thoughts recreate 
 her. I knew that God could push aside that 
 shadow on his poor brain. It seemed terrible 
 to me that he should be that pitiful thing he 
 was. The blackness passed away, as I knew it 
 would, and he was himself." 
 
 Richards arose and walked across the floor 
 in the same path that Longmore had taken. 
 
 " This is madness," he said. " It is almost — 
 It is something that you should push out of your 
 mind. My child, your aunt is simply — was 
 simply a victim of hysteria. Hysteria is one 
 of the most remarkable states. It can simulate 
 almost any disease. Your aunt had a painful 
 accident at a time when her mind was unusually 
 depressed on account of grief. She thought she 
 had a broken spine, and she lay there for all those 
 years with practically a broken spine. If I let my 
 right hand hang loose and imagine I have no use 
 of it, to all practical purposes I have not. Just 
 so was it in the case of your aunt. The change 
 of scene last summer and new influences helped 
 her. She began to wcmt to get well. Some 
 pleasant-mannered, shrewd woman who had her 
 living to earn by her wits came along and ' cured ' 
 her by telling her she was well — and presto — 
 a miracle!" He stopped. " Come to your sweet 
 
I02 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 senses. That is all there was to it." He smiled 
 winningly. " Your aunt is doubtless honest in 
 her beliefs. Leave them to her. It would not 
 be kind to tell her that she almost wilfully wasted 
 nineteen years of her life. But we understand." 
 
 " It will be my earnest wish to make you under- 
 stand," Lily said, but Richards went on. It 
 seemed to him impossible that she could not see. 
 
 " As for Longmore, he was intoxicated — 
 just enough to be foolish. You frightened and 
 shocked him into sobriety. He is a scoundrel and 
 a cad to come here and try to take a mean advan- 
 tage of it. It shows how far a man may depart 
 from the code of honour in which he has been 
 reared. Lily, I want you to give me the right 
 as one nearer than your father, to call him to 
 account for it. Let us forget everything else, 
 my dear, except that we love each other. You 
 do love me ? " He looked into her eyes with 
 all the indignation out of his, and only the 
 expression of the wooer. The faults which she 
 seemed to show were making her more human, 
 bringing her closer to him. He felt more confi- 
 dence than ever. 
 
 " I do love you — No," for he had put out 
 his arms to her, his face showing relief in its 
 tenderness, " but I should think myself lack- 
 ing in my duty to the Spirit that I have come to 
 understand if I put it aside selfishly." 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 103 
 
 " Lily, Lily," the man said, in real anxiety, 
 " this is madness ! My dear, my child, my 
 darling, you must let me take you away from 
 all such thoughts." 
 
 " I cannot." 
 
 " But, suppose for an instant that there was 
 some truth in them. Suppose there is some occult 
 force we do not understand that can perform 
 miracles. Why would you let it stand between us ? 
 We are young, we are human, we love each other. 
 Isn't that enough? Let these strange ideas go. 
 For my sake ! " 
 
 " Do you suppose," said Lily, " that if all the 
 world were blind, and one man were suddenly 
 given sight, and knew that he could give it to 
 those he loved if they would only let him, that 
 he would consent to listen when they wished to 
 blind him again ? " 
 
 After Richards had gone and Lily had started 
 up to her own room, she met her mother. 
 
 " Laura Shepperson was here. I told her Bob 
 Longmore had come to apologise. He did, I 
 suppose." 
 
 " No, I think not," Lily said. 
 
 " And Doctor Richards — " Mrs. Beale hesi- 
 tated. " Your father thought he would probably 
 be here to dinner." 
 
 " No, I think not," Lily said. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 TO imagine that a knowledge of the scene 
 at the party at Judge Beale's house was 
 kept within the circle of the family's 
 friends and acquaintances who had witnessed it, 
 would be to reckon with no understanding of a 
 town of the size of Stevensburg. Judge Beale had 
 comforted his wife with the assurance that it was 
 confined to their friends, but neither of them quite 
 believed it. 
 
 Mothers who had not gone to the party were 
 awakened that night and told of it; servants 
 heard it at breakfast-tables; and by the time 
 Longmore and Richards had made their visits 
 it was the sweet morsel of gossip under the 
 tongues of every woman who cared for gossip in 
 the town. The Beale house had taken on almost 
 the air of a public institution. The expressman 
 delivering a package in the neighbourhood turned 
 and looked at it all around the corner. The mu- 
 sicians who had been there had carried the story 
 home. At first they said that Miss Beale had 
 slapped Mr. Longmore in the face and that in his 
 104 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 105 
 
 state of intoxication he had fallen on the floor, 
 and that theory continued to be held for some 
 time, in the " Over-the-Tracks " district. It was 
 not until late in the day that anybody seemed to 
 realise that Lily supposed herself to have recalled 
 Bob Longmore to his senses through any other 
 agency than indignation. It was Laura Shepper- 
 son who told them. When she left the door of 
 the library she went hastily up to Lily's room. 
 She found Cathie Beale there carefully folding 
 Lily's pretty white gown of the evening before, 
 packing the bodice with tissue paper and pulling 
 out the frills as though she had been doing the 
 same thing for years. After the night of dancing 
 her colour was as bright and serene and her move- 
 ments as quick as when she arrived. 
 
 Laura threw herself into the chintz-cush- 
 ioned wicker chair by the window. She was pale, 
 and her eyes were angry. The sun was coming 
 out to-day with one of those vagaries of climate 
 for which this part of the country is noted, and 
 the snow and ice were turning to slush in the 
 streets. The bracing air was gone, and a vapour 
 from the melting snow seemed to fill the lungs and 
 depress the heart. Laura had left home and come 
 to Lily to talk over her own affairs, to ask for 
 counsel and sympathy, in a quarter where she had 
 always been sure of finding it. She had wanted 
 to tell Lily of the cutting remarks of her aunt and 
 
io6 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 sister, and their " I told you so's " concerning Bob 
 Longmore's revelations; of her father's peremp- 
 tory command, that she never speak to Longmore 
 again, and that she should tell him that he was 
 discarded. Also, she had wanted a long dis- 
 cussion upon the possible efifect of such a course 
 upon Bob. She had made up her words to say 
 to Lily. She liked to think that her sentiments 
 were both high-minded and dramatic. She had 
 in her pocket a letter that she had spent the early 
 morning hours in composing. It was a final re- 
 nunciation, and she thought that it compared fa- 
 vourably as a piece of literature with any similar 
 document. In it she had begged Longmore to 
 consider that it was by his own act that they were 
 parted, and that if he would try to conquer his 
 awful inheritance he could yet lead a noble and 
 useful life, though he must see that the public 
 insult of the night before had put it out of her 
 power ever to be anything to him. She was not 
 at all sure that she intended sending this letter. 
 She had not stamped it, but it had given her great 
 pleasure to write it. 
 
 She had intended to have an enjoyable morning 
 recalling to Lily that Longmore had publicly 
 given out her own engagement to Doctor Rich- 
 ards, and to ask how it was to be followed up. 
 The thing could not be left as it was now. She 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 107 
 
 was curious, too, to hear if any engagement ex- 
 isted. 
 
 But the whole situation had changed when she 
 saw Longmore and Lily standing there seemingly 
 absorbed in each other. She took a seat where 
 she could look at the front gate, and see Long- 
 more' s departure. 
 
 " You look well after your dissipations of last 
 night, Miss Cathie," she said, almost insolently. 
 " I could hardly believe that it was you, when I 
 remembered how you have always been. It seemed 
 like a stranger." 
 
 " That poor mind-sick creature seems like a 
 stranger to me now," Cathie said. " I pity her 
 more than I can say, for the mistakes that kept her 
 there all those years." She lifted a heavy box, 
 and began packing Lily's finery away. 
 
 Laura looked at her curiously. She had had 
 no opportunity to more than greet Cathie the day 
 before, and, while her own affairs were uppermost 
 in her mind, she could not resist trying to hear 
 what Cathie would say. She felt that the safest 
 plan would be to pretend that she had heard no 
 story of her cure. 
 
 " Did Professor Long cure you at his hospital 
 in Philadelphia?" 
 
 " No. I had a disease which they could not 
 cure. It was merely a belief that I was ill. I 
 
io8 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 am in reality God's likeness, my dear. When I 
 discovered that, I was well." 
 
 " Do you think, then, Miss Cathie, that you 
 could have walked at any time? That it was just 
 imagination? Surely not." 
 
 " I certainly could not have walked by myself 
 alone in the state in which I was. I needed to 
 put my mind in harmony with the Great Mind, 
 before I could know that I was perfectly well. 
 I could not have walked while I believed that my 
 body was broken. Certainly not." She looked 
 at Laura with tenderness. To Cathie there had 
 come a sweet solicitude toward all humanity. Her 
 heart went out in a great love and a desire to help. 
 Particularly was this feeling aroused by young 
 womanhood. In this, Lily's friend, she felt that 
 she must find one who understood her, and the 
 story of her recovery was one she loved to tell. 
 
 " I had a dear friend — she was not a dear 
 friend at first, but she grew to be — who had been 
 as I was, an invalid for years. She had what the 
 doctors call consumption, and year after year she 
 went up and down the earth trying to find com- 
 parative comfort for the few years she had to live. 
 Italy, California, the Adirondacks, had all been 
 tried, and day by day the spirit was leaving her 
 just a poor miserable dead thing. That was years 
 ago. She happened to be in the same town once 
 with a wonderful woman, the Mother, to whom 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 109 
 
 the understanding that rightly we are all ideas 
 of God's mind, was first given. This wonderful 
 woman came to see her, and in ten days she was 
 wdl." 
 
 There was a rap given by a strong and decided 
 hand upon the door, and Miss Cathie opened it 
 to let Lucille Glover in. In Stevensburg they still 
 kept up the old Southern habit of seeking the 
 family in whatever part of the house they hap- 
 pened to be. 
 
 "Lily isn't here?" she said, looking around. 
 " What a pretty dress that was, — but did you 
 think it fitted in the back? I thought it was cut 
 a little low for Lily's shoulder-blades." 
 
 " The bones of extreme youth are pretty," Miss 
 Cathie said, innocently. The girls exchanged 
 glances. They were Lily's seniors, and resented 
 it a little with that curious feeling of beginning 
 to be passe which is the heritage which falls upon 
 a Southern girl who has passed her twenty-third 
 birthday unmarried. They each considered that 
 Cathie had intended to say something unpleasant. 
 But there was no exchange of sympathy between 
 these two. Laura had heard once through Mrs. 
 Allaire's kind offices that Lucille had wondered 
 how Laura ever expected to hold, as clever a man 
 as Robert Longmore — when he was sober. Mrs. 
 Allaire had builded that remark out of Lucille's 
 casual mention of Longmore's fine mind, and the 
 
no THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 possibility of his being reformed by a strong- 
 minded woman. Lucille was too clever for idle 
 spite, — that rage of the impotent. To this first 
 flight Mrs. Allaire had later added that Lucille 
 thought Laura had better take him in his then 
 state. It had made a coolness between the girls 
 which temperament assisted. 
 
 " What a pretty room Lily has here," Lucille 
 said, looking about. " Isn't that one of Grand- 
 mother Beale's old four-poster bedsteads? And 
 where did she get that embroidered valance? " 
 
 " My great-grandmother Temple embroidered 
 that, at school, in England," Cathie said, proudly. 
 " Your great-great-grandmother, my dear." 
 
 " Precious little good it does me to have had 
 a great-great-grandmother who did embroidery," 
 Lucille said, good-naturedly. " I didn't even 
 inherit the talent for doing it. Some of these 
 days. Aunt Cathie, I am going to come here with 
 a search-warrant and take the great-great part 
 of the heirlooms. Isn't that the baby portrait of 
 Granny by Sully that used to hang over your 
 bed? Well, upon my word, Lil has taken the 
 cream of things ! " 
 
 " It looks exactly as she did when she was a 
 baby, and as it isn't fair that I should continue to 
 have all the pretty things in the house now that 
 I am well, I gave it to her." 
 
 " Your aunt has been telling me about her re- 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN iii 
 
 covery," Laura said. She went over to the chintz 
 window-seat, sat down by Lucille, and half put 
 her arm around her in the affectionate habit of 
 girls. Longmore had gone. 
 
 " Please go on. Miss Qathie. I know Lucille 
 has heard all about it, but it is so wonderful I 
 am sure she will be glad to hear it again." There 
 was the sweetest sincerity in her tones. 
 
 Cathie had been sheltered and petted through 
 the years when a woman is gaining worldly ex- 
 perience. She looked at these two girls with glad 
 eyes. They seemed so young and happy and so 
 impressionable. They were Lily's friends, and 
 Lily had understood from the first moment. 
 Doubtless they, too, with their clear eyes and 
 smiling mouths, had the hearts of little children, 
 unspoiled by prejudices. 
 
 " I had just told Laura of my friend Mrs. 
 Mason, who was cured by the discoverer of the 
 power to cure. She came to see me at Atlantic 
 City, and taught me that my illness was unneces- 
 sary, and that I had only to allow the real Life 
 to enter into me to be well." 
 
 " Aunt Cathie," said Lucille, in a judicial tone, 
 " do you believe that your back was actually 
 broken?" 
 
 " According to the physicians it was." 
 
 " But do you believe it was ? Do you believe 
 
112 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 that the bones of your spine were shattered as 
 Professor Long and the rest of them said ? " 
 
 " Accidents are unknown to the Immortal 
 Mind. The real me — the woman — was unin- 
 jured; and when I was able to realise that, and 
 that my body was in reality but the reflection of 
 my mind, then my spine was no longer even what 
 you call ' broken ' — not eyen what Professor 
 Long calls ' broken.' When I was able to erad- 
 icate the image of disease and hurt, I was well." 
 
 " When, in other words, you believed that you 
 could walk, you could." 
 
 " Yes. When I knew that I was really well, 
 I could walk." 
 
 " Do you remember Lawrence Billings, Mrs. 
 Allaire's brother, Aunt Cathie? He was hurt in 
 the mountains last year by his gun going ofif. 
 He didn't know he was hurt, and he started to 
 walk and fell down helpless. Now, he thought 
 he could walk, but he couldn't. Now, if your 
 theory is correct, why couldn't he? " 
 
 " He had no understanding of the Divine Im- 
 mortal Mind that is the real life and support 
 of man. Had he had, he would not have been 
 hurt." 
 
 " Had any one who understood that his body 
 was simply the reflection of mind been there to 
 realise this for him, there wouldn't have been 
 any bullet-hole ? " 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 113 
 
 " If he had understood truly that he was simply 
 part of the manifestation of Immortal Creative 
 Mind, and that that could not be injured, there 
 would have been no mark. Are there not records 
 of lepers being cured, of their being made whole 
 even after the ravages of that awful disease? " 
 
 " But the days of miracles are over. If I could 
 see something like that, I might be easier to con- 
 vince." 
 
 " But you saw something as wonderful only 
 last night." Cathie's eyes glowed. 
 
 " What ? " the two girls asked together. 
 
 " What Lily did for Robert Longmore last 
 night." Cathie did not notice that Laura's face 
 had grown pale and hostile. "It is as though the 
 very crown of understanding had come upon her 
 pure spirit, as though she had been waiting as 
 an instrument to be used for this place and time. 
 I am willing to have suffered so long, to be healed 
 and show her the way, when I see what it may 
 mean." 
 
 Lucille looked at her aunt with a cold curiosity. 
 To her eyes she had become merely something to 
 study. She had a large feeling that it would be 
 interesting if Lily also went into this category, 
 and became presently something for her to study, 
 too — with the scientific mind of Doctor Richards 
 to assist her. Lily was young and a little silly, 
 evidently. She had certainly shown herself the- 
 
114 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 atrical the evening before. Merely a sentimental 
 young girl, Lucille's quick mind began to sum her 
 up. 
 
 " What do you mean by last night ? " Lucille 
 asked. " Lily recalled Mr. Longmore to a sense 
 of the place he was in. Somebody ought to have 
 done it. It was a pity that she had to." 
 
 " She cured him in that moment. She took 
 away his disease. He is down-stairs now. I am 
 sure he has come to tell her so." 
 
 " And you think — " Laura sprang to her feet, 
 her face furious and her voice almost rasping. 
 " You think that Lily ' cured ' Bob Longmore — 
 sobered him, by Christian Science! That is pretty 
 good. I think it will interest him to hear it, — 
 that he was reformed all in a moment by Lily 
 — and Christian Science! Excuse me, Miss 
 Beale, but I think I should prefer having any one 
 who belonged to me a drunkard rather than a 
 lunatic." 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 LAURA SHEPPERSON took care to pass 
 the library door as she went by. It was 
 partly open, and she could see Lily and 
 Doctor Richards there in earnest talk. A smile, 
 which her dramatic sense told her was sarcastic, 
 lifted her eyebrows. Neither of them saw her, and 
 she slipped out of the front door and went down 
 the slushy streets, picking her way. As she turned 
 the corner she saw Mrs. Feeley sitting at her win- 
 dow beckoning to her, and she opened the gate 
 and went in. Gladys Feeley, a young-old girl, 
 with thick oily hair and a complexion that was a 
 trial to her, opened the door for her. 
 
 " Mamma hopes she isn't taking up too much 
 time, but she wants to ask if you will take the 
 mission class Miss Nonie Partridge is giving up. 
 Miss Nonie is going to Lexington." 
 
 Mrs. Feeley sat in her chair all day and planned 
 work for the church in a manner which showed 
 rather unusual executive ability. She was a vic- 
 tim of gout, and an ever increasing bulk. 
 
 Ten years before, Mr. Feeley, a meek little man 
 
 "5 
 
ii6 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 with a cough and blinking pink eyes, had come 
 to Stevensburg as the business manager of a 
 large coffin factory. His wife followed him, car- 
 ried in a chair, with her colourless little girl. Her 
 first act was to present her credentials as the mem- 
 ber of a church in a distant city, unite herself with 
 the church in Stevensburg, and ask Mr. Lessing to 
 give her work to do. He asked his congregation 
 to call upon her, which most of them did. She 
 was indefatigable in working. Nothing was too 
 hard or too humble for her to undertake. In a 
 parish where almost everybody considered a pay- 
 ment of a certain proportion of the pastor's salary 
 and an attendance at church was all that Chris- 
 tianity required, Mrs. Feeley was valuable. She 
 had a soft and plausible manner, and an absolute 
 genius for fla.ttering confidences from people. In 
 a vague way everybody realised that her house 
 was a centre of the vulgarest gossip, but she threw 
 a fine mist of ethical discussion over even the 
 worst of the stories told there. Now and then, 
 when she made a Rabelaisian slip of the tongue, 
 she meekly mentioned that in scourging sin even 
 the Master was plain of speech. 
 
 It was not until years after she was intrenched 
 as one of the characters of the poor dry-rotting old 
 church that Stevensburg learned that she was of 
 a humble Hebrew family, and realised that she 
 would never have attained her present social 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 117 
 
 position had she had the use of her legs. As she 
 grew older her dark cast of features grew more 
 pronounced, and she sat in her chair like a 
 brown spider, drawing toward her all the fat 
 flies who fed upon carrion, some butterflies and 
 gnats, and a few blundering working-bees. 
 
 Gladys had come home from the Beale party, 
 faintly conscious that there was something in the 
 air. She had spent the evening as a wallflower 
 in the nervous society of two or three other young 
 girls who seemed unable to find that place where 
 the child meets the woman. Nobody took the 
 trouble to talk to them about anything, and all 
 day long Mrs. Feeley had sat at her window with 
 a pretext for catching whoever went by. 
 
 It did not take long questioning to get the 
 story from Laura. She was full of it to bursting. 
 She told to Mrs. Feeley's greedy ears the account 
 Catherine had given of her own cure, and the 
 astonishing claim that Lily had cured Longmore. 
 
 " Let her cure me," said Mrs. Feeley, challeng- 
 ingly. Then she set herself to the task of giving 
 comfort to Laura. 
 
 " As though if your influence, the influence of 
 the woman he loves, would not bring him to a 
 realisation of his state, anything could ! Did you 
 ever think," Mrs. Feeley hinted, softly, " that Lily 
 Beale was something of a flirt, fond of admira- 
 tion?" 
 
ii8 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 " I have always been sure of it,'' Laura said. 
 
 " It is best not to condemn her too much," Mrs. 
 Feeley said. " Some girls have that light nature 
 which cannot help trying to attract masculine at- 
 tention. Let us hope she will get over it. It is 
 unfortunate that in her efforts to show herself 
 attractive she should have tried to wean away the 
 lover of her dearest friend." Mrs. Feeley shook 
 her head in sorrow. " It is probably the influence 
 of her aunt. I have heard that she was — well 
 — a little too fond of gentlemen before her illness. 
 Sometimes afflictions are for the best. They save 
 families worse things." Laura wondered if Miss 
 Cathie had been that terrible thing known as 
 " fast " in rural communities. She had never 
 heard it, — but then she belonged to a new gen- 
 eration. She laughed a little now. 
 
 " Well, certainly Miss Cathie didn't act much 
 like a saint last night. Her waist was about nine- 
 teen inches around, and she danced with every 
 man in the room." 
 
 " It takes more than words and a pose of sen- 
 sationalism to convince," said Mrs. Feeley, as 
 though a thirty-six inch waist might be one of the 
 things necessary. " But do you mean to tell me 
 really, dear Laura, that Miss Beale told you that 
 Lily had cured Mr. Longmore by Christian 
 Science ? " 
 
 " That is what she said." 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 119 
 
 " I think Mr. Lessing should hear of this." 
 Her mouth closed over her prominent teeth and 
 her nose pushed forward. " When rank heresy 
 like this comes into the church there should be an 
 investigation. It is simply a belief in witchcraft 
 and heresy, and I am sure that Mr. Lessing will 
 not allow his church to be made the field for any 
 such practices." 
 
 This part of the subject was amplified to every 
 visitor that poor little Gladys could get into the 
 house all day. It was late in the evening when 
 Mrs. Allaire came in to bring a report of a com- 
 mittee. The boarding-house kept her busy, but 
 Mrs. Allaire had the social spirit which must 
 reach people upon one pretext or another. The 
 tale was unfolded to her with eager questionings 
 concerning Doctor Richards. 
 
 "How is he going to get out of it? I am not 
 feeling so well to-day. Would it be too much 
 to ask the doctor to come up and see me this 
 evening? I wonder," she added, "if Mrs. Les- 
 sing will call itpon Miss Catherine Beale ? " 
 
 She spoke as though Catherine Beale had sud- 
 denly become an outsider, some one to be judged 
 by this upstart Jewish woman. 
 
 When Doctor Richards came to see his patient 
 that evening, he found her almost feverish with 
 her excitement and daring. 
 
 " Doctor Richards," she said, almost at once, 
 
I20 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 and with an impulsiveness which sat oddly upon 
 her bulk, " I am thinking of trying Christian 
 Science." She knew that he would not speak 
 of her heresy, and she could think of no other way 
 of opening the subject. 
 
 Richards simply lifted his eyebrows with the 
 indulgent smile which is part of the professional 
 manner. 
 
 " I want to be cured. If Miss Lily Beale can 
 cure Mr. Longmore of his terrible heritage, can 
 actually make him sober, she should be able to 
 cure me." She waited to hear what Richards 
 would say. The shrewd Jew's eyes were taking 
 in the expression of the lean face in a way he could 
 not realise. 
 
 " Laura Shepperson was here to-day, telling me 
 of what Lily had done. Naturally, poor girl, she 
 feels very badly about it." 
 
 " Badly, because Longmore is sober ? " 
 
 " Of course not. Although there is that verse 
 about ' false prophets,' and ' dreamers of dreams,' 
 isn't there?" 
 
 " If you are going to try a new cure, it is 
 hardly necessary for me to prescribe for you," 
 Richards said, rising and snapping the rubber 
 band on his prescription blanks. 
 
 " Of course I was joking, but don't you think 
 it would be a good test for her to try me? Do 
 you think Christian Science would cure me?" 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 121 
 
 " No." 
 
 The town was further edified the next day by 
 an elaborated account of this interview, and Rich- 
 ards's heart was sore. The story spread from ser- 
 vant to servant by way of the mistress. People 
 in the very slums heard it with sickening details. 
 Only those who live in a small town can know 
 the flights possible to the wings of gossip, and how 
 great a burden they can carry. 
 
QHAPTER XII. 
 
 NATURALLY the Beale family were the 
 last to hear any of this gossip. 
 It was about a week old when one day 
 Lily was sitting in her little nest of a room read- 
 ing, when old Ann the cook opened the door and 
 looked in. She was an Irishwoman who had 
 drifted around Stevensburg for years, quarrelling 
 with everybody, until she found a haven in the 
 Beale kitchen. 
 
 " Miss Lily," she said, " I wisht ye cud come 
 down to me kitchen a minit." 
 
 " What is it ? Are you making something 
 good ? " Ann smiled upon her in a way that 
 showed why she found it possible to stay with 
 the Beales. 
 
 " No, miss. Jest ye come, if ye plaze. Emily, 
 she's out." 
 
 Lily put away her book and went down ahead 
 of Ann. The big new kitchen was a pleasant 
 place. The hooded range was hung about with 
 the blue batterie de cuisine, and the gas flared 
 behind the transparent doors. Ann and Emily 
 
 122 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 123 
 
 had each a window-box where mint and parsley 
 made a bright spot of colour before the white 
 curtains. 
 
 Seated in Ann's particular red-cushioned rocker 
 before the fire was a woman who held against 
 her shoulders a scarecrow of a child. The woman 
 wore a new black straw hat with loops and bows 
 of cheap crepe, and her dress was of black calico. 
 The coat that hung on her shoulders was gay with 
 jet beads, but, being black, was evidently consid- 
 ered mourning. She stared at Lily as she came 
 in, evidently not knowing enough of manners to 
 arise to speak to her. It was a flat, sallow, high- 
 cheek-boned country face that looked at her with 
 curiosity. The child was almost a skeleton, and 
 kept up a low moaning, like an animal in pain. 
 Its teeth had decayed, evidently as they appeared, 
 and the whole picture was that of some pitiful old 
 gnome. The black eyes fixed themselves on Lily 
 as she came in. 
 
 " Mis' Smoot thought maybe ye' cud do some- 
 thin' fer th' babby," old Ann said. "It's bin 
 sickly fer some time." 
 
 " Sence it wuz horned," said the mother, stoic- 
 ally. She was looking at Lily with an intentness 
 that embarrassed her. " I've had it to all th' doc- 
 tors. I los' my old man las' month, an' sence he 
 died they ain't been nobody to stay home with 
 
124 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 Lutie, an' I've had a purty hard time — what with 
 tryin' to wash an' take care o' her an' all." 
 
 She was mechanically taking some wrappings 
 from one of the child's limbs. 
 
 " What did you want me to do ? " Lily asked. 
 Her face was a little pale at the revelation of the 
 child's hideous ailment. " Surely it isn't neces- 
 sary to unwrap the baby." 
 
 " I thought you'd want to see it. They say it's 
 king's evil is th' matter. I've heard said by 
 them that knows, that if quality touches king's 
 evil it ruther helps it." She began putting back 
 the wrappings hopelessly. She was ashamed now 
 that she was here, to tell what she had actually 
 come for. She had heard all sorts of fantastic 
 tales of the wonderful things this girl had done. 
 According to the rumours "Over-the^Tracks," she 
 had cured her aunt who had been helpless for 
 twenty years, so far had the story travelled. She 
 had heard that all this young lady had to do 
 was to touch a sick person and he was cured. 
 She had half expected to see her clothed in flowing 
 robes like the sacred characters in a panorama. 
 But here was just a very pretty young girl with 
 a jaunty black ribbon bow on top of her head. 
 The sort of young girl she saw every day " over 
 in town." 
 
 Mrs. Smoot had come to the back door and 
 told old Ann that somebody had told her that 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 125 
 
 Miss Lily could help the baby, and she wanted 
 to see her. Evidently, she thought contemptu- 
 ously, it was all a " fake." Probably sarsaparilla 
 would be better. She resented the miles she had 
 trudged and the time she had taken from her 
 washing. All the hazy atmosphere of the super- 
 natural in which she had had dreams evaporated 
 in this cozy kitchen. She hoped anyhow they'd 
 give the baby some milk. She looked around to 
 see if there was any. 
 
 Lily leaned forward suddenly and lifted the 
 child to her arms. All revulsion of feeling at the 
 hideousness of the thing had gone from her. 
 Her mind, the habits of all her life, had controlled 
 her for a moment. She had almost forgotten 
 that there were others who suffered in the world 
 beside her aunt, who was well again, and Bob 
 Longmore, who was behaving like a man again. 
 Through all Lily's being surged the Divine Life, 
 the Divine Pity. She took the miserable little 
 wreck of generations of stupid, evil thoughts and 
 lives in her arms, and as she touched it, the dog- 
 like whine, with which the child voiced its pain, 
 ceased. She hugged the baby to her. 
 
 " She likes ye'," old Ann began. The woman, 
 her face working, rose up. 
 
 " Oh, Lordy, ye' can cure her ! " she cried out, 
 in a loud voice. " They tole me ye' could do it. 
 Oh, fer th' love o' God, miss, do it. Ef ye' 
 
126 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 knowed how she hurt an' cried, alius, alius! Oh, 
 fer th' love o' God ! " The mother-love in her 
 face transfigured it. She made a picture that 
 Bastien Le Page would have loved to paint. Old 
 Ann crossed herself. It was as though the very 
 Spirit was making itself almost visible in that 
 clean afternoon kitchen. Lily held the still child 
 close for what seemed to them a long time. The 
 woman had fallen down on her knees, and was 
 crying over and over, " Oh, God A'mighty ! Oh, 
 God A'mighty ! " with strong convulsive sobs. 
 All the hope that she had carried over the rough 
 dirty streets with her child, she felt was being 
 realised. Every step of the way she had come, 
 she had tried to scoff and keep down her hope by 
 saying that it was all a " fake." But she had 
 hoped, and she had believed. Lily handed the 
 silent, smiling child back to the mother. 
 
 " Your baby is well," she said, quietly. " Take 
 her home and let her sleep. To-morrow you will 
 see that she is like other children. She must be 
 fed and grow fat." She smiled, and the poor little 
 miserable smiled back at her. The woman 
 grabbed at the child, drew her poor hat on her 
 head, and started away. 
 
 " Maybe they'll believe when they see," she 
 said, triumphantly. She knew without seeing. 
 
 " Th' pore thing," Ann said. " It's a pity she 
 can't tak' th' kid to Lourdes. Mabbe Father Pride 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 127 
 
 has got a bottle o' Lourdes water. I'll sure be 
 afther askin' him. Do ye think, Miss Lily, that 
 yer touchin' th' pore, afflicted thing done anny 
 good at all?" 
 
 " Not my touch, but the child is well now," 
 Lily said. " The great God never made suffer- 
 ing." 
 
 She went back to her little room up-stairs where 
 the pretty girlish belongings lay all about, but it 
 seemed to her that in some subtle way they be- 
 longed to somebody else. It was a feeling bom 
 of the profound emotion through which she had 
 just passed. 
 
 She stood in the centre of her room, and clasped 
 her hands together. The tender light coming 
 through the sheer white curtains of her windows 
 surrounded her. After all, were not the painters 
 right who surrounded their saints with a peculiar 
 atmosphere? The light of the sun was the crea- 
 tion of God, an expression of his will, just as 
 surely as a human being. Can it not be that 
 the sun gives of its best to the best creations ? 
 
 She felt reverent, so reverent, so consecrated, 
 that it seemed to her as she stood there that she 
 was in the very presence of the Creator. Through 
 her sweet flesh, so pure, so untainted by ugly 
 thoughts, so simple in its fresh health, bom of love 
 and goodness, the Creator had sent down his very 
 creative spirit, and had made anew that little 
 
128 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 child. And best of all, it was no weight of re- 
 sponsibility. Gladly, exultantly, she recognised 
 it, recognised her right to it, as a divine gift, 
 part of the very Creator himself. Sometimes, it 
 is given to a body to be truly God's Temple. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE woman whose child had been treated 
 went back to the Over-the-Tracks district, 
 walking a road which was new and beau- 
 tiful. She was light-headed with joy. She had 
 pushed back her veil, and it seemed to her 
 that a warm, balmy air blew. Ever5rthing was 
 changed. The very road was smoother. Now 
 and then she would stop a moment and look at 
 her child, then give it a convulsive hug and go 
 on again. She wanted to lift it up and show it 
 to everybody she met and tell the story. Her 
 usually dull, sullen face was made over. One 
 would have said that Lily had cured her as well 
 as the child, had kindled in her the light of intel- 
 ligence. How can one say that the body rules 
 when we each have seen joy or grief give our 
 every-day friends a new face? 
 
 Mrs. Smoot looked at the big houses she passed. 
 She wondered if there were any sick people in 
 these houses, and if they could know that all they 
 had to do was to go up to Judge Beale's and be 
 cured. Of course if the young lady would do it 
 for her, — a piece of poor white trash (Mrs. 
 129 
 
ISO THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 Smoot was of the class which has humbly 
 recognised its miserable state for two centuries), 
 — she would do anything for her own friends. 
 And then Mrs. Smoot laughed aloud. 
 
 " What y' laffin' at, mammy ? " the child asked. 
 Her own face had been one pathetic grin since 
 they had started. " Air y' laffin' 'cause I be ? " 
 
 " I was a-thinkin' a fool thing," Mrs. Smoot 
 said. " I was reckonin' ef they was any sick 
 in these houses; jes' as ef they was, they 
 wouldn't 'a' hearn o' that lady long afore we'uns. 
 It's pore chumps like us thet never gits onto 
 nothin'. Yore pore pap wouldn't be dead ef we 
 wuz smart like big-bugs." And for the first time 
 Mrs. Smoot drew a heavy sigh over her limita- 
 tions. 
 
 She had met only a few people on the way 
 down, but when she reached the line of ugly 
 wooden houses where she had a room, children 
 swarmed around her and Lutie. 
 
 With a pride which brought colour into her 
 face she set the child down on the one plank 
 which protected the feet of the passers from 
 Over-the-Tracks mud, and with a faith which 
 was sublime in its perfection, she unwound the 
 heavy muslin bandages from the child's legs. 
 
 " Now, run along," she said. 
 
 " Hi, say, Lutie Smoot's a-walkin' ! " the 
 children yelled. 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 131 
 
 The listless, calico wrapper-clad women came 
 to their doors and looked at the child. They 
 had noticed that she had not walked, most of 
 them had seen the horrible proofs of her illness, 
 for they had visited her mother during the last 
 illness of the husband and father, but 'her walking 
 now made no impression upon them. That would 
 come when they heard the means by which the 
 cure had been accomplished. For aught they 
 knew, diseases like that might come and go in a 
 night. 
 
 At the door of the house where she had a room 
 she saw a mud-covered buggy. It had been 
 there once before since her husband died, and her 
 heart sank at the sight of it. 
 
 Sitting, lounging in the seat, with one foot 
 hanging out, was a heavy, dark man, whose strag- 
 gling short beard and glasses gave him that look 
 of pseudo-professionalism which is recognised as 
 belonging to men who put it on when they first 
 begin to prefix " doctor " to their names — 
 whether with or without right. 
 
 He lumbered heavily out of the buggy when 
 he saw Mrs. Smoot, and stood before her. The 
 women came to the doors now, anxious to hear 
 the controversy which they felt sure was immi- 
 nent. These were the events of their poor lives. 
 
 " I thought I'd come around and see about that 
 little bill of ours," Doctor Clay said, easily. 
 
132 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 Mrs. Smoot twisted her hands together and 
 flushed deeply. 
 
 " I'd pay you in a minit, Doct' Clay, ye knows 
 I would, but I've had a purty hard time sence 
 my ole man — I was a-comin' down yore way 
 to-day to see ef Mis' Clay didn't have no 
 washin' — " 
 
 " We have the laundry done in the house," 
 the doctor said, waving his hand. He came 
 closer. 
 
 " See here, now, I hear you've got a little place 
 up on Pointer's Creek. How about that now ? " 
 
 " But it don't bring in nothin'," Mrs. Smoot 
 said, wonderingly. " 'Tain't but jes' three acres. 
 My ole pap an' mother lives thar. My ole man 
 he paid off th' morgige on it. An' pap he deeded 
 it t' my ole man 'cause he knowed he wouldn't 
 morgige it an' let some skin git it." 
 
 There was a loud laugh from one of the men 
 who stood by. He was a long, lanky creature, 
 one of the notorious Sawyer family. Doctor 
 Clay smiled too, but with no sense of embarrass- 
 ment. 
 
 " But when you run up bills you must expect 
 to pay them," he said. " I work for my living. 
 I've got a family to support. I ain't any elee- 
 mosynary institution." 
 
 " Pap's place don't bring in nothin'." 
 
 " I guess it'll bring in a little something if it's 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 133 
 
 sold. I doubt if it will satisfy my claim. I was 
 here to see Smoot a good many times." 
 
 " But ye don't see him no more," interfered 
 Mr. Sawyer, but neither of them paid any atten- 
 tion. 
 
 " You wouldn't sell out pap," the woman said. 
 " Why, thet place up thar's pap's. It's th' only 
 place they got. You didn't do nothin' fer them, 
 an' " — her face began to work — " what's 
 more, ye didn't do nothin' fer " — she couldn't 
 speak her husband's name — "none on us." 
 
 " That's the way with you people," Clay said, 
 contemptuously. " You expect a doctor to cure 
 anything. Smoot had to die. God A'mighty 
 couldn't 'a' saved him. But I come down here 
 forty-six times and my charge is two dollars. 
 I'll say nothing about the kid. I'll throw in what 
 I did for her, and let it go at that. Ninety-two 
 dollars is what you owe me. I'll cut off the two 
 dollars and make it an even ninety. But if 
 you want me to do anything more for the kid, I'll 
 have to charge you. That's business." 
 
 Suddenly Mrs. Smoot's face lightened again, 
 and her voice was a pant of excitement, as she 
 called : " Lutie, Lutie, come 'ere." 
 
 Clay looked at the child curiously as she came 
 up. For an instant there was something almost 
 like fright on his face. 
 
 Her mother held her up and stripped the legs. 
 
134 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 The skin was perfectly smooth. The curious 
 crowd had drawn around now. 
 
 "Well, by George, that salve is good!" 
 Clay said. " I guess I ought to charge you for 
 that." His eyes snapped. 
 
 " Salve ! Your salve ! " the woman cried. 
 " Your salve hadn't nothin' to do with it, no- 
 ways." She looked about at the crowd. " Lutie's 
 legs was worse'n spoiled meat. You never done 
 'em no good no more'n you done her pappy. Ef 
 I'd know'd then what I know now, her pappy'd 
 been livin'." 
 
 " Of course you all can see I haven't done that 
 child any good," the doctor said, sarcastically. 
 " There you are, Mrs. Sawyer," to a shrinking 
 woman who had come for her husband. " I saw 
 you dress this child's legs when her father was 
 sick. You know what they were, and you can 
 see them now. You haven't had any other doctor, 
 have you? He hasn't had time to do anything, 
 anyhow. It's my medicine." He was racking his 
 brain to remember what simple thing he had given 
 the woman for the child. 
 
 Mrs. Smoot's voice rose shrill. " I have had 
 another doctor, an' th' biggest the' is. Miss Lily 
 Beale done that there, a-layin' on hands. Yes, 
 siTj I went up there. I hearn what she done, 
 an' I see you couldn't do nawthin' noways. She 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 135 
 
 jes' took Lutie up, an' she was cured. Y' can 
 see she's well ! " she finished, exultantly. 
 
 There was a buzz of excitement all through 
 the group. People in the houses beyond saw the 
 crowd and heard a confused sound of voices, and 
 came out, the draggled women in the inevitable 
 wrappers, generally carrying a child, and here 
 and there a man. 
 
 " I hearn about th' Beale girl," they said to 
 each other. They looked at Mrs. Smoot with 
 new respect, as one who had spoken to one so 
 far above them. They came closer, and looked 
 at the child. 
 
 " She was awful," they said to each other. 
 " She couldn't walk." 
 
 Clay looked at her curiously. He did not 
 belong to the class that had heard the stories 
 from the Beale household. He had heard vaguely 
 that Miss Catherine Beale had said that she was 
 cured by Christian Science, and it had seemed 
 very funny, but just one of the cranks of a rich 
 woman. He had an idea that most rich women 
 spent the greater part of their time in bed any- 
 way. 
 
 He turned around and laughed loudly. 
 
 " The Christian Scientists have got you, have 
 they? You think you'd rather give your money 
 to some fool woman, than to your family doctor? 
 I guess Christian Science wouldn't have gone far 
 
136 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 if it hadn't been for that salve." But he saw that 
 nobody was listening. Mrs. Smoot was giving 
 every detail of the cure to the curious crowd. 
 
 Clay looked at them scornfully and angrily. 
 His practice was among these people. 
 
