i« 
 
CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT 
 FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY 
 
 HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE 
 
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/cu31924022446219 
 
FIDELITY 
 
FIDELITY 
 
 A NOVEL 
 
 BY 
 
 SUSAN GLASPELL 
 
 Author of "The Glory of the Conquered," 
 "The Visioning," etc. 
 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 SMALL, MAYNARD AND COMPANY 
 
 Publishers 
 
Copyright, iqiS 
 
 By Small, Maynard and Company 
 
 (incorporated) 
 
 8. J. PiKKHILl A Co.. BOSTOB U.S.A. 
 
TO 
 
 LUCY HUFFAKER 
 
FIDELITY 
 
FIDELITY 
 
 CHAPTER ONE 
 
 It was hard to get back into the easy current 
 of everyday talk. Cora Albright's question had 
 too rudely pulled them out of it, disturbing the 
 quiet flow of inconsequential things. Even when 
 they had recovered and were safely flowing along 
 on the fact that the new hotel was to cost two hun- 
 dred thousand dollars, after they had moved with 
 apparent serenity to lamentation over a neighbor 
 who was sick in bed and without a cook, it was 
 as if they were making a display of the ease with 
 which they could move on those commonplace 
 tMngs, as if thus to deny the consciousness of 
 whirlpools near by. 
 
 So they seemed to Dr. Deane Franklin, who, 
 
 secured by the shadow of the porch vine, could 
 
 smile to himself at the way he saw through them. 
 
 Though Deane Franklin's smile for seeing through 
 
 people was not so much a smile as a queer little 
 
 twist of the left side of his face, a screwing up of 
 
 it that half shut one eye and pulled his mouth out 
 
 of shape, the same twist that used to make people 
 
 call him a homely youngster. He was thinking 
 
 1 
 
2 FIDELITY 
 
 that Cora's question, or at any rate her manner in 
 asking it, would itself have told that she had lived 
 away from Freeport for a number of years. She 
 did not know that they did not talk about Ruth 
 Holland any more, that certainly they did not 
 speak of her in the tone of everyday things. 
 
 ,And yet, looking at it in any but the Free- 
 port way, it was the most natural thing in the 
 world that Cora should have asked what she did. 
 Mrs. Lawrence had asked if Mr. Holland — ^he was 
 Euth's father — ^was getting any better, and then 
 Cora had turned to him with the inquiry: "Do 
 you ever hear from Euth?" 
 
 It was queer how it arrested them all. He saw 
 Mrs. Lawrence's start and her quick look over 
 to her daughter — ^now Edith Lawrence Blair, the 
 Edith Lawrence who had been Euth's dearest 
 friend. It was Edith herself who had most inter- 
 ested him. She had been leaning to the far side 
 of her big chair ia order to escape the shaft of 
 light from the porch lamp. But at Cora's ques- 
 tion she made a quick turn that brought her di- 
 rectly into the light. It gave her startled face, so 
 suddenly and sharply revealed, an unmasked as- 
 pect as she turned from Cora to him. And when 
 he quietly answered: "Tes, I had a letter from 
 Euth this morning," her look of amazement, of 
 sudden feeling,, seemed for the instant caught 
 there in the light. He got her quick look over to 
 Amy — ^his bride, and then her conscious leaning. 
 
FIDELITY 3 
 
 back from the disclosing shaft into the shadow. 
 
 He himself had become suddenly conscious of 
 Amy. They had been in California for their 
 honeymoon, and had just returned to Freeport. 
 Amy was not a Freeport girl, and was new to his 
 old crowd, which the visit of Cora Albright was 
 bringing together in various little reunions. She 
 had been sitting over at the far side of the group, 
 talking with Will Blair, Edith's husband. Now 
 they too had stopped talking. 
 
 "She wanted to know about her father," he 
 added. 
 
 No one said anything. That irritated him. It 
 seemed that Edith or her mother, now that Cora 
 had opened it up, might make some little attempt 
 at the common decencies of such a situation, 
 might ask if Ruth would come home if her father 
 died, speak of her as if she were a human being. 
 
 Cora did not appear to get from their silence 
 that she was violating Freeport custom. "Her 
 mother died just about a year after Buth — ^left, 
 didn't she?" she pursued. 
 
 "About that," he tersely answered. 
 
 "Died of a broken heart," murmured Mrs. Law- 
 rence. 
 
 ' ' She died of pneumonia, ' * was his retort, a little 
 sharp for a young man to an older woman. 
 
 Her slight wordless murmur seemed to comment 
 on his failure to see. She turned to Cora with a 
 tolerant, gently-spoken, * ' I think Deane would have 
 
A: FIDELITY 
 
 to admit that there was little force left for fighting 
 pneumonia. Certainly it was a broken life I" — 
 that last was less gently said. 
 
 Exasperation showed in his shifting of position. 
 
 "It needn't have been," he muttered stubbornly. 
 
 "Deane — ^Deane!" she murmured, as if in re- 
 proach for something of long standing. There 
 was a sUence in which the whole thing was alive 
 there for those of them who knew. Cora and 
 Edith, sitting close together, did not turn to one 
 another. He wondered if they were thinking of 
 the countless times Euth had been on that porch 
 with them in the years they were all growing up 
 together. Edith's face was turned away from the 
 light now. Suddenly Cora demanded: "Well, 
 there's no prospect at all of a divorce?" 
 
 Mrs. Lawrence rose and went over to Amy and 
 opened a lively conversation as to whether she 
 found her new maid satisfactory. It left him and 
 Edith and Cora to themselves. 
 
 "No," he answered her question, "I guess not. 
 Not that I know of." 
 
 "How terrible it all is!" Cora exclaimed, not 
 without feeling; and then, following a pause, she 
 and Edith were speaking of how unbecoming the 
 new hats were, talking of the tea one of their old 
 friends was giving for Cora next day. 
 
 He sat there thinking how it was usually those 
 little things that closed in over Euth. When the 
 thought of her, feeling about her, broke through, 
 
FIDELITY 5 
 
 it was soon covered over with. — oh, discussion of 
 how some one was wearing her hair, the health of 
 some one's baby or merits of some one's cook. 
 
 He listened to their talk about the chang;es there 
 had been in Freeport in the last ten or twelve 
 years. They spoke of deaths, of marriages, of 
 births ; of people who had prospered and people 
 who had gone to pieces ; of the growth of the town, 
 of new people, of people who had moved away. 
 In a word, they spoke of change. Edith would 
 refer things to him and he occasionally joined in 
 the talk, but he was thinking less of the incidents 
 they spoke of than of how it was change they were 
 talking about. This enumeration of changes gave 
 him a sense of life as a continuous moving on, as a 
 thing going swiftly by. Life had changed for all 
 those people they were telling Cora about. It had 
 changed for themselves too. He had continued to 
 think of Edith and the others as girls. But they 
 had moved on from that ; they were moving on all 
 the time. Why, they were over thirty! As a 
 matter of fact they were women near the middle 
 thirties. People talked so lightly of change, and 
 yet change meant that life was swiftly sweeping 
 one on. 
 
 He turned from that too somber thinking to 
 Amy, watched her as she talked with Mrs. Law- 
 rence. They too were talking of Freeport people 
 and affairs, the older woman bringing Amy into 
 the current of life there. His heart warmed a 
 
6 FIDELITY 
 
 little to Edith's motlier for being so gracious to 
 Amy, though that did not keep him from marvel- 
 ing at how she could be both so warm and so hard 
 — so loving within the circle of her approval, so 
 unrelenting out beyond it. 
 
 Amy would make friends, he was thinking, lov- 
 ingly proud. How could it be otherwise when she 
 was so lovely and so charming? She looked so 
 slim, so very young, in that white dress she was 
 wearing. "Well, and she was young, little older 
 now than these girls had been when they really 
 were "the girls." That bleak sense of life as go- 
 ing by fell away; here was life — ^the beautiful life 
 he was to have with Amy. He watched the breeze 
 play with her hair and his whole heart warmed to 
 her in the thought of the happiness she brought 
 him, in his gratitude for what love made of life. 
 He forgot his resentment about Euth, forgot the 
 old bitterness and old hurt that had just been 
 newly stirred in him. Life had been a lonely thing 
 for a number of years after Euth went away. He 
 had Amy now — all was to be different. 
 
 They all stood at the head of the steps for a 
 moment as he and Amy were bidding the others 
 good-night They talked of the tea Edith was to 
 give for Amy the following week— what Amy 
 would wear — ^how many people there would be. 
 "And let me pick you up and take you to the tea 
 to-morrow," Edith was saying. "It will be small 
 and informal— just Cora's old friends— and then 
 
FIDELITY 7 
 
 you won't have so many strangers to meet next 
 ■week." 
 
 He glowed with new liking of Edith, felt anew 
 that sweetness in her nature that, after her turn- 
 ing from Euth, had not been there for him. Look- 
 ing at her through this new friendliness he 
 was thinking how beautifully she had developed. 
 Edith was a mother now, she had two lovely chil- 
 dren. She was larger than in her girlhood; she 
 had indeed flowered, ripened, Edith was a sweet 
 woman, he was thinking. 
 
 "I do think they're the kindest, most beautiful 
 people!" Amy exclaimed warmly as they started 
 slowly homeward through the fragrant softness 
 of the May night. 
 
CHAPTER TWO 
 
 He had known that Amy would ask, and won- 
 dered a little at her waiting so long. It was an 
 hour later, as she sat before her dressing-table 
 brushing her hair that she turned to him with a 
 little laugh and asked: ""Who is this mysterious 
 Ruth?" 
 
 He sighed ; he was tired and telling about Ruth 
 seemed a large undertaking. 
 
 Amy colored and turned from him and picked 
 up her brush. "Don't tell me if you don't want 
 to," she said formally. 
 
 His hand went round her bared shoulder. 
 "Dearest! Why, I want to, of course. It's 
 just that it's a long story, and tonight I'm a little 
 tired. ' ' As she did not respond to that he added : 
 "This was a hard day at the office." 
 
 Amy went on brushing her hair; she did not 
 suggest that he let it go until another time so he 
 began, "Ruth was a girl who used to live here." 
 
 "I gathered that," she replied quietly. 
 
 Her tone made no opening for him. ' * I thought 
 a great deal of her," he said after a moment. 
 
 "Yes, I gathered that too." She said it dryly, 
 and smiled just a little. He was more conscious 
 than ever of being tired, of its being hard to tell 
 about Ruth, 
 
 8 
 
FIDELITY 9 
 
 "I gathered," said Amy, stHl faintly smiling, 
 though, her voice went a trifle higher, "that you 
 thought more of her — " she hesitated^ then 
 amendedi — "think more of her — than the rest of 
 them do." 
 
 He answered simply : " Yes, I believe that 's so. 
 Though Edith used to care a great deal for Euth," 
 he added meditatively. 
 
 "Well, what did she do?" Amy demanded im- 
 patiently. ' ' What is it r ' 
 
 For a moment his cheek went down to her soft 
 hair that was all around her, in a surge of love for 
 its softness, a swift, deep gratitude for her love- 
 liness. He wanted to rest there, letting that, for 
 the time, shut out all else, secure in new happiness 
 and forgetting old hurts. 
 
 But he felt her waiting for what she wanted to 
 know and so with an effort he began : * ' Why, you 
 see, dear, Euth — it was pretty tough for Euth. 
 Things didn't go right for her — ^not as they did for 
 Cora and Edith and the girls of her crowd. 
 She — " Something in the calm of Amy's waiting 
 made it curiously hard to say, "Euth couldn't 
 marry the man she cared for." 
 
 "Why not?" she asked dispassionately. 
 
 "Why, because it wasn't possible," he an- 
 swered a little sharply. "She couldn't marry 
 him because he wasn't divorced," he said bluntly 
 then. 
 
 Amy's deep gray eyes, they had seemed so un- 
 
10 FIDELITY 
 
 perturbed, so Tinsympathetically calm, were upon 
 him now in a queer, steady way. He felt himself 
 flushing. "Wasn't divorced?" she said with a 
 little laugh. "Is that a way of saying he was 
 married?" 
 
 He nodded. 
 
 "She cared for a man who was married to 
 someone else?" she asked with rising voice. 
 
 Again he only nodded, feeling incapable, when 
 Amy looked at him like that, of saying the things 
 he would like to be saying for Euth. 
 
 Abruptly she drew her hair away. "And you 
 can sympathize with — like — a person who would 
 do that?" 
 
 "I certainly both sympathize with and like 
 Euth." 
 
 That had come quick and sharp, and then sud- 
 denly he felt it all wrong that a thing which had 
 gone so deep into his own life should be coming to 
 Amy like this, that she should be taking the atti- 
 tude of the town against his friend, against his 
 own feeling. He blamed his way of putting it, 
 telling himself it was absurd to expect her to un- 
 derstand a bald statement like that. At that mo- 
 ment he realized it was very important she should 
 understand ; not only Euth, but something in him- 
 self — something counting for much in himself 
 would be shut out if she did not understand. 
 
 It made his voice gentle as he began: "Amy, 
 don't you know that just to be told of a thing may 
 
FIDELITY 11 
 
 make it seem very different from wliat the thing 
 really was? Seeing a thing from the outside is 
 so different from living through it. "Won't you 
 reserve judgment about Ruth — she is my friend 
 and I hate to see her unfairly judged — until some 
 time when I can tell it better?" 
 
 "Why have you so much to do with it? Why 
 is it so important I do not — judge her?" Amy's 
 sweetness, that .soft quality that had been dear 
 to him seemed to have tightened into a hard 
 shrewdness as she asked: "How did you happen 
 to know it all from within?" 
 
 He pushed his chair back from her and settled 
 into it wearily. "Why, because she was my 
 friend, dear. I was in her confidence." 
 
 "I don't think I'd be very proud of being in 
 the confidence of a woman who ran away with 
 another woman's husband!" 
 
 Her hostile voice fanned the old anger that had 
 so many times flamed when people were speak- 
 ing hostilely of Euth. But he managed to say 
 quietly: "But you see you don't know much 
 about it yet. Amy." 
 
 He was facing her mirror and what he saw in 
 it made him lean forward, his arms about her, 
 with an impulsive : * ' Sweetheart, we 're not going 
 to quarrel, are we?" 
 
 But after his kisses she asked, as if she had 
 only been biding her time through the interrup- 
 tion: ^^Did she run away with him?" 
 
12 FIDELITY 
 
 His arm dropped from her shoulder. "They 
 left together," he answered shortly. 
 
 "Are they married now?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 Amy, who had resumed the brushing of her 
 hair, held the brush suspended. "Living together 
 — all this time — and not married?" 
 
 "They are not married," was his heated re- 
 sponse, "because the man's wife has not divorced 
 him. ' ' He added, not without satisfaction : ' ' She 's 
 that kind of a person." 
 
 Amy turned and her eyes met his. "What 
 kind of a person?" she said challengingly. "I 
 presume," she added coolly, "that she does not 
 believe in divorce." 
 
 "I take it that she does not," was his dry an- 
 swer. 
 
 She flushed, and exclaimed a little tremulously : 
 "Well, really, Deane, you needn't be so disa- 
 greeable about it!" 
 
 Quickly he turned to her, glad to think that 
 he had been disagreeable ; that was so much easier 
 than what he had been trying to keep from think- 
 ing. 
 
 "I didn't mean to be disagreeable. Amy dear. 
 I suppose I've got in the habit of being disa- 
 greeable about Ruth: people here have been so 
 hard about her; I've resented their attitude so." 
 
 "But why should you care? Why is it such 
 a personal matter to you?" 
 
FIDELITY 13 
 
 He was about to say, "She was my friend," 
 but remembering he had said that before, he had 
 anew a sense of helplessness. He did not want 
 to talk about it any more. He had become tired 
 out with thinking about it, with the long grieving 
 for Euth and the sorrowing with her. When he 
 found Amy their love had seemed to free him from 
 old hurts and to bring him out from loneliness. 
 Wonderful as the ecstasy of fresh love was he 
 had thought even more of the exquisite peace 
 that rests ia love. Amy had seemed to be bring- 
 ing him to that; and now it seemed that Euth,- 
 was still there holding him away from it. The 
 thought brushed his mind, his face softening for 
 the instant with it, that Euth would be so sorry 
 to have that true. 
 
 Amy had braided her hair; the long fair braid 
 hung over her shoulder, beautifully framing her 
 face as she turned to him. "Had you supposed, 
 when you all knew her, when she was iu your 
 crowd, that she was^ — ^that kind of a person?" 
 
 His blood quickened in the old anger for Euth ; 
 but there was something worse than that — a sick 
 feeling, a feeling in which there was disappoint- 
 ment and into which there crept something that 
 was like shame. 
 
 The telephone rang before he need reply. When 
 he turned from it, it was to say hurriedly, "I'll 
 have to go to the hospital, Amy. Sorry — that 
 woman I operated on yesterday — " He was in 
 
14 FIDELITY 
 
 the next room, gathering together his things be- 
 fore he had finished it. 
 
 Amy followed him in. "Why, I'm so sorry, 
 dear. It's too had — ^when you're so tired." 
 
 He turned and caught her in his arms and held 
 her there close in a passion of relief at the gentle- 
 ness and love of her voice that swept away those 
 things about her he had tried to think were not 
 in his mtud. Amy was so sweet! — so beautiful, 
 so tender. Why of course she wouldn't under- 
 stand about Euth ! How absurd to expect her to 
 imderstand, he thought, when he had blurted 
 things out like that, giving her no satisfaction 
 about it. He was touchy on the subject, he 
 gladly told himself, as he held her close in all the 
 thankfulaess of regaining her. And when, after 
 he had kissed her good-by she lifted her face and 
 kissed him again his rush of love for her had 
 power to sweep all else away. 
 
CHAPTER THEEE 
 
 It was in that mood of passionate tenderness 
 for Amy, a glow of gratitude for love, that he 
 sent his car swiftly toward the hospital. His feel- 
 ing diffused warmth for the town through which 
 he drove, the little city that had so many times 
 tightened him up in bitterness. People were kind, 
 after all; how kind they were being to Amy, he 
 thought, eager to receive her and make her feel 
 at home, anxious that she be happy among them. 
 The picture of Edith as she stood at the head of 
 the steps making plans for Amy warmed his heart 
 to her. Perhaps he had been unfair to Edith; 
 in that one thing, certainly, she had failed as a 
 friend, but perhaps it was impossible for women 
 'to go that far in friendship, impossible for them 
 to be themselves on the outer side of the door 
 of their approval. Even Amy. . . . That showed, 
 of course, how hard it was for women whose ex- f 
 periences had aU fallen within the circle of things i 
 as they should be to understand) a thing that was 
 — disrupting. It was as if their kindly impulses, 
 sympathy, tenderness, were circumscribed by that 
 circle. Little as he liked that, his own mood of 
 the moment, his unrecognized efforts at holding 
 it, kept him within that sphere where good feeling 
 
 15 
 
16 FIDELITY 
 
 lived. In it were happy anticipations of the life 
 he and Amy would have in Freeport. He had 
 long been out of humor with his town, scornful. 
 He told himself now that that was a wrong atti- 
 tude. There was a new feeling for the homes he 
 was passing, for the people in those homes. He 
 had a home there, too; it seemed to make him 
 one with all those people. There was warmth in 
 that feeling of being one with others. 
 
 He told himself that it was absurd to expect 
 Amy to adjust herself all in a minute to a thing 
 he had known about for years, had all the time 
 known from within. He would make Amy under- 
 stand; if Euth came. Amy would be good to her. 
 At heart she was not like those others, and happi- 
 ness would make her want to be kind. 
 
 He saw her face lifted for that second good- 
 by kiss — and quickened his speed. He hoped he 
 would not have to be long at the hospital, hoped 
 Amy would not be asleep when he got back home. 
 He lingered happily around the thought of there 
 being a home to go back to, of how Amy would 
 be there when he got back. 
 
 But it was at a slower speed that, an hour later, 
 he traveled those same streets. He had lost his 
 patient. It was no failure of the operator, but 
 one of those cases where the particular human 
 body is not equal to the demand made upon it, 
 where there was no reaction. He got no satisfac- 
 tion in telling himself that the woman could not 
 
FIDELITY 17 
 
 hav© lived long without the operation ; she had not 
 lived with it — ^that was the only side it turned to 
 him. The surgery was all right enough, hut Ufe. 
 had ehhed away. It brought a sense of who was 
 nmster. 
 
 He had been practising for twelve years, but 
 death always cut deep into his spirit. It was 
 more than chagrin, more than the disheartenment 
 of the workman at failure, when he lost a patient. 
 It was a real sense of death, and with that a feel- 
 ing of man's final powerlessness. 
 
 That made it a different town through which he 
 drove upon his return; a tawn where peaple cut 
 their way ruthlessly through life — and to what 
 end? They might be a little kinder to each other 
 along the way, it would seem, when this was what 
 it came to for them all. They were kind enough 
 about death — ^not so kind about the mean twists 
 in life. 
 
 That feeling was aU wrapped up with Buth 
 Holland; it brought Euth to him. He thought 
 of the many times they had traveled that road 
 together, times when he would take her where she 
 could meet Stuart "Williams, then pick her up 
 again and bring her home, her family thinking 
 she had been with him. How would he ever make 
 Amy understand about that? It seemed now that 
 it could not be done, that it would be something 
 they did not share, perhaps something lying hos- 
 tilely between them. He wondered why it had 
 
18 FIDELITY 
 
 not seemed to him the shameful thing it would 
 appear to anyone he told of it. Was that some- 
 thing t-wisted in him, or was it just that utter 
 difference between knowing things from within 
 and judging from Tvithout? To himself, it was 
 never in the form of argument he defended Euth. 
 It was the memory of her face at those times when 
 he had seen what she was feeling. 
 
 He was about to pass the Hollands' — ^her old 
 home. He slackened the car to its slowest. It 
 had seemed a gloomy place in recent years. The 
 big square house in the middle of the big yard of 
 oak trees used to be one of the most friendly- 
 looking places of the town. But after Euth went 
 away and the family drew within themselves, as 
 they did, the hospitable spaciousness seemed to 
 become bleakness, as if the place itself changed 
 with the change of spirit. People began to speak 
 of it as gloomy ; now they said it looked forsaken. 
 Certainly it was in need of painting — ^new side- 
 walks, general repairs. Mr. Holland had seemed 
 to cease oaring how the place looked. There 
 weren't flowers any more. 
 
 In the upper hall he saw the dim light that 
 bums through the night in a house of sickness. 
 He had been there early in the evening; if he 
 thought the nurse was up he would like to stop 
 again. But he considered that it must be almost 
 one — too late for disturbing them. He hoped Mr. 
 Holland was having a good night; he would 
 
FIDELITY 19 
 
 not have many more nights to get through. 
 
 He wished there was some one of them to whom 
 he could talk about sending for Euth. They had 
 not sent for her when her mother died, but that 
 was sudden, everyone was panic-stricken. And 
 that was only two years after Ruth's going away; 
 time had not worked much then on their feeling 
 against her. He would have to answer her letter 
 and tell her that her father could not live. He 
 wanted to have the authority to tell her to come 
 home. Anything else seemed fairly indecent in 
 its lack of feeliag. Eleven years — and Ruth had 
 never been home; and she loved her father — 
 though of course no one in the town would be- 
 lieve that. 
 
 His car had slowed almost to a stop; there was 
 a low whistle from the porch and someone was 
 coming down the steps. It was Ted Holland — 
 Ruth's younger brother. 
 
 "Hello, Deane," he said, coming out to him; 
 "thinking of coming in?" 
 
 "No, I guess not; it's pretty late. I was just 
 passing, and wondering about your father." 
 
 "He went to sleep; seems quiet, and about the 
 same." 
 
 "That's good; hope it will keep up through the 
 night." 
 
 The young fellow did not reply. The doctor 
 was thinking that it must be lonely for him — all 
 alone on the porch after midnight, his father dy- 
 
20 FIDELITY 
 
 ing upstairs, no member of tlie immediate family 
 in the house. 
 
 ' * Sent for Cy, Ted ? " he asked. Cyrus was the 
 older brother, older than both Ted and Enth. It 
 was he "who had been most bitter against Ruth. 
 Deane had always believed that if it had not been 
 for Cyras the rest of them would not have hard- 
 ened into their pain and humiliation like that. 
 
 Ted nodded. "I had written, and today, after 
 you said what you did, I wired. I had an answer 
 tonight. He has to finish up a deal that will take 
 him a few days, but I am to keep him informed — 
 I told him you said it might be a couple of weeks 
 — and he'll come the first minute he can." 
 
 There was a pause. Deane wanted to say: 
 "And Euth?" but that was a hard thing to say 
 to one of the Hollands. 
 
 But Ted himself mentioned her. "Tell you 
 what I'm worrying about, Deane," he blurted Out, 
 "and that's Ruth!" 
 
 Deane nodded appreciatively. He had always 
 liked this young Ted, but there was a new out- 
 going to him for this. 
 
 "Father asked for her this afternoon. I don't 
 care whether he was just right in his mind or 
 not — ^it shows she's en his mind. 'Hasn't Euth 
 come in yet?' he asked, several times." 
 
 "You send for her, Ted," commanded the doc- 
 tor. "You ought to. I'll back yon up if Cy's 
 disagreeable." 
 
FIDELITY 21 
 
 "He'E be disagreeable all right," muttered the 
 younger brother. 
 
 "Well, what about Harriett?" impatiently de- 
 manded Deane. "Doesn't she see that Euth 
 ought to be here?" Harriett was Euth's sister 
 and the eldest of the four children. 
 
 "Harriett would be all right," said Ted, "if 
 it weren't for that bunch of piety she's married 
 to!" 
 
 Deane laughed. "Not keen for your brother- 
 in-law, Ted?" 
 
 "Oh, I'U tell you, Deane," the boy burst out, 
 "for a long time I haven't felt just like the rest 
 of the family have about Euth. It was an awful 
 thing — I know that, but just the same it was pretty 
 tough on Riiiiih. I'll bet she's been up against it, 
 good and plenty, and all we've seemed to think 
 about is the way it put us in bad. Not mother 
 — Cy never did really get mother, you know, but 
 father would have softened if it hadn't been 
 for Oy's everlasting keeping him nagged up to 
 the fact that he'd been wronged! Even Harriett 
 would have been human if it hadn't been for Cy 
 — and that upright husband she's got!'* 
 
 The boy's face was flushed; he ran his hand 
 back through his, hair in an agitated way; it was 
 evident that, Ms heart was hot with feeling about 
 it all'. "I don 't know whether you know, Deane, ' ' 
 he said in a lowered voice, "that mother's last 
 words were for Euth. They can't deny it, for I 
 
22 FIDELITY 
 
 was standing nearest her. 'Where's Euth?' she 
 said; and then at the very last — 'Euth?' " 
 - His voice went unsteady as he repeated it. 
 Deane, nodding, was looking straight down the 
 street. 
 
 "Well," said Ted, after a minute, "I'm not 
 going to have that happen again. I've been 
 thinking about it. I did write Euth a week ago. 
 Now I shall write to her before I go to bed to- 
 night and tell her to come home." 
 
 "You do that, Ted," said the doctor with gruff 
 warmth. "You do that. I'll write her too. 
 Euth wrote to me." 
 
 ' ' Did she ? " Ted quickly repUed. ' ' Well' '—he 
 hesitated, then threw out in defiant manner and 
 wistful voice, "well, I guess Euth '11 find she's got 
 one friend when she comes back to her old town." 
 
 "You bet she will," snapped Deane, adding in 
 another voice : * * She knows that. ' ' 
 
 "And as for the family," Ted went on, "there 
 are four of us, and I don't know why Euth and 
 I aren't half of that four. Cy and Harriett 
 haven't got it all to say." 
 
 He said it so hotly that Deane conciliated: 
 "Try not to have any split up, Ted. That would 
 just make it harder for Euth, you know." 
 
 "There'll not be any split up if Cy will just 
 act like a human being," said the boy darkly. 
 
 "Tell him your father was asking for Euth and 
 
FIDELITY 23 
 
 that I told you yoix must send for her. See Har- 
 riett first and get her in line." 
 
 "Harriett would be all right," muttered Ted, 
 "if let alone. Lots of people would be all right 
 if other people didn't keep nagging at them about 
 what they ought to be." 
 
 Deane gave him a quiqk, queer look. "You're 
 right there, my son," he laughed shortly. 
 
 There was a moment's intimate pause. There 
 seemed not a sound on the whole street save the 
 subdued chug-chug of Deane 's waiting machine. 
 The only light in the big house back in the 
 shadowy yard was the dim light that burned be- 
 cause a man was dying. Deane 's hand went out 
 to his steering wheel. "Well, so long, Ted," he 
 said in a voice curiously gentle. 
 
 " 'By, Deane," said the boy. 
 
 He drove on through the silent town in another 
 mood. This boy's feeling had touched something 
 in his heart that was softening. He had always 
 been attracted to Ted Holland — ^his frank hazel 
 eyes, something that seemed so square and so 
 pleasant in the clear, straight features of his 
 freckled face. He had been only a youngster of 
 about thirteen when Ruth went away. She had 
 adored him; "my good-looking baby bpother," 
 was her affectionate way of speaking of him. He 
 was thinking what it would mean to Euth to come 
 home and find this warmth in Ted. Why, it might 
 
24 FIDELITY 
 
 make aU the difference in tbe world, he was grate- 
 fully considering. 
 
 When he came into the room where Amy was 
 sleeping she awoke and sat up in bed, rubbing 
 sleepy eyes blinded by the light. "Poor dear," 
 she murmured at sight of his face, "so tired?" 
 
 He sat down on the bed ; now that he was home, 
 too tired to move. "Pretty tired. Woman 
 died." 
 
 "Oh, Deane!" she cried. "Deaae, I'm so 
 sorry." 
 
 She reached over and put her arms around him. 
 "You couldn't help it, dear," she comforted. 
 "You couldn't help it." 
 
 Her sympathy was very sweet to him; as said 
 by her, the fact that he couldn't help it did make 
 some difference. 
 
 "And you had to be there such a long time. 
 ,Why it must be most morning." 
 
 "Hardly that. I've been at the Hollands' too 
 — ^talking to Ted. Poor kid — ^it's lonesome for 
 him." 
 
 "Who is he!" asked Amy. 
 
 "Why — " and then he remembered "Why, 
 Euth Holland's brother," he said, trying not to 
 speak consciously. "The father's very sick, you 
 know." 
 
 ' ' Oh, ' ' said Amy. She moved over to the other 
 side of her bed. 
 
 "They're going to send for Ruth." 
 
FIDELITY 25 
 
 Amy made no reply. 
 
 He was too utterly tired to think much about 
 it — ^too worn for acute sensibilities. He sat there 
 yawning. "I reaUy ought to write to Euth my- 
 self tonight," he said, sleepily thinking out loud, 
 "but I'm too all in." He wanted her to take the 
 letter off his conscience for him. "I think I'd 
 better come to bed', don't you, honey?" 
 
 "I should think you would need rest," was her 
 answer. 
 
 She had turned the other way and seemed to 
 be going to sleep again. Somehow he felt newly 
 tired but was too exhausted to think it out. He 
 told himself that Amy had just roused for the 
 minute and was too sleepy to keep awake. People 
 were that way when waked out of a sound sleep. 
 
CHAPTER FOUE 
 
 The next evening Dr. Franklin got home for 
 dinner before Ms wife had returned from her tea. 
 "Mrs. Franklin not home yet?" he asked of Doris, 
 their maid ; he still said Mrs. Franklin a little con- 
 sciously and liked saying it. She told him, rather 
 fluttered with the splendor of it — Doris being as 
 new to her profession as he to matrimony — ^that 
 Mrs. Blair had come for Mrs. Franklin in her 
 "electric" and they had gone to a tea and had 
 not yet returned. 
 
 He went out into the yard and busied himself 
 about the place while waiting: trained a vine on 
 a trellis, moved a garden-seat; then he walked 
 about the house surveying it, after the fashion 
 of the happy householder, as if for the first time. 
 The house was new; he had built it for them. 
 From the first moment of his thinking of it it had 
 been designed for Amy. That made it much more 
 than mere house. He was thinking that it showed 
 up pretty well with the houses of most of their 
 friends; Amy needn't be ashamed of it, anyhow, 
 and it would look better in a couple of seasons, 
 after things had grown up around it a little more. 
 There would be plenty of seas6ns for them to 
 grow in, he thought, whistling. 
 
 28 
 
FIDELITY 27 
 
 Then he got the gentle sound of Edith's pretty 
 little brougham and went down to meet them. 
 She and Amy looked charming in there — flight 
 dresses and big hats. 
 
 He made a gallant remark and then a teasing 
 one. "Been tea-tattling all this time?" 
 
 "No," smiled Edith; "we took a ride." 
 
 "Such a beautiful ride," cried Amy. "Way 
 up the river." 
 
 He had helped her out and Edith was leaning 
 out talking to her. "I think I'd better come for 
 you about one, ' ' she was saying. He thought with 
 loving pride of how quickly Amy had swung into 
 the life of the town. 
 
 During dinner he sat there adoring her: she 
 was so fair, so beautifully formed, so poised. She 
 was lovely in that filmy dress of cloudy blue. 
 Amy's eyes were gray, but the darkness of her 
 long lashes gave an impression of darkness. Her 
 skin was smooth and fair and the chiseling of 
 her features clean and strong. She held herself 
 proudly; her fair hair was braided around a well- 
 poised head. She always appeared composed; 
 there never seemed any frittering or disorganiz- 
 ing of herself in trivial feeling or movement. 
 One out of love with her might find her rather 
 too self-possessed a young person. 
 
 So engaged was Deane in admiring her that it 
 was not until they were about to leave the table 
 that he was conscious of something unusual about 
 
26 FIDELITY 
 
 her; even then he did not make out the excitement 
 just heneath her collected manner. 
 
 He wanted to show her what he had done to 
 the vines and they went out in the yard. Pres- 
 ently they sat down on the garden-seat which he 
 had moved a little while before. He had grown 
 puzzled now by Amy's manner. 
 
 She was smoothing out the sash of her dress. 
 She sang a little under her breath. Then she 
 said, ^th apparent carelessness: "Mrs. "Williams 
 Was at the tea today." 
 
 He knit his brows. "Mrs. — ?" Then, under- 
 standing, his fkce tightened. "Was she?" was 
 his only reply. 
 
 Amy sang a little more. "It's her husband 
 that your friend is living with, isn't it?" she 
 asked, and the suppressed excitement came nearer 
 to the surface though her voice remained indif- 
 ferent. 
 
 He said "Yes" shortly and volunteered noth- 
 ing. His face had not relaxed. 
 
 "What a sad face she has," Amy murmured. 
 
 "Think so?" He reached over and picked up 
 a twig and flipped a piece of it off his finger. 
 "Oh, I don't know. I call it cold rather than 
 
 "Oh, well, of course," cried Amy, "your sym- 
 pathies are all on the other side!" 
 
 He did not reply. He would try to say as littie 
 as possible. 
 
FIDELITY 29 
 
 "I must say," she resumed exeitedly, then drew 
 herself back. "Mrs. Blair was telling me the 
 whole story this afternoon," she said quietly, but 
 with challenge. 
 
 The blood came to his face. He cleared his 
 throat and impatiently threw away the twig he 
 had been playing with. "Well, Edith didn't lose 
 much time, did she?" he said coldly; then added 
 with a rather hard laugh : "That was the reason 
 for the long ride, I suppose." 
 
 "I don't kaow that it is so remarkable," Amy 
 began with quivering dignity, "that she should 
 tell me something of the affairs of the town." 
 After an instant she added, "I am a stranger 
 here." 
 
 He caught the different note and turned quickly 
 to her. "Dearest, there's nothing about the 
 'affairs of the town' I won't tell you." He put 
 his arm around the back of the seat, the hand 
 resting on her shoulder. * 'And I must say I don't 
 think you're much of a stranger here. Look at 
 the friends you've made already. I never saw 
 anything like it." 
 
 "Mrs. Blair does seem to like me," she an- 
 swered with composure. Then added: "Mrs. 
 "Williams was very nice to me too." 
 
 His hand on her shoulder drew away a little 
 and he snapped his fingers. Then the hand went 
 back to her shoulder, "Well, that's very nice," 
 he said quietly. 
 
30 FIDELITY 
 
 "She's coining to see me. I'm sure, I found 
 her anything but cold and hard!" 
 
 "I don't think that a woman—" he began hotly, 
 but checked himself. 
 
 But all the feeling that had been alive there 
 just beneath Amy's cool exterior flamed through. 
 "Well, how you can stand up for a woman who 
 did what that woman did — I" 
 
 Her cheeks were flaming now, her nostrils 
 quivered. "I guess you're the only person in 
 tovm that does stand up for her! But of course 
 you're right — and the rest of them — ' ' She broke 
 off with a tumultuous little laugh and abruptly 
 got up and went into the house. 
 
 He sat there for a time alone, sick at heart. 
 He told himself he had bungled the whole thing. 
 Why hadn't he told Amy all about Ruth, putting 
 it in a way that would get her sympathies. Surely 
 he could have done that had he told her the story 
 as he knew it, made her feel what Euth had 
 suffered, how tormented and bewildered and des- 
 perate she had been. Now she had the town's 
 side and naturally resented his championing of 
 what was presented as so outrageous a thing. He 
 went over the story as Edith would give it. That 
 was enough to vindicate Amy. 
 
 He rose and followed her into the house. She 
 was fingering some music on the piano. He saw 
 how flushed her face was, how high she carried! 
 her head and how quick her breathing. 
 
FIDELITY 31 
 
 He went and put his arms around her. * ' Sweet- 
 heart," he said very simply and gently, "I love 
 you. You know that, don't you I" 
 
 An instant she held back in conflict. Then she 
 hid her face against hiTin and sobbed. He held 
 her close and murmured soothing little things. 
 
 She was saying something. "I was so happy," 
 he made out the smothered words. "It was all 
 so — ^beautiful." 
 
 "But you're happy mow," he insisted. "It's 
 beautiful now." 
 
 "I feel as if my marriage was being — spoiled," 
 she choked. 
 
 He shook her, playfully, but his voice as he 
 spoke was not playful. "Look here, Amy, don't 
 say such a thing. ' Don't let such a thing get into 
 your head for an instant! Our happiness isn't 
 a thing to talk like that about." 
 
 "I feel as if-^that woman — ^was standing be- 
 tween us!" 
 
 He raised her face and made her look into his 
 own, at once stern and very tender. "Amy love, 
 we've got to stop this right now. A long time 
 ago — ^more than ten years ago — there was a girl 
 here who had an awfully hard time. I was sorry 
 for her. I'm sorry for her now. Life's hit her 
 good and hard. "We're among the fortunate 
 people things go right for. We can be together 
 — ^happy, having friends, everybody approving, 
 everybody good to us. We're mighty lucky that 
 
32 FIBELITII 
 
 it is that way. And isn't our own happiness go- 
 iag to inake us a little sorry for people who are 
 outside all this?" He kissed her- "Come now, 
 sweetheart, you're not going^ to harden up like 
 that. Why, that wouldn't be you at all!" 
 
 She was quiet; after a little she smiled up at 
 him, the sWe^tj reminiscently plaintive little smOe 
 of one just comforted. For the moment, at least, 
 love had won her. "Sometime I'll tell you any- 
 thing about it you want to know," he said', hold- 
 ing her tenderly and smoothing her hair. * ' Mean- 
 while— let's forget it. Come on now, honey, 
 change your dress — ^get into something warmer 
 and go for a ride with me. I've got to make 
 a couple of calls, and I want you along." 
 
 "You know," he was sajdng as he imfastened 
 her dress for her, "after I knew I was going to 
 have you, and before 1 got you here, I used to 
 think so much about this very thing-^the fun, of 
 having you going around with me — doing things 
 together. Now it seems — " He did not 'finish, 
 for he was passionately kissing the white shoulder 
 which the unfastened dress had bared. " A my, 
 dear,"— his voice choked — "oh, doesn't it seem 
 too good to be true?" 
 
 His feeling for her had chased the other things 
 away. She softened to happiness, then grew gay. 
 They were merry and happy again. All seemed 
 well with them. But when, on his rounds, they 
 passed the Hollands' and Ted waved from the 
 
FIDELITY 33 
 
 porch he had an anxious moment of fearing she 
 would ask who that was and their criist of happi- 
 ness would let them through. He quickly began 
 a spirited account of an amusing thing that had 
 happened in the office that day. His dream had 
 been of a happiness into which he could sink, not 
 ground on the surface that must be fought for 
 and held by effort ; but he did not let himself con- 
 sider that then. 
 
CHAPTER FIVE 
 
 The train for CHcago was several hours out 
 from Denver wlien the man who had decided that 
 it was an uninteresting car began watching the 
 woman who was facing him from several seats 
 away. He was one of those persons with a drab 
 exterior but not a similarly colored imagination, 
 and he was always striving to defeat the meager 
 life his exterior consigned him to by projecting 
 himself into the possible experiences of people 
 he watched on the trains. 
 
