96 
 
 Q^atnell Hninecaity Sltbcatg 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 BENNO LOEWY LIBRARY 
 
 COLLECTED BY 
 
 BENNO LOEWY 
 
 1854-1919 
 
 BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNlVEHSfTY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PS 3537.T247W6 
 
 The whole truth a story by Willis Steell 
 
 3 1924 021 694 819 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021694819 
 
The 
 
 Whole Truth 
 
 3V J-tarij 
 
 WILLIS STEELL 
 
 Author of "Mortal Lips," "The Han from Coventry, 'H 
 " Isidra," etc. ' 
 
 >^/i \*^ 
 
 rvT^ 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH 
 
 a Stori? 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIS STEELL L^ 
 1 1 
 
 ' The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. ' 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HILLIER MURRAY & CO. 
 
 33 West 30th Street 
 
Copyright, 1892, by 
 WILUS STEELL 
 
 lAll RigMs BeserBed] 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 FROM THE PAPERS OF CHARLES BALLARD. 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 ISIDRA, a novel of Mexico of the period of the Intervention of 
 Napoleon Third. One volume, 13mo, good library edition, 
 
 bound in extra heavy cloth $1.35 
 
 The same, new popular edition, paper 50 
 
 IN SEVILLE, [Ready i7i May,] a series of Spanish sketches re- 
 published by authority. To be printed on Extra Fine Laid 
 Paper and Cloth bound $1.00 
 
 Sent by mail, post-paid, on receipt of price by the publishers, 
 HILLIEB MURRAY AND COMPANy, 38 West 80th Street, New 
 York. 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 I. 
 
 My name is Charles Ballard, and al- 
 though I am a novice at authorship I shall 
 make no excuse for offering this fragment 
 of biography in my own person. That is, I 
 shall make no real excuse. I might say that 
 I write the story of Sydney Creighton's hor- 
 rible experience to get rid of its baneful 
 memory, as Goethe's mother advised ■ Bet- 
 tina to do in the case of the Canoness Gun- 
 derode. Or I might affirm that I write it 
 in order to refute those realists who declare 
 that all the stories have been told. Neither 
 is the whole truth. I love to rehearse 
 
6 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 Creighton's misery, just as men tell over 
 the tales which curdled their blood in cradle- 
 hood, and as for my second statement, no 
 doubt the realists can destroy it by finding 
 my story in Sophocles or some other old 
 Greek tragedy writer. 
 
 Sydney Creighton was — indeed he is — a 
 more singular mixture of strength and 
 weakness than most men, and when I met 
 him first it was with a certain almost con- 
 temptuous toleration. That meeting oc- 
 curred in the morning chapel of a college we 
 both attended, at the beginning of a fall term 
 when I entered the Junior class. At this 
 obligatory religious exercise the students 
 were seated according to their rank, the first 
 rows being occupied by Seniors, the next by 
 the Juniors, while behind them came the 
 Sophomore class, and so on. Each class 
 took as many benches as its numbers re- 
 quired, and if it happened that one member 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 1 
 
 could not crowd in with his classmates, he 
 occupied an entire bench by himself. 
 
 That was my lot at the fall opening re- 
 ferred to, but after sitting there two days 
 alone, a youth whom I had not seen before 
 came and shared it with me. I conjectured 
 that he was a new-comer, who had passed the 
 necessary examinations to admit him to my 
 grade, and he showed himself so polite that I 
 thought he wanted to curry favor and 
 treated him accordingly ; that is, I acted as 
 if he was not there. 
 
 It was impossible, however, that we could 
 meet thus, morning after morning for a 
 year, without becoming acquainted, the more 
 so since we encountered each other after 
 chapel in the classroom. Besides, he was 
 handsome, well-dressed, and gentlemanly, 
 and upon acquaintance he developed a sin- 
 gularly amiable disposition. Young college 
 men are apt to look down upon a mate who 
 
8 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 is not a brawler or a boaster, and I favored 
 my generation. Yet I could not help liking 
 Sydney even while I thought him a molly- 
 coddle. He looked more like a fair girl 
 than a young man, although his form was 
 strongly poised and his arm corded like a 
 blacksmith's. In other things besides reci- 
 tations Sydney was a clever boy, and after 
 familiarity had set in he used to keep us— 
 the wild set^laughing at his quips and jests, 
 but he always blushed when we applauded, 
 and if he heard anything the least pathetic 
 his eyes would fill with tears. Once he 
 told me he could never beg a man's par- 
 don, not from pride, but because he feared 
 he would burst out crying. This distress- 
 ing sensibility, which we called weakness, 
 earned for Sydney the title of "the baby." 
 He had confidence enough, in all conscience, 
 in the classroom, but there was reason for 
 it, for Sydney was an all-round good stu- 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 9 
 
 dent. Whether he learned by understand- 
 ing or by parrot-like fidelity to the text was 
 often the discussion among his more sober 
 and stupid comrades, but if it was the lat- 
 ter his memory was mirror-like and never 
 betrayed him. 
 
 Our set frequently wondered how Sydnej' 
 would behave in the society of women. The 
 small village where the college stood gave 
 no opportunities to test him. At last we 
 endeavored to draw Syd out in regard to 
 his home life, and thus find if he was a 
 blusher and stammerer before femininity. 
 We made a singular discovery. 
 
 "I have never known any woman ex- 
 cept my old aunt Margaret," said Sydney. 
 Where had he lived? we asked. The lad 
 with perfect frankness told all he knew of 
 himself. It was not much, but so different 
 from the commonplace but happy family 
 surroundings the rest of us had known. 
 
10 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 that Sydney's life, by contrast, seemed 
 highly romantic. The boy had known nei- 
 ther father nor mother and had been kept 
 steadily at school since his eighth year. 
 His first recollection was of a dormitory in 
 a boarding-school in Canada, where he re- 
 mained summer and winter until he reached 
 the age of fourteen years. Then he was 
 removed to a Catholic institution. His aunt 
 accompanied him on the journey from one 
 school to another, and she brought him from 
 Notre Dame to her home to spend the sum- 
 mer previous to his entering our college. 
 She had told him then, as he was eighteen 
 and so nearly a man, that she was not in 
 blood related to him, and knew nothing 
 about his parents, whether they were liv- 
 ing or dead. When he was three years 
 old he had been brought to her for nomi- 
 nal adoption, for which she had been well 
 paid, and she had followed a lawyer's 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH 11 
 
 orders in sending him to these various 
 schools. 
 
 "The old lady has been extremely good 
 to me," said Sydney, "and she told me, in 
 her belief my mother is alive. There is 
 some talk of a lady who came twice to the 
 farm-house to ask her how I got along, but 
 that was within the last year, and I do not 
 think it could be my mother." 
 
 " But don't you long to know who your 
 parents are, or were?" some one asked 
 bluntly. 
 
 I remember looking at our "baby" curi- 
 ously then, because I felt sure he would 
 show emotion. Nothing of the kind. He 
 looked his questioner full in the face and 
 answered calmly: 
 
 "Perhaps. But I have never needed 
 them." 
 
 "But you will see the lawyer and ques- 
 tion him?" 
 
12 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 "Why, yes," answered Sydney, "if I 
 think I ought to know." 
 
 This answer made me reflect that Creigh- 
 ton was not so feeble a character as some of 
 us imagined. He was moral, too, mentally 
 moral, as I had felt when we told doubtful 
 stories in his presence. And an exciting 
 episode of our last year at school showed 
 that he was as courageous as he was pure. 
 
 I rehearse the trivial incident simply be- 
 cause Sydney was its hero. He belonged to 
 a fraternity of which our set were the lead- 
 ing spirits, and it had the run of the college 
 until our senior year. That year a second 
 society, with far different and higher aims, 
 was formed, which sapped the foundations 
 of the elder. Most of the new men joined 
 it, and many of our own fellows deserted the 
 old standard. Every one knows how seri- 
 ously such things are taken by students. 
 Our fraternity ranked higher than country, 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 13 
 
 we averred, and as all things are said to be 
 fair in war, a doubtful piece of morality 
 which casuists have intrusted to children, 
 the leaders of the Delta Tau planned a 
 raid on the new chapter house. Sydney- 
 went with us, but unwillingly, the night we 
 broke into the rooms of our rivals and tore 
 up and burned their papers and destroyed 
 their furniture. When the report of the 
 vandalism canje out next day there rose 
 a great turmoil. The rival society clam- 
 ored for redress and the faculty ordered an 
 investigation to be made for the perpetra- 
 tors. For some days we slept in tranquil- 
 lity, but the morning came when we were 
 all detained — a band of eight marauders — 
 and " Prexy" warned us that confession and 
 restoration must be made to save us from 
 expulsion. The venerable man warned us 
 that the case only waited conclusive evi- 
 dence, and dismissed us for the present. 
 
14 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 Afterward each of us was summoned pri- 
 vately to a faculty meeting and cross-exam- 
 ined. But, despite ostracism, which the 
 whole college practised against us, we 
 hardened our hearts and refused to con- 
 fess. 
 
 In a vague way security was promised 
 provided a scapegoat could be found on whom 
 to wreak the common vengeance. We 
 scorned to avail ourselves of this, and heard 
 that the papers declaring us summarily ex- 
 pelled would be read aloud next day in 
 chapel. Sydney spent most of the preced- 
 ing day with me, and while I was down- 
 cast, for I knew my expulsion would fall 
 heavily on my father and mother, Syd 
 looked cheerful. I told him how badly I 
 felt at repaying the sacrifices my parents 
 had made to send me to college in such a 
 way, and groaned aloud to think I had 
 gone into this folly. 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 15 
 
 Syd's eyes filled with tears. He grasped 
 my hand. 
 
 "Cheer up !" he said. " Something may 
 occur. If they find out who is most to 
 blame they will let the others go." 
 
 That should have prepared me, but it did 
 not. I was as much surprised as any one 
 after prayers next morning to see my bench- 
 mate brush past me and walk up to the 
 president, who stood at his pulpit-desk, ner- 
 vously fumbling with some ominous sheets 
 of paper. Sydney walked straight to the 
 surprised old man, and then said in a tone 
 audible to us all that he was there to pre- 
 vent an act of injustice. His face was pale, 
 but his contralto voice never faltered as he 
 went on to declare that he, Sydney Creigh- 
 ton, had planned the raid which had almost 
 disrupted the college. 
 
 The president heard him in silence, and 
 motioned him to a seat among the faculty 
 
IG THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 while he dismissed the others. I leave you 
 to picture what an excited group walked up 
 and down the campus waiting for our hero 
 to emerge. When he did what a shout went 
 up! 
 
 Sydney turned pale to the lips, and then 
 the blood fairly spouted to his face. I 
 feared he would burst into tears, and wished 
 to prevent him from exposing his weakness, 
 but he somehow regained his composure. 
 
 "It's all right, fellows," said he. 
 
 That night Syd came to seek me in my 
 room. 
 
 "I am expelled," he said. 
 
 To do myself justice, when I heard this 
 my soul rose in revolt at our meanness in 
 allowing this poor boy, not yet of age, the 
 "baby," as we termed him, to take our sins 
 on himself. I stammered some words about 
 my resolve to go to the president with the 
 truth, but Sydney would not listen. 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 17 
 
 " Why should I care what they think of 
 me here?" he detnanded ; "and besides, Bal- 
 lard, there is no time. I'm going away to- 
 night, and I want you to come over to my 
 rooms now to meet my mother." 
 
 "Your mother! Then you've been guy- 
 ing us." 
 
 "No, I did not know I had one till an 
 hour ago, and eVen now I don't feel it. She 
 came so suddenly ! But take your hat ; don't 
 be alarmed. She is lovely, and she looks as 
 young as I." 
 
 I followed him, and as it was but a step, 
 I soon stood in the presence of the most 
 charming woman I have ever known. She 
 was tall, and being dressed entirely in 
 black, she looked taller than her son. Her 
 hair shone like gold and she wore it combed 
 low over a broad, white forehead, while her 
 complexion was as fresh as a child's. That 
 seemed the only point in which Sydney re- 
 
18 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 sembled her. Perhaps their eyes were some- 
 what ahke ; but Syd's gazed straight at you, 
 while she had a pretty trick of looking at 
 people through long, golden-brown lashes. 
 
 "I am very glad to know you, " she said 
 in the sweetest voice I had ever heard. 
 "Sydney has told me how kind you have 
 been to my deserted boy. I would not take 
 him away before we had met and I had 
 thanked you." 
 
 "Are you going away?" I asked stupidly, 
 for what I had wanted to see in Sydney was 
 happening to me, and I must have looked 
 like a booby to this elegant woman. " If you 
 stay I am sure it will turn out all right. 
 The president will restore Sydney as soon 
 as he knows all." 
 
 "He knows enough," remarked the lady 
 quietly, " and it is better as it is. I meant 
 Sydney to leave before commencement, and 
 his escapade furthers my plan. We are go- 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 19 
 
 ing in an hour. Some time you will come to 
 see us, and then you shall hear my son's 
 story. There is not time to tell it now, but 
 the story is really romantic." 
 
 She laughed as she said this, a delicious 
 musical laugh that inspired no smile in me, 
 but a strange yet pleasant sensation. And 
 when she mentioned her son, she drew Syd- 
 ney to her and kissed him on the brow. 
 The lad blushed and flinched. I could not 
 help thinking, in spite of what he had done 
 for me that day, what a ninny he was 
 not to like to be kissed by this beautiful 
 creature. 
 
 Her next words startled me. 
 
 "I would like you to promise," she said, 
 " that you will say nothing about Sydney's 
 mother coming for him, and will deny to 
 every one where he has gone." 
 
 I made the promise, and she drew a card 
 from a stamped leather case and gave it to 
 
20 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 me, repeating her invitation to visit them 
 as soon as I could. 
 
 "You see, I hve in New York, and every 
 man of talent comes to live in New York 
 sooner or later." 
 
 Sydney went with. me to the door. He 
 held my hand tightly. 
 
 "Isn't she splendid!" I said.. "I congrat- 
 ulate you on your mother, my boy. " 
 
 "Is she my mother?" he murmured. "I 
 ought to feel it, but I don't, I don't!" 
 
 I laughed at him. "How can you feel 
 it when you have only known her an hour?" 
 
 He looked at me wistfully, and seemed 
 about to spea.k. The door behind us opened 
 and a soft voice called, " Sydney !" 
 
 I shook his hand heartily and went. 
 
II. 
 
 I HAVE never believed much in friendship; 
 it is a tie which binds the weak. Strong 
 characters break it early, and I took it for 
 a sign I was one of them, because I did not 
 wish to meet any of my comrades in college, 
 whom the lapse of two years (and hard ones 
 for me, as you would see if I were telling 
 my own story) had diminished to mere ac- 
 quaintances. Yet when I heard some one 
 calling my name one day on Broadway, and 
 looking round saw my classmate, the " baby, " 
 I was stirred to the depths by a sensation of 
 a kind I had never felt before. He took 
 both my hands, and said in his rich con- 
 tralto voice : 
 
 "Ballard!" 
 
 "Sydney! Why, old chap?" 
 21 
 
23 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 The question was drawn out of me by sur- 
 prise that two years should have so altered 
 my friend. It was not that he looked so 
 much older, although he did, but the simple 
 candor which used to distinguish him had 
 gone. Somehow the change struck me as 
 being deeper than the substitution of worldly 
 wisdom for artlessness warranted. Self-sat- 
 isfaction usually accompanies that change, 
 and Sydney impressed me as a man pro- 
 foundly dissatisfied with himself. I hope to 
 be forgiven, but I thought he looked like a 
 criminal who hardly expected to go unde- 
 tected, and in his eyes I read the despairing 
 inquiry that unpunished wretches mutely 
 ask of their fellow -men. Will you help me or 
 are you here to find me out? 
 
 This look lost its intensity when we turned 
 into a cafe and talked over our old days. 
 
 "You have been here half a year?" he 
 exclaimed. "Why haven't you looked me 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 23 
 
 up? But I might have known you would 
 not — still the same self-contained old chap. 
 Where are you stopping? I will come to 
 see you." 
 
 The first feeling of intimate relationship 
 had passed away, and I had a little feeling 
 of shame to tell this elegant young stranger, 
 so point device, that my hard lines were lain 
 in the East side, in one of the poorest re- 
 spectable districts ; so I parried his question 
 by saying that I would come to see him first, 
 as I had long ago promised his mother. 
 