 " Well, Christian Science or no Christian Sci- 
 ence, you'll pay me that bill, or I'll know the 
 reason why. You can't run up a big bill and 
 then change doctors." He got into his buggy and 
 drove away. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE woman who had come for her husband 
 was a little more decent-looking than the 
 rest of the women in that part of Over- 
 the-Tracks, although she belonged to its very- 
 pariahs. Nobody ever remembered to have seen 
 Lyddy Sawyer in a loose wrapper. The very 
 skin was tight on her face and the thick knuckles 
 of her hands ; and her light hair was drawn back 
 until it gave her a frightened look. Lyddy was 
 respected as no Sawyer had ever been before, but 
 even she could not rise above the reputation of 
 the family into which she had married. 
 
 There were half a dozen of the Sawyer 
 brothers, sons of Lige Sawyer, who had gone to 
 the penitentiary a year ago for stealing pigs. 
 
 They were a clannish lot, of exactly the type 
 of the feud fighters back in the hills. 
 
 They lived a little isolated from the other 
 Over-the-Trackers, in the midst of a swampy 
 field, where they had put up half a dozen raw 
 board cabins, tightened here and there by old 
 pieces of tin, discarded roofing, and beaten-out 
 
 137 
 
138 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 tomato-cans. Pigs and children tracked through 
 the sucking black mud around the doors. The 
 place was known as " The Camp of the Israel- 
 ites," because the Sawyers all bore the names 
 of the prophets. 
 
 Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Elijah, Elisha, and 
 Levi Sawyer, the sons of Lige, were suspected 
 of every petty crime in the town. 
 
 They had married from the house-boats that 
 drift up and down the Ohio River, carrying a 
 people apart from all known civilisation. All 
 of them, — except Jake. He had made a daz- 
 zlingly brilliant marriage. His wife had brought 
 him a hundred dollars. 
 
 One summer, Jake, the tallest and best looking 
 of the Sawyers, had worked on a bridge which a 
 contractor was building over Pointer's Creek — 
 in the very back of the county. The evenings 
 being dull, he had attended the schoolhouse 
 meetings where an old shoemaker exhorted, and 
 had won the heart of the shoemaker's daughter 
 by his curly black hair, and fine baritone voice in 
 singing Moody and Sankey hymns. 
 
 Lyddy was an ardent Baptist. She had been 
 converted one hard winter, and baptised through 
 the ice of Pointer's Creek, and had always known 
 respect in the " up on Pointer's " district, where 
 her father was the house-to-house cobbler. And 
 through the years with the Sawyers, the isolation, 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 139 
 
 the hard work, the disgrace, Lyddy had held her 
 sense of respectabiHty, and she had borne with 
 Jake. She told herself that she was merely ful- 
 filling the Biblical injunction concerning wifely 
 duty. But Jake's voice in a " ballat " still had 
 power to stir her heart. 
 
 As she led Jake back through the Camp to 
 supper, her sisters-in-law, their frowsy hair in 
 hard knots, looked through their windows, and 
 sneered at her because she touched her husband's 
 arm in public. 
 
 " Stuck-up " was what they called after her 
 when Jake was not there, and when she started 
 to the Baptist Church on Sundays. 
 
 At the church she was known to the ribald 
 young as " the woman who slept in her clothes." 
 They had never seen the Sawyer house, where 
 everything not in daily use was kept in news- 
 paper parcels under the bed, where even there a 
 wandering baby might bring the bundle out at any 
 moment. 
 
 After all the years Lyddy cringed a little at 
 these hard sisters-in-law. She tried to act what 
 she called " a Christian part " by them, but she 
 hated, with every breath of her, all their ways. 
 She tried to get away from them, and sorrowed 
 every day that she had not sufficient influence 
 with Jake to make him break with the rest, of 
 the family and move away. But the only influ- 
 
I40 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 ence with Jake was the dominant one of race. 
 He would promise Lyddy anything she asked, 
 but one could no more expect Jake to keep his 
 word than to expect nails driven into butter to 
 hold. It was not in the nature of things. 
 
 " Now, honey," Jake said, " thet thar Christian 
 Science, thet's yore kind o' doin's, ain't it? 
 Schlatter when he was here, he preached." 
 
 " Mr. Batton said Schlatter wasn't a Chris- 
 tian." 
 
 "Th' Baptis' preacher? Well," said Jake, 
 judicially, " e's th' one thet ought to know." 
 He was endeared to poor Lyddy's heart by 
 always trying to be politely agreeable upon any 
 subject. 
 
 " It'd be mighty nice ef people could lay on 
 hands — an' be Christians," he added, virtu- 
 ously. 
 
 " Thet young one had king's evil. I've hearn 
 tell that ef quality touches king's evil it's cured." 
 
 The next day the story of the curing of Lutie 
 Smoot was the exciting topic of all Over-the- 
 Tracks, and Lyddy, sympathetic for the mother, 
 but deep in prejudice against anything which was 
 treated as truth over there, made one of her visits 
 to her pastor. These visits were one of her 
 dearest prerogatives, and encouraged by Mr. 
 Batton, who listened eagerly to anything which 
 contained what he called " human interest." 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 141 
 
 Not far from the social state of Over-the-Tracks 
 himself, he drew most of his examples from the 
 life which he understood. 
 
 Mr. Batton had come to Stevensburg only a 
 few years before, from one of the interior eastern 
 counties of the almost virgin State of West 
 Virginia. He had been educated at a small 
 denominational college in Ohio, where he worked 
 for his board and tuition. 
 
 After some years in his little church in the 
 back county he had felt the need of recuperation, 
 and had taken advantage of the cheap excursion 
 rates over the little branch railroad, and gone to 
 Atlantic City for a few days. 
 
 What he saw there shocked him deeply, and 
 sent him home crying out against Sodom. He 
 preached a sermon which wakened up the country- 
 side. Sights on a sea beach, which are so common 
 to the travelled eye that they are practically 
 invisible, were to him signs of the most fearful 
 immorality. With bated breath, with terrible 
 denunciations, he spoke of them. The next Sun- 
 day he preached a sermon " for men only," in 
 which he described the way of the Scarlet 
 Woman, as he saw and understood her on the 
 beach and boardwalk. 
 
 Nature had given Mr. Batton a genuine talent 
 for vivid portrayal, and he was in deadly earnest. 
 He wanted to save these his sheep. He wanted 
 
142 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 to warn them, to tell the fathers that they must 
 bring up their sons and daughters so that these 
 abominations should never touch them. He suc- 
 ceeded in giving them a picture which brought 
 them grievous disappointment presently, for the 
 next excursion from his little town carried every 
 man and boy who could find the price of a ticket. 
 But they had not the sensitive nerves and keen 
 eye of their preacher. They came home feeling 
 that they had been deceived, — and were resent- 
 ful. 
 
 Mr. Batton reached Stevensburg about the 
 time that a New York clergyman was making 
 sensational raids for the purpose of showing the 
 corruption of the New York police force. Mr. 
 Batton, in common with dozens of other young 
 men, tried, in all sincerity and righteousness, to 
 follow his example. 
 
 Lyddy was encouraged to call at the parsonage 
 and tell anything of interest. Like Mrs. Feeley, 
 Mr. Batton disguised gossip under " keeping in 
 touch with the people." Only in his case it was 
 worked over into material for sensational ser- 
 mons, which he truly believed to be " strong," 
 after the manner of John the Baptist. 
 
 The Baptist parsonage was a little wooden 
 house behind the big, ugly, red brick church. Its 
 chief room was the study of the pastor, bare and 
 clean with the anxious housekeeping of Mrs. 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 143 
 
 Batton. Mrs. Batton had been a school-teacher, 
 and she apphed her learning now chiefly to a 
 consideration of health foods. She and her 
 husband, quite unconsciously, fasted with the 
 rigour of hermits. Her flat bosom had never held 
 a child, and the dull round of her life was drying 
 up the juices of her body. 
 
 She looked upon Lyddy with stern disapproval. 
 It did not look respectable for the neighbours to 
 see a Sawyer at the front door. A Methodist 
 woman lived across the street, and Mrs. Batton's 
 thin cheeks burned with mortification, as she 
 remembered overhearing a remark concerning 
 the " poor Baptists." 
 
 She ushered Lyddy into the study, and went 
 back to her sewing. She sympathised with her 
 husband, of course, but she did wish that he was 
 more particular about what people said, and had 
 a more respectable congregation. 
 
 Mr. Batton looked up from his work. He had 
 a pile of ruled foolscap paper before him, and 
 an encyclopedia volume. He was engaged in his 
 spare moments in writing a book. It was to be 
 a series of sermons supposed to be preached by 
 John the Baptist resurrected, against the follies 
 and wickedness of to-day. Sometimes he shook 
 his head over the vehemence of his own words. 
 Sometimes he looked up references in the ency- 
 
144 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 clopedia, just as he sometimes searched for words 
 in the dictionary. 
 
 He was annoyed at seeing Lyddy, but he waved 
 her to a chair, and called her " Sister Sawyer." 
 
 Lyddy sat on the edge of the blue plush rocking- 
 chair, and twisted her tight knuckles. She 
 hardly knew how to begin now that she was here. 
 Why should she trouble a great man with her 
 anxieties? The happenings of Over-the-Tracks 
 couldn't always be interesting. 
 
 " I trust your family enjoys good health," said 
 Mr. Batton. 
 
 " Yes, sir. It's about that — at least, it's some- 
 thing like that that I wanted to ask about. The's 
 a lady — Mis' Smoot — lives over our way, an' 
 the' do say her girl's been cured of king's evil 
 by layin' on of hands." 
 
 Mr. Batton arose hastily. 
 
 "Not that Schlatter again?" 
 
 " No, sir. Oh, no, sir. It's a young lady, 
 Jedge Beale's girl, they was tellin' me. She 
 don't do it Schlatter's way noways, they was 
 tellin' me. She's a Christian Scient." Lyddy 
 rushed on now. " I call myself a Christian, an' 
 I ain't no wish to not believe anythin' that's 
 Christian, but I thought I'd ast you. I gethered 
 from what you've said some Sundays that the 
 quality ain't Christian, dancin' an' sich." 
 
 Mr. Batton rose to his feet and began an 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 145 
 
 impatient stride up and down the room, snapping 
 his thumbs against his forefingers in a way 
 pecuhar to him when he was excited. 
 
 At last this terrible heresy had come among 
 his flock! 
 
 " Woman," he thundered, " when you listen 
 to the blasphemies of these people, you stand in 
 the way of hell ! " 
 
 Lyddy rose to her feet trembling. " I was 
 feared it wasn't all right. It didn't seem nateral." 
 
 " Christian ! " cried Mr. Batton, bringing his 
 foot down on the floor. " These people fight the 
 churches. They are worse than heathen." He 
 drew a long breath. " They are worse than Rome 
 herself." He was pleasantly conscious of his 
 dramatic tones. He lost sight of Lyddy in the 
 headiness of his own oratory. 
 
 " By insidious methods, playing upon the 
 credulity of the ignorant, the sick, the impression- 
 able, the weak in body and in mind, these cohorts 
 of Satan, these people, wearing the clothing they 
 have stolen from the righteous, their faces leering 
 behind the mask of meekness they have donned, 
 come to plunge souls to perdition ! " He walked 
 across the room, and lifted up his arms. " From 
 these sinful women, hot from the ballroom, their 
 faces painted and their heads tired as was Jeze- 
 bel's " (all women in what was known to Mr. 
 Batton as " society," samples of which he had 
 
146 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 supposed himself to have seen walking Atlantic 
 City's boardwalk on an August night, were 
 painted creatures), "good Lord, deliver us!" 
 
 Mrs. Batton opened the door and put her head 
 in. 
 
 "What is it, Henry?" she asked, severely. 
 
 " Alas ! " said poor Mr. Batton, sinking into 
 a chair, " I find that there has come into this sin- 
 ridden town a new terror ! " 
 
 "What? Not diphtheria?" Mrs. Batton 
 looked at Lyddy with disapproval. 
 
 "Worse. Worse," said Mr. Batton. "This 
 attacks the soul." 
 
 "Oh," said Mrs. Batton, with relief. 
 
 Like a physician's wife, the wife of an earnest 
 clergyman sometimes grows callous to those ills 
 her husband goes out to heal. 
 
 " This lady " — Mr. Batton was a kind man, 
 careful of the feelings of his people, except when 
 he warned against sin — " tells me that a young 
 woman, the daughter of Judge Beale, is carrying 
 the pernicious, poisonous doctrines of Christian 
 Science into her neighbourhood, killing, as they 
 all do, the body as well as the soul." 
 
 " Driving off the doctors, and letting people 
 die, I suppose. I thought they were too busy 
 dancing and playing cards, going about before 
 men half-dressed, to waste any time on anything 
 else. I never pick up the evening paper without 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 147 
 
 seeing some account of their parties," Mrs. 
 Batton said. " Henry, I think it is your duty 
 to have them arrested. They shouldn't be allowed 
 to commit murder! " 
 
 " It is my duty to warn my flock," said Mr. 
 Batton. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 TWO days after Mrs. Smoot had taken Lutie 
 for her first walk, Judge Beale came home 
 early with a copy of the evening paper in 
 his hand. It had been given him wet from the 
 press by a man he knew well, and who had heard 
 some rumours of its contents. The papers were 
 not yet distributed. 
 
 He went immediately to his bedroom, asking 
 Jerry on the way to send her mother to him there. 
 
 " I think father is sick or something," Geral- 
 dine said. " He looks queer." Mrs. Beale ran has- 
 tily up-stairs. Her strong husband was never 
 ill, and so seldom disturbed that it was an event 
 in the household. 
 
 " What is it, Roger ? " she asked, breathlessly. 
 
 He had seated himself. It seemed so odd to 
 see him up here in the afternoon that in the face 
 of that unusual situation anything might be pos- 
 sible. "What is it?" 
 
 " I am worried about Lily." 
 
 " Lily, what? " she asked, anxiously. " Where 
 is she? Oh, you mean about her and Doctor 
 148 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 149 
 
 Richards. I think, dear, that it is just a lovers' 
 quarrel. He sent her a box of roses this morn- 
 ing, and a new book. I am sure they will make 
 it all up again. They are young. Young lovers 
 are always a little silly. They think that is half 
 the fun of the affair. I thought once of tele- 
 phoning you that he had sent the flowers." 
 
 " It isn't that. It's this." He held out the 
 paper. Mrs. Beale stared at the big, black head- 
 line, 
 
 "A Young Society Girl Who Heals the Sick." 
 Then followed an account of the cure of a 
 child who was reported to have had a most loath- 
 some form of scrofula from birth. The mother 
 having heard of the young girl's powers, which 
 had been, so the paper said, exercised in many 
 other cases, had gone to her with the child. She 
 had touched it, and the child was cured. The 
 sores had disappeared, and the child, who had not 
 walked for months, was beginning to run every- 
 where. The reporter had embellished the story 
 with all the usual catchwords of his office, and 
 supplied details with a lavish hand. There was a 
 rude outUne woodcut of the mother and child, and 
 interviews with several small-fry physicians of 
 the town, who gave their reasons for knowing 
 that the thing was impossible; one with Clay was 
 particularly offensive. At the bottom was a veiled 
 allusion to a recent engagement of the young lady 
 
150 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 to a prominent young physician. His views on 
 the subject the reporter had unfortunately been 
 unable to obtain because he was out of town. 
 
 " This is unpardonable in Cale Blackburn," 
 Mrs. Beale cried, indignantly. " How dare he 
 allow such a thing in the paper? Such stupid 
 lies!" 
 
 " It is all a lie, then? " 
 
 " Of course it is. There isn't the slightest 
 foundation for such a silly story." 
 
 " No such woman was here? " 
 
 " Probably no such woman exists. I have 
 heard of this sort of journalism in the cities, but 
 I never imagined we should suffer from it here. 
 And to take a girl like Lily, of all people ! " Mrs. 
 Beale choked. " It is an outrage, and I hope you 
 will make Cale Blackburn pay for it smartly." 
 
 " That I shall," said Judge Beale, grimly. " He 
 has put himself outside the pale of consideration 
 as a friend. He shall, too, make a public apology. 
 But for pity's sake try to keep this thing from 
 Lily. It would mortify her to death. And don't 
 let Cathie hear of it, either. She will think that 
 she has brought this notoriety upon the household, 
 and it will hurt her." 
 
 " Roger," Mrs. Beale said, " I think she has." 
 
 Judge Beale looked surprised at his wife's tone. 
 
 " Of course I know Cathie loves us all dearly, 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 151 
 
 but she seems to be a little insane upon the sub- 
 ject of her cure. I think that her influence is bad 
 for the children, particularly for Lily." 
 
 " What do you suggest ? I cannot, nor do I 
 wish, to turn my own sister out of my house." 
 
 " Nor I," said his wife, hastily. " She has 
 been like my own child during all her years of 
 helplessness, but I think that her disease must 
 have weakened her brain. We did not notice it 
 when she was so ill and helpless — but now — " 
 
 " Well, I wouldn't say Cathie was weak- 
 minded," the Judge said. " She keeps up her end 
 of an argument upon almost any subject just a 
 trifle better than any other woman that I ever saw. 
 She reminds me of father. She seems to see 
 to the bottom of an involved subject with remark- 
 able judgment." 
 
 " But she has fancies about her cure. Mr. 
 Lessing came up to talk to her, and when I saw 
 him afterward, he said that she seemed set in her 
 curious opinions, and he thought best to say 
 nothing to disturb her." 
 
 "I'll bet he did," said the Judge, and there 
 was a sardonic smile on his face. 
 
 " But he is going to preach a sermon on the 
 subject. I do not wish to do anything to hurt 
 Cathie's feelings, but I think she should see this 
 paper and know what silly things are being said." 
 
152 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 Two days later the maid who waited on the 
 breakfast-table spoke to Lily as she passed her the 
 hot cakes. 
 
 " There's a woman in th' kitchen would like 
 to see you, Miss Lily," she whispered, excitedly. 
 
 " What is it, Emily? " Mrs. Beale asked. 
 
 " There's a woman would like to see Miss 
 Lily," she said. 
 
 " What woman ? What does she want ? " 
 
 " I donno 'em," said Emily, in confusion. 
 " She is a poor woman. She said she wanted to 
 see Miss Lily. She's got a little girl with her." 
 Mrs. Beale looked at her husband. There had 
 been an abject apology in the paper the evening 
 before, signed by the editor. The reporter who 
 had brought in the story of the cure of the child 
 had been discharged. 
 
 " I think it is probably a woman who was here 
 not very long ago," Lily said, rising. 
 
 " Stop, my dear," Judge Beale said. " I wish 
 you to see this woman here." 
 
 " But, poor thing, it might embarrass her." 
 
 " Not too much, I think. Emily, ask the 
 woman to come here. I do not approve of young 
 ladies seeing all sorts of people alone." 
 
 " Dear me, papa, you are getting particular," 
 Jerry said. " Now, if it were a young gentle- 
 man — " 
 
 Mrs. Smoot came in leading by the hand an 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 153 
 
 ugly, black-eyed little girl. When the child saw- 
 Lily, she ran to her and held out her arms. 
 
 " I kin walk. I ain't got any sores any more," 
 she said, huskily. " Nothin' hurts me. I'm well." 
 Lily looked down at her, and a quick look of 
 joy and pity came into her eyes. 
 
 " What can we do for you?" Judge Beale asked 
 of the woman. 
 
 " I jes' come to show Miss Beale this lie in th' 
 paper sayin' she never done it. I didn't see it 
 'til late last night or I'd 'a.' come then. A blacker 
 lie never was tole. She cured Lutie, an' I have 
 them that knows it. Lutie was all sores, and 
 now she's well. That very evenin' I took off th' 
 rags, an' her skin was as good as anybody's. I 
 knowed she could do it jes' as soon as I seen her 
 tech her. I knowed it — " The woman, an igno- 
 rant, uncontrollable creature, broke out into loud 
 sobs. " An' now they've put in th' papers it ain't 
 so. I want Miss Beale to know I've done nothin' 
 but walk th' town an' show 'em what she done for 
 Lutie." 
 
 " What does this mean, my daughter? " Judge 
 Beale's voice was not as well under his control 
 as he would have wished. Lily looked at him, 
 unable to speak. Her whole being was irradiated 
 by the emotion of realising that she had been able 
 to do this wonderful thing. It was too wonder- 
 ful to talk about. But there was no sympathy 
 
154 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 in her father's face. He was sterner than she had 
 ever seen him in her Hfe. 
 
 " What does this woman mean ? " 
 
 " The child here was — " 
 
 " She wuz one mass o' sores," the woman cried, 
 eagerly, " an' Miss Beale jes' teched her an' she 
 got well. I knowed she'd be. I tole Lutie all 
 the way I was kerryin' her that th' lady could 
 make her well, an' she done it. I ain't goin' 
 to have no one lyin' an' sayin' she didn't." 
 
 " If you will take the child into the kitchen 
 they will give it some milk," Miss Cathie said. 
 She saw the expression on her brother's face. She 
 left her seat and led the way, smiling at the child 
 as she took her from Lily's side. 
 
 Judge Beale regained the control of himself 
 which he had almost lost. 
 
 " Say, Lil," Jack said, " does that jay woman 
 think you cured her ugly kid by touching her? 
 She must be crazy. I didn't intend to tell you 
 anything about it, but the boys at school asked 
 me if it was true that you could make people think 
 they were well. There was a professor here last 
 summer while we were at Atlantic City, the boys 
 said, that could make people think there were 
 bees in their hair, and make 'em follow him all 
 about. They wanted to know if )'ou could do it. 
 The Watson boys said Mr. Lessing told their 
 mother you could. And they wanted to know 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 155 
 
 if they couldn't come over sometime and see you 
 do it. The man charged a quarter." 
 
 " If a Watson boy or any other boy insults 
 your sister by comparing her to a travelling fakir, 
 and you haven't the spirit to thrash him, I'll see 
 if I cannot give you some," Judge Beale said, 
 quietly. 
 
 Geraldine arose and left the table. " If Lily 
 is going to behave like this I'm not going to 
 school," she announced, tearfully. " I didn't 
 speak to any of the girls after recess yesterday. 
 I think it's a pity my own sister wants to make 
 us all miserable." 
 
 Mrs. Beale's mouth was set tight. Lily looked 
 from her father to her mother. Jack, with a hasty 
 excuse, had followed Geraldine. Gradually the 
 look of distress had left her face, and it was 
 smooth and beautiful. Her father's brow cleared. 
 She was his eldest bom, his darling, and her 
 beauty and charm soothed his anger. 
 
 " My dear," he said, " I think it is time that 
 this silly nonsense should cease. Your aunt's 
 hysteria seems to have affected you, and we must 
 not have that. Both your mother and I are deeply 
 disappointed. We had thought you — we had 
 forgotten how young you are, and that poise of 
 character must come with years. We love your 
 aunt dearly, and were so rejoiced at her recovery 
 that we did not wish to say one word to mar the 
 
156 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 joy of it. We are to blame for not realising that 
 she had always been an influence to you. Doctor 
 Richards tells me that your aunt's hallucination 
 is due to her long years of confinement. All that 
 time nature was healing her, but she did not 
 know it. In a few months, in a year, she will see 
 her cure in its true proportion. But we must 
 not let her lead you astray before that." 
 
 It was with astonishment that Judge Beale 
 heard his always dutiful daughter answer him. 
 " Do you think, papa, that the woman who was 
 here just now, was the victim of an hallucina- 
 tion?" 
 
 " Certainly. You saw that she was an ignorant, 
 superstitious creature." 
 
 " But I saw her child's sores. She couldn't 
 walk." 
 
 " So she says. These people love a sensation. 
 There was a man who called himself Schlatter 
 here a year or two ago. He ' cured ' dozens of 
 people. I doubt if you could find one of them 
 now, but they declared themselves cured of every 
 known disease at the time. It is very mortifying 
 to find our name and our daughter placed in such 
 a category." 
 
 " But it is so simple and so beautiful," Lily 
 pleaded. " Do let me tell you — let Aunt Cathie 
 tell you. There is really no need of any sickness 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 157 
 
 or sorrow on the earth. We are all perfect — 
 truly — " 
 
 " Allow me to differ from you. I consider my 
 daughter far from perfect when she sets her judg- 
 ment against mine. This thing must cease." 
 
 " Would you have had me leave that poor little 
 child to suffer?" 
 
 " That little child should never have come near 
 you. You certainly did not allay her sufferings 
 in any true sense. You have given one who seems 
 to me an ignorant fool a hold upon us. Unless 
 I am not mistaken, we shall be obliged to send 
 her out of the town to quiet her, or we shall be 
 overrun with beggars." 
 
 " I should be glad," Lily said, " if every soul 
 who suffers in this town could be brought to me, 
 that I might make them understand this great 
 thing. It is the simple ones who understand. 
 That is proved, papa, by my understanding before 
 you do. But you will, you must." 
 
 Judge Beale arose as though he had not heard 
 her. 
 
 " It is not often that I lay a command upon my 
 family, but I positively forbid this subject of 
 Faith Cure, Christian Science, or whatever you 
 call this nonsense, being mentioned in this house 
 again." 
 
 " Then, Roger," his sister said, from the door, 
 " I must go away. I cannot stay here and not 
 
158 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 bear testimony as to what has been done for me. 
 Pardon me for speaking, but I think you are 
 doing Lily the greatest injustice. What has she 
 done that is not good ? She has shown the Living 
 Spirit that is within them to two miserable crea- 
 tures. She has made them well, as I was made 
 well. I look upon her as one to whom the 
 insight came almost as it came to the originator 
 of this wonderful science of the mind." She put 
 her arm around Lily's waist, and they, two beauti- 
 ful creatures, stood there together, looking at the 
 father and brother. 
 
 " You know that this house is your home al- 
 ways, Catherine, but even you must obey its laws. 
 I consider this talk of yours meaningless, hysteri- 
 cal, ridiculous. I should be remiss in my duties 
 did I allow it to go on. I shall not. My daughter 
 is under my control ; you are not." 
 
 Catherine smiled. " Do you think, Roger, that 
 if you had lain for nineteen years on a bed of 
 pain, and this ' nonsense ' had cured you, brought 
 you back to health and happiness, had opened out 
 a vista at the end of which all sin and suffering of 
 the earth disappeared in the light it irradiated, you 
 would deny it, and creep back to darkness and 
 pain?" 
 
 " My dear Cathie, you are excusable, but de- 
 luded. I am seriously disappointed in Lily. She 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 159 
 
 is behaving in a manner I did not believe possible 
 in a well-bred girl. I will have no more of it." 
 
 " Father," Lily said (her father should not 
 mistake her attitude. It was impossible to her 
 to deceive him), " Mr. Longmore is coming here 
 again this morning. I promised him — I can- 
 not disappoint him. He is beginning to under- 
 stand, but he is — he is like Peter walking on 
 the water. He is afraid." 
 
 Judge Beale's face underwent a change. For 
 one instant his daughter saw something almost 
 like contempt there. He was a handsome man, 
 who looked hardly old enough to be the girl's 
 father. Sweet as was the domestic life he had led 
 for years, there were yet lingering memories of 
 the way of a man with a maid. Then the tiger 
 flew out. 
 
 " If Bob Longmore ever enters this house again, 
 he will answer to me for it, and I shall tell him 
 so within the next fifteen minutes. If my daugh- 
 ter is weak enough to be the plaything — " 
 
 " Roger ! " his wife cried, warningly. 
 
 "This is no time to pick and choose soft words," 
 he said, furiously. " If my child cannot take care 
 of herself, I am still here to protect her." He 
 went into the hall, and they heard him take his 
 hat and coat and depart. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 WE are apt to catch up the characters 
 in a real drama when the action begins 
 to show itself to the world, and demand 
 why they committed the preliminary acts which 
 have brought about the troubles of which dramas 
 are made. In novels all the characters in whom 
 we are interested are generally the victims of 
 misfortunes instead of their own blunders. In 
 real life it is sometimes different. Some of our 
 people had reason to think of mistakes in after 
 days. The controversy over the woman and her 
 child did not stop at the Stevensburg papers, but 
 was taken up by the sensational press of every 
 other town in the State, and even became the 
 subject of a column in that organ of truth, the 
 Maurilla Question. There was in Stevensburg 
 at this time a correspondent for these papers who 
 wrote novels for newsboys between his imagi- 
 native flights in the news columns. The story 
 which he sent to the Question was written in the 
 form of an interview, and fairly dripped with 
 silly detail. Every one of the stories spoke of 
 1 60 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN i6i 
 
 the ruptured engagement between " the beautiful 
 miracle worker " and her physician lover. The 
 Question gave a description of the " magnificent, 
 palatial mansion " of the Beale family, famous in 
 the history of the country. Lily was described 
 as coming to meet the interviewer in a " flowing 
 robe of white, her hair unbound," and " moving 
 across the floor with soundless tread, as one in a 
 trance." She was made to say that she had de- 
 voted her life to healing the sick, and that she 
 ■would not marry Doctor Richards, as she con- 
 sidered all doctors " murderers." 
 
 Judge Beale had a theory, the result of a long, 
 legal experience, that the man who fights a news- 
 paper is more or less of a fool, but he went to 
 Maurilla to enter a suit against the Question. He 
 discovered there that he had only a man of straw 
 to fight, as the owner of the paper had been for 
 some years an exile from his native State, and did 
 all his work from Washington. An agitation in 
 the courts could only add to the notoriety and 
 annoyance. 
 
 The day of the Question's appearance Doctor 
 Richards walked into Judge Beale's office and 
 told him how matters stood between him and Lily. 
 The two men asked each other what was to be 
 done. 
 
 " If I might marry her and take her away from 
 all this," Richards said. " Of course it is merely 
 
i62 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 a temporary hallucination. Lily is too sensible, 
 too clever, to have her head turned by this non- 
 sense." 
 
 " Richards," Judge Beale said, " I have been 
 married for over twenty years. My wife has been 
 an angel of goodness and sweetness, and my sister 
 something like a saint. I would have sworn that 
 I knew good women, that they held no mysteries 
 for me. But my wife seems to think that I am 
 a poor creature that I have allowed this scandal 
 to come upon the family, and my sister seems to 
 think that there is nothing to worry about." The 
 Judge went over to his book-shelves, unlocked a 
 cabinet in the midst of them, and took out a bottle 
 of old whiskey. 
 
 " My nerves are shattered with this strain. I 
 am growing afraid to meet my old friends in the 
 street. Have a drink." 
 
 Richards pushed the bottle away. 
 
 " Judge Beale, will you use your influence to 
 persuade Lily to marry me and go away for a 
 time? " 
 
 " No, I won't." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because it isn't fair to you. You are a phy- 
 sician. If your wife went about with these crazy 
 notions it would ruin you. Until Lily comes to 
 her senses, let matters rest." 
 
 " That I will not. Do you suppose I am going 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 163 
 
 to have the name of the woman I love bandied 
 about, and do nothing to prevent it ? " 
 
 " Richards, if she would marry you I should 
 be happy. But she will not. Take my word for 
 it, she will not unless you will promise to let her 
 go on with this superstitious folly; and that I 
 know you have too much common sense to do. 
 I sent that Smoot woman to the country after 
 getting her out of the hands of that blackguard 
 Clay. She has a little place up in the back of the 
 county that he was trying to get away from her, 
 and she was glad enough to go. I offered her 
 twenty dollars a month for a year to stop her silly 
 tale. Do you think she would take it ? Not she ! 
 She whined out that the child would get sick again 
 if she did not ' bear witness.' I suppose those 
 newspapers pay her more. I told Bob Longmore 
 that he was a — fool, and that only my respect 
 for the sorrows of his mother prevented my having 
 a summary settling with him. I can't understand 
 him. He seems to have lost all the spirit he ever 
 had. He took no offence at my words, but asked 
 me if I thought he was cured. I told him that I 
 expected to see him drunk within ten days." 
 
 Other people besides Judge Beale told Long- 
 more the same thing. His mother had gone to 
 Mrs. Beale, and their old friendship hardly bore 
 the strain of the complication which had arisen. 
 
 " I want to see Lily," Mrs. Longmore said. 
 
i64 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 " For what? " Mrs. Beale asked. She sat for- 
 mally, as though this were a casual stranger 
 instead of one of her oldest friends. 
 
 " I want to thank her for bringing Robert to 
 his senses. Wait a moment. I do not care how 
 she did it. She did it. I am ready to believe 
 anything, anything, if he is cured. Do you know, 
 Mary Beale, there have been times when I have 
 been sorry that I was not converted to Catholi- 
 cism, and taken my boy, when he was a child, to 
 Lourdes ? I am sure that Lily could do nothing 
 but good. Robert feels like getting down and 
 kissing the hem of her dress." 
 
 " Oh, it will not last," Mrs. Beale cried, impa- 
 tiently. " You know that Robert has been sober 
 for weeks at a time before this. It is just one 
 phase of this disease. And then — all this noto- 
 riety will become something worse. We shall be 
 under an avalanche of ridicule. I am not recon- 
 ciled to it. I cannot forgive Catherine." 
 
 " For being cured ? " Mrs. Longmore asked. 
 
 " For bringing this terrible thing into our happy 
 home. We are pointed at on the streets." 
 
 Mrs. Longmore sat smiling curiously. The 
 long years of trouble that had been hers had kept 
 her apart from the world to an extent, and she 
 had come to have a new view-point. Things 
 which loomed large in some eyes seemed small to 
 her. 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 165 
 
 " I suppose," she said, as though she were 
 thinking, " that when the people Christ healed 
 went home, their families felt something the same 
 mortification. Here was a man who had been 
 respectably blind all his life, and suddenly a wan- 
 dering peasant preacher came along, who put a 
 little mud upon his eyelids and he could see. It 
 puts a new light upon the miracles." 
 
 " I think you are blasphemous." 
 
 "Do you?" 
 
 " I think it is blasphemous to compare these 
 people who worked upon Cathie's hysterical state 
 to the Saviour." 
 
 " And yet they claim to have cured her by the 
 same means. They take his words for their 
 guidance." 
 
 " I do not know whether you have taken up 
 this folly or not," Mrs. Beale said. " I only ask 
 you not to encourage Lily in it by talking to her. 
 She is breaking our hearts. And I wish that you 
 would tell Robert what an injury all this is doing 
 her, and to beg him to hold no communication 
 with her." 
 
 " Mary Beale," Mrs. Longmore said, " your 
 daughter is your daughter, and my son is my 
 son. Do you think I am going to let any straw 
 that will help my son go by if I can snatch it? 
 Do you think I believe that Robert is going to 
 stay sober, that he is actually cured ? No. I wish 
 
i66 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 to God I could. But I have hoped and prayed 
 and struggled with my own convictions for thirty 
 years. I do not believe that Lily or any other 
 power on earth can cure Robert. But Lily is a 
 sweet young girl. She has the beliefs that I had 
 when I was a girl — when I thought that Robert's 
 father could be cured by me." 
 
 " The cases are entirely different," Mrs. Beale 
 said, hastily. " Lily is nothing to Robert. They 
 are nothing to each other. If Robert wants the 
 influence of a woman, he has you and he has 
 Laura Shepperson. He should ask nothing of Lily. 
 She is under no obligations to him whatever. 
 I am glad you see the matter in its true light. 
 We are horribly mortified. Only the mother of a 
 daughter can realise it. You have never had a 
 daughter. It is impossible for you to know. Girls 
 themselves do not realise how they can ruin their 
 whole lives, make themselves ' queer,' apart from 
 the rest of the world. A young girl must walk 
 the conventional path." Mrs. Beale hurried on. 
 " As you are sensible enough to see that Lily can 
 do Robert no good, please help me to stamp out 
 this insane folly." 
 
 " I am not sure that she can do him no good. 
 She has done him a great deal of good already. 
 I ask nothing more than that he shall keep the 
 good she has done him. It is for that reason that 
 I want to see her. I want to ask her to keep 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 167 
 
 this power over him that she has shown. To tell 
 her I want to help." 
 
 Mrs. Beale rose. There was an excitement in 
 her face, very unusual to its healthy, kind placid- 
 ity. Everything about Mrs. Beale was sweet and 
 pleasant. Her hair waved away from her fore- 
 head with conventional regularity, and her teeth 
 were as even as grains of corn. She had walked 
 with gentle dignity through life, quite uncon- 
 scious that a large part of her happiness was 
 built on the belief that she and her husband and 
 her children were just a little better than any of 
 their neighbours. She read the story of the Phar- 
 isee with a clear conscience, as one for whom it 
 had no point. 
 
 " Roger has forbidden Lily to speak to Robert, 
 and he has also forbidden the subject of Faith 
 Cures to be mentioned in this house. I must re- 
 spect his wishes — which are my own." 
 
 Mrs. Longmore arose also. " Mary," she said, 
 " I am not able to understand you. I thought 
 I should find sympathy here. You and your hus- 
 band seem to me harsh and unkind. This might 
 mean so much to my boy." 
 
 " You said yourself that you had no hope." 
 
 " We lose hope long after we lose belief in 
 the possibility of its realisation," Mrs. Longmore 
 said, sadly. 
 
 Mr. Shepperson went to Maurilla that day, 
 
i68 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 and Virginia went away to spend the afternoon. 
 Laura wrote a note and despatched it to Long- 
 more's law ofHce by the son of the cook. It was 
 characteristic of her aunt that she made no protest 
 at this, which Laura did quite openly. Miss 
 Creighton had the order of mind which saw a 
 challenge to Laura in the story of Longmore's 
 rescue by Lily. He was a creature to be driven 
 from the door until there seemed a chance that 
 another woman might save him ; then he became 
 valuable. 
 
 Longmore promptly responded to the invita- 
 tion to call at the Shepperson house that after- 
 noon, and Laura spent the rest of the day in 
 nervous preparation. She darkened the parlour 
 by lowering the shades, and then put them up 
 again. The parlour was a long room that looked 
 as though it had been furnished by an upholsterer. 
 The walls had been painted by an " artist " from 
 Maurilla, who had trailed coarse roses over a 
 pink background. The furniture was pink and 
 gold. Laura had dressed herself with unusual 
 care, and had hesitated a long time over curling 
 her hair in front. She wanted this talk to be 
 very serious, and she had intended to dress the 
 part. Smooth hair and a clinging black gown 
 would have about expressed her state of mind, 
 but after she had arranged that costume she dis- 
 covered that she looked several years older than 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 169 
 
 usual. So the hair was curled, and a pink dress 
 with some spangles on the bodice was substi- 
 tuted. A touch of carmine from the water-colour 
 box (quite a different thing from rouge), brought 
 a brightness to her triangular face. 
 
 She waited for Longmore to be settled in the 
 parlour, whose adornment made just the proper 
 setting for the curled hair and pink gown, and 
 then she walked in, feeling very much like a 
 heroine. 
 
 Longmore, his hat in one hand and his gloves 
 in the other, stood by the mantelpiece looking, 
 Laura was vexed to see, at a miniature picture of 
 Lily Beale. It changed her feeling for him, which 
 had become theatrically generous, into a hasty 
 spite. 
 
 " I thought it best that I should see you and 
 give you back your ring — into your own hands," 
 she said, at once. 
 
 " Why must you do that, Laura ? " Longmore 
 asked. He had been engaged to be married to 
 this girl so long that he had something the feeling 
 toward her that a man has for his wife or for any 
 other meinber of his family, for long possession 
 does make a wife into a member of the family, one 
 whose faults are almost as personal as one's own, 
 and as little to be criticised. " I have been think- 
 ing these last days that I was going to be able 
 to justify the trust that you have had in me. 
 
lyo THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 This is not the time to tell me that you want 
 release, is it? " 
 
 " Why do you think this ? " Laura asked. She 
 had seated herself in a large gold chair which 
 caused her to look, with the set smile on her face, 
 in her pink spangled gown, like a lithograph for 
 the back of a bonbon box. 
 
 " That I am able to be strong? I don't know, 
 but I do think it." 
 
 " You have thought so before," Laura said. 
 There was a slender thread of contempt in her 
 voice which Longmore had never heard there 
 before. It roused something in him, and made 
 him look at Laura in a new way, as though his 
 point of actual physical vision was changed. He 
 had not been in her home for months, and at the 
 Beale party had been the first time he had seen 
 her except in street dress since that time. 
 
 " Yes, I have." 
 
 " Your conduct at the Beales' the last time I 
 saw you was not calculated to give me confidence." 
 
 Longmore started. His face grew eager, al- 
 most pathetic, in its hungering intensity. 
 
 "Laura, were you there? Did you^see what 
 Lily did for me ? Do you know how I feel ? — 
 like a man who has been in a nightmare. Have 
 you ever had a fearful dream, and dreamed in it 
 that you had awakened and that it was all a dream, 
 and then had it clutch you again? I feel out of 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 171 
 
 that horror I was in ; but am I ? When Lily came 
 toward me that night and said that the mind was 
 not mine, it was as though a bomb had burst in 
 my brain. All at once I seemed to see my body 
 just a lump of matter with the breath of life that 
 wasn't mine, within it. And I was letting this 
 miserable lump with its infirmities clog the soul 
 of me. Since then I have felt free. Oh, merciful 
 Heaven ! nobody can know the slavery of a drunk- 
 ard but the man who suffers it ! " He arose and 
 walked over to the mantelpiece again and took 
 up the little silver frame that held Lily Beale's 
 face. 
 