 Afterwards he wondered that he should at first 
 have passed this woman by with the mere impres- 
 sion of a nice-looking woman who seemed tired. 
 It was when he chanced to look at her as she was 
 looking from the window that she arrested him. 
 ! Her sweet face had steeled itself to something, 
 she was as if looking out at a thing that hurt her, 
 but looking with the courage to bear that hurt. 
 He turned and looked from the window in the 
 direction of her intense gaze and then smiled at 
 himself as he turned back from the far-reaching 
 monotonous plain of Eastern Colorado ; he might 
 have known that what she was looking at was not 
 spread out there for anyone else to see. 
 
 34 
 
FIDELITY 35 
 
 She interested Mm all tlirougli tlie two days. 
 She puzzled him. He relieved the tedium of the 
 journey with speculations on what sort of thiag 
 it was she was thinking about, going over. He 
 would arrive at a conclusion in which he felt con- 
 siderable satisfaction only to steal another look 
 at her and find that she did not look at all like 
 the woman he had made up his mind she was. 
 What held him was the way feeling shaped her. 
 She had a delicate, sweet face, but there were 
 times when it was almost repellent in its somber- 
 ness, when it hardened in a way that puzzled him. 
 She would sit looking from the window and it was 
 as if a dense sadness had settled down upon her; 
 then her face would light with a certain sad ten- 
 derness, and once he had the fancy of her lifting 
 her head out of gloom to listen to a beautiful, 
 far-away call. There were long meditations, far 
 steady looks out at something, little reminiscent 
 smiles that lingered about her sensitive mouth 
 after her eyes had gone' sad again. She would 
 grow tired of thinking and close her eyes and seem 
 to try to rest. Her face, at those times, showed 
 the wear of hard years, laying bare lines that one 
 took no count of when her eyes were lighted and 
 her mouth sensitive. Frequently she would turn 
 from herself and smile at the baby across the 
 aisle; but once, when the baby was crowing and 
 laughing she abruptly turned away. He tried to 
 construct "a. life" for her, but she did not stay in 
 
36 FIDELITY 
 
 any life he carefully arranged. There were times 
 when he impatiently wondered why he should he 
 wondering so much about her; those were the 
 times when she seemed to have let it aU go, was 
 inert. But though he did not succeed in getting 
 a "life" for her, she gave him a freshened sense 
 of life as immensely interesting, as charged with 
 pain and sweetness. 
 
 It was over the pain and the sweetness of life 
 that this woman — ^Euth Holland — ^brooded during 
 the two days that carried her back to the home of 
 her girlhood. She seemed to be going back over 
 a long bridge. That part of her life had been 
 cut away from her. With most lives the past 
 grew into the future; it was as a growth that 
 spread, the present but the extent of the growth 
 at the moment. With her there had been the 
 sharp cut; not a cut, but a tear, a tear that left 
 bleeding ends. Back there lay the past, a sepa- 
 rated thing. During the eleven years since her 
 life had been torn from that past she had seen it 
 not only as a separate thing but a thing that had 
 no reach into the future. The very number of 
 miles between, the fact that she made no journeys 
 back home, contributed to that sense of the cleav- 
 age, the remoteness, the finality. Those she had 
 left back there remained real and warm in her 
 memory, but her part with them was a thing 
 finished. It was as if only shoots of pain could 
 for the minute unite them. 
 
FIDELIT-Sl 37 
 
 Turning her face back toward home turned her 
 back to herself there. She dwelt upon home as 
 she had left it, then formed the picture of what 
 she would find now. Her mother and her grand- 
 father would not be there. The father she had 
 left would not be there. A dying man would be 
 there. Ted would be grown up. She wondered 
 if anyone had taken care of the flowers. Would 
 there be any roses'? She and her mother had 
 always taken care of them. Edith — ? Would 
 Terror be there ? He was only about three when 
 she left; dogs did live as long as that. She had 
 named him Terror because of his puppy pranks. 
 But there would be no puppy pranks now. It 
 would be a sedate old dog she would find. He 
 would not know her — she who had cared for him 
 and romped with him through his puppyhood. 
 But they had not shared experiences. 
 
 On the train carrying her back home her own 
 story opened freshly to her. Again and again 
 she would be caught into it. . . . 
 
 Euth Holland — ^the girl of twenty— was waiting 
 for Deane Franklin to come and take her to the 
 dance at the Country Club. She was dressed and 
 wandering restlessly about the house, looking in 
 mirrors as she passed them, pleased with herself 
 in her new white dress. There was an excite- 
 ment in the fact that she had not seen Deane for 
 
38 FIDELITY: 
 
 almost a year ; lie had been away, studying medi- 
 cine at Johns Hopkins. She wondered if he would 
 seem any different ; wondered — really more inter- 
 ested in this than in the other — ^if she would seem 
 any different to him. 
 
 She did not think of Deane "that way" she had 
 told Edith Lawrence, her bosom friend from child- 
 hood, when Edith that afternoon had hinted at 
 romantic possibilities. Edith was in romantic 
 mood because she and WiU Blair were ia the happy 
 state of getting over a quarrel. For a month Euth 
 had listened to explosions against Will Blair. 
 Now it was made up and Edith was in sweetly 
 chastened spirit. She explaiued to Euth at great 
 length and with much earnestness that she had 
 not understood Will, that she had done him a 
 great injustice; and she was going to the party 
 with him that night. Edith and WiU and Deane 
 and Euth were going together. 
 
 They were singularly unmatured for girls of 
 twenty. Their experiences had not taken them 
 outside the social life of the town, and within it 
 they had found too easy, pre-prepared sailing for 
 any real finding or tests of themselves. They 
 were daughters of two of the town's most im- 
 portant families; they were two of the town's 
 most attractive girls. That fixed their place in 
 a round of things not deepening, not individualiz- 
 ing. It was pleasant, rather characterless living 
 
FIDELITIS 39 
 
 on a limited little part of the surface of life. They 
 went to "the parties," occupied with that social 
 round that is as definite a thing ia a town of forty 
 thousand as in a metropolis. Their emotional ex- 
 periences had been little more than part of their 
 social life — within it and of the character of it. 
 Attractive, popular, of uncontested place in the 
 society in which they found themselves, they had 
 not known the strivings and the heart-aches that 
 can intensify life within those social boundaries. 
 They were always invited. When they sat out 
 dances it was because they wanted to. Life had 
 dealt too favoringly and too uneventfully with 
 them to find out what stuff was really in them. 
 They were almost always spoken of together — 
 Edith Lawrence and Euth Holland — ^Euth and 
 Edith. That was of long standing ; they had gone 
 to primary school together, to Sunday-school, 
 through the high-school. They told each other 
 things; they even hinted at emotions concealed 
 within their breasts, of dissatisfactions and long- 
 ings there were no words for. Once Euth con- 
 fided that sometimes she wept and could not have 
 said why, and great seemed the marvel when 
 Edith confessed to similar experiences^ They 
 never suspected that girlhood was like that; they 
 were like that, and set apart and united in being 
 so. 
 But those spiritual indulgences were rare; for 
 
40 [FIDELITY 
 
 the most part they were what would be called two 
 wholesome, happy girls, girls whose lot had fallen 
 in pleasant places. 
 
 Euth wanted to go to college, but her father 
 had kept her from it. Women should marry and 
 settle down and have families was the belief of 
 Cyrus Holland. Going to college put foolish no- 
 tions in their heads. Not Ijeing able to go had 
 been Euth's first big disappointment. Edith had 
 gone East to a girls' school. At the last minute, 
 realizing how lonely she would be at home with- 
 out her chum, Euth had begged to go with her. 
 Her mother had urged it for her. But it was an 
 expensive school to which Edith was going, and 
 when he found what it would cost Euth's father 
 refused, saying he could not afford it, and that it 
 was nonsense, anyway. Euth had then put in a 
 final plea for the State University, which would 
 not cost half as much as Edith's school. Seeing 
 that it meant more to her tiaan he had known, and 
 having a particular affection for this younger 
 daughter of his, Mr. Holland was on the point of 
 giving in when the newspapers came out with a 
 scandal that centered about the suicide of a girl 
 student at the university. That settled it ; Euth 
 would stay home with her mother. She could go 
 on with music, and study literature with Miss 
 Collins. Miss Collins stood for polite learning 
 in the town. There was not the remotest danger 
 of an education received through her unf eminiz- 
 
FIDELIT"Si 41 
 
 ing a girl. But Euth soon abandoned Miss Col- 
 lins, scornfully informing her parent that she 
 would as soon study literature with a mununy. 
 
 With Ruth, the desire to go to college had been 
 less a definite craving for knowledge than a dif- . 
 fused longing for an enlarged experience. She 
 wanted something different, was impatient for 
 something new, something more. She had more 
 curiosity about the life outside their allotted place 
 than her friend Edith Lawrence had. She wanted 
 to go to college because that would open out from 
 what she had. Euth would have found small 
 satisfaction in that girls' school of Edith's had 
 her father consented to her going. It was little 
 more than the polite learning of Miss Collins 
 fashionably re-dressed. Edith, however, came 
 home with a new grace and poise, an added gift 
 of living charmingly on the surface of life, and 
 held that school was lovely. 
 
 During that year her friend was away — ^Euth 
 was nineteen then — she was not so much unhappy 
 as she was growingly impatient for something 
 more, and expectant of it. She was always think- 
 ing that something was going to happen — ^that 
 was why things did not go dead for her. The year 
 was intensifyiag to her; she missed her friend; 
 she had been baffled in somethiug she wanted. It 
 made her conscious of wanting more than she had. 
 Her energies having been shut off from the way 
 they had wanted to go, she was all the more zest- 
 
42 FrDELITT 
 
 ful for new things from life. There was mucH 
 in her that her life did not engage. 
 
 She loved dancing. She was happily excited 
 that night because they were going to a dance. 
 "Waiting for Deane, she wondered if he had danced 
 any duriag the year, hoping that he had, and was 
 a little better dancer than of old. Dear Deane! 
 She always had that "Dear Deane !" feeling after 
 she had been critical about him. 
 
 She wished she did think of Deane "that way" 
 — ^the way she had told Edith she did not think of 
 him. But "that way" drew her from thoughts 
 of Deane. She had stopped before her dressing- 
 table and was toying with her manicure things. 
 She looked at herself in the glass and saw the color 
 coming to her cheeks. She sat there dreaming — 
 such dreams as float through girlhood. 
 
 Her mother came in to see how she looked. 
 Mrs. Holland was a small, frail-looking woman. 
 Euth resembled her, but with much added. 
 Things caught into Euth were not in her mother. 
 They resembled each other in certain definite 
 things, but there was something that flushed Euth 
 to life — ^transforming her — ^that did not live in 
 her mother. They were alike as a beautiful shell 
 enclosing a light may be like one that is not lighted. 
 Mrs. Holland was much occupied with the social 
 life of her town. She was light-hearted, well- 
 liked. She went to the teas and card parties 
 which abounded there and accepted that as life 
 
FIDELITY 43 
 
 with no dissatisfaction beyond a mild desire for 
 more money. 
 
 She also enjoyed the social life of her daugh- 
 ter; where Euth was to go and what she would 
 wear were matters of interest and importance. 
 Indeed life was compounded of matters concern- 
 ing where one would go and what one would wear. 
 
 "Well, Sally Gordon certainly did well with 
 that dress," was her verdict. "Some think she's 
 falling off. Now do try and not get it spoiled 
 the first thing, Euth. Dancing is so hard on your 
 clothes." 
 
 She surveyed her daughter with satisfaction. 
 Euth was a daughter a mother would survey with 
 satisfaction. The strong life there was in her was 
 delicately and subtly suggested. She did not have 
 what are thought to be the easily distinguishable 
 marks of intense feeling. She suggested fine 
 things — a rare, high quality. She was not out- 
 and-out beautiful; her beauty lurked within her 
 feeling. It was her fluidity that made her lovely. 
 Her hazel eyes were ever changing with light and 
 feeling, eyes that could wonderfully darken, that 
 glowed in a rush of feeling and shone in expect- 
 ancy or delight, — eyes that the spirit made. She 
 had a lovely brow, a sensitive, beautiful mouth. 
 But it needed the light within to find her beauty. 
 Without it she was only a sweet-looking, delicately 
 fashioned girl. 
 
 "That's Deane," said Euth, as the beU rang. 
 
U FIDELITli 
 
 "I want to see him too," said Mrs. Holland, 
 "and so will your father." 
 
 Euth met him in the hall, holding out both hands 
 with, "Deane, I'm so glad to see you!" 
 
 He was not an expressive youth. As he shook 
 Euth's hands with vigor, he exclaimed, "Same 
 here! Same here!" and straightway he seemed 
 just the Deane of old and in the girl's heart was 
 a faint disappointment. 
 
 As a little boy people had called Deane Frank- 
 lin a homely youngster. His thick, sandyish hair 
 used to stand up in an amazing manner. He 
 moved in a peculiarly awkward way, as if the 
 jointing of him had not been perfectly accom- 
 plished. He had a wide generous mouth that was 
 attractive when it was not screwed out of shape. 
 His keen blue eyes had a nice twinkle. His ab- 
 rupt, hearty manner seemed very much his own. 
 He was better dressed than when Euth had last 
 seen him. She was thinking that Deane could 
 actually be called attractive in his own homely, 
 awkwardi way. And yet, as he kept shaking her 
 hands up and down, broadly grinning, nodding 
 his head, — ^"tickled to death to be back," she 
 felt anew that she could not think of Deane "that 
 way." Perhaps she had known him too long. 
 She remembered just how absurd he had looked 
 in his first long trousers — and those silly little 
 caps he had worn perched way back on his head ! 
 Yet she really loved Deane, in a way; she felt a 
 
FIDELITY 45 
 
 great deal nearer to him than to her own brother 
 Cyrus. 
 
 They had gone into the living-room. Mrs. Hol- 
 land thought he had grown — grown broader, any- 
 way ; Mr. Holland wanted to know about the medi- 
 cal school, and would he practice in Freeport? 
 Ted wanted to know if Johns Hopkins had a good 
 team. 
 
 "That's Will, I guess," he said, turning to Euth 
 as the bell rang. 
 
 "Oh, Will," cried Mrs. Holland, "do ask Edith 
 to come in and show us her dress! She won't 
 muss it if she's careful. Her mother told me it 
 was the sweetest dress Edith ever had." 
 
 Edith entered in her bright, charming way, ex- 
 hibitiag her pretty pink dress with a pleasure 
 that was winning. She had more of definite 
 beauty than Euth — golden hair, really sunny hair, 
 it was, and big, deep blue eyes and fresh, even 
 skin. Euth often complained that Edith had 
 something to count on; she could tell how she 
 was going to look, while with her — Euth — there 
 was never any knowing. Some of the time^ when 
 she was most anxious to look her best, she was, 
 as she bewailed it, a fright. Edith was larger 
 than Euth, she had more of a woman's develop- 
 ment. 
 
 Mrs. Holland followed them out to the carriage. 
 "Now don't stay until all hours," was her part- 
 ing admonition, in a tone of comfortable resigna- 
 
4e FIDELITY 
 
 tion to tke fact that tliat was exactly what they 
 would do. 
 
 "Well," said Mr. Holland, who had gone as far 
 as the door, "I don't know what young folks are 
 coming to. After nine o'clock now!" 
 
 "That must be a punk school Deane goes to," 
 said Ted, his mind not yet pried from the foot- 
 ball talk. 
 
CHAPTER SIX 
 
 "Our dance." 
 
 With a swift little movement the girl turned a 
 glowing face to the man standing before her. 
 Flushed with dancing, keyed high in the pleasure 
 and triumphs of the evening, she turned the same 
 radiant face to Stuart Williams as he claimed 
 theii* dance that she would have turned to almost 
 anyone claiming a dance. It was something that 
 came to life in the man's eyes as he looked doWn 
 into her flushed face, meeting her happy, shining 
 eyes, that arrested the flashing, impersonal smile 
 of an instant before and underneath that imper- 
 sonal gladness of youth there was a faint flutter 
 of self. 
 
 He was of the "older crowd;" it happened that 
 she had never danced with him before. He was 
 a better dancer than the boys of her own set, but 
 somehow that old impersonal joy in dancing was 
 a lesser thing now than the sense of dancing with 
 this man. 
 
 "That was worth coming for," he said quietly, 
 when the dance and the encore to it were over and 
 they found themselves by one of the doors opening 
 out on the balcony. 
 
 She looked up with a smile. It was a smUe 
 
48 FIDELITY 
 
 curiously touched with shyness. He saw the color 
 wavering in her sensitive, delicate face. Then he 
 asked lightly: "Shall we see what's being dis- 
 pensed from this punch-bowl?" 
 
 With their ice, they stood looking out into the 
 moonlight over a wide stretch of meadow to far 
 hills. "A fine night to ride over the hills and far 
 away," he laughed at last, his voice lingering a 
 little on the fancy. 
 
 She only laughed a little in reply, looking off 
 there toward over the hills and far away. Watch- 
 ing her, he wondered why he had never thought 
 anything much about her before. He would have 
 said that Ruth Holland was one of the nice at- 
 tractive girls of the town, and beyond that could 
 have said little about her. He watched the flow 
 of her slender neck into her firm delicate little 
 chin, the lovely corners of her mouth where feel- 
 ing lurked. The fancy came to him that she had 
 not settled into flesh the way most people did, 
 that she was not fixed by it. He puzzled for the 
 word he wanted for her, then got it — ^luminous 
 was what she was ; he felt a considerable satisfac- 
 tion in having found that word. 
 
 "Seems to me you and Edith Lawrence grew 
 up in a terrible hurry," he began in a slow, teas- 
 ing manner. "Just a day or two ago you were 
 youngsters racing around with flying pigtails, and 
 now here you are — all these poor yoimg chaps — 
 and all us poor old ones ^fighting for dances 
 
FIDELITY 49 
 
 ■with you. What made you hurry so ? " he laughed. 
 
 The coquette in most normal girls of twenty 
 rose like a Uttle imp up through her dreaming 
 of over the hills and far away. "Why, I don't 
 know," she said, demurely; "perhaps I was hurry- 
 ing to catch up with someone." 
 
 His older to younger person manner fell away, 
 leaving the man delighting in the girl, a delight- 
 fully daring girl it seemed she waSj for aU that 
 look of fine things he had felt in her just a mo- 
 ment before. He grew newly puzzled about her, 
 and interested in the puzzle, "Would you like to 
 have that someone stand still long enough to give 
 you a good start?" he asked, zestful for follow- 
 ing. 
 
 But she could not go on with it. She was not 
 used to saying daring things to "older men." 
 She was a little appalled at what she had done — 
 sajdng a thing like that to a man who was mar- 
 ried; and yet just a little triumphant in her own 
 audacity, and the way she had been able to make 
 him feel she was something a long way removed 
 from a little girl with flying pigtails. 
 
 "I really have been grown up for quite a 
 while," she said, suddenly grave. 
 
 He did not try to bring her back to the other 
 mood, — that astonishing little flare of audacity; 
 he was watching her changing face, like her voice 
 it was sweetly grave. 
 
 The music had begun again — this time a waltz. 
 
50 FIDELITY 
 
 A light hand upon her arm, he directed her back 
 towards the dancing floor. 
 
 "I have this taken," she objected hesitatingly. 
 
 "This is an extra," he said. 
 
 She felt sure that it was not; she knew she 
 ought to object, that it was not right to be treat- 
 ing one of the boys of her own crowd that way. 
 But that consciousness of what she ought tq be 
 doing fell back — ^pale, impotent — ^before the thing 
 she wanted to do. . . . 
 
 They were silent for a little time after; with- 
 out commenting on doing so, they returned to 
 their place outside. "See?" she said presently, 
 "the moon has found another hill. That wasn't 
 there when we were here before. ' ' 
 
 "And beyond that are more hills," he said, 
 "that we don't see even yet." 
 
 "I suppose," she laughed, "that it's not know- 
 ing where we would get makes over the hills ajid 
 far away — ^fun." 
 
 "Well, anything rather than standing stiU." 
 He said it under his breath, more to himself than 
 to her. But it was to her he added, teasingly 
 and a little lingeringly: "Unless, of course, one 
 were waiting for someone to catch up with one." 
 
 She smiled without turning to him; watching 
 her, the thought found its way up through the 
 proprieties of his mind that it would be worth 
 waiting a long time if, after the wait, one could 
 go over the hills and far away with a girl through 
 
[FIDELITY 51 
 
 whom life glowed as he could see it glowed in this 
 girl; no, not with a girl like this — ^boldly, humor- 
 ously and a little tenderly he amended in his mind 
 — ^but with this girl. 
 
 She wheeled about. * ' I must go back, ' ' she said 
 abruptly. ' ' This dance is with Will Blair — I must 
 go back. I'll have a hard enough time," she 
 laughed, a little nervously, "making it right with 
 Louis Stephens." 
 
 "I'll tell him I heard it was an extra," he said. 
 
 She halted, looking up at him. "Did you hear' 
 that?" she demanded. 
 
 He seemed about to say some light thing, but 
 that died' away. "I wanted the dance," was his 
 quiet reply. 
 
CHAPTER SEVEN 
 
 It was a June evening a year later that Stuart 
 Williams sat on the steps of the porch that ran 
 I'ound the side of his house, humoring the fox 
 terrier who thought human beings existed to 
 throw sticks for dogs. After a while the man 
 grew tired of that theory of human existence, and 
 bade the panting Fritz lie down on the step be- 
 low him. From there Fritz would look up to his 
 master appealingly, eyes and tail saying, "Now 
 let's begin again." But he got no response, so, 
 in philosophic dog fashion, soon stretched out for 
 a snooze. 
 
 The man was less philosophic: he had not that 
 gift of turning from what he wanted to what he 
 could have. 
 
 A little later he would go to the rehearsal of 
 the out-of-door play the Country Club was getting 
 ready to give. Euth Holland would be there : she 
 too was in the play. Probably he would take her 
 home, for they lived in the same neighborhood 
 and a little apart from the others. It was Mrs. 
 Lawrence who, the night of the first rehearsal, 
 commented with relief for one more thing 
 smoothly arranged upon their going the same way. 
 
 For five weeks now they had been going the 
 
 62 
 
FIDELITY 53 
 
 same way; their talk on those homeward walks 
 had been the lightest of talk, for the most part a 
 laughing over things that had happened during 
 the rehearsal. And yet the whole world had be- 
 come newly alive, until tonight it seemed a tremu- 
 lous, waiting world. That light talk had been little 
 more than a pulling back from the pauses, little 
 more than retreat, safeguard. It was the pauses 
 that lived on with him, creating his dreams; her 
 face as she turned it to him after a silence would 
 sometimes be as if she had been caught into that 
 world touched to new life — world that waited. 
 They would renew the light talk as if coming back 
 from something. 
 
 He let himself slip into dreaming now; he had 
 told himself that that, at least, could work no one 
 harm, and in quiet hours, when he smoked, re- 
 laxed, he was now always drawn over where he 
 knew he must not let himself go. It was as if 
 something stronger than he was all around him. 
 One drooping hand caressed his dog ; he drew in 
 the fragrance from a rose trellis near by; the 
 leaves of the big tree moved with a gentle little 
 soimd, a sound like the whisper of sweet things ; 
 a bird note — goodnight — ^floated through the dusk. 
 He was a man whom those things reached: And 
 in the last year, particularly in those last weeks, 
 it had come to be that all those things were one 
 with Ruth Holland; to open to them meant being 
 drawn to her. 
 
54 FIDELITY 
 
 He -would tell himself that that was wrong, mad ; 
 nothing he could tell himself seemed to have any 
 check on that puU there was on him in the thought 
 of her. He and his wife were only keeping up 
 the appearance of marriage. For t^o years he 
 had not had love. He was not a man who could 
 learn to live without it. And now all the desirahle- 
 ness of life, hunger for love, the whole of earth's 
 lure seemed to break in through the feeling for 
 this girl — that wrong, wonderful feeling that had 
 of itself flushed his heart to new life. 
 
 Sharply he pulled himself about, shifting posi- 
 tion as if to affirm his change of thinking. It 
 turned him from the outer world to his house ; he 
 saw Marion sitting in there at her desk writing a 
 letter. He watched her, thinking about her, about 
 their lives. She was so poised, so cool; it would 
 seem, so satisfied. "Was she satisfied? Did denial 
 of life leave nothing to be desired? If there were 
 stirrings for living things they did not appear to 
 disturb her calm surface. He wondered if a night 
 like this never touched old things in her, if there 
 were no f rettings for what she had put out of her 
 life. 
 
 He watched her small, beautifully shaped dark 
 head, the fine smooth hair that fell over the little 
 ear he had loved' to kiss. She was beautiful; it 
 was her beauty that had drawn him to her. She 
 was more beautiful than Euth Holland, through 
 whom it seemed all the beauty of the world reached 
 
FIDELITY 55 
 
 him. Marion's beauty was a definite separate 
 thing; his face went tender as he thought how 
 Euth Holland only grew beautiful in beauty, as 
 if it broke through her, making her. 
 
 Once more he moved sharply, disturbing the 
 little dog at his feet; he realised where his 
 thoughts had again gone, how looking at his wife 
 it was to this other girl he was drawn, she seem- 
 ing near him and Marion apart. He grew miser- 
 able in a growing feeling of helplessness, in a 
 sense of waiting disaster. It was as if the whole 
 power of life was drawing him on to disaster. 
 Again that bird call floated through the dusk ; the 
 gentle breeze stirred the fragrance of flowers; it 
 came to seem that the world was beautiful that 
 it might ensnare him, as if the whole power of 
 the sweetness of life was trying to pull him over 
 where he must not go. He grew afraid. He got 
 the feeling that he must do something — ^that he 
 must do it at once. After he had sat there brood- 
 ing for half an hour he abruptly got up and walked 
 iu where his wife was sitting. 
 
 "Marion," he began brusquely, "I should like 
 to speak to you." 
 
 She had been sitting with her baxjk to the door; 
 at his strange address of her she turned round in 
 surprise; she looked startled when she saw his 
 strained face. 
 
 "We've been married about six years, isn't it?" 
 
 He had come a little nearer, but remained stand- 
 
56 FIDELITY 
 
 ing. He still spoke in that rougli way. She did 
 not reply but nodded slightly, flushing. 
 
 ' 'And now for two years we — ^haven't been mar- 
 ried?" 
 
 She stiffened and there was a slight movement 
 as if drawing back. She did not answer. 
 
 "I'm thirty-four and you're a little less than 
 that. ' ' He paused and it was more quietly, though 
 none the less tensely that he asked: "Is it your 
 idea that we go through life like this?" 
 
 She was gathering together the sheets of paper 
 on her desk. She did not speak. 
 
 ' ' You were angry at me — disappointed. I grant 
 you, as I did at the time, that it was a silly affair, 
 not — ^not creditable. I tried to show you how little 
 it meant, how it had — just happened. Two years 
 have passed; we are stiU young people. I want 
 to know — do you intend this to go on? Are our 
 whole lives to be spoiled by a mere silly episode ? ' ' 
 
 She spoke then. ' ' Mere siUy episode, ' ' she said 
 with a high little laugh, ' ' seems rather a slight way 
 to dispose of the fact that you were untrue to 
 me." She folded her letter and was putting it in 
 the envelope. It would not go in and she refolded 
 it with hands not steady. 
 
 He did not speak until she had sealed the letter 
 and was sitting there looking down at her hands, 
 rubbing them a little, as if her interest was in 
 them. "Marion," he asked, and his voice shook 
 now, "doesn't it 'ever seem to you that life is too 
 
FIDELITY 57 
 
 valuable to throw away like this?" She made no 
 reply and angered by her unresponsiveness he ad- 
 ded sharply: "It's rather dangerous, you know." 
 
 She looked up at him then. ' ' Is this a threat 1 ' ' 
 she asked with a faint, mocking smile. 
 
 He moved angrily, starting to leave the room. 
 ' ' Have you no feeling ? " he broke out at her. ' ' Is 
 this all you want from life?" 
 
 She colored and retorted : "It was not the way 
 I expected to live when I married you. ' ' 
 
 He stood there doggedly for a moment, his face 
 working with nervousness. "I think then," he 
 said roughly, "that we'd better be decent enough 
 to get a divorce!" At what he saw in her face 
 he cried passionately: "Oh no, you don't believe 
 in divorce — ^but you believe in this!" 
 
 "Was it I who brought it about?" she cried, 
 stung to anger. 
 
 She had risen and for an instant they stood 
 there facing each other. "Haven't you any hu- 
 manity ?" he shot rudely at her. ' ' Don 't you ever 
 feelf" 
 
 She colored but drew back, in command of her- 
 self again. "I do not desecrate my feelings," 
 she said with composure; "J don't degrade my 
 humanity. ' ' 
 
 "Feeling — ^humanity!" he sneered, and wheeled 
 about and left the room. 
 
 He started at once for his rehearsal. He was 
 trembling with anger and yet underneath that pas- 
 
58 FIDELITY 
 
 sion was an imacknowledged feeling of relief. It 
 had seemed that he had to do something; now he 
 told himself that he had done what he could. He 
 walked slowly through the soft night, seeking con- 
 trol. He was very bitter toward Marion, and yet 
 in his heart he knew that he had asked for what 
 he no longer wanted. He quickened his step to- 
 ward the Lawrences', where they were to hold the 
 rehearsal, where he would find Euth Holland. 
 
CHAPTEE EIGHT 
 
 After the maelstrom of passion had thrown her 
 out where life left her time to think about what 
 she had felt, Ruth Holland would wonder whether 
 there was something in her that made her different 
 from the good people of the world. Through it 
 all she did not have the feeling that it would seem 
 she would have; what she did did not make her 
 feel as she knew, when she came to think it out, 
 she would be supposed to feel about such a thing. 
 In hours that would be most condemned she had 
 tad a simple feeling of life as noble. What would 
 be called the basest things she had done had 
 seemed to free something within her that made 
 her more kind, more generous, more tender, made 
 her as a siuging part of a fine, beautiful world. 
 Her degradation had seemed to bum away all that 
 was not pure, giving her a sense of being lifted 
 ap ; it was as if through this illicit love a spiritual 
 fount was unsealed that made her consciously one 
 with life at its highest. Afterwards she wondered 
 about it, wondered whether she was indeed dif- 
 ferent from people who were good, or whether it 
 could be that hearts had been shown, not as they 
 were, but as it was deemed meet they should be 
 shown. 
 
 59 
 
60 FIDELITY 
 
 When she and D6ane, with Edith and "Will Blair, 
 went home from the dance that night, something 
 new breathed through the night. It was hard to 
 join in the talk ; she wanted to be alone, alone with 
 that new stir. She was gentle with Deane as they 
 stood for a moment at the door. She felt tender 
 toward him. A little throb of excitement in her 
 voice, the way her eyes shone, made him linger 
 there with her a moment or two. It was as if he 
 wanted to say something but the timid, clumsy 
 words he spoke just before leaving were, "That 
 sure is a peach of a dress. You had them all beat 
 tonight, Euth," and Euth went into the house 
 knowing now for sure how impossible it would be 
 ever to think of Deane "that way." In the hour 
 before she went to sleep what she meant by "that 
 way" was a more living thing than it had ever 
 been before. 
 
 The year which followed was not a happy one; 
 it was a disturbed, a fretted year; girlhood was 
 too ruffled for contentment in the old things, and 
 yet she was not swept on. The social life of the 
 town brought her and Stuart Williams together 
 from time to time. They always had several 
 dances together at the parties. It was those 
 dances that made the party for her. If he were 
 not there, the evening was a dead thing. When 
 he was, something came to life in her that made 
 everything different. She would be excited; she 
 had color; her eyes shone. It made her gay, as 
 
FIDELITY 61 
 
 an intoxicant may make one gay. Though when 
 she danced with him she went curiously silent; 
 that stilled her. After going home she would lie 
 awake for hours, live over every slightest thing 
 he had said, each glance and move. It was an 
 unreal world of a new reality — quickened, height- 
 ened, delirious, promising. 
 
 In that first year she sometimes wondered if 
 it was what would be called a flirtation. It did 
 not seem so to her, and it was true that after that 
 first night at the Country Club the quality of flirta- 
 tion somehow fell away. Afterwards, when it be- 
 came the thing that made her life, she looked back 
 in wonderment to the light little way it had begun. 
 That too did not seem as it should be — ^that a 
 thing of such tremendous and ruthless power, a 
 thing that swept her whole life on at its will, 
 should come into life in a way so slight, so light, 
 so much of chance. At first it was just the faint- 
 est little breath ; but it stirred something, it grew, 
 it became a great wind that there was no force 
 anywhere to combat. In that first year there was 
 between them, unspoken of, a consciousness of 
 feeling touched in the other, a sense of the dis- 
 turbance, the pull. It seemed very wonderful to 
 her that just his presence in the room could make 
 her feel alive in a way she had never felt alive 
 before. And it was sweet almost beyond belief, 
 it was intoxicating, to come to know that her pres- 
 ence was that same strange wine to him. She had 
 
62 FIDELITY 
 
 seen his eyes anxiously rove a crowded room and 
 stop with her, his face lighting. She loved remem- 
 bering his face once at a card party of the older 
 crowd where she had been tardily siimmoned by a 
 disappointed hostess. He had been in the room 
 several minutes, she watching him unseen. He 
 was not looking anxiously about this time, as she 
 had seen him do at the dancing parties. She 
 thought he looked tired as he and his wife came 
 in, not as if anticipating pleasure. Then he saw 
 her and she never forgot that leap of glad sur- 
 prise in his eyes, the quick change in him, the new 
 buoyancy. 
 
 She would have supposed, thinking back to it 
 afterward, that she would have drawn back; that 
 before feeling reaUy broke through, a girl such 
 as she, reared as she had been, a part of such a 
 society, a girl, as they aftei'ward said, who should 
 have known right from wrong would, in that time 
 of its gathering, have drawn back from so shame- 
 ful a thing as love with another woman's husband. 
 It was as mystifying to her that she did not fight 
 against it as it was that it should have come. She 
 did not understand the one nor the other. Cer- 
 tainly it was not as she would have supposed it 
 would be had she heard of such a thing. Some- 
 thing seemed to have caught her up, to have taken 
 her. She was appalled at times, but the truth was 
 that she was carried along almost without resist- 
 ance; ideas of resistance were there, but they 
 
FIDELITY 63 
 
 were pale things, not charged with power. She 
 would suppose, had she known the story only 
 through hearing it, that she would have thought 
 intensely and become wretched in the thought of 
 Mrs. Williams. Perhaps if Mrs. Williams had 
 been a plain little woman, or a sad looking one, 
 that would have come home to her harder. But 
 one would not readily pity Marion Williams, or 
 get the feeling of wronging her. As Marion 
 Averley she had been the reigning girl of the town. 
 Euth, ten years younger, had not come far enough 
 out from her little girl's awe of Marion Averley, 
 the young lady, to be quick in getting the feeling 
 of wronging Marion Williams, the wife. Perhaps 
 one would be more slow in getting a feeling of 
 wronging the most smartly dressed woman in the 
 room than would be the case with the wife dowdy 
 or drab. Mrs. Williams, while not radiating 
 happiness, seemed somehow impervious to un- 
 happiness, and certainly to any hurt another 
 woman could bring her. She had an atmosphere 
 of high self -valuation. While she never appeared 
 to be having an especially good time she gave a 
 sense of being perfectly able to command a better 
 one had it pleased her to do so. 
 
 People had supposed that Marion Averley would 
 make a brilliant marriage. Her grandfather had 
 made his money in lumber, in those early days of 
 lumber kings on the Mississippi. Locally they 
 were looked upon as rich people. Marion had 
 
64 FIDELITY 
 
 gone to a fashionable school, to Europe. People 
 of the town said there was nothing "local" about 
 her. Other girls had been as much away and yet 
 would return seeming just a part of the town. 
 That was why everyone was surprised when the 
 Averleys announced Marion's engagement to 
 Stuart Williams. He was distinctly local and his 
 people were less important than hers. He had 
 come home from college and gone into business. 
 His father had a small canning factory, an in- 
 dustry that for years had not grown much, re- 
 maining one of the small concerns in a town of 
 rapidly growing manufactories. Stuart went into 
 business with his father and very soon there were 
 expansions, new methods ; he brought imagination 
 to bear upon it, and a big fund of young man's 
 energy, until it rapidly came up from a ' ' nice little 
 business" to one of the things that counted in the 
 town. He had a talent for business ; his imagina- 
 tion worked that way and he was what they called 
 a hustler. He soon became a part of a number of 
 things, both personal affairs and matters of public 
 concern. He came to be alluded to as one of the 
 prominent young business men. Even before 
 Marion Averley married him people were saying 
 that he would make money. 
 
 They liked her for marrying him. They said 
 it showed that there was more to her than they 
 had supposed, that there was warmth she did not 
 show. For she must haye married him for the 
 
FIDELITY 65 
 
 good old reason tliat she had fallen in love with 
 him. Their engagement brought Stuart Williams 
 into a new social conspicuousness, though he had 
 the qualities — in particular a certain easy, sunny 
 manner — that had made him popular all along. 
 During the engagement people spoke of the way 
 Marion seemed to thaw out; they liked her much 
 better than they had in the days of beiog awed 
 by her sophistication, her aloofness. 
 
 After their marriage the Williams ^ were leaders 
 of the young married set. Their house was the 
 gayest place in town; Stuart Williams had the 
 same talent in hospitality that he had for busi- 
 ness — ^growing, perhaps, out of the same qualities. 
 He was very generally and really deeply liked; 
 they called him a good fellow, a lovable chap. 
 For about four years people spoke of it as a suc- 
 cessful marriage, though there were no children. 
 And then, just what it was no one knew, but the 
 Williams' began to seem different, going to their 
 house became a different thing. The people who 
 knew Marion best had a feeling that she was not 
 the same after the visit of that gay little Southern 
 matron whom she had known in school at Wash- 
 ington. It was very gay at the Williams ' through 
 that visit, and then Marion said she was tired out 
 and they were going to draw in for a little, and 
 somehow they just never seemed to emerge from 
 that drawing in. Her friends wondered; they 
 talked about how Stuart and this friend of 
 
66 FIDELITY! 
 
 Marion's had certainly hit it off wonderfully; 
 some of them suspected, but Marion gave no con- 
 fidences. She seemed to carry her head higher 
 than ever ; in fact, in some curious way she seemed 
 to become Marion Averley again while Stuart 
 Williams concentrated more and more upon the 
 various business affairs he was being drawn into. 
 It came about that the Williams' were less and less 
 mentioned when the subject of happy marriages 
 was up, and when time had swung Euth Hol- 
 land and Edith Lawrence into the social life of 
 the town it was the analytical rather than the 
 romantically minded citizens who were talking 
 about them. 
 
 Perhaps life would have been quite another 
 thing for a number of people if the Country Club 
 had not decided to replenish its treasury by giving 
 a play. Mrs. Lawrence was chairman of the enter- 
 tainment committee. That naturally brought 
 Edith and Euth into the play, and one night after 
 one of those periods of distraction into which the 
 organizer of amateur theatricals is swept it was 
 Mrs. Lawrence who exclaimed, ' ' Stuart Williams ! 
 Why couldn't he do that part?" — and Stuart 
 Williams, upon learning who was in the cast, said 
 he would see what he could do with it. 
 
 Again, at the close of the first rehearsal, as they 
 stood about in the hall at the Lawrences', laughing 
 over mishaps, it was Mrs. Lawrence who said. 
 
FIDELITY 67 
 
 "You and Rutli go the same way, don't you, 
 Stuart?" 
 
 Tonight they were going that way after the final 
 rehearsal. It was later than usual; they went 
 slowly, saying little. They had fallen silent as 
 they neaxed Euth's home ; they walked slowly and 
 in silence outside the fence ; paused an instant at 
 the gate, then, very slowly, started up the walk 
 which led to the big white square house and came 
 to a stop beneath the oak tree which was so near 
 the house that its branches brushed the upper 
 window panes. 
 
 They stood there silent; the man knew that he 
 ought to go at once ; that in that silence the feel- 
 ing which words had so thinly covered would break 
 through and take them. But knowing he should 
 go seemed without power to make him go. He 
 watched the girl's slightly averted face. He knew 
 why it was averted. He felt sure that he was not 
 alone in what he felt. 
 
 And so he stood there in the sweetness of that 
 knowing, the sweetness of that understanding why 
 she held herself almost rigid like that, feeling surg- 
 ing higher in him in the thought that she too was 
 fighting feeling. The breeze moved the hair on 
 her temples ; he could see the throb in her uncov- 
 ered throat, her thin white dress moving over her 
 quick breathing. Life was in her, and the desire 
 for life. She seemed so tender, so sensitive. 
 
68 FIDELITY 
 
 He moved a step nearer her, unable to deny 
 himself the sweetness of confirming what it was 
 so wonderful to think. "I won't be taking you 
 home tomorrow night," he said. 
 