 "She is well, I hope," said I. 
 
 He looked at me quite fixedly and mur- 
 mured that she was well, and would be glad 
 to see me. He drew a card out of his 
 pocket. As I took it, I remembered the 
 address. "You are living in the same 
 place." 
 
 "Yes," he answered, "it is my mother's 
 own house." 
 
U THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 I accepted an invitation to dine with them 
 the evening following, and we parted. 
 
 The house, which made one of one of the 
 older blocks of Fifth Avenue, looked a lit- 
 tle more sombre and unattractive than its 
 neighbors. The large room into which I 
 was shown had been elegantly furnished, 
 but with an eccentric mingling of tastes, 
 as if it was not the property of one person. 
 Incongruity of belongings, like perfection 
 of decoration, struck no deeper than the sur- 
 face with me, and I only saw with all my 
 eyes that the mistress of the house had re- 
 mained as young and beautiful as the image 
 I had cherished of her. Lucky fellow was 
 Sydney to have fallen in with a home and 
 mother just at the moment when other men 
 were leaving both. 
 
 Mrs. Creighton's dress was black again, 
 more diaphanous than the gown she had 
 worn at our college interview. It was cut 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 25 
 
 low in the neck, and showed a firm, swell- 
 ing bust. Lace sleeves revealed arms too 
 thin, perhaps, for the modeller, but harmo- 
 nizing with her tall, graceful figure. In a 
 very few words she put me at my ease, and 
 when Sydney left the room she began ask- 
 ing me about myself. With her I was more 
 confidential than with her son. She heard 
 even more than I told, for a gentle annoy- 
 ance crossed her brow, and she took me to 
 task because I had not come at once to them. 
 
 "We are poor," she said, "at least com- 
 paratively poor. I have always wanted for 
 little, and Sydney is self-supporting. But 
 my house is large, and it is^ — well, yes — I 
 suppose people saj' it is a boarding-house. " 
 
 Here she laughed a happy, igurgling laugh 
 like a child's, as if the idea amused her. 
 
 "It is not quite that," she added, "but 
 other people live here besides my boy and 
 me. I have two elderly friends with me. 
 
36 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Egge, and there is a young 
 man who is literally a hoarder. You shall 
 come and make the fourth." 
 
 I attempted to protest, and, in fact, I did 
 explain that my income would not permit 
 me to share her home, as she expressed it. 
 
 Mrs. Creighton heard me through, and 
 then named the price I would he expected 
 to pay. 
 
 "Why, that would be charity!" I cried. 
 " It is less than I am now charged. I could 
 not." 
 
 This time she interrupted me and said that 
 Mr. Levick, her young man boarder, paid 
 that sum, and surely she would not charge 
 Sydney's friend more. So it was arranged. 
 
 Throughout this talk of money Mrs. 
 Creighton displayed the utmost frankness. 
 It was refreshing to hear her after the com- 
 mon landladies, who made specious excuses 
 while their grasping hands filched me. 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 37 
 
 When Sydney returned his mother told 
 him what she had done. I thought I saw 
 him start, but was instantly undeceived, for 
 he shook me cordially by the hand and 
 asked his mother what room she meant to 
 give me. " The room next mine ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 Mrs. Creighton said: "No; for then I 
 should be jealous of him. I will give him 
 the room above yours." 
 
 Now we heard steps of persons descend- 
 ing the stairs and entering the dining-room. 
 I followed Mrs. Creighton, and she intro- 
 duced me to Mr. and Mrs. Egge and to Mr. 
 Levick. The latter was a sullen young ath- 
 lete dressed in exquisite taste. But Mr. 
 and Mrs. Egge were a singular - looking 
 couple. 
 
 Both were under-sized and had small, 
 childish faces. The husband wore an even- 
 ing coat of an old-fashioned cut. His linen 
 
28 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 shone aggressively white. His hair was 
 thick, glossy black, and twisted in artificial 
 curls far over his ears. Two great curls of 
 the kind that young mothers fashion on 
 their babies' heads and call " curly-queues " 
 shadowed his forehead. Over small, pierc- 
 ing black eyes he wore gold-rimmed spec- 
 tacles, which his nose, small and tip-tilt- 
 ed, with difficulty supported. Many deep 
 wrinkles scrolled away from under his nose 
 to his chin, where they were lost in a goatee 
 suspiciously black. Mr. Egge looked like 
 an actor who had abandoned the stage, but 
 whom the stage had never abandoned. 
 This fancy, which I afterward found to be 
 justified by the facts (he had been a rising 
 singer in his youth), was induced by his 
 voice, which had all the false infiections. 
 He welcomed me with exceeding cordiality, 
 as if he were playing the role of master of 
 the house, and all through dinner his high. 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 29 
 
 piercing voice was never silent. He called 
 his hostess "Mrs. C." 
 
 Eather pretty, many years younger, and 
 very quiet in manner, Mrs. Egge presented 
 a complete contrast to her husband, whom 
 she treated like a spoiled child. Her face 
 wore an expression of great gentleness, 
 which impressed the observer as having been 
 acquired by a long draught of the bitterness 
 of life. A little trouble would have made 
 this woman peevish ; great and long-contin- 
 ued disappointment had worn away the 
 crust and left her real quietude open to view. 
 "When she spoke she smiled, but as she did 
 so, two wrinkles in her forehead, always vis- 
 ible, deepened almost to deformity. Women 
 found Mrs. Egge overdressed, for, like most 
 little persons, she liked to cover her gown 
 with lace in falls or festoons. Men, on the 
 contrary, never criticised either her gowns 
 or manners. She pleased them by a sweet 
 
30 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 bending to their opinions, not precisely like 
 a mother, but like a fond, admiring elder sis- 
 ter. There was, too, a romantic something 
 about her which they called old world. In 
 spirit ilrs. Egge had exiled herself from 
 America; she had been a great traveller, 
 and in the castles of Spain, in Italy's pal- 
 aces and picture-galleries, she lived a dream 
 that the return to this country woke her 
 out of. Xot that she ever showed discon- 
 tent, and I do not think she felt it. She 
 came home simply to rest her wings, and 
 from voyage to voyage she talked only of 
 the next she meant to make. One would 
 think she would have been either very en- 
 tertaining or very tedious ; she was neither. 
 She took an innocent pride in naming the 
 countries and cities which she had \dsited, 
 but she never attempted to describe them, 
 and she did not seem to look down on peo- 
 ple who had always stayed at home. That 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 31 
 
 first night she confided to me that she had 
 crossed the ocean one hundred and seven 
 times. When I expressed my admiration, 
 as in duty hound, she smiled on me with 
 genuine dehght, which faded when her hus- 
 band remarked : 
 
 "Don't let Mrs. E. get hold of you, or she 
 will show you albums and photographs, and 
 that would spoil your visit." 
 
 " Mr. Ballard is going to make his home 
 with us, " said Mrs. Creighton. 
 
 "Hum, hum, you don't say so!" exclaimed 
 Mr. Egge, staring at her and pursing his 
 lips. I looked up and caught Levick's bold 
 eyes ; he smiled satirically. 
 
 After dinner we went up to a room on the 
 second floor which served as music-room and 
 smoking-room by Mr. Egge's own combina- 
 tion. He confided to me that he was invet- 
 erate in music and smoke, and took them 
 together. Mrs. Egge did not accompany us. 
 
32 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 The elderly boy hardly allowed time for 
 digestion before he opened the piano and 
 began singing the difficult arias and roman- 
 ces which constituted a tenor's repertory a 
 quarter of a century ago. He sang well, 
 and except for a free use of the vibrato, 
 
 '•V 
 
 which was not really unpleasant, his method 
 seemed modern enough. Praise acted upon 
 him like wine, sparkling his little eyes be- 
 hind their glasses and wreathing his lips in 
 smiles. It was plain to be seen that he had 
 the genuine tenor's temperament, with all 
 its weakness, simplicity, and appetite for flat- 
 tery. When Mrs. Creighton, who listened 
 to him with interest, applauded after he had 
 sung '■'■ Spirto gentil," he blushed like a 
 stripling. At the time she leaned upon the 
 piano lid, and looked him obliquely in the 
 face. I did not catch the answer he made, 
 but a look of faint dissent crossed Mrs. 
 Creighton's face and she shook her head. 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 33 
 
 Then she came and sat down by Sydney 
 and me. She began a low-voiced conversa- 
 tion, as if not to interrupt the musician, 
 but I noticed that Mr. Egge sang softly and 
 appeared to be listening. Each of this old 
 man's actions seemed transparent. Pres- 
 ently, seeing that she did not return, he got 
 up from the piano stool, rather noisily shut 
 down the lid, and left the room. 
 
 Mrs. Oreighton laughed. 
 
 "We have offended him," she said. "He 
 is a true artist, and when once started would 
 sing forever. But he has been a good friend 
 to me. Sydney does not like him and I am 
 sorry for it ; if it had not been for him I 
 would not have my boy with me now. You 
 see, Mr. Ballard, I mean to treat you like 
 the old friend you are and have no secrets 
 from you." 
 
 We three were alone. 
 
 She went on : " Do you remember I once 
 3 
 
34 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 promised to tell you Sydney's stoiy? Why 
 not hear it now?" 
 
 Sydney interrupted. "Oh, no! Xot to- 
 night. Ballard can imagine the cruel hus- 
 hand, the evil influence, the fear that the 
 ohve branch would be stolen, and all the 
 rest of it. Ifs as old as a modem play. 
 Spare me, and tell him some other time when 
 I'm not by!" 
 
 Stu^jrised, I looked at him curiously ; I did 
 not recognize this cynical tone. 
 
 But his mother showed no displeasure. 
 '■ As you please, dear. But let me look at 
 you, Sydney. Aren't you well '? Is any- 
 thing the matter? " 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders and answered 
 nothing. 
 
 ^Ii's. Creighton gave her murmurous 
 laugh and threw her aiTU around his neck. 
 
 "Foolish boy! " said she. "Imagine, Mr. 
 Ballard, this boy is jealous of his old mother ! 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 35 
 
 As if T could love any one, even the oldest 
 and stanchest friend, as I love my son ! 
 How I longed for him when I dared not see 
 him for fear he would be taken from me ! 
 Oh, it was torture, although Sydney quite 
 naturally cannot realize it, and now that 
 his father is dead, and he is really mine I 
 love him tenfold. Do you blame me, Mr. 
 Ballard? Isn't he tall and strong and hand- 
 some?" 
 
 " Mother, I beg of you I" exclaimed Sydney, 
 putting away her arm. 
 
 But she only laughed, and threw both 
 arms about him and drew him to her. 
 
 "It's positively indecent," he insisted 
 with a very red face. 
 
 And in fact it made me feel somewhat 
 foolish to remain and witness this unusual 
 exhibition of maternal fondness. Therefore 
 I took leave, having made arrangements to 
 return with bag and baggage next day. 
 
III. 
 
 Two months went by, and although 1 
 quickly took a homely feeling for the house 
 and people, I made no advance in restoring 
 confidential terms with Sydney. He was 
 cordial and even affectionate, but he never 
 seemed the old Sydney of our school days. 
 Other men might have been hurt by this 
 unresponsiveness, but not so I. If it had 
 not been for that hopeless look which re- 
 turned, every now and then, to vex me be- 
 cause I could not understand it, I would 
 have congratulated Sydney on the changes, 
 which I called improvements, in his char- 
 acter. Sometimes he was wildly gay, and 
 boisterously rallied Mr. Egge or made play- 
 ful love to his mother, and again he seemed 
 
 depressed as if by physical illness. He used 
 36 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 37 
 
 to come down to breakfast some mornings 
 looking as if he had danced all the night 
 before at a ball. Yet I doubt if he knew 
 how to dance, and I am sure that he had 
 no ball-giving acquaintances. In fact, I used 
 to think that a tonic of worldly-minded so- 
 ciety was what this estray needed. I made 
 the remark once to Mrs. Creighton, but she 
 only stared at me and did not seem to un- 
 derstand. It would appear from the fore- 
 going that I spent the winter taking note 
 of Sydney's mental and physical vagaries. 
 On the contrary, his symptoms impress me 
 more strongly viewed retrospectively. At 
 the time I was subtly conscious of his being 
 in an abnormal state. 
 
 The lazy charm of the house lapped me 
 away from my usual habit of close observa- 
 tion. It was a delightful and comfortable 
 place due to Mrs. Creighton, but so created 
 by her without effort. The servants were 
 
38 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 always in good-humor, the rooms always 
 fresh, hut never neat, the table richly but 
 somewhat negUgently served. One would 
 have said that the income supporting the 
 menage was practically exhaustless, and to 
 call it a boardiQg-house seemed the best joke 
 in the world. In this house, situated in 
 New York's gayest and most fashionable 
 avenue, life passed as quietly as if we were 
 Uving in an isolated house in the country. 
 The Egges had no one calling on them 
 and seemed to know nobody in town. Mrs. 
 Egge sometimes spoke of her friends, but 
 they were either Europeans or expatriated 
 Americans. To judge by their conversa- 
 tion, neither husband nor wife had ever 
 been in society. Their habits proved the 
 same thing. Both were exceedingly fond 
 of the theatre and opera, and they went to 
 one or the other as often as three times a 
 week Their talk afterward was about the 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 39 
 
 actors and play, never of the audience, al- 
 though I have heard ]\Ir. Egge remark dis- 
 dainftilly that he had seen the great Mrs. 
 So-and-so from his humble place in the or- 
 chestra circle. Hypocritical h umili ty made 
 one of the traits of this disagreeable Httle 
 man. 
 
 His wife frequently invited Mrs. Creighton 
 to go with them, but she almost invariably 
 refused, to Mrs. Egge"s real regret. 
 
 "Tou frequently went with Augustus 
 when I was last abroad,"' she once re- 
 marked. 
 
 "Yes. that is true," answered Mrs. Creigh- 
 ton quietly, and added: "But that was be- 
 fore I found Sydney. ■' 
 
 Levick here burst into a coarse laugh. 
 "Found is the correct expression," he said. 
 
 Sydney looked up as if to make a sharp 
 retort, but he bit his lips and held silence. 
 Mrs. Creighton gazed calmly but fixedly at 
 
40 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 Levick, who blushed and stammered an in- 
 articulate explanation. Then she made a 
 slight gesture and Levick left the dining- 
 room. 
 
 Mrs. Egge and I had watched this by- 
 play, and we did not disguise our curiosity ; 
 but Mrs. Creighton went on calmly eating. 
 
 Egge, however, returned to the charge. 
 
 " We're all cut out now that Mrs. C. has 
 found her beautiful Sydney," he remarked 
 bitterly. 
 
 Mrs. Creighton spoke in her usual soft 
 and gentle voice. "You know I care for 
 few amusements. I would rather spend the 
 evening at home, listening to you sing when 
 you feel like singing, than to go to the 
 Metropolitan. Then, as you say, I am quite 
 contented with Sydney's society and his 
 friend's." She smiled deliciously at us 
 both. 
 
 I confess this smile and demure compli- 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 41 
 
 ment sent a tingle through me, and I won- 
 dered how Sydney could look so unmoved. 
 Already, perhaps, a mother was an old pos- 
 session. 
 
 This quiet life of Mrs. Creighton's seemed 
 anomalous when the beauty and character 
 of her face were examined. She looked like 
 a woman bom to grace society, but so far 
 as her past was known she had never met 
 with the opportunity to do so, and so far 
 as she expressed her mind she- had no de- 
 - sire for fashionable success. Tet she always 
 dressed in the latest mode, and her natural 
 tact, her buoyant disposition, and her ability 
 to extract pleasurable excitement from tri- 
 fles, all showed that she belonged to the but- 
 terfly type of humanity. 
 
 But if nature had made her a butterfly, 
 she had learned by experience not to flutter 
 too openly in the sunhght, attracting the 
 net by the bright glint of her wings. She 
 
42 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 preferred to remain quietly pretty, to wear 
 a vague, melancholy expression like Andrea 
 del Sarto's Madonnas, to look at the sun 
 and the people she meant to attract out of 
 a fringe of long brown lashes that lay far 
 down on her creamy cheek. Even mater- 
 nal fondness she showed demurely. A fa- 
 vorite gesture of hers with Sydney was to 
 reach and pat his shoulder with her long, 
 slender hand. 
 