 " I suppose," Laura said, and she was almost 
 laughing, " that you will begin practising Chris- 
 tian Science, too. I had heard something of the 
 sort, but I had been led to believe that you had 
 some strength of mind." 
 
 " I surely have not shown that I had any in 
 all these years," he said. " I haven't by myself. 
 I have proven that I was going to perdition as fast 
 as a man could go. And then that child proved 
 to me, she showed me in one flash, that I need 
 not depend upon this poor body of mine with its 
 cursed inheritance; then there was something 
 else." 
 
 " She seems to have said all that in a very 
 short sentence. You must have been peculiarly 
 susceptible to Miss Beale's influence." She held 
 
172 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 out the diamond ring he had given her so long 
 ago. Longmore looked at it and then at her face. 
 " Much more so than you ever were to mine." 
 
 Then Longmore said something that was tact- 
 less, and that a second thought would have held 
 back. "Are you jealous of Lily Beale?" he 
 asked. 
 
 Laura rose to her feet white with indignation, 
 except for the two red patches left by the paint- 
 box carmine. 
 
 " I am jealous of nobody concerning you, Mr. 
 Longmore. I wish you to understand that you are 
 nothing to me henceforth. I asked you to come 
 here this afternoon to tell you so. My father has 
 told me of your dissipations, but I could not realise 
 what havoc they had made in you until I saw your 
 conduct at Judge Beale's, where you insulted me 
 as well as others. Lily Beale seems inclined to 
 overlook the insult to her. Your conduct in using 
 the period of sobriety which you know is only tem- 
 porary, which you have had before, to flirt with 
 a girl who has pretended to be my friend, proves 
 to me how your habits have deteriorated your 
 character — as well as your manners.'^ 
 
 " You — nor any woman — will ever have a 
 fonder friend than Lily Beale," Longmore said. 
 Then he looked down at the gas fire, where the 
 greenish flames played through the knot-holes in 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 173 
 
 the iron logs and over the asbestos moss. It 
 was like a dream fire. 
 
 " Laura," he said, " I am selfish, perhaps. I 
 am having an experience which is wonderful to 
 me. We were lovers the other day. I have 
 grown to feel that we were almost man and wife, 
 that your sympathy and understanding was one 
 of the things I was sure of. Understand and 
 help me now. I — " 
 
 " If you imagine," Laura broke in, cuttingly, 
 " that you can make me believe that you consider 
 yourself cured by this — this spiritualistic non- 
 sense of the Beales, you are mistaken. They are 
 making you the laughing-stock of this town, and 
 you seem to have become too callous to care. 
 If your mind has become so weakened that you 
 are the prey of charlatans, it is certainly no symp- 
 tom of ' cure,' and if you are cynic enough to 
 imagine that you may have what I believe men 
 call ' amusement ' out of a mysterious flirtation 
 with a sentimental girl, and that I will tolerate 
 it, you are equally outside the pale of my sympa- 
 thies." Laura had thought of these sentences 
 for days, but she had intended to deliver them 
 dififerently, and with a different effect. They 
 were to have been used in the way of argu- 
 ment. 
 
 Longmore took up his hat and gloves and 
 
174 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 started for the door. " I wish you good after- 
 noon," he said, formally bowing. 
 
 " Here is your ring," Laura said, almost 
 rudely. " I wish you to take it, and please re- 
 member when you next lose your senses that 
 my name has no connection with yours." 
 
 Longmore took the ring and went out. At 
 the gate he met Virginia. 
 
 " Hello," she said, affably, " been making us 
 a visit? I thought you would be up at the 
 Beaks', having a prayer-meeting. I wish they'd 
 ask me up sometime when they are going to 
 do stunts." She was holding the gate. " Couldn't 
 I get you to smuggle me in? They say Lily is 
 better than that man who was here last summer, 
 that she can put you to sleep and make you believe 
 you are a burglar or any old thing." 
 
 " I am afraid I can't help you," Longmore 
 said, gravely, and passed on out, and went home. 
 
 At supper that evening he sat and looked at 
 his mother. 
 
 " You are eating nothing, Robert." 
 
 " Mother, you never told me a lie in your 
 life. You are a wise woman. I know that, al- 
 though I haven't profited much by your advice." 
 
 Mrs. Longmore smiled. " Thank you. But 
 why these compliments?" 
 
 " Do you believe I am cured of the taste for 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 175 
 
 drink, or do you think it is just one of the lulls 
 in my disease? I read a French book once, by 
 Ribot, I think. He said that a drunkard — " 
 
 Mrs. Longmore gave a little cry. That was a 
 word that seemed to pierce the very core of her 
 heart. 
 
 " That is what I have been. There is no use 
 in denying it. He said that an ordinary drunk- 
 ard, who drank all the time, was sometimes cured, 
 but that a man who drank at intervals never was. 
 Do you believe that this is an interval, and that 
 my vision of myself as a strong man, a man with- 
 out vice, the conqueror of my body, is a mere 
 hallucination ? " 
 
 Mrs. Longmore's lips quivered, and she moved 
 her hands amidst the tea equipage. " I do not 
 understand these things," she said. And then 
 desperately, " Why don't you go and see Lily 
 Beale? She understands. She can help you." 
 
 " Because her father asked me not to call at 
 his house, or to speak to Lily. He told me that 
 I had made myself an obnoxious character, and 
 that he could not have his daughter's name asso- 
 ciated with mine. He was right from his point 
 of view. It was a verdict I could not question. 
 I have made myself into a man who ought to 
 be an outcast, I suppose. What I fear is — I 
 have always had a little of it — I have struggled 
 
176 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 against it. What I fear is that — well, I am 
 what Laura Shepperson said I was — a man 
 whom excesses have weakened mentally as well 
 as morally." He looked at his empty plate, and 
 his mother's face settled into its mask of despair. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 ST. SAVIOUR'S Church in Stevensburg was 
 always in need of money. The prosperous 
 Methodist church just across the street put 
 in new stained glass windows while the Epis- 
 copalians were giving a pink tea to obtain where- 
 withal to purchase gas. It was almost entirely 
 a woman's church, there not being sufficient men 
 in the communion to make out the list of the 
 vestry. Consequently this body was made up 
 chiefly of the best poker players in town, who 
 happened to be in the church by inheritance, led 
 by Mr. Shepperson. Judge Beale was also a 
 vestryman, having been confirmed, like Jack, in 
 his tender youth. 
 
 These men found the efforts of the ladies to 
 raise money very amusing. Judge Beale was 
 in the habit of figuring out that for a " supper " 
 his family gave a turkey, a freezer of ice-cream, 
 and a cake, at an estimated cost of five dollars. 
 Then, as a matter of duty, they went to the 
 supper and bought and ate five dollars worth of 
 food. They had worked like slaves for three 
 177 
 
lyS THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 days, had expended ten dollars, and the church, 
 after deducting gas for lighting and heating, 
 and the incidental expenses, was the richer by 
 about two dollars. But the majority of the 
 church workers found in this a social opportunity. 
 Girls stood behind tables in their prettiest clothes, 
 and sometimes there was an opportunity for 
 fancy dress. 
 
 Since the new development of the town, the 
 " new " people had made these festivities of more 
 value. A lavish expenditure for home-made 
 candy, and a tactful manner had won more than 
 one woman a sort of social footing. Wives of 
 oil-drillers who had " struck it," after the last 
 educational period had passed, were called 
 " good-natured," and by and by found themselves 
 asked to card parties in all but the most exclusive 
 families. The Beales were one of these. They 
 had been people of " quality " as far back as their 
 line reached, — pure Anglo-Saxon aristocrats, and 
 
 — except for the one lapse into New Englandism 
 
 — descendants from the younger sons of cavaliers 
 who had come to seek their fortunes in the 
 Virginia plantations. They had always had a 
 kind word and an open house for their friends 
 and for the needy. But there was a class between 
 these two which they knew not, except in the 
 most formal fashion. Many of their closest 
 friends were poor. It was the dearest task of 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 179 
 
 Mrs. Beale and her husband to find the gentle, 
 tactful way to ease the financial burdens of their 
 friends who suffered under them. Mrs. Billings 
 did not know that she and her daughter were 
 able to keep their house open one winter when 
 they had few boarders, because Judge Beale had 
 told the butcher and the grocer that he would be 
 responsible for the bills. But the Beales looked 
 askance at the oil and lumber people who were 
 beginning to colour Stevensburg. Judge Beale 
 had expressed his views to his wife by saying 
 that he saw no need of vulgarising his household 
 by importing the ill-bred. He did not want the 
 manners of his children lowered by contact. He 
 pointed out Virginia Shepperson as an example 
 of what an association with " new " people could 
 do, although it must be confessed that Virginia 
 was ahead of her teachers. 
 
 When the question of a church fair had been 
 broached early in the fall it had been repeatedly 
 postponed, until now, a day or two before Christ- 
 mas, it was in full swing. As everybody in the 
 church had been so busy making things for the 
 fair that they had had no time for the ordinary 
 Christmas presents, they consequently would be 
 compelled to purchase from the church. Mrs. 
 Beale carefully marked each of her sofa cushions 
 " Sold " before she sent them down to adorn 
 
i8o THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 the " table " where Lily and Miss Cathie were 
 to sell cushions from a Turkish cosy corner. 
 
 Mrs. Beale had set her lips, those soft, pink, 
 motherly lips that had never known much press- 
 ing together, when she realised that Cathie had 
 accepted the eager invitation of the committee 
 to take a table; and when Lily joined her, Mrs. 
 Beale felt that she was without resource. She 
 saw in her mind's eye how these two, her sister-in- 
 law and her daughter, would attract the vulgar 
 crowd, and it was as vinegar to her teeth and 
 smoke to her eyeballs. And even her husband 
 seemed to have deserted her. For days he had 
 been going about with a seriousness quite unlike 
 himself. She had seen him in that mood once 
 before, when a man was tried for his life before 
 him, a coloured man, whose mother had been his 
 own nurse. 
 
 " Have you a puzzling case on hand, Roger? " 
 she had asked. 
 
 " Very ! " A heavy look settled on Judge 
 Beale's face. 
 
 " Dear," his wife said, tenderly, " I wish that 
 you would not worry. You have only to do your 
 duty and the whole responsibility is out of your 
 hands." 
 
 Judge Beale laughed with an inflection in his 
 voice which his wife never remembered to have 
 heard before. 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN i8i 
 
 " Duty ! It is easy to say." He felt himself 
 growing hard toward his daughter. He feared 
 to voice his feeling even to his wife, for he knew 
 that feeling, once translated into words, is apt 
 to grow into intolerance. The New England 
 parson was alive in him, and he felt him. He 
 wanted to be harsh. He had that spirit which 
 feels that a loved one must be saved from folly 
 at any cost. It was the spirit which burned the 
 heretic and fed the early Christians to the lions, 
 although Judge Beale, with his high tolerance, 
 his science, his disdain of the bigoted, would have 
 scorned to meet such an accusation in himself. 
 
 The burden of notoriety was bearing hard 
 upon what gentle Mrs. Beale had no idea was her 
 sensitive spot, — her pride. She believed herself 
 to be a humble woman. A few weeks ago, had 
 any one asked her, she would have said that the 
 dearest wish of her heart would be gratified if 
 Cathie could be well. And yet, now she felt that 
 fate had tricked her by the curse of an answered 
 prayer; her heart was hot with rebellion against 
 what the healing had brought in its train. She 
 fairly quivered under the mortification of it. 
 No — Judge Beale felt that he could not add to 
 her anxieties by any expression of his own hard- 
 ness. 
 
 She was sitting on the window-seat in her 
 bedroom finishing one of the cushions she had 
 
i82 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 promised long ago. As her long needle twisted 
 around the silk and ran through, leaving a knot 
 behind, she found herself following the pattern 
 mechanically. She was trembling with what she 
 had to say. 
 
 " Roger," she brought out, at last, almost 
 timidly, " you said once that you thought — that 
 a year abroad would be good for the children." 
 
 Judge Beale stopped in his walk up and down 
 the room. It was just before dinner, and he had 
 come home early, as the Christmas holidays had 
 actually begun. The few days before Christmas 
 always have more of the holiday feeling than the 
 days after, and even courts adjourn when it is 
 possible. 
 
 " It was impossible to go then, but now — 
 Cathie seems well." 
 
 " I think she is," her husband said. 
 
 " And," went on Mrs. Beale, " I want to get 
 Lily away from here for a time. Don't you think 
 it would be best ? " 
 
 Her husband resumed his slow walk, his hands 
 behind him. " I am convinced of one thing," 
 Judge Beale said ; " Lily will not be cured of this 
 by taking her away. It would be more likely 
 to leave the episodes here crystallised in her mind, 
 as something done, finished, of which there can 
 be no question. She would leave when she con- 
 siders herself successful, and the belief in these 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 183 
 
 things would become a part of her very nature. 
 I have thought all this out, Mary. I have thought 
 of little else. Then, too, to go now would be to 
 make her almost into a legendary character. She 
 could never come back and take up her simple life 
 here again. This town is growing constantly, 
 and while not many of the people who are coming 
 in here are our sort of people, still they will be 
 an integral part of public opinion. If Lily once 
 gets in the eyes of her townspeople as she has 
 been pictured in the papers, they will never lose 
 that vision. She will always be something curi- 
 ous, abnormal. That must not be." 
 
 Mrs. Beale turned a quivering face to him, and 
 to his surprise he saw that it was anger which 
 agitated her. 
 
 " Roger, why do you not put your foot down 
 firmly and say that Lily shall behave herself, 
 that Cathie shall cease this nonsense ? Why don't 
 you tell them they are both fools, and make Lily 
 deny these silly stories? They are lies, lies! 
 Only this morning Virginia Shepperson told 
 Geraldine that she heard that Lily was at the 
 Longmores' the other night, that she rushed 
 through the door and found Robert Longmore 
 with a flask of brandy in his hand, and that when 
 he saw her he let it fall. My daughter, your 
 daughter, to be in a story like that ! " 
 
 Judge Beale said nothing. 
 
i84 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 " I fairly ache," Mrs. Beale cried, " at what 
 I know is in store for us to-night at the fair. 
 I wish we could all stay at home. I tried to 
 let Lily see, but I was ashamed to tell her. How 
 can a mother let her daughter see she has done 
 something that makes her afraid for her to go 
 in public ? " 
 
 Judge Beale patted his wife on' the back. " My 
 dear, do not exaggerate. I doubt not that Lily 
 and Cathie will be spared scenes. They may sell 
 your cushions, but I think a demonstration will 
 hardly go farther than that. I think one look 
 at them will dispel the notions of strangers." 
 
 The cosy corner booth was very popular, as 
 Judge Beale had anticipated. All evening long 
 crowds surged before it, and the cushions were 
 all sold. Across the way Lucille Glover had a 
 book-stall where everything was to be purchased, 
 from a highly ornamented blotter to the last 
 historical novel. She had kept an open eye upon 
 Lily's booth, and it had been with a satisfaction 
 tempered with doubt that she did not see Richards 
 there. If he had appeared anywhere and absented 
 himself from Lily's side, she felt that her heart 
 would be light. Of course, Lucille told herself, 
 she was not the sort of girl who would take 
 another girl's lover, but there could never be 
 anything but a " physical attraction " in Lily for 
 a sensible man. There could be no communion of 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 185 
 
 mind. It was a good thing for Doctor Richards 
 that this craze of Lily's had come in time to save 
 him. It would have been a calamity indeed had 
 it come later. The pity was that it had not come 
 much earlier. 
 
 It was after nine o'clock that Lucille saw a 
 large woman whom she knew as " Leftwick's 
 mother," go up to the cosy corner and lean over 
 the counter. Leftwick was the chief owner of 
 one of the largest of the lumber companies, a 
 man who had begun life picking up chips 
 at a sawmill in Virginia. There is something 
 rather fine in the minds of most people about 
 the man who began life humbly in New England 
 or even Pennsylvania, but in Virginia to be 
 " pore white trash," in the negro vernacular, is 
 to be low indeed. The difference is easy to see. 
 The land was so poor in the North that a man 
 might struggle along for years and accumulate 
 nothing, and yet be a gentleman, and have gentle- 
 men for sons, whose associations were all gentle. 
 In fertile Virginia it was different. It was the 
 lazy and shiftless and criminal, the sons of a line 
 of similar ancestors who were very poor in Colony 
 days. The only people their descendants could 
 know were the ignorant and declassed. Even the 
 house negroes considered them with contempt. 
 It was from this class that Leftwick came. He 
 was a large, serious, drawling, long-headed crea- 
 
i86 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 ture, whose business ability and shrewd humour 
 were appreciated by the men. He knew no 
 women. He had already become a familiar figure 
 on the Stevensburg streets when his mother came 
 to keep him company. Solomon in all his glory 
 was not arrayed like Mrs. Leftwick. 
 
 In her youth she had hoed corn, and hers was 
 the simple soul that saw no reason why she should 
 be ashamed of it. She was proud to tell anybody 
 who would listen how she had worked, and how 
 her Johnny had helped her, until here he was a 
 big man with plenty of money that he " jest made 
 her spend." 
 
 " Laws," said Mrs. Leftwick, " he took me on 
 th' cyars away off thah t' N' Yo'k, an' toted me 
 'round, and took me into stores, an', says he, 
 ' Maw, I've got five hunderd dollars that's jes' 
 bu'nin' holes in me. Git rid uv 't, right away.' " 
 
 Mrs. Leftwick had evidently gotten rid of a 
 good many five hundreds since that day. Her 
 fat hands were blazing with rings. It was her 
 son's delight to buy her everything she looked at. 
 He was rich, and he remembered when his mother 
 had pretended she didn't like bacon, and ate corn- 
 bread and drippings three times a day. He didn't 
 know why she did it then, but he did later, and 
 a warm fire of tenderness was kindled in his heart 
 that was always there. He never could make up 
 to his mother for that bacon that his hungry boy- 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 187 
 
 hood ate. She hadn't been fat then, and every 
 increasing pound she gained now dehghted him. 
 He used to sit at the dinner-table where the 
 food had been cooked by the only man cook in 
 Stevensburg, and calmly count up his mother's 
 weight in dollars. 
 
 " I allow, maw, that taking an average, every 
 pound you've got costs me about a hundred 
 dollars. You zvill fatten on such expensive 
 victuals. Now there's tar'pen. Tar'pen ain't so 
 fattenin', an' it costs like blazes," he would add, 
 plaintively. 
 
 Mrs. Leftwick would chuckle, and go on with 
 her dinner. She was that happiest of women, 
 the one who has daily and hourly flattering atten- 
 tions from the man she loves best. 
 
 As she stopped and leaned over Lily's cosy 
 corner, she wore a lavender brocade, with a vest 
 of gold lace. Around her neck was a long chain 
 threaded with diamonds, and in her much-dressed 
 hair was a diamond comb. 
 
 But she radiated health and happiness. Every 
 morning she drove with her Johnny to the office, 
 and every evening she went after him. That and 
 three meals left her simply enough time to go 
 and see the poor people she had taken up, and 
 whom she visited as a comrade and friend rather 
 than a patron. She had lately been out of town. 
 
i88 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 and had just returned. She put out her hand 
 to Cathie. 
 
 " I know you'll excuse me, Miss Beale," she 
 said. " I tole Johnny I jest had to tell you that 
 I was one of you, too. When I was in N' Yo'k 
 last winter I had th' rheumatics 'til I thought I'd 
 die. Or I had th' bileef in rheumatics. Th' was 
 a kind lady had th' room next me, an' she heerd 
 me groanin' an' a-carryin' on, an' she asted about 
 me, an' in she come. She hadn't set with me 
 long until all th' pain was gone. We had 
 a lot o' talks after that. She certainly was 
 clever to me. Johnny, when I tole him, he up 
 an' giv that new church they've got in N' Yo'k 
 enough to put in a good deal o' whatever it's 
 made out of. Johnny, he read th' book t' me. 
 It's jes' wonderful ! " Mrs. Leftwick's words 
 dragged into a drawl. 
 
 " It is indeed wonderful," Cathie said, taking 
 the ringed hand. Mrs. Leftwick went on with 
 more or less personal particulars, while the by- 
 standers smiled ostentatiously, to make it plain 
 to even those to whom they were strangers that 
 they were participants in the common joke of 
 " Leftwick's mother." 
 
 Mr. Lessing leaned over the Bishop's wife, who 
 was passing throug'h Stevensburg, and had 
 stopped for the night. " I am sorry, very sorry," 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 189 
 
 he whispered, " that our church scandal should 
 be showing itself here before you." 
 
 It is extremely doubtful if Mr. Lessing believed 
 that the wife of his Bishop would have seen 
 anything had her attention not been plainly called 
 to it. She was a stout lady, not so wholesome in 
 appearance as Mrs. Leftwick, who looked upon 
 her husband's field with the eye of an alien. 
 About the end of the Franco-Prussian war she 
 had visited Europe, and sometimes she left the 
 impression of never having fully returned. At 
 any rate she had never altogether crossed the 
 Alleghany Mountains. It made no difference 
 what the occasion or the main stem of the con- 
 versation, the Bishop's wife always contributed 
 rather flavourless anecdotes of her journeying in 
 foreign lands, which generally wound up by in- 
 forming her hearer of the great influence of her 
 own family in its native State. 
 
 But just now Mr. Lessing was a little tired of 
 a thirty-year old description of a visit to the 
 birthplace of William of Orange, and he went 
 hastily on with a vivid account of Cathie, as 
 " one of those imaginary invalids who retired 
 (Mr. Lessing knew that the Bishop's wife would 
 consider any reference to a bed as vulgar) for 
 twenty years, and then grew tired of it." 
 
 " And that horrible, overdressed woman ? " 
 asked the Bishop's wife. 
 
I90 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 " That is the mother of one of the richest men 
 in the State, — a poor white boy by origin. Miss 
 Beale has said that she was cured by Christian 
 Science. I am very glad that she has been shown 
 the sort of company she will find herself in, in 
 this absurd faith. She is a woman of breeding 
 and refinement." 
 
 " The lower classes are always taking up 
 strange religions," the Bishop's wife said. " It 
 is curious that they ever find followers, as though 
 any understanding of — anything — " she added, 
 vaguely, " could come from such people. Now, 
 that woman is exactly the type of American that 
 so misrepresents us on the other side," and Mr. 
 Lessing, with a sigh, realised that he had had 
 only a respite. 
 
 " An' I've been readin' in the paper about your 
 niece," Mrs. Leftwick said. " It's so nice to be 
 able to do them things. I never could help any- 
 body that-a-way. But I know what it means 
 to be cured. I'll feel easy now if I ever do git 
 silly enough to git sick after all I was told. But 
 we're all fools ! " Mrs. Leftwick said, generously. 
 
 Doctor Richards had come up while she was 
 standing there, one hand holding Cathie's, Lily's 
 hand in the other. He had heard the whispers 
 of amusement, had seen the craned necks, had 
 heard the story passed from one to the other 
 that Leftwick's mother was talking Christian 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 191 
 
 Science to the Beales, and with the colour high 
 in his face had tried to attract Lily's attention. 
 But Lily was all interest. Here was another 
 who knew that it was all true, who took it all 
 as a matter of course. That in the eyes of the 
 world she was a rich, vulgar nobody, meant 
 nothing to Lily. This woman had felt the 
 wonderful thing. She knew. 
 
 Doctor Richards hesitated a moment, and then 
 he caught Lucille's eye, and crossed to her. 
 Lucille's face was a little flushed, too. She had 
 put on a college gown with a hood, and wore a 
 mortar-board on her head, by way of costume 
 for a book-seller. It gave her face a shadow 
 about the too light eyes which was very becoming 
 to them. 
 
 The eyes of the crowd went from Lily to her. 
 They felt that they were assisting at a drama, and 
 were correspondingly pleased. People who only 
 knew the Beales by sight knew all the story 
 through the recent gossip. They had hung 
 around the booth where Lily was to be seen, and 
 had been a little disappointed at finding only a 
 well-bred young girl, with the simplest of dresses, 
 and the happiest of faces, attending to her busi- 
 ness of selling cushions as though it were the 
 most important on earth. 
 
 Laura Shepperson was in another part of the 
 
192 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 hall, but she made many errands to pass by the 
 cosy corner. Every moment she expected to see 
 Longmore there, and something like hatred 
 burned in her heart. That he did not appear 
 at all did nothing to ease that hatred. 
 
 When she passed, she was always gaily talking 
 to somebody, so that she did not see Lily or 
 Cathie. She had dressed herself with unusual 
 care, and had spent the afternoon with the town 
 hair-dresser, who had piled the crisp, peroxide- 
 touched' hair up in a manner which left the three- 
 cornered face more artificial than ever. A lace 
 apron with pink bows made her resemblance to a 
 French soubrette startling. Holly Ainslee spent 
 most of the evening sitting in her booth, where he 
 announced that he was keeping books. Laura, 
 who considered it a badge of social supremacy 
 to have " the attention of gentlemen," finding 
 Mrs. Allaire a little depressed by his being there, 
 exerted herself to hold him. Then, too, when 
 Longmore came he would see that she was not 
 deserted. Holly, with the fatuity of his kind, 
 .began to wonder if Laura Shepperson wouldn't 
 be a good match. It was time he was settling 
 down. He felt that it would do no harm to 
 make himself as agreeable as possible, so he began 
 to prattle the news of the hour, which was his 
 idea of conversation. 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 193 
 
 He leaned over her confidentially : " Doctor 
 Richards seems to be making quite a ' ladies 
 change.' " 
 
 " I've been wondering; do tell me," Laura said, 
 coquettishly. " You have so much insight. Do 
 you think he is taking Lily's new fad seriously ? " 
 
 " If sitting up all night is serious," Ainslee 
 said. 
 
 " Does he do that? Lily must be very fasci- 
 nating," and she laughed. 
 
 " I guess she isn't fascinating enough to — 
 well — " Ainslee laughed a little, and hesitated, 
 waiting to see if he dared go on. Laura's eyes 
 invited him farther. He leaned over closer. 
 
 " I saw Mr. Longmore to-day in the hotel. 
 He sat in a room next the bar for half an hour. 
 He would start out and come back. Everybody 
 was betting on how soon he would give in and 
 go and — well, begin." 
 
 Laura's eyes narrowed. Who could have be- 
 lieved that here was the woman who had been 
 the promised wife of the man whose struggle 
 was so lightly told? 
 
 "Did he? Did he?" 
 
 " No. They said, though, they were wilUng 
 to make new bets that he wouldn't get through 
 another forty-eight hours." 
 
 " It is a terrible thing," Laura said. " Of 
 
194 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 course Mr. Longmore is nothing to me any 
 more." 
 
 " I knew that, or I wouldn't have told you," 
 Ainslee said, quickly. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 MRS. LEFTWICK'S house should have 
 been considered good architecture, for 
 it accurately represented the wants and 
 tastes of its chief spirit. In summer the lawn was 
 aglow with stars and old oaken buckets and such 
 like devices in gay flowers, and the well-known 
 little brother and sister stood in the centre of 
 the lawn under their umbrella, perpetually wet 
 from the fountain. 
 
 It was in the summer that the veranda was set 
 out with rugs and red wicker chairs, making an 
 exhibit of conspicuous comfort. The conductors 
 and motormen on the new trolley road openly 
 envied and admired. They had the greatest 
 admiration and respect for Mrs. Leftwick. On 
 very cold days in winter they were likely to be 
 met by her grinning negro boy with a pot of 
 hot coffee, or even a cup of soup. In summer, she 
 once sent a big freezer of ice-cream out to the 
 terminus. Johnny remonstrated over that. He 
 reminded her that the men were not objects of 
 charity, and that they could buy their own ice- 
 
 195 
 
196 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 cream. " Not like ourn," said Mrs. Leftwick. 
 " I was thinkin', suppose'n you was a motorman ; 
 an' so I sent it along. Them boys, they'll take 
 it as one friend to another." Which indeed they 
 did. Leftwick was a large owner in the new 
 trolley, and to the men he was the only owner. 
 Every young man, and every man with sons 
 " felt good " working for Leftwick. He was 
 a living example that " the poor man had a 
 chance." There was only one malcontent, and 
 he was the general manager of the road. 
 
 Rossiter belonged to a Stevensburg family 
 which had been famous for two generations for 
 turning out dever men. The women were quiet, 
 plain women, with dim, horsehair parlours, and a 
 tendency toward black cashmere dresses. When 
 trouble came to their friends they were always 
 absent, and they greeted the sorrow-laden as 
 though they bore them a grudge. But to their 
 own minds, and to the minds of many of their 
 fellow townsmen, they made the very cream of 
 aristocracy. When DeLacy Rossiter elected to 
 become an electrician instead of a lawyer, it was 
 a blow which was felt to the remotest branches 
 of the family. They were so numbed by this 
 that his subsequent marriage to the inconsequent, 
 pretty daughter of a small dry-goods merchant 
 was hardly realised at the time. A Rossiter's 
 wife had never been absolutely put out of the 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 197 
 
 family, and they did not know how to begin. 
 They greeted her formally when she came back 
 from the wedding journey. None of them had 
 been asked to the wedding, as Maybelle's mother 
 had lately died. But as the months went by, they 
 approved of the marriage less and less, and in 
 the reflection of their disapproval DeLacy came 
 to look upon his pretty, thoughtless little wife in 
 a way which turned her kittenish manners into 
 attempts at dignity, which accentuated her lack 
 of breeding. DeLacy, sour with Rossiter blood, 
 grew to hating everything. He hated the Left- 
 wicks because they were successful and vulgar, 
 and because he, a Rossiter, worked for a self- 
 made man. 
 
 Mrs. Leftwick had seen the little wife, and had 
 put out her motherly arms to adopt her into them. 
 
 " The pretty little kitten ! " she had said, and 
 without waiting for a call, had gone down to 
 Mrs. Billings's boarding-house, where the Rossi- 
 ters lived, and taken Mrs. Rossiter for a drive in 
 the splendid chariot-like victoria which carried 
 her about. And Maybelle had responded with 
 joy. The shades of social difference were un- 
 known to her. DeLacy Rossiter had married 
 her because he couldn't help it. A philosopher 
 would have said that she was the antidote to the 
 horsehair parlours. He had met her at some 
 serai-public function, and had had no rest 
 
198 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 until he married her. Now it seemed that the 
 revolt against the Rossiter traits had been but 
 an ebullition of youth. He regretted his pro- 
 fession, and he lay awake at night and wondered 
 if he regretted his marriage. When morning 
 came, and he saw the peachy face, the little curls, 
 and the pretty smile of Maybelle, he was sure he 
 did not. But lately — she had changed. Some- 
 times in the morning she looked as though she 
 had not slept. There were dark rings under the 
 blue eyes, and sometimes she had a catch in her 
 voice. 
 
 Holly Ainslee had made her one of his jokes 
 since her arrival. For weeks, her poor little mis- 
 takes, into which he carefully led her when he 
 could get an audience, had been his chief topic 
 of conversation. They were laughed at by the 
 girls who had always known DeLacy Rossiter, 
 and were still unmarried. As the Rossiters re- 
 ceived the bride, they were compelled to do so, 
 in a way, but it was a way which was torture to 
 poor Maybelle. Mrs. Leftwick had seemed a 
 haven of rest to her, but it was one that she 
 enjoyed a very short time. 
 
 At dinner that evening Ainslee had commented 
 upon the drive. " Do you know how much 
 Johnny paid for those horses that took you out 
 to-day, Mrs. Rossiter?" 
 
 " Why, yes," said innocent Maybelle. " They 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 199 
 
 came from a famous New York stable. They 
 cost sixteen hundred dollars without a scrap of 
 harness." 
 
 And when everybody laughed, she blushed with 
 bewilderment. It was up-stairs after dinner that 
 Rossiter was almost brutal about " that vulgar 
 woman, that washerwoman." 
 
 " She's the kindest person I've seen since 
 mamma died." 
 
 But DeLacy hardly heard her. He laid down 
 the law that Mrs. Leftwick was not a fit ac- 
 quaintance for a Rossiter. 
 
 So, the day after the church fair, when the 
 new, pale, little Maybelle almost ran up the 
 asphalt walk which led to Mrs. Leftwick's house, 
 she had the look of one who mig'ht be dragged 
 back if she were caught. 
 
 The house was fairly a-glitter with colour and 
 open fires. Maybelle gasped with the warm, 
 glowing comfort of it, and when Mrs. Leftwick, 
 in a bright blue velveteen tea-gown, came forward 
 and greeted her, her homesick, niother-sick, 
 colour-sick little soul wanted to pour out all its 
 miseries then and there. But there were formali- 
 ties; and once Maybelle, lost in the maze of her 
 own good manners, was afraid that she must go 
 away without telling what she had come to say. 
 Mrs. Leftwick finally gave her the opening. 
 
200 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 " I saw you at the fair last night. I was so 
 glad to see so many there." 
 
 " I saw you, too," Maybelle said, " talking to 
 Miss Lily Beale." 
 
 " I suppose now, you and your husband are 
 friends of hern. Such a beautiful young lady ! " 
 
 " No — that is — I reckon Lacy knows her, 
 but — I never met her. She is beautiful, and she 
 looks — kind." 
 
 " She's a Christian," said Mrs. Leftwick. 
 
 " Do you believe — " Maybelle faltered, " that 
 she has done all those things — cured people and 
 all?" 
 
 " I know it." 
 
 " Do you think she could cure anything? " 
 
 " Well, I had rheumatism all over me, an' I 
 was cured by Science." 
 
 " But — suppose a person had a lump in their 
 breast," — and Maybelle hurried on, afraid to 
 look at the kind woman before her, — " their 
 mother had died with a " — her breath staggered 
 — "a cancer. Could she cure it ? " 
 
 Kindness is the greatest thing in the world. 
 All real tact must come from a good heart, and 
 Mrs. Leftwick had it. 
 
 " I know she could," Mrs. Leftwick said, posi- 
 tively. " But I wish't you would go ask her that. 
 Now jes' to please me, I wish't you would. She's 
 so much smarter than an old woman like me. She 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 201 
 
 could entertain you by the hour — yes, she could ! 
 — by just telling you how wonderful Science is ; 
 people can be cured of anything, just anything. 
 You and her's the same age an' all that, an' you'd 
 enjoy hearin' her. ' Now, wouldn't you ? I'm 
 jest crazy about Science. You two ought-a be 
 friends." 
 
 " But I don't know her." 
 
 " Well, now, you jest make her acquaintance. 
 I promised to send her a new book I had about 
 Science. Now I'll jest git you to tote it around 
 there," and Mrs. Leftwick put on the glasses 
 she wore on a heavy gold chain, that con- 
 tinually dragged them off, and hunted for the 
 book. Reading was painful to her, but Johnny 
 read to her evenings. 
 
 " Oh, will you ? " said poor Maybelle. 
 
 After she had gone Mrs. Leftwick went to the 
 telephone, and called up Judge Beale's house, 
 and told Lily that she was sending a poor little 
 woman to her that had a cancer, and she must 
 get her to tell her about it, so she could cure it. 
 " She's a skeered little lamb," said the " vulgar 
 washerwoman." 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 IT is impossible for any family not to feel 
 something of the strain of even a difference 
 of opinion. There was a reserve through 
 all the Beale household which had never been 
 there before. Up to this time it had been like 
 a well-ordered, pruned, and clipped bush, stand- 
 ing in a prim and dignified fashion in the orderly 
 garden of society. Now it seemed to have sud- 
 denly thrown out two unusual branches, and one 
 of them was bearing wonderful, strange blossoms, 
 — poisonous, the parent stem feared. 
 
 There must always be between a father and the 
 daughter of a loved wife a bond which even a 
 husband and wife cannot know. In his daughter, 
 a man finds not only the love of his youth, but 
 his own youth come back to him, with all the 
 charm of another sex. Judge Beale had looked 
 at Lily with a tenderness and pride which even 
 he had never fully recognised. She was so 
 exactly the womanly daughter he desired. Her 
 half-maternal care for him, her companionship, 
 had been precious. She had seemed to be wax 
 202 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 203 
 
 in his hands, his creation. It had never occurred 
 to him that she was a fine creature who belonged 
 primarily to herself, and that he was in truth 
 as much her possession as she was his. 
 
 The last week had been the hardest he had ever 
 known. He was impatient of it. When he 
 awakened at night, when he was alone on the 
 train on the journey to Maurilla, he had thought 
 of this prickly hedge which had grown up 
 between them as something that a few words 
 could cut down, and that he would do it at the 
 earliest moment. But when the moment came, it 
 was hard to grasp the subject. 
 
 Lily and her aunt had had long talks concern- 
 ing the new difficulty. 
 
 " My Lily," her aunt said, " your father's 
 harshness is the result of his love for you. In 
 time he will see the truth, and then he will rejoice 
 as we do. It is for that that we must work." 
 
 " Do you think it my duty. Aunt Catherine, 
 to put all this work behind me, to do what my 
 father asks ? " 
 
 Catherine was tempted to say, " yes," because 
 she was beginning to realise what there was of 
 hostility and opposition for her niece to face. 
 Carefully she explained it to her. Lily listened 
 to her with a faint smile about her sweet young 
 mouth. 
 
 " You seem to think that the martyr spirit 
 
204 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 died, although the miracles are possible. Where 
 would the Christian religion have been had there 
 been none ready to give up everything to teach 
 it ? Oh, why can't people see the simple, reason- 
 able beauty of it all? Why should they protest 
 and fight against what they must see themselves 
 can do no harm in any case? It is all so joyous 
 and so easy. I am not different from other 
 people. I have learned a truth which can make 
 us all happy, that is all. I am like one who has 
 been given a treasure to dispense; and they 
 despise it, and ridicule me because of it. Where 
 is the sense of it all? I am bewildered." 
 
 " And well you may be." Catherine sat for a 
 little while looking out of the window. It was 
 raining for the moment, the hills across the river 
 were obscured by the mist, and the rain-drops ran 
 down the pane like little silver-mouthed snakes. 
 It would be freezing again in another hour, but 
 now the skies cried as though everything was 
 hopeless. 
 
 " I think I shall go to Washington to-morrow 
 to spend Christmas," she went on. 
 
 There was a pause, and then Lily said, " Yes, 
 Aunt Cathie." 
 
 They did not talk about the prejudice which 
 they could feel was a strain on the family affec- 
 tion. Even warm-hearted Jerry, sore from school 
 experiences which were parting her from " inti- 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 205 
 
 mate friends," unconsciously showed some of it. 
 With the selfishness of all young things she re- 
 sented anything that disturbed her little place in 
 the world. 
 
 "Will you come?" 
 
 " No, Aunt Cathie." 
 
 The day before Christmas they all went to the 
 train and saw Cathie installed in the " drawing- 
 room," as the stuffy stateroom on the sleeping-car 
 is seriously named by a nation that calls itself 
 humourous. Her journey was an event. A dozen 
 times they reminded each other of the last time 
 she had started East, and the difference now. 
 It was with difficulty that her brother was pre- 
 vented from accompanying her, and only the 
 impossibility of getting back for Christmas at 
 home prevented him. 
 
 So they piled the seats with flowers and books, 
 and reminded her that her presents were in a 
 certain trunk, kissed her good-bye, and stood 
 watching the Pullman go by, with the gay, pretty 
 face at the window, a little wistful after all, at 
 leaving them. 
 
 " Think of Cathie, going off alone," her brother 
 said. " Isn't it amazing ! " as they turned back. 
 Lily opened her lips, and then wisely closed 
 them again. 
 
 Dinner and supper seemed lonely meals with 
 Cathie's chair empty, but some restraint was over, 
 
2o6 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 and after they left the dining-room that evening 
 her father asked Lily if she would sing for him. 
 There was a piano in the Judge's " study," a 
 toom where he was supposed to do the work that 
 he brought home with him from the office. It 
 had been an architect's adjunct to the new house, 
 along with the conservatory. 
 
 In the new houses in Stevensburg, the old- 
 fashioned Southern sitting-room had given way 
 to a " library." These libraries were generally 
 solemn, dark rooms, with tapestry paper, a bulky 
 centre-table, on which lay the heavier magazines, 
 if the family was well enough instructed to know 
 them, and a bookcase containing an encyclopedia 
 and the works of some of the standard authors. 
 Many an edition of Scott and Dickens (who head 
 the list of favourites in these libraries) had been 
 purchased when the new houses were furnished. 
 The library at the Beales' was a little better. 
 Many of the family books were at Judge Beale's 
 office, where the accumulation of three genera- 
 tions of educated men lined the walls from floor 
 to ceiling. Mrs. Glover had carried away such 
 as she could of the home books. The Beale 
 women had never been literary in their tastes. 
 They were educated after the fashion of their 
 times, but they were fonder of a social than a 
 bookish life. And so, in this household the 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 207 
 
 library was a sort of back parlour, and Judge 
 Scale's " den " the real sitting-room. 
 