 She looked at him, then swiftly turned away, 
 but not before he had seen her eyes. 
 
 ** Shall you care?" he pressed it, unsteadily. 
 
 He knew by her high head, her tenseness, that 
 she was fighting something back ; and he saw the 
 quivering of her tender mouth. 
 
 She cared ! She did care. Here was a woman 
 who cared; a woman who wanted love — ^his love; 
 a woman for whom life counted, as it counted for 
 him. After barren, baffled days, days of denial 
 and humiliation, the sweetness of being desired 
 possessed him overwhelmingly as they stood there 
 in the still, fragrant night before the darkened 
 house. 
 
 He knew that he must go ; he had to go ; it was 
 go now, or — . But still he just stood there, unable 
 to do what he knew he should do, reason trying 
 to get hold of that moment of gathering passion, 
 training striving to hold life. 
 
 It was she who brought them together. With 
 a smothered passionate little sob she had swayed 
 toward him, and then she was in his arms and he 
 was kissing her wet eyes, that tender mouth, the 
 slim throbbing throat. 
 
CHAPTER NINE 
 
 There followed three years of happiness wrung 
 from wretchedness, years in which the splendor 
 of love would blaze through the shame of con- 
 cealment, when joy was always breaking out 
 through fear, when moments of beautiful peace 
 trembled there in the ugly web of circumstance. 
 Life was flooded with beauty by a thiag called 
 shameful. 
 
 Her affairs as a girl went on just the same ; the 
 life on the surface did not change. She continued 
 as Euth Holland^ — ^the girl who went to parties 
 with the boys of her own set, one of her particular 
 little circle of girls, the chum of Edith Lawrence, 
 the girl Deane Franklin liked best. But a life 
 grew underneath that — all the time growing, 
 crowding. She appeared to remain a girl after 
 passion had swept her over into womanhood. To 
 be living through the most determining, most in- 
 tensifying experience of life while she appeared 
 only to be resting upon the surface was the har- 
 assing thing she went through in those years be- 
 fore reality came crashing through pretence and 
 disgrace brought relief. 
 
 She talked to but one person in those years. 
 That was Deane. The night he told her that he 
 loved her she let him see. 
 
 69 
 
70 FIDELITY 
 
 That was more than a year after the night 
 Stuart Williams took her home from that last re- 
 hearsal; Deane was through school now and had 
 come home to practice mediciae. She had felt all 
 along that once he was at home for good she might 
 have to tell Deane; not alone because he would 
 interfere with her meetings with Stuart, but be- 
 cause it seemed she could not bear the further 
 strain of pretending with him. And somehow she 
 would particularly hate pretending with Deane. 
 Though the night she did let him see it was not 
 that there was any determination for doing so, 
 but because things had become too tense that night 
 and she had no power to go on dissembling. 
 
 It began in irritation at him, the vicious irrita- 
 tion that springs out against the person who up- 
 sets a plan he knows nothing about, and cannot 
 be told of. 
 
 She had come in from an errand down town 
 and was about to dress hurriedly to go over to 
 Edith's for dinner. She was going to make some 
 excuse for getting away from there early and 
 would have an hour with Stuart, one of those 
 stolen hours that often crowded, agitated, a num- 
 ber of the hours before it, one of those hours of 
 happiness when fear always stood right there, but 
 when joy had a marvellous power to glow in an 
 atmosphere of ugly things. A few nights before 
 she had tried to arrange one of those times, and 
 just as she was about to leave the house, saying 
 
FIDELITY 71 
 
 some vague thing about running in somewhere — 
 there was no strict surveillance on members of 
 the Holland household — a friend who had been 
 very ill and was just beginning to go about had 
 come to see her and she had been obliged to sit 
 there through the hour she had been living for, 
 striving to crowd down what she was feeling and 
 appear delighted that her friend was able to be 
 about, chatting lightly of inconsequential things 
 while she could think of nothing but Stuart wait- 
 ing for her, had had to smile while she wanted to 
 sob in the fury of disappointed passion. 
 
 The year had brought many disappointments 
 like that, disappointments which found their way 
 farther into the spirit because they dared not show 
 on the surfg,oe. Of late there had been so many 
 of them that it was growing hard to hold from her 
 maniler her inner chafing against them. There 
 were times when all the people who loved her 
 seemed trying to throw things in her way, and it 
 was the more maddening because blindly done. 
 It was hurting her relations with people ; she hated 
 them when they blunderingly stepped in the way 
 of the thing that had come to mean everything to 
 her. 
 
 She was particularly anxious about this night 
 for Stuart was going out of town on a business 
 trip and she would not see him again for more 
 than a week. It was her grandfather who made 
 the first difficulty; as she was going up the stairs 
 
72 FIDELITY 
 
 lie called, "You going over to the Lawrences' to- 
 night, Euth?" 
 
 When she had answered yes he continued: "It 
 wouldn't be much out of your way, would it, to 
 run on over to the Aliens'?" 
 
 She hesitated ; anything her grandfather asked 
 of her was hard to refuse, not only because she 
 loved him and because he was old, but because it 
 hurt her to see how he missed the visiting around 
 among his old friends that his rheumatism had of 
 late cut him off from. 
 
 "Why — ^no," she answered, wondering just how 
 she could get it in, for it did take her out of her 
 way, and old Mr. Allen would want to talk to her; 
 it was going to be hard to get away from Edith's 
 anyway, and the time would be so short, for 
 Stuart would have to leave for his train at half 
 past nine. She quickly decided that she would go 
 over there before dinner, even though it made her 
 a little late. Maybe she didn't need to comb her 
 hair, after all. 
 
 She was starting up the stairs when her grand- 
 father called: "Wait a minute. Come here, 
 Euth." 
 
 She came back, twirling the fingers of one hand 
 nervously. Her grandfather was fumbling in the 
 drawer of his secretary. ' ' 1 want you to take this 
 letter — ^tell him I got it yesterday — " He stopped, 
 peering at the letter; Euth stood there with hand 
 clenched now, foot tapping. "Why no, that's not 
 
FIDELITY 73 
 
 the one," he rambled on; "I must have put it 
 up above here. Or could it — " 
 
 "Oh, I'm in a hurry, grandfather!" cried the 
 girl. 
 
 He closed the drawer and limped over to his 
 chair. "Just let it go, then," he said in the hurt 
 voice of one who has been refused a thing he can- 
 not do for himself. 
 
 "Now, grandfather!" Euth cried, swiftly mov- 
 ing toward him. "How can you be so silly — 
 just because I'm a little nervous about being late ! ' ' 
 
 "Seems to me you're always a little nervous 
 about something lately," he remarked, rising and 
 resuming the leisurely search for the letter. 
 "You young folks make such hard work of your 
 good times nowadays. Anybody 'd think you had 
 the world on your shoulders." 
 
 Euth made no reply, standing there as quietly 
 as she could, waiting while her grandfather 
 scanned a letter. "Yes, this is the one," he 
 finally said. "You tell him — " She had the 
 letter and was starting for the stairs while listen- 
 ing to what she was to tell, considering at the same 
 time how she'd take the short cut across the high- 
 school ball park — she could make it all right by 
 half past sis. Feeling kindly toward her grand- 
 father because it was going to be all right, after 
 all, she called back brightly: "Yes, grandfather, 
 I'll get it to him; I'll run right over there with 
 it first thing." 
 
74 FIDELITY 
 
 "Oh, look here, Euth!" he cried, hobbling out 
 to the hall. "Don't do that! I want you to go 
 in the evening. He'll not be home till eight 
 o'clock. He's going — " 
 
 "Yes, grandfather," she called from the head 
 of the stairs in a peculiarly quiet voice. "I see. 
 It's all right." 
 
 Then she could not find the things she wanted 
 to put on. There was a button off her dress and 
 her thread broke in sewing it. She was holding 
 herself very tight when her mother came leisurely 
 into the room and stood there commenting on the 
 way Euth's hair was done, on the untidiness of 
 her dressing-table, mildly reproving her for a 
 growing carelessness. Then she wandered along 
 about something Euth was to teU Edith's mother. 
 Euth, her trembling fingers tangling her thread, 
 was thinking that she was always to tell somebody 
 something somebody else had said, take something 
 from one person to another. The way people were 
 all held together in trivial things, that thin, seem- 
 ingly purposeless web lightly holding them to- 
 gether was eternally throwing threads around her, 
 keeping her from the one thing that counted. 
 
 "There!" escaped from her at last, breaking 
 the thread and throwing the dress over her head. 
 Her mother sauntered over to fasten it for her, 
 pausing to note how the dress was wearing out, 
 speaking of the new one Euth must have soon, 
 and who should make it. "Oh, I'm in a hurry, 
 
FIDELITY 75 
 
 mother!" Euth. finally cried when her mother 
 stopped to consider how the dress would have had 
 more style if, instead of buttoning down the back, 
 it had fastened under that fold. 
 
 ''Eeally, my dear," Mrs. Holland remonstrated, 
 jerking the dress straight with a touch of vexa- 
 tion, "I must say that you are getting positively 
 peevish!" 
 
 As Euth did not reply, and the mother could 
 feel her body tightening, she went on, with a lov- 
 ing little pat as she fastened the dress over the 
 hip, ''And you used to be the most sweet-tempered 
 girl ever lived." 
 
 Still Euth made no answer. **Your father was 
 \saying the other night that he was sure you 
 couldn't be feeling well. You never used to be a 
 bit irrita,ble, he said, and you nearly snapped his 
 head off when he wanted — just to save you — to 
 drive you over to Harriett's." 
 
 Though the dress was all fastened now, Euth 
 did not turn toward her mother. Mrs. Holland 
 added gently : ' ' Now that wasn 't reasonable, was 
 it?" 
 
 The tear Euth had been trying to hold back fell 
 to the handkerchief she was selecting. No, it 
 wouldn't seem reasonable, of course; her father 
 had wanted to help her, and she had been cross. 
 It was all because she couldn't tell him the truth 
 — which was that she hadn't told him the truth, 
 that she wasn't going to Harriett's for an hour. 
 
70 FIDELITY 
 
 that she was going to do something else first. 
 There had been a moment of actually hating her 
 father when, in wanting to help her, he stepped 
 in the way of a thing he knew nothing about. 
 That, it seemed, was what happened between 
 people when things could not be told. 
 
 Mrs. HoUand, seeing that Euth's hand was un- 
 steady, went on, in a voice meant to soothe : "Just 
 take it a little easier, dear. What under the sun 
 have you got to do but enjoy yourself! Don't 
 get in such a flutter about it." She sighed and 
 murmured, from the far ground of experience: 
 "Wait till you have a real worry." 
 
 Euth was pinning on her hat. She laughed in 
 a jerky little way and said, in a light voice that 
 was slightly tremulous: "I did get a little fussed, 
 didn't I? But you see I wanted to get over to 
 Edith's before dinner time. She wants to talk 
 to me about her shower for Cora Albright." 
 
 "But you have all evening to talk that over, 
 haven't you?" calmly admonished Mrs. Holland. 
 
 "Why, of course," Euth answered, a little 
 crisply, starting for the door. 
 
 "Your petticoat's showing," her mother called 
 to her. "Here, I'll pin it up for you." 
 
 "Oh, let it go!" cried Euth desperately. "I'll 
 fix it at Edith's," she added hurriedly. 
 
 "Euth, are you crazy?" her mother demanded. 
 "Going through the streets with your petticoat 
 
FIDELITY 77 
 
 showing! I guess you're in no such hurry as 
 that." 
 
 It was while she was pinning up the skirt that 
 Mrs. Holland remarked : ." Oh, I very nearly forgot 
 to tell you; Deane's going over there for you to- 
 night." 
 
 Then to the mother's utter bewilderment and 
 consternation Euth covered her face with her 
 hands and burst into sobs. 
 
 "Why, my dear," she murmured; "why, Ruth 
 dear, what is the matter?" 
 
 Euth sank down on the bed, leaning her head 
 against the foot of it, shaking with tsobs. Her 
 mother stood over her murmuring, "Why, my 
 dear, what is the matter?" 
 
 Euth, trying to stop crying, began to laugh. 
 "I didn't know he was coming! I was so sur- 
 prised. We've quarrelled!" she gulped out des- 
 perately. 
 
 "Why, he was just as natural and nice as could 
 be over the 'phone," said Mrs. Holland, pouring 
 some water in the bowl that Euth might bathe her 
 eyes. "Eeally, my dear, it seems to me you make 
 too much of things. He wanted to come here, and 
 when I told him you were going to be at Edith's, 
 he said he'd go there. I'm sure he was just as 
 nice as could be." 
 
 Euth was bathing her eyes, her body still quiver- 
 ing a little. "Yes, I know," she spluttered, her 
 
78 FIDELITY 
 
 face in the water; "he is that way when — after 
 we've quarrelled." 
 
 "I didn't know you and Deane ever did quar- 
 rel, ' ' ventured Mrs. Holland. ' ' When you do, I '11 
 warrant it's your fault." She added, signifi- 
 cantly: " Deane 's mighty good to you, Euth." 
 She had said several things like that of late. 
 
 "Oh, he's good enough," murmured Euth from 
 the folds of the towel. . 
 
 "Now, powder up a little, dear. There! And 
 now just take it a little easy. Why, it's not a bit 
 like you to be so ^touchy." 
 
 She followed Euth downstairs. "Got that let- 
 ter?" the grandfather called out from his room. 
 
 "I'll send Ted with it, father," Mrs. HoUand 
 said hastily, seeing Euth's face. 
 
 A sudden surge of love for her mother almost 
 swept away Euth's self-command. ' It was wonder- 
 ful that some one wanted to help her. It made her 
 want to cry. 
 
 Her mother went with her to the porch. "Tou 
 look so nice, ' ' she said soothingly. * * Have a good 
 time, dearie." 
 
 Euth waved her hand without turning her face 
 to her mother. 
 
 Tears were right there close all through that 
 evening. The strain within was so great — (what 
 was she going to do about Deane?) — ^that there 
 was that impulse to cry at the slightest friendli- 
 ness. She was flushed and tired when she reached 
 
FIDELITY 79 
 
 Edith's, and Mrs. Lawrence herself went out and 
 got her a glass of water — a fan, drew np a com- 
 fortable chair. The whole house seemed so kindly, 
 so favoring. Contrasted with her secret turmoil 
 the reposefulness, friendliness of the place was 
 so beautiful to her that taut emotions were ready 
 to give. Yet all the while there was that inner 
 distress about how to get away, what to say. The 
 affectionate kindness of her friends, the appeal of 
 their well-ordered lives as something in which to 
 rest, simply had no reach into the thing that dom- 
 inated her. 
 
 And now finally she had managed it ; Deane had 
 come before she could possibly get away but she 
 had said she would have to go up to Harriett's, 
 that she must not be too late about it. Edith had 
 protested, disappointed at her leaving so early, 
 wanting to know if she couldn't come back. That 
 waved down, there had been a moment of fearing 
 Edith was going to propose going with her; so 
 she had quickly spoken of there being something 
 Harriett wanted to talk to her about. She had a 
 warm, gentle feeling for Edith when finally she 
 saw the way clearing. That was the way it was, 
 gratitude to one who had moved out of her way 
 gave her so warm a feeling that often she would 
 impulsively propose things letting her in for 
 future complications. 
 
 As she was sajdng goodnight there was another 
 moment of wanting terribly to cry. They were 
 
80 FIDELITY 
 
 so good to tor, so loving — and what would fiey 
 thiilk if they knew? Her voice was curiously gen- 
 tle in taking leave of them; there was pain iu 
 that feeling of something that removed her from 
 these friends who cared for her, who were so good 
 to her. 
 
 She asked Deane if he hadn't something else to 
 do for an hour, someone to run in and see while 
 she visited with Harriett. When he readily fell 
 in with that, saying he hadn't been to the Ben- 
 netts' since coming home and that it would be 
 a good time to go there, she grew suddenly gay, 
 joking with him in a half tender little way, a sort 
 of affectionate bantering that was the closest they 
 came to intimacy. 
 
 And then at the very last, after one thing and 
 then another had been disposed of, and just as her 
 whole being was fairly singing with relief and an- 
 ticipation, the whole thing was threatened and 
 there was another of those moments of actually 
 hating one who was dear to her. 
 
 They had about reached the corner near Har- 
 riett's where she was going to insist Deane leave 
 her for the Bennetts' when they came upon her 
 brother Ted, slouching along, whistling, flipping 
 in his hand the letter he was taking to his grand- 
 father's old friend. 
 
 "Hello," he said, "where y' goin'?" 
 
 "Just walking," said Euth, and able to say it 
 with a carelessness that surprised her. 
 
FIDELITY 81 
 
 "Oil," said Ted, with a nonchalance that made 
 her want to scream out some awful thing at him, 
 "thought maybe you were making for Harriett's. 
 She ain't home." 
 
 She would like to have pushed him away! She 
 would have liked to push him way off somewhere ! 
 She dug her nails down into her palm; she could 
 hardly control the violent, ugly feeling that wanted 
 to leap out at him — at this "kid brother" whom 
 she adored. Why need he have said just that? — 
 that particular thing, of all things ! But she was 
 saying in calm elderly sister fashion, "Don't lose 
 that letter, Ted," and to Deane, as they walked on, 
 "Harriett's at a neighbor's; I'll run in for her; 
 she's expecting me to." 
 
 But it left her weak; her legs were trembling, 
 her heart pounding; there seemed no power left 
 at the center of her for holding herself in one. 
 
 And now she was rid of Deane ! She had shaken 
 them all off; for that little time she was free! 
 She hurried toward the narrow street that trailed 
 off into the country. Stuart would be waiting for 
 her there. Her joy in that, her eagerness, rushed 
 past the dangers all around her, the thing that pos- 
 sessed her avoiding thought of the disastrous pos- 
 sibilities around her as a man in a boat on a nar- 
 row rushing river would keep clear of rocks 
 jutting out on either side. Sometimes the feeling 
 that swept her on did graze the risks so close about 
 her and she shivered a little. Suppose Harriett 
 
82 FIDELITY 
 
 were at tlie Bennetts' when Deane got there! 
 Suppose Deane said something - when they got 
 home; suppose Ted said something that wouldn't 
 fit in with what Deane said; suppose Deane got 
 to Harriett's too soon — though she had told him 
 not to be there till after half past nine. Hadn't 
 Deane looked queer at the- last? "Wouldn't he 
 suspect? Wouldn't everybody suspect, with her 
 acting like this? And once there was the slight- 
 est suspecting. . . . 
 
 But she was hurrying on ; none of those worries, 
 fears, had power to lay any real hold on the thing 
 that possessed her; faster and faster she hurried; 
 she had turned into the little street, had passed 
 the last house, turned the bend in the road, and 
 yes ! there was Stuart, waiting for her, coming to 
 her. Everything else fell away. Nothing else in 
 the world mattered. 
 
CHAPTEE TEN 
 
 Ten o'clock found Euth. sitting on the porch at 
 home with her mother and father, her brother 
 Cyrus and Deane. Her father was talking with 
 Deane about the operation that had been per- 
 formed on the book-keeper in Mr. Holland's bank; 
 Cyrus talked of somebody's new touring car, the 
 number of new machines there were in town that 
 year; her mother wondered where some of the 
 people who had them got the money for them. 
 'The talk moved placidly from one thing to another, 
 Mr. Holland saying at intervals that he must be 
 going to bed, his wife slapping at the mosquitoes 
 and talking about going inside — ^both delaying, 
 comfortably stupid. 
 
 Euth was sitting on the top step leaning back 
 against the porch pillar. She said little, she was 
 very tired now. Something in this dragging talk 
 soothed her. It seemed safe just because it 
 was so commonplace; it was relaxing. She was 
 glad to be back to it — to the world of it ; in return- 
 ing safely to it she felt a curiously tender feeling 
 for it, a perhaps absurd sense of having come 
 through something for it. She could rest in it 
 while within herself she continued to live back in 
 
 83 
 
84 FIDELITY 
 
 that hour with Stuart, that hour which struggle 
 and fear and the passionate determination to have 
 in spite of everything had made terribly intense. 
 They had closed themselves in with that little while 
 of love, holding it apart from everything else, and 
 yet every minute of it was charged with the con- 
 sciousness of what was aU around them. They 
 had clung to that hour with a desperate passion, 
 the joy of the moment that was there alwaysl 
 stabbed with pain for a moment passing. At the 
 last they had clung to each other as if time too — 
 time, over which they had no control — ^was going 
 to beat them apart. So much had been hard that 
 in returning she had a warm feeling of gratitude 
 to all of them for not making it harder for her, 
 not questioning, exposing her ; relief was so great 
 that they were all newly dear for thus letting her 
 alone. She had managed all right with Deane, 
 the clumsy arrangement she had been forced into 
 appeared to have just that haphazardness which 
 characterizes most of the arrangements of life. 
 Her mother had merely asked what the Lawrence 's 
 had for dinner; her father joked about the way 
 she had trained the roses in the back yard. 
 Strangely enough instead of feeling she had out- 
 raged them, been unworthy this easy, affectionate 
 intercourse, she had a sense, now that she had 
 again come through a precarious thing safely, of 
 having saved them from something they knew not 
 of, a strange lifted-up feeling of bearing some- 
 
FIDELITY 85 
 
 thing for them. Certainly that would not seem 
 the feeling she should be having, but there was 
 the odd part of it: the feelings she had were so 
 seldom those she would expect herself to have. 
 
 Her mother and father had gone indoors; 
 Cyrus sat out there with her and Deane for a 
 time. Euth did not love Cyrus as she loved Ted ; 
 he had always had too superior a manner with 
 her for her feeling to be more than the perfunctory 
 thing which sometimes passes for personal affec- 
 tion in families. It was simply that she had never 
 admitted, even to herself, that she did not love 
 him. He belonged, to the set just older than 
 Euth's, though she and Deane and their friends 
 were arriving now at the time of ceasing to be a 
 separate entity as the young crowd and were being 
 merged in the group just above them. That con- 
 tributed to Cyrus's condescension, he being tem- 
 pered for condescension. 
 
 When she and Deane were alone the talk lagged, 
 Euth sitting there at the head of the steps leaning 
 against the pillar, he a few steps below her, 
 sprawled out in awkward boyish fashion, look- 
 ing up at her from time to time as she said some- 
 thing. Her silence did not make him feel cut off 
 from her; the things she said were gently said; 
 her tired smile was sweet. He spoke several 
 times of going, but lingered. He was held by 
 something in Euth; it stirred something in him, 
 not knowing that he was drawn by what another 
 
86 FIDELITY 
 
 man had brought into life. He drew himself up 
 and stole timid glances at Euth as she looked out 
 into the night, feeliag something new in her to- 
 night, something that touched the feeliag that had 
 all the time been there in him, growing as he 
 grew, of itself waiting for the future as simply 
 and naturally as all maturing things wait for the 
 future. Euth was the girl he had all the time 
 cared for; he was shy about emotional things — 
 awkward; he had had almost no emotional life; 
 he had all the time been diffident about what she 
 made him feel and so they had just gone along 
 for a little time longer than was usual as boy and 
 girl. But something sweet, mysterious, exhaling 
 from her tonight liberated tte growing, waiting 
 feeling in him. It took him as he had not been 
 taken before; he watched Euth and was stilled, 
 moved, drawn. 
 
 Finally, as if suddenly conscious of a long 
 silence, she turned to him with something about 
 the plans for Cora Albright's wedding — she was 
 to be a bridesmaid and he an usher. She went 
 on talking of the man Cora was to marry, a man 
 she met away from home and had fallen des- 
 perately in love with. He associated the light of 
 her face, the sweetness of her voice, with the 
 things of romance of which she talked. All in 
 a moment his feeling for her, what her strange, 
 softened mood touched in him, leaped up, surg- 
 ing through him, not to be stayed. He moved 
 
FIDELITY 87 
 
 nearer her. "You know, Rutli," lie said, in 
 queer, jerty voice, "7 love you." 
 
 She gave a start, drew a little back and looked 
 at him with a certain startled fixity as if he had 
 stopped all else in her. For the moment she just 
 looked at him like that, startled, fixed. 
 
 "Could you care for me at all, Euth?" he asked 
 wistfully, and with a bated passionateness. 
 
 And then she moved, and it seemed that feel- 
 ing, too, moved in her again ; there was a flow of 
 emotions as she sat looking at him now. And 
 then her strangely shining eyes were misty; her 
 face quivered a little and very slowly she shook 
 her head. 
 
 "Don't do that, Euth," he said quickly, in a 
 voice sharp with pain. "Don't do that! You 
 don't know — ^maybe you hadn't thought about it 
 — ^maybe — " He broke off, reached out for her 
 hands, and could only stammer, "Oh, Euth! — I 
 love you so!" 
 
 He had her hands ; he was clutching them very 
 tight ; he looked up at her again, imploring. She 
 started to shake her head again, but did not really 
 do it. She seemed about to speak, but did not. 
 What could she say to Deane — ^how make him 
 understand? — ^unless she told him. She thought 
 of the years she had known him, how much they 
 had been together, how good he had been to her. 
 Again her eyes were misty. It was aU so tangled. 
 There was so much pain. 
 
88 FIDELITY 
 
 Feeling her softening, her tenderness, lie moved 
 nearer, her two hands pressed together so tight 
 in his that it hurt her. "It wouldn't be so bad, 
 would it, Euth?" he urged wistfully, with a little 
 laugh that broke with emotion. "You and I — 
 mightn't life go pretty well for us ? " 
 
 She tariied away, looking out into the night. 
 Feeling something in her that he did not under- 
 stand he let her hands go. She put one of them 
 up, still further averting her face, lost to him in 
 the picture forming itself before her of how life 
 would be if love came right ; what it would mean 
 not to have to hide, but to have those who cared 
 for her happy in her happiness; what it would 
 mean to give herself to love without fear, to wear 
 her joy proudly before the world, revealing her 
 womanhood. She was not thinking of what life 
 with Deane would be but of what love that could 
 have its place would be: telling her mother and 
 father and Edith, being able to show the pride 
 of being loved, the triumph of loving. Sitting 
 there, turning her face from this friend who loved 
 her, she seemed to be turning it to the years await- 
 ing her, years of desperately clutching at happi- 
 ness in tension and fear, not understood because 
 unable to show herself, — afraid, harrassed, per- 
 haps disgraced. She wanted to take her place 
 among women who loved and were loved! She 
 did not want to be shut away from her friends, 
 not seeming to understand what she understood 
 
FIDELITY 89 
 
 so well. This picture of what life would be if 
 love could have its place brought home to her 
 what it meant to love and perpetually conceal, 
 stealing one's happiness from the society in which 
 one lived. Why could it not have gone right for 
 her too, as it had for Cora and would for Edith! 
 She too wanted a wedding, she too wanted rejoic- 
 ing friends. 
 
 She hid her face in her hands. Her body was 
 quivering. 
 
 The boy's arm stole round her shoulders. She 
 was feeling — maybe she did care. "Euth," he 
 whispered, "love does mean something to you, 
 doesn't it?" 
 
 She raised her head and looked at him. And 
 that look was a thing Deane Franklin never for- 
 got; all the years did not blur his memory of it 
 — that flaming claim for love that transformed 
 her face. 
 
 And then it was lost in contrition, for she saw 
 what he had seen, and what he hoped from that ; 
 in her compunction for having let him see what 
 was not for him, the tender, sorrowing look, the 
 impulsive outreaching of her hand, there was the 
 dawn of understanding. 
 
 At first he was too bewildered to find words. 
 Then: "You care for some one else?" he groped 
 unbelievingly. 
 
 She looked away, but nodded; her tears were 
 falling. 
 
90 FIDELITY 
 
 He moved a little away and then sat there quite 
 still. A breeze had come up and the vines beat 
 against the porch, making a sound that like the 
 flaming look of a moment ago he never forgot. 
 
 She knew that he must be wondering ; he knew 
 her life there, or what seemed her life. He must 
 be wondering who it was she cared for like that. 
 
 She laid her hand upon his arm; and when he 
 turned to her she did not say anything at all, but 
 the appeal that looked through pain perhaps went 
 where words could not have gone. 
 
 "But you're not happy!" he exclaimed, in a 
 sort of harsh exulting in that. 
 
 She shook her head; her eyes were brimming 
 over. 
 
 He looked away from her, his own hurt and 
 surprise rousing a savage thing in him that did 
 not want to do what the pleading pain of her eyes 
 so eloquently asked of him. He had always 
 thought that he was to have Euth. Well, he was 
 not to have her — there were ugly things which, 
 in that first moment, surged into his disappoint- 
 ment. Some one else was to have her. But she 
 was not happy! Defeated feeling wrenched its 
 own sorry satisfaction from that. 
 
 "Why aren't you happy?" he asked of her ab- 
 ruptly, roughly. 
 
 She did not answer, and so he had to look at 
 her. And when he saw Euth's face his real love 
 for her broke through the ugliness of thwarted 
 
FIDELITY 91 
 
 passion. "Can't you tell me, Euth?" he asked 
 gently. 
 
 She shook her head, but the conoem of his voice 
 loosed feeling she was "worn out with holding in. 
 Her eyes were streaming now. 
 
 His arm went round her shoulder, gently, as 
 if it would shield, help. His love for her 
 wrenched itself free — for that moment, at least, 
 — from his own hurt. "Maybe I can help you, 
 Euth," he was murmuring. 
 
CHAPTEE ELEVEN 
 
 He went away from there that night not know- 
 ing more than that; it was merely that she let 
 him see. He knew now that there was some big 
 thing in her life he had known nothing about; 
 that he had not understood Euth, though he had 
 known her through all the years and had thought 
 he knew her so well. He was bewildered, his pain 
 was blunted in that bewilderment. There was a 
 sick sense of life as all different, but he was too 
 dazed then for the pain that came later with 
 definite knowing. He went home that night and 
 because he could not sleep tried to read a medical 
 book; usually that took all his mind, for the time 
 other things would not exist for him. But that 
 was not true tonight; that world of facts could 
 not get him; he lived right on in the world of 
 his own feeling. He was not to have Euth; he 
 did not seem able to get a real sense of that 
 either, there was just a sick feeling about it 
 rather than actual realization, acceptance. And 
 what did it mean? Surely he knew Euth's life, 
 the people she went with ; it was always he, when 
 he was at home, Euth went about with. Some- 
 one away from home? But she had been very 
 
 92 
 
FIDELITY 93 
 
 little away from home. Who could it be? He 
 went over and over that. It came to seem un- 
 real; as if there were some misunderstanding, 
 some mistake. And yet, that look. . . . His own 
 disappointment was at times caught up into 
 his marvel at her; that moment's revelation of 
 what her oaring could be was so wonderful as to 
 bear him out of the fact that it was not for him 
 she cared. That was the way it was all through, 
 his love for her deepening with his marvel at her, 
 the revelation of what she felt for another man 
 claiming more and more of himself for her. It 
 was a thing he would have scoffed at if told of, 
 it was a thing he could not somehow justify even 
 to himself, but it was true that the more he saw 
 of what love meant to Euth the more Euth came 
 to mean to him. 
 
 In those next few months, the months before 
 he actually knew, there were times when he could 
 almost persuade himself that there was some- 
 thing unreal about it all, torturous wonderings 
 as to who the man could be trailing off into the 
 possibility of there being no man, because he knew 
 of none; sometimes he tried to persuade himself 
 that this passionate feeling he had glimpsed in 
 Euth was a thing apart from any particular man 
 — for who was the man? Sometimes he could, 
 for a moment, let in the hope that since she could 
 care like that she would care for him. Though 
 he more than half knew he deluded himself in 
 
94 FIDELITY 
 
 that; there was, now that his eyes were opened, 
 that in Euth's manner to indicate something in 
 her life which did not appear on the surface. He 
 saw how nervous she was — ^how strained at times, 
 how worried and cross, which was not like Euth 
 at all. There were times when her eyes were im- 
 ploring, times when they were afraid, again there 
 were moments of that lovely cahn, when feeling 
 deep and beautiful radiated from her, as it 
 had that night they sat on the steps and, drawn 
 by something in her, he had to tell her that he 
 loved her. She did queer unreasonable things, 
 would become exasperated at him for apparently 
 nothing at all. Once when she had told him she 
 was going somewhere with her mother he later 
 saw her hurrying by alone; another time she told 
 him she was going to Edith's, and when he called 
 up there, wanting to take them both with him for 
 a long trip he had to make into the country, Edith 
 said Euth had not been there. Thoughts that he 
 did not like, that he could not believe, came into 
 his mind. He was not only unhappy, but he grew 
 more and more worried about Euth. 
 
 That went on for several months, and then one 
 day late that same summer she came to him with 
 the truth. She came because she had to come. 
 He was a doctor ; he was her friend ; she was in a 
 girl's most desperate plight and she had no one 
 else to turn to. It was in his office that she told 
 
FIDELITY 95 
 
 him, not looking at tim, her face witliout color 
 and drawn out of shape, her voice quick, sharp, 
 hard, so unlike Euth's sweet voice that without 
 seeiag her he would not have known it. She 
 threw out the bare facts at him as she sat there 
 very straight, hands gripped. He was stupefied 
 at first, but it was fury which then broke through, 
 the fury of knowing it was this, that not only was 
 he not to have Euth, but that another man had 
 her, the fury that rose out of the driving back of 
 aU those loose ends of hope that had eased pain 
 a little. And Ruth — this! He little knew what 
 things he might not have said and done in those 
 first moments of failing her, turning on her be- 
 cause he himself was hurt beyond his power to 
 bear. And then Euth spoke to him. "But I 
 thought you believed in love, Deane," she said, 
 quietly. 
 
 "Love!" he brutally flung back at her. 
 
 "Yes, Deane, love," she said, and the simpli- 
 city, the dignity of her quiet voice commanded him 
 and he had to turn from himself to her. She was 
 different now; she looked at him, steadily, proudly. 
 Out of the humiliation of her situation she raised 
 a proud face for love; love could bring her dis- 
 grace, it could not strip her of her own sense of 
 the dignity of loving. Her power was in that, in 
 that claim for love that pain and humiliation could 
 not beat back. 
 
96 FIDELITY 
 
 "I notice he's not here," lie sneered, still too 
 overwhelmed to be won from his own rage to her 
 feeling. 
 
 "I thought it better for me to come," she said 
 simply, and as she said it and he remembered her 
 drawn, wretched face in telling him, he was 
 quieted a little by a sense of what it had cost her 
 to come. "Because," she added, "you're my 
 friend, you know." 
 
 He did not say anything, miserably wondering 
 what she now thought of him as her friend. 
 
 "Oh, Deane," she broke out, "don't be hard! 
 If you could know what he's suffering! Being 
 a man — ^being a little older — ^what's that? If you 
 can understand me, Deane, you've got to under- 
 stand him, too!" 
 
 He stood there in silence looking at Ruth as, 
 looking away from him now, she brooded over 
 that. In this hour of her own humiliation her 
 appeal was for the man who had brought it upon 
 her. "How you love him!" escaped from him, 
 in bitterness, and yet marvelling. 
 
 She turned to him then in her swift way, again, 
 as on that night of his first seeing, her face trans- 
 formed by that flaming claim for love ; it was as 
 if life was shining triumphant through the cloud 
 of misery it had brought down around her. He 
 could not rage against that look ; he had no scorn 
 for it. It lighted a country betweejn them which 
 words could not have undarkened. They came 
 
FIDELITY 97 
 
 together there in that common understanding of 
 the power and beauty of love. He was suddenly 
 ashamed, humbled, feeling in her love a quality 
 upon which no shameful circumstance could en- 
 croach. And after that she found relief in words, 
 the words she had had to deny herself so long. 
 It was as if she found it wonderfully good to 
 talk, in some little measure linking her love, as 
 love wants to link itself, with the other people of 
 the world, coming within the human unit. Things 
 which circumstances had prisoned in her heart, 
 too intensified by solitude, leaped out like winged 
 things let loose. But in that hour of talking with 
 him, though words served her well, it was that 
 proud, flaming claim for love which again and 
 again lighted her face that brought him into 
 understanding, winning him for her against his 
 own love of her. 
 
 In the year which followed, that last year be- 
 fore circumstances closed in too tight and they 
 went away, it was he who made it possible for 
 Euth to move a little more freely in the trap in 
 which she found herself. He helped her in de- 
 ceiving her family and friends, aided them in the 
 ugly work of stealing what happiness they could 
 from the society in which they lived. He did not 
 like doing it. Neither did he like attending the 
 agonies of child-birth, or standing impotently at 
 the bed of the dying. It might seem absurd, in 
 trying to explain one's self, to claim for this love 
 
98 FIDELITY 
 
 the inevitability of the beginning and the end of 
 life, and yet, seeing it as he saw it he did think 
 of it, not as a thing that should or should not be, 
 but as a thing that was; not as life should or 
 should not be lived, but as life. This much he 
 knew: that whatever they might have been able 
 to do at the first, it had them now. They were 
 in too powerful a current to make a well consid- 
 ered retreat to shoals of safety. No matter what 
 her mood might have been in the beginning, no 
 matter what she could have done about it then, 
 Euth was mastered not master now. Love had 
 her — he saw that too well to reason with her. 
 "What he saw of the way all other people mat- 
 tered so much less than the passion which claimed' 
 her made him feel, not that Euth was selfish, but 
 that the passion was mastering; the way she de- 
 ceived made him feel, not that she was deceitful, 
 but that love like that was as unable to be held 
 back in the thought of wrong to others as in the 
 consideration of safety for one's self; the two 
 were equally inadequate floodg'ates. Not that 
 those other things did not matter — ^he knew how 
 they did make her suffer— ^but that this one thing 
 mattered overwhelmingly more was what he felt 
 in Euth in those days when she would be thought 
 to be with him and would be with Stuart Williams. 
 For himself that was a year of misery. He 
 saw Euth in a peculiarly intimate way, taken as 
 he was into the great intimacy of her life. His 
 
FIDELITY 99 
 
 love for her deepened with his knowing of her; 
 and anxiety about her preyed upon him all the 
 time, passionate resentment that it should have 
 gone like that for her, life claiming her only, as 
 it seemed, to destroy her. 
 
 He never admitted to himself how much he 
 really came to like Stuart Williams. There 
 seemed something quixotic in that ; it did not seem 
 natural he should have any sympathy with this 
 man who not only had Euth's love, but was en- 
 dangering her whole life. Yet the truth was that 
 as time went on he not only came to like him but 
 to feel a growing concern for him. 
 
 For the man changed in that last year. It was 
 not only that he looked older — ^harassed, had 
 grown so much more silent, but Deane as a physi- 
 cian noticed that he was losing weight and there 
 was a cough that often made him look at him 
 sharply. A number of times Euth said, "I don't 
 think Stuart's well," but she looked so wretched 
 in saying it that he always laughed at her. The 
 Williams ' were not patients of his, so he felt that 
 professional hesitance, even though he thought it 
 foolish professionalism, in himself approaching 
 Stuart about his health. Once when he seemed 
 particularly tired and nervous Deane did venture 
 to suggest a little lay-off from work, a change, but 
 Stuart had answered irritably that he couldn't 
 stop work, and didn't want to go away, anyhow. 
 
 It was almost a year after the day Euth came 
 
100 FIDELITY 
 
 to him steeled for telling what had to be told that 
 the man of whom she that day talked came to tell 
 him what he had been suspecting, that he had 
 tuberculosis and would have to take that lay-off 
 Deane had been hinting at. It seemed it was 
 either go away or die, probably, he added, with 
 an attempted laugh, it was go away and die, but 
 better go away, he thought, than stay there and 
 give his friends an exhibition in dying. 
 
 They talked along over the surface of it, as is 
 people's way, Deane speakiug mildly of tubercu- 
 losis, how prevalent, how easily controlled, how 
 delightful Arizona was, the charms of living out- 
 of-doors, and all the time each of them knew that 
 the other was not thinking of that at all, but think- 
 ing of Euth. 
 
 Finally, bracing himself as for a thing that was 
 all he could do, Stuart spoke of her. "Euth said 
 she was coming in to see you about something this 
 afternoon. I thought I'd get in first and tell you. 
 I wondered what you'd think — ^what we'd better 
 do—" 
 
 His voice trailed off miserably. He turned a 
 little away and sat there in utter dejection. 
 
 And as he looked at him it came to Deane that 
 love could be the most ruthless, most terrible thing 
 in the world. People talked to him afterwards 
 about this man's selfishness in taJdng his own 
 pleasure, his own happiness, at the cost of every- 
 one else. He said little, for how could he make 
 
FIDELITY 101 
 
 real to anyone else his own feeling about what he 
 had seen of the man's suffering, utter misery, as 
 he spoke of the girl to whom he must bring new 
 pain. Some one spoke to him afterwards of this 
 "light love" and he laughed in that person's face. 
 He knew that it was love bathed in paia. 
 
 A new sense of just how hideous the whole 
 thing was made him suddenly demand: "Can't 
 you — do anything about it? Isn't there any way? 
 — any way you can get a divorce?" he bluntly 
 asked. 
 