 She had a curious taste for all athletic 
 sports, especially for those which revealed 
 most oi)enly the contour of the young male 
 form. In fact, exhibitions of this sort were 
 her only positive predilection. Never a gym- 
 nast, a trajjeze performer, or a professional 
 athlete in tights filled an engagement in the 
 city but she went to see them. Sydney 
 and I visited some very dubious places in 
 her company, for we could not let her go 
 alone, as she would surely have done. I 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 43 
 
 learned from Levick that he had formerly- 
 escorted her to many, of these resorts. 
 
 Mrs. Creighton's demeanor while the act- 
 ors were going through their difficult and 
 not always beautiful exercises formed a cu- 
 rious contrast to her customary placidity. 
 She grew intensely excited and followed 
 every movement of the athlete with wide, 
 shining eyes, her lips parted but scarcely 
 breathing, and when the act was concluded 
 she sank back in her seat and drew a long, 
 sighing breath, like a swimmer who has 
 just tossed his head above the wave. This 
 taste of his mother mortified Sydney, while 
 it piqued my curiosity, but I do not think 
 Mrs. Creighton inspected either feeling. 
 She continually begged her son to become a 
 member of one of the famous New York 
 clubs formed for athletic games, but he 
 always refused. 
 
 "No one could surpass you, my boy," she 
 
44 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 would say, measuring him admiringly with 
 her eye, "if you went in seriously for these 
 delightful sports." 
 
 Mother -love was not expressed in that 
 look nor in the tones of her voice. In fact, 
 ^ to understand her one would have to go back 
 to the women who looked on breathlessly 
 at the naked contestants in the Olympic 
 games and ask them to define their emotions. 
 Mrs. Creighton seemed to be dominated by 
 the old Greek love for form and physical 
 beauty. But with the Hellenes we know 
 this love embraced both sexes. 
 
 One evening on entering the parlor, where 
 we usually met before dinner, I overheard a 
 remark made by Levick to Mrs. Creightc«i. 
 In an indefinable way it offended me, and a 
 repressed dislike I had felt for the sullen 
 fellow shook to its foundations. I felt that 
 I hated him. Yet his words were am- 
 biguous. 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 45 
 
 "Kate, do you mean it?" 
 
 My hand lay on the portiere as he said 
 this, and involuntarily I kept it there. I 
 waited to hear more. There was a murmur, 
 then came a deep expletive. 
 
 "I knew it — the old man had no hand in 
 this. Oh, I knew, I knew when Sydney came 
 into the house " 
 
 His voice stopped suddenly, and I heard 
 my own name pronounced. 
 
 "Come in, Mr. Ballard, " said Mrs. Creigh- 
 ton's unruffled accents, and she added as I 
 walked in, rather confused at being caught 
 in what looked like eavesdropping, "Mr. 
 Levick has just told me that he is obliged 
 to leave us. We will all regret him, but he 
 isn't going out of the city and we shall 
 see him sometimes. Fate brought you to 
 me in the nick of time, Mr. Ballard," she 
 said, laughing. 
 
 But Levick did not laugh. "You had 
 
46 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 nothing to fear from me," he said in a hate- 
 ful tone. 
 
 "You are pleased to be enigmatical," said 
 Mrs. Creighton sweetly, and taking him by 
 the arm she went toward the door. It 
 seemed to me, standing awkwardly in the 
 room, that Levick went unwillingly. 
 
 At the same moment Mr. and IMrs. Egge 
 entered. The old man turned the key and 
 flooded the room with electric light. As the 
 four met, Mrs. Creighton, still with her arm 
 in Levick"s. paused and told them the young 
 man's resolution. 
 
 Mrs. Egge expressed her regret very pret- 
 tily, considering that Levick only stared at 
 her, while the old man acted the part of a 
 father parting with his son for a long period. 
 
 Without waiting for him to conclude, 
 3Irs. Creighton and Levick left the room. 
 They had no sooner gone than Mr. Egge 
 showed his gratification, in pantomime, at 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 47 
 
 having drunk the last of a very nasty med- 
 icine. 
 
 "Do you suppose they have quarrelled?" 
 asked Mrs. Egge innocently. " I know Mr. 
 Levick is very much in love with her, and 
 at one time I thought she would marry 
 him. But I suppose when her son came 
 home the similarity between their ages 
 made the plan absurd." 
 
 " It's a good thing the young cad turned 
 up, then," said Mr. Egge testily. 
 
 "Mr. Egge!" 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Mrs. E. ; I beg your 
 pardon, Mr. Ballard. I don't know what 
 I was thinking of. I'm sure I'm very fond 
 of Sydney. I think he is a very exemplary 
 young man — most exemplary. I hope I may 
 rely on the confidence one gentleman puts 
 in another, Mr. Ballard, and you will say 
 nothing to Mrs. Creighton about my little 
 display of bad taste?" 
 
48 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 When I gave him the assurance, although 
 my heart was full of contempt, his eyes 
 swam with tears. 
 
 That evening as Mrs. Creighton, Sydney, 
 and I sat in the library, she asked him if 
 he knew Levick had gone. 
 
 "Gone away for good?" and his face 
 lighted up. 
 
 " My poor hoy ! " said she, stroking his 
 arm, "did you really dishke him so 
 much?" 
 
 As Sydney said nothing, I answered for 
 us both. 
 
 "We found him positively insufferable. 
 It wasn't because he had nothing to say, 
 but he used to look at you in a way — well, 1 
 won't describe the look." 
 
 ''Have you noticed it, too?'' murmured 
 Sydney, while Mrs. Creighton's eyes glowed 
 and she said in a pleased tone: "You are 
 both too sensitive." 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 49 
 
 At this, Sydney's face fell into the sad 
 and haggard expression now habitual. 
 
 His mother remarked it, and she sharply 
 rebuked him. 
 
 " Why do you look so solemn and so hope- 
 less?" 
 
 "Do I?" 
 
 "Yes. Everybody has spoken to me 
 about your evident unhappiness, as if I were 
 to blame and as if there must be a good 
 reason for it. I cannot be the cause, for I 
 do everything to please you, everything a 
 mother can do, and more! Are you ill? 
 Have you some secret trouble? Tell me, 
 and if there is a remedy for body or mind 
 we will find it." 
 
 Sydney's face was pale and his lips trem- 
 bled, but he said nothing. There was more 
 in the situation than appeared on the sur- 
 face. Mrs. Creighton seemed intensely in 
 
 earnest, and Sydney showed so much emo- 
 4 
 
£0 TEE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 tion that I felt uncomfortable and started 
 to leave the room. 
 
 Mrs. Creighton arrested me. " Don't go," 
 she said imperiously. "You may as well 
 hear what Sydney has to say. There wiU 
 be no scene unless he makes it. Heaven 
 knows I have tried to bring him up a man, 
 but with what success?" 
 
 The boy's cheeks burned, and there 
 sounded a sharp note in his voice as he said : 
 " Nature meant to make me an honest man, 
 and you have warred with her ; behold the se- 
 cret of my unhappiness ! O God ! I was un- 
 spoiled when you found me ; I was inn ^cent 
 and had dreams of women as vague and 
 imaginative as primitive peoples' of heaven ! 
 Love and passion for me were mute until 
 you taught me to utter them, but I learned 
 a third at the same instant, and that is re- 
 morse! Am I truly your son? Are you 
 my mother? I think I can breathe only 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 51 
 
 when a tempting, lying spirit tells me you 
 are not !" 
 
 "Sydney!" cried Mrs. Creighton, throw- 
 ing up her amis, as if to hold back the tim- 
 bers of her home from crumbling on her 
 head. "Sydney, I forbid you to speak so! 
 Are you mad? Have you forgotten all you 
 are to me? My only tie on earth, all that 
 I love. And you? You love me, too. Do 
 not deny it, dearest — I'll not believe you! 
 I did not mean to grumble, but oh, it grieves 
 me to see you waste in repining and in 
 doubt these years of strength which will 
 pass too soon, too soon! Sydney, forgive 
 me if I hurt you, dear." 
 
 He would not look at her. That painful 
 red had not receded from his face. His lips 
 were locked in sullen despair. 
 
 Mrs. Creighton looked at him admiringly. 
 "Forgive me, dear," she repeated; "you are 
 a man, I know it." 
 
53 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 She placed her hand on his brow. 
 
 "Don't," he said, and pushed it away. 
 
 Then I had a full view of Mrs. Oreigh- 
 ton's face. It was not that of a woman, a 
 mother who had been repulsed; it wore a 
 vivid, a triumphant look. 
 
 She drew nearer still and bent her head 
 to his, yet were his eyes cast down, although 
 he must have felt her compelling gaze. She 
 seized his head in both her hands, and 
 pressed full upon his lips a deep and lin- 
 gering kiss. The next moment she whis- 
 pered a rapid sentence in his ear and left 
 the room. 
 
 This scene, which I did not understand, left 
 an unpleasant impression. I wished to go 
 to my room and think it over in quiet, but 
 as I passed him Sydney started up, like an 
 awakened dreamer, and begged me to re- 
 main. 
 
 "Stop awhile, old fellow," said he in a 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 53 
 
 tone of forced cheerfulness; "we haven't 
 had an old-fashioned talk in a long time. 
 It's been my fault, I know, but now I'm in 
 the mood, sit down." 
 
 "I'll stop if you'll tell me what ails you," 
 I replied. 
 
 "Now, don't you begin, too, Ballard," said 
 he, looking at me with a piteous expression 
 underlying his attempt to smile. "There 
 is nothing the matter with me, and to prove 
 it I propose that we mix ourselves a punch 
 of the kind we drank at college." 
 
 I heartily agreed, and Sydney brought 
 the ingredients. As he stirred the liquid 
 over the grate fire we talked of the college 
 friends who had passed so completely out 
 of our lives, and with indifferent curiosity 
 we wondered what each one was doing. 
 
 Thus we sat speaking, or holding silence, 
 as men will who trust each other with a 
 confidence unspoken, but understood. Un- 
 
54 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 der the mellowing influence of the punch 
 Sydney gradually recovered his old deMght- 
 ful manner. 
 
 "I heard the other day that Fallon was 
 married."' 
 
 ■■Indeed!" said Sydney, but the remark 
 made him thoughtful. ^Ve were now on 
 our second hrew, and Sydney kept always 
 replenishing his glass. 
 
 Presently he broke out : 
 
 "^Tiy do men man-y? Ai-e they seeking 
 a perfection which they have failed to find 
 in a siagle state? But with very few men, 
 if with any, is marriage an expei-iment. 
 They know that companionship cloys and 
 that ashes are at the heart of the fairest 
 fruit. Moreover, men honest to themselves 
 will admit that they bring unequal con- 
 ditions to the match, and I doubt if a man 
 of this class deceives himself long about the 
 fancy which made him take a wife. She 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 56 
 
 is only the last of a series of comparisons. 
 Then why do men marry?" 
 
 " My dear boy, for love. Nature is wiser 
 than we and has no calendar. If we love 
 only for a day, then are twenty-four hours 
 eternal." 
 
 " Who knows what this passion really is? 
 Do you know, Ballard? Where does Love 
 choose his votaries, or his victims, and how 
 does he choose them? Instead of a god isn't. 
 Love rather an infectious disease striking 
 the feeble, no matter what they are to each 
 other? And are these victims to be blamed 
 any more than the sufferers from small- 
 pox? Laugh if you must, Ballard, but I tell 
 you it is no jesting subject with me. Look 
 at me, old man ! Do I look like the ordinary 
 male being — am I natiwal or abnormal? 
 And if I should fall in love, would it — could 
 it be with my own sister?" 
 
 "Come, come, Sydney," said I, "don't 
 
56 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 drink more of that stuff ; it's too stiff. And 
 don't talk rot." 
 
 "Eot!" he laughed horridly. "You have 
 called the turn. It is rot! But you don't 
 know how far it has eaten. It has gone deep 
 — deep, Ballard, and the heart is diseased." 
 
 I pushed away his glass. 
 
 "Oh, I don't wish any more, "he said 
 boisterously; "but you have had your share, 
 and must tell me what you think love is — 
 pure love — what the poets rave about. Do 
 you believe in it?" 
 
 "Of course I do. Love? Why, it is the 
 completion of existence. A certain man 
 meets a certain woman, and he feels that 
 she is his complement, he knows that she 
 was created for him. 'Tisn't his eyes alone 
 which love her, nor his mind alone that 
 recognizes her. It is his whole being. If 
 he has made no mistake, if she is really his 
 affinity, they love." 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 57 
 
 " Eegardless of the position she occupies?" 
 
 "That cuts no figure," I said, like a wise- 
 acre; "there was King Cophetua, and every 
 day there are men and women of different 
 ranks in Hfe who love and marry." 
 
 "Yes, yes, yes!" he exclaimed, rising and 
 standing hy the grate, with his back toward 
 me. "But that is not what I meant; I 
 should have said her relationship to him. 
 If they were cousins, for instance? I know 
 cousins do marry. Would nature prompt 
 love in their hearts?" 
 
 " I see no reason why not, " said I ; " now- 
 adays cousins are hardly relatives." 
 
 " Of course anything nearer would be im- 
 possible," he said in a low tone. 
 
 "Of course." 
 
 "Well, you are wrong, damned wrong!" 
 he exclaimed in a savage tone and whirling 
 around to stare at me. " Nature is not al- 
 ways so discreet; she forgets relationship 
 
58 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 sometimes, and plants in the heart of a man 
 a passionate love for — yes, I will utter it — 
 for some one nearer than a cousin ! Give me 
 my glass, if you please." 
 
 I obeyed in silence, for I was reflecting on 
 his words. Whom had he in mind? 
 
 Sydney filled the glass, and looked me 
 straight in the eyes. 
 
 " Will you drink a silent toast?" 
 
 "To her?" I queried, when an idea illu- 
 minated me. "By Jove, Sydney!" I cried. 
 " You're in love !" He drank off the meas- 
 ure before he spoke. Then he said in a 
 hoarse voice : " Yes, I love her — I love her — 
 I love her — God help me !" 
 
 With that he dashed the glass into bits 
 against the grate, and without saying an- 
 other word he strode out of the room. 
 
rv. 
 
 Sydney was in love, but with whom ? 
 EecaUing quickly the incidents of my stay 
 in his mother's house, I found plenty which 
 pointed to Sydney as an unhappy lover — his 
 absent-mindedness, his fitful appetite, and 
 his evident loss of sleep, all were explained. 
 I lost confidence in my powers of penetra- 
 tion, because I had not anticipated his confes- 
 sion. But this spur did not aid me when I 
 cast about for the heroine of his passion. So 
 far as I knew, Sydney's acquaintance with 
 women was limited to his own household, to 
 Mrs. Egge and his own mother. If he called 
 on any New York family, he never spoke of 
 them. And I did not believe Sydney would 
 fall in love with an intellectual inferior, for 
 
 his taste was fastidious. I delighted in this 
 69 
 
60 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 mysterious mental chase, and asked again 
 and again, Where was the woman? 
 
 Perhaps Sydney was in love with love and 
 with no woman in particular. But no, a 
 figurative mistress stirs not so tragically. 
 Nor could a sudden passion cause suffering 
 like his, even if the art of falling instantly 
 in love had not been lost by us moderns. 
 
 For several weeks Mrs. Egge had been 
 preparing for her annual trip to Europe. 
 She laughed at herself because she took so 
 long to get ready, but she said the delay was 
 really caused by her husband, who interposed 
 all sorts of objections as soon as she had 
 fixed upon a date for sailing. 
 
 "It would seem as if we were a newly 
 married couple," Mrs. Egge said in her gen- 
 tle voice. "Augustus knows the Servia, 
 which I meant to take on Saturday, is per- 
 fectly safe, if not fast. The fact is, he does 
 not want me to go alone, yet will not go 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 61 
 
 with me. Mrs. Creighton, try and persuade 
 him that you can do very well without him 
 for a month." 
 
 Mr. Egge's wrinkles writhed around his 
 dyed goatee and under his little eyes in a 
 fairly diabolical manner. I expected mo- 
 mentarily to hear him gnash his teeth. But 
 he recovered his usual grimace when Mrs. 
 Creighton remarked sweetly : 
 
 " I should feel lost without Mr. Egge in 
 the house." 
 