 The house was all flavoured with Christmas 
 from top to bottom. Jack and Jerry had gone 
 to the Glovers', where they were to help their 
 young cousins trim a tree and fill stockings for 
 still younger ones. Mrs. Beale was busy over her 
 last presents, and the shadow that had been on 
 the house seemed to have evaporated. Only the 
 little room seemed remote. 
 
 Lily whirled the piano-stool, and went over 
 the songs on the piano. 
 
 " Here," she said, " are all the old ones and 
 some of the new ones. What shall it be. Daddy- 
 kins ? " Her voice was as gay and light as ever. 
 There were no mournful numbers on Lily's 
 tongue. She had always been gay and happy. 
 Now that she felt within her the solution to all 
 misery, sometimes she was almost intoxicated 
 with joy. To her, " God is in his heaven, all's 
 right with the world." Her father's harshness 
 she knew to be merely the result of a mistake. 
 It could be nothing else, and that, she felt sure, 
 time would remove. 
 
 The Judge heard her with an indescribable 
 relief. The stone on his heart seemed to melt. 
 He associated a firm religious conviction with sol- 
 emn voice and " preachiness." Now Cathie was 
 gone, Lily would forget or forego her nonsense. 
 
2o8 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 Lily hunted up one of his favourites, and her 
 strong, practised fingers came down on the keys 
 with almost a professional touch. The Beales 
 did everything they undertook in a finished 
 manner. They made no pretensions at trying 
 everything or knowing everything. Lily could 
 not make renaissance lace, or embroider centre- 
 pieces, but she could make a capital shirtwaist, 
 cook anything, and her fine contralto voice was 
 charmingly cultivated. She had not only a good 
 finish to her work, but that rarer thing, taste. It 
 was always a surprise to find that this willowy 
 blonde girl with the gentle eyes had a powerful 
 deep contralto voice. It surprised the listener 
 into a thrill. 
 
 Now she sang Schubert's arrangement of 
 " Silvia " from " Two Gentlemen of Verona," 
 and as the words left her lips her father thought 
 proudly, as he had thought when he first heard 
 her sing it, that his daughter might have stood 
 the poet's model. 
 
 "'Who is Silvia? What is she, 
 That all our swains commend her? 
 
 Holy, fair, and wise is she. 
 The heaven such grace did lend her. 
 
 That she might admired be. 
 
 "'Is she kind as she is fair? 
 For beauty lives with kindness : 
 Love doth to her eyes repair. 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 209 
 
 To help him of his blindness: 
 And being helped, inhabits there. 
 
 " ' Then to Silvia let us sing 
 
 That Silvia is excelling: 
 
 She excells each mortal thing 
 Upon the dull earth dwelling: 
 
 To her, let us garlands bring.'" 
 
 " My hands are cold. The gas has not been 
 lighted here long enough," Lily cried, when she 
 had finished, and she ran over to warm them at 
 the fire. Her father took her hand as she 
 attempted to rise from the hearth, and drew her 
 on to the broad arm of the chair beside him, with 
 his arm about her waist. She had been working 
 in the afternoon over the fair debris, and had 
 not changed her short skirt, which came about 
 her ankles, but her heavy shoes had come off 
 for a dainty pair of slippers, coquettishly tied 
 with ribbon bows. In her white blouse she was 
 like a child of fifteen. She put her cheek against 
 her father's hair, and with an arm around his 
 neck, gently crooned. It was a delicious trick 
 which had lasted over from her babyhood. 
 
 "'Is she kind as she is fair? 
 For beauty lives with kindness,' " 
 
 Judge Beale quoted. " I am afraid this Silvia 
 is being a little unkind." 
 
 Lily stopped the crooning, -but did not move. 
 
210 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 " There was a young man whom I respect and 
 like, whom I may say I love as my own son, came 
 to me not long ago. He wanted to know if I 
 believed my daughter could love him too." 
 
 Lily sat rigid. 
 
 " My dear child," the father said, tenderly, 
 holding her close to his side, " I would not go 
 too deep into your heart. There is a holy of 
 holies in every girl's heart where only one should 
 ever penetrate, and that is the man to whom her 
 life is joined. I am old-fashioned in my beliefs, 
 but they come from the solemnest convictions. 
 Marriage is the greatest of mysteries, the holiest 
 thing in our lives. If it is rightly made, two 
 become literally one person. I want you to have 
 that perfection of your being, but I would rather 
 see you dead than the wife of a man who did 
 not bring you the complement of your own 
 nature, the man you love above all the world. 
 I have thought you did care for Henry Richards, 
 and, my darling, I do not want a mistake to part 
 you if that is so." 
 
 " A woman can only be sure that — that " — 
 Lily half lost her breath — " another is the same 
 to her as herself, if they feel alike, sympathise 
 with each other." 
 
 " And you think," there was an imperceptible 
 change in the Judge's voice, still tender, but with 
 something left out that his daughter felt, " that 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 211 
 
 the man should always give up to the woman's 
 feelings ? Is it not her duty to give in too ? " 
 
 " Yes, in all little things, perhaps in great ones, 
 after they are married, but isn't love sometimes 
 a blind guide, father? You know it is. There 
 must be no question of ' duty.' A man and 
 woman should understand each other, must want 
 to understand each other." Lily's voice had 
 grown stronger. 
 
 " Truly," her father said, " and a woman 
 should recognise the superior means of under- 
 standing of a man, that whatever he does is done 
 out of tenderness and consideration for her. 
 That is the attitude of a good man toward his 
 wife." 
 
 " Father, I am stronger and better because I 
 have known Doctor Richards. I do love him, 
 but I love him so much that I want us to be in 
 perfect accord, when that great mystery comes 
 to us. If it is not real, if we are not for each 
 other, we shall discover it now. And that were 
 better." 
 
 The Judge's voice was almost cold now. " Do 
 you expect Richards, who has spent years in 
 learning the science of our bodies and our minds, 
 who knows, by experiment and research, to give 
 up his work and listen to sentimental follies ? " 
 Lily drew away. 
 
 " I expect the man who loves me to believe 
 
212 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 that I speak the truth. I have been able by 
 God's power to do what no human being alone 
 could do. I have seen the wonder, as you have 
 seen it. I know it is not a sentimental folly." 
 She put her arm around her father's neck 
 again and held him. " Dear father, please open 
 your eyes and your heart, and see. It is as 
 blind in you as though you believed that that 
 spark of electricity in that globe there was some- 
 thing all alone by itself, and not a part of a 
 great current. It is so wonderful to know." 
 
 The door opened abruptly, and Mrs. Longmore 
 stood on the threshold. A black scarf was over 
 her head, and her face was pale. 
 
 " Lily," she said, " come home with me. Rob- 
 ert needs you. He is afraid." 
 
 Judge Beale sprang to his feet, and stood 
 between his daughter and the visitor. 
 
 " I am sorry," he said, " but Lily cannot go 
 with you." 
 
 " Roger, I beg you," the mother plead. " He 
 was so sure, and now he is no longer sure. All 
 of us — you — everybody has told him that it was 
 not true, and the old demon has clutched at him 
 again when he began to doubt." 
 
 " The old demon that is your son's sad inherit- 
 ance has clutched him. Let him be man enough 
 to conquer, or man enough to suffer without drag- 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 213 
 
 ging a young girl into his miseries. If he had 
 not fed his demon, it would not be so strong. 
 My daughter is nothing to him." Judge Beale 
 felt his heart pump the blood to his head. He was 
 so angry that he wanted to strike. 
 
 " In the name of your own son, in the name 
 of God, Roger Beale, I ask you let her come and 
 save my son if she can." 
 
 "She cannot." 
 
 Lily had stood beside him, listening, her eyes 
 large and dark with feeling. Pity, love for the 
 poor mother irradiated her face. She moved 
 now, and went into the hall, and a moment later 
 she took Mrs. Longmore by the arm. 
 
 " Come with me," she said, gently. She had 
 a cloak and hat on. 
 
 Judge Beale strode toward her. 
 
 " You shall not go," he said. 
 
 " I must, I will." 
 
 " If you disobey me, if you leave my house 
 against my will, you shall not enter it again," 
 he cried, beside himself. The words were mean- 
 ingless to him at the moment. He wished only 
 to say the one thing which would stop her. 
 This folly should be ended here and now. 
 
 For answer, Lily looked into his face, while 
 the sorrow of the world was born in her eyes. 
 Then she turned, and went out of the door. 
 
214 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 " Roger, w'hat have you said ! " Mrs. Long- 
 more cried. 
 
 " Damn your son ! " he cried, in his rage and 
 grief. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 AS they came out on to the uneven brick 
 pavement, gHstening with frost under the 
 big swinging crane of the electric lamps 
 which disfigured the town, Mrs. Longmore in- 
 stinctively looked at Lily's lightly clad feet. 
 Habits of thought and speech make it possible 
 for us to live through the hard places in life. 
 They move us along mechanically when blows 
 would paralyse us otherwise, and leave us by the 
 roadside. 
 
 " You will catch cold," she murmured. 
 
 And Lily, just turned from her father's door, 
 her heart bursting with the impossible idea which 
 was trying to enter there, laughed almost joy- 
 ously. And in that sudden realisation which 
 brought her laugh, the whole universe adjusted 
 itself anew. 
 
 " Dear Mrs. Longmore," she said, and she put 
 her arm through that of the elder woman. " How 
 could I catch cold? My best story-book when I 
 was a child was a ' Pilgrim's Progress,' arranged 
 for children. It had an enormous picture of the 
 
 215 
 
2i6 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 lions that frightened poor Pilgrim, until he found 
 out that they were chained. I think they are 
 like diseases, except that of course the diseases are 
 not even real enough to be chained. They are 
 just — well, optical illusions." 
 
 Mrs. Longmore listened to the girl in aston- 
 ishment. Instead of the stem creature who could 
 defy her father, leaving his house in the face of 
 a terrible threat, going to help a man who had 
 just received that father's curse, that she had 
 expected to meet; here, walking happily beside 
 her, was the same Lily she had known every day 
 of her girlhood. There was not a tremor in 
 the girlish voice, not a note of anything but joy 
 and sweetness. 
 
 As Mrs. Longmore had followed Lily, it had 
 been with almost the intention of asking her to re- 
 turn. She was a conscientious woman, and she felt 
 that she had no right to make this breach between 
 father and child. She was shocked and bewildered, 
 taken from her usual poise. She was tremblingly 
 trying in the first steps to frame the words that 
 would send Lily back, even though it killed her 
 own hope. She had the instinctive feeling that 
 after all it was the girl who should be spared 
 everything. Men, even her own son, must suffer 
 perdition, if perdition were necessary, to that end. 
 As she heard Lily laugh, and the even, every-day 
 tones, she wondered at first if the child had heard 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 217 
 
 what her father had said. Then she remembered 
 that pause, and the consternation that had swept 
 over her, washing away in its chill the vivid sense 
 of her own present need. 
 
 Yes, Lily knew. And then, conventionality 
 holding her, Mrs. Longmore wondered if — All 
 at once her errand seemed useless. Could it be 
 possible that, after all, as some people had said 
 these last days, this young girl was only a bit of 
 light vanity, the sort of girl who liked to play 
 upon the credulity of the simple, or upon any 
 other instrument which would sound her name 
 before the public? Mrs. Longmore lived a life 
 of retirement, but she knew that girls like that 
 existed, though Stevensburg had produced none 
 as yet. She had seen their pictures and their 
 names in the Sunday papers. Some of them were 
 of as delicate a beauty and as gentle breeding as 
 Lily Beale. 
 
 Mrs. Longmore stopped in sudden distaste and 
 took Lily's arm from her own. Her voice had 
 lost the ring of feeling. It was the colourless 
 voice of every day. 
 
 " Do you think it right to disobey your father ? 
 I think I should urge you to return. Come, I 
 will take you back." The long street whose trees 
 were so thick along the pavement that even their 
 bare branches shaded it, lay silent and empty, 
 the electric globes hanging out over it at inter- 
 
2i8 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 vals and covering it with a network of deep shad- 
 ows. 
 
 " No," Lily said. " I am doing the thing I 
 have been given the power to do. It isn't mine, 
 this power. I am simply an instrument to be 
 used. I don't know why I was selected without 
 the study for it, but I cannot be faithless to it. 
 And " — she turned her face toward Mrs. Long- 
 more as they went under the light; it was as 
 sweet as a little child's, with a beauty so tender, 
 so perfect, that Mrs. Longmore felt as rebuked 
 for her suspicions as though an angel had looked 
 into her face — " everything will be all right. 
 My father will see. There is nothing can make 
 any difference, really." She put her arm through 
 Mrs. Longmore's again. " That is the beautiful 
 part of understanding, — nothing caw make any 
 difference! When you understand, you know 
 that you are a part of God's spiritual and eternal 
 universe. You are own kin to the stars up there. 
 The Life pulses through all of us. That is what 
 it means when they teach us that we are all as 
 brothers. We are closer than any twins. It is 
 possible " — she spoke slowly now, as one who 
 was realising what she said as she shaped it into 
 words — " to make that Life felt from one of us 
 to another. Why, even material science does that 
 with material steel instruments, and yet we deny 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 219 
 
 the power to our own souls, the most delicate 
 instruments — on the very current of Life itself." 
 She paused for a moment. 
 
 Mrs. Longmore, timid, unused to being on 
 the streets of even the little town alone, turned 
 nervously. It seemed to her that some one was 
 following them, — some one who had followed 
 all the way, hanging back in the shadow of the 
 trees. 
 
 " We should not have come out alone." 
 " What can harm us ? We are absolutely safe 
 anywhere — if we only know it. Just as safe 
 as the air or the sea. Dear father! He hurts 
 himself, but then I know that it cannot be very 
 much after all." She laughed again. " Do you 
 know how I feel ? Almost as though I could fly. 
 You know that if we really wanted to, and in- 
 sisted upon it, we could — after some generations. 
 It seems to me that every hour of the day since 
 Aunt Cathie came home and told me the wonder- 
 ful thing, showed it to me, that I keep sajang to 
 myself that we must have been blind not to have 
 seen it before. Why, we learned it at school — 
 really. How did birds ever come to be birds 
 instead of fishes and reptiles ? By believing that 
 they could fly and trying it. Ever)rthing in the 
 universe, the trees, the animals, everything — ex- 
 presses the Creator's mind in some form or other. 
 But we are identities of the very soul of the uni- 
 
220 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 verse. It is so beautiful." She fairly breathed 
 the last words. 
 
 Mrs. Longmore drew a long sigh. " I wouldn't 
 say those things to Robert. I think — " she fal- 
 tered, " he would not understand." 
 
 " That is exactly what he shall understand," 
 Lily cried, as she ran up the dark steps. " I 
 think he does now." 
 
 The old Longmore house seemed to have taken 
 on some of the characteristics of its inhabitants. 
 Its brick walls were vine-covered and dark, and 
 the veranda was like a cavern. Thiey rang the 
 bell. Mrs. Longmore had the key in her pocket, 
 but she wanted to give Robert warning that she 
 was coming. She wondered if he would be there. 
 He had promised, but she knew what it was to 
 see the man she should have trusted false to a 
 promise when that demon drove him, — false to 
 everything, through no will of his own. It is 
 as though when a man gives up the doorway of 
 his soul to that form of evil, he is cynically driven 
 to seek what he most despises, as though the fiend 
 would show its power. 
 
 " Hurry, oh, hurry ! " the poor mother said, 
 under her breath, fearing, wondering, trembling 
 as only a mother can fear and tremble and hope. 
 A wife may love as much, but she has what she 
 calls her " pride " to sustain her. But to a mother 
 the loss of her one child is like the loss of her 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 221 
 
 own heart. There can be nothing built on the 
 ruins. She shivered as with the cold. 
 
 iLily touched her hand, and on her face Mrs. 
 Longmore saw again that lovely look. 
 
 " Do not be afraid. There was no need to 
 hurry. All the way I have known it. He is all 
 right." 
 
 There was a quick manly step in the hall. 
 Mrs. Longmore's heart bounded. She remem- 
 bered the haggard, weak creature, crouched in 
 his chair, holding on to the arms of it as though 
 he would keep himself from collapse, that she had 
 left behind her, — a creature whose hollow, burn- 
 ing eyes had seemed to beseech her to bring him 
 the one thing which would relieve his torment, 
 or the one human being who had saved him 
 before. And going, running through the streets 
 as one who saw a loved one mortally wounded 
 would run for the surgeon who might tie the 
 artery and save him, she had gone for Lily, with 
 alternate hope and despair. When she heard that 
 step she felt that there could be but one explana- 
 tion. He had brought himself out of his horror 
 by the road which would bring him deeper into 
 it again. She staggered against the doorpost, 
 afraid to see his face when he appeared. Lily 
 held her, and when Longmore opened the door, 
 she said, calmly, " I think your mother would 
 like you to help her to the fire." 
 
222 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 When Mrs. Longmore felt the strong, tender 
 arm of her son about her, stronger and tenderer 
 than she had ever known it before, it seemed to 
 her, she looked up at him almost timidly. It 
 was to meet a new man, — a strong man, whose 
 face was pale, but tense with purpose, and calm 
 with certainty. 
 
 "Oh, Robert!" she said. 
 
 " It is all right, mother. It is never going 
 to be wrong any more. I understand at last. 
 You brought me the help as soon as you reached 
 it. There — there — " The man's heavy voice 
 was sweet with tenderness, and with the power 
 that made his mother know that he had come 
 into his kingdom. She was crying and sobbing 
 on his shoulder — after all these years, daring 
 at last to be just a weak woman, with tears to 
 shed. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 LILY slipped away and left them. She 
 wanted solitude to enjoy the happiness 
 that was hers as well as theirs. If she had 
 suddenly been able to fly she would have felt 
 no more exaltation and delight than swept 
 through her being, as she walked up and down 
 the veranda. She threw her cloak back and drew 
 long breaths. The dead branches of the Virginia 
 creeper rattled against the old-fashioned iron lat- 
 tice-posts, but it might have been June for all 
 Lily cared. 
 
 Inside Mrs. Longmore was crying all the tears 
 she had kept back for thirty years, watering her 
 dry heart, becoming a woman again, coming back 
 into her birthright of being cared for and pro- 
 tected and comforted. 
 
 " She said — Robert, Lily said it was possible 
 for one mind to come to another over any dis- 
 tance." She was full of the joy and wonder of 
 this thing that had been done. There would 
 never be any more doubts for her. She knew. 
 She knew as soon as she saw that strong, new 
 23$ 
 
224 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 face of her son. It was the face she had dreamed 
 over his cradle that he would wear when he came 
 to man's estate. It was the face of his father 
 with something in it which his father had never 
 had. The wonderful strength and poise of per- 
 fect self-control. Doubt? She could no more 
 doubt this man and believe hira capable of going 
 back to the horror of what was past, than that he 
 could go back and be a helpless baby in her arms 
 again. Every fibre of her being recognised the 
 new man that had come, when she first saw his 
 face. It was so certain, so real, so natural, that 
 by to-morrow she would have almost forgotten 
 that he had ever been any other than what he 
 now was. This was the real Robert. This was 
 her boy. Life, that had been so dreadful, so 
 colourless, so easy to leave, except that if she 
 went there would be left behind her one who was 
 helpless, and whom her mother soul anguished 
 over, became in the moment brilliant, happy, full. 
 Why, in the space of an hour — of a moment, 
 it seemed — she had become a happy woman ! 
 What was there in the world she desired? She 
 had it all, and as she thought of it, she cried and 
 cried again. Not the tears of sorrow, slow drop- 
 ping, not the deep sobs of bereavement, and not the 
 excited tears which we call tears of joy. But 
 the breath-catching, almost childish crying of a 
 woman who can afford " a good cry," because 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 225 
 
 she knows that she will be soothed and hushed- 
 and sheltered against her own mood. It is only 
 a happy woman who ever dares " have a good 
 cry." 
 
 And Robert held her relaxed figure against 
 his arm, and patted her head and talked and told 
 her to " bear up," as though he had been doing 
 that thing all his life, because the instinct to 
 comfort is bom in every decent man. And in 
 these minutes, as subtly as a chemical change, 
 all their old life melted and formed again in 
 new crystals, that would harden to last all their 
 lives long. 
 
 Outside Lily walked up and down. Suddenly 
 she stopped. A shadow had crept up under the 
 trees and under the vines. She looked closer and 
 saw that a man, a poor, shambling creature, was 
 standing by the vines, not as though he intended 
 to enter, but as though in hiding. 
 
 She stopped opposite him and then said, gently : 
 
 "Do you want something?" 
 
 " Ain't you Jedge Beale's girl ? " he asked, un- 
 couthly. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I seed ye' come out o' than Yer paw, he 
 don't think much o' my folks." He stopped and 
 cleared his throat in embarrassment. Lily waited. 
 
 " My ole man, mebbe you've hearn about it. 
 He's Lige Sawyer. Yer paw had to send him up 
 
226 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 oncet. He said some purty hard things 'bout 
 th' other boys an' me. He don' think much o' us 
 noways." 
 
 " Can I do anything for you ? " Lily asked, 
 gently. Like everybody else born and bred in 
 Stevensburg, she knew of the Sawyer family. 
 
 " I ain't sure," Jake said, hesitatingly now. 
 " Mebbe you've hearn tell o' my ole woman, 
 Lyddy Sawyer. Lyddy, she's " — he stumbled 
 over words to express the differences of Lyddy. 
 — " she's sort o' stuck-up. She washes an' house- 
 cleans fer you'all people sometimes." He spoke 
 with pride. To come as near respectability as 
 to work in any capacity in one of the " big 
 houses " of the town was more than any other 
 Sawyer had achieved. " She's a member o' th' 
 Baptis' church," he added, " but I ain't seed it 
 done her no good." 
 
 " Does she need something? " Lily asked. 
 
 " No'm. She don't ; but we got a mighty sick 
 young 'un, now — " He stopped again, and it 
 seemed difficult for him to go on. " I got Doc 
 Clay t' come over an' see him, an' he says — " 
 He stopped again. " I don' think much o' them 
 docs, nohow. I wouldn't trust 'em." 
 
 " What does he say ? " Lily asked. 
 
 " He says th' young 'un's got dipthery — an' 
 won't live 'til mornin'." He brought the words 
 out with a rush, and the rest tumbled after them. 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 227 
 
 " I hearn about what you bin doin', an' I thought 
 mebbe, mebbe — " 
 
 " I will come with you at once," Lily said. 
 She walked lightly to the door and opened it. 
 
 " Good night," she called, cheerily, " I am 
 going." 
 
 Robert went rapidly to the door, while his 
 mother followed. 
 
 " Where are you going? Let me get my coat. 
 You can't go alone." 
 
 " But — " Mrs. Longmore hesitated. " You 
 are going to stay all night. I feel as though 
 I could never let you go home again." Her 
 face was transfigured. Her heavy hair was 
 pushed back from her forehead, and she looked 
 years younger, although her eyes and nose were 
 red. So, too, were her cheeks. 
 
 " A man is here who wants me to go and see 
 his baby, who has diphtheria." 
 
 Mrs. Longmore gave a cry of consternation. 
 
 " Diphtheria ! Lily, you can't go to diph- 
 theria!" 
 
 Lily and Robert both laughed. It did his 
 mother good to hear it. It was laughter, healthy 
 laughter of her son, mingled with the joy of his 
 own kind, that her ears had been hungry for. 
 
 " Where is it ? I will go with you," Robert 
 said. 
 
 "ThisisMr. Sawyer — » 
 
228 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 Robert came out and looked at the man keenly. 
 
 " Is that you, Jake? " he asked. 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Longmore. An' 'fore God — " 
 
 " That will do. What did you ask Miss Beale 
 to do?" 
 
 "Doc Clay says my kid's a-dyin'," he said, 
 huskily. 
 
 " Do you live in the Camp ? " 
 
 " Yes'ir." 
 
 " Well, you go home as fast as you can, and 
 tell them the kid won't die. I'll bring Miss Beale 
 in my buggy. Go along." 
 
 " I must go with you," Mrs. Longmore said, 
 firmly. 
 
 " Indeed, you cannot, mother. You get Lily 
 wrapped up, and get some soup in cans and some 
 food for those poor devils. Three of us can't 
 go in the buggy. I'll take care of Lily." 
 
 "What will your mother say?" Mrs. Longmore 
 protested. Those tears had watered the soil out 
 of which already pride in her son was growing. 
 But she must remember yet that he had not been 
 a proper escort for a young girl, that Lily Beale's 
 very society had been denied him. 
 
 " Nothing, surely, when she knows why I 
 went." 
 
 The climate in the Ohio valley is erratic. The 
 snow had melted from the ground long ago, and 
 had been succeeded by a distressing warmth. To- 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 229 
 
 day had been frosty again, but the thermometer 
 was rising minute by minute, and as Robert Hfted 
 Lily into the hght buggy, the air came into their 
 faces with almost a suggestion of spring. 
 
 " I thought it was cold," he said. " The air 
 in the stables was cold." He had harnessed the 
 horse himself, as the coachman's duties were sup- 
 posed to be over at dusk. " But out here it is 
 like spring. Do you make your own weather, 
 too ? I believe you could. Isn't there some story 
 about a saint who made roses grow out of the 
 snow ? " 
 
 " In a climate that I have known to change 
 fifty degrees in three hours, even that seems pos- 
 sible," Lily said, lightly. 
 
 " I wonder," Longmore said, " if those saints 
 the Catholics tell such wonderful stories of, 
 were like you. They must have been. I feel 
 so ashamed of myself — of my ignorance, my 
 stupidity. I don't suppose that side of what you 
 are doing, what you have done for me — will 
 appeal to you." 
 
 He was talking in a quite commonplace, ordi- 
 nary way. The thing which had happened to 
 him was too great for exclamations, for thanks. 
 He would as soon have thought of giving formal 
 thanks to his mother for having brought him 
 into the world, as to Lily for what she had done 
 for him. 
 
230 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 " But I have prided myself upon just one 
 thing. Open-mindedness to the world. I have 
 piled my library with the expoundings of every 
 scientific theory. I have even gone to Washing- 
 ton to see that psychological laboratory where 
 fine machines prove how inadequate our poor, 
 pitiful little five senses are to give us any real 
 notion of the laws of our existence. What are 
 our bodies, anyway, but pieces of the dull earth 
 blundering about? I understood that long ago. 
 I have sat and smiled at our own impotence to 
 understand what our poor dull senses could not 
 comprehend. And all the time, I suppose, in some 
 places ever since the coming of Christ, people 
 have known that there was no limit to what we 
 could comprehend. We have in ourselves — 
 everything. The amazing thing to me is — now 
 — that we had not even curiosity. While I was 
 learning all about wireless telegraphy, I was 
 sneering at the greatest science of all, — the only 
 one." 
 
 ".Do you feel like that?" Lily asked. "It 
 fills me with amazement every hour. I want to 
 get on to the very housetops and tell them. I 
 have never dared say so before, but even that 
 newspaper notoriety that has nearly broken 
 mother's heart was only painful to me on that 
 account. Suppose it set even one person to think- 
 ing, sent one poor suffering creature to the place 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 231 
 
 where he could be made well and happy, wasn't 
 it worth it all?" 
 
 " You are a saint," Longmore said. " The 
 Maurilla Question is unspeakable." 
 
 Stevensburg is built on the hills above the 
 Ohio River, with " the Tracks " and the settle- 
 ments of " poor white trash " on the meadows 
 below. Winding along at the foot of the first 
 hill on the first terrace in the stairsteps of hills 
 was Bronson Avenue. It was one of the oldest 
 streets in the town, for it had originally been a 
 country road leading into town. Of late years 
 the farmers had gone another way, and it had 
 been left lonely, except for the driving and walk- 
 ing here in its tree-shaded dusk on summer 
 evenings. 
 
 On one side it shelved abruptly down to the 
 swampy meadows, which began two or three 
 acres away to be dotted by the cabins around and 
 over " the Tracks," stretching away beyond the 
 town in straggling groups. Farther out the 
 houses became village-like, homes of respect- 
 able workmen who wanted neat houses and gar- 
 dens of their own, and could not aflford them in 
 the growing town. 
 
 On the upper side of the avenue was an abrupt 
 hill for most of its length, on which sat a few 
 of the handsome homes of the town. But Bron- 
 son Avenue was very lonely at night in the win- 
 
232 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 ter, and after the boys and girls whose first love- 
 making was chance pairings on summer evening 
 walks, had gone home. And there had grown up 
 in the gossip of the town, a more or less un- 
 pleasant reputation for its night quiet. 
 
 Any town the size of Stevensburg seems neces- 
 sarily a hotbed of gossip. There is too little 
 diversion for the half-educated, and they fall to 
 noticing the indiscretions of their neighbours, 
 and trying to make themselves interesting by 
 reciting them. In the old Stevensburg days there 
 had been a certain formal village dignity. The 
 " quality " of those old days had held themselves 
 as a class apart, and whatever their men or even 
 their women had done, had been held within their 
 own order. No servant, however privileged, would 
 have dared discuss an indiscretion. People were 
 supposed to know how to order their own affairs, 
 and ladies of breeding held it an offence to their 
 sense of delicacy to have a story at all suggestive 
 of impropriety told to them. This was still true 
 of some of the older homes, and the Beales' was 
 one of them. But since the coming of the " new 
 people," and particularly since Mrs. Feeley's dip- 
 lomatic dissemination of soiled ideas, the whole 
 atmosphere of the social life had been changed. 
 As a direct result both men and women, con- 
 stantly hearing unclean tales about each other, 
 began to think it of not so much consequence, 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 233 
 
 and the very tales themselves bred new cause 
 for scandals. In some of these, Bronson Avenue 
 had figured. It was a romantic place for silly, 
 indiscreet meetings, and had been a little shunned 
 on that account. Neither Lily Beale nor Long- 
 more had ever heard these tales, and in their 
 present state of mind, neither of them would have 
 thought of it if they had, and when the buggy 
 whirled into Bronson Avenue on its way to the 
 " Camp of the Israelites," they saw only a long, 
 empty street, which would speedily bring them 
 to their destination. 
 
 But Holly Ainslee, with his armload of music, 
 on his way to practise Christmas anthems for the 
 next morning, looked up from the tree-shaded 
 sidewalk and saw Lily Beale out driving after 
 dark with Bob Longmore on Bronson Avenue, 
 and his parchment-like skin wrinkled itsdf into 
 a smile of perfect delight 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 " T T OW do we get through here? We seem 
 
 I I to have reached the end of the road." 
 Longmore drew up the horse and looked 
 over toward the Camp, huddled in the wet field, 
 a dim light here and there showing the squalid 
 window in front of it. The clouds which were 
 accompanying the coming warm weather, ob- 
 scured the moon and left a half-light, which 
 enabled them to see the rotting fence-posts 
 holding crooked planks just sufficient to prevent 
 their driving through. 
 
 They drove along slowly, and Jake Sawyer 
 suddenly arose, causing the nervous horse to 
 spring sidewise. 
 
 " Hyar's th' bars," he said. 
 
 He walked along beside them as they drove 
 over the field. 
 
 " I ain't said you was comin'," he said to 
 Lily. " 'Twouldn't do no good, noways. Ef ye' 
 cud just — Well, ye'll know when ye' see th' 
 kid. Mis' Smoot she tole me how you done it 
 fer her young 'un. She lived over here a piece. 
 
 234 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 235 
 
 Lyddy, she don' onderstan' these things." Jake 
 was growing garrulous. He felt important that 
 he had actually spoken to and brought down here 
 with him the very cream of the " quality," and 
 a woman whose name had been in the news- 
 papers. 
 
 " She don' think much o' doctors, Lyddy don'. 
 No more'n you do. When I went over town to 
 git a doctor, some uv 'em says t' me, says they, 
 ' Git Doc Richards, he's th' best uv 'em.' But 
 ' No,' says I. I read what was writ in th' papers 
 by you " (evidently Jake thought Lily had sent 
 in the interview) " bout 'em bein' murderers. 
 An' thinks I, ef I git th' best uv 'em, it'll be 
 th' biggest killer. An' I moseyed 'round an' got 
 Doc Clay. I reasoned out that ef he couldn't 
 do much one way, he couldn't th' other." 
 
 Lily opened her mouth to speak. The very 
 sound of Richards's name sent the blood over 
 her face, and tingling along the backs of her 
 hands. She knew that this man had mentioned 
 him with the wish to ingratiate himself. He 
 believed the stories he had read and heard. Long- 
 more gently put his hand on hers for silence. 
 
 Jake led them past the other houses to his 
 own at the end of the row. He knew that it 
 was unwise, but he wanted his relations to see 
 the wonderful thing he had done. It would make 
 the camp famous for ever. 
 
236 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 Mrs. Smoot had been the envied of all " Over- 
 the-Tracks " before she had had her doctor's bill 
 paid and gone away to the country with her child. 
 There were some doubters, and the Sawyers fluc- 
 tuated. One day their superstitious souls be- 
 lieved anything that was told them, and the next, 
 they flung out cynical laughter. They finally 
 settled down to the belief that Lily had cured the 
 child, not by any grace or power, except that 
 she was " quality," and quality's touch was an 
 old and well-known cure for king's evil. 
 
 Only Lyddy honestly disbelieved. Her visit 
 to her pastor had left her in terror. She had tried 
 to tell her people about it, but she might as easily 
 have tried to interest them in the Rossetta Stone. 
 They laughed aloud at Mr. Batton's objections. 
 Preachers objected to everything that was inter- 
 esting. 
 
 On Lyddy's heart the preacher's words had 
 printed themselves. What was stealing a few 
 pigs to the enormity of the offence of this Beale 
 girl ? And yet her father-in-law was in the pen- 
 itentiary, and the Beale girl was " quality." 
 
 When the buggy stopped and Lily alighted she 
 was speedily surrounded. The sisters-in-law, 
 some of them dragging a child that could not be 
 left at home, pushed by her and into Jake's cabin. 
 Although the doctor had told them that the dis- 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 237 
 
 ease was diphtheria and contagious, they paid no 
 attention. 
 
 Old Mrs. Sawyer, the mother of the " Israel- 
 ites," sat by the broken clothes-basket in which 
 Lyddy's child lay, on as soft a bed as the mother 
 could contrive, and gave out wisdom. 
 
 " No one ain't never hearn o' sore throat bein' 
 ketchin'. 'Tain't nothin' but a kine o' croup, 
 noways. Doc says he'll choke t' death," she 
 added, calmly, and fumbled in her pocket for 
 her pipe, which she lighted. " A leetle smoke'U 
 clear out his head, likely." 
 
 Lyddy, crouched on the floor beside the basket, 
 shook at the words. She had heard the doctor 
 say that, and it had seemed to her ever since that 
 every laboured breath of the child was tearing 
 her heart. She had more imagination than the 
 rest of them, inheritance of her life in the hills, 
 and of the rude Bible talks of the preacher-shoe- 
 maker. 
 
 The miserable room in which the curious-eyed, 
 half-dressed women made way for Lily, was the 
 only one in the house except for a floorless shed 
 in which Lyddy did her washing. The only fire 
 was in a battered cooking-stove, on which sat 
 pans of half-dried poultices. One of them, con- 
 cocted by the old mother, had the blood of a 
 black rooster and some hairs from a rabbit's foot 
 among its other ingredients. 
 
238 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 Behind were two beds, in one of- which the 
 elder children slept. The room was fairly clean, 
 considering its impossibilities, but through it all 
 was the odour of wet leather, hops, acrid med- 
 icines, and tobacco. For one second, still shaken 
 a little by that reference to Richards, the habits 
 of years caught Lily, and she felt faint. Then, 
 brought to herself by the momentary weakness, 
 she drew a long breath and the strength of the 
 very universe with it. 
 
 The tremendous news that the miracle-worker 
 who was said to have cured the Smoot child was 
 here, was all through the Camp. Most of them 
 had finally concluded that the cure had been a 
 " fake " after all, because the mother had taken 
 the child away. She was probably ashamed of 
 the reappearance of the sickness, and the conse- 
 quent jeers. 
 
 At first Lyddy had no idea who her visitor 
 was. If she thought at all, it was that some of 
 the ladies from the " Baptis' " church may have 
 heard of the baby's illness and come to help her. 
 
 She rose to her feet unsteadily, wishing that 
 her sisters-in-law wouldn't crowd and stare like 
 that, and looked about for a chair. 
 
 Lily leaned down over the old clothes-basket 
 in which the child lay gasping. 
 
 " He's a-dyin' right now," said the old grand- 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 239 
 
 mother. " He's a-passin', but it's likely some 
 breath'll stay 'til th' turn o' th' night." 
 
 " It seems to me," poor Lyddy said, " I kin 
 Stan' anythin' ef he jes' don' choke." Lines of 
 agony were in her thin face. Lily put out her 
 arms to take the child. 
 
 " He will not choke," she said, "he will get 
 well. You must not be frightened. You are 
 frightening him." 
 
 There was a scuffle in the room behind her. 
 Two angry women were fighting. 
 
 " Stop a-pushin' me, Jin Sawyer. I've got jes' 
 as good a right here as you hev. I'm go'n'-a 
 see her do her hocus-pocus." 
 
 The answer of the other was to give her a 
 push which sent her reeling against the door. 
 
 " Abe, Abe ! " the other called, " come yer', an' 
 knock this cuss of a Jin Sawyer." 
 
 Lily looked up from the child, startled. 
 
 " Oh, please be quiet," she said. 
 
 "There! I bet she's done it, an' I ain't seed 
 a thing! Lyddy, don't you let her do nothin' 
 to the kid 'til I see her do it. They say they 
 change right 'fore your eyes." Lyddy looked 
 from them to Lily, and bewilderment changed 
 some of the horror and grief in her face. 
 
 Abe had come to the door now, in answer to 
 the call of his mate. 
 
240 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 " The Beale girl's here, the one that lays on 
 hall's, an' Jin won't let me near enough to see." 
 
 Lyddy gave a cry and sprang for her child 
 and held it in her arms. 
 
 "Git out o' here!" she said, standing tense 
 with the spirit of defence. " I know you. Here 
 I've been a-prayin' an' a-prayin', an' you come 
 here an' set 'em all back." 
 
 " Please let me tell you. Please let me take 
 the baby. We can make him well. There is 
 no need for him to be sick. Send these people 
 away. If you have been praying, I can make 
 you help me cure the baby." 
 
 There was something in the sweet voice which 
 touched Lyddy's heart. She had one dreadful 
 second of thinking that if this woman could save 
 the baby, keep it from that awful choking which 
 made her grind her own teeth in agony when she 
 saw and heard it, she wouldn't care if she were 
 the Scarlet Woman herself. 
 
 None off them had heard the sound of another 
 buggy which had driven up over the fields, and 
 stopped outside. From it laboriously alighted a 
 short, fat man with glasses, and a shock of untidy 
 black hair pushed from under a silk hat, grotesque 
 with the fashion of five years ago and the wear 
 of time. He looked curiously at Jake standing 
 by Longmore's side, and more curiously at Long- 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 241 
 
 more. That he had been drinking was evident 
 even before he spoke. 
 
 "Hello, Jake," he said, "you in trouble? 
 Seein' your lawyer ? " ; 
 
 Jake turned over in his mind how he was to 
 prevent the doctor going in until the miracle 
 had been worked, or until the trial had been made. 
 In his heart he was so much elated over the 
 event of Lily's coming that the object seemed of 
 small importance. He was fond of the baby, 
 and Lyddy was " stuck on th' kid," and he hoped 
 it would be cured. 
 
 " Mist' Longmore an' me wuz jest dis- 
 cussin' a little politics," Jake said. " I tole him he 
 ought to run fer sheriff. We need a high-toned 
 sheriff in th' county, — some tony up-an'-comer 
 thet'll git rispec'." 
 
 Sheriff was to Jake and his class the highest 
 office. There was some talk around town, of 
 course, of Congressmen and Senators, but he 
 didn't understand much about them. They did not 
 usually come from Stevensburg, and for aught 
 he knew, no Stevensburger was eligible. These 
 great honours were for " way-off people." The 
 doctor laughed in a way that made Longmore's 
 eyebrows draw together. 
 
 " Ya'as," he drawled, " we do need a sheriff 
 that will get .respect. And so Mr. Longmore 
 
242 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 thinks he can fill the bill? Is he thinkin' o' 
 runnin' on the Prohibition ticket ? " 
 
 " No. Nor any other ticket," Longmore said, 
 quietly. " Although I believe I am in favour of 
 prohibition. If men haven't sense enough to keep 
 sober when they go about their business, it might 
 be just as well for the law to demand it." 
 
 "Eh? Ehf" Clay said, squaring his bulky 
 body and pushing the hat back. " You're a fine 
 one to be makin' reflections upon a gentleman." 
 He measured Longmore and concluded that he 
 wouldn't go too far. He drew himself up with 
 a pretence of dignity. " If I hadn't a patient 
 inside, I'd tell you what I thought of you dudes — 
 that " — he hesitated again — " castin' aspersions 
 upon a professional man and a gentleman in the 
 pursuit of his sacred duty." Turning to Jake, 
 he said, " How is the child ? " and started totter- 
 ing toward the open doorway. 
 