 "Mrs. Williams does not believe in divorce," 
 was the answer, spoken with more bitterness than 
 Deane had ever heard in any voice before. 
 
 Deaue turned away with a little exclamation of 
 rage, rage that one person should have this clutch 
 on the life of another, of two others — and one of 
 them Euth — sickened with a sense of the waste 
 and the folly of it, — for what was she getting out 
 of it? he savagely put to himself. How could one 
 get anything from life simply by holding another 
 from it? 
 
 "Does she know anything about Euth?" he 
 asked with an abrupt turn to Stuart. 
 
 "She has mentioned her name several times 
 lately and looked at me in doing it. She isn't one 
 to speak directly of things," he added with a more 
 subtle bitterness than that of a moment before. 
 They sat there for a couple of minutes in silence 
 — a helpless, miserable silence. 
 
102 FIDELITY 
 
 When, after that, Deane stepped out into the 
 waiting-room he found Euth among those there; 
 he only nodded to her and went back and told 
 Stuart that she was there. * ' But it 's only three, ' ' 
 said he helplessly, "and she said she was coming 
 at four." 
 
 "Well, I suppose she came earlier than she in- 
 tended," Deane replied, about as helplessly, and 
 went over and stood looking out the window. 
 After a moment he turned. "Better get it over 
 with, hadn't you? She's got to be told," he said, 
 a little less brusquely, as he saw the man wince, 
 — "better get it over with." 
 
 Stuart was silent, head down. After a moment 
 he looked up at Deane. It was a look one would 
 turn quickly away from. Again Deane stood 
 looking from the window. He was considering 
 something, considering a thing that would be very 
 hard to do. After a njoment he again abruptly 
 turned around. "Well, shall I do it?" he asked 
 quietly. 
 
 The man nodded in a wretched gratefulness 
 that went to Deane 's heart. 
 
 So he called Euth in from the waiting-room. 
 He always remembered just how Euth looked that 
 day; she had on a blue suit and a hat with flowers 
 on it that was very becoming to her. She looked 
 very girlish; he had a sudden sense of aU the 
 years he had known her. 
 
 The smile with which she greeted Deane changed 
 
FIDELITY 103 
 
 when she saw Stuart sitting there; the instant's 
 pleased surprise went to apprehension at sight of 
 his face. "What's the matter?" she asked 
 sharply. 
 
 "Stuart's rather bummed up, Euth," said 
 Deane. 
 
 Swiftly she moved over to the man she loved. 
 "What is it?" she demanded in quick, frightened 
 voice. 
 
 "Oh, just a bad lung," Deane continued, not 
 looking at them and speaking with that false 
 cheerfulness so hard fought for and of so little 
 worth. "Don't amount to much — ^happens often 
 — ^but, well — ^well, you see, he has to go away — 
 for awhile." 
 
 He was bending over his desk, fumbling among 
 some papers. There was no sound in the room 
 and at last he looked up. Stuart was not looking 
 at Euth and Euth was standing there very still. 
 When she spoke her voice was singularly quiet. 
 "When shaU we go?" she asked. 
 
CHAPTEE TWELVE 
 
 Everyone who talked about it — and that meant 
 all who knew anything about it — ^blamed Deane 
 Franklin for not stopping Euth. Perhaps the 
 reason he did not try to defend himself was 
 simply that he could not hope to show how simple 
 was his acceptance of the fact that it would have 
 been impossible to stop her. To understand that, 
 one would have to have seen. Gh, to be sure, he 
 could have put obstacles in her way, tightened 
 it around her, but anything he might have done 
 would only have gone to making it harder for 
 Euth to get away; it would not have kept her 
 from going. And after all, he himself saw it as, 
 if not the thing she should do, the thing — ^it being 
 what it was then^she could not help doing. But 
 one would have to have seen Euth's face, would 
 need to have been 'with her in those days to under- 
 stand that. 
 
 As to warning her family, as he was so blamed: 
 by them and by all the town for not doing, that 
 would have seemed to him just one of those things 
 he could have thrown in her way. He did feel 
 that he must try to talk to her of what it was 
 going to mean to her people; he saw that she 
 saw, that it had cruel power to make her suffer 
 
 104 
 
FIDELITY 105 
 
 — and no power to stop her. Nothing could have 
 stopped her; she -was like a maddened thing — 
 desperate, ruthless, indomitable. She would have 
 fought the world; she would have let the whole 
 world suffer. Love's fear possessed her utterly. 
 He had had the feeling all along that it was rush- 
 ing on to disaster. He stood back from it now 
 with something like awe: a force not for him to 
 control. 
 
 And he, with it from within, was the only one 
 who did not condemn Stuart "Williams for letting 
 Euth go. A man, and older than she, they 
 scorned him for letting an infatuated girl throw 
 her life away like that. And it was not only that 
 he saw that the man was sick and broken ; it was 
 that he saw that Stuart, just as Euth, had gone 
 in love beyond his power to control love, that he 
 was mastered, not master, now. Ajad in those 
 last days, at least, it was Euth who dominated 
 him. There was something terrible in the sim- 
 plicity with which she saw that she had to go; 
 she never once admitted it to the things that were 
 to be argued about. He talked to her, they both 
 tried to talk to her, about the danger of getting 
 tuberculosis. When he began on that she laughed 
 in his face — and he could not blame her. As if 
 that could keep her! And as she laughed her 
 tortured eyes seemed mockingly to put to him — 
 "What difference would it make?" 
 
 When, after it all came out, he did not join the 
 
106 FIDELITY 
 
 outraged town in the outcry against Euth, when 
 it further transpired that he had known about her 
 going and had not tried to stop it, he was so 
 much blamed that it even hurt his practice. There 
 were women who said they would not countenance 
 a yoimg physician who had the ideas of life he 
 must have. His own people were incensed at 
 what they called the shameful advantage Ruth 
 had taken of him, holding that she, as an evil 
 woman, had exerted an influence over him that 
 made him do what was against his own nature. 
 As to the Hollands, there had been a stormy hour 
 with Mr. Holland and Cyrus, and a far worse half 
 hour with Mrs. Holland, when her utterly stricken 
 face seemed to stiffen in his throat the things he 
 wanted to say for Euth, things that might have 
 helped Euth's mother. And then he was told that 
 the Hollands were through, not alone with Euth, 
 but with him. 
 
 But he was called there two years later when 
 Mrs. Holland was dying. She had been begging 
 for him. That moved him deeply because of what 
 in itself it told of her long yearning for Euth. 
 After that there were a number of years when he 
 was not inside that gate. Cyrus did not speak 
 to him and the father might as well not have done 
 so. He was amazed, then, when Mr. Holland 
 finally came to him about his own health. "I've 
 come to you, Deane," he said, "because I think 
 you're the best doctor in town now — and I need 
 
FIDELITY 107 
 
 help." And then he axided, and after that first 
 talk this was the closest to speaking of it they 
 ever came : "And I guess you didn't understand, 
 Deane; didn't see it right. You were young — 
 and you're a queer one, anyway." 
 
 Perhaps the reason he was never able to do bet- 
 ter in explaining himself, or in defending Euth, 
 was simply because in his own thinking about it 
 there were never arguments, or thoughts upon 
 conduct, but always just that memory of Euth's 
 face as he had seen it in revealing moments. 
 
 Everyone saw something that Euth should have 
 done differently. In the weeks they spent upon 
 it they found, if not that they would be able to 
 forgive her, at least that they could think of her 
 with less horror had she done this, had she not 
 done that. But Euth lived through that week see- 
 ing little beyond the one thing that she must get 
 through it. She was driven ; she had to go ahead, 
 bearing things somehow, getting through them. 
 She had a strange power to steel herself, to keep 
 things, for the most part, from really getting 
 through to her. She could not go ahead if she 
 began letting things in. She sealed herself Over 
 and drove ahead with the singleness of purpose, 
 the exclusions, of any tormented thing. It was 
 all terrible, but it was as if she were frozen at the 
 heart to all save the one thing. 
 
 She stayed through the week because it was the 
 time of Edith Lawrence's wedding and she was to 
 
108 FIDELITY 
 
 be maid-of -honor. "I'll have to stay till after 
 Edith's wedding," she said to Deane and Stuart. 
 Then on her way home from Deane 's office she 
 saw that she could not go on with her part in 
 Edith's wedding. That she could see clearly 
 enough despite the thing driving her on past 
 things she should be seeing. What would she say 
 to Edith?— how get that over? 
 
 Someone was giving a party for Edith that 
 night ; every day now things were being given for 
 her. She must not go to them. How could she 
 go? It would be absurd to expect that of her- 
 self. She would have to tell Edith that she could 
 not be her bridesmaid. What a terrible thing 
 Edith would think that was ! She would have to 
 give a reason — a big reason. What would she 
 tell her? — that she had been called away? — ^but 
 where? Should she tell her the truth? Could 
 she? Edith would find it almost unbelievable. 
 It was almost unbelievable to herself that her life 
 could be permeated by a thing Edith kaew noth- 
 ing about. It was another of the things she would 
 have said, had she known her story only through 
 hearing it, would not be possible. But it was with 
 Edith as it was with her own family — simply that 
 such a thing would never occur to her. She 
 winced in thinking of it that way. A number of 
 times she had been right on the edge of a thing 
 it seemed would surely be disclosing, but it 
 strangely happened she had never quite gone over 
 
FIDELITY 109 
 
 tliat edge. For one thing, Edith had been away 
 from Freeport a good deal in those three years. 
 Mrs. Lawrence had opposed Edith's marrying so 
 young, and had taken her to Europe for one year, 
 and in the last year they had spent part of the 
 time in California. In the last couple of months, 
 since Edith's return from the West, she had 
 spoken of Euth's not seeming like herself, of fear- 
 ing she was not well. She had several times hurt 
 Edith's feelings by refusiug, for no apparent 
 reason, to do things with her. But she had always 
 been able to make that up afterwards and in these 
 plans for the wedding she and Edith had been 
 drawn close again. 
 
 When she went over to the Lawrences' late that 
 afternoon she had decided that she would tell 
 Edith. It seemed she must. She could not hope 
 to tell it in a way that would make Edith sympa- 
 thize. There was not time for that, and she dared 
 not open herself to it. She wOuld just say it 
 briefly, without any attempts at justifying it. 
 Something like: "Edith, there's been something 
 you haven't known. I'm not like you. I'm not 
 what you think I am. I love Stuart Williams. 
 We've loved each other for a long time. He's 
 sick. He's got to go away — and I'm going with 
 him. Good-by, Edith, — and I hope the wedding 
 goes just beautifully." 
 
 But that last got through — ^got down to the feel- 
 ing she had been trying to keep closed, the feeling 
 
110 FIDELITY 
 
 that had seemed to seal itself over the moment she 
 saw that she must go with Stuart. "I hope the 
 wedding goes just beautifully!" Somehow the 
 stiff little phrase seemed to mean all the old 
 things. There was a moment when she knew: 
 knew that she was walking those familiar streets, 
 that she would not be walking them any more; 
 knew that she was going over to Edith's — that all 
 her life she had been going over to Edith's — that 
 she would not be going there any more ; knew that 
 she was going away from home, that she loved 
 her father and mother — Ted — ^her grandfather — 
 and Terror, her dog. Eealization broke through 
 and flooded her. She had to walk around a num- 
 ber of blocks before she dared go to Edith's. 
 
 Miss Edith was up in her room, Emma, the 
 maid, said, taking it for granted that Euth would 
 go right up. Yes, she always did go right up, she 
 was thinking. She had always been absolutely at 
 home at the Lawrences'. They always wanted 
 her; there were times of not wanting to see any- 
 one else, but it seemed both Edith and her mother 
 always wanted her. She paused an instant on 
 the stairs, not able to push past that thought, not 
 able to stay the loving rush of gatefulness that 
 broke out of the thought of having always been 
 wanted. 
 
 She had a confused sense of Edith as barri- 
 caded by her trousseau. She sat behind a great 
 pile of white things ; she had had them all out of 
 
FIDELITY 111 
 
 lier chest for showing to some of her mother's 
 friends, she said, and her mother had not yet put 
 them back. Euth stood there fingering a wonder- 
 fully soft chemise. It had come to her that she 
 was not provided with things like these. What 
 would Edith think of her, going away without the 
 things it seemed one should have? It seemed to 
 mark the setting of her apart from Edith, though 
 there was a wave of tenderness — she tried to hold 
 it back but could not — for dear Edith because she 
 did have so many things like this. 
 
 Edith was too deep in the occupation of getting 
 married to mark an unusual absorption in her 
 friend. She was full of talk about what her 
 mother's friends had said of her thiags, the pres- 
 ents that were coming in, her dress for the party 
 that night, the flowers for the wedding. 
 
 It made Edith seem very young to her. And 
 in her negligee, her hair down, she looked child- 
 ish. Her pleasure in the plans for her wedding 
 seemed like a child's pleasure. It seemed that 
 hurting her in it would be horribly like spoiling 
 a child's party. Edith's flushed face, her spark- 
 ling eyes, her little excited, happy laugh made it 
 impossible for Euth to speak the word's she had 
 come to say. 
 
 For three days it went on like that : going ahead 
 with the festivities, constantly thinking she would 
 tell Edith as soon as they got home from this place 
 or that, waiting until this or that person had gone, 
 
112 FIDELITY 
 
 then dumb before the childish quality of Edith's 
 excitement, deciding to wait until the next morn- 
 ing because Edith was either too happy or too 
 tired to talk to her that night. That ingenuous- 
 ness of her friend's pleasure in her wedding made 
 Euth feel, not only older, but removed from her 
 by experience. Those days of her own frozen 
 misery were days of tenderness for Edith, that 
 tenderness which one well along the road of living 
 feels for the one just setting feet upon the 
 path. 
 
 She was never able to understand how she did 
 get through those days. It was an almost un- 
 believable thing that, knowing, she was able, up 
 to the very last, to go right on with the old things, 
 was able to talk to people as if nothing were differ- 
 ent, to laugh, to dance. There were times when 
 something seemed frozen in her heart and she 
 could go on doing the usual things mechanically, 
 just because she knew so well how to do them; 
 then there were other times when every smallest 
 thing was stabbed through and through with the 
 consciousness that she would not be doing it again. 
 And yet even then, she could go on, could appear 
 the same. They were days of a terrible power 
 for bearing pain. When the people of the town 
 looked back to it, recalling everything they could 
 about Euth Holland in those days, some of them, 
 remembering a tenderness in her manner with 
 Edith, talked of what a hypocrite she was, while 
 
FIDELITY 113 
 
 others satisfied themselves of her utter heartless- 
 ness in remembering her gaiety. 
 
 It was two days before the wedding when she 
 saw that she was not going to be able to tell Edith 
 and got the idea of telling Edith's mother. Re- 
 fusing to let herself consider what she would say 
 when she began upon it, she went over there early 
 that morning — Edith would not be up. 
 
 Mrs. Lawrence was at breakfast alone. Ruth 
 kept herself hard against the welcoming smile, but 
 it seemed she was surely going to cry when, with 
 a look of concern, Mrs. Lawrence exclaimed: 
 "Why, Euth dear, how pale you are !" 
 
 She was telling Emma to bring Ruth a cup of 
 coffee, talking of how absurd it was the way the 
 girls were wearing themselves out, how, for that 
 reason, she would be glad when it was all over. 
 She spoke with anxiety of how nervous Edith had 
 grown in* the past week, how tired she was as a 
 result of all the gaiety. "We'll have to be very 
 careful of her, Ruth," she said. "Don't go to 
 Edith with any worries, will you? Come to me. 
 The slightest thing would upset Edith now." 
 
 Ruth only nodded; she did not know what to 
 say to that ; certainly, after that, she did not know 
 how to say the things she had come to tell. For 
 what in the world could upset Edith so much as 
 to have her maid-of-honor, her life-long friend, 
 the girl she cared for most, refuse, two days be- 
 fore her wedding, to take her part in it? 
 
114 FIDELITY 
 
 "And you can do more than anyone else, Euth," 
 Mrs. Lawrence urged. "You know Editli counts 
 so on you," she added with an intimate little 
 smile. 
 
 And again Euth only nodded, and bent over her 
 coffee. She had a feeling of having been caught, 
 of being helpless. 
 
 Mrs. Lawrence was talking about the caterer 
 for the wedding ; she wished it were another kind 
 of salad. Then she wanted Euth to come up and 
 look at her dtess; she wasn't at all satisfied with 
 the touch of velvet they had put on it. After that 
 some one else came in and Mrs. Lawrence was 
 called away. Euth left without saying what she 
 had come to say. She knew now that she would 
 not say it. 
 
 She went home seeing that she must go through 
 with the wedding. It was too late now to do any- 
 thing else. Edith would break down — ^her pleas- 
 ure in her wedding spoiled; no, Edith must be 
 spared — helped. She must do this for Edith. 
 No matter what people thought of her, no matter 
 what Edith herself thought — ^though wouldn't she 
 understand? Euth considered with a tortured 
 wistf nines s — the thing to do now was to go 
 through with it. Edith must look beautiful at 
 her wedding; her happiness must be unmarred. 
 Later, when she was away with Will — happy — 
 she could bear it better. And she would under- 
 stand that Euth had wished to spare her; had 
 
FIDELITY 115 
 
 done it to lielp her. She held that thought with 
 her — and drove ahead. 
 
 There were moments in those last two days at 
 home when it seemed that now her heart was in- 
 deed breaking: a kindly note in the voice of her 
 father or mother — one of Ted's teasing jokes — 
 little requests from her grandfather; then doing 
 things she had done for years and knowing while 
 doing them that she would not be doing them any 
 more — the last time she cut the flowers, and then 
 that last night when she went to bed in her own 
 room, the room she had had ever since old enough 
 to have a room of her own. She lay there that 
 night and listened to the branches of the great 
 oak tapping the house. She had heard that sound 
 all her life; it was associated with all the things 
 of her life ; it seemed to be speaking for all those 
 things — ^mourning for them. But the closest she 
 came to actual breaking down was that last day 
 when her dog, laying his head upon her knee, 
 looked with trust and affection up into her eyes. 
 As she laid her hand upon his head his eyes 
 seemed to speak for all the love she had known 
 through all the years. It seemed she could not 
 bear it, that her heart could not bear it, that she 
 would rather die. But she did bear it; she had 
 that terrible power for bearing. 
 
 If only she had told her mother, they said over 
 and over again. But if she told her mother she 
 would not go — ^that was how she saw that; they 
 
116 FIDELITY 
 
 would not let her; or rather, she would' have no 
 strength left to fight through their efforts to keep 
 her. And then how could she tell her mother 
 when her mother would never in the world under- 
 stand? She did not believe that her mother could 
 so much as comprehend that she could love where 
 she should not, that a girl like Euth — or rather, 
 Ruth — could love a man it was not right she love. 
 She had never talked with her mother of real 
 things, had never talked with her of the things 
 of her deepest feeling. She would not know how 
 to do it now, even had she dared. 
 
 Her mother helped her dress for the wedding, 
 talking all the while about plans for the evening 
 — just who was going to the church, the details 
 about serving. Euth dung to the thought that 
 those were the things her mother was interested 
 iu ; they always had been, surely they would con- 
 tinue to be. In her desperation she tried to think 
 that in those little things her mother cared so 
 much about she would, after a time, find healing. 
 
 With that cruel power for bearing paia she got 
 away from home without breaking down ; she got 
 through that last minute when she realized she 
 would not see Ted or her grandfather again, — 
 they would not be at the wedding and would be in 
 bed when she returned from it, and she was to 
 leave that night on the two o'clock train. It was 
 unbelievable to her that she had borne it, but she 
 had driven ahead through utter misery as they 
 
FIDELITY 117 
 
 coimnented on her dress, praising her and joking 
 with her. That was in the living-room and she 
 never forgot just how they were grouped — ^her 
 grandfather's newspaper across his knees; Mary, 
 who had worked for them for years, standing at 
 the door; her dog Terror under the reading table 
 — Ted walking round and round her. Deane was 
 talking with her father in the hall. Her voice 
 was sharp as she went out and said: "We must 
 hurry, Deane." 
 
 The wedding was unreal; it seemed that all 
 those people were just making the movements of 
 life; there were moments when she heard them 
 from a long way off, saw them and was uncertain 
 whether they were there. And yet she could go 
 on and appear about the same; if she seemed a 
 little queer she was sure it was attributed to nat- 
 ural feeling about her dearest friend's wedding 
 — to emotion, excitement. There were moments 
 when things suddenly became real: a moment 
 alone with Edith in her room, just before they 
 went to the church; a moment when Mrs. Law- 
 rence broke down. Walking down the aisle, the 
 words of the service — that was in a vague, blurred 
 world; so was Edith's strained face as she turned 
 away, and her own walking down the aisle with 
 Deane, turning to him and smiling and saying 
 something and feeling as if her lips were frozen. 
 Yet for three hours she laughed and talked with 
 people. Mrs. Williams was at the reception; sev^ 
 
118 FIDELITY 
 
 eral times they were in the same group. Oh, it 
 was all unreal — terrible — ^just a thing to drive 
 through. There was a moment at the last when 
 Edith clung to her, and when it seemed that she 
 could not do the terrible thing she was going to 
 do, that she was not going to do it — that the whole 
 thing was some hideous nightmare. She wanted 
 to stay with Edith. She wanted to be like Edith. 
 She felt like a little girl then, just a frightened 
 little girl who did not want to go away by her- 
 self, away from everything she knew, from people 
 who loved her. She did not want to do that awful 
 thing! She tried to pretend for a moment she 
 was not going to do it — ^just as sometimes she 
 used to hide her face when afraid. 
 
 At last it was all over; she had gone to the 
 train and seen Edith and WiU off for the East. 
 Edith's face was pressed against the window of 
 the Pullman as the train pulled out. It was Ruth 
 she was looking for ; it was to Euth her eyes clung 
 until the train drew her from sight. 
 
 Euth stood there looking after the train; the 
 rest of their little group of intimate friends had 
 turned away — ^laughing, chattering, getting back 
 in the carriages. Deane finally touched Euth's 
 arm, for she was standing in that same place look- 
 ing after the train which had now passed from 
 sight. When he saw the woe of her wet face he 
 said gruffly: "Hadn't we better walk home?" 
 He looked down at her delicate slippers, but bet- 
 
FIDELITY 119 
 
 ter walk in them than join the others looking like 
 that.' He supposed walking would not be good 
 for that frail dress ; and then it came to him, and 
 stabbed him, that it didn't much matter. Prob- 
 ably Euth would not wear that dress again. 
 
 She walked home without speaking to him, 
 looking straight ahead in that manner she all 
 along had of ruthlessly pressing on to something ; 
 her face now was as if it were frozen in suffer- 
 ing, as if it had somehow stiffened in that moment 
 of woe when Edith's face was drawn from her 
 sight. And she looked so tired! — so spent, so 
 miserable; as if she ought to be cared for, com- 
 forted. He took her arm, protectingly, yearn- 
 ingly. He longed so in that moment to keep Ruth, 
 and care for her! He wanted to say things, but 
 he seemed to be struck dumb, appalled by what it 
 was they were about to do. He held her arm close 
 to him. She was going away ! Now that the mo- 
 ment had come he did not know how he was going 
 to let her go. And looking like this ! — suffering 
 like this — ^needing help. 
 
 But he must not fail her now at the last ; he must 
 not fail her now when she herself was so worn, 
 so wretched, was bearing so much. As they 
 turned in at the gate he fought with all his 
 strength against the thought that they would not 
 be turning in at that gate any more and spoke in 
 matter of fact tones of where he would be waiting 
 for her, what time she must be there. But when 
 
120 FIDELITY 
 
 they reached the steps they stood there for a 
 minute under the big tree, there where they had so 
 many times stood through a number of years. As 
 they stood there things crowded upon them hard ; 
 Euth raised her face and looked at Jiim and at the 
 anguish of her swimming eyes his hands went out 
 to her arms. "Don't go, Euth!" he whispered 
 brokenly. "Euth!— ion 'i^o.'" 
 
 But that made htsr instantly find herself, that 
 found the fight in her, to strengthen herself, to 
 resist him ; she was at once erect, indomitable, the 
 purpose that no misery could shake gleamed 
 through her wet eyes. Then she tui;ned and went 
 into the ,house. Her mother called out to her, 
 sleepily a'sking if she could get out of her dress 
 by herself. She answered yes, and then Mrs. 
 Holland asked another sleepy question about 
 Edith. Then the house was still; she knew that 
 they were all asleep. She got her dress off and 
 hung it carefully in the closet. She had already 
 put some things in her bag ; she put in a few more 
 now, all the while sobbing under her breath. 
 
 She took off her slippers. After she had done 
 that she stood looking at her bed. She saw her 
 nightgown hanging in the closet. She wanted to 
 put on her nightgown and get into bed! She 
 leaned against the bed, crying. She wanted to put 
 on her nightgown and get into bed 1 She was so 
 tired, so frightened, so worn with pain. Then she 
 shook herself, steeled again, and b^gan putting on 
 
FIDELITY 121 
 
 her shoes; put on her suit, her hat, got out her 
 gloves. And then at the very last she had to do 
 what she had heen trying to make herself do all 
 that day, and had not dared begin to do. She 
 went to her desk and holding herself tight, very 
 rapidly, though with shaking hand, wrote this 
 note: 
 
 "Dear Mother; I'm goiag away. I love Stu- 
 art Williams. I have for a long time. Oh, 
 mother — I'm so sorry — ^but I can't help it. He's 
 sick. He has to go away, so you see I have to 
 go with him. It's terrible that it is like this. 
 Mother, try to believe that I can't help it. After 
 I get away I can write to you more about it. I 
 can't now. It will be terrible for you — for you 
 all. Mother, it's been terrible for me. Oh, try 
 not to feel any worse than you can help. People 
 won't blame you. I wish I could help it. I wish 
 — Can't write more now. Write later. I'm so 
 sorry — for everybody. So good to me always. 
 I love all— Euth." 
 
 She put her head down on the desk and cried. 
 Finally she got up and blindly threw the note 
 over on her bed; with difficulty, because of the 
 shaking of her hands, put on her gloves, picked 
 up her bag. And then she stood there for a mo- 
 ment before turning foff the light ; she saw her 
 little chair, her dressing-table. She reached up 
 
122 FIDELITY 
 
 and turned off the light and then for another mo- 
 ment stood there in the darkened room. She 
 listened to the branches of the oak tree tapping 
 against the house. Then she softly opened her 
 bed-room door and carefully closed it behind her. 
 She could hear her father's breathing; then 
 Ted's, as she passed his door. On the stairs she 
 stood still: she wanted to hear Ted's breathing 
 again. But she had already gone where she 
 could not hear Ted's breathing. Her hand on 
 the door, she stood still. There was something 
 so unreal about this, so preposterous — ^not a thing 
 that really happened, that could happen to her. 
 It seemed that in just a minute she would wake 
 up and find herself safe in her bed. But in an- 
 other minute she was leaning against the outside 
 door of her home, crying.. She seemed to have 
 left the Euth Holland she knew behind when she 
 finally walked down the steps and around the cor- 
 ner where Deane was waiting for her. 
 
 They spoke scarcely a word until they saw the 
 headlight of her train. And then she drew back, 
 clinging to him. "Euth!" he whispered, holding 
 her, "don't!" But that seemed to make her 
 know that she must; she straightened, steeled her- 
 self, and moved toward the train. A moment 
 later she was on the platform, looMng down at 
 him. When she tried to smile good-by, he 
 whirled and walked blindly away. 
 
FIDELITY 123 
 
 She did not look from the window as long as the 
 lights of the town were to be seen. She sat there 
 perfectly stiU, hands tight together, head down- 
 For two hours she scarcely moved. Such strange 
 things shot through her mind. Maybe her 
 mother, thinking she was tired, would not go to 
 her room until almost noon. At least she would 
 have her coffee first. Had she remembered to put 
 Edith's handkerchiefs in her bag? Had anyone 
 else noticed that the hook at the waist of Edith's 
 dress had come unfastened? Edith was on a 
 train too— going the other way. How strange it 
 all was! How terrible beyond belief! Just as 
 she neared the junction where she would meet 
 Stuart and from which they would take the train 
 South together, the thought came to her that none 
 of the rest of them might remember always to 
 have water in Terror's drinking pan. When she 
 stepped from the train she was crying — ^because 
 Terror might want a drink and wonder why she 
 was not there to give it to him. He would not un- 
 derstand — and oh, he would miss her so! Even 
 when Stuart, stepping from the darkness to meet 
 her, drew her to him, brokenly whispering pas- 
 sionate, grateful words, she could not stop crying 
 — ^f or Terror, who would not understand, and who 
 would miss her so 1 He became the whole world 
 she knew — loving, needing world, world that 
 would not understand, and would miss her so I 
 
124 FIDELITY 
 
 The woman who, on that train from Denver, 
 had been drawn into this story which she had once 
 lived was coming now into familiar country. She 
 would be home withia an hour. She had some- 
 times ridden this far with Deane on his cases. 
 Her heart began to beat fast. Why, there was the 
 very grove in which they had that picnic! She 
 could scarcely control the excitement she felt in 
 beginning to find old things. There was some- 
 thing so strange in the old things having remained 
 there just the same when she had passed so com- 
 pletely away from them. Seeing things she knew 
 brought the past back with a shock. She could 
 hardly get her breath when first she saw the town. 
 And there was the Lawrences' ! Somehow it was 
 unbelievable. She did not hear the porter speak- 
 ing to her about being brushed off ; she was peer- 
 ing hungrily from the window, looking through 
 tears at the town she had not seen since she left 
 it that awful night eleven years before. She was 
 trembling as she stood on the platform waiting 
 for the slowing train to come to a stop. There 
 was a moment of wanting to run back in the car, 
 of feeling she could not get off. 
 
 The train had stopped; the porter took her by 
 the arm, thinking by her faltering that she was 
 slipping. She took her bag from him and stood 
 there, turned a little away from the station crowd. 
 
 Ted Holland had been waiting for that train^ 
 he also with fast beating heart; he too was a lit- 
 
FIDELITY 125 
 
 tie tremulous as he hurried down to the car, far 
 in the rear, from which passengers were alighting 
 from the long train. He scanned the faces of the 
 people who began passing him. No, none of them 
 was Euth. His picture of Euth was clear, though 
 he had not seen her for eleven years. She would 
 be looking about in that eager way — ^that swift, 
 bright way ; when she saw him there would be that 
 glad nodding of her head, her face all lighting up. 
 Though of course, he told himself, she would be 
 older, probably a little more— well, dignified. 
 The romance that secretly hung about Euth for 
 him made him picture her as unlike other women; 
 there would be something different about her, he 
 felt. 
 
 The woman standing there half turned from 
 him was oddly familiar. She was someone he 
 knew, and somehow she agitated him. He did not 
 tell himself that that was Euth — but after seeing 
 her he was not looking at anyone else for Euth. 
 This woman was not "stylish looking." She did 
 not have the smart look of most of the girls of 
 Euth's old crowd. He had told himself that Euth 
 would be older — and yet it was not a woman he 
 had pictured, or rather, it was a woman who had 
 given all for love, not a woman who looked as if 
 she had done just the things of women. This 
 woman stooped a little ; care, rather than romance, 
 had put its mark upon her ; instead of the secretly 
 expected glamour of those years of love there had 
 
126 FIDELITY 
 
 been a certain settling of time. He knew before 
 he acknowledged it that it was Euth, knew it by 
 the way this woman made him feel. He came 
 nearer; she had timidly — ^not with the expected 
 old swiftness — started in the direction he wag 
 coming. She saw him — ^knew him — and in that 
 rush of feeling which transformed her anything of 
 secret disappointment was swept from him. 
 
 He kissed her, as sheepishly as a brother would 
 any sister, and was soon covering his emotion 
 with a practical request for her trunk check. But 
 as they walked away the boy's heart was strangely 
 warmed. Euth was back ! 
 
 As to Euth, she did not speak. She could not. 
 
CHAPTER THIRTEEN 
 
 It was the afternoon of Ruth Holland's return 
 to Freeport that Edith Lawrence — ^now Edith 
 Lawrence Blair — ^was giving the tea for Deane 
 Franklin's bride and for Cora Albright, introduc- 
 ing Amy to the society of the town and giving 
 Cora another opportunity for meeting old friends. 
 "You see Cora was of our old crowd," Edith was 
 laughingly saying to one of the older women in in- 
 troducing her two guests of honor, "and Amy has 
 married into it." She turned to Amy with a 
 warm little smile and nod, as if wanting to assure 
 her again that they did look upon her as one of 
 them. 
 
 They had indeed given her that sense of being 
 made one of them. Their quick, warm acceptance 
 of her made them seem a wonderfully kindly peo- 
 ple. Her heart warmed to them because of this 
 going out to her, a stranger. That informality 
 and friendliness which in a society like theirs pre- 
 vails well within the bounds made them seem to 
 her a people of real warmth. She was pleased 
 with the thought of living among them, being one 
 of them ; gratified, not only in the way they seemed 
 to like her, but by the place they gave her. There 
 were happy little anticipations of the life just 
 
 127 
 
128 FIDELITY 
 
 opening up. She was fluslied with pleasure and 
 gratification. 
 
 She was seeing the society of the town at its best 
 that afternoon; the women who constituted that 
 society were there, and at their best. For some 
 reason they always were at their best at the Law- 
 rences', as if living up to the house itself, which 
 was not only one of the most imposing of the homes 
 of that rich little middle-western city, but had an 
 atmosphere which other houses, outwardly equally 
 attractive, lacked. Mrs. Lawrence had taste and 
 hospitality; the two qualities breathed through her 
 house. She and Edith were Freeport's most suc- 
 cessful hostesses. The society of that town was 
 like the particular thing known as society in other 
 towns ; not distinguished by any unique thing so 
 much as by its likeness to the thing in general. 
 Anfy, knowing society in other places, in a larger 
 place, was a little surprised and much pleased at 
 what she recognized. 
 
 And she felt that people were liking her, admir- 
 ing her, and that always put her at her best. 
 Sometimes Amy's poise, rare in one so young, 
 made her seem aloof, not cordial, and she had not 
 been one to make friends quickly. Edith's friend- 
 liness had broken through that; she talked more 
 than was usual with her — ^was gayer, more 
 friendly. * ' You 're making a great hit, my dear, ' ' 
 Edith whispered to her gayly, and Amy flushed 
 
FIDELITY 129 
 
 with pleasure. People about the room were talk- 
 ing of how charming she was; of there being 
 something unusual in that combination of girlish- 
 ness and — they called it distinction ; had Amy been 
 in different mood they might have spoken of it less 
 sympathetically as an apparent feeling of superi- 
 ority. But she felt that she was with what she 
 called her own sort, and she was warmed in grati- 
 fication by the place given herself. 
 
 She was gayly telling a little group of an amus- 
 ing thing that had happened at her wedding when 
 she overheard someone saying to Edith, by whom 
 she was standing: "Yes, on the two o'clock train. 
 I was down to see Helen off, and saw her myself — 
 walking away with Ted." 
 
 Amy noticed that the other women, who also had 
 overheard, were only politely appearing to be list- 
 ening to her now, and were really discreetly trying 
 to hear what these two were saying. She brought 
 her story to a close. 
 
 "You mean Euth Holland?" one of the women 
 asked, and the two groups became one. 
 
 Amy drew herself up; her head went a little 
 higher, her lips tightened; then, conscious of that, 
 she relaxed and stood a little apart, seeming only 
 to be courteously listening to a thing in which she 
 had no part. They talked in lowered tones of how 
 strange it seemed to feel Euth was back in that 
 town. They had a different maimer now — a sort 
 
130 FIDELITY. 
 
 of carefully restrained avidity. "How does slie 
 look?" one of the women asked in that lowered 
 tone. 
 
 "Well," said the woman who had heen at the 
 train, "she hasn't kept herself up. Eeally, I was 
 surprised. You'd think a woman in her position 
 would make a particular effort to — to make the 
 most of herself, now, wouldn't you? What else 
 has she to go on? But really, she wasn't at all 
 good style, and sort of — oh, as if she had let 
 herself go, I thought. Though," — she turned 
 to Edith iu saying this — "there's that same old 
 thing about her ; I saw her smile up at Ted as they 
 walked away — and she seemed all different then. 
 You know how it always used to be with Euth — so 
 different from one minute to another." 
 
 Edith turned away, rather abruptly, and joiaed 
 another group. Amy could not make out her 
 look; it seemed — ^why it seemed pain; as if it hurt 
 her to hear what they were saying. Could it be 
 that she still cared? — after the way she had been 
 treated? That seemed impossible, even in one 
 who had the sweet nature Mrs. Blair certainly 
 had. 
 
 While the women about her were still talking of 
 Euth HoUaud, Amy saw Stuart Williams' wife 
 come out of the dining room and stand there alone 
 for a min ute looking about the room. It gave her 
 a shock. The whole thing seemed so terrible, so 
 fascinatingly terrible. And it seemed unreal; as 
 
FIDELITY 131 
 
 a thing one might read or hear about, but not the 
 sort of thing one's own life would come anywhere 
 near. Mrs. Williams' eyes rested on their little 
 group and Amy had a feeling that somehow she 
 knew what they were talking about. As her eyes 
 followed the other woman's about the room she 
 saw that there were several groups in which people 
 were drawn a little closer together and appeared 
 to be speaking a little more intimately than was 
 usual upon such an occasion. She felt that Mrs. 
 Williams' face became more impassiye. A mo- 
 ment later she had come over to Amy and was 
 holding out her hand. There seemed to Amy 
 something very brave about her, dignified, fine, in 
 the way she went right on, bearing it, holding her 
 own place, keeping silence. She watched her leave 
 the room with a new sense of outrage against that 
 terrible woman^ — ^that woman Deane stood up for ! 
 The resentment which in the past week she had 
 been trying to put down leaped to new life. 
 
 The women around her resumed their talk: of 
 Mrs. Williams, the Holland family, of the night of 
 Edith's wedding when — ^in that very house — Euth 
 Holland had been there up to the very last minute, 
 taking her place with the rest of them. They 
 spoke of her betrayal of Edith, her deception of all 
 her friends, of how she was the very last girl in 
 the world they would have believed it of. 
 
 A little later, when she and Edith were talking 
 with some other guests, Euth Holland was men- 
 
132 FIDELITY 
 
 tioned again. "I don't want to talk of Euth," 
 Edith said that time; "I'd rather not." There 
 was a catch in her voice and one of the women im- 
 pulsively touched her arm. ''It was so terrible 
 for you, dear Edith," she murmured. 
 
 "Sometimes," said Edith, "it comes home to me 
 that it was pretty terrible for Euth." Again she 
 turned away, leaving an instant's pause behind 
 her. Then one of the women said, "I think it's 
 simply wonderful that Edith can have anything 
 but bitterness in her heart for Euth Holland! 
 Why there's not another person in town — oh, ex- 
 cept Deane Franklin, of course — " 
 
 She caught herself, reddened, then turned to 
 Amy with a quick' smile. "And it's just his sym- 
 pathetic nature, isn't it? That's exactly Deane — 
 taking the part of one who's down." 
 
 "And then, too, men fee! differently about those 
 things," murmured another one of the young ma- 
 trons of Deane's crowd. 
 
 Their manner of seeming anxious to smooth 
 something over, to get out of a difficult situation, 
 enraged Amy, not so much against them as because 
 of there being something that needed smoothing 
 over, because Deane had put himself and her in a 
 situation that was difficult. How did it look? — 
 what must people think? — ^his standing up for a 
 woman the whole town had turned against ! But 
 she was saying with what seemed a sweet gravity, 
 "I'm sure Deane would be sorry for any woman 
 
FIDELITY 133 
 
 who had been so — unfortunate. And she," she 
 added bravely, "was a dear old friend, was she 
 not?" 
 
 The woman who had commiserated with Edith 
 now nodded approval at Amy. ' ' You 're sweet, my 
 dear," she said, and the benign looks of them all 
 made her feel there was something for her to be 
 magnanimous about, something queer. Her re- 
 sentment intensified because of having to give that 
 impression of a sweet spirit. And so people talked 
 about Deane's standing up for this Euth Holland! 
 Why did they talk? — just what did they say? 
 "There's more to it than I know," suspicion 
 whispered. In that last half hour it was hard to 
 appear gracious and interested ; she saw a number 
 of those little groups in which voices were low and 
 faces were trying not to appear eager. 
 