 A few days after this conversation Mrs. 
 Egge said at dinner that our circle would be 
 brightened by the arrival of her niece from 
 the West, as she had invited the young 
 woman to go to Europe with her. Mr. Egge 
 looked up in dismay. 
 
 "Who told you to do that?" he demanded 
 roughly. "Who is going to pay her expen- 
 ses? I'm not, you can count on that." 
 
 "Augustus !" exclaimed his wife in a 
 
63 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 troubled way, "I thought it was all ar- 
 ranged; you told me " 
 
 " I didn't ; but of course, if you are so rich 
 that you can do things like a millionaire " 
 
 "We will talk of this at another time," 
 said Mrs. Egge firnaly. 
 
 A couple of nights thereafter Mrs. Egge 
 came into the dining-room followed by an 
 extremely pretty girl. She introduced me 
 to her niece. Miss Agnes Savaran. The 
 others had already met her, and Sydney 
 watched to see what impression the stranger 
 made on me with almost the air of proprie- 
 torship. He flushed when I exchanged a 
 look of admiration with him, a look which 
 Miss Savaran certainly deserved. She was 
 descended from an old French family, settled 
 almost since the war of the Eevolution in 
 St. Louis, and to her Western heartiness she 
 had an inherited base of Parisian refine- 
 ment. I would have thought her a co- 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 63 
 
 quette but for the fact that she was too 
 beautiful to need constant reminding of it ; 
 and more, she had a pure, wholesome expres- 
 sion which elevated one to see. Her voice 
 had a rich, full sound, far deeper than that 
 of Mrs. Creighton, and her talk was lively 
 and bright, without frivolity or affectation. 
 But her chief charm lay in the lovely, 
 straightforward glance she gave you when 
 she spoke. Here is a woman, you said, who 
 has confidence in herself and in you, and 
 who will make no claim on your chivalry. 
 
 At the dinner-table she was placed be- 
 tween her uncle and Sydney. The latter 
 bloomed in her . sunlight. Whether the 
 young' couple had opportunity during the 
 day to become acquainted I knew not, but 
 before the coffee was served they had ad- 
 vanced far toward friendship. 
 
 All of us noticed this, and all were inter- 
 ested. Mrs. Creighton, as usual, remained 
 
6i THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 calmly imi)enetrable. She filled her posi- 
 tion as hostess with her accustomed grace, 
 and spoke no more than usual. I thought 
 I twice intercepted a glance of shrewd in- 
 quiry directed not toward Sydney or the 
 young girl, but at Mrs. Egge. Mamma sus- 
 pects the matchmaker, I said inwardly. 
 
 Mrs. Egge looked transformed. She 
 smiled and chatted, and grew younger in 
 her niece's brightness, while her husband 
 appeared to better advantage, as if being 
 called Uncle Augustus by a lovely young 
 creature revived an older and kinder self. 
 Most of his boorish ways he laid aside for 
 the time ; he showed less preoccupation in 
 what Mrs. Creighton might do or say, and, 
 in short, reduced himself to the level of the 
 ordinary disagreeable man. 
 
 Kow passed some days of tranquillity 
 which are remarkable when I contrast them 
 with those which followed. For Sydney, I 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 65 
 
 am sure, earth touched heaven in that de- 
 hghtful companionship which Agnes made 
 free and innocent. I may not say what her 
 feehng toward him was, but it is certain she 
 put up no barrier of coyness against a beauti- 
 ful friendship ; she must have heard Sydney's 
 history, she must have comprehended his 
 sensitive nature, for she met him with per- 
 fect frankness and responded to his mood 
 like an ^olian harp to the wind, until the 
 inevitable result ensued, and she dominated 
 his moods. Then she showed no coquetry, 
 but neither did she show tyranny, and we 
 might have thought we saw one of society's 
 lapses — a man and woman preparing to mate 
 without any of those false refinements and 
 reserves which are truly more animal than 
 spiritual. 
 
 It was charming then to see Sydney. 
 Reason no longer mastered him, and the 
 
 gloomy mist that formerly enshrouded him 
 5 
 
66 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 had been torn away. His progress reversed 
 that of ordinary men ; from being a cynic — 
 half-fledged, it is true — he had become a 
 child, and believed in the dream of idolatry. 
 "Fantastic visions, half-understood forms, 
 and the promptings of nature that come to 
 most men in their adolescence came to him 
 now apparently for the first time. He was 
 as a child from whom legends and fairy tales 
 have been wilfully kept, for whom supersti- 
 tion is a word of a barbarous tongue, yet in 
 whose heart the seeds of exaggeration lie 
 vital, only waiting for their proper air and 
 light to sprout and grow. A lonely, isolated 
 life, nurtured by reason, but unsweetened 
 by tenderness, had not power sufficient to 
 confine him forever in the dungeon of sense 
 and materiality. Love had entered and 
 broken their bonds. And Sydney's face did 
 not conceal the wonder and delight with 
 which he served this new, strange master. 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 67 
 
 As the sincere friend of both — for Agnes 
 had made a complete conquest of me — I 
 watched the progress of this idyl with un- 
 alloyed pleasure, a pleasure that Mrs. Egge 
 shared. She spoke no more about going to 
 Europe, and seemed for a time to have laid 
 aside the plan. This woman should have 
 been a mother. She revealed a delicate 
 sympathy, the soul of her dormant mater- 
 nity. She would catch Agnes around the 
 neck and kiss her without an explanation, 
 but it was not needed, for the most indiffer- 
 ent spectator could see what moved her to 
 these expressions of tenderness. From her 
 corner of the music-room Mrs. Egge would 
 furtively watch the young couple in the 
 other corner with eyes full of the holiest 
 passion — that of a woman who feels that love 
 is all the paradise her sex will ever know. 
 If Sydney or Agnes looked up she would 
 pretend to be absorbed in her book. To me, 
 
68 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 sitting beside her, Mrs. Egge would return 
 incorrect or indifferent answers. She al- 
 ready treated Sydney like a son. 
 
 Mr. Egge seldom made one of bur party, 
 but he remained in a good humor for a longer 
 period than was habitual with him. Some- 
 times he joined us for a few minutes after 
 dinner, Avhen he sang a rollicking song or 
 two, usually from "Eigoletto," and then he 
 would propose that his wife and Mrs. Creigh- 
 ton go with him to some place of amuse- 
 ment. He accepted his wife's excuses with 
 good grace, and after a little urging on the 
 part of both husband and wife, Mrs. Creigh- 
 ton would leave the house with the old man. 
 
 A change, for which I thought I divined 
 the cause, had come over Mrs. Creighton. 
 She was as graceful and charming as ever, 
 but her face had lost its delicate color and 
 her eyes wore a strange look, which might 
 have been either sorrow or disdain; When I 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 69 
 
 asked her if she were ill she gazed at me 
 curiously, shrugged her shoulders, and made 
 no answer. She seemed to, avoid Sydney, 
 but always asked him to accompany Mr. 
 Egge and herself when the little old man 
 planned a nocturnal excursion. Of course 
 he declined to make one of the party, and 
 always, when he did so, that sad or disdain- 
 ful look deepened in her eyes. But if Mrs. 
 Creighton objected to the intimacy between 
 her son and Agnes, her opposition, so far as 
 I knew, was tacit. She held Agnes at arm's 
 length when that warm-hearted and impul- 
 sive young creature sought to include her in 
 their understanding. All such advances, al- 
 though they were made in the prettiest way 
 imaginable, Mrs. Creighton politely but 
 firmly repulsed. Her eyes used to contract 
 and dilate again when Agnes drew near her, 
 and she would follow the girl's movements 
 with almost a satirical expression. Once a 
 
70 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 queer comparison crossed my mind, which 
 made me laugh. Mrs. Creighton reminded 
 me of a dangerous animal that watches in 
 ambush the sport of its unsuspecting victim. 
 But why should Mrs. Creighton wish to 
 harm Agnes, and, if she wished it, how could 
 she? In the event of a battle between the 
 two — which was absurd — Mrs. Creighton 
 had seen too much of the world not to know 
 with whom Sydney would side. 
 
 A revival of Mrs. Creighton 's eccentric 
 passion for athletic exhibitions interrupted 
 this calm current. A man celebrated in 
 France for his wonderful skill in these feats 
 came to New York to fill a short engagement 
 in one of our most notorious concert halls. 
 He had been billed lavishly, and the papers 
 devoted columns to his appearance and pro- 
 fessional history. The night of his first per- 
 formance Mrs. Creighton mentioned her 
 wish to go, and asked Mr. Egge to take her. 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 71 
 
 "You know the air of that place makes 
 me sick," said he peevishly. 
 
 "Mr. Ballard has an engagement," said 
 Mrs. Creighton, and turned to her son. 
 "Sydney, you must escort me." 
 
 " Oh, no. Please excuse me to-night," said 
 Sydney, and resumed his talk with Agnes. 
 
 We were at the dinner table, and nothing 
 more passed then on the subject. But Mrs, 
 Creighton called Sydney to her side as the 
 others were leaving. She did not seem to 
 notice that I still sat in my place, or that the 
 servants were in the room. She said in a 
 low but distinct voice : 
 
 " You will go with me to-night." 
 
 "No." 
 
 " You shall go. Have you forgotten what 
 you owe to me? I thought I would let mat- 
 ters go on for a while as they have been 
 going ; bu t the time has come to speak. This 
 foolish infatuation must be nipped now. 
 
'a^ THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 Still, I am liberal and will allow you to 
 invite that girl to go with us." 
 
 "Never!" exclaimed Sydney, with a very 
 pale face. 
 
 "You think she would be contaminated? 
 Don't forget that she has associated with 
 you for a considerable period, and she is not 
 a fool ! Ask her to go with us ; I am certain 
 she will accept." 
 
 "She might, but I shall never ask her." 
 
 "All right; then I will." 
 
 Sydney muttered something and left the 
 room. His mother daintily dipped her 
 fingers in a bowl of perfumed water and 
 turned to talk to me on indifferent subjects. 
 She encouraged me to light a cigarette and 
 sit with her until the servants had cleared 
 the table. When they had left the room 
 Mrs, Creighton came and sat next me. 
 
 "Do you think Sydney loves her?" she 
 asked impetuously. 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. ^S 
 
 I nodded, for it would have been ridiculous 
 to pretend not to understand. 
 
 "Oh, it is cruel, it is ungrateful!" she 
 burst out. "How long have I had him, 
 and now he wants to betray me ! It shall 
 not be, it shall not be! Mr. Ballard, you 
 must help me break up this engagement. 
 Are they engaged? I don't know. But he 
 shall never marry her; it would be a crime!" 
 
 "A crime! My dear Mrs. Creighton, 
 don't you think that is a hard word to apply 
 to Sydney's love affair? T know a mother 
 must feel as though she were losing her son 
 when he marries. I know " 
 
 "Stop!" she cried scornfully. "You 
 know nothing about it. After all, perhaps 
 I will let her have him. Why should I wish 
 to keep him if he is no longer happy with 
 me? Yes, she may have him, but she must 
 buy him from me ; she is rich, and she must 
 buy him from me !" 
 
74 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 I laughed at the idea. "Buy him? Buy 
 your son?" 
 
 "It amounts to the same thing," she said 
 quickly; "she or he must refund the money 
 I have spent on him. Why have I reared 
 him, why have I educated him, but with the 
 expectation that I would be reimbursed? 
 Unless my mind changes she shall pay back 
 my money and the interest for it. Other- 
 wise I shall dishonor him and heap scandal 
 upon his head until no woman could dream 
 of marrying him. Why should I care if in 
 blackening his name I smirch my own?" 
 
 She pressed her trembling fingers against 
 the table, as if to steady herself, and uttered 
 an hysterical cry. 
 
 "Sydney! Sydney! I have given up 
 everything for him; I have wasted my 
 whole life for him. Now he despises me, 
 flees me! I hate him — no, I do not hate 
 him — it is she — she !" 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 75 
 
 She turned her face away and put up her 
 hands to smother her sobs. 
 
 I pitied her, but I stood amazed. I had 
 never supposed that Mrs. Creighton could 
 cry. 
 
 I tried to say something consohng, and 
 sought to take her hand, but she brushed 
 impatiently past me, and, still concealing her 
 face, fled from the room. 
 
V. 
 
 I DO not think I have mentioned before an 
 alcove in the music-room, a secluded nook 
 where I was in the habit of reading of nights, 
 or napping if I pleased. It was really only 
 a recess in the wall into which the grand 
 piano projected, and a comfortable sofa 
 placed there hardly left room for ingress. 
 Instead of neglecting to refer to this alcove 
 like the other details of the house, I speak of 
 it in order to account for my knowledge of 
 many conversations in which I would never 
 have been intentionally included. Not that 
 I accuse myself of taking an unfair advan- 
 tage of the a,ctors in our domestic drama — 
 comedy or tragedy I knew not which to call 
 it then — because I would calumniate myself 
 
 unjustly ; my habit of occupying that recess 
 76 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 77 
 
 was well known, so well known that if I were 
 wanted they looked for me there instead of 
 going to seek me in my room. 
 
 However, I need not excuse the superior 
 knowledge which if I were telling a story I 
 would have to pretend to possess. I am not 
 writing a no\el, but setting down in a bald 
 way what I saw and heard. I have not im- 
 agined any conversations; I have not at- 
 tempted to analyze anybody's mind; I have 
 not padded out my meagre facts with sur- 
 mises of my own. Even if I were writing 
 what the world calls a novel — in most cases 
 a rank misnomer — I scarcely believe I would 
 follow the tenets of authors, which have 
 come down to us almost unchanged from 
 Richardson. Unlike the clever authors of 
 our own day, I would not bother with im- 
 pressions, which pass like clouds driven by 
 a lazy breeze through their hero's brain ; I 
 would not tell where the chairs stood in the 
 
TS THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 parlor or what pieces of porcelain ornamented 
 the china cabinet. Description of any sort 
 only retards the action, and I would have 
 too much respect for my readers to deprive 
 them of the exercise of their imagination. 
 There must be more people like myself who 
 find the reading of certain modem novels a 
 dreary penance ; there must be many people 
 who, hke my Lord Foppington in the play, 
 "The Relapse, "'can find more entertainment 
 in their own thoughts than with the forced 
 product of another's brain. To such an 
 audience I would address myself, and if I 
 conquered their hearing I would rejoice 
 more openly than they have any cause to 
 do — the old women in trousers who write 
 novels in three volumes that are read by 
 other old women on rainy days. 
 
 But let me he down again on my sofa. 
 I had been dozing there when I was aroused 
 by voices in the room, an occurrence usual 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 79 
 
 enough, for nobody in this house minded 
 whether I was asleep or awake. This time 
 the voices were those of Agnes and Sydney, 
 and the first words showed me I had missed 
 the beginning of the conversation. With 
 that freedom from reserve which did not 
 prevent her from being a fresh and modest 
 girl, Agnes was saying : 
 
 " Really Sydney, you ask me to do some- 
 thing which is not merely unpleasant but im- 
 possible. To become engaged to you and 
 perhaps to marry you secretly strikes me in 
 a very disagreeable light. Why, if you love 
 me, should you hesitate to tell all the world 
 about it? No one can object, unless it is 
 your mother ; certainly my aunt and uncle 
 have shown no opposition. Is your love like 
 the Moor's, which demands closed lattices, 
 unwindowed rooms, and a score of guards at 
 the door? Is your love like the night- 
 blooming cereus, which fears to burst into 
 
80 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 flower in the presence of witnesses? How 
 different, hovv- devoted you were when we 
 first met, in the first weeks we knew each 
 other ! You lingered v.-ith me then like an 
 ideal lover, you were oblivious to every one 
 and everything besides. Then, you foolish 
 fellow, you made no effort to hide the love 
 with which you were inspired. The very ser- 
 vants saw it and sympathized with you. 
 And now you wish to change, outwardly at 
 least, and make it appear that we are only 
 good friends. Perhaps you have really 
 changed — at heart, I mean?" 
 
 "I love you more than ever, Agnes," re- 
 plied Sydney in a voice full of emotion, and 
 it seemed to me that he took her hand. 
 