 " What are all that gang doin' in there? " he 
 yelled, when he caught sight of the crowded 
 women and children. " Didn't I tell you that 
 they'd start a diphtheria epidemic in this town if 
 they didn't keep away from here? I'll tell you 
 what I'll do." He shook his finger in Jake's face. 
 All the anger of his drink, all the anger at Long- 
 more, whom he hated as belonging to another 
 order, came out. " I'll have your confounded kid 
 at the pest-house in less than two hours. I know 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 243 
 
 my duty to this community." He started to enter 
 the door, where some of the women were looking 
 out now. They were crazy with the excitement, 
 and called out to each other. 
 
 " Come on in, Doc, or th' Beale girl'll git yer 
 patient," Abe's wife cried. " Lyddy's lettin' her 
 have him." 
 
 " Stop a moment," Longmore said, putting his 
 hand on the man's shoulder, " I do not believe that 
 you are able to know your duty just now. Your 
 patient is in good hands. Suppose you leave him 
 there for a little while." 
 
 But Clay had heard the name which was like 
 the red cloak to the bull. He tore himself away, 
 and dashed into the house just as Lily was holding 
 out her arms, pleading amid all the confusion for 
 the child. 
 
 " The baby will get well. Let me take him," 
 she said. 
 
 "Fool!" Clay took Lyddy by the arm. "Do 
 you want this lunatic to kill your child?" He 
 snatched the gasping baby, and pushed Lily away. 
 " What do you mean by letting this crank touch 
 a patient of mine? " he said to poor Lyddy. " I'll 
 take this child to the pest-house, that's what I'll 
 do." 
 
 The baby gave a gasp, tried to lift its poor 
 little body in the struggle for breath, and fell 
 back. 
 
244 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 Lyddy gave a scream. 
 
 " Give him to me ! Give him to me ! " 
 
 " Ef you take him to th' pest-house, it'll be 
 a corpse," the old grandmother said, calmly. 
 
 The women broke out, half sorry, half tri- 
 umphant, "Th' baby's dead!" " Ah-h, it's all 
 a fake. She can't do nothin'. I tole ye' so." 
 
 Clay stood aniong them. " Let me see you 
 get a death certificate out o' me, will you? This 
 thing's got to be investigated. I thought I'd get 
 these Christian Scientists where I wanted 'em." 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 MRS. BEALE came down-stairs later than 
 her usual bedtime to say a last word 
 about the presents of the children, and 
 to make the transparent device of receiving her 
 own presents as a surprise easier to carry out. 
 Jack and Jerry were up-stairs arranging their 
 packages now, having come home in the wild 
 excitement which the smell of Christmas greens 
 seems to give the young. 
 
 " Why, where is Lily ? " she asked, as she saw 
 her husband sitting alone by the fire. 
 
 Now, the Judge had gone through every phase 
 of feeling since his temper had gotten the best 
 of him in his flare at Lily. He had begtin by 
 saying to himself that he would stand by what 
 he had said. If his daughter had defied him, she 
 should take the consequences. He had told her 
 what they were — what would happen if she went 
 against his wishes, his commands — and she had 
 gone. Roger Beale was not a sentimental man, 
 except as every man has that overripening of 
 sentiment which we call sentimentalism, concem- 
 245 
 
246 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 ing his own loved womankind. We Americans 
 are apt to think that it is a characteristic pecu- 
 Har to ourselves. It is one we more or less 
 plume ourselves upon. It is our pleased recog- 
 nition of it in ourselves which causes us to smile 
 fatuously when foreigners say we spoil our 
 women. As a matter of fact, the trait is merely 
 one of human civilisation, common to all people 
 who know affection. 
 
 Then Judge Beale sat over the fire and ran 
 down the scale. For a little while he would 
 have been pleased to think of himself as a de- 
 serted father, sitting there until the fire turned 
 to ashes, forlorn and cold. He did not formulate 
 this thought. .He would have been disgusted at 
 the idea of entertaining it, could he have seen it 
 in his consciousness, but he felt a new resentment 
 against gas and asbestos logs that would go on 
 in a gay acting of a freshly lighted fire until the 
 force was turned ofif, no matter what the stress 
 of the man who sat over it. 
 
 His severity was obliged to evaporate. All 
 his Virginian ancestors, his life, his times, had 
 taken the backbone out of the sort of rage which 
 made a father order his daughter from his house. 
 After his various moods, he came at last to the 
 one where he asked himself what he was going 
 to say to his daughter when she came home. He 
 was startled by the entrance of his wife, and he 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 247 
 
 arose hastily and looked at the clock. It was 
 after ten. 
 
 " Lily ? " he said, vagviely, as though he had 
 not been thinking of her. " She went home with 
 Mrs. Longmore." 
 
 "Mrs. Longmore!" his wife exclaimed, in 
 astonishment. "When was she here? I was 
 here all evening. Why was I not told ? " 
 
 " She came for a minute only. She — " 
 
 " She came for Lily to go down there and see 
 that scoundrel of a Bob Longmore ! " Mrs. 
 Beale said, excitedly, " and you let her! Roger 
 Beale, you let her!" 
 
 " Now, my dear," Judge Beale said, in his 
 calmest and most judicial manner, " what could 
 I do?" 
 
 Mrs. Beale's face was scarlet. " What could 
 you do? What could you do? You could have 
 told her that you did not wish her to go, — that 
 she couldn't and shouldn't go. If I had been 
 here, I rather, think she wouldn't have gone. I 
 told Maria Longmore that I wanted her and her 
 son to let my Lily alone. What are they to us ? " 
 
 " I suppose," said the Judge, restored to his 
 customary equilibrium by this unusual phase in his 
 placid wife, " that they are human beings, and 
 that at the last we owe our fellow beings help 
 whenever we can give it, or they think we can 
 give it. It generally amounts to the same thing 
 
248 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 — in everything except the payment of money. 
 That still seems a little too material for anything 
 but actualities." He was so pleased by this last 
 remark that he felt almost in a good humour. 
 
 " I am not sure that a drunkard is a human 
 being," said Mrs. Beale. " A soul is what makes 
 us human, and a drunkard kills his soul." 
 
 " My dear," said Judge Beale, mildly, " I fear 
 that you are unconsciously acquiring the doctrines 
 of that new faith which you so bitterly condemn." 
 
 " I am doing nothing of the sort. You know 
 better. It is your lightness, your — your — 
 what you call your sense of humour, although I 
 can never see anything in it except trifling with 
 everything, which is responsible for all this. I 
 suppose when Maria Longmore came here and 
 said she wanted Lily, you said nothing, but let 
 her go. It will be all over town by dinner-time 
 to-morrow, that Lily has been down there trying 
 to reform Bob Longmore. As though we hadn't 
 had enough notoriety. I have no patience with 
 you." 
 
 " What would you have done? " 
 
 " I should have told her that she couldn't go." 
 
 "And suppose that even then — she had 
 gone? " 
 
 " She wouldn't," said Mrs. Beale, grimly. 
 " Men are all fools. They let a woman do any- 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 249 
 
 thing." Then she sat down suddenly, and burst 
 into tears. 
 
 " Think of its being Lily — Lily! She has 
 been such a comfort to us. She was the best 
 child that ever lived — and there wasn't a girl 
 in this town that was so much admired and 
 looked up to by everybody. She was the pret- 
 tiest girl — " 
 
 " I can't see that Lily's beauty has deterio- 
 rated," the Judge said, drily. 
 
 " You will soon find that people will say so. 
 Did you ever see a crank that was pretty ? " 
 
 " I do not like your calling my daughter such 
 a name. It isn't respectful. ' Cranks ' are not 
 generally found in Lily's class. They are people 
 with the leavings of other people's reasoning, 
 only partly assimilated. Lily is simply a very 
 pure-minded, imaginative girl, who has had her 
 fancy taken by the dramatic event of her aunt's 
 sudden cure, added to what seems to be her own 
 power over the ignorant and neurotic. It is 
 bound to wear itself out. It is a sort of mental 
 wild oats. She will get over it with her first 
 failure." In the effort to argue with his wife, 
 the Judge was convincing himself. 
 
 " And you will find that when she gets over it, 
 as you say, other people will not. They will 
 remember it as long as she lives, and she will come 
 out of it with something that will always have 
 
250 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 to be explained. And this association with Bob 
 Longmore — " Words failed her. 
 
 " Lily will marry Richards, and we shall hear 
 no more of that." 
 
 " I am not so sure of that. Doctor Richards 
 is like every other man, and already he is back 
 with Lucille." 
 
 " What do you mean by ' back with Lucille? ' " 
 
 " He was attentive to Lucille before we came 
 home, before he knew Lily — and now — " 
 
 " If Richards is the sort of man that plays fast 
 and loose, we want none of him. If his love for 
 Lily isn't equal to any strain, it isn't worth hav- 
 ing." 
 
 " But Roger — " 
 
 " I tell you that if Richards is thrown off by 
 this trifling folly, born of the child's very sweet- 
 ness and generosity and goodness, he isn't the 
 man I have thought him. And if Lily's cranki- 
 ness, as you call it, shows him in that light, I am 
 extremely glad that it came upon her." 
 
 " Well, I'm not. Men are men, and no man 
 wants a wife that mortifies him." 
 
 Judge Beale went to the closet where his hat 
 and outer coats rested, and took out a shaggy 
 ulster. He was full of rage — and championship 
 of his daughter. The rage which he had had 
 against her had changed sides. He thought of 
 his wife as a narrow-minded woman. He went 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 251 
 
 out to fetch his daughter home, almost ready to 
 excuse her, except when he thought of Bob 
 Longmore. 
 
 He reached the Longmore house not five min- 
 utes after Lily and Longmore had returned from 
 the Camp. Lily was still in her wraps, as her 
 father saw with relief when he was ushered into 
 the sitting-room. She had paid no attention to 
 his words, then; she was ready to come home. 
 Robert had gone to the stable to put the horse 
 away for the night, and Judge Beale noted his 
 absence and the rather sorrowful look on the faces 
 of Mrs. Longmore and Lily with satisfaction. He 
 believed, and had he been talking to Richards 
 and on the old footing, he would doubtless have 
 said, that probably Bob Longmore had returned 
 to his old haunts, and he was glad of it. He 
 felt cheerful, and relieved. Lily's escapade, as 
 he termed it in his thoughts, was a good thing 
 after all. She had only learned that lesson that 
 all women learn sooner or later, that a man's 
 vices are as lions against cobwebs when a woman 
 would control them. Sensible women accept that 
 fact, and let vicious men alone. 
 
 With his old manner, his air of fatherly supe- 
 riority, Judge Beale told Lily that he had come 
 for her. 
 
 She went with him as though the episode of 
 their parting had not occurred. All the way home 
 
252 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 Judge Beale was in high spirits. He had a gay 
 manner, and he had never thought it too much 
 trouble to use his best conversational gifts for 
 his daughter. To-night Lily did not throw the 
 ball back to him. Once she tried to tell him what 
 had happened. 
 
 " I have seen a sad thing to-night." 
 
 " I fear I cannot sympathise with your pity of 
 it," her father said. " If I had my way with 
 you, you should never see anything but pleasant 
 sights." 
 
 " It is Christmas eve. It seems too bad for 
 any one to be unhappy on Christmas eve." 
 
 " It would seem to be our first duty to make 
 our own happy," the Judge said, significantly, 
 as he kissed her good night. 
 
 He watched her go up-stairs, and then went 
 back to his own sitting-room, where his wife still 
 sat. 
 
 " Don't speak to Lily concerning Longmore," 
 he said, as he stooped to turn off the gas fire. 
 " I think she has discovered that she can do 
 nothing with him. He has evidently gone back 
 to his fleshpots." 
 
 "Thank Heaven!" 
 
 Judge Beale took his wife's arm, and they went 
 up-stairs. From the window on the landing they 
 looked out over the town. The trees were bare. 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 253 
 
 and the lights which would have been hidden by 
 the foliage in summer were visible now. 
 
 " Everybody seems to be getting ready for 
 Christmas," Mrs. Beale said. 
 
 Involuntarily both pairs of eyes sought the 
 Longmore house. There was a light in the room 
 they knew to be Mrs. Longmore's bedroom. 
 
 To each of them came the vision of the lonely 
 mother waiting on Christmas eve for the son 
 who could only bring an additional sorrow in his 
 coming. They said nothing, but when they went 
 on, each drew a sigh of relief. Lily had surely 
 failed. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 CHRISTMAS afternoon is generally long 
 and tiresome. But this year Mrs. Feeley 
 felt that she had never had so enjoyable a 
 holiday. The morning had been dull, and the 
 usual number of remembrances had been a little 
 dilatory in arriving. Mrs. Feeley was a diplomat 
 in Christmas presents, as in everything else — 
 after her lights. 
 
 She realised that her claims to social recogni- 
 tion were upon so slight a foundation that they 
 needed bolstering on every side. One woman 
 who made a friend of her must see that others 
 also considered Mrs. Feeley one of themselves. 
 Ordinarily, when her church work did not bring 
 those she coveted about her, Mrs. Feeley knew 
 how to become a suffering sister who required 
 ministration. 
 
 Christmas was an opportunity. All the year 
 she worked at small gifts, needle-books, work- 
 baskets, pen-wipers, and doilies, which were done 
 up in tissue-paper and ribbon and sent about on 
 Christmas eve. More than one hurried woman 
 
 254 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 255 
 
 gave a " St I " of impatience when she saw the 
 package, and went out and purchased, or hunted 
 up a gift to return. In that kindly town it would 
 have been a breach of good manners to accept 
 a gift and return none. So that for weeks after 
 Christmas there lay on the table by Mrs. Feeley's 
 side the offerings, which could hardly have bfeen 
 called free-will, which bore the most influential 
 names in Stevensburg. Only the Beales' name 
 had always been absent. Mrs. Beale had been 
 too busy for Mrs. Feeley. This year the gifts 
 seemed more perfunctory than usual. Most of 
 them bore evidence of having been " hunted up " 
 at the last moment. But the afternoon was full. 
 Like all the town, the Feeleys dined early, and 
 as usual they had no guest and no invitations for 
 the day. Although Mrs. Feeley was able to go 
 about in a wheeled chair, she had never, during 
 all the years in Stevensburg, broken bread at 
 any table in the town, nor had anybody of con- 
 sequence dined at hers. If there had ever been 
 a time when she had expected that sort of recog- 
 nition, it was long past. 
 
 Mr. Feeley, nervous, half-afraid of his wife and 
 what he called her " fine friends," had lately gone 
 through a spiritual experience. 
 
 Mrs. Feeley had long looked at the vestry of 
 St. Saviour's, and realised that it were folly to 
 ignore the possibility of being a vestryman's wife. 
 
256 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 The vestry of St. Saviour's was made up of all 
 the male communicants of the church they could 
 muster, and some who were not. The men in 
 the church, or whose families were in the church, 
 had never made a friend of Mr. Feeley. They 
 hardly knew that he was alive. As a non-member 
 there was no possible chance of his being elected 
 to the vestry, — but, Mrs. Feeley realised excit- 
 edly, if he were to join the church, there could 
 hardly be a question about it. 
 
 She talked the subject over with Mr. Feeley 
 as a preliminary measure, but she met with small 
 encouragement. Mr. Feeley showed the courage 
 of a cross hen who is having the last of her eggs 
 taken. 
 
 " See here, Becky," he said, " you work this 
 church racket if you want to, but leave me out. 
 I don't believe in sprinkling, anyway. My people 
 were Dunkards. They went under the water." 
 
 " Well, I wouldn't disgrace myself by telling 
 it." 
 
 " I don't know that Dunkards are any worse 
 than — " Mr. Feeley hesitated. There was one 
 word that he knew would bring on Mrs. Feeley's 
 rare hysterics. He didn't dare use it, but he gave 
 a weak laugh, and compromised on " old Jacob's 
 religion." 
 
 " My father was unfortunately an agnostic," 
 said Mrs. Feeley, with dignity. 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 257 
 
 After awhile she talked over the state of her 
 husband's soul with Mr. Lessing. Through the 
 attitude of that shepherd of his flock she found 
 some coldness. He very reluctantly agreed to 
 try to win Mr. Feeley to spiritual things, but 
 Mr. Lessing saw ahead as clearly as Mrs. Feeley, 
 and he had a vision of a restraint falling upon 
 the more or less gay meetings of his business 
 board. He was almost afraid that there would 
 come a check upon the free converse; some of 
 them might even resign if a stranger were 
 brought in. It did not take long to transact the 
 business of the church. It usually consisted in 
 jocular remarks concerning its poverty, and 
 attempts on the part of each to shame some one 
 of them into paying a particularly insistent bill. 
 Mr. Shepperson, who was particularly lucky at 
 poker, was always sure to catch a great deal of 
 chaff at the vestry meeting succeeding an un- 
 usually fortunate game. It was a time-honoured 
 custom for old Mr. Rhodes to tell that good 
 old story of the sinking sea-captain who couldn't 
 pray, but could take up a collection. And then, 
 it was a habit for one member to bring cigars for 
 them all. Mr. Lessing felt that Mr. Feeley was 
 hardly eligible to this company. And he told 
 Mrs. Feeley that if her husband sought him he 
 should be glad to give him counsel, but he had 
 
258 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 conscientious scruples against seeking a man out 
 for such a purpose. It looked like proselyting. 
 
 But given time, a woman like Mrs. Feeley wins. 
 Before Mr. Lessing or Mr. Feeley had quite 
 made up their minds, Mr. Feeley had been con- 
 firmed while bewildered by nervous embarrass- 
 ment, and when old Mr. Rhodes died, there was 
 nobody but Mr. Feeley to elect in his place. He 
 would have his first meeting with the vestry 
 to-morrow evening, and Mr. Feeley was trem- 
 bling in his shoes. It was almost as bad as being 
 sprinkled. Not knowing the duties required of 
 a vestryman, he retired after the Christmas dinner 
 with a text-book of parliamentary law. 
 
 Gladys, glad of some diversion, packed a 
 basket, and went over the tracks to a washer- 
 woman's children. Mrs. Feeley had settled her- 
 self with " The Sorrows of Satan," when she 
 heard the gate click, and saw Laura Shepperson 
 coming up the walk. 
 
 Miss Corelli's masterpiece went under the chair 
 cushion with haste, and Mrs. Feeley drew toward 
 her a Ralph Waldo Emerson birthday-book which 
 Miss Creighton had sent her. The first fly-leaf, 
 which had evidently at some time contained an 
 inscription, had been torn out, Mrs. Feeley 
 noticed, but she did not intend that any one 
 else should. Laura was too much agitated to be 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 259 
 
 diverted by anything save a recognition of her 
 own state of mind. 
 
 " Are you alone ? " she asked, at once. Mrs. 
 Feeley recognised the dramatic atmosphere in 
 her visit, and hastened to be a responsive audience. 
 
 " Let me tell you something that a friend has 
 just brought to my ears," Laura said, " and see 
 what you think of Lily Beale then." 
 
 Mrs. Feeley laughed lightly. " I shall proba- 
 bly think of her exactly as I do now." Evidently 
 the tone was encouraging, for Laura answered 
 swiftly, " That is why I come to talk to you. 
 You are so wise. You are not prejudiced by 
 family ties, by old acquaintance." If Mrs. 
 Feeley winced, Laura did not see it* " You were 
 not brought up in this dead little town, where 
 everybody is blinded until some flash of light 
 comes. You can see through hypocrisy and 
 false friends." Laura drew in her breath, and 
 tossed her head backward, as one who would 
 throw off a weight of some sort. 
 
 "My poor child!" 
 
 " Last night," she measured every word by a 
 breath through her teeth, " at ten o'clock, Lily 
 Beale and Mr. Longmore were driving along 
 Bronson Avenue. They were seen." 
 
 Mrs. Feeley fairly held her breath with delight. 
 Here was a piece of news! 
 
 " Who saw them ? Couldn't it have been a 
 
26o THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 mistake?" she asked, eagerly. " Surely, it must 
 have been some one else." It seemed too good to 
 be true. 
 
 " I do not know whether I am at liberty to 
 tell who saw them." Holly Ainslee had told her 
 first, and afterward the same tale to everybody he 
 knew, begging each not to tell it. " But there 
 is no doubt about it. They were driving along 
 in, the shadow, when suddenly the electric light 
 showed full on their faces." 
 
 Mrs. Feeley gave an ugly little laugh. " Miss 
 Lily has fooled everybody very well indeed. Of 
 course this isn't the first time. We might have 
 known that she couldn't speak to him with such 
 authority as she seemed to have shown the night 
 of the dance, unless she were in the habit of seeing 
 him, meeting him. How they must have laughed ! 
 And how quickly she took up Christian Science 
 as an excuse, when she found that she had be- 
 trayed herself. She must have been doing this 
 for years. It is truly wonderful how a sin will 
 find one out at last." 
 
 " Do you think so ? " Laura asked, her eyes 
 growing narrow. " Do you think Lily Beale has 
 let me tell her all about Bob Longmore when all 
 the time she was meeting him secretly ? " 
 
 Mrs. Feeley put out a soothing hand. 
 
 " My dear, none of us are exempt from the 
 machinations of the deceitful. Be glad that you 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 261 
 
 have discovered this in time. You are better 
 v^^ithout such friends." 
 
 " I know I am, but to think of that girl looking 
 as though she were the greatest saint that walked 
 the earth, pretending that she hardly knew Bob, 
 and going out every night of her life and meet- 
 ing him. It makes my blood boil in my veins." 
 Laura's heated imagination only needed the oil 
 of Mrs. Feeley's words to see depths of iniquity 
 lighted up by their flames. " What would you 
 do?" 
 
 Mrs. Feeley thought a moment. 
 
 " I think if I were you, I should treat the whole 
 thing with dignified contempt." 
 
 " And never let her know that I know what 
 she has done? I knew there was some reason 
 why Mr. Longmore stayed away, why he did 
 not reform, and come back to me." 
 
 " Of course it was always you whom he loved. 
 It is now," softly. " You are too young to know 
 how men regard a girl like this Beale girl." 
 There was the bottled venom from years of calm 
 ignoring by the Beales in " this Beale girl." 
 " They never have the real, true love and respect 
 of any man. They are creatures to be thrown 
 aside. It is sad indeed for you to realise that 
 you have been friends with her." 
 
 " The first thing Bob Longmore asked me, 
 was, ' Are you jealous of Lily Beale ? ' " That 
 
262 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 was out before Laura knew it. When she real- 
 ised what she had said, she crimsoned, and went 
 on to explain, haltingly, that when she had seen 
 Mr. Longmore, she had told him that she must 
 finally discard him, and ask him to consider their 
 acquaintance at an end. 
 
 " And that was his reply ? " 
 
 " It was." 
 
 " That proves everything, — everything. It 
 was a guilty conscience speaking. You should 
 have known then, at once, that there was a close 
 connection between those two." 
 
 Laura arose and drew on the white gloves, 
 which she always wore — in diminishing degrees 
 of freshness according to the formality of the 
 occasion. " I shall go home at once, and write 
 her a letter and tell her so. She shall know 
 exactly what I think of her, and that I know — 
 all." 
 
 Mrs. Feeley drew her down again. 
 
 " No. You will only give her time to see Mr. 
 Longmore and prepare a defence. If they have 
 been clever enough to deceive everybody, they are 
 clever enough for that. Hurt her as she has 
 hurt you." Mrs. Feeley suddenly stopped. She 
 was forgetting her role of Christian. The eye 
 for an eye and tooth for a tooth doctrines 
 ingrained in her blood and bone were hard to 
 keep under the surface. " It seems only right 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 263 
 
 that Doctor Richards should be told what sort 
 of a girl he has cared for. It is a duty to him 
 that we owe." 
 
 " Do you think I should go to Doctor Richards 
 and tell him?" 
 
 " No, no. That might cause you to be mis- 
 understood. I will do that." 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 CHRISTMAS day brought two gifts to 
 Lily which dwarfed the rest. One was 
 a great bunch of fragrant roses from 
 Richards. He could not let the day go by with- 
 out letting her know that he thought of her. 
 
 Lily put her face into their honey-breathing 
 petals and her lips curved with happiness. 
 
 " Why do you wait so long? " she whispered. 
 
 The other was a letter from Mrs. Longmore, 
 telling her again that the gift which this Christ- 
 mas had brought was one of almost unbeliev- 
 able happiness. 
 
 Robert was taking her away that very day. 
 He was like a lover who is impatient to take his 
 bride into new scenes for a honeymoon, that they 
 may grow to know each other away from any 
 suggestion of a time when it was different. 
 That they could be leaving Lily to any trouble 
 on account of the night before, and the death of 
 the child, neither of them thought for a moment. 
 
 The holiday still clogged the wheels of busi- 
 ness the day after Christmas, and Judge Beale 
 264 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 265 
 
 was at home enjoying the piles of new books 
 which the day before had brought to his table. 
 
 It was with some surprise that he saw Geral- 
 dine come into the room with the black disap- 
 proval of youth puckering her brow. He waited 
 in some amusement, looking at the tragic mask 
 which she was trying to make of her peachy 
 young face, through the smoke of his after-break- 
 fast cigar. He knew that the explosion would 
 come sooner or later. 
 
 " Father," Jerry said, unsteadily, " I wish you 
 would send me away to school." 
 
 Judge Beale looked at his younger daughter 
 as though she had lost her senses. 
 
 It had been a theory of his that the place 
 for a girl was at home, that cooping from fifty 
 to five hundred, young, emotional creatures up 
 together could only result in mischief. He had 
 said dozens of times that any girl with a happy 
 home wanted to stay there. And here was his 
 own daughter ready to leave him. 
 
 " I'll study anything. I'll go anywhere. I'll 
 even go over to those silly schools in Western 
 Kentucky that they send the stupid girls to. I 
 won't stay at home." 
 
 "What is it?" her father asked. 
 
 " It's — " Jerry gulped. And then she burst 
 out, wrath getting the better of her tears. 
 
 " Who do you think half lives here, with Lily ? 
 
266 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 She's up-stairs now, and Lily's door is locked. 
 That fool wife of Mr. DeLacy Rossiter's, that 
 everybody laughs at. Nobody knows her. She 
 is just a common little thing, not in our set at 
 all. Even the girls at school tell stories about 
 the mistakes she makes. She can't speak good 
 grammar." 
 
 " ' Good English ' is a better term," said her 
 father, mildly. 
 
 " Oh, you can laugh if you want to ! But I 
 tell you I think Lily has been — hypnotised, or 
 something. She does such funny things. And 
 I don't think it's fair. After awhile nobody nice 
 will have anything to do with us. That awful 
 old Leftwick woman — " 
 
 " My dear, your language is not all I could 
 desire." 
 
 But Jerry was a young American who had 
 always been a good deal freer in comment to her 
 father than any other member of the family. 
 
 " I don't care. She is awful. Nobody goes 
 there, and she wears strings of diamonds all the 
 time, and says ' ourn ' and ' yourn.' " Scorn 
 could go no farther. 
 
 " How long has Mrs. Rossiter been coming 
 here? " 
 
 " I don't know. It's only the last week that 
 I have seen her. But she's here every single 
 day, and she gave Lily a Christmas present ! " 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 267 
 
 Judge Beale looked at Jerry, and felt anew 
 the impotence of a man before his children. 
 
 " Jerry," he said, at last, " I am afraid you 
 are a snob." 
 
 " Well, now, papa, I ask you, do you like it? 
 Do you like the way Lily is doing? If wanting 
 my family to associate with nice people and not 
 do queer things is being a snob, why, all right, 
 I am one, and so are you." She felt the sympathy 
 behind the cigar, and capped it. 
 
 " The best person for us to discuss this matter 
 with is Lily. I am sure that if you make her 
 understand that she is causing you pain " — 
 Judge Beale could not keep the humour out of 
 his voice — " she will gladly give up Mrs. Rossi- 
 ter to please you." 
 
 " Do you think she will ? " with extreme sar- 
 casm. " She would say she was doing her some 
 good. I wish that my family didn't care whether 
 people were good or bad. That's the way to be. 
 If people are bad, just let them alone — that's 
 all." 
 
 " Pass by on the other side of the road." 
 
 " That's not necessary," said practical Geral- 
 dine, who did not catch the allusion. " If you 
 hold your head high enough, and never see 
 them, they'll get out of your road. I hate people 
 that have something the matter with them." 
 
 " Geraldine," her father said, judicially, " if 
 
268 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 I felt fit for the task, I should deliver some 
 remarks to you, upon your unhappy state of 
 mind. You should say these things to your 
 sister." 
 
 " You think she'd lecture, don't you ? Well, 
 she don't. I've said them to her until I'm black 
 in the face. You don't suppose I'd have come 
 to you first, do you ? She won't even argue any- 
 thing. She don't feel like other people. That's 
 what makes her so queer. Nobody else is like 
 that." 
 
 There was a commotion in the hall, and Jack 
 came in, breathless and red. 
 
 " There's a man out here who says he wants 
 to see Lily, a constable," — Jack's high voice was 
 breaking with agitation, — " and I think you 
 ought to see him first." 
 
 " Some more ! " Jerry said, and followed her 
 father through the conservatory, and into the 
 hall. Lily and Mrs. Rossiter were coming down 
 the stairs. 
 
 The man in the hall cleared his throat, but he 
 evidently felt his own importance as he answered 
 Judge Beale's query as to his business. 
 
 " I have come to arrest Lily Beale for causing 
 the death of William Henry Sawyer by illegally 
 practising medicine," he said. He was giving it 
 as straight as it had been given to him. 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 269 
 
 Maybelle Rossiter put her arm across Lily, and 
 burst out with a cry. 
 
 "Who made out this warrant?" 
 
 " Sanders." 
 
 Judge Beale was too angry to speak. 
 
 " You go down and say that I will attend to 
 this matter." 
 
 "Duty's duty, Jedge." 
 
 " I'll be responsible here. You go." He held 
 the door open, and the man went. 
 
 " It's all wery well for 'em to tell a feller 
 what to do," he muttered to himself, " but I 
 ain't taking no chances with Jedge Beale." 
 
 "Oh, what is it?" Maybelle moaned. "She 
 hasn't done anything ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Rossiter," Judge Beale said, " you will 
 be happier at home. Lily, my dear, come here 
 and tell me about this." 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 THE new factories of which Stevensburg 
 was so proud, which were adding every 
 day to the town's material wealth, had 
 changed, by the voice of their workmen, the rulers 
 of the town. In the old days, full of traditions 
 of the South, the men of the old families, of char- 
 acter, of learning, had felt it their duty to hold 
 the offices. Now few of them were allowed the 
 privilege. The town's officers were elected by 
 the people from the people. 
 
 The coroner was a plumber who bore the 
 title of doctor. When the State of Kentucky 
 first awakened to a sense of her responsibili- 
 ties, and her legislative bodies solemnly con- 
 sidered how much a physician should know before 
 he was licensed to attempt to cure, there were so 
 many doctors, practising medicine with as great 
 success as any of their contemporaries, who had 
 had no schooling at all, that a special law was 
 made. If a man had practised medicine for a 
 certain number of years, his license was given 
 him without further question. When Judge 
 270 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 271 
 
 Beale told an appreciative audience stories of his 
 native State, this plumber, whose local nickname 
 was " Doctor Tin-pot " was given as an example 
 of the vagaries of law. In his tinkering days, 
 he had once attempted the cure of a carpenter 
 who had fallen from a house and been injured 
 internally. When a real physician was finally 
 brought, he asked the tinker what he had done 
 for the now dying man. 
 
 " I give him rosum an' alum," Doctor Tin-pot 
 said ; " alum to draw the parts together, an' rosum 
 to make 'm stick." 
 
 Of late years he had been more noted for his 
 verdicts than for his practice. He had announced 
 that one man came to his death " from an un- 
 known cause, believed to be brass knuckles worn 
 by a gentleman who had an alibi." 
 
 It was Judge Beale who had first appreciated 
 the coroner, and he was consequently regarded 
 by that ofHcial with a bitter hatred. He knew 
 that he was being made sport of, but he could 
 not grasp how, or where. 
 
 When the case of the Sawyer child was brought 
 to him, and he had heard Clay's story, he ventured 
 to express a belief that this would be a verdict 
 that " the big-bugs that thought they was so 
 darned funny wouldn't do no laughin' at, to 
 speak of." 
 
 The excited Sawyer women had added their 
 
272 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 stories, and the coroner promptly announced that 
 the child had " come to its death through mal- 
 practice at the hands of one Lily Beale, who had 
 no license to practise medicine." 
 
 When Judge Beale went down-town that morn- 
 ing, he had no fears as to his ability to " stop this 
 nonsense," — but he literally reckoned without 
 the host. 
 
 The people's curiosity had been aroused. 
 They wanted the piquant sight of Judge Beale's 
 daughter, the beautiful healer of whom they had 
 heard, being tried before a magistrate. They 
 wanted to hear " all about it." 
 
 The physicians in town shook their heads, and 
 said they were sorry that Clay had precipitated 
 this thing, but if an example would stop this 
 Christian Science tomfoolery, the sooner it came 
 the better. It would be a lesson to the com- 
 munity. And almost every one was there to 
 hear the story at the trial. 
 
 Doctor Richards came to Judge Beale's office, 
 and had written to Lily, and begged that he 
 might come with her, sit beside her, do anything ; 
 but both she and her father had steadfastly 
 refused. 
 
 " There is no need of giving the papers one 
 more morsel of sensationalism," Judge Beale had 
 said, grimly; and that had been the final word. 
 
 "Do you wish me to go?" Mrs. Beale had 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 273 
 
 asked. It seemed as though the very fountains 
 of her mother-love had been dried up in this 
 ordeal. Her gaze seemed to slip away from the 
 face of her eldest daughter. Her morning eyes 
 showed how she had spent the nights, but day- 
 light saw no breakdown. She went about her 
 daily tasks as usual, with no word even to her 
 husband. To him had come a passionate, new 
 tenderness for his child. He was ready to fight 
 the world for her, forgetting his own hardness 
 against this strange new cult of hers. She was 
 his, and to be protected. 
 
 The morning of the trial Lily came down- 
 stairs, serene of face, her colour unchanged. Her 
 smart blue cloth jacket, with its bands and but- 
 tons, the wings of her hat at just the right angle, 
 made her look like a typical young woman of 
 fashion. There was no pale shadow of martyr- 
 dom in her modish appearance. Doubtless it was 
 like this that those ladies of ancient Rome went 
 serenely to the tribunals which were to condemn 
 them to the tigers. To-day our tigers are not less 
 cruel, although they have changed their form. 
 
 " Mamma," Lily said to her gray-faced mother, 
 " whatever they do or say, I am perfectly willing 
 to suffer for my faith's sake. It is no disgrace. 
 It is the road a good many saints have gone. I'm 
 in good company," and she gave a little smile 
 of reassurance. 
 
274 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 At the door they met Jack in his Sunday 
 clothes, gloved and hatted, and standing almost 
 straight. 
 
 " Where are you going, sir ? " his father asked. 
 
 " I am going with my sister, where I belong," 
 the boy answered, and looked into his father's 
 eyes with their counterparts. 
 
 " Quite right," his father said. 
 
 After they had reached the gate there was a 
 flurry behind them, and Geraldine came, her fur 
 boa dragging off one shoulder. 
 
 " I am going, too. If mamma don't know 
 what she ought to do, I do," she said, grandly. 
 
 " You go back and stay with your mother, and 
 I do not wish to hear you speak in that tone 
 again," Judge Beale stopped to say. 
 
 " I've as good a right as Jack." 
 
 " Shall I escort you back? " 
 
 Jerry turned in a fury. 
 
 " I suppose that Rossiter girl will be there ! " 
 She turned back because she did not dare dis- 
 obey, but she filled her mind with cutting things 
 she might dare say to her mother. They all died 
 when she saw the calm woman who represented 
 law and order to her household lying on the sofa 
 hysterical with weeping. Jerry spent the morn- 
 ing in meek offices, almost forgetting the cause 
 of it all. 
 
 Jack gritted his teeth at the attention they 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 275 
 
 attracted as they went down the street. He won- 
 dered why they had not driven. From Mrs. 
 Feeley's to the Sheppersons' every curtain seemed 
 to have a face behind it. 
 
 Early that morning Mrs. Feeley had telephoned 
 for Doctor Richards. She felt that she must tell 
 him now about that drive with Longmore. In 
 the snatches that had come to her of the stories 
 of the midnight drive and the child's death, she 
 had not connected Lily's visit to the Camp with 
 the drive. She fairly ached with a desire to 
 see how Doctor Richards would " take it." 
 
 Her summons was so peremptory that Richards 
 was obliged to obey it, and as Lily went by, he sat 
 by Mrs. Feeley's chair. Her wicked little eyes 
 looked from the window to his face. 
 
 " I think my illness is mostly nervous, doctor," 
 she said, plaintively. " I have been in such 
 agony. My nature is so sympathetic. People 
 bring their troubles to me, and I suffer with 
 them. Only a day or two ago I was grievously 
 shocked. One of our beautiful, dear girls came 
 to me to tell me how she had been wronged by 
 a friend." Doctor Richards, his mind busy with 
 his own affairs, hardly heard her. " She had 
 been true to her lover through terrible trials, and 
 then she discovered that he had been led away 
 from her by her dearest friend, — that they had 
 been meeting, her lover and her friend, in all 
 
276 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 sorts of clandestine ways. They were seen at 
 midnight down on Bronson Avenue. She asked 
 my advice. How should I advise her ? " 
 
 Richards laughed. " I am afraid I am not 
 so sympathetic as you are. I do not know. If 
 her friend and her lover are disloyal, the easiest 
 thing would be to get rid of them both." Pa- 
 tients had queer fancies, he thought. They were 
 always confiding in doctors. Mrs. Feeley was 
 a sufHciently clever actress to deceive his unsus- 
 pecting mind. 
 
 " But this rests on my heart. The man is a 
 wicked man. It seems terrible that Robert Long- 
 more should wreck the lives of two girls like 
 Laura Shepperson and Lily Beale." Mrs. Feeley 
 put her hand over her mouth after she had spoken, 
 and gave an inarticulate cry. 
 
 " What have I said ? " she asked, piteously. 
 
 Richard's face did not change in one lean 
 muscle. He arose, looked at the bottle on the 
 table. 
 
 " Mrs. Feeley," he said, ceremoniously, " I will 
 turn your case with all my notes over to any 
 physician you may name." And with a bow he 
 walked out of the room. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE court-room where the magistrate held 
 his court was a small one, hardly more 
 than an office. There was a slightly ele- 
 vated seat for the magistrate, beside which was 
 a rusty black chair for witnesses. 
 
 The gas radiator makes a close heat, and the 
 air was stifling with the crowd. The case just 
 before this one had been for the settlement of a 
 dispute between the residents of a house-boat on 
 the river and a woman on the bank of a profession 
 our civilisation ignores. 
 
 The house-boat people are a class apart, veri- 
 table gipsies, living sometimes a dozen or two 
 together in one small room as indiscriminately 
 as animals. The Sawyers, who had come early, 
 had the unusual glory of social elevation when 
 they contemplated the house-boat people, who 
 were there for the trial of one of their kind. They 
 were thrilled with excitement. The Sawyer 
 family had never had such a Christmas as this 
 had been. They would date from it all the rest 
 of their lives. Yesterday, there had been the 
 277 
 
278 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 baby's funeral, when Mr. Batton had preached 
 a powerful sermon, in which he had warned them 
 against the terrible sin of blasphemy, the follow- 
 ing after wicked people who tried to play upon 
 their imaginations by the devil's arts. Mr. Batton 
 had no soft words at his command, and he felt 
 an anger which he called a righteous anger 
 against the woman who had brought this child 
 to its death. He was particularly severe with 
 Lyddy. His whole attitude toward her had been 
 one of censure. He remembered that she had 
 been one of the people who had had his particular 
 teachings upon this very subject. He had not 
 said, " I told you so," but his remarks over the 
 poor little coffin could have been freely translated 
 into those words. As he spoke on, he worked 
 himself into a gasping fury and hurled invective. 
 He had said that the death of this child was a 
 sin against God and man, and it would surely 
 be punished by both. He had had a little 
 conversation with Doctor Clay, who had made an 
 exception to his rule of never attending a 
 patient's funeral, before he stood up to speak. 
 
 The Sawyer women had wept loudly as they 
 listened, and sobbed, " Pore little feller ! " as they 
 looked at him for the last time. But there was 
 one woman whose eyes were dry. Lyddy had 
 shed all of her tears, and she remembered that 
 not one of these women had even spoken to one 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 279 
 
 of her children except to call it a " brat," and ask 
 how many aprons a week its mother washed 
 for it. 
 
 Jake had gone off to the country. He felt that 
 he was held responsible for bringing Miss Beale 
 " to kill the baby," and his soul weakened under 
 the responsibility. 
 
 The women looked at Lyddy as one set apart 
 by grief. " She don't know nothin'," they told 
 the neighbours. Doctor Clay, who appeared as 
 plaintiff for the people, evidently thought so, too, 
 for she was not called as a witness at the inquest. 
 