 She wished she knew what they were saying ; she 
 had an intense desire to hear more about this thing 
 which she so resented, which was so roiling to her. 
 It fascinated as well as galled her ; she wanted to 
 know just how this Euth Holland looked, how she 
 had looked that night of the wedding, what she had 
 said and done. The fact of being in the very house 
 where Euth Holland had been that last night she 
 was with her friends seemed to bring close some- 
 thing mysterious, terrible, stirring imagination 
 and curiosity. Had she been with Deane that 
 night? Had he taken her to the wedding? — taken 
 her home? She hardened to him in the thought of 
 
134 FIDELITY 
 
 there being this thing she did not know about. It 
 began to seem he had done her a great wrong in not 
 preparing her for a thing that could bring her em- 
 barrassment. Everyone else knew about it! 
 Coming there a bride, and the very first thing en- 
 countering something awkward! She persuaded 
 herself that her pleasure in this party, in this 
 opening up of her life there, was spoiled, that 
 Deane had spoiled it. And she tormented herself 
 with a hundred little wonderings. 
 
 She and Cora Albright went home together in 
 Edith's brougham. Cora was full of talk of Euth 
 Holland, this, new development, Euth's return, 
 stirring it all up again for her. Amy's few dis- 
 creet questions brought forth a great deal that 
 she wanted to know. Cora had a worldly manner, 
 and that vague sympathy with evil that poetizes 
 one's self without doing anything so definite as 
 condoning, or helping, the sinner. 
 
 "I do think," she said, with a little shrug, "that 
 the town has been pretty hard about it. But then 
 you know what these middle- western towns are." 
 Amy, at this appeal to her sophistication, gravely 
 'nodded. "I do feel sorry for Euth," Cora added 
 in a more personal tone. 
 
 "Will you go to see her?" Amy asked, rather 
 pointedly. 
 
 "Oh, I couldn't do that," replied Cora. "My 
 family — ^you know, — or perhaps you don't know, 
 I'm related to Mrs. Williams," she laughed. 
 
FIDELITY 135 
 
 "Oil I" Amy ejaculated, aghast, and newly fas- 
 cinated by the horror, what somehow seemed the 
 impossibleness of the whole thing — that she should 
 be talking of Euth Holland to a woman related to 
 Mrs. "Williams ! 
 
 "I suppose she felt terribly," Amy murmured. 
 
 Cora laughed a little. "Oh, I don't know. It 
 never seemed to me that Marion would do much 
 feeling. Feeling is so — ruffling." 
 
 "She looks," said Amy, a little aggressively, 
 "as though she might not show all she feels." 
 
 "Oh, I suppose not," Cora agreed pleasantly. 
 "Perhaps I do Marion an injustice. She may 
 have suffered in silence. Certainly she's kept si- 
 lence. Truth is, I never liked her so very well. I 
 like Euth much the better of the two. I like 
 warmth — feeling. ' ' 
 
 She was leaning forward and looking from the 
 window. "That's the Hollands'," she said. 
 And under her breath, compassionately, she mur- 
 mured, "Poor Euth!" 
 
 "I should think you would go and see her," said 
 Amy, curiously resentful of this feeling. 
 
 With a little sigh Cora leaned back in the lux- 
 urious corner. "We're not free to do what we 
 might like to do in this life," she said, looking 
 gravely at Amy and speaking as one actuated by 
 something larger than personal feeling. "Too 
 many people are associated with me for me to go 
 and see Euth — as, for my own part, I'd gladly do. 
 
136 FIDELITY 
 
 You see it's even closer than being related to 
 Marion. Cyrus Holland, — ^Ruth's brother — ^mar- 
 ried into my family too. Funny, isn't it?" she 
 laughed at Amy's stare. "Yes, Cyrus Holland 
 married a second cousin of Stuart Williams' 
 ■wife." 
 
 "Why — " gasped Amy, "it's positively weird, 
 isn't it?" 
 
 "Things are pretty much mixed up in this 
 world," Cora went on, speaking with that good- 
 natured sophistication which appealed to Amy as 
 worldly. "I think one reason Cy was so bitter 
 against Euth, and kept the whole family so, was 
 the way it broke into his own plans. He was in 
 love with Louise at the time Euth left; of course 
 all her kith and kui — ^being also Marion's — ^were 
 determined she should not marry a Holland. Cy 
 thought he had lost her, but after a time, as long 
 as no one was quite so bitter against Euth as he, 
 the opposition broke down a little — enough for 
 Louise to ride over it. Oh, yes, in these small 
 towns everybody's somehow mixed up with every- 
 one else," she laughed. "And of course," she 
 went on more gravely, "that is where it is hard to 
 answer the people who seem so hard about Euth. 
 It isn't just one's self, or even just one's family 
 — though it broke them pretty completely, you 
 know; but a thing like that reaches out into so 
 many places — hurts so many lives. ' ' 
 
 "Yes," said Amy, "it does." She was think- 
 
FIDELITY 137 
 
 ing of her own life, of how it was clouding her 
 happiness. 
 
 "One has to admit," said Cora, in the tone of 
 summing it all up, "that just taking one's own 
 happiness is thorough selfishness. Society as a 
 whole is greater than the individual, isn't it?" 
 
 That seemed to Amy the heart of it. She felt 
 herself as one within society, herself faithful to 
 it and guarding it against all who would do it 
 harm; hard to the traitor, not because of any per- 
 sonal feeling — she wished to make that clear to 
 herself — ^but because society as a whole demanded 
 that hardness. After she had bade Cora good-by 
 and as she was about to open the door of the house 
 Dearie had prepared for her, she told herself that 
 it was a matter of taking the larger view. She 
 was pleased with the phrase; it seemed to clear 
 her own feeling of any possible charge of small- 
 ness. 
 
CHAPTER FOURTEEN 
 
 Despite tlie fact that lie knew he was going to be 
 late getting home for dinner, Dr. Franklin was 
 sending his car very slowly along the twelve-mile 
 stretch of road that lay between him and home. 
 This was not so much because it was beautiful 
 country through which he went, and the spring 
 freshness in the softness of late afternoon was 
 grateful to him, nor because too tired for any kind 
 of hurrying, as it was that he did not want to 
 cover those twelve miles before he had thought 
 out what he was going to say to Amy. 
 
 He had seen Ruth that afternoon. He went, as 
 usual, to see her father, and as he entered the 
 room Ruth was sitting beside the bed. She sat 
 with her back to him and did not seem to know at 
 once that he was there. She was bending for- 
 ward, elbow on her knee, hand to her face, looking 
 at her father who was asleep, or, rather, in that 
 stupor with which death reaches out into life, 
 through which the living are drawn to the dead. 
 She was sitting very still, intent, as she watched 
 the man whom life was letting go. 
 
 He had not seen Ruth since that night, eleven 
 years before, when she clung to him as she saw 
 the headlight of her train, then turned from him 
 
 138 
 
FIDELITY 139 
 
 to the car that was to carry her away from the 
 whole world she knew. It had seemed that the 
 best of life was pulling away from him as he heard 
 her train pull out. He fairly ran away from the 
 sound of it ; not alone because it was taking Euth 
 out of his own life, but because it was bearing her 
 to a country where the way would be too hard. 
 
 He knew that that way had been hard, that the 
 years had not spared her; and yet there had been 
 a little shock when he saw Euth that afternoon; 
 he knew now that his fears for her had rather 
 given themselves a color of romance. She looked 
 worn, as if she had worked, and, just at first, be- 
 fore she saw him, she looked older than it would 
 seem that number of years should make her. 
 
 But when she heard him and turned, coming 
 to him with outstretched hand, it was as it used 
 to be--feeling illumining, transforming her. She 
 was the old flaming Euth then, the years "that 
 lined her defied. Her eyes — ^it was like a steady 
 light shining through trembling waters. No one 
 else ever gave him that impression Euth did of a 
 certain deep steadiness through changing feeling. 
 He had thought he remembered just how wonder- 
 ful Euth's eyes were — ^how feeling flamed in them 
 and that steady understanding looked through 
 from her to him — ^that bridge between separate- 
 ness. But they were newly wonderful to him, — 
 so live, so tender, so potent. 
 
 She had been very quiet ; thinking back to it, he 
 
140 FIDELITY 
 
 pondered that. It seemed not alone tlie quiet that 
 comes with the acceptance of death, the quiet that 
 is the subduing effect of strange or moving cir- 
 cumstances, but an inner quiet, a quiet of power. 
 The years had taken something from Euth, but 
 Euth had won much from them. She was worn, 
 a little dimmed, but deepened. A tragedy queen 
 she was not; he had a little smile for himself for 
 that subconscious romantic expectation that gave 
 him, just at the first, a little shock of disappoint- 
 ment when he saw Euth. A tragedy queen would 
 hold herself more imposingly — and would have 
 taken better care of her hands. But that moment 
 of a lighted way between Euth and him could let 
 him afford to smile at disappointed romantic ex- 
 pectation. 
 
 He had been there for only a few minutes, hav- 
 ing the long trip out in the country to make. Euth 
 and Ted seemed to be alone in the house. He 
 asked her if she had seen Harriett, and she an- 
 swered, simply, "Not yet." 
 
 She had said, "You're married, Deane — and 
 happy. I'm so glad." That, too, she had said 
 very simply; it was real; direct. As he thought 
 of it now it was as if life had simplified her; she 
 had let slip from her, like useless garments, all 
 those blurring artificialities that keep people 
 apart. 
 
 As usual he would go over again that evening 
 to see his patient ; and then he would remain for 
 
FIDELITY 141 
 
 a visit with Euth. And he wanted to take Amy 
 with Mm. He would not let himself realize just 
 how much he wanted to do that, how much he 
 would hate not doing it. He was thiakiag it out, 
 trying to arrive at the best way of putting it to 
 Amy. If only he could make it seem to her the 
 simple thing it was to him ! 
 
 He would be so happy to do this for Euth, but 
 it was more than that; it was that he wanted to 
 bring Amy within — ^within that feeling of his 
 about Euth. He wanted her to share in that. He 
 could not bear to leave it a thing from which she 
 was apart, to which she was hostile. He could 
 not have said just why he felt it so important Amy 
 become a part of what he felt about Euth. 
 
 When at last they were together over their un- 
 usually late dinner the thing he wanted to say 
 seemed to grow more difficult because Amy was 
 so much dressed up. In her gown of that after- 
 noon she looked so much the society person that 
 what he had in mind somehow grew less simple. 
 And there was that in her manner too — ^like her 
 clothes it seemed a society manner — to make it 
 less easy to attempt to take her into things outside 
 the conventional round of life. He felt a little 
 helpless before this self-contained, lovely young 
 person. She did not seem easy to get at. Some- 
 how she seemed to be apart from him. There was 
 a real wistfulness in his desire to take her into 
 what to him were things real and important. It 
 
142 FIDELITY 
 
 seemed if he could not do that now that Amy 
 would always be a little apart fisom him. 
 
 Her talk was of the tea that afternoon : who was 
 there, what they wore, what they had said to her, 
 how the house looked ; how lovely Mrs. Lawrence 
 and Edith were. 
 
 What he was thinking was that it was Euth's 
 old crowd had assembled there — at Edith's house 
 — to be gracious to Amy that afternoon. She 
 mentioned this name and that — girls Euth had 
 grown up with, girls who had known her so well, 
 and cared for her. And Euth? Had they spoken 
 of her? Did they know she was home? If they 
 did, did it leave them all unmoved? He thought 
 of the easy, pleasant way life had gone with most 
 of those old friends of Euth's. Had they neither 
 the imagination nor the heart to go out in the 
 thought of the different thing it had been to her? 
 
 He supposed not; certainly they had given no 
 evidence of any such disposition. It hardened him 
 against them. He hated the thought of the gay 
 tea given for Amy that afternoon when Euth, just 
 back after all those years away, was home alone 
 with her father, who was dying. Amy they were 
 taking in so graciously — ^because things had gone 
 right with her; Euth, whom they knew, who had 
 been one of them, they left completely out. There 
 flamed up a desire to take Amy with him, as 
 against them, to show them that she was sweeter 
 and larger than they, that she understood and put 
 
FIDELITY 143 
 
 no false value on a cordiality that left the heart 
 hard. 
 
 But Amy looked so much one of them, seemed 
 so much one with them in her talk about them, that 
 he put off what he wanted to say, listening to her. 
 And yet, he assured himself, that was not the 
 whole of Amy; he softened and took heart in the 
 thought of her tenderness in moments of love, her 
 sweetness when the world fell away and they were 
 man and woman to each other. Those real things 
 were stronger in her than this crust of worldli- 
 ness. He would reach through that to the life 
 that glowed behind it. If he only had the skill, 
 the understanding, to reach through that crust to 
 the life within, to that which was real, she would 
 understand that the very thing bringing them 
 their happiness was the thing which in Euth put 
 her apart from her friends ; she would be larger, 
 more tender, than those others. He wanted that 
 triumph for her over them. He would glory in it 
 so ! There would be such pride in showing Amy 
 to Ruth as a woman who was real. And most of 
 all, because it was a thing so deep in his own life, 
 he wanted Amy to come within, to know from 
 within, his feeling about Ruth. 
 
 "You know, dear, that was Ruth's old crowd 
 you were meeting this afternoon," he finally said. 
 
 He saw her instantly stiffen. Her mouth looked 
 actually hard. That, he quickly told himself, was 
 what those people had done to her. 
 
144 FIDELITY 
 
 "And that house," lie went on, Ms voice remain- 
 ing quiet, "was like another home to Ruth." 
 
 Amy cleared her throat. "She didn't make a 
 very good return for the hospitality, do you 
 think?" sh« asked sharply. 
 
 Flushing, he started to reply to that, but in- 
 stead asked abruptly, "Does Edith know that 
 Euth is home?" 
 
 "Yes," Amy replied coldly, "they were speak- 
 ing of her. ' ' 
 
 "Speaking of her!" he scoffed. 
 
 "I suppose ifou would think," she flamed, "that 
 they ought to have met her at the train ! ' ' 
 
 "The idea doesn't seem to me preposterous," 
 he answered. 
 
 Feeling the coldness in his own voice he realized 
 how he was at the very start getting away from 
 the thing he wanted to do, was estranging Amy by 
 his resentment of her feeling about a thing she 
 did not understand. After all — as before, he 
 quickly made this excuse for her — ^what more 
 natural than that she should take on the feeling 
 of these people she was thrown with, particularly 
 when they were so very kindly in their reception 
 of her? 
 
 "Dear," he began again, "I saw Ruth this aft- 
 ernoon. She seems so alone there. She's gone 
 through such — such hard things. It's a pretty 
 sad home-coming for her. I'm going over there 
 
FIDELITY 145 
 
 again tMs evening, and, Amy dear, I do so want 
 you to go with, me." 
 
 Amy did not reply. He had not looked at her 
 after he began speaking— not wanting to lose 
 either his courage or his temper in seeing that 
 stiffening in her. He did not look at her now, 
 even though she did not speak. 
 
 ' ' I want you to go, Amy. I ask you to. I want 
 it — you don't know how much. I'm terribly sorry 
 for Euth. I knew her very well, we were very 
 close friends. Now that she is here, and in 
 trouble — and so lonely — ^I want to take my wife to 
 see her." 
 
 As even then she remained silent, he turned to 
 her. She sat very straight; red spots burned in 
 her cheeks and there was a light in her eyes he 
 had never seen there before. She pushed back 
 her chair excitedly. "And may I ask," — ^her 
 voice was high, tight, — "if you see nothing insult- 
 ing to your wife in this — ^proposal?" 
 
 For an instant he just stared at her. "Insult- 
 ing?" he faltered. "I— I—" He stopped, help- 
 less, and helplessly sat looking at her, sitting 
 erect, breathing fast, face and eyes aflame with 
 anger. And in that moment something in his 
 heart fell back ; a desire that had been dear to him, 
 a thing that had seemed ^o beautiful and so neces- 
 sary, somehow just crept back where it could not 
 be so much hurt. At the sight of her, hard, scorn- 
 
146 FIDELITY 
 
 ful, so sure in her hardness, that high desire of his 
 love that she share his feeling fell hack. And 
 then to his disappointment was added anger for 
 Euth; through the years anger against so many 
 people had leaped up in him because of their hard- 
 ness to Euth, that, as if of itself, it leaped up 
 against Amy now. 
 
 "No," he said, his voice hard now too, "I 
 must say I see nothing insulting in asking you to 
 go with me to see Euth Holland ! ' ' 
 
 "Oh, you don't!" she cried. "A woman liv- 
 ing with another woman's husband! Why, this 
 very afternoon I was with the wife of the man 
 that woman is living with! — she is the woman I 
 would meet,! And you can ask me — ^your wife — to 
 go and see a woman who turned her back on so- 
 ciety — on decency — a woman her own family cast 
 out, and all decent people turn away from." She 
 paused, struggling, unable to keep her dignity and 
 yet say the things rushing up to be said. 
 
 He had grown red, as he always did when 
 people talked that way about Euth. ' * Of course, ' ' 
 — ^he made himself say it quietly — ^"she isn't those 
 things to me, you know. She's — quite other 
 things to me." 
 
 "I'd like to know what she is to you!" Amy 
 cried. "It's very strange — ^your standing up for 
 her against the whole town!" 
 
 He did not reply; it was impossible to tell Amy, 
 
FIDELITY 147 
 
 when she was like this, what Euth had been — was 
 — to him. 
 
 She looked at him as he sat there silent. And 
 this was the man she had married! — a man who 
 could treat her like this, asking her to go and see a 
 woman who wasn't respectable — ^why, who was as 
 far from respectable as a woman could be I This 
 was the man for whom she had left her mother 
 and fathe:^ — and a home better than this home cer- 
 tainly, — ^yes, and that other man who had wanted 
 her and who had so much more to offer! He re- 
 spected her. He would never ask her to go and 
 see a woman who wasn't decent! But she had 
 married for love; had given up all those other 
 things that she might have love. And now. . . . 
 Her throat tightened and it was hard to hold back 
 tears. And then suddenly she wanted to go over 
 to Deane, slip down beside him, put her arms 
 around him, tell him that she loved him and ask 
 him to please tell her that he loved her. But 
 there was so strange an expression on his face; it 
 checked that warm, loving impulse, holding her 
 where she was, hard. What was he thinking 
 about — that woman? He had so strange a look. 
 She did not believe it had anything to do with her. 
 No, he had forgotten her. It was this other 
 woman. Why, he was in, love with her — of 
 course ! He had always been in love with her. 
 
 Because it seemed the idea would break her 
 
148 FIDELITY 
 
 heart, because slie could not bear it, it was scof- 
 fingly that sbe threw out: "You were in love 
 with her, I suppose? You've always been in love 
 with her, haven't you,?" 
 
 "Yes, Amy," he answered, "I was in love with 
 Euth. I loved her — at any rate, I sorrowed for 
 her — until the day I met you." 
 
 His voice was slow and sad; the whole sadness 
 of it all, all the sadness of a world in which men 
 and women loved and hurt each other seemed clos- 
 ing ia around him. He did not seem able to rise 
 out of it, to go out to her; it was as if his new dis- 
 appointment brought back all the hurt of old ones. 
 
 Young, all inexperienced in the ways of adjust- 
 ing love to life, of saving it for life, the love in 
 her tried to shoot through the self-love that closed 
 her in, holding her tight. She wanted to follow 
 that impulse, go over and put her arms around her 
 husband, let her kisses drive away that look of 
 sadness. She knew that she could do it, that she 
 ought to do it, that she would be sorry for not hav- 
 ing done it, but— ^she couldn't. Love did not know 
 how to fight its way through pride. 
 
 He had risen. "I must go. I have a number 
 of calls to make. I — ^I'm soriy you feel as you do, 
 Amy." 
 
 He was not going to explain! He was just 
 leaving her outside it all! He didn't care for her, 
 really, at all — just took her because he couldn't 
 get that other woman ! Took her — ^Amy Forrester 
 
FIDELITY 149 
 
 — ^because he couldn't get the woman he wanted! 
 Great bands of incensed pride bound her heart 
 now, closing in the love that had fluttered there. 
 Her face, twisted with varying emotions, was 
 fairly ugly as she cried: "Well, I must say, I wish 
 you had told me this before we were married!" 
 
 He looked at her in surprise. Then, surprised 
 anew, looked quickly away. Feeling that he had 
 failed, he tried to put it aside lightly. "Oh, come 
 now. Amy, you didn't think, did you, that you 
 could marry a man of thirty-four who had never 
 loved any woman?" 
 
 "I should like to think he had loved a respect- 
 able woman!" she cried, wounded anew by this 
 lightness, unable to hold back things she miserably 
 knew she would be sorry she had not held back. 
 "And if he had loved that kind of a woman — did 
 love her — I should like to think he had too much 
 respect for his wife to ask her to meet such a 
 person!" 
 
 "Euth Holland is not a woman to speak like that 
 about. Amy," he said with unconcealed anger. 
 
 "She's not a decent woman! She's not a re- 
 spectable woman! She's a bad woman! She's a 
 low woman!" 
 
 She could not hold it back. She knew she 
 looked unlovely, knew she was saying things that 
 would not make her loved. She could not help it. 
 Deane turned away from her. After a minute he 
 got a little control of himself and instead of the 
 
150 FIDELITY 
 
 hot things that had flashed up, said coldly: "I 
 don't think you know what you're talking about." 
 
 "Of course I couldn't hope to know as much as 
 she does," she jeered. "However," she went on, 
 with more of a semblance of dignity, "I do know a 
 few things. I know that society cannot counte- 
 nance a woman who did what that woman did. I 
 know that if a woman is going to selfishly take her 
 own happiness with no thought of others she must 
 expect to find herself outside the lives of decent 
 people. Society must protect itself against such 
 persons as she. I know that much — fortunately. ' ' 
 
 Her words fortified her. She, certainly, was in 
 the right. She felt that she had behind her all 
 those women of that afternoon. Did any of them 
 receive Euth Holland? Did they not all see that 
 society must close in against the individual who 
 defied it? She felt supported. 
 
 For the minute he stood there looking at her— 
 so absolutely unyielding, so satisfied in her conclu- 
 sions, — ^those same things about society and the 
 individual that he had heard from the rest of 
 them; like the rest of them so satisfied with the 
 law she had laid down — ^law justifying hardness 
 of heart and closing in against the sorrow of a 
 particular human life ; from Amy now that same 
 look, those same words. For a little time he did 
 not speak. " I 'm awfully sorry, Amy, ' ' was all he 
 said then. 
 
FIDELITY 151 
 
 He stood there in iniserable emlbarrassment. 
 He always kissed her good-by. 
 
 She saw his hesitancy and turned to the other 
 room. "Hadn't you better hurry?" she laughed. 
 "You have so many calls to make — and some of 
 them so important!" 
 
CHAPTER FIFTEEN 
 
 It was quiet that evening in the house of Cyrus 
 Holland; the noises that living makes were muffled 
 hy life's awe of death, even sounds that could not 
 disturb the dying guarded against by the sense 
 of decorum of those living on. Downstairs were 
 people who had come to inquire for the man they 
 knew would not be one of them again. For forty 
 years Cyrus Holland had been a factor in the 
 affairs of the town. He was Freeport's senior 
 banker, the old-fashioned kind of banker, with 
 neither the imagination nor the daring to make of 
 himself a rich man, or of his bank an institution 
 using all the possibilities of its territory. In ven- 
 turing days he remained cautious. His friends 
 said that he was sane — responsible; men of a 
 newer day put it that he was limited, lacking in 
 that boldness which makes the modem man of 
 affairs. He had advised many men and always 
 on the side of safety. No one had grown rich 
 through his suggestions, but more than one had 
 been saved by his counsels. With the expansion 
 of the business of the town newer banks had gone 
 ahead of his, and when they said he was one of the 
 good substantial men of the community they were 
 
 .152 
 
FIDELITY 153 
 
 indicating Ms limitations with Ms virtues. Such.' 
 a man, not a brilliant figure through his lifetime, 
 would be lamented in his passing. They had 
 often said that he failed in using his opportum- 
 ties; what they said now was that he had never 
 abused them — death, as usual, inducing the living 
 to turn the kindly side to the truth about the 
 dying. 
 
 Euth did not go downstairs to see the people 
 who were coming in. Ted was down there, and 
 Flora Copeland, a spinster cousin of the Hollands, 
 who for several years had lived in the house. 
 Once, in passing through the hall, she heard voices 
 which she recognized. She stood there listening 
 to them. It was so strange to hear them ; and so 
 good. She was hungry for voices she knew — old 
 voices. Once there was a pause and her heart 
 beat fast for she got a feeling that maybe they 
 were going to ask for her. But they broke that 
 pause to say goodnight. She had received no 
 message about anyone asHng for her. 
 
 But even though she was not seeing the people 
 who came she felt the added strangeness her pres- 
 ence made in that house wMch had suspended the 
 usual affairs of living in waiting for death. The 
 nurse was one of the girls of the town, of a family 
 Euth knew. She had been only a little girl at the 
 time Euth went away. She was conscious, in the 
 young woman's scrupulously professional manner 
 toward herself, of a covert interest, as in some- 
 
154 FIDELITY 
 
 thing mysterious, forbidden. She could see that 
 to this decorous young person she was a woman 
 out of another world. It hurt her, and it made 
 her a little angry. She wished that this profes- 
 sional, proper young woman, stealing glances as 
 at a forbidden thing, could know the world in 
 which she actually lived. 
 
 And yet it occurred to her that the strain was 
 less great than it would have been at any other 
 time — something about a room of death making 
 the living a little less prone to divide themselves 
 into good and bad, approved and condemned. 
 With the approach of death there are likely to be 
 only two classes — ^the living and the dead. After 
 the first few hours, despite the estranging circum- 
 stances, there did seem to be some sort of a bond 
 between her and this girl who attended her 
 father. 
 
 Euth and Ted and Flora Copeland had had din- 
 ner together. Her Cousin Flora had evidently 
 pondered the difficult question of a manner with 
 Euth and was pursuing it scrupulously. Her plan 
 was clearly indicated in her manner. She would 
 seem to be acting as if nothing had happened and 
 yet at the same time made it plain that she in no 
 sense countenanced the person to whom she was 
 being kind. Her manner was that most dismal of 
 all things — a punctilious kindliness. 
 
 This same Cousin Flora, now an anaemic woman 
 of forty-five, had not always been exclusively con- 
 
FIDELITY 155 
 
 cemed with, propriety. Euth could remember 
 Cousin Flora's love affair, wliioli had so greatly 
 disturbed the members of the family, and which, 
 to save their own pride, they had thwarted. 
 Cousin Flora had had the misfortune to fall in 
 love with a man quite outside the social sphere of 
 the Copelands and the Hollands. He was a young 
 laboring man whom she knew through the social 
 affairs of the church. He had the presumption to 
 fall in love with her. She had not had love be- 
 fore, being less generously endowed in other re- 
 spects than with social position in Freeport. 
 There had been a brief, mad time when Cousin 
 Flora had seemed to find love greater than ex- 
 clusiveness. But the undesirable affair was frus- 
 trated by a family whose democracy did not ex- 
 tend beyond a working together for the good of 
 the Lord, and Cousin Flora was, as Euth remem- 
 bered their saying with satisfaction, saved. Look- 
 ing at her now Euth wondered if there ever came 
 times when she regretted having been saved. 
 
 She tried to make the most of all those little 
 things that came into her mind just because this 
 homecoming was so desolate a thing to be left 
 alone with. She had many times lived through 
 a homecoming. And when she had thought of 
 coming home she had always, in spite of it all, 
 thought of things as much the same. And now 
 even she and Ted were strange with each other; 
 it was Ted the little boy she knew; it was hard all 
 
156 FIDELITY 
 
 at once to bridge years in whicli they had not 
 shared experiences. 
 
 It was the house itself seemed really to take her 
 in. When she got her first sight of it all the things 
 in between just rolled away. She was back. 
 What moved her first was not that things had 
 changed but that they were so much the same — 
 the gate, the walk up to the house, the big tree, the 
 steps of the porch; as she went up the walk there 
 was the real feeling of coming home. 
 
 Then they stepped up on the porch-^and her 
 mother was not there to open the door for her; 
 she knew then with a poignancy even those first 
 days had not carried that she would never see her 
 mother again, knew as she stepped into the house 
 that her mother was gone. And yet it would keep 
 seeming her mother must be somewhere in that 
 house, that in a little while she would come in the 
 room and tell something about where she had been. 
 And she would find herself listening for her 
 grandfather's slow, uncertain step; and for Ter- 
 ror's bark — one of his wild, glad rushes into the 
 room. Ted said that Terror had been run over 
 by an automobUe a number of years before. 
 
 Nor was it only those whom death kept away 
 who were not there. Her sister Harriett had not 
 been there to welcome her ; now it was evening and 
 she had not yet seen her. Ted had merely said 
 that he guessed Harriett was tired out. He 
 seemed embarrassed about it and had hastily be- 
 
FIDELITY 157 
 
 gun to talk of something else. And none of the 
 old girls had come in to see her. The fact that she 
 had not expected them to come somehow did not 
 much relieve the hurt of their not coming. When 
 a door opened she would find herself listening for 
 Edith's voice; there was no putting down the feel- 
 ing that surely Edith would be running in soon. 
 
 Most of the time she sat by her father's bed; 
 though she was watching him dying, to sit there 
 by him was the closest to comfort she could come. 
 And as she watched the face which already had the 
 look of death there would come pictures of her 
 father at various times through the years. There 
 was that day when she was a tiny girl and he came 
 home bringing her a puppy; she could see his 
 laughing face as he held the soft, wriggling, fuzzy 
 little ball of life up to her, see him standing there 
 enjoying her delight. She saw him as he was one 
 day when she said she was not going to Sunday- 
 school, that she was tired of Sunday-school and 
 was not going any more. She could hear him say- 
 ing, "Euth, go upstairs and put on your clothes 
 for Sunday-school!" — see him as plainly as 
 though it had just happened standing there point- 
 ing a stern finger toward the stairs, not moving 
 until she had started to obey him. And once when 
 she and Edith and some other girls were making 
 a great noise on the porch he had stepped out from 
 the living-room, where he and some men were sit- 
 ting about the table, looking over something, and 
 
158 FIDELITY 
 
 said, mildly, affectionately, "My dears, what 
 T^ould you think of making a little less noise?" 
 Queer things to be remembering, but she saw just 
 how he looked, holding the screen door open as he 
 said it. 
 
 And as she sat there thinking of how she would 
 never hear his voice again, he reached out his hand 
 as if groping for something he wanted ; and when 
 with a little sob she quickly took it he clasped her 
 hand> putting into it a strength that astonished 
 her. He turned toward her after that and the 
 nature of his sleep changed a little; it seemed 
 more natural, as if there were something of peace 
 in it. It was as if he had turned to her, reached 
 out his hand for her, knowing she was there and 
 wanting her. He was too far from life for more, 
 but he had done what he could. Her longing gave 
 the little movement big meaning. Sitting there 
 holding the hand of her father who would never 
 talk to her nor listen to her again, she wanted as 
 she had never wanted before to tell her story. 
 She had been a long time away; she had had a 
 hard time. She wanted to tell him about it, 
 wanted to try and make him understand how it 
 had all happened. She wanted to tell him how 
 homesick she had been and how she had always 
 loved them aU. It seemed if she could just make 
 him know what it was she had felt, and what she 
 had gone through, he would be sorry for her and 
 love her as he used to. 
 
FIDELITY 159 
 
 Someone had come into the room; she did not 
 turn at once, trying to make her blurred eyes clear. 
 When she looked around she saw her sister Har^ 
 riett. Her father had relaxed his hold on her hand 
 and so she rose and turned to her sister. 
 
 "Well, Euth," said Harriett, in an uncertain 
 tone. Then she kissed her. The kiss, too, was un- 
 certain, as if she had not known what to do about 
 it, but had decided in its favor. But she had 
 kissed her. Again that hunger to be taken in 
 made much of little. She stood there struggling 
 to hold back the sobs. If only Harriett would put 
 her arms around her and really kiss her! 
 
 But Harriett continued to stand there uncer- 
 tainly. Then she moved, as if embarrassed. And 
 then she spoke. "Did you have a — comfortable 
 trip?" she asked 
 
 The struggle with sobs was over. Euth took a 
 step back from her sister. It was a perfectly con- 
 trolled voice which answered: "Yes, Harriett, 
 my trip was comfortable — ^thank you." 
 
 Harriett flushed and still stood there uncer- 
 tainly. Then, "Did the town look natural?" she 
 asked, diffidently this time. 
 
 But Euth did not say whether the town had 
 looked natural or not. She had noticed some- 
 thing. In a little while Harriett would have an- 
 other baby. And she had not known about it! 
 Harriett, to be sure, had had other babies and she 
 had not known about it, but somehow to see Har- 
 
160 FIDELITY 
 
 riett, not having kaown it, brought it home hard 
 that she was not one of them any more; she did 
 not know when children were to be bom; she did 
 not know what troubled or what pleased them; 
 did not know how they managed the affairs of liv- 
 ing — ^who their neighbors were — ^their friends. 
 She had not known about Harriett; Harriett did 
 not know about her — ^her longing for a baby, long- 
 ing which circumstances made her sternly deny 
 herself. Unmindful of the hurt of a moment be- 
 fore she now wanted to pour all that out to Har- 
 riett, wanted to talk with her of those deep, com- 
 mon things. 
 
 The nurse had come in the room and was begin- 
 ning some preparations for the night. Harriett 
 was moving toward the door. "Harriett," Euth 
 began timidly, "won't you come in my room a 
 little while and— talk?" 
 
 Harriett hesitated. They were near the top of 
 the stairs and voices could be heard below. "I 
 guess not," she said nervously. "Not to-night," 
 she added hurriedly; "that's Edgar down there. 
 He's waiting for me." 
 
 "Then goodnight," said Euth very quietly, and 
 turned to her room. 
 
 AH day long she had been trying to keep away 
 from her room. * ' Thought probably you'd like to 
 have your old room, Euth," Ted had said in tak- 
 ing her to it. He had added, a little hurriedly, 
 "Guess no one's had it since you left." 
 
FIDELITY 161 
 
 It looked as if it was true enougli no one liad 
 used it since she went out of it that night eleven 
 years before. The same things were there; the 
 bed was ia the same position ; so was her dressing 
 table, and over by the big window that opened to 
 her side porch was the same little low chair she al- 
 ways sat in to pnt on her shoes and stockings. It 
 took her a long way back ; it made old things very 
 strangely real. She sat down in her little chair 
 now and looked over at a picture of the Madonna 
 Edith had once given hfer on her birthday. She 
 could hear people moving about downstairs, hear 
 voices. She had never in her whole life felt as 
 alone. 
 
 And then she grew angry. Harriett had no 
 right to treat her like that ! She had worked ; she 
 had suffered; she had done her best in meeting the 
 hard things of living. She had gone the way of 
 women, met the things women meet. Why, she 
 had done her own washiug! Harriett had no 
 right to treat her as if she were clear outside the 
 common things of life. 
 
 She rose and went to the window and lowering it 
 leaned out. She had grown used to turning from 
 hard things within to the night. There in the 
 South-west, where they slept out of doors, she had 
 come to know the night. Ever since that it had 
 seemed to have something for her, something from 
 which she could draw. And after they had gone 
 through those first years and the fight was not for 
 
162 FIDELITY 
 
 keeping life but for making a place for it in the 
 world, she had many times stepped from a cramp- 
 ing little house full of petty questions she did not 
 know how to deal with, from a hard little routine 
 that threatened their love out to the vast, still 
 night of that Colorado valley and always some- 
 thing had risen in herself which gave her power. 
 So many times that had happened that instinct- 
 ively she turned to the outside now, leaning her 
 head against the lowered casing. The oak tree 
 was gently tapping against the house — ^that same 
 old sound that had gone air through her girlhood; 
 the familiar fragrance of a flowering vine on the 
 porch below; the thrill of the toads off there in 
 the little ravine, a dog's frolicsome barking; the 
 laughter of some boys and girls who were going 
 by — old things those, sweeping her back to old 
 things. Down in the next block some boys were 
 singing that old serenading song, "Good-night, 
 Ladies." Long ago boys had sung it to her. She 
 stood there listening to it, tears running down her 
 face. 
 
 She was startled by a tap at the door ; dashing 
 her hands across her face she eagerly called, 
 "Come in." 
 
 "Deane's here, Ruth," said Ted. "Wants to 
 see you. Shall I tell him to come in here?" 
 
 She nodded, but for an instant Ted stood there 
 looking at her. She was so strange. She had 
 
FIDELITY 163 
 
 been crying, and yet slie seemed so glad, so excited 
 about something. 
 
 "Oh, Deane," she cried, holding out her two 
 hands to him, laughter and sobs crowding out to- 
 gether, "talh to me I How's your mother? 
 How's your Aunt Margaret's rheumatism? 
 What kind of an automobile have you? What 
 about your practice? What about your dog? 
 Why, Deane," she rushed on, "I'm just starving 
 for things like that! You know I'm just Euth, 
 don't you, Deane?" She laughed a little wildly. 
 "And I've come home. And I want to know 
 about things. Why I could listen for hours about 
 what streets are being paved^ — and who supports 
 old Mrs. Lynch! Don't you see, Deane?" she 
 laughed through tears. "But first tell me about 
 Edith! How does she look? How many children 
 has she? Who are her friends? And oh, Deane 
 — ^tell me,^ — does she ever say anything about 
 me?" 
 
 They talked for more than two hours. She kept 
 pouring out questions at him every time he would 
 stop for breath. She fairly palpitated with that 
 desire to hear little things — ^what Bob Horton did 
 for a living, whether Helen Matthews still gave 
 music lessons. She hung tremulous upon his 
 words, laughing and often half crying as he told 
 little stories about quarrels and jokes — about 
 churches and cooks. In his profession he had 
 
164 FIDELITY 
 
 many times seen a system craving a particular 
 thing, but it seemed to Mm lie had never seen any 
 need more pitifully great than this of hers for 
 laughing over the little drolleries of Ufe. And 
 then they sank into deeper channels — ^he found 
 himself telling her things he had not told anyone : 
 about his practice, about the men he was associ- 
 ated with, things he had come to think. 
 
 And she talked to him of Stuart's health, of 
 their efforts at making a living — ^what she thought 
 of dry f armingj of heaters for apple orchards ; the 
 cattle business, the character of Western people. 
 She told him of the mountains in winter — snow 
 down to their feet; of Colorado air on a winter's 
 morning. And then of more personal, intimate 
 things — ^how lonely they had been, how much of a 
 struggle they had found it. She talked of the dis- 
 advantage Stuart was at because of his position, 
 how he had grown sensitive because of suspicion, 
 because there wer^ people who kept away from 
 him; how she herself had not made friends, afraid 
 to because several times after she had come to 
 know the people around her they had "heard," 
 and drawn away. She told it all quite simply, just 
 that she wanted to let him know about their lives. 
 He could see what it was meaning to her to talk, 
 that she had been too tight within and was finding 
 relief. "I try not to talk much to Stuart about 
 things that would make him feel bad," she said. 
 "He gets despondent. It's been very hard for 
 
FIDELITY 165 
 
 Stuart, Deane. He misses his place among men." 
 She fell silent there, brooding over that — a 
 touch of that tender, passionate brooding he knew 
 of old. And as he watched her he himself was 
 thinking, not of how hard it had been for Stuart, 
 but of what it must have been to Euth. That 
 hunger of hers for companionship told him more 
 than words could possibly have done of what her 
 need had been. He studied her as she sat there 
 silent. She was the same old Euth, but a deep- 
 ened Euth ; there was the same old sweetness, but 
 new power. He had a feeling that there was noth- 
 ing in the world Euth would not understand ; that 
 bars to her spirit were down, that she would go 
 out in tenderness to anything that was of life — ^to 
 sorrow, to joy, with the insight to understand and 
 the warmth to care. He looked at her : worn down 
 by living, yet glorified by it; hurt, yet valiant. 
 The life in her had gone through so much and cir- 
 cumstances had not been able to beat it down. 
 And this was the woman Amy said it was insulting 
 of him to ask her to meet ! 
 
 She looked up at him with her bright, warm 
 smile. ' ' Oh, Deane, it 's been so good ! You don 't 
 know how you've helped me. Why you wouldn't 
 believe," she laughed, "how much better I feel." 
 
 They had risen and he had taken her hand for 
 goodnight. ' ' You always helped me, Deane, ' ' she 
 said in her simple way. "You never failed me. 
 You don't know" — ^this with one of those flashes 
 
166 FIDELITY 
 
 of feeling that lighted Euth and made her wonder- 
 ful — "how many times, when things were going 
 badly, I've thought of you — and wantied to see 
 you." 
 
 They stood there a moment silent; the things 
 they had lived through together, in which they had 
 shared understanding, making a spiritual current 
 between them. She broke from it with a light, 
 fond: "Dear Deane, I'm so glad you're happy. 
 I want you to be happy always." 
 