 "You say it as if you were announcing 
 the death of a relative. How can I believe 
 you when your tone is so mournful?" con- 
 tinued Agnes. ' ' I can suggest an explanation 
 of your conduct which is not flattering to 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH 81 
 
 my pride, and which, if I could accept it, 
 would make me very sad. I have heard 
 there are men who only love the pursuit of 
 love, whose passion wanes, not at the fulfil- 
 ment, but at the promise of fulfilment. 
 These natural coquets are to be pitied as 
 much as blamed, yet I should blame you 
 bitterly, Sydney, if you are one of those cold- 
 hearted monsters." 
 
 " Agnes ! I am not asking you to renounce 
 me!" 
 
 "Well," she said, with a deep sigh, "your 
 proposition annoys me. I will not think you 
 have ceased to love me, or to respect me, 
 but what is the meaning of it? Why should 
 you hesitate to take my aunt into our con- 
 fidence? Why do you urge me to go with 
 you alone to be married, and not return 
 here? No, no! I do not like such romance. " 
 
 "Evidently, Agnes, you do not love me, 
 or you would trust me. I love you with a 
 
82 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 different passion, and if you should ask me 
 to do something — anything — I would do it 
 without demanding an explanation. We 
 love, and that is sufficient." 
 
 "It is sufficient," repeated Agnes, "but 
 not in the sense you mean. There, Sydney, 
 do not look so downcast. I am not given to 
 crediting people with bad motives, and I 
 trust you utterly. If you have a reason — 
 the least little bit of a reason — for a clandes- 
 tine marriage, tell me what it is and I will 
 try to find it sensible. Come, speak !" 
 
 As Sydney said nothing she went on, 
 more lightly : " I see it is as I feared. You 
 are afraid to see me in a bridal veil. 
 You think it would not become me, and at 
 the very altar you dread a disenchantment. 
 You shudder at the thought of becoming the 
 husband of a girl who admits that white is 
 unbecoming to her. What foresight ! What 
 wisdom beyond your years! There, sir, I 
 
THE WIfOLE TRUTH. 83 
 
 give you back your freedom. I will be more 
 generous still, and search for a bride for you 
 with a dazzlingly clear complexion." 
 
 Agnes laughed merrily, but Sydney did 
 not join her. 
 
 "I know what it is," exclaimed Agnes, 
 " for I truly do not think, my dear, that you 
 would have me changed into a blonde ; I see 
 that you lack the courage to confess that you 
 love me seriously ; you are afraid to tell your 
 mother that you wish to marry me. It is a 
 strange timidity ; but I did not think I was 
 marrying a general, so I am not much dis- 
 appointed. Now listen to me; since you 
 haven't the courage to avow your intention, 
 I will tell your mother myself!" 
 
 " No, no ! Do not do that ! I beseech you 
 not to do that!" said Sydney in a strange 
 voice. 
 
 "What is the matter, Sydney?" asked 
 Agnes. " I was only jesting ; but it seems to 
 
84 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 me you are in earnest. Tell me the truth, 
 does your mother dislike me?" 
 
 " I do not think so — she has never said — 
 but why do you tantalize me, Agnes? If 
 she disliked you, if all the world disliked 
 you, and turned from you, I would love you 
 as I now do. Oh, my dear one, can you say 
 the same of me?" 
 
 "I can say it," replied Agnes, subdued to 
 seriousness by the tragedy of his tone. " But 
 what causes you to ask me such a question? 
 I fear you have not been as candid with me 
 as I have been with you. If you have hidden 
 anything from me, let me hear it now." 
 
 "What an idea!" said Sydney with a 
 forced laugh. " It is as absurd as some of the 
 things you have been imagining." 
 
 "I imagine nothing. I feel. "Will you 
 admit something, Sydney? Will you own 
 that you had a reason for what you have 
 asked me to do?" 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 85 
 
 "A reason — yes. I gave it, and you 
 laughed at me." 
 
 "That was not your true reason," said 
 Agnes gravely. "I feel that if I had not 
 laughed you would have o£fered a very 
 different one. Say what it is, Sydney; I 
 will listen seriously, and I will not evade it." 
 
 "I can't say it." 
 
 "There is one, then?" cried Agnes. "I 
 knew I could not be mistaken. What is it, 
 Sydney? What makes you so sad at times? 
 You know how I love you — you can tell me 
 anything." 
 
 "Not this; I cannot tell you this. Per- 
 haps I am wronging you by loving you, 
 Agnes ; perhaps what makes me as sad as 
 death is the sense that I am totally un- 
 worthy of you. Do not shake your head — 
 for aught you know I am a thousand times 
 worse than other men. Yet I cannot lose 
 you ! If I should lose you all would be over 
 
86 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 for me in this world and in the next. Ought 
 I to go away? Ought I to desert you even 
 though you hate me as a man devoid of 
 honor and faith? Ought I to go and end 
 my days where no one knows me, where I 
 may try to forget that I have ever seen 
 you?" 
 
 "Hush, Sydney! Give over raving, or 
 say plainly what you mean. I can think of 
 but one cause for your words, and while it 
 makes me shudder, it does not kill my love. 
 Is there insanity in your family?" 
 
 " No, I never heard there was — you know 
 I have small knowledge of my family. But 
 would you marry me with that horror before 
 you? You love me, then?" 
 
 " More than life. I could not lose you now 
 except by your own renunciation." 
 
 "Agnes!" 
 
 " It is true. No one but yourself can part 
 us. Believe me, Sydney, and chase away 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 87 
 
 these gloomy thoughts. I refuse to credit 
 your wild accusation, and I am not willing 
 to hear it more in detail. After aU, I think 
 it is only a figment of your hrain or a 
 peccadillo, and I absolve you, dear. " 
 
 "ItiscrueUy weak in me not to compel 
 you to hear me. Agnes, but it shall be as 
 you say. I love you sol" 
 
 '• Do you? Then place your two hands in 
 mine and look me straight in the face. In 
 a month's time I will be your wife. But 
 we will be married like honest people ; you 
 must inform your mother, and when you 
 have done so I will tell mv aunt. AYhy do 
 your eyes avoid mine?" 
 
 At this moment the voice of ilrs. Creigh- 
 ton could be heard on the floor above. 
 
 ' ' She is coming in here, " ' said Agnes. And 
 she continued rapidly: "Are you afraid to 
 read a suspicion in my eyes? Do you fear 
 distrust can find a lodging in my heart? 
 
88 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 You little know me, then. My heart has 
 been yours since the first day I saw you, 
 and it told me you were noble and unhappy. 
 I am not ashamed to confess that, in a mo- 
 ment, I conceived for you the love of a Ufe- 
 time, and doubt or suspicion are meaning- 
 less words for me. To leam them from you 
 would be to die ; but I have no dread, Syd- 
 ney, and as far as love is concerned I shall 
 never die. Brave words, these, Sydney, but 
 you are brave, too, for love casts out fear. 
 There is your mother. I shall leave you with 
 her, and there is no better time to speak. 
 If she does not approve your choice teU her 
 how I love you, and she must like me a little. 
 Speak to her now."' 
 
 By the diminishing of her eager, murmur- 
 ing voice I knew that Agnes was leaving 
 the room. A moment afterward ilrs. 
 Creighton came in. 
 
 ''Miss Savaran said you. wished to speak 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 89 
 
 to me; what is it about?" she asked Sydney 
 in rather a cold tone of voice. 
 
 "Nothing," said he, after a little hesita- 
 tion. 
 
 Mrs. Creighton laughed. " Are you sure ?" 
 she asked mockingly. " Well, I have some- 
 thing to say to you." 
 
 "Not now, "he responded. "I don't wish 
 to talk about anything to-night. " 
 
 "Shall I come to your room?" 
 
 "No," he said harshly. 
 
 "Have I offended you, Sydney," she 
 asked softly, "or why do you treat me so 
 badly? I cannot endure your continual 
 coldness ; it will break my heart. Have you 
 ceased to love me?" 
 
 "I cannot talk to-night," said Sydney, in 
 a muffled tone. " I beg you to let me go." 
 
 ' ' No, we must have an explan ation . Have 
 you thought of me? I assure you, you 
 must think of me." 
 
90 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 "Oh, I have thought and thought, hut 
 not to-night! Let me go, I heg you." 
 
 "I will go with you," she said; and they 
 went out of the room together. 
 
VI. 
 
 During the days that immediately fol- 
 lowed I could scarcely recognize our circle, 
 which had been remarkable for tranquillity, 
 and only at night when I joined Mrs. Egge 
 in the music-room, where we made the au- 
 dience, or, better, played propriety at Syd- 
 ney's courtship, did any of the former con- 
 ditions hold good. Mr. Egge and Mrs. 
 Creighton never came there now, and if they 
 were in the house I did not know it, or if 
 they made a party to the play neither they 
 nor Mrs. Egge spoke of it with the old- 
 time frankness. Indeed, Mrs. Egge rather 
 avoided any reference to her husband, and a 
 change had visibly come over her relations 
 to Mrs. Creighton. When they met now 
 
 there was a subtle hostility in every look and 
 91 
 
92 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 word interchanged. It was so subtle that I 
 never felt quite sure the hostility existed, 
 and I would convey a wrong impression if I 
 said the constrained relations of several mem- 
 bers of our household were palpable. With- 
 out being able to trace it to the cause, I felt 
 the agitation which surcharged the air, hung 
 like a cloud in the dining-room, and pene- 
 trated every apartment used in common. 
 
 This cloud thickened one morning when 
 Mrs. Creighton asked Mrs. Egge if she would 
 look after the house for a few days, as she 
 was compelled to go to Philadelphia, having 
 been summoned to the sick bed of a relative. 
 Mrs. Egge looked up with a curious expres- 
 sion and replied : 
 
 " Certainly, I will do so, but the house is 
 going to be deserted. Mr. Egge leaves for 
 the West to-morrow on a matter of business. " 
 
 "I am sorry you chose this particular 
 moment, Mr. Egge," said Mrs. Creighton. 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 93 
 
 "And why so, why so?" asked that gen- 
 tleman fiercely. "Can't I leave home at 
 any moment without exciting remark?" 
 
 No one paid any attention to his bluster, 
 and Sydney said : 
 
 "I did not know we had a relative in 
 Philadelphia; who is she?" 
 
 "She belongs to your father's family," 
 answered Mrs. Creighton briefly ; and when 
 Sydney offered to accompany her she shook 
 her head. 
 
 Mr. Egge left the next day for Chicago, 
 and the day following Mrs. Creighton de- 
 parted. She had scarcely gone before a 
 change for the better in the affairs of the 
 house was apparent. Meals were served 
 promptly, the servants no longer dallied with 
 - their tasks, and a clearer, purer atmosphere 
 penetrated the house, as if all the windows 
 had been opened for the first time in months. 
 I remarked in a blind way to Mrs. Egge 
 
94 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 how surprised I was to discover in her this 
 genius for management. She looked grati- 
 fied and then grave. "You have no idea 
 how confused I found everything," she said. 
 " Whether Mrs. Creighton will think I have 
 done well, I doubt ; but she was too occupied 
 before leaving to give me specific instruc- 
 tions, and I felt obliged to first clear up 
 everything. The house affected me un- 
 pleasantly for a long period after I first came 
 here ; I did not know for what reason, but 
 now I understand." 
 
 We four who remained changed none of 
 our habits, and met as formerly in the music- 
 room after dinner. But now Mrs. Egge 
 seldom glanced at her niece and Sydney ex- 
 cept with trouble in her eyes, but she talked 
 a great deal with me, and very thoughtfully. 
 I felt a sympathy for this old woman ; I had 
 felt it from the first ; and as we grew more 
 and more confidential it seemed that this 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 95 
 
 sympathy became more respectful and ten- 
 der. But as such relations do not really 
 mean much, I must have shown my surprise 
 when Mrs. Egge said to me one night after 
 having observed that Agnes and Sydney 
 were too much occupied with each other to 
 heed her : 
 
 " I am in a great deal of trouble, Mr. Bal- 
 lard, and I wish to consult you. I have 
 always liked you, and I beUeve you to be 
 honorable." 
 
 A little uneasy at this compliment, I bowed 
 and waited for her to continue. Apparently 
 she found her words with difficulty, but at 
 length she resumed: "Before Mr. Egge 
 went away he told me that we were in straits 
 for money, which explained his opposition 
 to my going abroad. This is the first word 
 which has passed between us on the subject 
 of money in twenty-five years ; I have never 
 been extravagant, and, unless he deceives 
 
96 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 me, he has never speculated. Where, then, 
 has our property gone? I was rich when he 
 married me, and he was the only heir of 
 very wealthy people. There were some 
 government bonds in my inheritance, but 
 the bulk of both properties had been invested 
 in real estate, in Chicago and Minneapolis, 
 and should have increased rather than di- 
 minished. Mr. Egge has gone West to in- 
 vestigate our affairs, and he has promised 
 to give me a full explanation when he re- 
 turns; but before he comes back I would 
 like to inform myself so that I may under- 
 stand him. I have already partly done this ; 
 what do you think I have discovered?" 
 
 "How should I know?" I asked her, and 
 she went on in a lower tone, almost a 
 whisper : 
 
 "This house, which my father left me as 
 ray pied a terre in New York, was transferred 
 to Mrs. Creighton three years ago while I 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 97 
 
 was abroad. The transaction seems to have 
 been regular, for the legal forms have been 
 observed. Mr. Levick brought me a copy 
 of the record." 
 
 "Levick?" 
 
 "Yes. He is the only lawyer and real es- 
 tate broker I know in New York. He says 
 my husband acted by my power of attorney, 
 but Mr. Egge never told me this house is no 
 longer mine, and that seems suspicious. 
 Besides, how could my husband get in- 
 debted to Mrs. Creighton to the amount 
 of thirty thousand dollars, the value of 
 this house? What do you think of Mrs. 
 Creighton?" 
 
 I had no answer ready for this abrupt in- 
 terrogation. 
 
 Mrs. Egge shook her head. " Mr. Levick 
 has told me things which I cannot believe. 
 He is a disappointed man, for I think 
 
 he loved her; but, exert my charity as I 
 
 7 
 
98 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 may, I cannot deceive myself about her 
 influence over my husband. It is not for 
 good." 
 
 " But you know all about her — you have 
 known her as long as Mr. Egge has? I am 
 sure he told me so." 
 
 " Then he did not tell you the truth. Five 
 years ago, when I arrived from London, Mr. 
 Egge brought me here and introduced me to 
 Mrs. Creighton, who had leased my house, 
 he said, and wished to meet me. He said 
 she was the daughter of an old friend of his 
 father, and that she had been most un- 
 happy. Creighton, according to her, is her 
 maiden name, and there is such a name in 
 the family anecdotes. I had no reason to 
 doubt this or pry into her past. Mr. Levick 
 swears her name is not Creighton, and that 
 she is nobody's daughter. He tells me worse 
 than this " 
 
 "Levick, Levick!" I interrupted scorn- 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 99 
 
 fully. " He wouldn't stick at a lie to hurt a 
 woman's character." 
 
 "It is for that reason I appeal to you," 
 said Mrs. Egge. "I am afraid to trust Mr. 
 Levick, who might easily come under her 
 influence again ; but you — you are free — • 
 you are not in love with Mrs. Creighton?" 
 
 I laughed as I replied : " Mrs. Creighton 
 is a fascinating woman ; I like her, but I do 
 not love her." 
 
 "I like her, too," said Mrs. Egge, "but I 
 cannot neglect the stories I have heard about 
 her; I must sift them to the bottom. 
 Surely you guess what they are? They con- 
 cern Mrs. Creighton and my husband." 
 
 "Oh, impossible!" I cried, the absurdity 
 of the conjunction nearly overcoming my 
 gravity. 
 
 "You may well say so," she remarked 
 sighing. " Mr. Egge is not attractive. I 
 thought as you do a few days ago, and even 
 
Missing Page 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 101 
 
 she is not kind," said Mrs. Egge. "Don't 
 misunderstand me ; I mean that she is care- 
 less of the distinction between right and 
 wrong, oven if she comprehends it. As I 
 told you, I cannot believe the worst, but this 
 I do believe — that Mrs. Creighton is adven- 
 turess enough to accept a munificent present 
 from my husband without inquiring too 
 closely into his right to make it, and without 
 suffering too acutely if she suspects whom 
 he impoverishes." 
 
 Again I made a gesture of protest. 
 