 The magistrate had made an effort to clear 
 the room. The house-boat people could be hustled 
 out without any ceremony. They had no votes. 
 But there was a difficulty in disposing of the rest. 
 This was a case that a great many of the magis- 
 trate's friends wanted to hear. His wife and 
 daughters and their friends were there to feast 
 their eyes on the Beales in any sort of trouble, 
 and to hear the story. The reporters were there 
 with eager pencils, but there were very few 
 friends of the Beales. They had thought it vulgar 
 to go. 
 
 That morning at breakfast Mr. Shepperson had 
 expressed his strong indignation at the " out- 
 rage," and had suggested that Laura and Miss 
 Creighton should go with him to show their 
 sympathy and friendship. 
 
28o THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 " I do not believe in women going to court 
 generally, but on this occasion I should like to 
 see the town turn out, — to see there every friend 
 the Beales have." 
 
 " You will not find them," said Miss Eme- 
 line. 
 
 " I suppose Bob Longmore will be there," Vir- 
 ginia said, helping herself to another hot cake. 
 " You and Bob Longmore are the family friends. 
 If you marry Miss Cathie — You needn't look at 
 me in that way, Aunt Em. Anybody with half 
 an eye can see that father's got a mash on Miss 
 Cathie. No deceased-wife' s-sister business doing, 
 this year." 
 
 " Virginia, leave the room." 
 
 Virginia took the morning paper from the hand 
 of the negro boy who was serving the cakes, antic- 
 ipating her aunt's outstretched hand. 
 
 " Pa," she said, as she opened its dingy gray 
 sheets, " if I had left the room as often as you've 
 told me to go, I'd have worn a hole in the carpet 
 between here and the door." 
 
 " Mr. Longmore seems to have found himself 
 in a situation he did not care to face," Laura said, 
 lightly. " He and his mother have left town." 
 
 " A good riddance," Mr. Shepperson muttered. 
 
 Virginia gave a crow of laughter from the 
 interior of the Morning Shaft. 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 281 
 
 " If you go down this morning, you may meet 
 some other old friends." And then she read : 
 
 " ' Serena Payne has a house-boater arrested 
 for stealing a case of beer from her porch.' " 
 
 Laura snatched the paper from her sister's 
 hand, her delicate, pointed face distorted with 
 anger. 
 
 " How dare you ! How can you ! You ought 
 to be whipped." 
 
 " Well, I can't help it if she's your cousin." 
 Virginia kept up the fight as her father took her 
 by the shoulders and gently propelled her toward 
 the door, his face grim. " Aunt Em over there 
 looks as though she could stand any disgrace in 
 the Shepperson family." 
 
 Mr. Shepperson went down-town wondering if 
 other men took any comfort in their daughters. 
 He thought of Serena Payne. She had been 
 Serena Shepperson, his dead brother's child. 
 He was thankful for the small mercy that she had 
 a married name. 
 
 Serena had been such a beautiful little girl. 
 When she was fifteen there were vague hints 
 about her. She had acquaintances of grown men, 
 who were unknown to her family. At sixteen her 
 eyes were like imitation sapphires in their false 
 brightness. When the family friends heard the 
 stories current about her, they seemed too un- 
 pleasantly vulgar to be true. Nice girls and boys 
 
282 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 of her own age instinctively shrank from her. 
 At eighteen she eloped with an actor in one of 
 the cheap theatrical companies, and everybody 
 drew a sigh of relief. Then there was a miser- 
 able story about her from Maurilla, and pres- 
 ently she was back, drinking, loud, a horror to 
 the town that had known her, until at last she 
 had joined the colony on the river, which had 
 grown big and gaudy with colour since the vil- 
 lage became a city. The very name of the street 
 on which she lived was tabooed. Almost every 
 town has its demon-possessed to-day as nineteen 
 hundred years ago. 
 
 It was with an apprehension that Mr. Shepper- 
 son looked about him when he entered the court- 
 room, and when he saw the brilliantly coloured 
 face of Serena Payne, under its great black hat 
 of plumes, he turned away with a disgust that 
 nauseated him. Serena Payne was a large 
 woman, with heavy, red, contemptuous lips, and 
 lines about them marked there by the scenes in 
 which she had lived. The eyelids over the blue 
 eyes, a little dull now, were tinted by cynicism. 
 Lily Beale had grown up since her day, but she 
 had that fearful joy in what she knew was the 
 humiliation of the Beales which belongs to the 
 misery that loves company. 
 
 She narrowed her eyes a little more when she 
 looked at Lily. She had expected to see veiled 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 283 
 
 tears or fanaticism. The calmness of Lily's well- 
 bred, pure face, tinted by the fresh air outside, 
 and seemingly unaffected by the close room, puz- 
 zled her. 
 
 Doctor Clay took the stand as the first witness. 
 The prosecuting attorney was a thin, glib young 
 man who had taught a country school while he 
 studied law, and who was agreed to be " as sharp 
 as they make 'em." His questions brought out 
 Doctor Clay's story, to which everybody listened 
 as breathlessly as though each individual in the 
 room had not known his reputation as an unrelia- 
 ble man. 
 
 Doctor Clay's story was a simple narrative. 
 He had had a patient, a child named Sawyer, ill 
 with diphtheria. He had visited the child for 
 four days. He had feared the growth of a mem- 
 brane in the child's throat, and he had gone on 
 Christmas eve prepared to perform an operation 
 if necessary. He had found the defendant, Lily 
 Beale, there. She had taken the case out of his 
 hands, although she was, he understood, unli- 
 censed to practise medicine, and had utterly 
 refused to allow him to perform the operation. 
 She had further insulted him by calling him a 
 " murderer." He had, he asserted, begged her to 
 allow him to call Doctor Richards. Clay hesi- 
 tated here, as an actor will stop for an instant, 
 to give a point full effect. But Miss Beale had 
 
284 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 repeated her remark that all doctors were mur- 
 derers. While he was trying to convince her 
 that his operation was necessary, the child choked 
 to death. 
 
 There was a murmur throughout the room. 
 This was worse than they had supposed. 
 
 The Sawyer women were thrilled by it. They 
 had been there; they knew, or they would have 
 known had their minds been trained to know 
 anything really, that the story as told by Clay 
 was a tissue of falsehood, but now they were 
 hypnotised by their own delight in the horrible, 
 as minds like theirs have been since the beginning 
 of human testimony. 
 
 Cross-examination by Judge Beale failed to 
 shake this testimony. The magistrate fingered 
 the heavy Masonic emblem on his watch-chain, 
 letting it fall into the deep wrinkles of his broad 
 waistcoat, and smiled insolently. Judge Beale 
 and he were old political enemies. 
 
 The traditional theory that a beautiful young 
 girl can touch the coarsest heart is one that we 
 may see dying every day, did we choose to look. 
 
 The Sawyer women testified, one after the 
 other, repeating and adding colour to Clay's tale, 
 taken from their own imaginations and the news- 
 paper stories they had heard told. 
 
 The last of them, Abe's wife, had insisted that 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 285 
 
 Lily had said that the child had better die than 
 be touched by a doctor. 
 
 Lily, her face as placid and untouched as a 
 flower, went through the simple formality of 
 being sworn. The audience drew a sigh of satis- 
 faction, and strained its ears for what was to 
 come. 
 
 The story was very simple: The father of 
 the child had come for her; she was in the 
 house with the child about five minutes before it 
 died. The mother of the child refused to allow 
 her to touch it. When Doctor Clay entered, he 
 took the baby from its mother's arms, and said 
 that he would take it to the pest-house. It seemed 
 to pass out, as he held it. 
 
 " There was no reference to an operation ? " 
 
 " None at all." 
 
 " Did you speak to Doctor Clay ? " 
 
 " I did not." 
 
 " Did you give the child any medicine ? " 
 
 " I did not." 
 
 " What did Doctor Clay say when he saw that 
 the child was dead ? " 
 
 " ' Let me see if you can get a death certificate 
 out of me. I've got these Christian Scientists 
 where I want them.' " 
 
 "That is all," Judge Beale said. 
 
 The young prosecuting attorney took up the 
 witness. 
 
286 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 " What do you mean by ' pass out ? ' " 
 
 " I mean that the Life, the Spirit, went out." 
 
 " I thought you people," the young lawyer's 
 tone was familiar to jocularity, " didn't believe 
 in death." 
 
 " Life is immortal." 
 
 " The child didn't die, then? " 
 
 " Certainly not." 
 
 " Well, I notice they buried it yesterday," with 
 an air of wit. " Where did it pass out to? " 
 
 " To God," said Lily. 
 
 " Oh, that's like all the rest of us. But I under- 
 stood your idea was that you could keep people 
 from dying. But I see. It's just plain, old- 
 fashioned dying you object to. ' Passing out ' 
 is all right. But people object to ' passing out.' 
 It's just as uncomfortable as dying." 
 
 Judge Beale had objected, but the magistrate 
 let the young man go on. 
 
 " What good did you expect to do this child 
 by letting it choke to death ? " 
 
 " There is death for those who do not under- 
 stand that they are a reflection of all Life," Lily 
 said. In her heart was a prayer that she might 
 make these poor ignorant people see. What mat- 
 tered anything else? She herself, that dignity of 
 which convention would be called out to remind 
 her, was as nothing. Here were people dying, be- 
 cause they could not understand this which was 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 287 
 
 so sure and so simple. She was not of those 
 who judge too readily who are the swine, before 
 whom it were folly to cast pearls. " The baby 
 need not have died had those about it known 
 that it was not necessary." 
 
 She vibrated with her wish to tell them, these 
 people, that the birthright of dominion over the 
 universe might be theirs < the dominion of the 
 body was theirs to take. Each of them was 
 created in God's image. She saw that only. 
 
 " The Divine Life is the real part of us. When 
 we are in harmony with it, we are part of it, its 
 expression. Nothing can hurt us really. Surely 
 you can see how we transform ourselves, make 
 ourselves what we are. Even a dog knows a 
 good man from a bad man. We mark ourselves, 
 our faces, our walk, with our thoughts." 
 
 Serena Payne sat with staring eyes, the awful 
 lines about her mouth relaxed a little. 
 
 The magistrate's gavel came down. " This 
 isn't a church. We don't care for a sermon this 
 morning." 
 
 Clay's eyes went from one face to another, 
 trying to find a pair to match them, but everybody 
 was looking at Lily. 
 
 " That's all," the young lawyer said, shortly. 
 
 As Lily left the chair, Lyddy Sawyer came 
 forward and seated herself. Nobody had sum- 
 
288 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 moned her, and Judge Beale did not have time 
 to ask her a question. 
 
 " I jes' want to say," she said, " that every 
 word Miss Beale says is so. I wisht now I'd 
 'a' let her had th' baby." 
 
 " And," Judge Beale's voice rang out, " is 
 this story of Doctor Clay's true? Did you hear 
 Miss Beale speak to Doctor Clay?" 
 
 "No, sir." 
 
 "What did he say?" 
 
 " He said he'd take th' baby to the pest-house." 
 Lyddy's face worked. 
 
 " And that he had the Christian Scientists 
 where he wanted them? " 
 
 " I object to the opposing counsel putting 
 words into the mouth of the witness," said the 
 prosecuting attorney. 
 
 " Objection sustained." 
 
 "What else did he say?" 
 
 " That he wouldn't give no certificate, and that 
 he had the Christian Scientists where he wanted 
 them." 
 
 " A very good place, too," said the prosecuting 
 attorney, as he took up the questioning. 
 
 " You — er — were pretty sorry over the 
 baby, wasn't thinking of much else but the baby, 
 Mrs. Sawyer?" 
 
 " I could hear," said Lyddy, in the tone of 
 information. 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 289 
 
 The magistrate called himself lenient that he 
 imposed the minimum fine for practising medi- 
 cine without a license. He hoped it would be 
 a warning. He said that the public, and particu- 
 larly helpless little children, should be in the 
 hands of careful, skilful physicians, protected 
 against irresponsible people. 
 
 On the way home, Jack (his father let the 
 brother and sister go home tc^ether) came close 
 to his sister. 
 
 " Lily," he said, " I think you are all right, 
 but you oughtn't to mix up with roughs. I 
 wanted to smash that jay lawyer — with his 
 cheek! How could you talk about things like 
 that to those — those jays? " He couldn't think 
 of any word to use to a lady that was more ex- 
 pressive. 
 
 " Because I so want everybody to know." 
 
 " They wouldn't know anything if they could. 
 And if it's goin' to do 'em any good, I don't want 
 ''em to. I wish they were all dead now — all 
 that trash." 
 
 His young soul burned with indignation. Lily 
 took his arm with a laugh. 
 
 " Jack," she said, " I love everybody. If 
 they knew, they'd all be so nice they wouldn't 
 be jays." 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 THE supper-table at Mrs. Allaire's was sur- 
 rounded by an animated company the 
 evening after the trial. Holly Ainslee 
 had found time to attend. 
 
 " I didn't exactly take a front seat," he said. 
 " There were lots of old friends attending the 
 two trials." A suppressed giggle came from one 
 or two women at this reference to Serena Payne. 
 There is an order of mind which finds amuse- 
 ment in a veiled mention of a shocking, sorrowful 
 fact. Doctor Richards was not at the table. He 
 had been very busy lately. At any rate he seldom 
 ate his meals at Mrs. Allaire's table. 
 
 "But did you hear?" 
 
 " I heard. It was Lily Beale against the whole 
 field. She said one thing, and Clay and the 
 Sawyers said another. Evidently the judge be- 
 lieved the Sawyers. He fined her. But the best 
 thing was her sermon. She preached us a 
 sermon." There were various expressions of 
 wonder and disbelief. 
 
 "Lily Beale! She is a well-bred girl. Don't 
 290 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 291 
 
 jest," Mrs. Allaire said. She had been a little 
 sharp with Ainslee lately. He had deserted her, 
 and she had heard of the visits to the Shepper- 
 sons. 
 
 "Well, that's what the judge called it. It 
 was a very good sermon. Had more ginger 
 than ' She bound a -scarlet thread in the win- 
 dow,' although it wasn't so long. She did it. 
 I certainly felt sorry for Judge Beale," he added, 
 magnanimously. 
 
 A sharp-voiced woman, who ran the sewing- 
 machine emporium, leaned forward from the 
 lower end of the table. She had been in the 
 town six months, and saw it as a map before 
 her, socially speaking. It was one of Mrs. Al- 
 laire's grievances that she was compelled to have 
 her company three times a day, but a paying 
 boarder was not to be even snubbed. 
 
 " But I heard that the child's mother corrobo- 
 rated Miss Beale." 
 
 " Oh, that was rather pitiful," Ainslee said. 
 " Poor ignorant thing ! She naturally clings to 
 the idea that something might have saved the 
 poor little rat. Goodness knows, if I'd been born 
 a Sawyer, I'd think I was in luck to be dead. 
 But I guess this will put a stop to Christian 
 Science healing in this town. The kid died. 
 That's settled." 
 
 Maybelle had sat just where the gaslight from 
 
292 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 the centre of the table shone upon her face. It 
 was alternately red and white as she listened. 
 She feared Mr. Ainslee's replies, and she seldom 
 addressed him. He seemed able to make her 
 ridiculous always. But she could not help speak- 
 ing now. 
 
 " Will it be against the law for her to cure any- 
 body?" 
 
 " It is against the law for her to try it," Ainslee 
 replied. " She don't seem to be quite so able to 
 cure as she thought, or as she pretended to think. 
 It seems to be developing now that Miss Beale is 
 interested in other things than healing — she 
 seems to be a pretty shrewd young lady." 
 
 The sharp-voiced woman down the table spoke 
 again. 
 
 " I heard to-day that all this healing business 
 was just a blind. She got mad at Mr. Long- 
 more, and gave him a dressing down at her party, 
 and then to cover up the fact that they were old 
 friends, and that she had a right to scold him, 
 said she cured him by Christian Science." 
 
 " That certainly took us in for awhile," Ainslee 
 said. 
 
 " I also heard," said the woman, " that she 
 and Mr. Longmore were out driving Christmas 
 eve, and sonjebody saw them, and she went to 
 see the Sawyer child so that she would have an 
 excuse for being out." 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 293 
 
 "Now who told you that?" The table was 
 visibly excited. 
 
 " I got it pretty straight. And I also heard 
 that Judge Beale had given Bob Longmore six 
 hours in which to leave town." 
 
 " It's these innocent girls that do all the mis- 
 chief," somebody else said. 
 
 " By the way, where's the doctor ? " Ainslee 
 asked, innocently, looking about amid smothered 
 laughter. 
 
 Maybelle's face grew red. 
 
 " I think Miss Beale is as good and sweet as 
 she can be, and that she can cure people." 
 
 There was silence. Ainslee looked at her quiz- 
 zically, and her husband angrily. Ainslee had 
 opened his mouth for one of his purring remarks, 
 when he caught Rossiter's gloomy eye shifted 
 toward his for an instant, and decided that his 
 remark was better left unsaid. 
 
 " I think it is very sweet of you to take up for 
 her in that way," Mrs. Allaire said, amiably. 
 " But really, when you come to think of it, there 
 isn't anybody to be found that she has actually 
 cured. That child they talked so much about 
 has gone away." 
 
 " And I heard," the sharp-voiced woman, who 
 certainly seemed unusually sharp of ear as well 
 as of voice, said, " that the child was as bad as 
 
294 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 ever, and that the Beales were paying the woman 
 to stay in the country." 
 
 " There's Mr. Longmore." Maybelle was de- 
 fiant. But nobody answered her. Amid general 
 laughter, the table broke up. 
 
 Ainslee moved his seat down next to Mrs. 
 Allaire, and had another cup of coffee. 
 
 " What's struck poor Maybelle? " 
 
 " Oh, Lily Beale came and called on her, and 
 I believe she goes up there. Of course she would 
 be anxious to defend her to show that she knew 
 her. Poor little thing!" 
 
 " Maybe she's curing Maybelle of something." 
 
 " If it is ignorance, she hasn't gone far." 
 
 Up-stairs the Rossiters sat by the little round 
 table, on which the Welsbach burner stood in a 
 rose mat which Maybelle had crocheted with the 
 idea that it added to the cosiness of the room. 
 That whole table irritated DeLacy. He didn't 
 know why, but it looked wrong. He didn't read 
 much, but he brought home some good solid books 
 and insisted upon Maybelle's reading them. The 
 sight of her neat pile of Mtmsey's made him 
 realise that she wasn't like the other girls. They 
 read Munsey's, but threw them around carelessly, 
 and always mentioned that they bought them 
 " simply for the pictures." She had one of 
 DeLacy's books in her hand now, but she 
 wasn't reading. He usually went down-town in 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 295 
 
 the evening, after a Stevensburg habit, and some 
 way this evening it seemed to him that Maybelle 
 was waiting for him to be gone. 
 
 Consequently he lighted a cigar and reached 
 under the table for another book. It was a 
 minute before Maybelle saw what he had. Then 
 she gave a little gasp and sat quite still. 
 
 Rossiter looked at the title, and opened the 
 book at the fly-leaf. Written inside in a bold 
 hand was " To sweet little Mrs. Rossiter, from 
 her friend who has faith, Mrs. Eliza Leftwick." 
 It had been written by Johnny at his mother's 
 dictation. 
 
 "What in hell is this damned nonsense?" 
 Rossiter asked, furiously. It seemed to him that 
 only by swearing could he make an adequate anti- 
 dote to the book. 
 
 " Science and Health, with Key to the Scrip- 
 tures," he read out in the most sarcastic tone at 
 his command. " What does that old — squaw 
 mean by daring to send that trash to you ? " He 
 started toward the fire, and then realised that 
 a gas fire was not intended for destroying. " I'll 
 send it back to her, and I'll make that back- 
 country trash understand their place." 
 
 " Oh, Lacy, don't. She's been so kind." May- 
 belle's delicate face began to pucker with coming 
 tears. 
 
 " Kind ! Those people can't be kind to you." 
 
296 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 All his resentment at having to work for Left- 
 wick went into anger at his wife, at what seemed 
 a new humiliation. " What did she give you this 
 stuff for ? Is she toadying to the Beales ? " 
 
 " It's a great book. Miss Lily told me to read 
 it. She wanted to give me one — she's your 
 kind," poor Maybelle pleaded, — " but Mrs. Left- 
 wick had sent it to me. I'm better whenever 
 I've read it." She hadn't intended to say that, 
 and she stopped suddenly. 
 
 "Better of what?" 
 
 " Oh," Maybelle faltered, the blood fluttering 
 into her cheeks, giving the lie to her poor little 
 words, " just better." 
 
 Rossiter put the book down. He looked at 
 his wife as though he had never seen her before, 
 as a stranger might have looked who was seeking 
 to know every secret her face could tell. And 
 in the drawn skin, the circles about her eyes, the 
 dry lips, Rossiter saw warnings that tore at his 
 very heart. 
 
 He leaned over and took her wrists in his 
 hands. There was no tenderness in his touch. 
 He was furious that she should be ill, and that 
 she had not given him an earlier chance to ward 
 an illness off. And she had been letting folly 
 trifle with her. 
 
 " Oh, Lacy, you hurt me ! " 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 297 
 
 " Tell me," he said, " what is the matter? Tell 
 me!" 
 
 Maybelle drew a sobbing breath. 
 
 " It's — oh, Lacy, oh, Lacy, I'm so afraid! " 
 She broke into pitiful crying. " I wasn't afraid. 
 Miss Lily was taking it all away. When I'm with 
 her I'm not a bit afraid, and — it's getting 
 better." 
 
 " Whafs getting better?" 
 
 " That lump." 
 
 "What lump? Why don't you tell me?" 
 
 " In my breast, under my arm." She almost 
 whispered it between her sobs. 
 
 " You — have a lump in your breast ? " 
 
 The man's face was pallid, and his lips parted, 
 as though it were difificult for him to get his 
 breath through. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And — your mothei" — " 
 
 " Oh, don't say it! " Maybelle wailed. " Miss 
 Lily says I'm never to think it. She made me 
 stop, and since then it isn't nearly so big, and 
 it's not sore like it was." 
 
 "How long?" 
 
 " A long time. Since we came here I noticed 
 it first." 
 
 " And you went to that Leftwick woman and 
 Lily Beale, and never told me. You were letting 
 
298 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 them kill you, let you die, and you never told 
 me!" 
 
 " Miss Lily said not to talk about it. I tell 
 you, Lacy, — don't look like that ! — it was going 
 away." She spoke in the past tense, as though 
 all hope of its going away was ended now. 
 
 " Of course she would tell you that. She killed 
 a baby the other night, and now she is trying to 
 kill you. Can't you understand any thing ? " He 
 was rude in his fright and fury. Poor little 
 Maybelle, who didn't know enough to take care 
 of herself, who belonged to him, and who had 
 ■given herself, his property, into the hands of 
 those who would destroy her ! " Mrs. Leftwick 
 is an ignorant old woman, the kind that go to 
 fortune-tellers. Lily Beale is a deceitful, bad girl. 
 Everybody knows that now. Didn't you hear 
 what they said about her to-night? You must 
 see a doctor at once. I am going for Richards 
 now." 
 
 Maybelle put out her arms in protest. " Oh, 
 Lacy, please, please see Miss Lily first. I tell 
 you it is getting better. Every day it is getting 
 better. If I weren't so afraid ! If it hadn't been 
 for mamma — making me so afraid. Miss Lily 
 says it would be cured at once." 
 
 " She would tell you anything. She lied on 
 the witness-stand to-day. She's a criminal." He 
 wanted to say anything that would get Maybelle 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 299 
 
 from Lily Beale's influence. He threw on his 
 hat and coat, and went out. 
 
 A half an hour later the telephone bell at the 
 Glovers' rang, and Lucille went out into the hall 
 to answer it. She was flushed and happy. 
 
 " Yes," she said, " this is Mr. Glover's. What 
 is it?" 
 
 " Is Doctor Richards there ? " a voice asked. 
 
 Lucille's tones stiffened. 
 
 "Who is it?" 
 
 " This is DeLacy Rossiter. Is it you, Lucille ? 
 The doctor's boy said that Doctor Richards might 
 be at your house. If he is, will you please ask 
 him to come down and see my wife? I am 
 alarmed about her." 
 
 " I will tell him," she said, and hung up the 
 receiver. 
 
 When she gave Richards the message, she hesi- 
 tated. 
 
 " I suppose I may ask you if Mrs. Rossiter has 
 been ill, since DeLacy spoke so freely. It doesn't 
 seem like him. I used to know him very well, 
 but not since his marriage. I have never heard 
 him mention his wife before this." 
 
 " She seemed well this morning." 
 
 " I w^onder " — then she spoke rapidly — "I 
 wonder if this trouble of Cousin Lily's has had 
 anything to do with it. Mrs. Rossiter has been 
 going to see Lily every day. I have supposed 
 
300 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 she must be a patient, as it seemed a strange 
 intimacy. But then — " 
 
 She had intended to say that Lily had become 
 strange in many ways, but something deterred 
 her. She looked at him calmly. Lucille had an 
 even manner. Sometimes she seemed almost like 
 a mechanism moved by reason from behind — 
 even to herself. A moment before she had felt 
 that Richards was almost hers again, — not now, 
 all at once, but presently. They were such good 
 friends. But she knew better now. The mention 
 of Lily's name put a new atmosphere into the 
 room. 
 
 After he had gone, Lucille bent before the gas 
 logs for a moment before she turned the screw 
 which left the fireplace blank and gray. 
 
 " He's dead in love with her — yet," she said. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 SOME days later, when the Beale family 
 were at dinner, Kate brought in a large 
 perfumed card, bearing the name of Mrs. 
 Eliza Leftwick, and gave it to Lily. 
 
 " If she's going to call, I should think she'd 
 have sense enough to call on mamma," Jerry 
 sniffed. The ways of social life were just begin- 
 ning to take on the importance of immutable laws 
 to Geraldine. 
 
 " Excuse me, mother," Lily said. " I think 
 Mrs. Leftwick wants to see me upon some busi- 
 ness." 
 
 " It is to be hoped so. I can think of no 
 other reason for her calling," Mrs. Beale said, 
 her face a little flushed. 
 
 When Lily went into the reception-room it 
 was to greet a large, perspiring lady wrapped in 
 sables, notwithstanding the thaw in the air. 
 Johnny had given her the sables for a Christmas 
 present, and Mrs. Leftwick would have consid- 
 ered herself ungrateful had she not shown every- 
 body this token of his goodness to her. But 
 301 
 
302 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 Mrs. Leftwick had forgotten even Johnny for the 
 moment. 
 
 " I mus' jes' ast you when you seen poor little 
 Mrs. Rossiter?" 
 
 " Why," Lily said, " not for days. She was 
 getting so much better, I told her to come 
 only when she felt like it. If she could forget 
 her trouble and fear for a day, so much the 
 better." 
 
 " They are a-goin' to operate on her." 
 
 " Why — she is getting well." 
 
 " Yes, but her husband, he's found out she's 
 sick, and he's jes' bent on an operation. They've 
 got a trained nurse down there because she is 
 so hysterical, they tole me. And she goes to 
 the hospital to-day, to be operated on to-morrow." 
 
 " There must be some mistake." 
 
 " No, there ain't. I went to the sewing-ma- 
 chine store, and that Miss Munn, that runs it, — 
 she boards down there, — she tole me all about 
 it. The nurse tole her." There were tears on 
 Mrs. Leftwick's fat cheeks. 
 
 " I went right down there, an' I telephoned 
 Johnny to have Rossiter let off. But they wouldn't 
 let me see her. They said she was not well 
 enough to see anybody, but I could hear her 
 cryin'." Mrs. Leftwick wiped her eyes. 
 
 " I will go. Surely when I tell them I have 
 been treating her they will let me see her." 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 303 
 
 " I ain't so sure." Mrs. Leftwick wiped her 
 red eyes again on a real lace handkerchief, then 
 noticed what she was doing, and took a plain 
 one from her mufif for use, and stuck the lace 
 one back in the front of her dress, — another 
 badge of Johnny's goodness to his old mother. 
 
 " I'm a'goin'-a have Johnny have the laws 
 of this here State changed. They ain't no good 
 at all. If you can get to her, honey, you go, 
 but you'd better say nothin' 'tall 'bout treatment. 
 Your pappy will jes' have to pay another fine." 
 
 Lily stood thinking. 
 
 " She is going to the hospital. I think I can 
 see her in the hospital. Surely when I tell them 
 what she was, and how much better she is, they 
 will try our treatment, even if they take her some- 
 where else. They wouldn't let the poor child 
 go through all that misery unnecessarily." 
 
 " They sent back the book I sent her. Rossiter 
 wrote sech a mean letter I tore it right up. I 
 wouldn't have let Johnny seen it fer nothing. 
 I'd 'a' been afraid he'd discharge Rossiter." 
 
 Judge Beale came into the room and greeted 
 the visitor with his usual politeness. The tears 
 which she was still mopping away could not be 
 ignored. She made no pretence to hide them, 
 and Judge Beale gave some expression of sym- 
 pathy for her grief, whatever it was. 
 
 " It's jes' a pore lamb that's in trouble," she 
 
304 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 said. " But the Bible says, ' God tempers the 
 wind to the shorn lamb.' " Then she remembered 
 that Judge Beale was supposed to know every- 
 thing. 
 
 " I've looked for that Bible passage every- 
 where," she said. " If you could tell me where 
 to find it, I'd be obleeged." 
 
 " I think," said the Judge, gravely, " that you 
 will find it in the writings of Mr. Laurence 
 Sterne." 
 
 " Ain't it in the Bible at all? " 
 
 " I think not." 
 
 " Well, it ought to be. Sterne sounds like a 
 Jewish name. I know it ain't charity, but Jews 
 ain't dear to me." 
 
 " I don't think Mr. Sterne was a Jew," the 
 Judge said. " At least no more than the men 
 were who wrote the Bible." 
 
 After Mrs. Leftwick had gone his lips took on 
 an amused curve as he looked at his daughter. 
 She had no answering smile. 
 
 " That is one of the best women that ever 
 lived. If you knew her, I am sure you would 
 say so. Probably St. John never heard of Homer. 
 But, father, I want to ask you something. If 
 a person could be saved by my healing — I can 
 heal the sick — must I let them die on account of 
 the law?" 
 
 Her father was tempted, but as he looked at 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 305 
 
 her something of the feeling she had given him 
 in the court-room a few days before, came to him, 
 something born of his defence of her, of his 
 belief in her, of the conviction which it was 
 part of her lovely gift to carry always with her, 
 of the fact that she was his daughter and could 
 not be far wrong, came and controlled him, mak- 
 ing him gentle. 
 
 " There is no law against your comforting 
 any poor shorn lamb — any child or woman. But 
 you are not a physician, you are an ignorant 
 young girl. You must not oppose a physician." 
 
 " I have never done that. But a physician can- 
 not cure. It is the mind that cures, after all." 
 
 " I confess to an abiding faith in quinine — par- 
 ticularly in this climate." 
 
 " Granted, and it consequently ' cures ' you ! " 
 Lily said, triumphantly, as she went up-stairs. 
 
 She put on her hat at once and went down to 
 see Mrs. Rossiter, carrying a bunch of sweet 
 narcissus from the conservatory. The nurse 
 from the hospital, lately come from a great train- 
 ing school in the North, had a supercilious smile 
 on her thin lips as she denied entrance to Miss 
 Beale. That had been her first order from Ros- 
 siter. Tlie spring flowers she put in Mrs. Allaire's 
 bathroom. There was no need to disturb Mrs. 
 Rossiter by telling her anything about them. 
 
 Poor Maybelle was in a pitiful agony of fear 
 
3o6 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 of an operation, her mind dwelling upon that 
 dreadful red lump until it throbbed and ached, 
 remembering that her mother had had operation 
 after operation, the last one leaving a wound 
 which never healed, and all the long years 
 when she had been kept home from school day- 
 after day because they feared her mother was 
 dying. She could smell again the iodoform, and 
 hear the moans. Then she would bury her head 
 in the pillow and bite her lips until they bled. 
 
 After Doctor Richards had examined her that 
 night, and pronounced the growth malignant, 
 he had called in every responsible colleague in 
 town. They had agreed that the operation must 
 be performed at once. Maybelle sent for Doctor 
 Richards once, when her husband was away, and 
 asked him if they couldn't put it off a little while. 
 
 " Let Miss Lily try a little while to cure it, 
 just a little while," she pleaded. 
 
 " But you tell me she did try it a little while." 
 
 " It was getting better. Truly, it was. It was 
 smaller." 
 
 " You thought it was, but that was impossi- 
 ble," Richards said. 
 
 He was very tender with her. He wished with 
 all his heart that he could turn her over to Lily. 
 He even mentioned to her husband that it would 
 do no harm to let her see Miss Beale. But 
 DeLacy's face set like a plaster mask. 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 307 
 
 " You tell me that every day means something. 
 She might have been more certain of cure if you 
 had had her at first. No. I will have no nonsense. 
 You don't believe in this religious gibberish, do 
 you?" 
 
 " I believe in the knife for your wife's disease." 
 
 " Well, I expect you to do the thing that will 
 cure her." DeLacy spent all of his time at home. 
 He was even unconscious that it was through 
 Leftwick that this was made easy for him. He 
 felt that if Maybelle died, he would kill some- 
 body. And all day he told Maybelle that the 
 only way to cure her, was Doctor Richards's way. 
 
 It wouldn't hurt her. The surgeons knew 
 everything now. She would simply go to sleep 
 and it would all be over at once. When she 
 awakened she would practically be well. 
 
 " But mamma wasn't." 
 
 " They know more now than they did then," 
 DeLacy would say, but at his heart, too, the 
 awful fear was tugging. He couldn't lose May- 
 belle. 
 
 " Oh, Lacy ! " she would cry in the night. 
 " Please don't send me to the hospital. Please 
 don't! I am so afraid. I want Miss Lily. She 
 can cure me. She was curing me. Why did I 
 ever tell you ! If she knew, I know if she knew, 
 she would come down here and tell you." 
 
3o8 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 " She deceived you. She is not a good woman. 
 She deceived you, Maybelle." 
 
 " But it was going away, and now it's coming 
 back." 
 
 The nurse told how poor Mrs. Rossiter's mind 
 had been fairly wrecked by Christian Science 
 as practised by Miss Beale, and presently, that 
 last day, how they were obliged to put her under 
 the influence of morphine to get her to go to the 
 hospital. 
 
 " It's wicked for those fanatics to hold out 
 those false hopes and say such things about doc- 
 tors," the nurse said to Miss Munn. " If nobody 
 had ever told that poor woman that there was 
 any hope for her but the knife, she would be re- 
 signed. I don't think myself that she's going 
 to get through it, or if she gets through this 
 operation that it will do one bit of good. I've 
 seen too many of these malignant, hereditary 
 cancers. They're incurable, anyway you can fix 
 it. Of course the thing's got to come out at once. 
 That's her only chance. It grows fast. It is 
 seldom you see a cancer patient who doesn't go 
 to the operating-room like a lamb." 
 
 The evening Maybelle went to the hospital (it 
 was several days before they could get her in a 
 condition to go), Lily called Doctor Richards 
 up on the telephone and asked him to call at 
 her home. 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 309 
 
 It seemed ages to them both since he had sat 
 there in the big velvet chair with the red cushions 
 behind his head, which brought out his strong 
 face in relief. And yet it had been a matter of 
 a very few weeks of time since they had sat there, 
 hovering on the verge of a betrothal, hesitating 
 only because the present time was so sweet. 
 
 Lily always wore white in the house when she 
 dressed for the evening. She was more majestic, 
 older, than she had been that night when she had 
 told him of her aunt's recovery, and from which 
 he dated all the change. And Richards, his heart 
 bowing down to her, acknowledged that some- 
 thing had come to her. That girl whom he had 
 loved for a little while after that night, with the 
 tolerance of a guide, was there no more. There 
 was a wonderful grave power in this girl's eyes, 
 in the movements of her long, graceful body. 
 Whatever you might think of her views, you 
 could not speak of them with disrespect before 
 her. 
 
 " I sent for you — " she began. 
 
 " And I was only too glad to come," he inter- 
 rupted. 
 
 "About poor little Maybelle Rossiter. Of 
 course I know that you cannot believe that I did 
 her any good. I know that there is no hope that 
 I may be allowed to see her. But there is one 
 
3IO THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 thing I want to ask you. Let me be present at 
 that operation." 
 
 " Impossible! " Richards cried. " It would be 
 too much for you. You could not stand it. It is 
 an unpleasant operation — and I tell you frankly 
 I fear she will die under it. She is not strong. 
 This terrible disease permeates her whole system. 
 She inherited it. It was born in her, and she 
 is weakened by it at every point." 
 
 " Then why do you take the poor frightened 
 child to almost certain death ? " 
 
 " Because this is almost certain death, and 
 anything else is death. If the operation is not 
 performed, she will die. It is a rapidly growing, 
 very malignant growth." 
 
 " I promise that I can stand it. May I come ? " 
 
 " You would only disturb her. It is going 
 to be a dreadful task to give her chloroform. She 
 is in a state of panic. If she sees you, knows that 
 you are there, it will be almost impossible." 
 
 " She need not know I am there." 
 
 Richards looked at her uneasily. " Isn't this 
 a rather morbid wish? " 
 
 " No. I want to be there to speak to that 
 Life that is hers, to the real self of the child. 
 It is an innocent, sinless little self. I want to 
 show it, when to your sense she lies there un- 
 conscious, that it can control the flesh even under 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 311 
 
 the knife, and bring her body out what you will 
 call alive. I want to do that." 
 
 " You will not see her until she is under the 
 influence of the chloroform?" he asked, tenta- 
 tively giving way. 
 
 " No." Her eyes were shining. 
 
 " And you will go away before she recovers? " 
 
 " I will go away when you send me." 
 
 " The other doctors would object, and frankly, 
 Rossiter would go mad if you were there." 
 
 " And he knew it beforehand." 
 
 " But, I Jly," — he forgot that he had said 
 " Miss Beale " when he entered, — "I fear that 
 Mrs. Rossiter will die under the operation. Ros- 
 siter is wild with unreasoning anger against you 
 now. If you are there when she dies, he will be 
 like a madman." 
 
 " Will you let me come? " 
 
 " Does your father think you should come ? " 
 
 " My father told me that if there was any 
 woman or child that I could comfort, I had his 
 permission. Surely you, who profess to believe 
 that I can do no good, cannot believe that I could 
 harm your patient. If I am nothing, why object 
 to my standing by while you do your work? I 
 promise not to speak one word to you." 
 
 " If you care to come and see the operation, 
 you may," he said at last. " Rossiter will not 
 be there. Probably he need never know you were 
 
312 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 there. My head nurse, whom I can trust, will 
 let you into the operating-room. I will speak 
 to the doctors." He hesitated, and then he said, 
 "Lily, is it to be always like this between us? 
 I wish you would let me say to-morrow that you 
 are my promised wife, that you have a right to 
 see me do my work if you wish it," He was 
 standing now. 
 
 " When you come to understand, it will be so," 
 she said, and she put out her hand. 
 
 " How can I believe that you can truly trans- 
 form others when I cannot understand ? " 
 
 " Do you want to understand? " 
 
 " I want anything that will bring you to me." 
 
 " No. You do not want to see that your pro- 
 fession is one which creates disease instead of 
 healing it. You do not want to go counter to 
 the whole world, to have generations go by before 
 they come to see that we know the truth. When 
 you want that, when you are ready to give that, 
 you will understand. Now you are like that rich 
 young man, who was told to sell all his substance 
 and give it to the poor. You are not ready to 
 do that yet." 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 THE Stevensburg hospital was one of the 
 things which proved to the inhabitants 
 that the one-time village had grown to 
 be a city. It was of red brick with white stone 
 trimmings, and it sat up on a shadeless hill, bald 
 and bare, as though it had been bathed in disin- 
 fectants. Inside there was a clean carbolic smell 
 everywhere, pleasant enough except to those who 
 came to it with the knowledge that they were 
 to be vivisected there. 
 
 To Maybelle Rossiter the very name of a hos- 
 pital had brought a lifelong shudder. She had 
 begged that, if the operation must be, it might 
 be performed at Mrs. Billings's. Her father 
 had sold his little home and had gone West after 
 her marriage, so that the boarding-house was 
 her only home. Mrs. Allaire, in the kindness of 
 her heart, would have torn her house to pieces 
 and dismissed every boarder to gratify Maybelle's 
 wish to stay there, — not out of any affection for 
 her, but out of old-fashioned tenderness for any 
 suffering thing. 
 
 313 
 
314 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 But the doctors felt that in such a critical case 
 they must have every help, and that the hospital 
 was the only place. So they had drugged May- 
 belle to get her there, half convinced already 
 that she would never leave the place alive. 
 
 The nurse stayed with her all night, and early 
 in the morning, half-dozing, was awakened by 
 a little cry, and saw Maybelle sitting up in bed. 
 " Am I in the hospital ? " she began, with pale 
 lips. " Are they going to — do that now ? I 
 won't have it done! Where's Lacy? I want 
 Lacy ! " She was panting like a trapped bird. 
 Lacy, lying down in the next room, came to her 
 and soothed her in his arms. 
 