CHAPTER SIXTEEN 
 
 Those words kept coining back to him after he 
 had gone to bed: "I'm so glad you're happy — ^I 
 want you to be happy always." Amy was asleep 
 when he came home, or he took it for granted that 
 she was asleep and was careful not to disturb her, 
 for it was past midnight. He wished she would 
 turn to him with a sleepy little smile. He wanted 
 to be made to feel that it was true he was happy, 
 that he was going to be happy always. That night 
 was not filled with the sweetness of love's faith in 
 permanence. He tried to put away the thought of 
 how Amy had looked as she said those things 
 about Euth. Knowing the real Euth, his feeling 
 about her freshened, deepened, he could not bear 
 to think of Amy as having said those things. He 
 held it off in telling himself again that that was 
 what the people of the town had done, that he him- 
 self had not managed well. He would try again — 
 a little differently. Amy was really so sweet, so 
 loving, he told himself, that she would come to be 
 different about this. Though he did not dwell on 
 that, either — ^upon her coming to be different ; her 
 face in saying those things was a little too hard to 
 forget. He kept up a pretence with himself on the 
 surface, but down in his heart he asked less now; 
 
 167 
 
168 FIDELITY! 
 
 he was not asking of love that complete sharing, 
 that deep understandiag -which had heen his dream 
 before he talked to Amy. He supposed things 
 would go on about the same — ^just that that one 
 thing wouldn't be, was the thought with which he 
 went to sleep, making his first compromise with his 
 ideal for their love. Just as he was falling asleep 
 there came before him, half of dreams, Euth's 
 face as it had been when she seemed to be brood- 
 ing over the things life brought one. It was as if 
 pain had endowed her with understanding. Did 
 it take pain to do it? 
 
 He had an early morning call to make and left 
 home without really talking to Amy. When he 
 woke in the morning, yearning to be back in the 
 new joy of her love, he was going to tell her that 
 he was sorry he had hurt her, sorry there was this 
 thing they looked at differently, but that he loved 
 her with his whole heart and that they were going 
 to be happy just the same, and then maybe some 
 time they'd "get together" on this. It was a 
 thing he would not have said he would do, but 
 there are many things one will do to get from the 
 shadow back into that necessary sunlight of love. 
 
 However^ there was not opportunity then for 
 doing it ; he had to hurry to the hospital and Amy 
 gave him no chance for such a moment with her. 
 She had the manner of keeping up an appearance 
 of going on as if nothing had happened ; as if that 
 thing were left behind — frosted over. She kissed 
 
FIDELITY 169 
 
 him good-by, but even in that there seemed an im- 
 mense reservation. It made him unhappy, wor- 
 ried him. He told himself that he would have to 
 talk to Amy, that it wouldn't do to leave the thing 
 that way. 
 
 It had been so easy to talk to Euth ; it seemed 
 that one could talk to her about anything, that 
 there was no danger of saying a thing and having 
 it bound back from a wall of opinions and preju- 
 dices that kept him from her. There was some- 
 thing resting, relaxing, in the way one could be 
 one's self with Euth, the way she seemed to like 
 one for just what one was. He had always felt 
 more at ease with her than with anyone else, but 
 now he more than ever had the feeling that her 
 mind was loosened from the things that held the 
 minds of most of the women he knew. It was a 
 great thing not to have those holdbacks in talk- 
 ing with a friend, to be freed of that fear of 
 blundering into a thing that would be misunder- 
 stood. He did not face the fact that that was just 
 the way it was with Amy, that there was con- 
 stantly the fear of saying something that would 
 better have been left unsaid. But he was thinking 
 that being free to say what one was feeling was 
 like drawing a long breath. 
 
 And in thinking of it as he went about his calls 
 that morning, in various homes, talking with a 
 number of people, it occurred to him that many 
 of those things he had come to think, things of 
 
170 FIDELITY 
 
 wMcli he did not often try to talk to others, he had 
 arrived! at because of Euth. It was amazing how 
 his feeling about her, thoughts through her, had 
 run into all his thinking. It even occurred to him 
 that if it had not been for her he might have fallen 
 into accepting many things more or less as the 
 rest of the town did. It seemed now that as well 
 as having caused him much pain she had brought 
 rich gain; for those questionings of life, that re- 
 fusal placidly to accept, had certainly brought 
 keener satisfactions than he could have had 
 through a closer companionship with facile ac- 
 ceptors. Euth had been a big thing in his life, not 
 only in his heart, but to his mind. 
 
 He had come out of the house of one of his pa- 
 tients and was standing on the steps talking with 
 the woman who had anxiously followed him to the 
 door. The house was directly across the street 
 from the Lawrences'. Edith was sitting out on 
 the porch ; her little girl of eight and the boy, who 
 was younger, were with her. They made an at- 
 tractive picture. 
 
 He continued his reassuring talk to the woman 
 whose husband was iH, but he was at the same time 
 thinking of Euth's eager questionings about Edith, 
 about Edith's children, her hunger for every small- 
 est thing he could tell her. When he went down 
 to his car Edith, looking up and seeing him, gayly 
 waved her hand. He returned the salute and 
 stood there as if doing something to the car. Sit- 
 
FIDELITY 171 
 
 ting there in the morning sunshine with her two 
 children Edith looked the very picture of the 
 woman for whom things had gone happily. Life 
 had opened its pleasautest ways to Edith. He 
 could not bring himself to get in his car and start 
 away; he could not get rid of the thought of what 
 it would mean to Ruth if Edith would go to see 
 her, could not banish the picture of Euth's face if 
 Edith were to walk into the room. And because 
 he could not banish it he suddenly turned abruptly 
 from his car and started across the street and up 
 the steps to the porch. 
 
 She smiled brightly up at him, holding out her 
 hand. ' ' Coming up to talk to me ? How nice ! ' ' 
 
 He puEed up a chair, bantering with the chil- 
 dren. 
 
 "I know what you've come for," Edith laughed 
 gayly. "You've come to hear about how lovely 
 Amy was at the tea yesterday. You want to know 
 all the nice things people are saying about 
 her." 
 
 His face puckered as it did when he was per- 
 plexed or annoyed. He laughed with a little con- 
 straint as he said: "That would be pleasant 
 hearing, I admit. But it was something else I 
 wanted to talk to you about just now, Edith." 
 
 She raised her brows a little in inquiry, bending 
 forward slightly, waiting, her eyes touched with 
 the anticipation of something serious. He felt 
 sure his tone had suggested Euth to her; that in- 
 
172 FIDELITY 
 
 dicated to him that Euth had been much in her 
 mind. 
 
 "I had a long visit with Enth last night," he be- 
 gan quietly. 
 
 She did not speak, bending forward a little 
 more, her eyes upon him intently, anxiously. 
 
 "Edith?" 
 
 "Yes,Deaiier' 
 
 He paused, then asked simply: "Edith, Euth' 
 is very lonely. Won't you go to see her?" 
 
 She raised her chin in quick, startled way, some 
 emotion, he did not know just what, breaking over 
 her face. 
 
 "I thought I'd come and tell you, Edith, how 
 lonely — ^how utterly lonely — ^Euth is, because I felt 
 if you understood you would want to go and see 
 her." 
 
 Still Edith did not speak. She looked as though 
 she were going to cry. 
 
 "Euth's had a hard time, Edith. It's been no 
 light life for her — ^you don't have to do more than 
 look in her eyes to know that. I wish you could 
 have heard the way she asked about you — ^poured 
 out questions about you. She loves you just as 
 she always did, Edith. She 's sorrowed for you all 
 through these years." 
 
 A tear brimmed over from Edith's blue eyes and 
 rolled slowly — ^unheeded — down her cheek. His 
 heart warmed to her and he took hope as he 
 watched that tear. 
 
FIDELITY 173 
 
 "She was crazy to know about your children. 
 That's been a grief to her, Edith. Euth should be 
 a mother — ^you know that. You must know what a 
 mother she would have made. If you were to take 
 your youngsters to see her — " He broke off with 
 a laugh, as if there was no way of expressing it. 
 
 Edith looked away from him, seemed to be star- 
 ing straight into a rose bush at the side of the 
 porch. 
 
 "Couldn't you?" he gently pressed. 
 
 She turned to him. "I'd like to, Deane," she 
 said simply, "but," — ^her dimmed eyes were 
 troubled — "I don't see how I could." 
 
 * ' Why not ? " he pursued. " It 's simple enough 
 — just go and see her. We might go together, if 
 that would seem easier." 
 
 She was pulling at a bit of sewing in her lap. 
 "But, Deane, it isn't simple," she began hesi- 
 tatingly. "It isn't just one's self. There's so- 
 ciety — the whole big terrible question. If it were 
 just a simple, individual matter, — ^why, the truth' 
 is I'd love to go and see Euth. If it were just a 
 personal thing — ^why don't you know that I'd for- 
 get everything — except that she's Euth?" Her 
 voice choked and she did not go on, but was fum- 
 bling with the sewing in her lap. 
 
 He hitched his chair forward anxiously, con- 
 centrated on his great desire to say it right, to 
 win Edith for Euth. Edith was a simple sort of 
 being— really, a loving being; if she could only 
 
174 FIDELITY 
 
 detacli herself from what she pathetically called 
 the whole terrible question — if he could JTXst make 
 her see that the thing she wanted to do was the 
 thing to do. She looked up at him out of big 
 grieving eyes, as if wanting to be convinced, 
 wanting the way opened for the loving thing she 
 would like to do. 
 
 "But, Edith," he began, as composedly and 
 gently as he could, for she was so much a child in 
 her mentality it seemed she must be dealt with 
 gently and simply, "is it so involved, after all? 
 Isn't it, more than anything else, just that simple, 
 personal matter? Why not forget everything but 
 the personal part of it? Euth is back — lonely — ^in 
 trouble. Things came between you and Ruth, but 
 that was a long time ago and since that she's met 
 hard things. You're not a vindictive person; 
 you're a loving person. Then for heaven's sake 
 why wouldn't you go and see her?" — ^it was im- 
 possible to keep the impatience out of that last. 
 
 "I know," she faltered, "but — society — " 
 
 ' ' Society ! " he jeered. ' ' Forget society, Edith, 
 and be just a human being ! If you can forget — 
 forgive — ^what seemed to you the wrong Euth did 
 you — ^if your heart goes out to her — then what else 
 is there to it?" he demanded impatiently. 
 
 "But you see," — ^he could feel her reaching out, 
 as if thinking she must, to the things that had been 
 said to her, was conscious of her mother's think- 
 ing pushing on hers as she fumbled, "but one isn't 
 
FIDELITY 175 
 
 free, Deane. Society has to protect itself. What 
 might not happen— if it didn't?" 
 
 He tried to restrain what he wanted to say to 
 that — keep cool, wise, and say the things that 
 would get Edith. He was sure that Edith wanted 
 to be had ; her eyes asked him to overthrow those 
 things that had been fastened on her, to free her 
 so that the simple, human approach was the only 
 one there was to it, justify her in believing one 
 dared be as kind, as natural and simple and real 
 as one wanted to be. He was sure that in Edith's 
 heart love for her friend was more real than any 
 sense of duty to society. 
 
 "But after all what is society, Edith?" he be- 
 gan quietly. "Just a collection of individuals, 
 isn't it? Why must it be so much harder than the 
 individuals comprising it? If it is that — ^then 
 there's something wrong with it, wouldn't you 
 think?" 
 
 He looked around at the sound of a screen door 
 closing. Edith's mother had stepped out on the 
 porch. He knew by her startled look, her quick, 
 keen glance at him, that she had heard his last 
 words. She stepped forward holding up her 
 hands in mock dismay, with a laughing: "What 
 a large, solemn issue for an early morning con- 
 versation!" 
 
 Deane tried to laugh but he was not good at dis- 
 sembling and he was finding it hard to conceal his 
 annoyance at the interruption. Talking to Mrs. 
 
176 FIDELITY 
 
 Lawrence was very different from talking to 
 Edith. Edith, against her own loving impulses, 
 tried to think what she thought she ought to think ; 
 Mrs. Lawrence had hardened into the things she 
 thought should be thought, and at once less loving 
 and more intelligent than Edith, she was fixed 
 where her daughter was uncertain, complacent 
 where Edith was troubled. She was one of those 
 women who, very kind to people they accept, have 
 no tendrils of kindness running out to those whom 
 they do not approve. Her qualities of heart did 
 not act outside the circle of her endorsement. 
 With the exception of Ruth's brother Cyrus, no 
 one in the town had been harder about her than 
 Edith's mother. He had all the time felt that, let 
 alone, Edith would have gone back to Euth. 
 
 He had risen and pulled up a chair for Mrs. 
 Lawrence and now stood there fumbling with his 
 hat, as if about to leave. It seemed to him he 
 might as well. 
 
 "Why, my dears!" exclaimed the older woman 
 with a sort of light dryness, "pray don't let me 
 feel I have broken up a philosophic discussion." 
 
 "Deane was asking me to go and see Ruth, 
 mother," said Edith, simply and not without dig- 
 nity. 
 
 He saw her flush, her quick look up at him, and 
 then the slight tightening of her lips. 
 
 "And doesn't it occur to Deane," she asked 
 
FIDELITY 177 
 
 pleasantly, ''that that is rather a strange thing to 
 ask of you?" 
 
 "She is very lonely, Deane says," said Edith 
 tremulously. 
 
 Mrs. Lawrence was threading a needle. ' ' I pre- 
 sume so," she answered quietly. 
 
 Deane felt the blood rising in him. Somehow 
 that quiet reply angered him as no sharp retort 
 could have done. He turned to Edith, rather 
 pointedly leaving her mother out. "Well," he 
 asked bluntly, "will you go?" 
 
 Edith's eyes widened. She looked frightened. 
 She stole a look at her mother, who had serenely 
 begun upon her embroidery. 
 
 "Why, Deane !" laughed the mother, as if toler^ 
 antly waving aside a preposterous proposal, "how 
 absurd! Of course Edith won't go! How could 
 she? Why should she?" 
 
 He made no reply, fearing to let himself express 
 the things which — disappointed — ^he was feeling. 
 
 Mrs. Lawrence looked up. "If you will just 
 cast your mind back," she said, her voice remain- 
 ing pleasant though there was a sting in it now, 
 "to the way Ruth treated Edith, I think it will 
 come home to you, Deane, that you are asking a 
 rather absurd thing." 
 
 "But Edith says," — ^he made a big effort to 
 speak as quietly as she did — "that that personal 
 part of it is all right with her. She says that she 
 
178 FIDELITY 
 
 would really like to go and see Euth, but doesn't 
 tMnk she can — on account of society." 
 
 Mrs. Lawrence flushed a little at Ms tone on that 
 last, but she seemed quite unruffled as she asked: 
 "And you see no point in that?" 
 
 He had sat down on the railing of the porch. 
 He leaned back against a pUlar, turning a little 
 away from them as he said with a laugh not free 
 of bitterness: "I don't believe I quite get this 
 idea about society." Abruptly he turned back to 
 Mrs. Lawrence. "What is it? A collection of in- 
 dividuals for mutual benefit and self -protection, I 
 gather. Protection against what? Their own 
 warmest selves? The most real things in them?" 
 
 Mrs. Lawrence colored, though she was smUing 
 composedly enough. Edith was not smiling. He 
 saw her anxious look over at her mother, as if ex- 
 pecting her to answer that, and yet — ^this was what 
 her eyes made him think — secretly hoping she 
 couldn't. 
 
 But Mrs. Lawrence maintained her manner of 
 gracious, rather amused tolerance with an absurd 
 hot-headedness, perversity, on his part. "Oh, 
 come now, Deaue," she laughed, "we're not going 
 to get into an absurd discussion, are we?" 
 
 "I beg your pardon, Mrs. Lawrence," he re- 
 torted sharply, "but I don't think it an absurd dis- 
 cussion. I don't consider a thing that involves the 
 happiness of as fine a human being as Ruth Hol- 
 land an absurd thing to discuss!" 
 
FIDELITY 179 
 
 She laid down her work. "Euth Holland," she 
 began very quietly, "is a human being who self- 
 ishly — ^basely — took her own happiness, leaving 
 misery for others. She outraged society as com- 
 pletely as a woman could outrage it. She was a 
 thief, really, — stealing from the thing that was 
 protecting her, taking all the privileges of a thing 
 she was a traitor to. She was not only what we 
 call a bad woman, she was a hypocrite. More than 
 that, she was outrageously unfaithful to her dear- 
 est friend — ^to Edith here who loved and trusted 
 her. Having no respect for marriage herself, she 
 actually had the effrontery — to say nothing of the 
 lack of fine feeling — to go to the altar with Edith 
 the very night that she herself outraged marriage. 
 I don't know, Deane, how a woman could do a 
 worse thing than that. The most pernicious kind 
 of woman is not the one who bears the marks of 
 the bad woman upon her. It's the woman like 
 Euth Holland, who appears to be what she is not, 
 who deceives, plays a false part. If you can't see 
 that society must close in against a woman like 
 that then all I can say, my dear Deane, is that you 
 don't see very straight. You jeer about society, 
 but society is nothing more than life as we have 
 arranged it. It is an institution. One living 
 within it must keep the rules of that institution. 
 One who defies it — deceives it — must be shut out 
 from it. So much we are forced to do in self-de- 
 fence. We owe that to the people who are trying 
 
180 FIDELITY 
 
 to live decently, to be faitkful. Life, as we have 
 arranged it, must be based on confidence. We 
 have to keep that confidence. "We have to punish 
 a violation of it." She took up her sewing again. 
 "Your way of looking at it is not a very large 
 way, Deane," she concluded pleasantly. 
 
 Edith had settled back in her chair — acceptiug, 
 though her eyes were grieving. It was that com- 
 bination which, perhaps even more than the words 
 of her mother, made it impossible for Mm to hold 
 back. 
 
 "Perhaps not," he said; "not what you would 
 call a large way of looking at it. But do you 
 know, Mrs. Lawrence, I'm not sure that I care for 
 that large way of looking at it. I'm not sure that 
 I care a great deal about an institution that 
 smothers the kindly things in people — as you are 
 making this do in Edith. It sometimes occurs to 
 me that life as we have arranged it is a rather un- 
 satisfactory arrangement. I'm not sure that an 
 arrangement of life which doesn't leave place for 
 the most real things in life is goiug to continue 
 forever. Ruth was driven into a corner and 
 forced to do things she herself hated and suffered 
 for — ^it was this same arrangement of life forced 
 that on her, you know. You talk of marriage. But 
 you must know there was no real marriage between 
 Marion Averley and Stuart "Williams. And I 
 don't believe you can deny that there is a real 
 
FIDELITY 181 
 
 marriage between him and Euth Holland." He 
 had risen and now moved a little toward the steps. 
 "So you see I don't believe I care much for your 
 'society,' Mrs. Lawrence," he laughed shortly. 
 ' ' This looks to me like a pretty clear case of life 
 against society — and I see things just straight 
 enough that life itself strikes me as rather more 
 important than your precious 'arrangement' of 
 it!" 
 
 That did not bring the color to Mrs. Lawrence's 
 face; there seemed no color at all there when 
 Deane finished speaking. She sat erect, her hands 
 folded on her sewing, looking at him with 
 strangely bright eyes. When she spoke it was 
 with a certain metallic pleasantness. ' ' Why, very 
 well, Deane," she said; "one is at perfect liberty 
 to choose, isn't one? And I think it quite right 
 to declare one's self, as you have just done, that 
 we may know who is of us and who is not." She 
 smiled — a smile that seemed definitely to shut him 
 out. 
 
 He looked at Edith; her eyes were down; he 
 could see that her lips trembled. "Grood-by," he 
 said. 
 
 Mrs. Lawrence bowed sHghtly and took up her 
 sewing. 
 
 "Good-by, Edith," he added gently. 
 
 She looked up at him and he saw then why she 
 she had been looking down. "Good-by, Deane," 
 
182 FIDELITY 
 
 slie said a little huskily, her eyes all clouded with 
 tears. * ' Though how absurd ! ' ' she quickly added 
 with a rather tremulous laugh. "We shall be see- 
 ing you as usual, of course." But it was more 
 appeal than declaration. 
 
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 
 
 Euth was different aiter her talk with Deane 
 that night. Ted felt the change in her when he 
 went Tip to say goodnight. The constraint be- 
 tween them seemed somehow to have fallen away. 
 Euth was natural now — ^just Euth, he told himself, 
 and felt that talking to Deane had done her good. 
 He lingered to chat with her awhile — of the ar- 
 rangements for the night, various little things 
 about the house, just the things they naturally 
 would talk of; his feeling of embarrassment, dif- 
 fidence, melted quite away before her quiet sim- 
 plicity, her warm naturahiess. She had seemed 
 timid all day — ^holding back. Now she seemed 
 just quietly to take her place. He had been afraid 
 of doing or saying something that would hurt 
 her, that had kept him from being natural, 
 he knew. But now he forgot about that. And 
 when Euth put her hands up on his shoulders and 
 lifted her face to kiss him goodnight he suddenly 
 knew how many lonely nights there had been. 
 "I'm so glad I've got you back, Ted," she said; 
 "I want to talk to you. about heaps of things." 
 
 And Ted, as he went to bed, was thinking that 
 there were heaps of things he wanted to talk to 
 Euth about. He hadn't had much of anybody to 
 
 183 
 
184 FIDELITY 
 
 talk to about the things one does talk to one's own 
 folks about. His father had been silent and queer 
 the last couple of years, and somehow one 
 wouldn't think of "talking" to Harriett. He and 
 Euth had always hit it off, he told himself. He 
 was glad she had found her feet, as he thought of 
 it; evidently talking with Deane had made her 
 feel more at home. Deane was a bully sort! 
 After he had fallen into a light sleep he awakened 
 and there came all freshly the consciousness that 
 Euth was back, asleep in her old room. It made 
 him feel so good ; he stretched out and settled for 
 sleep with satisfaction, drowsily thinking that 
 there were heaps of things he wanted to talk to 
 Euth about. 
 
 Euth, too, was settling to sleep with more cahn, 
 something nearer ^peace than it had seemed just 
 a little while before she was going to find in her 
 father's house. Talking with Deane took her in 
 to something from which she had long felt shut 
 out. It was like coming on a camp fire after be- 
 ing overawed by too long a time in the forest — 
 warmth and light and cheerful crackling after lone- 
 liness in austere places. Dear Deane ! he was al- 
 ways so good to her; he always helped. It was 
 curious about Deane — about Deane and her. 
 There seemed a strange openness — she could not 
 think of it any other way — ^between them. Things 
 she lived through, in which he had no part, drew 
 her to him, swung her back to him. There was 
 
FIDELITY 185 
 
 something between his spirit and hers that seemed 
 to make him part even of experiences she had had 
 with another man, as if things of the emotions, 
 even though not shared, drew them together 
 through the spirit. Very deeply she hoped that 
 Deane would be happy. She wished she might 
 meet his wife, but probably she wouldn't. She 
 quickly turned from that thought, wanting to stay 
 by the camp fire. Anyway, Deane was her friend. 
 She rested in that thought of having a friend — 
 someone to talk to about things small and droll, 
 about things large and mysterious. Thoughts 
 needed to be spoken. It opened something in one 
 to speak them. With Stuart she had been careful 
 not to talk of certain things, fearing to see him 
 sink into that absorption, gloom, she had come to 
 dread. 
 
 She cried a little after she had crept into her 
 bed — ^her own old bed; but they were just tears of 
 feeling, not of desolation. The oak tree was tap- 
 ping against the house, the breeze, carrying famil- 
 iar scents, blew through the room. She was back 
 home. AU the sadness surroonding her home- 
 coming could not keep out the sweet feeling of be- 
 ing back that stole through her senses. 
 
 Next morning she went about the house with 
 new poise ; she was quiet, but it was of a different 
 quality from the quiet of the day before. Flora 
 Copelaad found herself thinking less about main- 
 taining her carefully thought out manner toward 
 
186 FIDELITY 
 
 Euth, She told herself that Ruth did not seem 
 like "that kind of a woman." She would forget 
 the "difficult situation" and find herself just talk- 
 ing with Euth — about the death of her sister 
 Mary's little girl, of her niece who was about to be 
 married. There was something about Ruth that 
 made one slip iato talking to her about things one 
 was feeling; and something in the quiet light of 
 her tired sweet eyes made one forget about not 
 being more than courteous. Even Laura Abbott, 
 the nurse, found herself talking naturally to this 
 Ruth Holland, this woman who lived with another 
 woman's husband, who was more "talked about" 
 than any woman in the town had ever been. But/ 
 somehow a person just forgot what she really was, 
 she told a friend; she wasn't at all like you'd ex- 
 pect that kind of a person to be. Though of 
 course there were terribly embarrassing things — 
 like not knowing what to call her. 
 
 Between Ruth and Harriett things went much 
 better than they had the day before. Ruth seemed 
 so much herself when they met that afternoon that 
 unconsciously Harriett emerged from her uncer- 
 taiuty, from that fumbling manner of the day be- 
 fore. The things holding them apart somehow 
 fell back before the things drawing them together. 
 They were two sisters and their father was dying. 
 The doctor had just been there and said he did not 
 believe Mr. Holland could live another day. They 
 were together when he told them that; for the 
 
FIDELITY 187 
 
 moment, at least, it melted other things away. 
 
 They stood at the head of the stairs talking of 
 things of common concern — the efficiency of the 
 nurse, of Ted, who had been with his father more 
 than any of the rest of them, for whom they feared 
 it would be very hard when the moment came. 
 Then, after a little pause piade intimate by feel- 
 ing shared, Harriett told when she would be back, 
 adding, "But you'll see to it that I'm telephoned 
 at once if — if I should be wanted, won't you, 
 Euth?" — as one depending on this other more 
 than on anyone else. Euth only answered gently, 
 "Yes, Harriett," but she felt warmed in her heart. 
 She had been given something to do. She was de- 
 pended on. She was not left out. 
 
 She sat besidfe her father during the hour that 
 the nurse had to be relieved. Very strongly, won- 
 derfully, she had a feeling that her father knew 
 she was there, that he wanted her there. In the 
 strange quiet of that hour she seemed to come 
 close to him, as if things holding them apart while 
 he was of life had fallen away now that he no 
 longer was life-bound. It was very real to her. 
 It was communion. Things she could not have ex- 
 pressed seemed to be flowing out to him, and 
 things he could not have understood seemed reach- 
 ing him now. It was as if she was going with him 
 right up to the border — a long way past the things 
 of life that drove them apart. The nurse, com- 
 ing back to resume duty, was arrested, moved, by 
 
188 FIDELITY 
 
 Euth's face. She spoke gently in thanking her, 
 her own face softened. Flora Copeland, meeting 
 Enth in the haU, paused, somehow held, and then, 
 quite forgetful of the manner she was going to 
 maintain toward Euth, impulsively called after 
 her: "Are you perfectly comfortable in your 
 room, Euth? Don't you — shan't I bring in one of 
 the big easy chairs?" 
 
 Euth said no, she liked her own little chair, but 
 she said it very gently, understanding; she had 
 again that feeling of being taken in, the feeling 
 that warmed her heart. 
 
 She went in her room and sat quietly in her little 
 chair; and what had been a pent up agony in her 
 heart flowed out in open sorrowing: for her 
 mother, who was not there to sit in her room with 
 her; for her father, who was dying. But it was 
 releasing sorrowing, the sorrowing that makes 
 one one with the world, drawing one into the 
 whole life of human feeling, the opened heart that 
 brings one closer to all opened hearts. It was the 
 sadness that softens; such sadness as finds its 
 own healing in enriched feeling. It made her 
 feel very near her father and mother; she loved 
 them; she felt that they loved her. She had hurt 
 them — ^terribly hurt them; but it aU seemed be- 
 yond that now ; they understood ; and she was Euth 
 and they loved her. It was as if the way had 
 been cleared between her and them. She did not 
 feel shut in alone. 
 
FIDELITY 189 
 
 Ted hesitated when he came to her door a little 
 later, drew back before the tender light of her 
 illumined face. It did not seem a time to break in 
 on her. But she held out her hand with a little 
 welcoming gesture and, though strangely subdued, 
 smiled lovingly at him as she said, "Come on in, 
 Ted." 
 
 Something that the boy felt in her mood made 
 him. scowl anew at the thing he had to tell her. 
 He went over to the window, his back to her, and 
 was snapping his finger against the pane. 
 "Well," he said at last, gruffly, "Cy gets in to- 
 day. Just had a wire. ' ' 
 
 Euth drew back, as one who has left exposed a 
 place that can be hurt draws back when hurt 
 threatens. Ted felt it — that retreating within 
 herself, and said roughly : ' ' Much anybody cares ! 
 Between you and me, I don't think father would 
 care so very much, either. ' ' 
 
 "Ted!" she remonstrated in elder sister fash- 
 ion. 
 
 "Cy's got a hard heart, Euth," he said with a 
 sudden gravity that came strangely through his 
 youthfulness. 
 
 Euth did not reply; she did not want to say what 
 she felt about Cy's heart. But after a moment the 
 domestic side of it turned itself to her. "Will 
 Louise come with him, Ted ? ' ' 
 
 "No," he answered shortly. 
 
 His tone made her look at him in inquiry, but he 
 
190 FIDELITY 
 
 had turned his back to her again. "I was just 
 wondering about getting their room ready," she 
 said. 
 
 For a moment Ted did not speak, did not turn 
 toward her. Then, "We don't have to bother get- 
 ting any room ready for Cy," he said, with a 
 scoffing little laugh. 
 
 Euth's hand went up to her throat — a curious 
 movement, as if in defense. "What do you mean, 
 Ted?" she asked in low quick voice. 
 
 Ted's finger was again snapping the window 
 pane. Once more he laughed disdainfully. "Our 
 esteemed brother is going to the hotel," he 
 jeered. 
 
 As Ruth did not speak he looked around. He 
 could not bear her face. ' ' Don 't you care, Euth, ' ' 
 he burst out. "Why, what's the difference?" he 
 went on scoffingly. "The hotel's a good place. 
 He'll get along all right down there — and it makes 
 it just so much the better for us. ' ' 
 
 But even then Euth could not speak ; it had come 
 in too tender a moment, had found her too ex- 
 posed; she could only co\<rer back. Then pride 
 broke through. "Cyrus needn't go to the hotel, 
 Ted. If he can't stay in the same house with me 
 — even when father is dying — ^then I'll go some- 
 where else." 
 
 "You'll not!" he blazed, with a savagery that 
 at once startled and wonderfully comforted her. 
 " If Cy wants to be a fool, let him be a fool ! If he 
 
FIDELITY 191 
 
 can't act decent — then let him do what he pleases 
 — or go to the devil!" 
 
 She murmured something in remonstrance, but 
 flooded with gratefulness for the very thing she 
 tried to protest against. And then even that was 
 struck out. She had brought about this quarrel, 
 this feeling, between the two brothers. Ted's an- 
 tagonism against Cyrus, comforting to her, might 
 work harm to Ted. Those were the things she 
 did. That was what came through her. 
 
 The comfort, communion, peace of a few min- 
 utes before seemed a mockery. Out of her great 
 longing she had deluded herself. Now she was 
 cast back; now she knew. It was as if she had 
 only been called out in order to be struck back. 
 And it seemed that Ted, whom she had just found 
 again, she must either lose or harm. And the 
 shame of it ! — children not coming together under 
 their father's roof when he was dying! Even 
 death could not break the bitterness down. It 
 made her know just how it was — just where she 
 stood. And she thought of the town's new talk 
 because of this. 
 
 "It's pretty bad, isn't it, Ted?" she said finally, 
 looking up to him with heavy eyes. 
 
 Ted flushed. "Cy makes it worse than it need 
 be," he muttered. 
 
 "But it is pretty bad, isn't it?" she repeated in 
 a voice there was little life in. "It was about as 
 bad as it could be for you all, wasn't it?" 
 
192 FIDELITY 
 
 "Well, Euth," lie began diffidently, "of course 
 — of course this house hasn't been a very cheerful 
 place since you went away. ' ' 
 
 "No," she murmured, "of course not." She 
 sat there dwelling upon that, forming a new pic- 
 ture of just what it had been. "It really made a 
 big difference, did it, Ted? — even for you?" She 
 asked it very simply, as one asking a thing in 
 order to know the truth. 
 
 Ted sat down on the bed. He was shuffling his 
 feet a little, embarrassed, but his face was finely 
 serious, as if this were a grave thing of which it 
 was right they talk. 
 
 "Of course I was a good deal of a kid, Euth," 
 he began. "And yet — " He halted, held by 
 kindness. 
 
 "Yes?" she pressed, as if wanting to get him 
 past kindness. 
 
 ' ' Well, yes, Euth, it was — rather bad. I minded 
 on account of the fellows, you see. I knew they 
 were talking and — " Again he stopped; his face 
 had reddened. Her face too colored up at 
 that. 
 
 "And then of course home — ^you know it had al- 
 ways been so jolly here at home — ^was a pretty dif- 
 ferent place, Euth," he took it up gently. "With 
 Cy charging around, and mother and father so — 
 different." 
 
 "And they were different, were they, Ted?" 
 she asked quietly. 
 
FIDELITY 193 
 
 He looked at her in surprise. ' ' Why, yes, Euth, 
 they certainly were — different." 
 
 Silence fell between them, separately dwelling 
 upon that. 
 
 "Just how— different?" Euth asked, for it 
 seemed he was not going on. 
 
 "Why — ^mother stopped going out, and of course 
 that made her all different. You know what a lot 
 those parties and doings meant to mother." 
 
 She did not at once speak, her face working. 
 Then: "I'm sorry," she choked. "Need she have 
 done that, Ted?" she added wistfully after a mo- 
 ment. 
 
 He looked at her with that fine seriousness that 
 made him seem older than he was — and finer than 
 she had known. "Well, I don't know, Euth; you 
 know you don't feel very comfortable if you think 
 people are — ^talking. It makes you feel sort of — 
 out of it ; as if there was something different about 
 you." 
 
 "And father?" she urged, her voice quiet, 
 strangely quiet. She was sitting very still, look- 
 ing intently at Ted. 
 
 "Well, father rather dropped out of it, too," he 
 went on, his voice gentle as if it would make less 
 hard what it was saying. /'He and mother just 
 seemed to want to draw back into their shells. I 
 think — " He stopped, then said: "I guess you 
 really want to know, Euth; it — it did make a big 
 difference in father. I think it went deeper than 
 
194 FIDELITY 
 
 you may have known — and maybe it's only fair to 
 him you should know. It did make a difference; 
 I think it made a difference even in business. 
 Maybe that seems queer, but don't you know when 
 a person doesn't feel right about things he doesn't 
 get on very weU with people? Father got that 
 way. He didn't seem to want to be with people." 
 
 She did not raise her eyes at that. "Business 
 hasn't gone very well, has it, Ted?" she asked 
 after a moment of sUence, still not looking up. 
 
 "Pretty bad. And of course that gets Cy," he 
 added. 
 
 She nodded. "I guess there's a good deal to be 
 said on Cy's side," she murmured after a little, 
 her hands working and her voice not steady. 
 
 Ted grunted something disdainful, then mut- 
 tered: "He played things up for all they were 
 worth. Don't you think he ever missed any- 
 thing!" 
 
 "Was that why Cy left town, Ted ? " Euth asked, 
 speaking all the while in that low, strange voice. 
 
 ' ' Oh, he claims so, " scoffed Ted. " But he can 't 
 make me believe any family humiliation would 
 have made him leave town if he hadn't had a bet- 
 ter thing somewhere else. But of course he says 
 that. That it was too hard for him and Louise ! 
 Too bad about that little doU-face, isn't it?" 
 
 Euth made a gesture of remonstrance, but the 
 boyish partisanship brought the tears she had! 
 until then been able to hold back. 
 
FIDELITY 195 
 
 Ted rose. And then he hesitated, as if not want- 
 ing to leave it like this. "Well,.Euth, I can tell 
 yon one thing," he said gently, a little bashfully; 
 "with all Cy's grand talk abont the wrong done 
 mother and father, neither of them ever loved him 
 the way they loved you." 
 
 "Oh, did they, Ted?" she cried, and all the held 
 back feeling broke through, suffusing her. ' * They 
 did? — in spite of everything? Tell me about that, 
 Ted! Tell me about it!" 
 
 "Mother used to talk a lot to me," he said. 
 * ' She was always coming into my room and talk- 
 ing to me about you." 
 
 "Oh, was she, Ted?" she cried again, feeling 
 breaking over her face in waves. "She did talk 
 about me ? What did she say ? Tell me ! " 
 
 "Just little things, mostly. Telling about 
 things you had said and done when you were a 
 kid; remembering what you'd worn here and there 
 — who you'd gone with. Oh, — ^you know; just lit- 
 tle things. 
 
 "Of course," he went on, Ruth leaning forward, 
 hanging on his words, "I was a good deal of a kid 
 then; she didn't talk to me much about the — seri- 
 ous part of it. Maybe that was the reason she 
 liked to talk to me — ^because she could just talk 
 about the little things — old things. Though once 
 or twice — " 
 
 "Yes, Ted?" she breathed, as he paused there. 
 
 "Well, she did say things to me, too. I remem- 
 
196 FIDELITY 
 
 ber once she said, 'It wasn't like Euth. Some- 
 thing terrible happened. She didn't know what 
 she was doing.' " 
 
 Enth's hands were pressed tight together; un- 
 heeded tears were falling on them. 
 
 "And she used to worry about you, Euth. 
 When it was cold and she'd come into my room 
 with an extra cover she'd say — 'I wish I knew that 
 my girl was warm enough tonight.' " 
 
 At that Euth's face went down in her hands and 
 she was sobbing. 
 
 "I don't know what I'm talking like this for!" 
 muttered the boy angrily. "Making you feel so 
 bad!" 
 
 She shook her head, but for a little could not 
 look up. Then she choked : ' ' No, I want to know. 
 Never mind how it hurts, I want to know. ' ' And 
 then, when she had controlled herself a little more 
 she said, simply: "I didn't know it was like that. 
 I didn't know mother felt — ^like that." 
 
 "She'd start to write to you, and then lots of 
 times she wouldn't seem to know how. She 
 wanted to write to you lots more than she did. 
 But I don't know, Euth, mother was queer. She 
 seemed sort of bewildered. She — ^wasn't herself. 
 She was just kind of powerless to do anything 
 about things. She'd come in this room a lot. Sit 
 in here by herself. One of the last days mother 
 was around she called me in here and she had that 
 dress you wore to Edith Lawrence's wedding 
 
FIDELITY 197 
 
 spread out on the bed and was^ — oh, just kind of 
 fussing with it. And the reason she called me in 
 was that she wanted to know if I remembered how 
 pretty you looked in it that night. ' ' 
 
 But Euth had thrown out a hand for him to stop, 
 had covered her face as if shutting something out. 
 "Oh, I'm sorry, Euth!" murmured Ted. "I'm a 
 fool!" he cried angrily. But after a minute he 
 added haltingly, "And yet — ^you did want to know, 
 and — ^maybe it's fairer to mother, Euth. Maybe 
 — " but he could not go on and went over and 
 stood by the window, not wanting to leave her like 
 that, not knowing what to do. 
 
 "Well, one thing I want you to know, Euth," 
 he said, as he did finally turn to the door. "I've 
 been talking along about how hard it was for the 
 rest of us, but don't for a minute think I don't see 
 how terrible it was for you. I get that, all right. ' ' 
 
 She looked up at him, wanting to speak, but 
 dumb ; dumb in this new realization of how terrible 
 it had been for them all. 
 
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 
 
 An. hour later she had to get away from that 
 room. She did not know where she was going, hut 
 she had to have some escape. Just the physical 
 act of getting away was something. 
 
 Ted and Harriett were talking in the lower hall. 
 They looked in inquiry at the hat she held and her 
 face made Ted lay a hand on her arm. She told 
 them she had to have exercise — air — and was go- 
 ing out for a little walk. She thought Harriett 
 looked aghast — doubtless preferring Euth be seen 
 as little as possible. But she could not help that ; 
 she had to get away — away from that room, that 
 house, away from those old things now newly 
 charged. Something left with them shut down 
 around her as a fog in which she could not breathe. 
 Ted asked if he should go with her, but she shook 
 her head and started for the side door, fearing he 
 might insist. He called after her that Harriett 
 was going to have Cyrus stay at her house, that she 
 could make room for him. He said it with a relief 
 which told how he had really hated having his 
 brother go to the hotel. As she turned with some- 
 thing about that being better, she noticed how worn 
 and worried Harriett looked, and then hurried 
 on, wanting to get away, to escape for a little while 
 
 193 
 
FIDELITY 199 
 
 from that crushing realization of how hard she 
 made things for them all. But she could not shut 
 out th.e thought of the empty rooms upstairs at 
 their house — Cyrus's old home — and the crowded 
 quarters at Harriett's. Yet of course this would 
 be better than the hotel ; she was glad Harriett and 
 Ted had been able to arrange it; she hoped, for 
 their sakes, that Cyrus would not, to emphasize 
 his feeling, insist upon staying downtown. 
 
 She walked several blocks without giving any 
 thought to where she was going. She was not 
 thinking then of those familiar streets, of the 
 times she had walked them. She was getting 
 away, trying, for a little while, to escape from 
 things she had no more power to bear. She could 
 not have stayed another minute in her old room. 
 