 "Oh, it is true I" she exclaimed. "What 
 other theory explains the fact that she owns 
 my house? She must bring forward some 
 better claim for it, however, if she retains 
 jK>ssesHion, and in order to meet her squarely 
 I wisli to knf)W all aVjout her past — not the 
 scandals merely, but the facts. Who is she? 
 Where did she cr^me from? Whom did she 
 marry? The answer to these questions may 
 
103 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 prove that she bought the property honestly, 
 when I will have to deal only with rny hus- 
 band in order to find what has become of the 
 money he received from the sale. You sef;, 
 Mr. Ballard, I am working as much in httv 
 interest as in my own, and you cannot refuse 
 to help me trace Mrs. Creighton's life." 
 
 I had no reason to doubt the sincerity of 
 Mrs. Egge's ingenuous words, but I felt un- 
 comfortable. She was watching me nar- 
 rowly, and the lines of trouble deepened into 
 furrows on her brow. 
 
 "You will help me," she repf^ated ; "you 
 must heljj me. If you knew all my life! 
 If you knew how miserable I have been I I 
 am an old woman now, and have lived for 
 years unhappy — and now, at my age, to find 
 that all I have left to make me content 
 with life is being taken from me — I am 
 desperate!" 
 
 She cast a rapid glanr:e at the young 
 
THE WHOLE TEUTB 1 fo 
 
 coapie in the r>:' r;;. irho were ohli^. -a to 
 our fiv^en:^. and. 'ir-avring me into the al- 
 cove bdiind the grand piano, she went on 
 Tcry rajadly: 
 
 ■ We wer^ married very yr.Tmg. and I have 
 ^^icrin-;^! a qnarter <;f a century to the 
 whims of a petted <diild. He was an CKily 
 son — ^Kifled — ^his Eijrlier us-e^i t> :• have him 
 do emlatHflery and fine sewing ^iUi her. 
 Then he had a voice, he ran away with a 
 s-rr oiling company, and he Tras brongh: back 
 and married to me in order to take the no- 
 ti'jii of a':rJ!ig out oi Lis head. lT-~ orxshe-i 
 anil'iT'Cn he arrrilaie'i to me, and I think he 
 never forgave me for the ima^ned injnry. 
 Whai I unders:»i this it —as t' :•:• late — his 
 day for the stag^e had liisse'i. but he never 
 lost tike true ten»:.r s temperament; he pie- 
 ivr^rved all its littleness, all its childish hu- 
 mor. Oh. no one can realize one-half that 
 I have home! When it became insupport- 
 
104 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 able I went to Europe ; if he accompanied me 
 he never got further than London. Then I 
 would come back to pet him. Horrible, dis- 
 gi'aceful, unwomanly life that I have led, 
 and for what? Why did I continue to en- 
 dure it? At length he ceased to go abroad 
 with me, and for a few months of every year 
 I bad comparative peac« — I would have been 
 happy if it had not been for the necessity 
 which always stared me in the face, of one 
 day returning to him. Women talk of their 
 trouble, of their husbands — brutal, drunken, 
 unclean — with any one of them I would be 
 glad to exchange. I think I could have 
 risen to the height of a great unhappiness, 
 but my life was a succession of a milLion pin- 
 pricks ; they maddened me, and I forgot that 
 it was my duty as a wife to stay with him. 
 I realize this now, and if Avhat I fear is the 
 true reason of his willingiiess for me to re- 
 main abroad I must expiate mj' fault, I must 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 105 
 
 save him. No, I am not wholly worldly, 
 Mr. Ballard. I want to save my husband 
 as well as the money. If his relations to 
 Mrs. Creighton are what Mr. Levick says 
 they are, the blame is as much mine as hers. 
 I try to remember this, but it is hard, 
 hard." 
 
 " Let us talk of this again," said I, rising ; 
 " so many things are not clear to me, and 
 in your present excited state you cannot ex- 
 plain them " 
 
 "You will not help me?" she exclaimed, 
 laying a detaining hand on my arm. "I 
 wish you to do so little — to gain her con- 
 fidence, to get her to tell you some tale of 
 her past which we can prove to be true or 
 false. That's all I want." 
 
 " All ! Still it is more than I can do in 
 honor." 
 
 " Ah !" she exclaimed, clasping her hands, 
 " I do not need my mirror to tell me I am old. 
 
106 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 What chance have I against Mrs. Creigh- 
 ton?" 
 
 "Don't forget she is not here to defend 
 herself," I said. "Let us wait until she re- 
 turns from Philadelphia and then attack 
 her boldly." 
 
 Mrs. Egge looked at me strangely, and 
 her lips scarcely moved as she said: "If I 
 convince you that she never went to Phila- 
 delphia wiU you help me then?" 
 
 "Surely I will help you," I answered, for 
 I had been moved by her simple appeal ; " but 
 consider my position, my old friendship for 
 Sydney — her son !" 
 
 "Sydney!" she repeated, and instantly 
 went and took her niece by the hand. 
 
 "Come, Agnes," she said, "it is time we 
 went upstairs." 
 
 After the ladies had gone I came forth 
 from the alcove and stood for a mo- 
 ment looking at Sydney. He sat where 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 107 
 
 Agnes had left him, a bhssful look on his 
 face. 
 
 " I am afraid you have climbed to a fool's 
 paradise, my friend," I murmured as I left 
 him. 
 
vn. 
 
 I KNTEW that Mrs. Egge had not told Agnes 
 what she suspected when we met at dinner 
 next day, as I saw no sign of trouble on 
 the girl's pure face, and no change in her 
 manner toward Sydney. Mrs. Egge did not 
 sit down with us, and Agnes explained that 
 her aunt had gone downtown on business 
 and had not yet returned. Afterward we 
 went up to the music-room, where the two 
 young people sat down and began talking in 
 low tones, while I, feeling like an absurd 
 chaperon, took a book and withdrew as far 
 as possible out of sight and hearing. 
 
 We were thus peacefully engaged when 
 
 the door was thrown open and !Mrs. Egge 
 
 strode in. She had come straight from the 
 
 street, and wore her cloak and hat. over 
 108 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 109 
 
 which a veil had been carelessly thrown. 
 There was excitement in her manner as well 
 as in her voice when she exclaimed : 
 
 "Agnes, go to your room." 
 
 The girl rose to her feet. " What is the 
 matter, aunt?" she asked. "What has hap- 
 pened?" 
 
 Mrs. Egge motioned toward the door with 
 a bundle of papers which she held in her 
 hand. "Ask me no questions," she said in 
 a hoarse voice, " but do as I bid you — go to 
 your room." 
 
 "Certainly I will go," said Agnes, "but 
 not before you tell me if you are ill or in 
 trouble." 
 
 " How dare you speak to me like that !" 
 cried Mrs. Egge violently. "Leave the 
 room !" 
 
 Agnes resumed her seat. "Aunt," she 
 said quietly, " I do not wish you to be rude 
 to me in the presence of these gentlemen," 
 
110 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 '•Gentlemen!"' repeated Mrs. Egge, with 
 an unholy laugh. '1 see only Mr. Ballard 
 here." 
 
 "That is sufficient."' said Agnes, looking 
 coldly at her aunt; "I will not leave the 
 room: I am doing no wrong. I am here 
 quite independent of you: I shall ask my 
 uncle, when he returns, what you mean by 
 insulting my friend Mr. Greighton."' 
 
 "Yes. ask him, ask your unde, when he 
 comes back, if he — ever comes back. He has 
 gone — ^gone with Mrs. Creighton I"' 
 
 Agnes uttered a cry. and Sydney took a 
 step forward. 
 
 • Take care what you say I" he said almost 
 in a whisper. 
 
 "I do not fear you. "Mrs. Egge responded, 
 " and I repeat what I said — my husband has 
 deserted me. Oh. I think by your voice that 
 you knew it — I have thought by your face 
 that you long suspected the relations between 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. Ill 
 
 / 
 
 th(im, and like a fool I pitif'il you -^ven more 
 than I pitifid mysoir. Wba^ agony could be 
 more fierce than to have a mother like that? 
 I waH a fool I I have heard to-day that you 
 are a complacent son ; I have heard to-day 
 what convincoB m« that your infamy is al- 
 most beyond Ijelief — who could suspect a 
 confederate in her son?" 
 
 Sydney's face was white and drawn; he 
 opiincd his lips to speak, but Agnes fore- 
 stalled him. 
 
 "Do not answer her, Sydney, but be 
 jntiful. I fear she has gone mad. 
 Come, aunt, come, let us go. I am sorry 
 to havf; annoyed you. Come with me 
 upstairs. " 
 
 She wound her arms about the older wom- 
 an's waist and sought to lead her from 
 the room. Mrs. Egge resisted, and, freeing 
 h<!rH(;lf, cried in the same excited voice: "I 
 meant to spare you, Agnes, I meant to be 
 
112\. THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 calm, buVl cannot be calm. And it is well 
 that you should know the truth. These 
 letters prove all that I say, this telegram re- 
 veals where my husband and that woman 
 are. It comes from a trustworthy source ; 
 they are together ! After that woman robs 
 me of my property she takes my husband — 
 openly now, but she has had him in secret for 
 years. Oh, I do not blame him ; he is weak, 
 he is easily led, and she — she is more wicked 
 than the dreadful thing I have suspected. 
 I am not talking wildly; I have been on her 
 track for a long time, and she has found it 
 out. She must have found it out or she 
 would not have thrown discretion to the 
 wind. She is deep, she is cunning, and she 
 is bold, too, for now that she sees conceal- 
 ment is no longer necessary she casts it off 
 like a worn-out garment. I only wonder 
 why she told that last lie to us. We know 
 where she said she was.going, but she did 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 113 
 
 not go there, and yesterday my husband 
 joined her — joined his mistress 1"' 
 
 Once more Sydney tried to speak, and 
 once more Agnes besought him by a look to 
 be silent. 
 
 "Aunt, dear aunt," she said softly, "per- 
 haps aU these dreadful things are not true ; 
 perhaps they can be explained. But, con- 
 sider, you ought not to speak of them be- 
 fore her son." 
 
 '•Her son? Her confidant!" ilrs. Egge 
 laughed bitterly. " Oh, they have played a 
 pretty comedy, but they are ostriches after 
 all, and though they hid their heads they 
 Tvere not concealed. This man is her confi- 
 dant ; he knows the truth, he has known it 
 all along. I hate biTn now for the meek 
 ways, the cahn endurance which formerly I 
 admired. And you, Agnes, can you keep 
 as a friend the son of a woman who has 
 
 robbed me of everything in life — of husband, 
 
 S 
 
114 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 of content, of money? Xo, no, even to save 
 his life I will not suffer you to speak again 
 to that wretch, that coward, that " 
 
 "Aunt! Oh, in naercy, aunt I'' Agnes 
 raised her hands to ward off the words. 
 She had grown as white as Sydney, whom 
 she now approached. "Think, aunt," she 
 said, in a solemn voice, "think if he had 
 heen your son, and a woman, a woman, 
 aunt, against whom he had no redress, ac- 
 cused you! Think, if he were your son!" 
 
 Mrs. Egge faltered; her eyes filled with 
 tears. "If he were my son?" she mur- 
 mured, and the kindness natural to her face 
 returned there. "Mr. Creighton — Sydney, 
 forgive me. I had no right to speak so. I 
 do not wish to wound you. I think, as Ag- 
 nes says, I am half mad. Perhaps it is not 
 so bad, perhaps they can explain — ^but no, 
 I will not cheat you with false hopes. It 
 is true they are together, but why should 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 115 
 
 I have thought they did not deceive you 
 as well as me? It was ungenerous — fprgive 
 me. Pity is what I offer you, not hlame. 
 I sorrow for you — try not to doubt me — as if 
 you were my son. Alas, but for her I 
 might have had a son ! But if I had he 
 would have stood up more stanchly for me 
 than you have done for her. Why have 
 you said no word in her defence? She is 
 your mother ; surely you can tell me some- 
 thing in her favor which shall calm this 
 tumult in my breast? You believe her in- 
 nocent? Say so, then. I want to believe it — 
 I will make the most of anything in her 
 favor. You do not know how much my 
 husband's degradation, how much his sin 
 has me for its author. If she is guilty I 
 am guilty too. That's why I wish to be- 
 lieve she is innocent. Tell me, Sydney, do 
 you believe it?" 
 
 Agnes looked at Sydney with a happy 
 
116 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 smile ; she had done well to confide in her 
 aunt's tenderness, but Sydney did not meet 
 her eyes; he stared at Mrs. Egge with di- 
 lated orbs as if he did not comprehend. 
 
 She repeated her question. " Only tell me 
 you never dreamed of any wrong between 
 my husband and your mother ; say that you 
 have always known her to be good and true. " 
 
 Sydney did not speak. He drew back a 
 step and lowered his eyes. 
 
 "I will defend her," said Agnes. "I 
 think aunt is mistaken. Mrs. Creighton is 
 so sweet, so gentle, she cannot have done 
 wrong. Sydney, why don't you speak? 
 Say that you know she is innocent." 
 
 He would not look at her, and when she 
 moved to where she might see his face he 
 turned away. 
 
 "Sydney," Agnes cried, and a world of 
 doubt was in that word, " Sydney, do you 
 hear? Defend your mother!" 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 117 
 
 Still not a word. 
 
 Agnes looked helplessly around her ; she 
 looked at her aunt and at me, then she fixed 
 her eyes on Sydney. " I am wrong, perhaps, " 
 she said slowly, "but I trust in you, Syd- 
 ney ; I am sure you will not shirk this re- 
 sponsibility. You heard what my aunt said, 
 you understand of what she accuses your 
 mother, to whom you owe the duty of a son. 
 Do not desert her now. That I could not 
 forgive. If she is guilty — oh, I think there 
 is some cruel mistake ! — seek her out, raise 
 her up, be in truth a son to her!" 
 
 "You do not know — you cannot under- 
 stand " Sydney burst out, but still with- 
 out looking at her. " I am base — baser than 
 your aunt has said — but if you knew, if you 
 knew, would you hate me? Would you de- 
 sert me, Agnes? " 
 
 "If I knew what? Tell me, Sydney. I 
 will understand. I am not harsh." 
 
118 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 " I cannot tell you, I cannot!" he groaned, 
 and covered his face with his hands. 
 
 "Are you mad?" she cried. "Don't you 
 realize that this may be the end? I ask you 
 not in the name of your mother, but in my 
 name, to say what you are concealing from 
 us. For the last time, are you what I have 
 heard you called — a coward ? Are you afraid 
 to speak?" 
 
 She put her hand on his arm, and Sydney 
 shuddered as she did so. 
 
 Mrs. Egge caught hold of her niece. 
 " Don't you see it is as I said ? " she asked. " I 
 forbid you to touch him ; you will be defiled. " 
 
 But Agnes was not to be coerced. She 
 went back to Sydney, and again took his 
 hand. " Sydney, " she said in a low, trembling 
 voice, "I love you." Here she paused — a 
 long pause — but there was no response, and 
 Sydney stood as if dumb. " I love you, or 
 I did." 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 119 
 
 When she went back to Mrs. Egge her 
 face was as the face of the dead, but her 
 voice rang clear and distinct as she said : "I 
 will go with you, aunt. Come, we will not 
 remain here where no one is generous, no 
 one is honest, — come, aunt." 
 
vni. 
 
 Sydney and I were alone. He had fallen 
 into a chair when Agnes left him, and now 
 leaned forward in an attitude expressive of 
 absolute hopelessness. He had clasped his 
 hands in his lap, and his eyes wore a hunted 
 look which gave me the heartache. A long 
 silence ensued, a silence like that of mutes 
 around a bier. I hardly knew what had 
 happened, for I was dazed. The earth had 
 quaked. I stood on the edge in safety, but 
 beneath I saw engulfed the two persons I 
 most esteemed. 
 
 "What, you here still?" cried Sydney, 
 looking up suddenly. " Go, leave the pariah 
 like the rest of the world." 
 
 "Dear old boy," I said as gently as I 
 
 could, "I shall never leave you like that." 
 
 120 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. Vil 
 
 "Oh, yes you will, you will," said he 
 staring at the floor, " and I would rather you 
 went — I wish to be alone." 
 
 "Let me stop, Syd. If what Mrs. Egge 
 says is true I don't know why you should 
 be blamed." 
 