 " There, now," he said, " it's all right. Noth- 
 ing is going to hurt you. See if you can't go 
 to sleep again." Rossiter was developing a ten- 
 derness that may have been lying dormant in the 
 Rossiter race. It had never shown in a Rossiter 
 before. And he was so lost in his sorrow that 
 he never knew that it had come to him. 
 
 " Lacy," she whispered, " you won't let them 
 do it, will you? I shall die if they do. Let me 
 stay with you a little longer, won't you. Lacy? 
 They did it to poor mamma, and it didn't do any 
 good." 
 
 Rossiter had to press his lips together to keep 
 the groan back that came to them. The doctors 
 had been frank with him. They had told him 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 315 
 
 how bare a chance she had. He felt that if she 
 died, he wouldn't be able to stand it to remember 
 these last pleading words. He thought that he 
 would kill himself. He wondered if it would com- 
 fort her any to tell her so — and then he remem- 
 bered that he must not suggest dying to her. 
 
 " Everything will be all right. You are going 
 to be all well. It is nothing. Here, the nurse 
 has brought you a drink." He held the glass 
 to her lips. 
 
 " It isn't to make me sleep, now, so I won't 
 know ? " She looked at the glass with suspicion. 
 
 " No. It is just a drink." 
 
 He held her until, under the influence of the 
 sedative, she slept again, convulsively clinging 
 to his hand. 
 
 " I don't know how we are going to ^ve her 
 the chloroform," the nurse whispered. " I don't 
 think you had better stay then." 
 
 " I shall stay as long as she wants me." He 
 felt as though it were the day of his own exe- 
 cution. He went back to his room to dress him- 
 self fully, and the nurse slipped into the long, 
 white hall. 
 
 Rossiter heard a noise, and turned just in time 
 to see a white figure flit past the door between his 
 room and Maybelle's and make for the window. 
 His mind and body seemed to work like lightning, 
 and it was by a miracle that he was able to snatch 
 
3i6 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 at Maybelle's gown and hold her over the stone 
 steps below, where, but for his instant action, 
 she would be lying now, bleeding and crushed. 
 When they had brought her back half-fainting, 
 she broke into hysterical weeping. 
 
 " I'm afraid. I'd rather die now, myself, than 
 have them kill me. I know I can't get well. 
 Nobody could cure me but Miss Lily." 
 
 DeLacy went for Doctor Richards. 
 
 " Must you? " he asked, huskily. " She is so 
 afraid. Can't you put it off ? " 
 
 " Rossiter," Richards said, and he began to 
 like the man in his trouble, " it has to be done. If 
 there was any other way, do you think I would 
 try this one? The sooner it is done the better." 
 
 "But will she get well?" 
 
 Richards was silent. 
 
 " You think she will die? " 
 
 " If I thought she would surely die tmder this 
 operation, I would not perform it. She has a 
 chance. But this cancer is developing right over 
 an artery. In a very little while it will be too 
 late to hope to do anything. Science has ex- 
 hausted every hope in these things. Your wife 
 is very young. This may cure her." 
 
 At ten o'clock the doctors came and filed 
 solemnly into the operating-room. Those who 
 were to assist had changed their coats for .long 
 linen garments fastened in the back. The operat- 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 317 
 
 ing-table stood in the centre of the room with all 
 its gruesome appliances. Here was the altar 
 which is raised in every city, and these its high 
 priests, who come daily to sacrifice human victims 
 upon it, in the name of that blind idol. Human 
 Science, while the pitiful God looks on and won- 
 ders when his children will know that his Life 
 is theirs, and that he keeps his promises. 
 
 All through the rooms could be heard the 
 shrieks, the pleading of poor little unrestrained 
 Maybelle, as she fought for her last breath before 
 the strangling ether had done its work, and then 
 two strong nurses bore her into the room wrapped 
 in a sheet, and laid her gently down on the table. 
 The doctors sprang forward to put the straps 
 about the tender limbs to hold her fast, but they 
 stopped for one bewildered moment. Lily Beale 
 had come forward and stood by Maybelle's side. 
 
 " You must not ! " Richards began in his as- 
 tonishment and grief. He let the strap in his 
 hand fall, he hardly knew why. None of them 
 were ever able to tell a curious community exactly 
 what happened, or how. They gave various 
 accounts many times. They all saw the inert 
 Maybelle start into life and open her eyes. 
 
 " Quick ! Give me the anesthetic ! " Richards 
 said. The horror of his blunder was in his voice. 
 But before it reached him in the nurse's hand, 
 Maybelle sat up. Her face was rosy and smiling 
 
3i8 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 as that of a child coming out of healthful sleep. 
 Her eyes were on Lily, as though she had expected 
 to find her there. 
 
 " I knew you would cure me if they would let 
 you." She threw herself into Lily's arms, and 
 although Richards tried to take her away, she 
 held her fast. 
 
 " They don't have to do it ! They don't have 
 to do it," Maybelle cried, over and over. 
 
 " You must not. Please go," Richards said. 
 He was sick with the folly of what he had done 
 in allowing her to come there. His lean face 
 was pale, and when he heard one doctor say to 
 another, " That poor Beale girl is crazy. What 
 do they mean by allowing her in here? What 
 lunatic let her in?" he almost agreed with him. 
 
 " This is an awful thing for Beale," another 
 said. 
 
 " How did Richards come to make such a fool 
 of himself in giving an anesthetic ? " 
 
 " I have always said that it was a mistake to 
 try to give it in the bed." 
 
 " Some mistake has been made. She had no 
 anesthetic." 
 
 The doctors, older men all of them, a little 
 amused at the embarrassment of the young man 
 who had had a training none of them had en- 
 joyed, and who had as a consequence taken the 
 cream of the town's practice, talked to each other. 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 319 
 
 " You must go away," Richards said to Lily. 
 " We must do our work. You are making it 
 harder for her. You must go." With his power- 
 ful hands he separated them. Lily stood aside 
 calmly enough, but Maybelle sat up and threw 
 her round, naked arm above her head. 
 
 " Look ! " she exulted, her voice thrilling in its 
 joy. " It's well. Can't you see ? I don't need 
 to be cut. You can't do it. There isn't anything 
 there. I'm well! Lacy ! " she called at the top 
 of her voice. 
 
 " What are we to do? " one doctor asked, step- 
 ping up to Richards, who was looking at the place 
 where this morning had been the cruel, angry 
 growth on the white flesh. 
 
 " Touch that place and tell me what is there," 
 Richards said. There was sweat on his brow. 
 He couldn't believe his own eyes. 
 
 Maybelle, brilliant, triumphant, drew the sheet 
 about her and held up her arm. 
 
 " This must be the wrong side," the doctor 
 said, shortly. 
 
 They all came up now. 
 
 They pinched and probed and pulled, but there 
 was only a healthy girl, laughing, calling her 
 husband, who cowered outside in the hall, his 
 head in his hands, believing that he heard only 
 the ravings of one under the influence of an an- 
 esthetic. They had warned him of that. 
 
320 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 " God ! " he was saying, " God ! " He hadn't 
 prayed since he was a little boy. 
 
 " Well," the oldest of the doctors said, finally, 
 " you have fooled us all, Mrs. Rossiter. I have 
 heard that hysteria could simulate even a cancer, 
 but I never believed it before. The books are 
 right." 
 
 Going down the hill to laugh at " Richards's 
 cancer patient," as though not one of them had 
 ever seen the case before, they agreed that Lily 
 Beale was a theatrical girl, and that her father 
 ought to " attend to her." 
 
 " Of course, she has some of that hypnotic 
 power Charcot experimented in. She put that 
 hysterical notion into that fool Rossiter woman's 
 head, and then awakened her out of it." 
 
 " It seems to me she must have hypnotised 
 Richards pretty well to have gotten in there." 
 
 " Well, by ginger, I've enjoyed the theatricals 
 almost as much as I would a good operation," 
 the oldest doctor said. 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 JANUARY brought to the Ohio valley one 
 of the great snows which caused Eastern 
 Kentuckians to consider their State a part of 
 the Arctic regions, as the terrible heats of sum- 
 mer seem to place it in the line of the Equator. 
 The climate is like the moods of a spoiled child, 
 with a charming natural disposition. The little 
 girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead 
 should be the weather saint of the Ohio valley. 
 The natives say that if everything happened from 
 November to September, they would stand it all 
 for the pure joy of living through October; but 
 it is difficult to remember Indian summer in Jan- 
 uary. Trees broke under the weight of the soft 
 white blanket, and then there came a hard freeze 
 which kept the country ice-bound for weeks. The 
 oldest inhabitants shook their heads, and told of 
 the things that would happen unless the break- 
 up was gradual, but then the break-up was usually 
 gradual, and life went along merrily for the 
 merry, and sadly for the sad, as everywhere else. 
 Miss Catherine Beale had joined Mrs. Long- 
 321 
 
322 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 more and her son, at Mrs. Longmore's earnest 
 request, and they were in Southern California. 
 
 " I feel sometimes as though I should come 
 back to help you, to tell everybody what you 
 have done for us, but everybody must know," 
 Mrs. Longmore wrote. " And oh, Lily, I am so 
 happy! Cathie and I catch each other's hands 
 and laugh for pure joy sometimes, like a pair of 
 children. I understand so many things now. I 
 seem to have the master key which unlocks mys- 
 teries. One of them is the meaning of ' Whoso- 
 ever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a 
 little child.' All the darkness, the cynical disbelief 
 in happiness which clouded my life has gone. 
 You, having come into the birthright so young, 
 can never know what it means to look out on life 
 with the belief that there is no happiness. To 
 believe that there is no happiness is to believe that 
 there is no God. When I saw people smiling, I 
 wondered what heartache they were hiding. And 
 now, I know, I know that the supreme joy is 
 there, is here, waiting for us to take it, to put 
 ourselves in that harmony which makes all things 
 work together for our good. Did you ever think 
 what ' all things ' stands for ? We are part of 
 the very Good, ourselves. Lily, I want to come 
 home for one thing. I want you to see Robert. 
 Surely he is being made in God's image if ever 
 man was. His very features have changed, to 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 323 
 
 show more plainly the strong spirit within. And 
 you did it! You awakened in him his real self, 
 just so surely as Lazarus was awakened from the 
 dead. 
 
 " There is one wonderful thing. In our travels 
 we find our own kind everywhere. Out here in 
 the West, in this fresh, new country, full of hope, 
 the truth seems to find fruitful soil. And our 
 own people find us out, or we find them out, by 
 a sort of involuntary attraction. We roll together 
 as naturally as globules of quicksilver shaken on 
 a table." 
 
 Lily put this letter down with new strength. 
 Over all the miles the good she had given out 
 came back to her on the current established by 
 a common understanding. In what corner of the 
 earth could she be alone, or unsuccoured, with the 
 whole universe working together for her good? 
 Her heart thrilled at the magnificence of the 
 thing which those about her were denying. 
 
 " Why don't they try to understand ? " she 
 said to herself. " They must know that it could 
 not hurt them to try, and the reward is so great." 
 
 Judge Beale had begun to look at his daughter 
 from a new point of view. She had become a 
 study to him. Added to the little row of books 
 behind the old law books in the library down-town 
 there was another, a small black book which 
 had come from Boston. And Judge Beale read 
 
324 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 it with a curiosity which began with a cynical 
 amusement, and went on with something he did 
 not define to himself. 
 
 One day his wife broke her silence upon the 
 subject of Lily. Words had long been inadequate 
 for Mrs. Beale to express her indignation. She 
 had the pride of one who sufifers an unmention- 
 able indignity. Lily was as gay, as tender, as 
 helpful as ever. There was nO spot where she 
 could complain of her, except the notoriety which 
 had fastened upon the house. Even that was 
 becoming in some measure an old story — some- 
 thing accepted. The Rossiter family, both the 
 clever men and the plain, narrow women, sneered 
 anew at DeLacy, for DeLacy knew that it was 
 not hysteria which had brought his wife to the 
 gates of death, and when she came back to him 
 he did not question the means which had brought 
 her back. Perhaps that dumb call upon his God 
 there in the hospital hall had had an answer in 
 the touch upon his eyes which opened them to 
 allow the light to enter. 
 
 The oldest of the doctors, who had been the 
 Rossiters' family physician for a generation, 
 called upon him to tell him that his wife was 
 very susceptible to influences, and that he had 
 written up her case for the medical journals as 
 one of remarkable hysteria morbidly aroused. 
 
 " You should keep her away from the morbid 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 325 
 
 influence of Roger Beale's daughter," he had 
 said. " Curious how young women get notions 
 in their heads nowadays. What they need is 
 something to do." 
 
 " My wife's mother had something to do, and 
 she died of one of those notions, because there 
 was nobody to awaken her out of it. Your ideas 
 and ours " (DeLacy was saying " ours," now) 
 " agree exactly. Sickness is just a ' notion,' but 
 it needs the right thing to destroy it." 
 
 " God bless me ! " the old doctor cried, " do 
 you mean to say that you have taken up with 
 this tomfiddle nonsense ? " 
 
 " You see," DeLacy answered, " she is my wife. 
 She was just a patient to you. That makes a 
 lot of difference. Although how a man can see 
 a miracle performed before his very eyes and be 
 blind to it, I don't know." 
 
 " Now, my dear Lacy, it was simply the work- 
 ing out of a natural law. The medical books have 
 noticed those cases." 
 
 " Then all I have to say is that the doctors 
 who have seen them show very little practical 
 sense in not seeking for the law which works 
 these cures, instead of cutting people into pieces." 
 
 " They do. I assure you they do. But it is 
 very difficult to discriminate between a hysterical 
 manifestation and a true disease." 
 
 " Well, my wife is too precious to take chances 
 
326 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 with men who confess that they may be fighting 
 shadows, and who do not know a shadow when 
 they see one. I know nothing about the laws 
 which cured Maybelle, but I am going to learn. 
 My mind is scientific enough to know that a 
 result such as I have seen is governed by an in- 
 flexible law. It wasn't a matter of pure chance. 
 This universe isn't run on those principles." 
 
 And then the Rossiters and their friends said 
 that poor Lacy had capped his eccentricities. 
 
 " Once," his mother said, " I was sure that 
 we were making him understand what a mistake 
 he had made in marrying that common girl. In 
 time we could have made him see his marriage 
 in its right light. But his mind has deteriorated. 
 He has even taken up with that folly Catherine 
 Beale brought home. If this thing keeps on, 
 there will have to be an extension to our lunatic 
 asylums. They say we have more lunatics now, 
 according to population, than any other State in 
 the Union." 
 
 This remark, transmuted, built upon, became 
 the text for an article in the Maurilla Question, 
 in which a " prominent citizen " of Stevensburg 
 spoke of the terrible efifects of Christian Science 
 upon the minds of the people, and called attention 
 to the insanity statistics in East Kentucky, as 
 showing the new religion's tendency to create 
 lunatics. 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 327 
 
 Mrs. Beale felt that her home was being dese- 
 crated by the people who came to it. Notoriety 
 was bad enough, but she could ignore that. When 
 she saw Maybelle Rossiter and her husband there, 
 and when Lily took Lyddy Sawyer into the 
 library to talk to her " as though she had been 
 a guest," Mrs. Beale protested to her husband. 
 
 Judge Beale listened. 
 
 " There is one thing we must understand. Lily 
 is a woman, and as a woman she has a perfect 
 right to her opinions. The world would stand 
 still if we repressed our children." 
 
 " You have changed your mind rather sud- 
 denly," his wife said. " Or is this one of your 
 jokes? If it is, I can only say that it is in bad 
 taste." 
 
 The Judge laughed. " Maybe Lily has been 
 treating me for obstinacy. At any rate, she is 
 too serious and fine a woman for me to meddle 
 with her. I did seriously object to her being 
 mixed up in Longmore's afifairs, but Longmore 
 has gone. I can't see how her kindness to a lot 
 of poor devils is going to injure anybody." 
 
 " Well, it has injured Doctor Richards, and 
 I should think she would be ashamed of herself. 
 People are laughing at him for diagnosing that 
 case mistakenly. Of course that was all there 
 was to it." 
 
 The Judge was quizzical. 
 
328 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 " Ashamed of herself because she didn't let 
 him cut up Rossiter's wife? Isn't that carrying 
 prejudice a bit far ? " 
 
 " She had no business at the hospital at all," 
 Mrs. Beale said. It was the final word, whether 
 it was logical or not. 
 
 Among Lily's objectionable visitors was one 
 who came one hard February night when Lily 
 and old Ann were alone in the house. Judge 
 Beale and his wife had taken Jack and Jerry to 
 introduce them to Jefferson in "Rip Van Winkle," 
 along with the rest of the town. 
 
 " I'm thinkin' it's no leddy, but a pore creature," 
 old Ann said, " fer all she's got a fur coat." 
 
 When Lily went into the library she found a 
 large woman, who had thrown back her fur coat 
 and pushed the thick veil she wore, up above her 
 brilliant blue eyes. The cheeks below them were 
 red and a little bloated, while around the short 
 nose and the mouth were lines which marked the 
 woman as with a branding-iron. 
 
 She did not rise, but continued to look about. 
 
 " You've kept some of the old furniture, I see, 
 in fixing up your new house." 
 
 " Yes," Lily said, puzzled. 
 
 " Oh, I've been in your mother's house a good 
 many times, although not for some years." She 
 turned her eyes on Lily. " You were a child at 
 the time. You don't remember me. I'll wager 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 329 
 
 your friend Laura Shepperson never spoke of 
 her cousin Serena Payne." 
 
 A faint colour came into Lily's cheeks. She 
 was not the sort of girl to whom even the other 
 schoolgirls had told vicious gossip, when they had 
 known it, but there are some subjects which 
 children learn instinctively to avoid, and Serena 
 Payne had been one of them. When Mrs. Lionel 
 Shepperson died, Lily had gone to the funeral, 
 and she had heard her mother say that she hoped 
 Serena Payne would have the decency not to 
 come. 
 
 Vaguely she knew that Serena Payne was back 
 in the town — and in the mists of the unknowable, 
 — those poisonous mists which seemed to settle 
 along the river. 
 
 " I think," Lily said, calmly, " that I know 
 who you are. I remember your mother very 
 well." 
 
 The woman's face was crossed by almost a 
 humourous look. 
 
 " See here, if you are one of the mother, home, 
 and heaven kind, I might as well go on. The 
 slummers have that patter down fine. My Lord ! 
 I learned to do that myself. You wouldn't be- 
 lieve that I had a class in the mission school 
 once ? " 
 
 " Yes," Lily said. " I have one myself." 
 
 " Do they let a young lady that's been arrested 
 
330 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 keep it? Aren't they afraid of the influence on 
 the lower classes? Times must have changed 
 since my day." 
 
 She sat staring. She seemed to want to pro- 
 voke Lily into asking why she was there, but the 
 clear-eyed girl knew, and in her heart she was 
 praying, praying, that this devil-possessed one 
 might stay. 
 
 " They haven't asked me to give it up." 
 
 " No, nor I reckon they won't as long as Judge 
 Beale half-supports their dry-rotten old church. 
 But they hate you all the same. You are a scandal 
 — just as I am. Everybody knows that." She 
 laughed. " Oh, I hear everything, — how you 
 straightened up Bob Longmore, and all the rest 
 of it. Bob was certainly pretty far gone. If 
 you've done that — well, you can do anything. 
 Now, what I want to know is, how did you do 
 iff" She leaned forward; the corners of the 
 coarse mouth were drawn down until the lines 
 changed, the lips thinned. 
 
 Lily's heart trembled for fear she should make 
 a mistake. She knew how easy that would be. 
 She looked back at the woman as a master work- 
 man would look who had been asked to explain 
 a machine to one who was interested in its 
 mechanism. 
 
 " To begin with," she said, " I believe in God, 
 and I believe in the life of Jesus Christ as it is 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 331 
 
 told in the New Testament. You were taught 
 that as a child, just as I was." 
 
 The woman moistened her lips. For years she 
 had met any question of a belief in the Bible with 
 jeers and loud laughter. She had taken pleasure 
 in the stories of the revisions of the creeds as they 
 came to her garbled through sensational news- 
 papers. Poorly as she had been educated, she knew 
 so much more than the people among whom she 
 passed her life, that she was an authority among 
 them. They called her a " Bob Ingersoll," for 
 to them the name of the lecturer who spent the 
 last years of his life fighting the ghosts of beliefs 
 long dead and buried in the pulpits, represented 
 the very essence of revolt against law. But this 
 plain statement of Lily's was an altogether dif- 
 ferent thing. 
 
 " I believe it," Lily went on, " just as I believe 
 in my arithmetic. When it tells me that two and 
 two make four, I can count and see that it is 
 true. In the same way I can see that the promises 
 in the New Testament are true. I have counted 
 four." She smiled at Serena Payne. 
 
 " I know a lot of fools that can't put two and 
 two together," Serena Payne said. 
 
 " You would know how, I am sure," Lily an- 
 swered her. 
 
 " The trouble is, that they don't make you un- 
 derstand when you're young, that it's necessary. 
 
332 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 They show you a two here and a two there, 
 and they tell you to drag them together, 
 and they expect you to go and do it. They don't 
 tell you that your twos will scatter if you don't, 
 and you won't have anything. They don't make 
 you understand that that four means all you've 
 got." The woman spoke with passion. 
 
 " It is because sometimes they do not know 
 themselves. Most of us do our work and live our 
 lives because somebody else tells us to. We don't 
 know why. Why, it is genius to think the truth. 
 It is an attribute of God himself. That is why we 
 know that Christ was God. He thought and said 
 what we can see is the Truth." 
 
 " How can you see it ? " she asked, bluntly. 
 
 " One of the disciples asked that, and he had 
 his answer. ' If a man love me, he will keep 
 my words: and we will come unto him, and 
 make our abode with him. ... If ye abide in me, 
 and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what 
 ye will, and it shall be done unto you.' " 
 
 Serena Payne drew a long breath. " And do 
 you mean to tell me that you actually get what 
 you want ? Is that the way you prove it ? " 
 
 "That is the way. But I am not perfect in 
 God. In the same place Christ said that he was 
 a vine, and we were the branches, and that we 
 bore fruit through him. But, don't you see, I 
 am only lately grafted on that Vine. The sap 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 333 
 
 from the Vine is new to me. I think it is wonder- 
 ful that I have been allowed to show any fruit at 
 all, so soon." 
 
 " I guess," Serena Payne said, " that I'm a 
 rotten stick." 
 
 " A brand to snatch from the burning." 
 
 " By George ! " Serena Payne said, " I never 
 expected anybody to say that old chestnut to me 
 in such a way that it sounded like sense." Her 
 eyes sought Lily's face. " You said down there 
 in the court the other day that we made ourselves, 
 that our thoughts marked us. Well, I'm tired of 
 my markings, and I'm tired of the things I 
 think. Do you suppose you can do anything for 
 me ? Oh, I know." She put out her hand to stop 
 Lily. " You can talk about reforming. The devil 
 of it is, I can't reform. I don't know that I want 
 to. It would be like making a woman that lies 
 about all day in a loose gown, put on a corset 
 and a stiff dean dress that she's afraid to muss, 
 and setting her down — to be uncomfortable — and 
 spit at." The last words were vicious. " If you 
 are going to be spit at, you might as well be com- 
 fortable," she added. 
 
 " But you are not comfortable." 
 
 " No, I'm not. I'm tired. I — I hate myself. 
 Sometimes I think I always hated myself. I 
 always did the things I did, just for devilment, 
 it seemed to me. I couldn't help it. Sometimes 
 
334 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 I'd think I would try. I'd be pretty decent for 
 a little while. I'd watch myself in one direction, 
 and I'd think I was behaving pretty well. Then 
 all at once I'd see that I'd gone just as far wrong 
 in some other direction without noticing. When 
 you are like me, what are you going to do ? Some- 
 times I've thought the Catholics knew more about 
 people than anybody else, when they built con- 
 vents for people to go into and never speak an- 
 other word as long as they lived. But this devil 
 that's in me would have burst out. If you've 
 got something that can tame it, I'd like you to 
 try it." 
 
 " I have the promise that ' these signs shall 
 follow them that believe : In my name shall they 
 cast out devils.' " 
 
 "Is that in the Bible?" 
 
 " ' They shall lay hands on the sick and they 
 shall recover.' That is there, too." 
 
 " Well, they never taught us that at Sunday 
 school. I suppose they were afraid we'd ask 
 why they didn't do it, if they believed as they said 
 they did. It would make a cat laugh to think of 
 Mr. Lessing getting the best of a devil — unless 
 he bored it to death. But then," she went on, 
 cynically, " I never heard him say that he really 
 believed any of the stufif he preaches. His ' I be- 
 lieves ' were always patter out of a book. But you 
 believe now, why don't you change me ? Cast the 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 335 
 
 devil out of me, make me able to be decent and 
 respectable, and " — she took a furtive look at 
 herself in the round mirror over the mantelpiece 
 — " pretty again ? " 
 
 " And make you forget ! " The words came 
 from Lily's lips in a tone which caused the woman 
 to spring from her chair. She looked at the girl, 
 and the red died out of her face, and something 
 harsh, something horrible, something that seemed 
 to live behind the mask of face which it was trans- 
 forming into something as dreadful as itself, 
 flew like a cat to the windows of the eyes, and 
 made a veritable devil of the woman. 
 
 The gentle young saint had gone from Lily. 
 Here was the spirit which lashed the money- 
 changers in the Temple, the militant spirit which 
 put on armour against the powers of darkness. 
 
 " See here," Serena Payne's voice said, furi- 
 ously. " None of that hypnotism business on 
 me!" She leaned forward, tense with passion. 
 " Do you think you can get the best of mef " 
 Her tones had changed. A volley of abuse came 
 from her lips, horrible words, unspeakable vile- 
 ness of which Lily understood not one word in 
 ten. " I came up here to see what kind of a 
 woman it was that Bob Longmore would behave 
 himself for. Oh, I've heard of your tight-rope 
 walking on the edges. You are no better than 
 
336 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 the rest of us, but you are playing a new trick." 
 She broke into brutal laughter. 
 
 " No," Lily said, and she sat still in her chair, 
 Serena Payne leaning over her. " You did not 
 come for that. You came " — her eyes were 
 stern — " when your devil was asleep." 
 
 The two pairs of blue eyes gazed at each other, 
 those which shone with the light of Heaven and 
 those behind which glared the very fiend from 
 the pit. 
 
 " Why do you keep it there ? You have a 
 right to live your life clean. If you help me 
 now, if you try, that black spirit that is usurping 
 your life, must go." 
 
 Serena Payne's mouth moved, her face was 
 distorted. She had taken off her gloves, and her 
 fingers worked against her palms. She put her 
 hand up to her collar, the tawdry collar of gilt 
 embroidery, as if to loosen it, and in the eyes ' 
 cowered a new aspect of the unclean beast — fear! 
 
 And then into the room came the noise of an 
 opening door, the cheerful voices of the family 
 coming home from the theatre. Before Lily 
 could move, her mother was in the room. Mrs. 
 Beale, tall and handsome in her furs, ruddy with 
 the frost, her lips parted over her pretty white 
 teeth, might have stood for convention. She came 
 in almost facing the convulsed creature whom that 
 awful struggle between Death and Life was tear- 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 337 
 
 ing. For an instant she looked in wonder, and 
 then she recognised Serena Payne. There was no 
 dehberation now. Anger swept a clear red over 
 her brow and chin. 
 
 " Lily," she said, " what is this woman doing 
 here?" Then she thought that Lily could not 
 know, and she turned to Serena Payne. " How 
 dare you come into this house? Leave it at 
 once. No ! " as Serena, recovering herself and 
 putting on the old swagger as a garment, started 
 toward the door through which she had entered. 
 " Gro by the back door. At least have the decency 
 not to show yourself to my children." 
 
 Serena stopped and looked at Lily. " The 
 first thing for you to do, is to try and get the 
 Old Nick out of your mother, my dear." The 
 endearment was flung as a taunt. She accented 
 it by a slam of the door. 
 
 Mrs. Beale was trembling. " Lily," she said, 
 " you have gone one step too far. If you imagine 
 that I am going to allow you to bring disreputable 
 women into this house for your brother and sister 
 to see here, you are mistaken. This is still my 
 house. I am its mistress. Your father, out of 
 foolish indulgence, may condone your folly, but 
 I shall not. You seem to have been changed from 
 a modest, dutiful daughter, to a foolish, wrong- 
 headed girl, carried away by her own conceit, 
 
338 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 You are ruining your own life, you have dis- 
 graced us all." 
 
 " Mother, mother," Lily said, " let me tell you 
 about that poor woman." 
 
 " Let you tell me about a creature whose exist- 
 ence should be unknown to you ? " She shook 
 off Lily's hand. " I have shown a patience which 
 amazes me. You prate of duty, when you are 
 a disobedient daughter. You are ruining your 
 home. I shall no longer allow it. I forbid you. 
 Do you understand me? I forbid your having 
 anything more to do with these people or this 
 crazy religious mania of yours." 
 
 " Mamma," Lily said, " you are not yourself. 
 You cannot wish to speak to me like that." 
 
 " If I had spoken like this earlier and oftener, 
 I should not be ashamed of my eldest daughter 
 now. You were my pride, and now I am ashamed 
 of you." Mrs. Beale's face was hard. All that 
 her pride had suffered in these weeks she was 
 trying to give back, measure for measure. All 
 the questions she had parried, all the curious 
 looks, every line in the newspapers that had 
 burned into her, were speaking now. 
 
 " I cannot promise to give up my faith, nor 
 promise not to try to help others. I am sorry 
 you feel it so — but — Oh, mamma, you will 
 come to see. We all will." 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 339 
 
 " I would rather see every member of my fam- 
 ily dead than see another of them in the grasp 
 of this insane folly," and Mrs. Beale opened the 
 door and went out. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 IN one February day the thermometer hanging 
 in Judge Beak's veranda raced up sixty 
 degrees. The snow and ice which had 
 covered the ground became pools of water, and 
 the white blankets that had covered the roofs 
 came down in sheets from the eaves, while a 
 mist wreathed its way up from the flats. The 
 following night one of the rare winter thunder- 
 storms crashed its way over the back country, 
 and by mqrning the Mawawa, which emptied into 
 the Ohio, was a roaring torrent, bearing down 
 trees, log booms, chicken-coops, and all the flot- 
 sam that lined the banks of the little tributary 
 runs and creeks. The Ohio began to show signs 
 of rising, and there were stories that the river 
 was " up at Pittsburg, and rising." 
 
 When the sensational Maurilla Question ar- 
 rived in the afternoon, it told stories of panic 
 all along the way, from the source to the mouth, 
 but the Maurilla Question cried " wolf " from 
 one year's end to the other. Although Stevens- 
 burg knew the force of a sudden flood, it knew 
 340 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 341 
 
 it as a memory. The new people heard the old 
 inhabitants tell stories of boating through the 
 streets, as they heard stories of the occupa- 
 tion during the war. One was more remote than 
 the other, but both were in the past. Stevens- 
 burg is built on terraces above the river, and 
 the residence part of the town in these days is 
 high and dry on hills ; but the old town, where a 
 few families lingered, the business streets, and the 
 great new district over' the tracks lay ready for 
 the first great spread of the waters out of the 
 Ohio's banks. 
 
 The second warm day the down-town people 
 called to each other the exciting joke of possible 
 danger. Once upon a time people down there 
 had been obliged to move into the second stories 
 of their houses, — but a new population in new 
 houses heard it as a legend. 
 
 When the water finally rose into the engine- 
 rooms of the new manufactories along the river, 
 the workmen looked upon the yellow stream as 
 a friend that was giving them a holiday by gently 
 pushing them out into the balmy air. They went 
 down-town into those streets still fringing the 
 river, but on a first terrace, where places had 
 been created for men to enjoy themselves on a 
 holiday. 
 
 The old houses here were the mansions of the 
 first days of the town, with here and there an 
 
342 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 outgrown shell of a trade that had moved away 
 from the river when it ceased to be the only 
 highway. 
 
 These old houses had been taken possession 
 of by a motley army that always hangs in the 
 rear to catch the laggards. Drinking-saloons 
 were behind every other doorway. Dingy old 
 houses, more disgraceful on account of their 
 marks of former dignity, close-shuttered, as 
 though their interiors were echoing emptiness, 
 were looked at askance, and spoken of as holding 
 undreamed-of splendours. It was in one of these 
 old houses that Serena Payne lived, her windows 
 looking down on the cobble-paved wharf where 
 steamboats had clustered in the busy days of 
 the river, before the railroads. Nowadays one 
 or two steamboats came in, poor little degenerate 
 descendants of the white and gold swans that 
 used to float in here to the song of the steam 
 calliope. Where " The Wild Wagoner " and the 
 " Robert E. Lee " had once touched, summer 
 brought a row of house-boats, tramps of the 
 inland waters, floating down with the season, 
 and getting a tow back in the spring. Some- 
 times one or two tied up here for the winter. 
 
 The one with whose inhabitants Serena Payne 
 had had the trouble which took her into the 
 court-room was one of these. All winter the 
 one-roomed boat had contained three families, 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 343 
 
 so inextricably related that they themselves did 
 not know where one family ended as a unit. 
 These people generally know less of our moral 
 code than the dogs that live with us. A mar- 
 riage ceremony is almost unknown, a " stuck-up " 
 luxury, and they will tell you with entire good 
 faith that they go up and down the river to live 
 upon the corn and melons, vegetables, and chick- 
 ens of the farms. They have no sense of wrong 
 in taking what is there before them, as unpro- 
 tected in the open fields as the air they breathe 
 and the water they dip up from the river. They 
 know it is inexpedient to be caught, but the 
 Southern farmer is lenient, and is not likely to 
 make much of an armful of roasting ears. He 
 drives the house-boaters away when he can, and 
 gives them no further thought. If you were to 
 suggest that they stood in need of missionaries 
 a trifle more than the Chinese, he would think 
 you a " crank." " There is the church ; why don't 
 they go? They've got the same chance I have." 
 All winter Serena Payne had looked down the 
 cobble-stone wharf and seen the men and women 
 coming and going from the house-boat, but a 
 few days before the break in the weather they 
 had all disappeared, except one poor anaemic 
 creature who sunned herself outside, sometimes 
 with a puny baby in her arms. The other chil- 
 dren, four shrinking little creatures who hardly 
 
344 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 knew their own parents, were left with her. The 
 first rise in the Mawawa sent the boat higher on 
 the bank. By the third day the Ohio had come 
 rushing down, and floated it over the cobble- 
 stones until it was stopped by the two leprous 
 sycamore-trees which grew out from the old 
 Coxe garden, their young roots having pushed 
 under the wall a generation or two ago. The 
 house-boaters had tied their craft to these trees 
 by a network of ropes, so that no sudden flood 
 could carry it away. The brick wall of the Coxe 
 place had figured in one of the stories of long 
 ago. Serena Payne's house had been built by 
 a river-captain in the great days of the river, and 
 he had had one pretty daughter. The Coxe 
 family, who had built a mansion here long before 
 a town was dreamed of, had made that end of 
 their garden wall very high, for the river-cap- 
 tain's small back yard ran down abruptly. It 
 left the wall almost even with the captain's back 
 porch roof, and the space between them narrow 
 at the corner. 
 
 One night a young Coxe fell, the family said, 
 from the wall's top : agitated whispers repeated, 
 from the veranda roof. At any rate, it was 
 midnight, and his back was broken there in the 
 captain's back yard. Tradition has given the cap- 
 tain's pretty daughter all sorts of fates. A mad- 
 house was in the most popular version a genera- 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 345 
 
 tion later, when the Coxe garden was a deserted 
 tangle, and the captain and his boats had gone 
 like the Flying Dutchman. 
 
 Serena Payne's corner bedroom windows looked 
 out on the back porch as well as the river. Her 
 bed was in the corner, and she usually lay until 
 mid-afternoon among her tawdry, cheap lace 
 pillows, looking aimlessly out upon such life as 
 the old wharf could show. 
 
 The day the flood swung the house-boat 
 around almost against her house, she lay there 
 and saw a group of sallow little creatures pushing 
 aside her bedroom curtains on the porch side, 
 and looking in at her with the curiosity of wild 
 animals. 
 
 Serena had no servants. The Sheppersons had 
 had slaves in the old days, but the traditional 
 old nurse who follows her mistress through every 
 trial was not known in Stevensburg. Perhaps 
 negroes with that doglike fidelity never came 
 so far north as East Kentucky. Not one of the 
 Shepperson negro women would have set foot 
 in this quarter. A half-drunken Irish woman 
 came in to clean the house, wash the dishes, 
 and build the fires (the natural gas pipes were 
 not put into these derelicts of houses). And for 
 the rest, Serena waited upon herself. A near-by 
 restaurant sent in her meals. 
 
 When a white girl came down here, it was 
 
346 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 usually because she wanted " to be free of work- 
 ing in somebody's kitchen," to be able to wear 
 big plumed hats and a velvet dress. 
 
 Serena looked at the children devouring with 
 their eyes the flowered wall-paper, the pink tarle- 
 tan draped toilet-table, the big gilt mirror, and 
 she half started up to drive them away. Then 
 she lay back on the pillow she had doubled 
 together, giving a short laugh, as she patted it 
 into shape for her neck. 
 
 " My devil seems to be in a good humour this 
 morning." Ever since that night she had gone 
 to Lily Beale she had referred to and consulted 
 her " devil " with elaborate sarcasms. Day and 
 night the thought of it had been in her mind. 
 Sometimes the empty bottles about the room, and 
 the swollen face on the pillow showed that the 
 " devil " had had his way with her. 
 
 A new idea took her. She reached up, pulled 
 down the blind, put on a dressing-gown, and went 
 to the back door. The children had flown from 
 the window, but they had crept up to the door 
 and were gathering up scraps from a pail which 
 stood there. Two of them sprang away as the 
 door opened, but Serena's strong grasp took the 
 others, dragged them in, scratching and pulling 
 back, silently, like little wildcats. 
 
 Serena stirred up the fire in the parlour. It 
 was suffocatingly hot, but this fire was only cov- 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 347 
 
 ered, and it would be necessary to build one in 
 the kitchen otherwise. While she set the tea- 
 kettle on the grate the children sat speechless with 
 amazement. The .velveteen curtains, the piano 
 cover, the coloured photographs were common and 
 dusty. Serena's taste had never been fine, and 
 she was not able now to indulge in such luxury 
 as she knew, but to the house-boat children it 
 was a house of wonder. 
 
 Serena, half-contemptuous of herself, went to 
 a closet and brought out a box of sweet biscuits, 
 and gave them to her unwilling guests. The 
 oldest child, a boy with black eyes almost touch- 
 ing his nose, grabbed a handful, and ducked 
 toward the door. Serena caught him. 
 
 " Where are you going ? " 
 
 " I'm goin' take 'em to Jinny." 
 
 "Who's Jinny?" 
 
 " She's her. She ain't had nothin'." 
 
 " One of the others ? Never mind, I will call 
 them." 
 
 Serena was enjoying a novel sense of the privi- 
 lege of patronage. It had been years since she 
 had spoken to a child. " You may have all the 
 cakes you want. I'll boil you some eggs pres- 
 ently." 
 
 " Jinny can't come, 'cause the kid's sick." 
 
 " Is she your sister ? " 
 
348 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 " Naw ; I ain't no sister. It's jes' Jinny's 
 kid." 
 
 "What is the matter with it?" 
 
 " That's telUn'. 'Fore they all went they said, 
 ' Shut up.' " 
 
 Serena half understood the boy. 
 
 " Oh, I guess you can tell me," she said, to 
 make the child talk to her. 
 
 " It's smallpox," the other boy piped out. 
 '* But Jinny ain't go'n' say nawthin'. The' erd 
 jes' fuss." 
 
 Smallpox had been up and down the river all 
 winter. There had been stories of it, carrying 
 a momentary terror into the minds of the river 
 people, but panic would wait upon its first case. 
 Seemingly this had come. 
 
 Serena Payne's face stiffened. Smallpox! 
 Smallpox meant death, and disfigurement, the 
 pest-house, quicklime probably. Who would see 
 that she had any better fate than that? 
 
 She arose to put the children out, and then 
 she was afraid to touch them. They had come 
 from the house-boat, where they all lived together 
 like pigs. She could see, she was sure, as she 
 looked at them now, red blotches on the face 
 of the boy already. Her eyes saw red every- 
 where. Of course she would have it. She might 
 as well let them stay. She felt numbed. She 
 did not know what to do — which way to turn. 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 349 
 
 The thought that she would have smallpox was 
 too astounding. 
 
 A tremendous self-pity took her. She wasn't 
 to blame. All her life everything had gone 
 wrong. The " devil " in her had made every- 
 thing go wrong, and now, when she had been 
 charitable, this was the way she was repaid for it. 
 This was the way goodness rewarded you, was it ? 
 She had fed these children, and this was what 
 she got. She would die with the smallpox! 
 