 A, little ahead of her she saw a woman sitting in 
 a market wagon, holding the horse. She got the 
 impression that the woman was selling vegetables. 
 She tried to notice, to be interested. She could 
 see, as she came along toward the wagon, that the 
 vegetables looked nice and fresh. She and Stuart 
 had raised vegetables once ; they had done various 
 things after what money they had was exhausted 
 and, handicapped both by his lack of ruggedness 
 and by the shrinking from people which their 
 position bred in them, they had to do the best they 
 could at making a living. And so she noticed these 
 vegetables, but it was not until she was close to 
 her that she saw the woman had relaxed her hold 
 
200 FIDELITY 
 
 on. the lines and was leaning forward, peering at 
 her. And when she came a little nearer this 
 woman — a thin, wiry little person whose features 
 were sharp, leaned stiU further forward and cried : 
 ' ' Why, how do you do ? How d 'do, Euth ! ' ' 
 
 For a moment Ruth was too startled to make 
 any reply. Then, she only stammered, ' ' Why, how 
 do you do?" 
 
 But the woman leaned over the side of the 
 wagon. Euth was trying her best to think who she 
 was ; she knew that she had known her somewhere, 
 in some way, but that thin, eager little face was 
 way back in the past, and that she should be spoken 
 to in this way — ^warm, natural — ^was itself too 
 astonishing, moving, to leave her clear-headed for 
 casting back. 
 
 And then, just as she seemed about to say some- 
 thing, her face changed a little. Euth heard a gate 
 click behind her and then a man, a stolid farmer, 
 he appeared, came up to the wagon. The woman 
 kept nodding her head, as if in continued greeting, 
 but she had leaned back, as though she had decided 
 against what she had been about to say. Euth, 
 starting on, still bewildered, stirred, nodded and 
 smiled too ; and then, when the man had jumped in 
 the wagon and just as the horse was starting, the 
 woman called : "It seems awful good to have you 
 back on these streets, Euth!" 
 
 Euth could only nod m reply and hurried on ; her 
 heart beat fast; her eyes were blurring. "It 
 
FIDELITY 201 
 
 seems awful good to have you back on these 
 streets, Ruth!" Was that what she had said? 
 She turned around, wanting to run after that 
 wagon, not wanting to lose that pinched, shabby, 
 eager little woman who was glad to have her back 
 on those streets. But the wagon had turned a 
 corner and was out of sight. Back on those 
 streets ! It opened her to the fact that she was 
 back on them. She walked more slowly, thinking 
 about that. And she could walk more slowly ; she 
 was less driven. 
 
 After a block of perplexed thinking she knew 
 who that woman was ; it flashed from her memory 
 where she had known that intent look, that wistful 
 intentness lighting a thin little face. It was 
 Annie Morris, a girl in her class at the high- 
 school, a plain, quiet girl — ^poor she believed she 
 was, not in Euth's crowd. Now that she searched 
 back for what she remembered about it she be- 
 lieved that this Annie Morris had always liked 
 her; and perhaps she had taken more notice of 
 her than Edith and the other girls had. She 
 could see her now getting out of the shabby buggy 
 in which she drove in to school — she lived some- 
 where out in the country. She remembered talk- 
 ing to her sometimes at recess — ^partly because 
 she seemed a good deal alone and partly because 
 she liked to talk to her. She remembered that 
 she was what they called awfully bright in her 
 classes. 
 
202 FIDELITY 
 
 That this girl, whom she had forgotten, should 
 welcome her so warmly stirred an old wondering : 
 a wondering if somewhere in the world there were 
 not people who would be her friends. That won- 
 dering, longing, had run through many lonely 
 days. The people she had known would no 
 longer be her friends. But were there not other 
 people? She knew so little about the world out- 
 side her own life ; her own life had seemed to shut 
 down around her. But she had a feeling that 
 surely somewhere — somewhere outside the things 
 she had known — ^were people among whom she 
 could find friends. So far she had not found 
 them. At the first, seeing how hard it would be, 
 how bad for them both, to have only each other, 
 she had tried to go out to people just as if there 
 were nothing in her life to keep her back from 
 them. And then they would "hear"; that hear- 
 ing would come in the most unforeseen little 
 ways, at the most unexpected times; usually 
 through those coincidences of somebody's knowing 
 somebody else, perhaps meeting someone from a 
 former place where they had already "heard" ; it 
 was as if the haphazardness of life, those little 
 accidents of meetings that were without design, 
 equipped the world with a powerful service for 
 "hearing," which after a time made it impossible 
 for people to feel that what was known in one 
 place would not come to be known in another. 
 After she had several tinaes been hurt by the 
 
FIDELITY 203 
 
 drawing away of people whom slie had grown to 
 like, she herself drew hack where she could not be 
 so easily hurt. And so it came about that her 
 personality changed in that; from an outgoing 
 nature she came to be one who held back, shut 
 herself in. Even people who had never "heard" 
 had the feeling she did not care to know them, 
 that she wanted to be let alone. It crippled her 
 power for friendship; it hurt her spirit. And it 
 left her very much alone. In that loneliness she 
 wondered if there were not those other people — 
 people who could "hear" and not draw away. 
 She had not found them ; perhaps she had at times 
 been near them and in her holding back — not 
 knowing, afraid — ^had let them go by. Of that, 
 too, she had wondered; there had been many 
 lonely wonderings. 
 
 She came now to a corner where she stopped. 
 She stood looking down that cross street which 
 was shaded by elm trees. That was the comer 
 where she had always turned for Edith's. Yes, 
 that was the way she used to go. She stood look- 
 ing down the old way. She wanted to go that way 
 now! 
 
 She went so far as to cross the street, and on 
 that far comer again stood still, hesitating, want- 
 ing to go that old way. It came to her that if this 
 other girl — ^Annie Morris — a girl she could barely 
 remember, was glad to see her back, then surely 
 Edith — Edith — ^would be glad to see her. But 
 
204 FIDELITY 
 
 after a moment she went slowly on — the other 
 way. She remembered; remembered the one let- 
 ter she had had from Edith — ^that letter of a few 
 lines sent in reply to her two letters written from 
 Arizona, trying to make Edith understand. 
 
 "Euth" — Edith had written — she knew the few 
 words by heart; "Yes, I received your first letter. 
 I did not reply to it because it did not seem to me 
 there was anything for me to say. And it does 
 not seem to me now that there is anything for me 
 to say." It was signed, "Edith Lawrence 
 Blair." The full signature had seemed even 
 more formal than the cold words. It had hurt 
 more; it seemed actually to be putting in force 
 the decree that everything between her and Edith 
 was at an end. It was never to be Euth and 
 Edith again. 
 
 As she walked slowly on now, away from 
 Edith's, she remembered the day she walked 
 across that Arizona plain, looking at Edith's let- 
 ter a hundred times in the two miles between the 
 little town and their cabin. She had gone into 
 town that day to see the doctor. Stuart had 
 seemed weaker and she was terribly frightened. 
 The doctor did not bring her much comfort; he 
 said she would have to be patient, and hope — 
 probably it would all come right. She felt very 
 desolate that day in the far-away, forlorn little 
 town. "When she got Edith's letter she did not 
 dare to open it until she got out from the town. 
 
FIDELITY 205 
 
 And then she found those few formal, final words 
 — ^written, it was evident, to keep her from writ- 
 ing any more. The only human thing about it 
 was a little blot under the signature. It was the 
 only thing a bit like Edith ; she could see her mak- 
 ing it and frowning over it. And she wondered 
 — she had always wondered — if that little blot 
 came there because Edith was not as controlled, 
 as without all feeling, as everything else about her 
 letter would indicate. As she looked back to it 
 now it seemed that that day of getting Edith's 
 letter was the worst day of all the hard years. 
 She had been so lonely — so frightened; when she 
 saw Edith's handwriting it was hard not to burst 
 into tears right there at the little window in the 
 queer general store where they gave out letters as 
 well as everything else. But after she had read 
 the letter there were no tears ; there was no feel- 
 ing of tears. She walked along through that flat, 
 almost unpeopled, half desert country and it 
 seemed that the whole world had shrivelled up. 
 Everything had dried, just as the bushes along 
 the road were alive and yet dried up. She knew 
 then that it was certain there was no reach 
 back into the old things. And that night, after 
 they had gone to bed out of doors and Stuart had 
 fallen asleep, she lay there in the stillness of that 
 vast Arizona night and she came to seem in 
 another world. For hours she lay there looking 
 up at the stars, thinking, fearing. She reached 
 
206 FIDELITY 
 
 over and very gently, meaning not to wake Mm, 
 put her hand in the hand of the man asleep beside 
 her, the man who was all she had in the world, 
 whom she loved with a passion that made the 
 possibility of losiag him a thing that came in the 
 night to terrorize her. He had awakened and un- 
 derstood, and had comforted her with his love, 
 lavishing upon her tender, passionate assurance 
 of how he was going to get strong and make it all 
 come right for them both. There was something' 
 terrible in that passion for one another that came 
 out of the consciousness of all else lost. They 
 had each other — there were moments when that 
 burned with a terrible flame through the feeling 
 that they had nothing else. That night they went 
 to sleep in a wonderful consciousness of being 
 alone together in the world. Time after time 
 that swept them together with an intensity of 
 which finally they came to be afraid. They 
 stopped speaking of it; it came to seem a thing 
 not to dwell upon. 
 
 The thought of Edith's letter had brought some 
 of that back now. She turned from it to the 
 things she was passing, houses she recognized, 
 new houses. "Walking on past them she thought 
 of how those homes joined. With most of them 
 there were no fences between — one yard merging 
 into another. Children were running from yard 
 to yard; here a woman was standing in her own 
 yard calling to a woman in the house adjoining. 
 
FIDELITY 207 
 
 She passed a porch where four -women were sit- 
 ting sewing ; another where two women were play- 
 ing with a baby. There were so many meeting 
 places for their lives ; they were not shut in with 
 their own feeling. That feeling which they as 
 individuals k^^iew reached out into common experi- 
 ences, into a life in common growing out of indi- 
 vidual things. Passing these houses, she wanted 
 to share in that life in common. She had been 
 too long by herself. She needed to be one with 
 others. Life, for a time, had a certain terrible 
 beauty that burned in that sense of isolation. 
 But it was not the way. One needed to be one 
 with others. 
 
 She thought of how it was love, more than any 
 other thing, that gave these people that common 
 life. Love was the fabric of it. Love made new 
 combinations of people — ^homes, children. The 
 very thing in her that had shut her out was the 
 thing drawing them into that oneness, that many 
 in one. Homes were closed to her because of that 
 very impulse out of which homes were built. 
 
 She had, without any plan for doing so, turned 
 down the little street where she used to go to meet 
 Stuart. And when she realized where she was 
 going thoughts of other things fell away ; the feel- 
 ing of those first days was strangely revivified, 
 as if going that old way made her for the moment 
 the girl who had gone that way. Again love was 
 not a thing of right or wrong, it was the thing 
 
208 FIDELITY 
 
 that had to have its way — ^life's great imperative. 
 Going down that old street made the glow of those 
 days — ^the excitement — come to life and quicken 
 her again. It was so real that it was as if she 
 were living it again — a girl palpitating with love 
 going to meet her lover, all else left behind, only 
 love now! For the moment those old surround- 
 ings made the old days a living thing to her. The 
 world was just one palpitating beauty; the earth 
 she walked was vibrant; the sweetness of Hfe 
 breathed from the air she breathed. She was 
 charged with the joy of it, bathed in the wonder. 
 Love had touched her and taken her, and she was 
 different and everything was different. Her 
 body was one consciousness of love; it lifted her 
 up; it melted her to tenderness. It made life 
 joyous and noble. She lived; she loved! 
 
 Standing on the spot where they had many 
 times stood in moments of meeting a very real 
 tenderness for that girl was in the heart of this 
 woman who had paid so terribly for the girl's 
 love. It brought a feeling that she had not paid 
 too much, that no paying was ever too much for 
 love. Love made life ; and in turn love was what 
 life was for. To live without it would be going 
 through life without having been touched alive. 
 In that moment it seemed no wrong love could 
 bring about would be as deep as the wrong of 
 denying love. There was again that old feeling 
 of rising to something higher in her than she had 
 
FIDELITY 209 
 
 known was there, that feeling of contact with all 
 the beauty of the world, of being admitted to the 
 inner sweetness and wonder of life. She had a 
 new understanding of what she had felt ; that was 
 the thing added; that was the gift of the hard 
 years. 
 
 And of a sudden she wanted terribly to see her 
 mother. It seemed if she could see her mother 
 now that she oould make her understand. She 
 saw it more simply than she had seen it before. 
 She wanted to tell her mother that she loved be- 
 cause she could not help loving. She wanted to 
 tell her that after all those years of paying for it 
 she saw that love as the thing illumining her life ; 
 that if there was anything worthy in her, any- 
 thing to love, it was in just this — that she had 
 fought for love, that she would fight for it again. 
 She wanted to see her mother ! She believed she 
 could help the hurt she had dealt. 
 
 She had walked slowly on, climbing a little hill. 
 From there she looked back at the town. With 
 fresh pain there came the consciousness that her 
 mother was not there, that she could not tell her, 
 that she had gone — gone without understanding, 
 gone bewildered, broken. Her eyes dimmed until 
 the town was a blur. She wanted to see her 
 mother ! 
 
 She was about to start back, but turned for a 
 moment's look the other way, across that lovely 
 country of little hills and valleys — ^brooks, and 
 
210 FIDELITY 
 
 cattle in tlie brooks, and fields of many shades of 
 green. 
 
 And tlien her eye fixed upon one thing and after 
 that saw no other thing. Behind her was the 
 place where the living were gathered together; 
 but over there, right over there on the next hill, 
 were the dead. She stood very still, looking over 
 there passionately through dimmed eyes. And 
 then swiftly, sobbing a little under her breath, she 
 started that way. She wanted to see her mother ! 
 
 And when she came within those gates she grew 
 strangely quiet. Back there in the dwelling place 
 of the living she had felt shut out. But she did 
 not feel shut out here. As slowly she wound her 
 way to the hillside where she knew she would find 
 her mother's grave, a strange peace touched her. 
 It was as if she had come within death's toler- 
 ance; she seemed somehow to be taken into 
 death's wonderful, all-inclusive love for life. 
 There seemed only one distinction: they were 
 dead and she still lived; she had a sense of being 
 loved because she still lived. 
 
 Slowly, strangely comforted, strangely taken 
 in, she passed the graves of many who, when she 
 left, had been back there in the place of the liv- 
 ing. The change from dwelling place to dwell- 
 ing place had been made in the years she was 
 away. It came with a shock to find some of those 
 tombstones; she found many she had thought of 
 as back there, a few hills away, where men still 
 
FIDELITY 211 
 
 lived. She would pause and think of them, of 
 the strangeness of finding them here when she 
 had known them there — of life's onward move- 
 ment, of death's inevitability. There were stones 
 marking the burial places of friends of her grand- 
 father — old people who used to come to the house 
 when she was a little girl; she thought with a 
 tender pleasure of little services she had done 
 them; she had no feeling at all that they would 
 not want her to be there. Friends of her father 
 and mother too were there ; yes, and some of her 
 own friends — ^boys and girls with whom she had 
 shared youth. 
 
 She sat a long time on the hillside where her 
 mother had been put away. At first she cried, 
 but they were not bitter tears. And after that 
 she did not feel that, even if she could have talked 
 to her mother, it would be important to say the 
 things she had thought she wanted to say. Here, 
 in this place of the dead, those things seemed un- 
 derstood. Vindication was not necessary. "Was 
 not life life, and should not one live before death 
 came? She saw the monuments marking the 
 graves of the Lawrences, the Blairs, the Williams ', 
 the Franklins, — her mother's and her father's 
 people. They seemed so strangely one: people 
 who had lived. She looked across the hills to the 
 town which these people had built. Eight beside 
 her was her grandfather's grave; she thought of 
 his stories of how, when a little boy, he came with 
 
212 FIDELITY 
 
 Ms people to that place not then a town ; his stories 
 of the beginnings of it, of the struggles and con- 
 flicts that had made it what it was. She thought 
 of their efforts, their disappointments, their 
 hopes, their loves. Their loves. . . . She felt very- 
 close to them in that. And as she thought of it 
 there rose a strange feeling, a feeliug that came 
 strangely strong and sure: If these people who 
 had passed from living were given an after mo- 
 ment of consciousness, a moment when they conld 
 look back on life and speak to it, she felt that 
 their voices, with all the force they could gather, 
 would be raised for more living. Why did we 
 not live more abundantly? Why did we not hold 
 life more precious? Were they given power to 
 say just one word, would they not, seeing life 
 from death, cry — ^Live ! 
 
 Twilight came; the world had the sweetness of 
 that hour just before night. A breeze stirred 
 softly; birds called lovingly — loving life. The 
 whole fragrance of the world was breathed into 
 one word. It was as if life had caught the pas- 
 sionate feeling of death; it was as if that after 
 consciousness of those who had left life, and so 
 knew its preciousness, broke through into things 
 still articulate. The earth breathed — ^Live! 
 
CHAPTER NINETEEN 
 
 Cyrus Holland died just before daybreak next 
 morning. It seemed to Deane Franklin that be 
 had only just fallen asleep when the telephone be- 
 side him was ringing. When tired out he slept 
 through other noises, but that one always in- 
 stantly reached — a oaU to him that'^ot through 
 sleep. He wakened just enough to reach out for 
 the 'phone and his "Hello!" was cross. Was 
 there never a time when one could be let alone? 
 But the voice that came to him banished both 
 sleep and irritation. It was Euth's voice, saying 
 quietly, tensely: "Deane? I'm sorry — ^but we 
 want you. There's a change. I'm sure father's 
 going." 
 
 He was dressing almost the instant he hung up 
 the receiver. To Amy, who had roused, he said: 
 "It's Euth. Her father's going. I can't do a 
 thing — ^but they want me there." 
 
 At first Amy made no reply. He thought noth- 
 ing about that, engrossed in getting dressed as 
 quickly as possible. When she burst out, "So of 
 course you're going!" he was dumbfounded at 
 the passionateness of her voice. He looked at her 
 in astonishment ; then, for the first time the other 
 side of it, as related to their quarrel about Euth, 
 
 213 
 
214 FIDELITY 
 
 turned itself to him. "Why, of course I'm go- 
 ing, Amy," lie said quietly. 
 
 "It makes a difference who it is, doesn't it?" 
 she cried, stormily. * ' The other night when some- 
 body called you and there wasn't a thing you could 
 do, you said so! You told them they mustn't 
 ask you! But this is different, isn't it?" 
 
 The words had piled up tumultuously ; she 
 seemed right on the verge of angry, tumultuous 
 tears. He paused in what he was doing. "Why, 
 Amy," he murmured in real astonishment. And 
 then helplessly repeated iu tender reproach, 
 "Why, Amy!" 
 
 But she laughed, it seemed sneeringly. He 
 colored, quickly finished dressing and left the 
 room without saying anything more. 
 
 When she heard the front door close, heard 
 Deane running down the steps, she sat up in bed 
 and burst into tears of rage. Always that 
 woman! Eunning away to her in the middle of 
 the night! He didn't have to go! There was 
 nothing for hiTn to do as a doctor — ^he could do 
 nothing for a man who had been dying for a 
 couple of days. He said that — ^just a couple of 
 nights before when someone wanted him to come. 
 But this was Ruth Holland! She had only to 
 telephone. Of course he'd go anywhere — any 
 time — for her! Her sobs grew more and more 
 passionate. Her head down on her knees she 
 
FIDELITY 215 
 
 rocked back and forth in that miserable fury only 
 jealousy and wounded pride can create. 
 
 This gathered together, brought to a head, the 
 resentment accumulating through a number of in- 
 cidents. That afternoon she had gone over to 
 the Lawrences' to thank Edith and her mother 
 for the flowers from the tea which they had sent 
 her that morning. They had urged her to run in 
 often, to be friendly. Her unhappiness about her 
 talk with Deane the night before, when he had act- 
 ually proposed that she go to see this Euth Hol- 
 land, made her want to be with friends; she 
 wanted to see people who felt as she did that — 
 though it did not so present itself to her — she 
 might fortify herself in the conviction that Deane 
 was preposterously wrong, and she taking the only 
 course a good woman could take in relation to a 
 bad one. She was prepared to feel that men did 
 not see those things as clearly as women did, that 
 it was woman who was the guardian of society, 
 and that she must bear with man in his failure to 
 see some things right. She had been eager to 
 strengthen herself in that feeling, not alone be- 
 cause it would, in her own mind, get her out of 
 reach of any possible charge of hardness or nar- 
 rowness, but because it would let her break 
 through her feeling against Deane ; she wanted to 
 get back to the days of his complete adoration of 
 her, back where his passion for her would sweep 
 
216 FIDELITY 
 
 all else out of their world. She knew well enough 
 that Deane loved her, but there was a tightened up 
 place around her knowing that. It made her mis- 
 erable. Things would not be right until she found 
 a way through that tightened up place — a way that 
 would make her right and Deane wrong, but would 
 let her forgive, largely and gently understanding. 
 Such, not thought out, were the things that took 
 her to the Lawrences ' that afternoon. 
 
 It was apparent that Edith had been crying. 
 She and her mother were gracious to Amy, but 
 there was a new constraint. She felt uncomfort- 
 able. When they were alone Edith broke out and 
 told her how she was just sick at heart about Euth. 
 Deane had been there that morning urging her to 
 go and see Euth — ^instantly there was all anew that 
 tightening up that held her from Deane, that feel- 
 ing against him and against this Euth Holland 
 that was as if something virulent had been poured 
 into her blood, changing her whole system. Edith 
 cried as she told how Deane and her mother had 
 quarreled because he felt so strongly on the sub- 
 ject, and didn't seem able to understand her 
 mother's standpoint. Then, she too wanting to 
 set herself right with herself, she went over the 
 whole story — the shock to her, how it had hurt her 
 ideal of friendship, had even seemed to take some- 
 thing from the sanctity of her own marriage. She 
 silenced something within herself in recounting the 
 wrong done her, fortified herself in repeating the 
 
FIDELITY 217 
 
 things she had from her mother about one's not 
 being free, about what the individual owed to so- 
 ciety. 
 
 Amy went home in a turmoil of resentment 
 against her husband. It was hard to hold back 
 the angry tears. A nice position he was putting 
 himself in — going about the town pleading for this 
 woman whom nobody would take in! — estrangrng 
 his friends — ^yes, probably hurting his practice. 
 And why 9 Why was he so wrought up about it? 
 Why was he making a regular business of going 
 about fighting her battles? Well, one thing it 
 showed! It showed how much consideration he 
 had for his own wife. When she came in sight 
 of their house it was harder than ever to hold 
 back the tears of mortification, of hot resentment. 
 She had been so sure she was going to be perfectly 
 happy in that house! Now already her husband 
 was turning away from her — humiliating her — 
 showing how much he thought of another woman, 
 and such a woman ! She did not know what to do 
 with the way she felt, did not know how to hold 
 from the surface the ugly things that surged 
 through her, possessed her. Until now she had 
 had nothing but adulation from love. A pretty, 
 petted girl she had formed that idea of pretty 
 women in youth that it was for men to give love 
 and women graciously to accept it. For her van- 
 ity to be hurt by a man who had roused her pas- 
 sion turned that passion to fury against him and 
 
218 FIDELITY 
 
 made it seem that a great wrong had been done 
 her. 
 
 As she approached she saw that Deane was 
 standing before the honse talking to a woman in 
 a vegetable wagon. He had one foot np on the 
 spoke of the wheel and was talking more earnestly 
 than it seemed one would be talking to a vegetable 
 woman. Doubtless she was one of his patients. 
 As she came up he said: "Oh, Amy, I want you 
 to know Mrs. Herman." 
 
 She stiffened; his tone in introducing her to a 
 woman of what she thought of as the lower classes 
 seeming just a new evidence of his inadequate val- 
 uation of her. 
 
 "Your husband and I went to school together," 
 said Mrs. Herman, pleasantly, but as if explaining. 
 
 " Oh ? " murmured Amy. 
 
 Deane abruptly moved back from the wagon. 
 "Well, you do that, Annie. Euth would love to 
 see you, I know." 
 
 So that was it! She turned away with a stiff 
 little nod to the woman in the wagon. Always 
 the same thing ! — ^urging Tom, Dick and Harry to 
 go and see that woman ! — taking up with a person 
 like this, introducing his wife in that intimate 
 way to a woman who peddled vegetables just be- 
 cause she was willing to go and see Euth Holland ! 
 She didn't know that she had to stand such things ! 
 — she didn't know that she wovld. She guessed 
 
FIDELITY 219 
 
 she oould show him that she wasn't going to play 
 second fiddle to that Euth Holland ! 
 
 Deane came to the door of the room where she 
 was taking off her hat. Her fingers were tremb- 
 ling so that she could scarcely get the pins. ' ' That 
 little woman you were so chilly to is a pretty fine 
 sort, Amy," he said incisively. 
 
 "Because she is going to see Euth Holland?" 
 she retorted with an excited laugh. 
 
 "Oh, you were pretty stand-offish before you 
 knew that," he answered coolly. 
 
 Vanity smarting from deeper hurts made her 
 answer, haughtily: "I'm rather inexperienced, 
 you know, in meeting people of that class." 
 
 In his heart too there were deeper disappoint- 
 ments than this touched. "Well, I must say — " 
 he began hotly, "I think if I felt as snobbish as 
 that I'd try pretty hard to conceal it!" 
 
 Amy was carefully putting away her hat; she 
 had an appearance of cold composure, of a sense of 
 superiority. It was because she wanted to keep 
 that that she did not speak. The things within 
 would so completely have destroyed it. 
 
 "I guess you don't understand. Amy," said 
 Deane, quieted by her silence; "if you knew all 
 about Annie Morris I think you'd see she is a 
 woman worth meeting." Thinking of his talk 
 with Edith and her mother that morning, he added, 
 a good deal of feeling breaking into his voice: 
 
220 FIDELITY 
 
 "A good sight more so than some of the people 
 you are meeting!" 
 
 "And of course, ' ' she could not hold back, ' ' they 
 — those inferior people — ^won't go to see Euth 
 Holland, and this wonderful woman will! That's 
 the secret of it, isn't it?" 
 
 "It's one thing that shows her superiority," 
 he replied coolly. "Another thing is her pluck — 
 grit. Her husband is a dolt, and she's determined 
 her three children shall have some sort of a show 
 in life, so she's driven ahead — ^worked from day- 
 light till dark many a time — to make decent things 
 possible for them." 
 
 "Well, that's very commendable, I'm sure," re- 
 plied Amy mildly, appearing to be chiefly con- 
 cerned with a loose button on the wrap she had 
 just taken off. 
 
 "And with all that she's kept her own spirit 
 alive ; she's not going to let life get clear ahead of 
 her, either. She's pretty valiant, I think." He 
 was thinking again of Edith and her mother as 
 he added contentiously, "I don't know any woman 
 in this town I'd rather talk to!" 
 
 Amy, appearing quite outside the things that 
 were disturbing him, only smiled politely and 
 threaded a needle for sewing on the button. He 
 stood there in the doorway, fidgeting, his face red. 
 She seemed so uncaring; she seemed so far away. 
 "Oh, Amy!" he cried, miserably, appealingly. 
 
 Quickly she looked up; her mouth, which had 
 
FIDELITY 221 
 
 been so complacent, twitched. He started toward 
 her, but just then the doorbell rang. "I presume 
 that's your mother," she said, in matter of fact 
 tone. 
 
 Mrs. Franklin was with them for dinner that 
 night. Amy's social training made it appear as 
 if nothing were disturbing her. She appeared 
 wholly composed, serene ; it was Deane who seemed 
 ill at ease, out of sorts. 
 
 After dinner he had to go to the hospital and 
 when she was alone with his mother Amy was not 
 able to keep away from the subject of Euth Hol- 
 land. For one thing, she wanted to hear about 
 her, she was avid for detail as to how she looked, 
 things she had done and said — that curious human 
 desire to press on a place that hurts. And there 
 was too the impulse for further self -exoneration, 
 to be assured that she was right, to feel that she 
 was injured. 
 
 All of those things it was easy to get from Mrs. 
 Franklin. Amy, not willing to reveal what there 
 had been between her and Deane, and having that 
 instinct for drawing sympathy to herself by seem- 
 ing self-depreciation, spoke gently of how she 
 feared she did not altogether understand about 
 Deane 's friend Euth Holland. Was she wrong in 
 not going with Deane to see her? 
 
 Mrs. Franklin's explosion of indignation at the 
 idea, and the feeling with which, during the hour 
 that followed, she expressed herself about Deane 's 
 
222 FIDELITY 
 
 friend Euth Holland, acted in a double fashion as 
 both fortification and new hurt. Mrs. Franklin, 
 leader in church and philanthropic affairs, had ab- 
 solutely no understanding of things which went 
 outside the domain of what things should be. The 
 poor and the wicked did terrible things that society 
 must do something about. There was no excuse 
 whatever for people who ought to know better. 
 That people should be dominated by things they 
 ought not to feel was perversity on their part and 
 the most wilful kind of wickedness. She had Mrs. 
 Lawrence's point of view, but from a more provin- 
 cial angle. Deane did not get his questioning 
 spirit, what she called his stubbornness, from his 
 mother. 
 
 Added to what she as a church woman and 
 worker for social bettermeiit felt about the affair 
 was the resentment of the mother at her son's hav- 
 ing been, as she put it, dragged into the outrage. 
 She grew so inflamed in talking of how this woman 
 had used Deane that she did not take thought of 
 how she was giving more of an impression of her 
 power over him than might be pleasant hearing for 
 Deane 's young wife. The indignation of the 
 whole Franklin family at what they called the way 
 Deane had been made a cat's paw was fanned to 
 full flame in this preposterous suggestion that 
 Amy should go to see Euth Holland. In her in- 
 dignation at the idea she gave a new sense of 
 what the town felt about Euth, and she was more 
 
FIDELITY 223 
 
 vehement than tactful in her expressions against 
 Deane for holding out that way against the whole 
 town. "It just shows, my dear," she said, "what 
 a woman of no principle can do with a man ! ' ' 
 
 Amy, hurt to the quick in this thought of the 
 mysterious lure of a woman of no principle, re- 
 marked casually, "She's wonderfully attractive, I 
 presume." 
 
 Mrs. Franklin was not too blunted by indigna- 
 tion to miss the pain that was evident in the in- 
 differently asked question. Hastily — more hast- 
 ily than subtly, she proceeded to depreciate the 
 attractions of Euth Holland, but in the deprecia- 
 tion left an impression of some quality — elusive, 
 potent — ^which more than beauty or, definite charm 
 gave her power. Edith too had spoken of that 
 "something" about Euth; a something one never 
 forgot; a something, she said, that no one else 
 had. 
 
 And now, awakened by Deane 's having been 
 called by this woman in the night, herself alone 
 there and he hurrying to Euth Holland, the bar- 
 riers of pride broke down and she cried because 
 she was sorry for herself, because she was hurt 
 and outraged that she should be hurt, because for 
 the first time in her whole life she was thwarted — 
 not having her way, set aside. She completely 
 lost her hold on herself, got up and stormed about 
 the room. When she looked at her face in the 
 mirror she saw that it was hideous. She couldn't 
 
224 FIDELITY 
 
 help it! — slie didn't care! The resentment, rage, 
 in her heart was like a poison that went all 
 through her. She was something that didn't seem 
 herself. She thought horrible things and groimd 
 her teeth and clenched her hands and let her face 
 look as ugly as it could. She hated this woman! 
 She wished some horrible thing would happen to 
 her! She hated Deane Franklin! The passion 
 he had roused in her all turned into this feel- 
 ing against him. She wouldn't stand it! She 
 wouldn't stay there and play second fiddle to an- 
 other woman — she, a bride! Fresh tears came 
 with that last. Her mother and father would 
 never have treated her that way. They didn't 
 think Deane Franklin good enough for her, any- 
 way! She would go back home! That would 
 make things pretty hard for him! That would 
 show what this woman had done! And he'd be 
 sorry then — ^would want her back — and she 
 wouldn't come. She finally found control in that 
 thought of her power over him used to make him 
 suffer. 
 
 Deane, meanwhile, was hurrying through the 
 streets that had the unrealaess of that hour just 
 before morning. That aspect of things was with 
 him associated with death; almost always when 
 he had been on the streets at that hour it was be- 
 cause someone was fighting death. It was so still 
 — as if things were awed. And a light that 
 seemed apart from natural things was formed by 
 
FIDELITY 225 
 
 the way the street lights grew pale in the faint 
 light of coming day. Everyone was sleeping — all 
 save those in a house half a dozen blocks away, 
 the house where they were waiting for death. 
 
 He was on foot, having left his car down at the 
 garage for some repairs after taking his mother 
 home. As he slowed for a moment from a walk 
 that was half run he thought of how useless his 
 hurrying was. What in the world could he do 
 when he got there? Nothing save assure them he 
 could do nothing. Poor Euth ! — it seemed she had 
 so much, so many hard things. This was a time 
 when one needed one's friends, but of course they 
 couldn't come near her — on account of society. 
 Though — his face softened with the thought — 
 Annie Morris would come, she not being op- 
 pressed by this duty to society. He thought of 
 the earnestness of her thin face as she talked of 
 Euth. That let in the picture of Amy's face as 
 he introduced them. He tried not to keep seeing 
 it. He did think, however, that it was pretty un- 
 necessary of Amy to have talked to his mother 
 about Euth. All that was unyielding in him 
 had been summoned by the way his mother talked 
 to him going home — "going for him" like that 
 because he had wanted Amy to go and see Euth. 
 That, it seemed to him, was something between 
 him and Amy. He would not have supposed she 
 would be so ready to talk with some one else about 
 a thing that was just between themselves. There 
 
226 FIDELITY 
 
 had been that same old hardening against his 
 mother when she began talking of Knth, and that 
 feeling that shut her out excluded Amy with her. 
 And he had wanted Amy with hiTin. 
 
 Hurrying on, he tried not to think of it. He 
 didn't know why Amy had talked to his mother 
 about it — perhaps it just happened so, perhaps 
 his mother began it. He seized upon that. And 
 Amy didn't understand; she was young — ^her life 
 had never touched anything like this. He was 
 going to talk to her — ^really talk to her, not fly off 
 the handle at the first thing she would say. He 
 told himself that he had been stupid, hard— a 
 bungler. It made him feel better to tell himself 
 that. Yes, he certainly had been unsympathetic, 
 and it was a shame that anything had come to 
 make Amy unhappy — and right there at first, too! 
 Why, it was actually making her sick ! When he 
 went back after taking his mother home Amy said 
 she had a bad headache and didn't want to talk. 
 She was so queer that he had taken her at her 
 word and had not tried to talk to her — ^be nice to 
 her. It seemed now that he hadn't been kind; it 
 helped him to feel that he hadn't been kind. And 
 it was the headache, being roused in the night 
 when she was not well that had made her so — 
 well, so wrought up about his answering to the 
 call of the Hollands — old patients, old friends. 
 He was going to be different ; he was going to be 
 more tender with Amy — ^that would be the way to 
 
FIDELITY 227 
 
 make lier -understand. Such were the things his 
 troubled mind and hurt heart tried to be per- 
 suaded of as, thinking at the same time of other 
 things — the death to which he was hurrying, how 
 hard it would be for Euth if Cyrus didn't speak 
 to her — ^he passed swiftly by the last houses where 
 people slept and turned from a world tinged with 
 the strangeness of an hour so little known to 
 men's consciousness, softly opened the door and 
 stepped into the house where death was touching 
 life with that same unreality with which, without, 
 day touched night. 
 
 Miss Copeland, wrapped in a bathrobe, sat in 
 the upstairs hall. "He's still breathing," she 
 whispered in that voice which is for death alone. 
 In the room Euth and Ted stood close together, 
 the nurse on the other side of the bed. Euth's 
 hair was braided down her back; he remembered 
 when she used to wear it that way, he had one 
 of those sudden pictures of her — on her way to 
 school, skipping along with Edith Lawrence. She 
 turned, hearing him, and there was that rush of 
 feeling to her eyes that always claimed him for 
 Euth, that quick, silent assumption of his under- 
 standing that always let down bars between them. 
 But Euth kept close to Ted, as if she would shield 
 him; the boy looked as Deane had seen novices 
 look in the operating room. 
 
 There was nothing for him to do beyond look 
 at his patient and nod to the nurse in confirma- 
 
228 FIDELITY 
 
 tion that it would be any minute now. He walked 
 around to Ted and Euth, taking an arm of each 
 of them and walking with them to the far side of 
 the room. 
 
 "There's nothing to do but wait," he said. 
 
 "I wish Harriett and Cyrus would get here," 
 whispered Euth. 
 
 "You telephoned?" 
 
 "Before I did you — ^but of course it's a little 
 farther." 
 
 They stood there together in that strange 
 silence, hearing only the unlifelike breathing of 
 the man passing from life. Listening to it, Euth's 
 hand on Deane's arm tightened. Soothingly he 
 patted her hand. 
 
 Then, at a movement from the nurse, he stepped 
 quickly to the bed. Euth and Ted, close together, 
 first followed, then held back. A minute later he 
 turned to them. "It's over," he said, in the sim- 
 ple way final things are said. 
 
 There was a choking little cry from Ted. Euth 
 murmured something, her face all compassion for 
 him. But after a moment she left her brother and 
 stood alone beside her father. In that moment of 
 seeing her face, before turning away because it 
 seemed he should turn away, Deane got one of 
 the strangest impressions of his life. It was as 
 if she was following her father — reaching him ; as 
 if there was a fullness of feeling, a rising passion- 
 
FIDELITY 229 
 
 ate intensity that could fairly overflow from life. 
 Then she turned back to Ted. 
 
 Cyrus and Harriett had entered. There was a 
 moment when the four children were there to- 
 gether. Cyrus did not come up to the bed until 
 Euth had left. Deane watched his face as — per- 
 functorily subdued, decorous, he stood where Euth 
 had stood a moment before. Then Cyrus turned 
 to him and together they walked from the room, 
 Cyrus asking why they had not been telephoned 
 in time. 
 
 Deane lingered for a little while, hating tcJ go 
 without again seeing Euth and Ted. He tapped 
 at Euth's door; he was not answered, but the un- 
 latched door had swung a little open at his touch. 
 He saw that the brother and sister were out on 
 the little porch opening off Euth's room. He 
 went out and stood beside them, knowing that he 
 would be wanted. The sun was just rising, touch- 
 ing the dew on the grass. The birds were singing 
 for joy in another day. The three who had just 
 seen death stood there together in silence. 
 
CHAPTER TWENTY 
 
 The two days when the natural course of life 
 was arrested by death had passed. Their father 
 had been buried that afternoon, and in the early 
 evening Ted and Euth were sitting on the little 
 upper porch, very quiet in the new poignant 
 emptiness of the house. Many people had been 
 coming and going in those last few days; now 
 that was over and there was a pause before the 
 routine of life was to be resumed. The fact that 
 the nurse had gone seemed to turn the page. 
 
 Euth had just asked how long Cyrus was goiag 
 to stay and Ted replied that he wanted to stay on 
 a week or perhaps more, attending to some busi- 
 ness. She knew how crowded it must be for them 
 at Harriett's, knew that if she went away Cyrus 
 would come home. There seemed nothing more to 
 keep her; she would like to be with Ted awhile, 
 but it seemed she could not do that without con- 
 tinuing a hard condition for them all. They could 
 settle iato a more natural order of things with her 
 not there. It was time for her to go. 
 
 It was hard to have to think that. She would 
 love to have stayed a little while. She had been 
 away so long — ^wanting home for so long. She 
 knew now, facing the going away, how much she 
 
 230 
 
FIDELITY 231 
 
 had secretly hoped might result from this trip 
 back home. 
 
 She had seen a mimber of people in the past 
 few days — relatives, old friends of the family, 
 friends of Ted. She had done better in meeting 
 them than, just a little while before, she would 
 have thought possible. Something remained with 
 her from that hour at her mother's grave, that 
 strange hour when she had seemed to see life from 
 outside, beyond it. That had summoned some- 
 thing within herself that no personal hurt could 
 scatter, as if taking her in to something from 
 which no circumstance could drive her out. She 
 had felt an inner quiet, a steadiness within ; there 
 was power in it, and consolation. It took her out 
 of that feeling of having no place — ^no right to a 
 place, the feeling that had made her wretched and 
 powerless. She was of life ; her sure inner sense 
 of the reality and beauty of that seemed a thing 
 not to be broken down from without. It was hers, 
 her own. It sustained her; it gave her poise. 
 The embarrassment of other people gave way be- 
 fore her simple steadiness. She had had but the 
 one point of contact with them — that of her 
 father's death ; it made her want more, made go- 
 ing away hard. It was hard to leave all the old 
 things after even this slight touch with them 
 again. 
 