 His lip curled bitterly. "If what she says 
 of my mother is true there is every reason 
 to blame me. Wickedness runs in the blood. 
 I may come from a long line of rogues. 
 Why not? I don't even know their names, 
 far less their histories. Oh, the taint is 
 in me; it will show, and you will see it 
 if you haven't already! Then I won't 
 have to ask you to leave me — you'll go fast 
 enough." 
 
 " Sydney, be sensible. In the first place, 
 Mrs. Egge's words are more than likely to 
 turn out the ravings of a jealous woman ; 
 in the second place, if they are founded on 
 fact, you are unfortunate and to be pitied. 
 
133 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 Your mother's sin isn't yours. Knowing 
 that, why do you brood so? Or, if you are 
 keeping something back, why don't you 
 speak out?" 
 
 " Speak out !" he exclaimed with a groan. 
 "Speak out! I've half a mind to speak out 
 to you and witness the effect. But no, at 
 least I can spare you that ! Go away, Bal- 
 lard, go to your room; I'm in no mood to 
 listen to palliations and surmises. They 
 cannot help me." 
 
 " It was always your weakness to make 
 
 bad worse ," I was beginning, when he 
 
 burst out with : 
 
 "Man, man, can't you see I'm in hell? 
 Quit me or keep silent." 
 
 I was going away when Sydney called me 
 back. "Don't go like that, Ballard," he 
 said. '^'I do not wish to wound you, my .old, 
 tried friend, but you speak so like the world. 
 Hide your sins, it says, and nobody will ever 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 123 
 
 refer to them. It was never my way to hide 
 mine, Ballard, as you know. My sins have 
 been too much in evidence. They've held a 
 sword over my head for years ; I've seen it 
 dangling, and many times I've prayed that 
 it might fall. But the time was not ripe — 
 the victim was not in the proper frame of 
 mind; he must be taken unawares. So it 
 was with me. When I met Agnes I forgot 
 the sword, and selfish forgetfulness lulled 
 me. If I thought of my sins at all it was 
 that I had escaped the penalty, that I could 
 dare to be happy like other men who have 
 sinned and forgotten. At length the mo- 
 ment arrives when the stroke can come with 
 eclat — I am beginning to believe my fate has 
 passed me by, and that I can live and love 
 in purity, when the sword falls and slays 
 me. Oh, if I could die in truth ! Help me, 
 Ballard !" 
 
 "Whatshallldo?" 
 
124 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 " Kill me, or prove to me that my mother 
 * is not my mother!" 
 
 I started at these words. 
 
 "Still you don't understand? Well, I'U 
 tell you, Ballard, you shall have the hald 
 facts — then if you remain my friend I will 
 despise you. Yes, I'll tell you; I wish to be 
 scorned — I wish to feel absolutely alone — 
 I had enough good in me left to let Agnes 
 renounce me, and now I'll rid myself of you, 
 whom next to her I love." 
 
 He rose and paced up and down the room, 
 before continuing to speak, while I watched 
 him in mingled pity and alarm, for I could 
 not guess the meaning of these harsh, ac- 
 cusing words. At length he resumed his 
 seat. 
 
 "Do you recall when you saw me first?" 
 he asked. "I think there is no vanity in 
 saying I was good then ; I was good, I had 
 been good from a child, for the spirit of con- 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 125 
 
 tradiction which develops the natural evil 
 ia children did not exist in my case. There 
 was no fond parent to warn me not to do 
 something and thereby plant a desire in my 
 mind for that forbidden fruit. I was friend- 
 less, but not realizing it I didn't suffer. I 
 could not be homesick, for I never had a 
 home. I remember how shocked you and 
 the other fellows were at what you called 
 my cold-heartedness when I first told you 
 my blank history and admitted I had never 
 felt any longing for home ties Like those 
 which you others enjoyed or thought you en- 
 joyed. I was entirely honest with you then, 
 and I think if I had been left to myself I 
 would have continued to be honest and con- 
 tent. Yes, I would be that boy again or his 
 older brother, free from the ties that for me 
 have been chains heavy as guilt. I remem- 
 ber that boy whom people used to pity be- 
 cause he was an orphan, and I envy him ! 
 
126 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 He was good, he shrank from the least color 
 of falsehood, he was honest, he was hope- 
 ful, he was gay. But he lives only in my 
 memory, and it would have been better if 
 he had really died and taken all of his at- 
 tributes into the grave than to have trans- 
 mitted a part of his nature, and that the 
 burdensome part, to his heir." 
 
 He drew a long breath, and his voice as 
 he went on now trailed off into silence and 
 now ended a sentence with a strong but 
 melancholy cadence. 
 
 " To-day I have nothing in common with 
 the me of ten or even five years ago. I 
 have not preserved his way of thinking or of 
 looking at persons and things. The loss of 
 his identity came not from a gradual wasting 
 away, but from a lopping off, and the hand 
 that cut me from him was a woman's 
 
 "Yes, a woman entered his life — or was 
 she a woman ? — she dragged him at a bound 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 127 
 
 from youth to manhood — from innocence to 
 remorse. 
 
 "What did I know of a mother? I did 
 not comprehend the meaning of the word. 
 I felt confused, strange in her presence. Af- 
 ter the first strangeness wore off I felt in- 
 dignant with myself because I did not love 
 her as you had told me you loved your 
 mother. 
 
 "But that was not the sort of love she 
 inspired. How should I love her, and how 
 could I separate love from passion, which 
 falsely wears the mask of love ? Tome wom- 
 an was woman, the concrete idea, and, I 
 truly think, mother was only a synonymous 
 term expressing the same femininity. 
 
 "What I might have been God knows. 
 I am sure under different conditions I would 
 have chosen the right. I think so because 
 in the midst of my grovelling darkness, 
 which is eternal, I can still imagine the 
 
128 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 light ! I have learned too late the true mean- 
 ing of love, the real meaning of life, and 
 the joy of living. When did I hegin to feel 
 that I was mortal? When I had sinned. 
 It is the old story of Adam — the woman 
 tempted me and I did eat. If love is nat- 
 ural, Ballard, passion, its baser part, is kill- 
 ing. You have seen beauty wed deformity, 
 you have seen youth marry decrepit age ; to 
 have condemned either unheard might have 
 been most unjust. Beauty might have been 
 trained up to admire deformity, and youth 
 might have been cloistered from all compan- 
 ions save the old and feeble. It is kinder to 
 pity them when the awakening comes — when 
 the scales fall from their eyes and they re- 
 vise their standards. My defence — oh, I 
 oflfer it grudgingly — ^is that while I sinned 
 like the human brutes whose stories briefly 
 told in the newspaper make you shudder, 
 while I sinned like them, yet, for a long, 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 139 
 
 long time, and until recently, I <^id not 
 know wherein lay their guilt. 
 
 " There are good women, Ballard, I know 
 it, I know it, but there are women, too, 
 whose hearts are terrifying, whose tongues 
 are soft and wheedling, yet run poison. Do 
 you think Circe bore children?" 
 
 "Ah, Sydney!" 
 
 " What is it to be the son of such a wom- 
 an? Is not my heart baleful, too? Do not 
 my lips lie while I seek to tell the truth? 
 And if I would escape from her thrall 
 in the arms of a noble girl, cannot she 
 summon me back by a wave of her demon's 
 wand?" 
 
 "In heaven's name tell me what you 
 mean !" said I in alarm. " What has all 
 this talk of Circe, and demons, and inherited 
 evil to do with us? If I had not heard you 
 run on as wildly before I should think you 
 mad." 
 
130 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 Sydney looked at me fiercely and uttered 
 a horrid, mirthless laugh. " After all that, 
 you don't understand?" 
 
 I shook my head. 
 
 He had risen and stood near the door. 
 His face, which had been deathly white, was 
 now a bright red. 
 
 ' ' You don ' t understand ? You don ' t know 
 what I mean? Either you are dense or 
 my shame is unique!" 
 
 "Sydney!" 
 
 " Oh, I am going to tell you so you can 
 make no mistake ; I promised. Do you re- 
 member reading in the Life of Caesar in 
 what a frame of mind he reached the Kubi- 
 con, and how before crossing that river he 
 suffered a time of dreadful uncertainty? Por- 
 tents all unfavorable attended him ; and do 
 you recall that most horrible one which vis- 
 ited him in a dream? Have you forgotten 
 what he dreamed, Ballard?" 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 131 
 
 "To be sure I recall it," and I waved my 
 hand impatiently. 
 
 "Well, what Caesar dreamed I — have 
 done." 
 
 The truth felled me with the force of a 
 breaker ; all at once I was drenched in it. I 
 comprehended now not merely the mysterious 
 words and actions of Creighton,but the an- 
 swer was also furnished to my own doubts 
 and suspicions which had existed for months. 
 As if a breaker had really struck me I felt 
 stunned, and while I sought to recover my 
 breath, Sydney, bowing his head, passed 
 quickly from my sight. 
 
 Horror, disgust, contempt, and pity bathed 
 me in turn. I began stammering over and 
 over: "It is not true, it can't be true — he 
 is mad, mad!" and, hardly conscious what I 
 was doing, I went up to Sydney's room. 
 
 To my repeated knocks there came no 
 reply. Yet I could see a light and hear 
 
130 THE WHOLE TRUTH 
 
 Sydney moving aboat inside. At length I 
 desisted and went away. "In the morn- 
 ing." I said. "I will tell him he is mad." 
 
 But when mominir dawned Sydney had 
 gi.^ne. The servants said he went away 
 early, carrying a viilis*;. He had left no ad- 
 dress. 
 
IX. 
 
 A WEEK had elapsed since Sydney left the 
 house, and in that time Mrs. Egge received 
 two letters from her husband, both written, 
 she tf>ld me grimly, in high spirits becaiisd 
 his business had prospered so well. The last 
 t() fxjme announced that he would soon leave 
 for home. At the same time Mrs. Egge 
 read aloud a note from Mrs. Creighton, post- 
 marked! Philadelphia, informing us of her 
 immediate return. A letter addressed to 
 Sydney by his mother came by the same 
 mail. It was left lying on the hall table, 
 because, not knowing his whereabouts, we 
 fxjuld not forward it. Mrs. Egge made no 
 f»mment on the coincidence of date in the 
 arrival of her husband and Mrs. Creighton. 
 
 In other respects her conduct api)eared 
 138 
 
131: THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 strange to me. She never referred to the 
 conversation we had had, or to the scene 
 which drove Sydney from the house. Per- 
 haps she had dismissed the suspicions from 
 her mind and perhaps she had doubted the 
 value of my efforts as a private detective ; 
 either pleased me equally. I preferred to 
 stand aside and watch results rather than 
 by the least interference to precipitate them. 
 Eeally, I did not expect any results; I 
 thought that Mrs. Egge had adopted a phil- 
 osopher's view of her situation, and had d'e- 
 termined to make the best dish possible out 
 of the scraps of her life. She had lived 
 , enough in the world to realize that in nine 
 cases out of ten the wife fights against two 
 when she attacks the mistress, and, after her 
 first natural anger, Mrs. Egge had recovered 
 her ordinary balance by recalling and apply- 
 ing this domestic aphorism. Of course I did 
 not respect her so highly" when I concluded 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 135 
 
 she had made up her mind to a compromise, 
 yet I admired her for her good sense. On 
 one- point only Mrs. Egge seemed to be de- 
 termined to recover what she had lost — that 
 was possession of the house which sheltered 
 us. I had no means of knowing how far the 
 lawyers had advised her to proceed, or if she 
 trusted to her own judgment, but she all at 
 once began to act like the veritable mistress 
 of the house. She gave the servants who 
 knew Mrs. Creighton handsome presents and 
 discharged them; then engaged others in 
 their places who should recognize no au- 
 thority but hers. In aU the domestic ser- 
 vices Mrs. Egge's hand at the helm was 
 noticeable, and evidently this woman, who 
 had wasted her life in hotels, had been bom 
 a housekeeper. 
 
 Held by resistless curiosity I remained in 
 the house, although I felt my tenure inse- 
 cure. Here was a domestic drama which 
 
136 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 I had followed too far to miss the denoil- 
 ment now. Besides, I could not leave 
 Agnes, who might need a friend in that 
 strangely assorted household. She went 
 about as usual, with a calm face and an 
 attempt at cheerfulness, hut I felt that the 
 girl's heart was eaten up by misgiving. 
 Sydney's name was not mentioned between 
 us, except on one occasion, when the little 
 she said showed me she constantly thought 
 of him. That is my cold bachelor way of 
 putting it — I suppose she longed wildly for 
 some tidings of him, good or bad. Great 
 excitement showed in her words and manner 
 when she said : 
 
 "Something terrible is preparing here for 
 the return of my uncle and Mrs. Creighton. 
 My aunt is determined to sift the truth 
 out, and I cannot blame her. Only I 
 hope Sydney will not be made to suffer 
 again. It is unjust to connect him with 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 137 
 
 these horrors. Don't you think so, Mr. 
 Ballard?" 
 
 I said "Yes," but I could not meet her 
 eyes, so I hurried to ask her what was be- 
 ing done. 
 
 "I am not in my aunt's confidence," she 
 replied, "but everyday men who look like 
 detectives come here and ask for Mrs. Egge. 
 She always receives them, and I am sure 
 they are making reports about Mrs. Creigh- 
 ton. If she comes back won't that look as 
 though she were innocent and had actually 
 remained all the time in Philadelphia?" 
 
 Seeing me shake my head she sighed. 
 
 " Perhaps it is better that Sydney should 
 not be here at the explosion, and yet — and 
 yet — I would have stayed! Where is he, 
 Mr. Ballard?" 
 
 "Not in New York, I think. I have 
 looked everywhere, asked every one that 
 knew him, without result." 
 
138 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 "I hope he is happy," she said, her eyes 
 filling with tears. 
 
 About dinner-time next day Mrs. Creigh- 
 ton entered the house. I happened to be in 
 the parlor when she drove up, and a servant 
 who had been instructed by Mrs. Egge ad- 
 mitted her. 
 
 "Who are you?" said Mrs. Creighton 
 sharply, when she came into the hall. 
 
 "I am the new second maid, MoUie, 
 ma'am," said the girl. 
 
 "Who engaged you?" 
 
 "Mrs. Egge, as who should, ma'am?" the 
 maid said pertly. 
 
 Mrs. Creighton made no further comment, 
 but ordered the servant to show the man 
 where to carry her trunks. " I suppose you 
 know which is my room?" 
 
 " Oh, yes'm ; Mrs. Egge said you were to 
 have the same room." 
 
 "Mrs. Egge! Mrs. Egge!" cried Mrs. 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 139 
 
 Creighton angrily. " If you stop here, my 
 girl, you will have to learn who is the mis- 
 tress of the house." 
 
 Mrs. Creighton joined us at dinner, but 
 then she had recovered her customary gentle 
 humor. She was profuse in her expressions 
 of gratitude to Mrs. Egge for taking so 
 much trouble with the house, and she asked 
 when Mr. Egge was expected home. 
 
 "He will arrive in an hour," replied Mrs. 
 Egge politely. 
 
 As the meal went forward Mrs. Creighton 
 kept throwing inquiring and expectant 
 glances toward the door. At length she 
 asked : ' ' Where is Sydney ? Hasn ' t he come 
 in yet? I looked in his room on my way 
 downstairs, but he wasn't there. He knew 
 I was coming, for I wrote him by what train 
 he might attend me. Perhaps he missed 
 me and is waiting yet at the ferry." 
 
 I looked curiously at Agnes, and saw 
 
140 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 that Mrs. Crei^ton was also staring at the 
 young girl, who kept her eyes on her plate. 
 
 Mrs. Egge broke the awkr^ard silence. 
 
 " Tour son left the house before that letter 
 arrived. It is lying unopened in the hall. " 
 
 "Where has he gone?" 
 
 "HedidnotteUus." 
 
 " Strange I" ejaculated Mrs. Creighton, fix- 
 ing Agnes with an ominous stare. She did 
 not speak again, hut finished dinner in a pre- 
 occupied way, and seemed to be restless and 
 uneasy. 
 