 " Take the eggs, get out of here as fast as 
 you can." She ran out of the room as they left 
 it, and slammed the door with some idea of shut- 
 ting the infection up in there. Then she went to 
 the big, gilt-bordered mirror in her bedroom and 
 looked at her face. She was trembling as she 
 faced her reflection. 
 
 " I suppose you think, now," she said, to the 
 intelligence behind her eyes, " that you'll take 
 me to hell with you, do you? Well, you won't! 
 You've spoiled everything for me always. You 
 made me do things I didn't want to do. You. 
 brought me back here to this town to show what 
 you could do with me. But, by God, you've 
 met your match. There's somebody can manage 
 you if I can't. You might as well get out now." 
 She was half-insane in her excitement. "You 
 needn't to guess she won't come. All the devils 
 
350 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 in torment couldn't scare her." Still trembling, 
 she went to the telephone and rang up central. 
 
 There was a flippant reply from the boy who 
 answered her call. 
 
 " Pretty dangerous down at your place, ain't 
 it? You want to get somebody down there to 
 drown ? " 
 
 " Give me 1673." 
 
 " Oh, say," the boy said, " I ain't going to. 
 That's none of your kind." 
 
 " You connect me with Judge Beale's house 
 or you'll lose your place this night," furiously. 
 
 " Oh, a' right — but you'd better be careful." 
 
 "What is it?" Mrs. Beale, sitting in the 
 library, said, as Lily carefully put down the 
 receiver. 
 
 Lily made an effort to speak calmly, but her 
 voice trembled. 
 
 " A woman in trouble has asked me to come 
 to her." 
 
 " What woman ? " And as Lily did not 
 answer, she asked again, "That Payne creature? 
 Has she had the audacity to telephone to this 
 house? I will have that telephone taken out! 
 How dare she ? " 
 
 " She wants me." 
 
 " You ? She dares ask you to come to see 
 her? Your father shall see that that woman 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 351 
 
 leaves this town for this. She has been a morti- 
 fication to people long enough. And you 
 answered her. Why did you answer her ? " 
 
 " Because I must go to her." 
 
 Mrs. Beale opened her lips with " I forbid you " 
 behind them, but a look at her daughter's face 
 showed her their futility. 
 
 " And you, Lily Beale, have so little respect 
 for your father and your mother, that you will 
 plunge them into grief and shame at the bidding 
 of a woman of the streets ! " 
 
 " Mother, listen. There is a child down there 
 with smallpox. Can't you see that if I refuse 
 to go to this woman I am denying the power that 
 has been given me? I owe it to the faith that 
 is in me to bear witness to it." 
 
 Mrs. Beale's face had grown pale. 
 
 "You will go, for obstinacy, to bring back 
 that infection to your family." 
 
 " Can you not see, dear, dear mother, please 
 understand, that I cannot do that. There is no 
 infection, there is no real disease there. I go to 
 dispel a shadow, now, before it grows larger. 
 It is not only to save this woman, but it is for 
 the sake of something so much greater than any- 
 thing else, — for the Truth." 
 
 "And you, LUy!" Mrs. Beale's whole soul 
 went into the cry to her daughter, "you cannot 
 be willing to sacrifice us to this insanity. You 
 
352 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 are not yourself. I cannot, I shall not allow you 
 to do this. I call upon your duty to me as a 
 daughter. I demand obedience from you." 
 
 Lily's face flushed, and her eyes, fastened on 
 her mother's face, were hurt and embarrassed. 
 For the moment she was her mother's child being 
 bitterly rebuked for a disobedience. " But," she 
 said, " mamma, it was you who taught me — 
 always — that one must leave everybody, when 
 it was a duty." 
 
 " It is your duty to do what I ask you." 
 
 " Except when you ask me to be false to my 
 own conscience. Oh, mother, please see that I 
 am right. It breaks my heart to pain you. 
 Please see that I can do nothing else. If you 
 will drop your prejudice for a moment — " 
 
 Mrs. Beale deliberated. 
 
 " Very well, you may stay here and explain 
 the matter to me." 
 
 " You know I must go now." 
 
 " If you go," her mother cried, " I shall send 
 your father and your physician for you. If my 
 child's mind is so affected that she cannot take 
 care of herself, she shall be put under restraint. 
 You are incapable of being at liberty." 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 THERE was a cloudburst in the hills 
 behind the Mawawa. Brooks (they do 
 not know the word " brook " in East 
 Kentucky; they call them "runs") and creeks 
 became rivers, drowning out the meadows on the 
 bottoms, and loosening from their foundations 
 the little grist-mills that ground the county's 
 corn. Whole families, asleep in their cabins along 
 the way, were drowned, and the story would never 
 reach the outside world at all, so unimportant do 
 these people feel themselves, and so remote. 
 Tragedies in these hills are awaiting the hand of 
 a Maupassant to show them to a pitying world. 
 
 By the time Lily reached the street by the river 
 the two streams were rivalling each other in the 
 number of feet they were rising in an hour. 
 
 The Mawawa, held between hills, was a veri- 
 table mountain torrent, but the cloudburst up 
 behind among the little streams had hardly yet 
 begun to show its effect. 
 
 The house-boat was floating even with Serena 
 Payne's back porch now, and brownish cakes of 
 
 3S3 
 
354 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 river ice, unmelted in the cold water, were knock- 
 ing at her steps. 
 
 Lily had taken the new trolley down here, and 
 had attracted no notice until she left the car, and 
 started to walk up the disreputable street on which 
 Serena Payne's house fronted. A man coming 
 out of a saloon saw her, and his head went 
 forward like that of a hound who has taken a 
 trail. Lily saw him, but did not recognise him 
 as Abe Sawyer. She, as the pivot about which 
 his whole family's importance had revolved for 
 weeks, was as familiar to him as his own face. 
 His sharp eyes lighted up with curiosity, and he 
 dropped in behind her. There was likely to be 
 something entertaining going on when one of 
 the " big-bugs " came down here, but this girl 
 was a regular magnet of interest all the time. 
 When he saw her go into Serena Payne's house, 
 he licked his lips with the sweet savour of the 
 story they would have to tell. His impulse was 
 to go back to the saloon and tell it now, but he 
 wanted to be sure of its details. Nobody must 
 come in with a later tale. 
 
 Two or three children chasing a shingle they 
 had launched on the river's edge, and which was 
 drifting before it caught the current, came from 
 behind the house, and Abe stopped them and 
 asked who lived there. 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 355 
 
 " Aw — you know," the biggest boy said, and 
 went on. 
 
 " She's got treats," the smallest explained, stop- 
 ping, " but — " 
 
 " You come on — " the biggest boy yelled at 
 him. " Jinny said fer you to shut up." 
 
 " I don' haf to. She's a bad woman. Jinny 
 said she was, but she's took th' kid in that house, 
 an' put it in a place clean as a boiled shirt. Th' 
 kid's got th' smallpox." He too had his excite- 
 ments, and it was too much to expect that he could 
 deny himself the pleasure of passing them on. 
 
 Now the Sawyers did not lack imagination. 
 No sodden souls were they, and Abe's spine 
 fairly quivered at his news. The plague of the 
 river had come at last, and the Beale girl was 
 hiding it — killing another child, doubtless. Abe 
 went swiftly back to the saloon. He was tempted 
 to call out to the groups who stood watching the 
 rising waters. The wharf-boat, a relic of other 
 days, had parted its moorings an hour earlier, 
 started on a journey down the river, given a 
 shiver and a gasp at the perils before it, and 
 broken into pieces. Men were shaking their 
 heads and telling stories of the great flood of 
 '84. This was not so high — yet — but some 
 philosophers argued that this time the water must 
 be " stronger," because the wharf-boat had 
 weathered that year. One excited man was carry- 
 
356 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 ing a rifle, against the advice of everybody, into 
 a house which he owned. He said that he did 
 not intend to have the waves of steamboats knock- 
 ing down his property, and he would shoot at the 
 first one. Voices a block away carried in the 
 warm moist atmosphere, mingling strangely with 
 the roar and gurgle of the yellow flood. The 
 bridge over the Mawawa would go next, they 
 said. 
 
 Abe stood the pressure of his news until he 
 reached the saloon. There were men there who 
 knew him, and he would get the credit of his 
 announcement. He saw himself, as he trotted 
 along, being made a hero of, given drinks. He 
 would mount a chair and shout out his news. 
 But when it came to the real telling, he half 
 whispered it to a man who stood beside him, who 
 thought he was intoxicated, and paid no atten- 
 tion to him; and it was dark before he could 
 find believers in his story, to grow excited and 
 put it as leaven into the crowds along the river. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV, 
 
 WHEN a mob takes up a tale its begin- 
 nings are lost and its end unknown. 
 The least obstruction may divert it, 
 end it, or it may go on to the most fantastic 
 conclusion. 
 
 Abe Sawyer never knew when the river 
 watchers became maddened by his story. Many 
 of the men had been first driven out of their 
 workshops, and then this afternoon from their 
 homes. By night their wives and children had 
 taken refuge from the flood with friends on the 
 high ground, if they were fortunate enough to 
 have them, or in one of the churches which had 
 been opened to shelter them for the night. 
 
 The Baptist Church, the nearest to the river, 
 and one of the largest, had been the first an- 
 nounced as a refuge. Already in its big lecture- 
 room was going on one of the tragi-comedies 
 of life. Even in their hour of peril and refuge, 
 social lines between the workmen's families, the 
 Sawyers, and the real outcasts from the old river 
 rookeries, were as well defined as the Chinese 
 
 357 
 
358 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 wall. Some of them had brought bedding, and 
 they were turning the floor of the smaller rooms 
 in the church into sleeping-rooms. Charitable 
 women were bringing bedding for those who 
 had none, and baskets of food were pouring in. 
 There was a kitchen in the church where oyster 
 suppers were prepared during the winter. Mrs. 
 Batton went about, full of outward concern for 
 the comfort of the women and children, and secret 
 dismay at the " mess " in the church. 
 
 The few real outcasts who had come in, in 
 their pitiful determination not to show awe of 
 their surroundings, were recklessly offensive of 
 manner, and were left in a group alone. Even 
 the little children recognised their isolation, knew 
 that there was some barrier which made them 
 " different." Mrs. Batton would go into her 
 husband's study now and then to tell him a new 
 story of the difficulties of taking care of the 
 crowd. Once she flew in with a problem which 
 had disturbed all the ladies who were caring for 
 the refugees. Somebody had sent a basket 
 addressed to a woman. They had opened it, and 
 discovered a bottle of whiskey. Were they to 
 keep the woman in the church any longer ? 
 
 "Where is she to go?" Mr. Batton asked. 
 
 " They ought to think of those things," his 
 wife answered, indignantly. But the woman was 
 not disturbed. 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 359 
 
 But when the first whisper of smallpox came, 
 Mrs. Batton had a story to disturb him. 
 
 " If it gets into the church, I'd be afraid to 
 have you preach there, and nobody would come. 
 With all that low-down trash in there, it is likely 
 to break out any minute," she said, excitedly. 
 
 Mr. Batton left his desk and went over to the 
 church immediately — his head and heart high 
 with courage, his deep-set eyes aflame with the 
 martyr spirit. He did not know what to say to 
 these people, how to make them welcome here, 
 how to give the outcasts a home feeling in the 
 church, and fill them with respect for him and it, 
 but he could brave danger. In this commonplace 
 civilisation, however, it happens that tact wins 
 more battles than heroism. Perhaps it was fortu- 
 nate that his idea of conducting a prayer-meeting 
 while the food-distributing and bed-making were 
 going on was frustrated. As the pastor came 
 through the church door which led from the 
 parsonage, a girl who had put on all her finery 
 to walk the streets through the crowds of river 
 watchers, burst into the lecture-room screaming 
 with excitement. She had run to get a friend 
 to see the " fuss." Between gasps she called out 
 that " the Beale healer " had killed another baby, 
 and was going around spreading smallpox; that 
 the men on the river were after her, and that she 
 "bet the'd be a lynchin'." With a rush, the 
 
36o THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 lighter minded of the company went out into the 
 misty night, leaving the others to look wistfully 
 after them, and to break out into countless tales 
 of " the Beale healer." These ranged from actual 
 murder to spectacular pointings of her finger at 
 wooden-legged men in the street, who suddenly 
 grew new legs. 
 
 Down by the river the men seemed to come out 
 of the very stones in the streets. The saloons 
 had done a great business all day, and when 
 supper-time came most of the men had no homes 
 to go to. They had supped from the free lunch 
 bowls in the saloons, and " made it up " to the 
 proprietors by buying more beer. 
 
 The misty darkness was dotted here and there 
 by great flaring gasoline torches along the river, 
 set up by the men who owned the houses which 
 were in danger, that passing boats might see 
 and give them a wide berth. The water was 
 over the back porch of Serena Payne's house, and 
 creeping in over the floor in the kitchen. The 
 front rooms and the street before it were still 
 dry, but Lily had taken the little group gathered 
 there up-stairs. She could not leave these help- 
 less people who had no place to go, and she was 
 calmly awaiting the coming of her father. She 
 knew that he would come for her as soon as her 
 mother's message reached him — he and Rich- 
 ards. She smiled a little at the covert threat in 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 361 
 
 her mother's voice when she said she would send 
 her physician after her. As she looked at the 
 baby asleep on the bed she smiled again. 
 
 " We'd better get out, ef it's only in th' streets," 
 the house-boat woman had said, but Lily's assur- 
 ance that they were in no danger had quieted her. 
 She was abashed before this beautiful serene 
 woman who was yet full of laughter and gaiety. 
 That she was cheerful and smiling, instead of 
 solemn, was as great as any other miracle. " I 
 thought pious 'uns was al'ays sober," she said 
 to Serena Payne. The children sat on chairs 
 and looked at her, listened to her, fascinated. 
 She was as much of a spectacle and amazement 
 to them as though she had come from another 
 planet. The very tones of her voice carried 
 wonder. When she told them a fairy story, it 
 was nothing strange — anything might happen 
 in the place where this woman lived. Here this 
 evening, with the water all about them, in a 
 strange condition, leaven had been placed in four 
 mean bits of humanity which would eventually go 
 through a great mass of their kind, causing their 
 eyes to open, making them curious and eager to 
 reach up for that possibility of clean, wholesome 
 happiness which is their birthright as well as 
 ours. 
 
 Judge Beale had been called to his farm a few 
 miles out of town that afternoon, and expecting 
 
362 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 to be home to supper, had sent no word to the 
 family. When he started back, he found the 
 railroad that led there under water, and was 
 obliged to take a horse to make a long detour 
 over the ridge road. It was a lonely road, used 
 only for hauling from the back part of the river 
 farms, which mostly ran back here. Sometimes 
 he would ride along for a mile or two in sight 
 of the Ohio, running swiftly down like yellow 
 oil in the mid-current, and smooth as a lake where 
 it covered the meadows. 
 
 The warm mist was a yellow haze obscuring the 
 setting sun, and it covered the familiar land with 
 mystery. Roger Beale walked his horse along 
 here, and let Nature have her way with him. He 
 gave himself up to the influences, and the strange- 
 ness outside harmonised with the flood of new 
 thought within, which was washing away old 
 prejudices, covering up and changing the familiar 
 landmarks of his mind. 
 
 It had always been a characteristic of Roger 
 Beale that he moved ahead with his time. He 
 did not rush into extravagance, but with keen 
 judicial mind he had looked on from the outside. 
 For long years he had seen the gradual coming 
 of skepticism in religious things, until it had 
 reached the very masses of the people. He had 
 gauged it by the spread of popular education. 
 He had listened to smug sermons preached by 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 363 
 
 men who claimed to have apostolic rights, men 
 who were telling him what to do with his immor- 
 tal soul, when he knew that, take nine out of ten 
 of them out of the pulpit and put them on the 
 level ground, their opinions upon even everyday 
 subjects were mere parroted theories upon life. 
 And looking back into history he had seen that 
 this was one of the marks of a civilisation's de- 
 cay. When the educated, the ruling classes, lost 
 their spirituality, they lost their life. The dom- 
 inating spirit of an advancing civilisation was 
 always something above the dust ; when that died, 
 the body politic was a mass of corruption. Mate- 
 riality was death. When the heathen ruled a 
 vigorous nation, it was through a striving for 
 some help from beyond the dull earth in which 
 they lived. They acknowledged Divinity, and 
 worshipped it in some form. In his time, as it 
 had once been with the Greeks and Romans and, 
 before them, the Egyptians, he had seen the Spirit 
 bruised, mocked, and crucified. The god lost the 
 Spirit, and became merely a wooden thing to those 
 who had made that form their symbol. In these 
 times, like the rest of his generation, he had seen 
 the symbols become meaningless, even for most of 
 those who went through the forms of worship. 
 The God of the Christians was stiffening into an 
 idol. Words lost their meaning, and reality was 
 dying out of the form of the world's faith. Like 
 
364 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 thousands of other thoughtful men, Roger Beale 
 in his serious years had looked upon Christianity 
 as an outsider. " If it is real," he said, " it will 
 live." And he had seen it dying. Not in numbers 
 perhaps. Christianity has long been looked upon 
 as a good religion, politically speaking, as it is 
 interpreted by its present priesthood. Japan 
 seriously considered accepting it as a national 
 religion upon that account, and almost any con- 
 servative, whatever his own private opinions 
 may be, would rejoice to see it held by the 
 " lower classes." 
 
 Like most of his class, he had come at last to 
 the place where he pitied himself, along with the 
 rest of mankind, because the question seemed 
 unsolvable by the senses that were needed for 
 our daily living. But lately, unconsciously, 
 against his volition even, he was beginning to 
 ask, " Are our five senses all ? Have we not 
 been the blind, leading the blind, simply because 
 we would not lift up our eyes and see ? " 
 
 Judge Beale drew in his breath sharply, and 
 started his horse into a canter. 
 
 " I wonder," he said, with humourous appre- 
 ciation of his changing views, " if I am enter- 
 taining an angel unawares." 
 
 The sun was long down when he reached the 
 town. He rode into the alley that led to his 
 stables. He heard a scramble in the darkness 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 365 
 
 there, and called out to his stable-boy to strike 
 a match. Jack's voice answered him, almost 
 breathless. 
 
 " Ben's gone." 
 
 " What is it ? " Judge Beale said, quickly. 
 He put his hand into his own pocket and found 
 his match-case. By the light of the splinter of 
 wood he saw Jack, pale, standing there with the 
 shot-gun which he kept in the carriage-house 
 because his mother would not allow it in the 
 house, held in his hands. The boy was as pale 
 as death. 
 
 " What is it ? " his father asked again. He 
 put out the match, took the chimney from the 
 wall lamp, and lighted it with another which 
 he deliberately struck. 
 
 " We mustn't wait," the boy said, excitedly. 
 " I've got the gun ; let me take the horse." His 
 father put his hand on his shoulder, and held 
 the trembling boy. 
 
 " It's — Lily," Jack gasped. And then he 
 burst into tears of rage and fear. " You mustn't 
 wait. Mamma doesn't know, except that Lily 
 went down on the river to see a baby with small- 
 pox. But those damned " — the oath came out 
 with a tearing sob — " jays say they are going 
 to burn the house where Lily is. I'll kill some 
 of them." 
 
366 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 " Come, show me where it is. The horse isn't 
 tired." Judge Beale drew his son up behind him 
 on the strong farm horse, and went heavily down 
 the dark street. 
 
CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 DOWN the river street the mob came 
 slowly, after the fashion of mobs not 
 surely following one dominating leader. 
 It moved along in a mass, like bees awaiting the 
 pleasure of a queen. 
 
 Boys had found the storage place of the gaso- 
 line torches used in political parades, and, wild 
 with excitement, fringed the congregation with 
 their smoke and flare. The crowd, moving 
 slowly, stopping at saloons, arguing with any- 
 body who chose to question them, drinking in 
 an effort to drive themselves to the deed that 
 fascinated while it repelled them, took up the 
 whole street. 
 
 Here and there in the mass were girls and 
 women, hungry for something to happen, some 
 new movement in this day of change, to draw 
 a strange note from their tightened nerves. 
 
 The unusual conditions had whetted their 
 appetite for drama, and they wanted it to go up 
 to a startling climax. 
 
 "Aw — you-all won't do nothin'," one of 
 
 367 
 
368 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 them said, contemptuously, to a man beside her. 
 " You're afeard o' what'll be done to you, an' 
 when you git over that, you're afeard o' small- 
 pox. You won't do nothin'." 
 
 " You see if we don't. We're goin' to set that 
 house afire an' let th' smallpox git out o' this 
 town. Them immoral places ought to be cleaned 
 up anyways." He was not very sober, but he 
 wagged his head seriously, with an air of great 
 virtue. 
 
 " That's right ! Set th' place afire. Burn 'em 
 out. We don't want no witches in this town," 
 ran through the crowd. Growing larger every 
 moment it went on down the street, wavering, 
 growing, incoherent. 
 
 Near the front there was a sudden commotion, 
 and a bushy-haired man was lifted up on a square 
 street cornerstone to speak. 
 
 Judge Beale coming down the side street on the 
 farm horse could see by the light of the gasoline 
 torches that it was Clay, in a state of great excite- 
 ment. 
 
 " I want to say," he shouted, " that you ought 
 to go home. I want you to remember that my 
 advice to you is to go home. I cannot blame 
 you for being outraged, that while you are away 
 from your homes, crowded together as you are 
 in refuges, you should be made to fear smallpox, 
 the most terrible of all diseases; fear that your 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 369 
 
 wives and children, as precious to you as the 
 wives and children of the wealthy, who can afford 
 to live in safety on the high hills, shall be not 
 only in danger of drowning, but shall be exposed 
 to loathsome disease. I cannot blame you that 
 your strong, manly hearts are hot against the 
 woman who would spread this disease among 
 your innocent children, and then would drive 
 away the doctors who would come to save them 
 — taking the ill and suffering to a house of ill- 
 repute, conceaHng disease, murdering, I may say, 
 by allowing it headway." There were murmurs 
 all through the crowd. 
 
 " But now," Clay went on, " the mischief is 
 done. The health officers will take this matter 
 in hand. And while they may not punish the 
 daughter of a prominent citizen as they might 
 punish one of you who so wronged you, yet you 
 must disperse and let the law do what it will." 
 
 " Well, we won't," the man beside the girl 
 yelled. " Come on, boys. We're going to bum 
 out the smallpox." 
 
 Judge Beale rode into the crowd, and tried to 
 speak, but they rushed past him, neither knowing 
 nor caring who he was. The man who had called 
 out snatched a gasoline torch from the hand of 
 a boy, and ran ahead, shouting. 
 
 Judge Beale slipped from the horse, and gave 
 the bridle-reins into Jack's hands. 
 
370 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 " Stay here." 
 
 " No, sir," the boy answered, jerking the 
 horse's head around, " I am going down there." 
 And before his father could speak again he had 
 galloped heavily after the shouting mob. 
 
 Judge Beale, brought up in the town, knowing 
 every foot of it, and familiar with this old part 
 before it came to such base uses, went rapidly 
 down an old alleyway, pushed aside a rotting gate, 
 and found himself in the narrow old garden of 
 the Coxe estate. In the days when Aaron Burr 
 visited Stevensburg on his way to found a new 
 empire in the Southwest, he had led Mrs. Blen- 
 nerhassett through the box alleys of the old Coxe 
 garden. It was owned by some heirs in New 
 York who hardly knew of its existence, but Judge 
 Beale, who had played as a boy along the old 
 brick wall that bordered its river side, knew that 
 it ran down to the edge of the wharf, and that 
 it was above the water. He could walk along the 
 wall's broad top until he came to Serena Payne's 
 house at the back, where the ground dipped. It 
 would be a short jump for an athletic man to 
 make his way to the roof of Serena Payne's back 
 porch from the wall. When he was beside his 
 daughter, he would defy any mob to touch her. 
 The floor of the back porch of Serena Payne's 
 house was under water now, but that was all 
 the better. The mob would not come this way. 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 371 
 
 He could enter the house and face it. He scram- 
 bled through the bushes. There had been a rose 
 arbour here once, but it had fallen over, and the 
 briers had made a tangle which he found it hard 
 to get over in the darkness. He reached the wall 
 after awhile, hurrying, hurrying, scratched, and 
 panting a little. He must get there, before the 
 mob could get in. He could hear them yonder 
 in the street now, see the flare of the gasoline 
 torches as they bobbed this way and that in the 
 hands of the excited boys. It was all part of a 
 nightmare, — the rushing water, the wet, box- 
 choked, dark garden, and over there his Lily, his 
 pretty, dainty, gentle little girl, at the mercy of 
 a mob of half-drunken, merciless men. He made 
 a rush to the wall, scrambled to the top, and ran 
 along. The watery moon showing through the 
 heavy misty clouds showed him that bricks had 
 fallen from the old wall, and here and there were 
 the remains of stone urns which he must avoid. 
 He was almost there. He could hear the mob 
 yelling in the front of the house now, he could 
 see some of the faces around the corner of the 
 house. He measured the jump he must make to 
 the top of the porch. While he stood for one 
 second there at the end of the wall, he saw one 
 man fight his way through the crowded street, 
 and leaving the high ground, splash into the 
 
372 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 water, and come down the sloping yard of 
 Serena Payne's house toward the back door. 
 
 Judge Beale, the next instant, thought he had 
 jumped for the porch roof and missed. He felt 
 himself going, crashing with a terrible impetus, 
 against .the house. He knew that he was in the 
 water, he was fighting for his life in the water, and 
 there was some big, dark, terrible thing that had 
 struck him once, and that would strike him again. 
 A sickening pain seemed to crush in his chest, he 
 laboured for breath — and then — the end of the 
 world came. A great wave of water, rushing 
 down the river, had borne an uprooted tree over 
 the brick wall, and swept the man away, as 
 though he had been a grain of sand. 
 
 Richards, holding to one of the posts of the 
 frail back veranda of Serena Pa3me's house, 
 the water washing in this new rush up to his 
 very shoulders, felt the inert body of a man swept 
 against him in the darkness, and put out his 
 strong arm and held him. Once he was tempted 
 to let him go. The body was motionless in his 
 grasp — killed doubtless. And from the sound 
 of the cries of those monsters out there in the 
 street, the woman he loved, up-stairs in that house, 
 was needing him. But there are some things a 
 man like Richards must do, some things that his 
 nature demands of him imperatively, and one 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 373 
 
 of these is the performance of the duty that is 
 thrust upon him. 
 
 If the mob were shown this dead man, might 
 it not divert them? The wave had gone on in 
 its force, leaving the water higher but quiet again 
 here in this sheltered spot behind the house. 
 Richards took a good hold of the body, and 
 climbed up the slope with it, and on to the dry 
 ground, then staggering under it, dragging it, 
 he made his way into the street. He could not 
 leave it on the sloping yard for a new wave to 
 wash away. 
 
 " Help here ! " he called, loudly. But the mob 
 was looking up, and as he looked with it, it broke, 
 with the temper of a wilful, cruel, but easily 
 diverted child which is the temper of all mobs, 
 into a murmur of wonder. Richards, dripping, 
 haggard, the wet body hanging from his arms, 
 looked up too. Just above his head, on the roof 
 of the tiny portico which covered the front door 
 of Serena Payne's house, stood Lily Beale, her 
 fair head thrown back. She had wrapped a blue 
 cloak about her, and in her arms, laughing, strik- 
 ing out its arms at the flaring torches, was a 
 baby. 
 
 A group of Catholics would have fallen on 
 their knees, thinking they had seen the Holy 
 Mother herself appear in the midst of the waters, 
 but these Americans, brought up in that lack 
 
374 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 of any religion which is the pitiful common lot of 
 their class to-day, saw no sweet symbol. 
 
 " Where is the kid with th' smallpox ? " a boy 
 yelled. 
 
 " There is none," Lily's voice answered. Her 
 voice trembled a little, but it held a note of 
 triumph. " Here is the baby. He has no small- 
 pox. There is none here." 
 
 " Aw — what was old Clay givin' us ? " a 
 voice asked. 
 
 " She's takin' care of a kid," another one said. 
 
 " Three cheers for the lady," a man shouted, 
 who felt that he must have an occasion of some 
 sort. And coming to burn, they threw off their 
 hats and swung them around their heads in the 
 wild American hurrahs. The baby laughed back 
 over Lily's shoulder, as she went through the 
 window into the room. Serena Payne took the 
 child from her arms. " As if they could hurt 
 you!" she said, fiercely. 
 
 In the street a boy on a horse had been held, 
 expostulating, crying with rage, threatening, try- 
 ing to ride his way through the mob. The mo- 
 mentary diversion had brought him closer, and 
 a turn of a torch had thrown Richards and his 
 burden into view. 
 
 Jack flung himself with a cry upon the body, 
 and then Richards looked down to see that he 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 375 
 
 held Judge Beale, just as the crowd broke into 
 its cheer. 
 
 Richards lowered his burden on to the ground. 
 
 " It's papa," Jack said, breathlessly. " What 
 have they done to papa ? " His cry brought the 
 men near by around them. 
 
 Richards knelt on the ground, and went rapidly 
 over the limp form. " We must take him some- 
 where. He isn't drowned. His chest is hurt." 
 
 " Is he — ? " the boy choked on the question. 
 
 " Not yet," the doctor answered. 
 
 " We can take him right in here," one man 
 said. 
 
 " No," Jack said, " not there. I am going for 
 my mother, and my mother would never come in 
 there." 
 
 "We'll carry him over there to th' Baptis' 
 Church. Run along, an' git yer ma. We'll 
 carry him up there." And the men Roger Beale 
 had come down to fight, the men whose inflamed 
 passions would have sent his daughter to a fright- 
 ful death, took him up tenderly, and bore his 
 broken body the two or three blocks to the lighted 
 church. 
 
 The crowd, with a new interest, turned to 
 follow. One of them saw the white, quiet face, 
 and called out, " It's Jedge Beale ! Why — 
 thet's his girl in there. You must git her. 
 They're a-takin' her pa to th' Baptis' Church. I'll 
 
376 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 git her." Some of them went back, but they 
 were stopped by a figtire they all knew, who 
 stood with upraised arm, his awkward frock 
 coat falling limply around his ungainly legs, his 
 hat in his hand. 
 
 " No," he thundered, in his pulpit voice. " It 
 is not right to deprive that man of his one chance 
 of life. Let this woman remain here. If her 
 father dies it is a just punishment for her blas- 
 phemies, given by the very hand of God." Mr. 
 Batton felt like John the Baptist rebuking sin. 
 " Let her not torment his last hours by her in- 
 sanity." 
 
 " But, oh — say, she ought to know." They 
 were tender-hearted now, sentimentally so. They 
 no longer feared the smallpox, and nobody was 
 exciting them to riot. 
 
 " It is part of her punishment that she is not 
 fit to know," and to the depths of his heart he 
 believed what he said. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 THE doctor, the physician, was uppermost 
 in Richards now. He had despatched a 
 note to one of the doctors near by for 
 bandages, restoratives, and by the time the 
 church was reached, the telephone had told the 
 story all over the town, and a group of doctors 
 were there. The crowd had been pushed back, 
 and Judge Beale was taken into Mrs. Batton's 
 neat bedroom, where she saw his wet clothing 
 crush her starched sham sheet with a sorrow she 
 tried to repress. The clothes were cut from the 
 inert body, Richards working like a half-dozen 
 men. Outside gathered the men from up-town, 
 the friends of the Beales, the men before whom the 
 mob drew back abashed, hearing the rumour that 
 was passed from lip to lip that Judge Beale had 
 been murdered by some of them and thrown into 
 the water. With the guilty remembrance of what 
 they had intended to do, they slunk back to the 
 saloons. In the church, the women called to 
 each other excitedly, and the children cried. Half- 
 dressed, they arose and crowded about the parson- 
 
 377 
 
378 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 age door, keen for the drama that was going on 
 inside. It was through this crowd that Mrs. 
 Beale came with Geraldine and Jack. Mr. Les- 
 sing, full of bustle and importance, his smug, 
 fat face putting on its sacerdotal expression, fol- 
 lowing closely after. 
 
 Jack, all the manliness of the boy coming to 
 the surface, held to his mother's arm. His soft 
 young forehead was lined, and the set lips of 
 Mrs. Beale were reproduced in her son's face. 
 Jerry, drawing long, half-sobbing breaths, trem- 
 bling through all her tall, nervous girl's body, 
 came closely after. 
 
 The little bedroom seemed to be filled with the 
 sound of the breathing of the hurt man. All 
 but Doctor Richards and Mr. Shepperson drew 
 away from the bed when Mrs. Beale and her 
 children entered. Richards, his wet shirt outlin- 
 ing his shoulders, his arms bare, his face tense, 
 worked over the poor crushed body, trying to 
 bring back consciousness, trying to hold the life 
 as it slipped away. 
 
 Mr. Shepperson, standing by the bed, looked 
 at his old friend's wife with agony as she turned 
 toward him. " Will he live ? " the tense mouth 
 asked. 
 
 Mr. Lessing came forward and put his hand on 
 her arm. " The Lord giveth, and the Lord 
 taketh away," he said, solemnly. 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 379 
 
 " Where is his daughter, that she is not here 
 to see what she has done ? " The words came 
 through Mrs. Beale's white, frozen Hps. 
 
 Jerry gave a hysterical cry, and put her head 
 down on the rail at the foot of the bed. Not 
 only her father, but her mother had gone into 
 an unreal world. 
 
 Richards turned as if he had been stung. He 
 had expected Lily there with her mother. Un- 
 acknowledged to himself, he had worked until 
 Lily should come. He was keeping the life in 
 that terribly gasping, bruised body, until Lily 
 should come. That was the cry of his subcon- 
 sciousness : "Until Lily can come !" And now Lily 
 was not here. He turned his face toward them, 
 hard and grim with its tense muscles, his eyes 
 burning under the lowered brows. 
 
 " Bring her," he said. " Go for her. Jack, 
 go for your sister." His low voice held author- 
 ity. Jack let his mother's arm fall, and sped 
 through the door. As he went, he met his aunt 
 Harriet Glover with her husband and Lucille 
 coming in, and brushed by their questions. 
 
 Mrs. Glover was trembling with a grief which 
 was half anger. Her brother had been a weak 
 man, she had said and thought, for his tolerance 
 of Lily's vagaries. She had said in these last 
 weeks that if Lily were her child, she should be 
 shut up on bread and water. But he was her only 
 
38o THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 brother, her pride, the head of her family, and 
 he was dying a martyr to what she honestly be- 
 lieved to be Lily's folly. She was gently taken 
 in hand by Mr. Lessing. 
 
 " Where is Lily ? " Lucille asked. 
 
 " I do not know. I think Jack has gone for 
 her," Mr. Lessing whispered. 
 
 " I think it just as well she should not be here," 
 Mrs. Glover said, firmly, aloud. " She has done 
 enough mischief." Her face worked. She wanted 
 to break out into a tirade of wrath, she wanted 
 to shout out that Lily had caused her father's 
 death. She wanted to hurt Lily's mother because 
 Lily was not there to hurt. It seemed to her 
 distorted vision in her anger and grief that her 
 brother's wife and children were aliens — no 
 relations. It would have astonished her to have 
 known that she was thinking that if Roger, her 
 young, handsome brother Roger, had never mar- 
 ried this woman, he would never have been hurt, 
 nothing unpleasant would ever have happened. 
 The habit of years, her own good taste would 
 not allow her to say any more, but the wish to 
 do so surged through her. Lucille, gentle, moved 
 up to Richards's side. 
 
 The doctors, grave of face, had drawn together 
 about the door. They were shaking their heads 
 in sorrowful negative to Mr. Glover's questions. 
 
 " Is there any hope at all ? " Lucille asked. 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 381 
 
 Richards hardly knew who she was as he an- 
 swered her. The man under his hands was as 
 dear to him as his own flesh and blood — dearer if 
 it could be, because he was of the flesh and blood 
 of the woman who had come to have his very- 
 soul's worship. 
 
 " There is no hope," he said, firmly, " unless 
 Lily brings it." 
 
 " Will she arouse him ? " 
 
 " She can cure him," Richards said. " She can 
 work miracles. I have seen her." 
 
 " Do you — you wouldn't let her try " — 
 Lucille could not help it. Her astonishment had 
 the question out — " Christian Science f " 
 
 " I shall let her try anything she brings. Only 
 a miracle can save him. I have seen her work 
 a miracle." 
 
 Mrs. Beale had stood by the bedside, stony, the 
 expression of her face unchanged. Jerry had 
 lifted her head and had thrown herself weeping 
 against the mother's shoulder that had been the 
 tender pillow of every grief she had ever known 
 in her life, and for the first time in her life she 
 was repulsed. 
 
 " I think," Mrs. Beale said, " that Doctor Rich- 
 ards is incapable of caring for my husband. Doc- 
 tor Marsh, will you take him in charge? " 
 
 Richards cast a bewildered look upon her, while 
 Doctor Marsh, the old doctor who had brought 
 
382 THE LIFE WITHIN 
 
 the Beale children into the world, who had given 
 his practice over into the young, strong hands of 
 Richards, hesitated. 
 
 " I wish my husband's death to be — to be — " 
 She could say no more. The very weight of 
 her woe broke her down. She fell on her knees 
 against the bed, and buried her face in the bed- 
 clothes. 
 
 " Roger, Roger," she cried, " I cannot forgive 
 our child ! I cannot ! I cannot ! " 
 
 There was stillness in the room for a moment 
 — except for the gasps of the labouring lungs 
 of the man on the bed. The men held their 
 heads down as they hold them when they hear 
 the clods rattle on a coffin lid. 
 
 Outside there was a shrill clamour, a murmur 
 as though dozens were trying to speak together 
 in a whisper. 
 
 "She's comin'!" "There she is!" "Did 
 she knock him in the water? " " They say she 
 didn't want to come." " You'd better git away, 
 she may have smallpox sure enough." This 
 last made a lane through the crowd for Jack and 
 Lily. The half-clad women, cruel in their brutal 
 curiosity to see " how she would take it," as 
 their vernacular has it, pushed each other, and 
 then tried to crowd up on the steps of the par- 
 sonage veranda after her. 
 
 White of the face, serene of mien, Lily went 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 383 
 
 through them all, holding fast to Jack's shoulder, 
 then the door opened and shut her in. 
 
 She stopped to speak to no one, but went to the 
 bed where her father was lying, and stood there 
 looking down upon him. In that moment of the 
 clamour outside, the blood had rushed to Mrs. 
 Glover's head, and she had felt that she must 
 speak. Somebody should tell Lily Beale that this 
 havoc was of her making, and she would not 
 shirk the task. But with that young girl there 
 entered into the room something which bound 
 them all as with a spell. To each one there came 
 the thought that here was the great change. The 
 silence thrilled them as those are thrilled who 
 hear the tolling of the bell for a passing spirit. 
 
 It was too solemn a moment for each of them. 
 The men stood with bowed heads, the women 
 with their faces in their hands. The horrible, 
 hoarse respirations from the bed grew fainter one 
 by one, until they were heard no more. 
 
 A moment longer Lily stood, and then she put 
 her arm around her mother's waist to lift her. 
 
 " Come, dear," she said, softly. Mrs. Beale 
 broke into terrible sobs. 
 
 " He is dead ! He is dead ! " she cried. 
 
 " Sh-sh," Doctor Richards said, lifting her 
 hastily. " He is asleep. Hush. You will awaken 
 him." 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 ONE evening in the late May of that year, 
 Judge Beale and his wife walked the long 
 veranda at Old Point Comfort, where they 
 had come for his full convalescence. 
 
 " You were shocked, and your lungs were a 
 little bruised, but you would have recovered any- 
 way," Mrs. Beale said. " Doctor Marsh told me 
 so." 
 
 Judge Beale walked up and down once before 
 he spoke. 
 
 " That is not all of it," he said. 
 
 " And as for Lily," his wife went on, " there 
 isn't one thing that she has done — if she has 
 done anything — that is not to be explained by 
 understanding the common facts. Of course that 
 horrible house-boat child never had anything the 
 matter with it but dirt and neglect. When its face 
 was washed it was cured. As for Serena Payne, 
 thousands of women like her reform. It has all 
 been intaagible." 
 
 She drew a sigh which was half relief, and 
 added : " Probably by the time she and her hus- 
 
 384 
 
THE LIFE WITHIN 385 
 
 band return from Europe she will be ready to 
 settle down into the sort of woman I always 
 thought she would make. Marriage generally 
 cures fads in a. girl." 
 
 " Mary," her husband said, " the truth is the 
 truth. It is the thing that is. What matter, 
 except to us, whether we accept it, or deny it? 
 We cannot change it, except for ourselves. If we 
 are not borne along by its current, we are out 
 of the stream of life. We get into the eddies 
 and die there. We commit spiritual and mental 
 suicide. Truth is Life." 
 
 " I suppose you understand what you mean," 
 Mrs. Beale said. She walked slowly along, look- 
 ing over the bay bright under the moon, and then 
 she said, in her usual brisk way : 
 
 " I am extremely thankful that the next daugh- 
 ter I bring out is in no danger of listening to 
 nonsense." 
 
 THE END. 
 

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