 At nine a carriage drove up and Mr. Egge"s 
 high falsetto voice was heard in the hall. 
 His wife met him there, kissed him. and 
 helped him remove his overcoat. I had 
 just stepped to the parlor door, intending to 
 greet him in my turn, when I heard ilrs. 
 Creighton come up from the dining-room, 
 and. on seeing husband and wife together, 
 run down in a furt:ive way. 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 141 
 
 Mrs. Egge did not suffer her husband to 
 get out of her sight. She asked if he had 
 dined, and when he said yes she led the way 
 to the music-room, where J i)re8ently joined 
 them. Agnes sat in her accustomed place, 
 reading. She greeted her uncle affection- 
 ately, and assured him she was well when 
 he remarked on her changed appearance. 
 
 Mrs. Egge rang the bell and gave the 
 servant an order. I heard the front door 
 open and close, and then Mrs. Creighton 
 came quietly into the room. She shook 
 hands with Mr. Egge and asked him some 
 ordinary question about his journey. Be- 
 fore he could reply Mrs. Egge said: "We 
 have had enough of this hjrpocrisy, Mrs. 
 Gray." 
 
 As she spoke these words in a loud, clear 
 voice she rang the bell sharply. A question 
 hanging on the pale lips of her husband was 
 arrested by the entrance of a police officer. 
 
142 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 A clergyman accompanied him, holding by 
 the hand a little shy girl of ten years. 
 
 There was a shriek, but although I was 
 looking at Mrs. Creighton to see how the 
 sudden appearance of these men would aflfect 
 her, I cannot swear she uttered it. She had 
 sunk into a chair ; she had pressed her hands 
 tightly on her breast, but she wore an awful 
 smile on her bloodless face. Only when the 
 child timidly took a step in her direction 
 and examined her curiously did she seem to 
 tremble and draw back. But that smile 
 never faded. It was as if she had died with 
 it on. 
 
 Mrs. Egge said : " This man has a curi- 
 ous story to relate, Augustus. I have ar- 
 ranged for you and all present to hear it. 
 Go on," she said to the detective. 
 
 The man hesitated. 
 
 She asked impatiently: "Is this the 
 woman?" 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 143 
 
 "Yes," he replied, "that's the woman I 
 followed. She went over the Central road 
 to Chicago. I know how she spent her time 
 there; I know all about her. I've traced 
 her life ten years back, and can tell her 
 where she has lived and what she's done. 
 I've found her husband, too. Here he is." 
 
 The clerical stranger took the cue. 
 
 "This woman is my wife," he said, "for 
 as a minister of the Gospel I could not ac- 
 cept a divorce which the courts would have 
 certainly granted me. I would not even put 
 her from me, however grievous her fault, 
 but she saved me that temptation by desert- 
 ing my bed and board. It is better so for the 
 sake of the child whom I have brought with 
 me to-night because she would not be denied. 
 I have been told that she was bringing 
 shame and sorrow to an innocent family, 
 and so I have come to undo as far as I may, 
 with God's help, the evil she has wrought. 
 
IM THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 I have <x)me to recognize her. not to claim 
 her. for my plain duty is toward my daugh- 
 ter." 
 
 He paused and wiped his brow with a 
 white silk handkerchief. He looked at the 
 woman he claimed for his wife, and she 
 met his gaze with the same imperturbable 
 smile. 
 
 " I hear she denominates herself Catherine 
 Creighton. " he resumed. " Creighton is her 
 maiden name, but in the eyes of the law she 
 is ilrs. Jonathan Gray, and I am the Kev. 
 Jonathan Gray, a preacher of the western 
 conference of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church. Any statement which I make I am 
 prepared to substantiate, and it will be most 
 easy to prove by the sisters of the charge 
 over which I presided when my daughter 
 Malva was bom that my wife's actions 
 were such as to have been called light and 
 worldly in the wife of a lay brother, while 
 
rill<: WHOLE TRUTH. 145 
 
 in the helpmate of a "ireacher they were 
 sinful." 
 
 " SiJecify more particularly what bins she 
 was guilty of," said Mrs. Egge. 
 
 "Madam," said the preacher slowly, "I 
 fear I cannot give utterance in words be- 
 fore that child to the guilt of her mother. " 
 
 "Is that lady my mamma?" asked the 
 little girl, in a loud whisper. 
 
 Mrs. Creighton turned her eyes for a mo- 
 ment on the child. 
 
 "Y(!S, my daughter," said the man sol- 
 ciniily, "she is your mother, and it would 
 have h(;(;n better for you had you never 
 Iciimed the truth. Madam," he added, 
 turning to Mrs. Egge, "this child is, so far 
 as I know, the only child my wife Cathe- 
 rine liorc. When the officer of the law in- 
 formed me that she claimed to have a son 
 grown to manliood living with her in the 
 
 city of New Yoi-k I groaned aloud at the 
 10 
 
14G THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 perversity of her wickedness. The deceit 
 she practises is manifest on its face; my 
 wife Catherine is net more than thirty years 
 old." 
 
 Mr. Egge had been listening with grow- 
 ing confidence after the first shock, but at 
 this statement he started, and threw a 
 cruel glance at Mrs. Creighton. She met 
 it with an insolent look through her half- 
 closed lids, and turning away from the little 
 girl who had approached her as near as she 
 dared, Mrs. Creighton encased her face once 
 more in a hard set smile. 
 
 "What is the meaning of this?" Mr. 
 Egge asked his wife rudely. "Why are 
 these persons here?" 
 
 "It means," she replied in a loud voice, 
 "that this woman has been deceiving us. 
 It means that Sydney Creighton was not her 
 son — what was he?" 
 
 A sigh reached me from where Agnes sat. 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 147 
 
 " I don't believe a word of it !" exclaimed 
 the little man. "The whole thing is a 
 trumped-up story." 
 
 "Your unreadiness to believe does you 
 credit," said the Eev. Mr. Gray. "At one 
 time in my life I would not believe that 
 Belial could assume such a pleasing form ; 
 but with my chastening, with the bitter 
 waters I have drunk, I understand that sin 
 can tempt us mortals to perdition in the 
 guise of a sweet and goodly countenance. I 
 am not prone to think evil of my neighbor, 
 yet the story that Catherine Gray was living 
 carnally with a man whom she called her 
 son called forth no doubt from me who 
 knew her character and history. She has 
 always feasted on manly youth, she cares 
 not for her sex, and she has always set her 
 mind on having a son. The birth of Malva, 
 because she was a girl, finally severed 
 us." 
 
148 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 " Now what a cock-and-bull story that is !" 
 cried Mr. Egge indignantly. "I am sur- 
 prised at you, Mrs. Egge, and I demand 
 again what this means. " 
 
 "It means," returned his wife, "that ei- 
 ther Mrs. Creighton, or Mrs Gray, which 
 appears to be her true name — either she or I 
 must leave this house to-night !" 
 
 "Why, it's her house!" 
 
 "Is it? It was mine once, and soon wiU 
 be again. I know more, Augustus, I know 
 much more ; do not force me to expose all I 
 know. Mrs. Oreighton leaves, or I do." 
 
 The woman spoke for the first time. " Do 
 you not think you can go more comfortably 
 in the morning?" 
 
 Mrs. Egge did not notice this insult, but 
 continued to address her husband. 
 
 "I merely used a form of speech," she 
 said. " Of course I do not intend to aban- 
 don my home ; she must leave peaceably or 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 149 
 
 go with the officer. He has a warrant for 
 her arrest ; it depends on me whether or not 
 he finds her and serves it." 
 
 "A warrant 1" cried ilrs. Creighton. 
 
 The detective nodded. '•Blackmail," said 
 he. 
 
 ilrs. Creighton rc-se. " Augustus I" she 
 exclaimed. 
 
 "Shameless I" cried Mrs. Egge. 
 
 '■ Augustus 1" she repeated. 
 
 "You have deceived us.' he muttered 
 tremulously, showing that his wife had con- 
 quered, or he would not have repeated her 
 words. "You have deceived us." 
 
 !Mt5. Creighton locked at him, hut he 
 would not meet her eyes. Then she turned 
 to IMrs. Egge. " Keep him,"" she said. " You 
 are quite right, I have deceived you — Syd- 
 ney is not my s^jh. Where is he? Does he 
 know this?" 
 
 Mrs. Egge answered nothing. 
 
150 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 "Poor Sydney!" she murmured. "He 
 will be glad of the truth. Do you know 
 whose son he is and where I found him?" 
 she inquired of the detective. 
 
 " We know he is the son of a love match, 
 and we know his mother's sister — for his 
 mother died at his birth — sent him to school, 
 and robbed herself to do it until you went 
 to her and offered to adopt him. Oh, you're 
 a sharp one, but you can't give us points. 
 We know all about it." 
 
 She disdainfully shook off his impertinence 
 and spoke once more to Mr. Egge. 
 
 " Augustus, I meant truly that he should 
 be my son. I wanted a son. " 
 
 He would not look at her. 
 
 Mrs. Creighton watched him for a mo- 
 ment with a smile of contempt. Then she 
 bowed with a sweeping grace which included 
 us all. 
 
 "Good-by, poor commonplace creatures," 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 151 
 
 she said ; "I give you my pity freely. Good- 
 by." 
 
 She moved toward the door. At this mo- 
 ment the child, vs^ho had been casting anx- 
 ious, admiring glances at Mrs. Creighton, 
 and once had stealthily stepped behind her, 
 to be recalled by her father, now eluded him 
 and, rushing forward like a small tempest, 
 threw herself on the astonished woman cry- 
 ing shrilly : 
 
 "Are you my really -truly mamma? Tell 
 me, are you really? You are so pretty, as 
 pretty as I have always seen you at night. 
 Oh, mamma, I have waited for you so long, 
 I have wanted you so much ! He was not 
 bad to me, like Susie McGinly's father, but 
 he would never let me speak of you. Ye«, 
 he was bad to me ; he told me you were dead. 
 Oh, mamma, mamma, you will always love 
 me if I am not pretty?" 
 
 The woman looked down in the face of 
 
153 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 the pleading child. A perplexed, far-away, 
 half-sentient expression was on her face, 
 like the look of the awakening Frou-Frou. 
 Her hand hung loose in the clasp of the 
 child's two hands. Was the bud of mother- 
 hood about to burst? I think so, and two 
 tears stood ready in the gates of her eyes to 
 moisten the tender bloom. 
 
 "Come, Malva," said the Eev. Mr. Gray, 
 not ungently. "That is no place for you, 
 child; come to your father." 
 
 "I hate you, I hate you," shrieked the 
 young voice. " You are a bad and wicked 
 man ; you told me she was dead. You have 
 never been dead, pretty mamma?" 
 
 Ah, the woman might have said, " I have 
 never lived till now," but she kept silence; 
 only the strange look grew sweeter and a 
 tiny smile dawned. 
 
 It encouraged Malva. She nestled close 
 to her mother's side, and turned her face 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 153 
 
 upward. The faces of the woman and girl 
 bore a wonderful resemblance to each other, 
 and the face of the woman was almost as 
 fresh and innocent as the girl's. 
 
 " You will keep me, you will love me al- 
 ways?" the child kept repeating in a soft 
 falsetto, and the mother answered at last by 
 tightening Malva to her side. 
 
 "Eelease her whom you are not worthy to 
 touch," said a stern voice. 
 
 She looked up frightened, and the smile 
 faded. 
 
 "Why do you want her?" asked the Rev. 
 Mr. Gray. 
 
 "I do not want her, I do not want her," 
 said the woman. 
 
 As she stammered the untruth and pushed 
 the frightened child back with a rough hand 
 a cloud, a veil of gloom, a chrysalis of neu- 
 tral color seemed to drop about her. Her 
 bright hair faded into an ashen gray ; lines 
 
154 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 started out on her brow and about her 
 mouth, which now drooped at each corner 
 in a melancholy and disfiguring angle. At 
 the same time her head bent forward and 
 her form lost its erect poise and suppleness. 
 While this transformation, for it really 
 seemed such, or this retrogression of the 
 butterfly into the grub, was occurring, 
 she stepped backward, growing older and 
 browner and more grub-like as she went. 
 
 The child pulled at her father's hand, 
 stamping her feet and gasping in rage and 
 despair: "Mamma, mamma!" 
 
 As for us, we remained silent, listening 
 for the slam of the outer door. When it 
 came we were as if awaked from a night- 
 mare sleep. Agnes darted forward and 
 caught the weeping child to her breast. 
 She was sobbing too. 
 
 "Why did you not give her the child? 
 Why did you not give her the child?" 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 155 
 
 She went on speaking to the frightened 
 httle one: "There, darhng, stay with me; 
 we will comfort each other. Will you leave 
 her with me to-night?" she asked the 
 father. 
 
 "No, no," grumbled Mr. Egge, "send her 
 away, too; we want nothing to remind us 
 of that deceitful woman." 
 
 "Silence, Augustus !" commanded Mrs. 
 Egge in a tone before which the little 
 wretch trembled. "Leave her with us," 
 she said to the Eev. Mr. Gray. "Come 
 to-morrow and we will talk her future 
 over. " 
 
 By this time Agnes had hushed Malva's 
 cries with her caresses, and the father 
 watched the pair with a contented face. 
 He gave his permission for the child to re- 
 main, and Agnes started to lead her from 
 the room. Before going she looked at me, 
 and I joined her in the hall. 
 
156 THE WHOLE TBUTH. 
 
 She offered me her hand and said: "To- 
 morrow I will help vou find Sydney. '" 
 
 Here the task I have set for myself rightly 
 ends, but I must not forget that readers of 
 these papers may come after me, and they 
 will not he wiUing to chocse a conclusion out 
 of the several which iugg^it themselves. 
 What became of Sydney"? Could he leam 
 self -endurance, or did he end the life which 
 his crime had made loathsome by his own 
 hand? To record his penitence, his abase- 
 ment, and his gradual recovery of moral 
 health would require more still and patience 
 than I possess. But I am too fond of him 
 to leave biin in despair. 
 
 The high yet m»iest spirit of confidence 
 of Agnes when she said she would find Syd- 
 ney was justified by the result. By the in- 
 stinct of love she led me t- > where Sydney 
 had hidden himself from compassion and pal- 
 
THE WHOLE TRUTH. 157 
 
 liation. While she waited without I went 
 in and laid my hand on his shoulder. He 
 looked up with dull eyes that showed neither 
 sarprise nor confusion. Those importunate 
 bedfellows, his thoughts, were fast render- 
 ing him callous. But a change quickly fol- 
 lowed when I showed him the proof which 
 he had besought in our last talk together. 
 Clasping his hands, he cried : 
 
 " Thank God ! I am guilty — yes, but not 
 that!" Next moment he demanded : "Does 
 Agnes know?" 
 
 "Yes," I was beginning, when he stam- 
 mered: " You won't deceive me ! Does Ag- 
 nes know — not merely that I have no mother 
 —but " 
 
 He saw by my face that she knew all, and 
 his lost its glow; he fell back in his old 
 posture. It was time, and I went to the 
 door and beckoned to Agnes. 
 
158 THE WHOLE TRUTH. 
 
 Yes, they were married, but not mine is it 
 to tell when or where, for this is not meant 
 to be a love story, or a story at all, and I 
 may answer, if any one asks me why I have 
 put down the truth, that I wrote it to get 
 rid of the baneful memory, as Goethe's 
 mother advised Bettina to do in the case of 
 the Canoness Gunderode. 
 
THE HERITAGE 
 
 GUY DE MAUPASSANT. 
 
 THE TRANSLATION INTO' ENGLISH BY ARTHUR KENT 
 WILL SHORTLY APPEAR. 
 
 This is the story which French critics have agreed 
 to call Guy de Maupassant's best work in comedy.* 
 It affords in small compass even a better picture of 
 Bureaucracy than can be attained by reading Bal- 
 zac's larger work. The living author here presents 
 a series of portraits which are deliciously comic, but 
 without travesty, though that should go without 
 saying, for de Maupassant paints from life, and nei- 
 ther flatters nor exaggerates. While readers will 
 laugh heartily at the amusing story none of them 
 will fail to see how fine and faultless, how per- 
 fectly balanced, how steadily progressive is V Heri- 
 tage. It is admirable from beginning, to end. Uni- 
 form with " The Whole Truth " In form an4 price. 
 
 HILLIER MURRAY & CO., 
 
 32 West 30th Street, 
 
 New York City. 
 

 2m< 
 
 %? V 
 
 <3f * 
 
 ^ 
 
 V 
 
 
 y< t/k