 And that new quiet, that new force within was 
 beginning to make for new thinking. She had 
 
232 FIDELITY 
 
 thouglit much, about what she had lived through — 
 she could not help doing that, but she "was think- 
 ing now with new questionings. She had not 
 questioned much; she had accepted. What was 
 gathering within her now was a feeling that a 
 thing so real, so of life as her love had been 
 should not be a thing to set her apart, should not 
 be a thing to blight the lives that touched hers. 
 This was not something called up in vindication, 
 a mere escape from hard thinking, her own way 
 out from things she could not bear ; it was deeper 
 than that, far less facile. It came from that in- 
 ner quiet — from that strange new assurance — 
 this feeling that her love should not have devas- 
 tated, that it was too purely of life for that ; that 
 it was a thing to build up life, to give to it ; this 
 wondering, at once timid and bold, if there was 
 not something wrong with, an order that could give 
 it no place, that made it life's enemy. 
 
 She had been afraid of rebellious thinking, of 
 questionings. There had been so much to fight, 
 so much to make her afraid. At first all the 
 strength of her feeling had gone into the fight for 
 Stuart's health; she was afraid of things that 
 made her rebellious — ^needing all of herself, not 
 daring to break through. The circumstances had 
 seemed to make her own life just shut down 
 around her ; and even after those first years, liv- 
 ing itself was so hard, there were so many worries 
 and disappointments — ^her feeling about it was so 
 
FIDELITY 233 
 
 tense, life so stern — that her thoughts did not 
 shoot a long way out into questionings. She had 
 done a thing that cut her off from her family; she 
 had hurt other people and because of that she 
 herself must suffer. Life could not be for her 
 what it was for others. She accepted much that 
 she did not try to understand. For one thing, 
 she had had no one to talk to about those things. 
 Seeing how Stuart's resentment against the state 
 of things weakened him, keeping him from his f uU 
 powers to meet those hard conditions, she did not 
 encourage their talking of it and had tried to keep 
 herself from the thinking that with him went into 
 brooding and was weakening. She had to do the 
 best she could about things; she could not spend 
 herself in rebellion against what she had to meet. 
 Like a man who finds himself on a dizzy ledge she 
 grew fearful of much looking around. 
 
 But now, in these last few days, swept back into 
 the wreckage she had left, something fluttered to 
 life and beat hard within her spirit, breaking its 
 way through the fearfulness that shut her in and 
 sending itself out in new bolder flights. Not that 
 those outgoings took her away from the place she 
 had devastated ; it was out of the poignancy of her 
 feeling about the harm she had done, out of her 
 new grief in it that these new questionings were 
 born. The very fact that she did see so well, and 
 so sorrowingly, what she had done, brought this 
 new feeling that it should not have been that way, 
 
234 FIDELITY 
 
 that what she had felt, and her fidelity to that feel- 
 ing — ruthless fidelity though it was — should not 
 have blighted like this. There was something 
 that seemed at the heart of it all in that feeling of 
 not being ashamed in the presence of death — she 
 who had not denied life. 
 
 Silence had fallen between her and Ted, she 
 saddened in the thought of going away and open 
 to the puzzling things that touched her life at 
 every point; looking at Ted — ^proud of him — ^hat- 
 ing to leave him now just when she had found him, 
 again, thinking with loving gratefulness and pride 
 of how generous and how understanding he had 
 been with her, how he was at once so boyish and 
 so much more than his years. The fine serious- 
 ness of his face tonight made him very dear and 
 very comforting to her. She wanted to keep close 
 to him; she could not bear the thought of again 
 losing him. If her hard visit back home yielded 
 just that she would have had rich gain from it. 
 She began talking with him about what he would 
 do. He talked freely of his work, as if glad to 
 talk of it; he was not satisfied with it, did not 
 think there was much ''chance" there for him. 
 Ted had thought he wanted to study law, but his 
 father, in one of his periods of depression, had 
 said he could not finish sending him through col- 
 lege and Ted had gone into one of the big manu- 
 factories there. He was in the sales department, 
 and he talked to Ruth of the work. He told her 
 
FIDELITY 235 
 
 of Ms friends, of what they were doing; they 
 talked of many things, speaMng of the future 
 with that gentle intimacy there can be between 
 those sorrowing together for things past. Their 
 sensitive consciousness of the emptiness of the 
 house — ^the old place, their home, — brought them 
 together through a deep undercurrent of feeling. 
 Their voices were low as they spoke of more inti- 
 mate things than it is usual to speak of without 
 constraint, something lowered between them as 
 only a grief shared can lower bars to the spirit, 
 their thinking set in that poignant sense of life 
 which death alone seems able to create. 
 
 Ted broke a pause to say that he supposed it 
 was getting late and he must be starting for Har- 
 riett's. Cyrus had asked him to come over awhile 
 that evening. Mr. McFarland, their family law- 
 yer, was going out of town for a few days, leaving 
 the next morning. He was coming in that even- 
 ing, more as the old friend than formally, to 
 speak to them about some business matters, 
 Cyrus's time being limited and there being a num- 
 ber of things to arrange. 
 
 "I hate leaving you alone, Euth," said Ted, 
 lingering. 
 
 She looked over to him with quick affectionate 
 smile. "I don't mind, Ted. Somehow I don't 
 mind being alone tonight." 
 
 That was true. Being alone would not be loneli- 
 ness that evening. Things were somehow opened ; 
 
236 FIDELITY 
 
 all things liad so strangely opened. She had been 
 looking down the deep-shadowed street, that old 
 street down which she used to go. The girl who 
 used to go down that street was siagularly real 
 to her just then; she had about her the fresh feel- 
 ing, the vivid sense, of a thing near in time. Old 
 things were so strangely opened, old feeling was 
 alive again: the wUd joy in the girl's heart, the 
 delirious expectancy — and the fear. It was 
 strange how completely one could get back across 
 the years, how things gone could become living 
 things again. That was why she was not going to 
 mind being alone just then; she had a sense of the 
 whole flow of her life — ^living, moving. It did not 
 seem a thing to turn away from ; it was not often 
 that things were all open like that. 
 
 "I shouldn't wonder if Deane would drop in," 
 said Ted, as if trying to help himself through 
 leaving her there alone. 
 
 "He may," Euth answered. She did not say it 
 with enthusiasm, much as she would like to talk 
 with Deane. Deane was just the one it would be 
 good to talk with that night. But Deane never 
 mentioned his wife to her. At first, in her preoc- 
 cupation, and her pleasure in seeing him, she had 
 not thought much about that. Then it had come 
 to her that doubtless Deane 's wife would not 
 share his feeling about her, that she would share 
 the feeling of all the other people; that brought 
 the fear that she might, again, be making things 
 
FIDELITY 237 
 
 hard for Deane. She had done enough of that; 
 much as his loyalty, the rare quality of his af- 
 fectionate friendship meant to her, she would 
 rather he did not come than let the slightest new 
 shadow fall upon his life because of her. And 
 yet it seemed all wrong, preposterous, to think 
 anyone who was close to Deane, anyone whom he 
 loved, should not understand this friendship be- 
 tween them. She thought of how, meeting after 
 all those years, they were not strange with each 
 other. That seemed rare — ^to be cherished. 
 
 "What's Deane 's wife like, Ted?" she asked. 
 
 "I haven't met her," he replied, "but I've seen 
 her. She's awfully good-looking; lots of style, 
 and carries herself as if — oh, as if she knew she 
 was somebody," he laughed. "And I guess 
 Deane thinks she is," he added with another 
 laugh. "Gruess he decided that first time he met 
 her. You know he stopped in Indianapolis to see 
 a classmate who was practising there — ^met her at 
 a party, I believe, and — good-by Deane! But 
 somehow she isn't what you'd expect Deane 's wife 
 to be," he went on more seriously. "Doesn't look 
 that way, anyhow. Looks pretty frigid, I thought, 
 and, oh — fixed up. As if she wasn't just real." 
 
 Euth's brows puckered. If there was one thing 
 it seemed the wife of Deane Franklin should be, 
 it was real. But doubtless Ted was wrong — ^not 
 knowing her. It did not seem that Deane would 
 be drawn to anyone who was not real. 
 
238 FIDELITY 
 
 She lingered in the thought of him. Real was 
 just what Deane was. He had been wonderfully 
 Teal with her in those days — days that had made 
 the pattern of her life. Reality had swept away 
 all other things between them. That carried her 
 back to the new thinking, the questions. It seemed 
 it was the things not real that were holding peo- 
 ple apart. It was the artificialities people had let 
 Eving build up around them made those people 
 hard. People would be simpler — ^kinder — could 
 those unreal thiags be swept away. She dwelt on 
 the thought of a world like that — a world of peo- 
 ple simple and real as Deane Franklin was simple 
 and real. 
 
 She was called from that by a movement and 
 exclamation from Ted, who had leaned over the 
 railing. "There goes Mildred Woodbury," he 
 said, — "and alone." 
 
 His tone made her look at him in inquiry and 
 then down the street at the slight figure of a girl 
 whose light dress stood out clearly between the 
 shadows. Mildred was the daughter of a family 
 who lived in the next block. The Woodburys 
 and the Hollands had been neighbors and friends 
 as far back as Ruth could remember. Mildred 
 was only a little girl when Ruth went away — such 
 a pretty little girl, her fair hair always gayly tied 
 with ribbons. She had been there with her 
 mother the night before and Ruth had been 
 startled by her coming into the room where she 
 
FIDELITY 239 
 
 was and saying impulsively: "You don't remem- 
 ber me, do you? I'm Mildred — Mildred Wood- 
 bury." 
 
 "And you used to call me "Wuth.!" Euth bad 
 eagerly replied. 
 
 It bad touebed ber, surrounded as sbe was by 
 perfunctoriness and embarrassment tbat tbis 
 young girl sbould seek ber out in tbat warm way. 
 And something in tbe girl's eyes bad puzzled ber, 
 Sbe bad returned to tbougbt of it more tban once 
 and tbat made ber peculiarly interested in Ted's 
 queer allusion to Mildred now. 
 
 "Well?" sbe inquired. 
 
 "Mildred's getting in rather bad," be said 
 shortly. 
 
 "Getting — ^what do you mean, Ted?" sbe asked, 
 looking at bim in a startled way. 
 
 "People are talking about her," he said. 
 
 "People are — ?" sbe began, but stopped, look- 
 ing at him all tbe while in that startled way. 
 
 "Talking about ber," be repeated, "I guess 
 it's been going on for some time — ^though I didn't 
 bear about it until a little while ago." 
 
 "About. what, Ted?" Her voice faltered and 
 it seemed to make bim suddenly conscious of what 
 be was saying, to whom he spoke. 
 
 "Why," — ^be faltered now too, "Mildred's act- 
 ing sort of silly — ^that's all. I don't know — a 
 flirtation, or something, with Billy Archer. You 
 don't know bim; he came here a few years ago 
 
240 FIDELITY 
 
 on some constniction work. He's an engineer. 
 He is a fascinating fellow, all rigM," lie added. 
 
 Euth pushed back her chair into deeper shadow. 
 "And — ?" she suggested faintly. 
 
 "He's married," briefly replied Ted. 
 
 She did not speak for what seemed a long time. 
 Ted was beginning to fidget. Then, "How old is 
 Mildred, Ted?" Euth asked in a very quiet voice. 
 
 "About twenty, I guess ; she's a couple of years 
 younger than I am." 
 
 "And this man? — ^how old is he?" That she 
 asked a little sharply. 
 
 "Oh, I don't know; he's in the older crowd; 
 somewhere in the thirties, I should say." 
 
 "Well — " But she abruptly checked what she 
 had sharply begun to say, and pushed her chair 
 still further back into shadow. When Ted stole 
 a timid glance at her a minute later he saw that 
 she seemed to be holding her hands tight together. 
 
 "And doesn't Mildred's mother — ?" It seemed 
 impossible for her to finish anything, to say it out. 
 
 He shook his head. "Guess not. It's funny — 
 but you know a person's folks — " 
 
 There was another silence; then Ted began to 
 whistle softly and was looking over the railing as 
 if interested in something down on the lawn, 
 
 "And you say people are really — talking about 
 Mildred, Ted?" Euth finally asked, speaking with 
 apparent effort. 
 
 He nodded. "Some people are snubbing her. 
 
FIDELITY 241 
 
 YoTi know this town is long on that," he threw in 
 with a short laugh. "I saw Mrs. Brewer — re- 
 member her? — she used to be Dorothy Hanlay — 
 out and out snub Mildred at a party the other 
 night. She came up to her after she'd been danc- 
 ing with Billy — Lord knows how many times she'd 
 danced with him that night — and Mrs. Brewer 
 simply cut her. I saw it myself. Mildred got 
 white for a moment, then smiled in a funny little 
 way and turned away. Tough on her, wasn't 
 it? — for really, she's a good deal of a kid, you 
 know. And say, Euth, there's something mighty 
 decent about Edith — about Mrs. Blair. She saw 
 it and right afterwards she went up to Mildred, 
 seemed particularly interested in her, and drew 
 her into her crowd. Pretty white, don't you 
 think? That old hen — Mrs. Brewer — got red, let 
 me tell you, for Edith can put it all over her, you 
 know, on being somebody, and that got her — good 
 and plenty!" 
 
 There was a queer little sound from Ruth, a 
 sound like a not quite suppressed sob ; Ted rose, 
 as if for leaving, and stood there awkwardly, his 
 back to her. He felt that Euth was crying, or at 
 least trying not to cry. Why had he talked of a 
 thing like that? Why did he have to bring in 
 Edith Lawrence? 
 
 It seemed better to go on talking about it now, 
 as naturally as he could. "I never thought there 
 was much to Mildred," he resumed, not turn- 
 
242 FIDELITY 
 
 ing round. "She always seemed sort of stuck up 
 with the fellows of our crowd. But I guess you 
 never can tell. I saw her look at Billy Archer the 
 other night." He paused with a little laugh. 
 "There wasn't anything very stuck up about that 
 look." 
 
 As still Euth did not speak he began to talk 
 about the property across the street being for sale. 
 When he turned around for taking leave — it being 
 past the time for going to Harriett's — it made him 
 furious at himself to see how strained and miser- 
 able Euth's face was. She scarcely said good-by 
 to him; she was staring down the street where 
 Mildred had disappeared a few moments before. 
 All the way over to Harriett's he wondered just 
 what Euth was thinking. He was curious as well 
 as self -reproachful. 
 
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE 
 
 "When Ted entered the living-room at Ms sister 
 Harriett's he felt as if something damp and heavy- 
 had been thrown around him. He got the feeling 
 of being expected to contribute to the oppressive- 
 ness of the occasion. The way no one was sitting 
 in a comfortable position seemed to suggest that 
 constraint was deemed fitting. Cyrus was talking 
 to Mr. McParland with a certain self-conscious 
 decorousness. Harriett's husband, the Eev. 
 Edgar Tyler, sat before the library table in more 
 of his pulpit manner than was usual with him in 
 his household, as if — so it seemed to Ted — the re- 
 lation of death to the matter in hand brought it 
 particularly within his province. Ted had never 
 liked him; especially he had hated his attitude 
 about Euth — ^his avowed sorrowfulness with which 
 the heart had nothing to do. He resented the way 
 his brother-in-law had made Harriett feel that she 
 owed it to the community, to the church, not to 
 countenance her sister. Harriett had grown into 
 that manner of striving to do the right thing. 
 She had it now — sitting a little apart from the 
 others, as if not to intrude herself. Sitting there 
 with those others his heart went out to Euth; he 
 was for her, he told himself warmly, and he'd take 
 
 243 
 
244 FIDELITY 
 
 nothing off of Cy about her, either ! He watched 
 Cyrus and thought of how strange it was that a 
 brother and sister should be as different as he and 
 Euth were. They had always been different; as 
 far back as he could remember they were different 
 about everything, Ruth was always keyed up 
 about something — delighted, and Cy was always 
 "putting a crimp" in things. As a little boy, 
 when he told Euth thiags he was pleased about 
 they always grew more delightful for telling her ; 
 and somehow when you told Cyrus about a jolly 
 thing it always flattened out a little in the tell- 
 ing. 
 
 A shrinking from the appearance of too great 
 haste gave a personal color to the conversation. 
 It was as old friend quite as much as family solici- 
 tor that the lawyer talked to them, although the 
 occasion for getting together that night was that 
 Cyrus might learn of an investment of his father's 
 which demanded immediate attention. 
 
 Mr. MoFarland spoke of that, and then of how 
 little else remained. He hesitated, then ventured : 
 "You know, I presume, that your father has not 
 left you now what he would have had ten years 
 ago?" 
 
 Ted saw Cyrus's lips tighten, his eyes lower. 
 He glanced at Harriett, who looked resigned; 
 though he was not thinking much of them, but of 
 his father, who had met difficulties, borne disap'- 
 pointments. He was thinking of nights when his 
 
FIDELITY 245 
 
 father came home tired; mornings when he went 
 away in that hurried, harassed way. He could 
 see him sitting in his chair hrooding. The picture 
 of him now made him appear more lonely than he 
 had thought of him while living. And now his 
 father was dead and they were sitting there talk- 
 ing over his affairs, looking into things that their 
 father had borne alone, things he had done the 
 best he could about. He wished he had tried 
 harder to be company for him. In too many of 
 those pictures which came now his father was 
 alone. 
 
 He heard Cyrus speaking. "Yes," he was 
 saying, "father was broken by our personal 
 troubles." There was a pause. Ted did not 
 raise his eyes to his brother. He did not want 
 to look at him, not liking his voice as he said 
 that. "It is just another way," Cyrus went on, 
 "in which we aU have to suffer for our family dis- 
 grace." 
 
 Ted felt himself flushing. Why need Cy have 
 said that? Mr. McFarland had turned slightly 
 away, as if not caring to hear it. 
 
 And then Cyrus asked about their father's will. 
 
 The attorney's reply was quiet. "He leaves 
 no will." 
 
 Ted looked at him in surprise. Then he looked 
 at Cyrus and saw his startled, keen, queer look at 
 the attorney. It was after seeing his brother's 
 face that he realized what this meant — that if his 
 
246 FIDELITY 
 
 father left no will Euth shared with the rest of 
 them. Suddenly his heart was beating fast. 
 
 "How's that?" Cyrus asked sharply. 
 
 "There was a will, hut he destroyed it about 
 two month's ago." 
 
 "He — ? Why?" Cyrus pressed in that sharp 
 voice. 
 
 Ted felt certain that the lawyer liked saying 
 what he had to say then. He said it quietly, but 
 looking right at Cyrus. "He destroyed his will 
 because it cut off Ms daughter Euth." 
 
 Ted got up and walked to the window, stood 
 there staring out at the street lights. Bless dad ! 
 He wished he could see him ; he would give almost 
 anything to see him for just a minute. He wished 
 he had known; he would love to have told his 
 father just how corking he thought that was. He 
 stood there a minute not wanting to show the 
 others how much he was feeling — ^this new, warm 
 rush of love for his father, and his deep gladness 
 for Euth. He thought of what it would mean to 
 her, what it would mean to know her father had 
 felt like that. He had had to leave her there at 
 home alone; now he could go home and tell her 
 this news that would mean so much. 
 
 When he turned back to the group it was to see 
 that he was not alone in being moved by what they 
 had heard. Harriett too had turned a little away 
 from the others and was looking down. He saw 
 a tear on her face — and liked her better than he 
 
FIDELITY 247 
 
 ever had before. Then he looked at her husband 
 and in spite of all he was feeling it was hard not 
 to smile; his brother-in-law's face looked so comi- 
 cal to him, trying to twist itself into the fitting 
 emotions. Ted watched him unsparingly for a 
 minute, maliciously saying to himself: "Keep 
 on, old boy, you'll make it after a little!" 
 
 Then he looked at his brother and his face hard- 
 ened, seeing too well what new feeling this roused 
 in Cyrus against Euth, reading the resentment 
 toward their father for this final weakening in his 
 stand against her. 
 
 "Well — " Cyrus began but did not go on, his 
 lips tightening. 
 
 "Your father said," the lawyer added, "that 
 if there was one of his children — ^more than the 
 others — ^needed what he could do for her, it was 
 his daughter Euth. ' ' 
 
 He was looking at Ted, and Ted nodded eagerly, 
 thinking now of what, in the practical sense, this 
 would mean to Euth. Mr. McFarland turned back 
 to Cyrus as he remarked: "He spoke of Euth 
 with much feeling." 
 
 Cyrus flushed. "I guess father was pretty 
 much broken — in mind as well as body — at that 
 time," he said unpleasantly. 
 
 "His mind was all right," answered the lawyer 
 curtly. 
 
 He left a few minutes later ; Harriett, who went 
 with him to the door, did not return to the room. 
 
248 FIDELITY 
 
 The two men and Ted sat for a moment in silence. 
 Then Cyrus turned upon him as if angered by 
 what he divined him to be feeling. "Well," he 
 said roughly, "I suppose you're pleased?" 
 
 "I'm pleased, all right," replied Ted with sat- 
 isfaction. He looked at the minister. "Good 
 thing, for I guess I'm the only fellow here who 
 is." 
 
 Harriett's husband colored slightly. "I am 
 neither pleased nor displeased," was his grave re- 
 ply. "Surely it was for your father to do as he 
 wished. For a father to forgive a child is — amov- 
 ing. I only hope," he added, "that it will not 
 seem in the community to mean the countenanc- 
 ing — " He paused, looMng to Cyrus for ap- 
 proval. 
 
 Then Ten blazed out. "Well, if you want to 
 know what I think, I don't think a little 'counten- 
 ancing' of Euth is going to do this community — 
 or anybody else — any harm ! ' ' 
 
 Cyrus looked at him with that slightly sneering 
 smile that always enraged Ted. "You're proud 
 of your sister, I suppose?" he inquired politely. 
 
 Ted reddened. Then he grew strangely quiet. 
 "Yes," he said, "I believe I am. I've come 
 pretty close to Euth these last few days, and I 
 think that's just what I am — proud of her. I 
 can't say I'm proud of what Euth did; I'd have 
 to think more about that. But I'm proud of what 
 she is. And I don't know — ^I don't know but what 
 
FIDELITYi 249 
 
 it's what a person is that counts." He fell silent, 
 thinking of what he meant by that, of the things 
 he felt in Euth. 
 
 Cyrus laughed mockingly. ''Eather a curious 
 thing to be proud of, I should say. .What she 'is' 
 is—" 
 
 Ted jumped up. "Don't say it, Cy! "What- 
 ever it is you're going to say — just don't say 
 it!" 
 
 Cyrus had risen and was putting in his pocket a 
 paper Mr. McFarland had given him. "No?" he 
 said smoothly, as if quite unperturbed. "And 
 why not?" 
 
 At that uncaring manner something seemed to 
 break inside Ted's head, as if all the things Cyrus 
 had said about Euth had suddenly gathered there 
 and pressed too hard. His arm shot out at his 
 brother. 
 
 "That's why not!" he cried. 
 
 He had knocked Cyrus back against the wall 
 and stood there threatening him. To the minister, 
 who had stepped up, protesting, he snapped: 
 "None of pour put-in! And after this, just be a 
 little more careful in your talk — see?" 
 
 He stepped back from Cyrus but stood there 
 glaring, breathing hard with anger. Cyrus, 
 whose face had gone white, but who was calm, 
 went back to the table and resumed what he had 
 been doing there. 
 
 "A creditable performance, I must say, for the 
 
250 FIDELITY 
 
 day of your father's funeral," he remarked after 
 a moment. 
 
 "That's an right!" retorted Ted. "Don't 
 think I'm sorry! I don't know any better way to 
 start out new — start out alone — ^than to tell you 
 what I think of you! — ^let you know that I'll not 
 take a thing off of you about Ruth. You've done 
 enough, Cy. Now you quit. You kept mother 
 and father away when they didn't want to be kept 
 away— and I want to tell you that I'm on to you, 
 anyway. Don't think for a minute that I beheve 
 it's your great virtue that's hurting you. You 
 can't put that over on me. It's pride and stub- 
 bornness and just plain meanness makes you the 
 way you are ! Yes, I'm glad to have a chance to 
 teU you what I think of you — and then I'm through 
 with you, Cy. I thiuk you're a pin-heaS! Why, 
 you haven't got the heart of a flea ! I don't know 
 how anybody as fine as Ruth ever came to have a 
 brother like you!" 
 
 His feeling had grown as he spoke, and he stop- 
 ped now because he was too close to losing con- 
 trol ; he reddened as his brother — calm, apparently 
 unmoved — surveyed him as if mildly amused. 
 That way Cyrus looked at him when they were 
 quarrelling always enraged him. If he would 
 only say something — ^not stand there as if he were 
 too superior to bother himself with such a thing! 
 He knew Cyrus knew it maddened him — ^that that 
 was why he did it, and so it was quietly that he re^ 
 
FIDELITY 251 
 
 sumed: "No, Cy, I'm not with you, and you 
 might as well know it. I'm for Euth. You've 
 got the world on your side — and I know the argu- 
 ments you can put up, and all that, but Euth's got 
 a — " he fumbled a minute for the words — "Euth's 
 got a power and an understanding about her that 
 you'll never have. She's got a heart. More than 
 that, she's got — character." 
 
 He paused, thinking, and Cyrus did speak then. 
 "Oh, I don't think I'd use that word," he said 
 suavely. 
 
 "No, you wouldn't; you wouldn't see it, but 
 that's just what I mean." He turned to the min- 
 ister. "Character, I say^ is what my sister Euth 
 has got. Character is something more than put- 
 ting up a slick front. It's something more than 
 doing what's expected of you. It's a kind of — a 
 kind of being faithful to yourself. Being your- 
 self. Oh, I know — " at a sound from his 
 brother — "just how you can laugh at it, but 
 there's something to it just the same. "Why, 
 Euth's got more real stuflF in her than you two 
 put together I After being with her these days 
 you, Cy, strike a fellow as pretty shallow." 
 
 That brought the color to his brother's face. 
 Stung to a real retort, he broke out with consid- 
 erable heat: "If to have a respect for decency 
 is 'shallow' — 1" He quickly checked himself as 
 the door opened and Harriett's maid entered. 
 
 She paused, feeling the tension, startled by their 
 
252 FIDELITY 
 
 faces. "Excuse me, sir," she said to the minis- 
 ter, "but Mrs. Tyler said I was to teU you she had 
 gone out for a few minutes. She said to tell you 
 she had gone to see her sister," 
 
 She looked startled at Ted's laugh. After she 
 had gone he laughed again. "Hard luck!" he 
 said to his brother-in-law, and walked from the 
 room. 
 
 He did not go directly home. He was too upset 
 to face Euth just then; he did not want her to 
 know, it would trouble her. And he wanted to 
 walk — ^walk as fast as he could, walk off steam, he 
 called it. His heart was pounding and there 
 seemed too much blood in his head. But he 
 wasn't sorry, he told himself. Cy would have it 
 in for him now, but what did he care for that? 
 He could get along without him. But his lips 
 trembled as he thought that. He had had to get 
 along without his mother ; from now on he would 
 have to get along without his father. He had a 
 moment of feeling very much alone. And then he 
 thought of Euth. Yes, — there was Euth! He 
 wheeled toward home. He wanted to tell her. 
 He hoped Harriett hadn't got it told; he wanted 
 to tell her himself. Bless dad! He loved bim 
 for doing that. If only he'd known it in time to 
 let him know what he thought of him for doing 
 it! 
 
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO 
 
 Harriett had been with Euth for half an hour 
 and still she had not told her what she had come 
 to tell her. She was meaning to tell it before she 
 left, to begin it any minute now, but, much as 
 she wanted to tell it, she shrank, from doing so. 
 It seemed that telling that would open everything 
 up — and they had opened nothing up. Harriett 
 had grown into a way of shrinking back from the 
 things she really wanted to do, was unpracticed 
 in doing what she felt like doing. 
 
 Acting upon an impulse, she had started for 
 Euth. There had been a moment of real defiance 
 when she told Mamie to tell Mr. Tyler that she 
 had gone to see her sister. She had a right to go 
 and see her sister ! No one should keep her from 
 it. Her heart was stirred by what her father had 
 done about Euth. It made her know that she too 
 felt more than she had shown. His having done 
 that made her want to do something. It moved' 
 her to have this manifestation of a softening she 
 had not suspected. It reached something in her, 
 something that made her feel a little more free, 
 more bold, more loving. His defiance, for she 
 felt that in it too, struck a spark in her. She even 
 had a secret satisfaction in the discomfiture she 
 
 253 
 
254 FIDELITY 
 
 knew this revelation of her father's — ^what they 
 would call weakening—caused her husband and 
 her brother. Unacknowledged dissatisfactions of 
 her own sharpened her feeling about it. She had 
 not looked at either her husband or Cyrus when 
 the announcement was made, but beneath her own 
 emotion was a secret, unacknowledged gloating at 
 what she knew was their displeasure, at their help- 
 lessness to resent. Ted was a dear boy I Ted's 
 shining eyes somehow made her know just how 
 glad she herself was. 
 
 So she had hurried along, stirred, eager to tell 
 Euth. But once with her she held back from tell- 
 ing her, grew absurdly timid about it. It seemed 
 so much else might come when that came — ^things 
 long held back, things hard to let one's self talk 
 about. 
 
 And then Euth was so strange tonight. After 
 that first day it had been easy to talk with Euth ; 
 that first embarrassment over, she had seemed 
 simple and natural and Harriett could talk with 
 her about the Kttle things that came up and at 
 times just forget the big thing that held them 
 apart. After that first meeting she had felt much 
 more comfortable with Euth than she would have 
 supposed the terrible circumstances would let her 
 feel. But tonight Euth was different, constrained, 
 timid; she seemed holding herself back, as if 
 afraid of something. It made Harriett conscious 
 of what there was holding them apart. She did 
 
FIDELITY 255 
 
 not know how to begin what she had been so eager 
 to tell. 
 
 And so they talked of surface things — current 
 things: the service that afternoon; some of the 
 relatives who had been there; of old friends of 
 their father's. They kept away from the things 
 their hearts were full of' 
 
 Euth had been glad to see Harriett ; it touched 
 her that Harriett should come. But she was 
 nervous with her; it was true that she was hold- 
 ing back. That new assurance which had helped 
 her through the last few days had deserted her. 
 Since Ted told her of Mildred that inner quiet 
 from which assurance drew was dispelled. She 
 seemed struck back — ^bewildered, baffled. Was it 
 always to be that way? Every time she gained 
 new ground for her feet was she simply to be 
 struck back to new dismays, new incertitudes, new 
 pain? Had she only deluded herself in that feel- 
 ing which had created the strengthening cahn of 
 the last few days? 
 
 After Ted left her she had continued to sit 
 looking down the street where Mildred had gone ; 
 just a little while before she had been looking 
 down that street as the way she herself had gone — 
 the young girl giving herself to love, facing all 
 perils, daring all things for the love in her heart. 
 But now she was not thinking of the love in 
 Mildred's heart; she was thinking of the perils 
 around her — the pity of it — the waiting disaster. 
 
256 FIDELITY 
 
 A little while before it had seemed there should 
 always be a place in the world for love, that 
 things shutting love out were things unreal. And 
 now she longed to be one with Edith in getting 
 Mildred back to those very things — ^those unreal 
 things that would safeguard. The mockery of it 
 beat her back, robbing her of the assurance that 
 had been her new strength. That was why Har- 
 riett found her strange, hard to talk to. She 
 wanted to cower back. She tried not to think of 
 Mildred — to get back to herself. But that she 
 could not do; Mildred was there in between — 
 confusing, a mockery. 
 
 Harriett spoke of the house, how she supposed 
 the best thing to do would be to offer it for sale. 
 Euth looked startled and pained. "It's in bad re- 
 pair," Harriett said; "it's all run down. And 
 then — ^there's really no reason for keeping it." 
 
 And then they fell silent, thinking of years 
 gone — ^years when the house had not been all run 
 down, when there was good reason for keeping it- 
 To let the house go to strangers seemed the final 
 acknowledgment that all those old things had 
 passed away. It was a more intimate, a sympa- 
 thetic silence into which that feeling flowed — each 
 thinking of old days in that house, each knowing 
 that the other was thinking of those days. Har- 
 riett could see Euth as a little girl running 
 through those rooms. She remembered a certain 
 little blue gingham dress — and Euth's hair braided 
 
FIDELITY 257 
 
 down her back ; pictures of Eutli with, their grand- 
 father, their mother, their father — all those three 
 gone now. She started to tell Euth what^he had 
 come to tell her, then changed it to something else, 
 still holding back, afraid of emotion, of breaking 
 through, seeming powerless and hating herself 
 for being powerless. She would tell that a little 
 later — before she left. She would wait until Ted 
 came in. She seized upon that, it let her out — 
 let her out from the thing she had been all warm 
 eagerness to do. To bridge that time she asked 
 a few diffident questions about the West; she 
 really wanted very much to know how Euth lived, 
 how she "managed." But she put the questions 
 carefully, it would seem reluctantly, just because 
 almost everything seemed to lead to that one 
 thing, — the big thing that lay there between her 
 and Euth. It was hard to ask questions about the 
 house Euth lived in and not let her mind get 
 swamped by that one terrible fact that she lived 
 there with Stuart Williams — another woman's 
 husband. 
 
 Harriett 's manner made Euth bitter. It seemed 
 Harriett was afraid to talk to her, evidently afraid 
 that at any moment she would come upon some- 
 thing she did not want to come near. Harriett 
 needn't be so afraid! — she wasn't going to con- 
 taminate her. 
 
 And so the talk became a pretty miserable 
 affair. It was a relief when Flora Copeland came 
 
258 FIDELITY 
 
 in the room. "There's someone here to see you, 
 Euth," she said. 
 
 "Deane?" inquired Euth. 
 
 "No, a woman." 
 
 "A woman?" — and then, at the note of aston- 
 ishment in her own voice she laughed in an em- 
 barrassed little way. 
 
 "Yes, a Mrs. Herman. She says you may re- 
 member her as Annie Morris. She says she went 
 to school with you." 
 
 ' ' Yes, ' ' said Euth, ' ' I know. ' ' She was looking 
 down, pulling at her handkerchief. After an in- 
 stant she looked up and said quietly: "Won't 
 you ask her to come in here?" 
 
 The woman who stood in the doorway a moment 
 later gave the impression of life, work, having 
 squeezed her too hard. She had quick move- 
 ments, as if she were used to doing things in a 
 hurry. She had on a cheap, plain suit, evidently 
 bought several years before. She was very thin, 
 her face almost pinched, but two very live eyes 
 looked out from it. She appeared embarrassed, 
 but somehow the embarrassment seemed only a 
 surface thing. She held out a red, rough hand to 
 Euth and smiled in quick, bright way as she 
 said: "I don't know that you remember me, 
 Euth." 
 
 "Oh, yes I do, Annie," Euth replied, and held 
 on to the red, rough hand. 
 
 "I didn't know; I'm sure," she laughed, "that 
 
FIDELITY 259 
 
 you've always meant more to me than I could to 
 you." 
 
 After Rutli had introduced Harriett the 
 stranger explained that with : "I thought a great 
 deal of Ruth when we were in school together. 
 She never knew it — she had so many friends. ' ' A 
 little pause followed that. 
 
 "So I couldn't bear to go away," Annie went on 
 in her rather sharp, bright way, "without seeing 
 you, Euth. I hope I'm not intruding, coming so 
 — soon." 
 
 "You are not intruding, Annie," said Ruth; her 
 voice shook just a little. 
 
 Ted had come home, and came in the room then 
 and was introduced to Annie, with whom, though 
 frankly surprised at seeing her, he shook hands 
 warmly. "But we do know each other," he said. 
 
 "Oh, yes," she laughed, "I've brought you 
 many a cauliflower." 
 
 "And oh, those eggs!" he laughed back. 
 
 Again there was a slight pause, and then Annie 
 turned to Euth with the manner of being bound to 
 get right into the thing she had come to say. "I 
 didn't wait longer, Euth, because I was afraid you 
 might get away and I wondered," — this she said 
 diGBdently, as one perhaps expecting too much — 
 "if there was any chance of your coming out to 
 make me a little visit before you go back. 
 
 "You know," — she turned hastily to Ted, turn- 
 ing away from the things gathering in Euth's 
 
260 FIDELIT^Sl 
 
 eyes, "the country is so lovely now. I thought it 
 might do Euth good. She must be tired, after the 
 long journey — and all. I thought a good rest — " 
 She turned baxjk to Euth. "Don't you think, 
 Euth," she coaxed, "that you'd like to come out 
 and play with my baby?" 
 
 And then no one knew what to do for suddenly 
 Euth was shaken with sobs. Ted was soothing 
 her, telling Annie that Naturally she was nervous 
 that night. "Ted," she choked, iu a queer, wild 
 way, laughing through the sobs, "did you hearf 
 She wants me to come out and play with her 
 baly!" 
 
 Harriett got up and walked to the other side of 
 the room. Euth — laughing, crying — was repeat- 
 ing: "She wants me to play with her baby!" 
 Harriett thought of her own children at home, 
 whom Euth had not seen. She listened to the 
 plans Annie and Ted and Euth were making and 
 wretchedly wished she had done differently years 
 before. 
 
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE 
 
 Ruth had been with Annie for five days now; 
 the original three days for which she had said she 
 could come had been lengthened to a week, and 
 she knew that she would not want to go even then. 
 For here was rest. Here she could forget about 
 herself as set apart from others. Here she .did 
 not seem apart. After the stress of those days 
 at home it was good to rest in this simple feeling 
 of being just one with others. It was good to lie 
 on the grass under the trees, troubled thoughts in 
 abeyance, and feel spring in the earth, take it in 
 by smell and sound. It was wonderfully good to 
 play with the children, to lie on the grass and let 
 the little two year old girl — Annie's baby — ^puU 
 at her hair, toddling around her, cooing and crow- 
 ing. There was healing in that. It was good to be 
 some place where she did not seem to cause em- 
 barrassment, to be where she was wanted. After 
 the strain of recent events the simple things of 
 these days were very sweet to her. It had become 
 monstrous always to have to feel that something 
 about her made her different from other people. 
 There was something terrible in it — something not 
 good for one. Here was release from that. 
 
 And it was good to be with Annie; they had not 
 
 261 
 
262 FIDELITT 
 
 talked much yet — ^not seriously talked. Annie 
 seemed to know that it was rest in little things 
 Euth needed now, not talk of big ones. They 
 talked about the chickens and the cows, the flowers 
 and the cauliflowers, about the children's pranks. 
 It was restoring to talk thus of inconsequential 
 things ; Euth was beginning to feel more herself 
 than she had felt in years. On that fifth day her 
 step was lighter than when she came; it was easier 
 to laugh. Hers had once been so sunny a nature; 
 it was amazingly easy to break out of the morose- 
 ness with which circumstances had clouded her 
 into that native sunniness. That afternoon she 
 sat on the knoll above the house, leaning back 
 against a tree and smiling lazUy at the gamboling 
 of the new little pigs. 
 
 Annie was directing the boy who had been help- 
 ing her cut asparagus to carry the baskets up 
 where Euth was sitting. "I'm going to. talk to 
 you while I make this into bunches, Euth," she 
 called. 
 
 "I'll help," Euth called back with zest. 
 
 They talked at first of the idiosyncrasies of 
 asparagus beds, of the marketing of it ; then some- 
 thing Annie said set Euth thinking of something 
 that had happened when they were in high school. 
 "Oh, do you remember, Annie — " she laughingly 
 began. There was that sort of talk for awhile — 
 "Do you remember ... ?" and "Oh, whatever 
 became of . . . ?" 
 
FIDELITY 263 
 
 As they worked on Euth thought of the strange- 
 ness of her being there with this girl who, when 
 they were in school together, had meant so little to 
 her. Her own work lagged, watching Annie as 
 with quick, sure motions she made the asparagus 
 into bunches for market. She did things deftly 
 and sornehow gave the feeling of subordinating 
 them to something else, of not letting them take 
 all of her. Euth watched her with affectionate 
 interest ; she wore an all-over gingham apron, her 
 big sun hat pushed back from her browned, thin 
 face ; she was not at all attractive unless one saw 
 the eager, living eyes — ^keenly intelligent eyes. 
 Euth thought of her other friends — ^the girls who 
 had been her friends when she was in school and 
 whom she had not seen now; she wondered why 
 it was Annie had none of the feeling that kept 
 those other girls away. 
 
 Annie's husband was a slow, stolid man; Euth 
 supposed that in his youth, when Annie married 
 him, he had perhaps been attractive in his stal- 
 wartness. He was sluggish now; good humored 
 enough, but apparently as heavy in spirit as in 
 body. Things outside the material roimd of life 
 — ^working, eating, sleeping — simply did not seem 
 to exist for him. At first she wondered hpw Annie 
 could be content with life with him, Annie, who 
 herself was so keenly alive. Thinking of it now 
 it seemed Annie had the same adjustment to him 
 that she had to the asparagus, — ^^something sub- 
 
264 FIDELITYi 
 
 ordinated, not taking up very mucli of terself. 
 She had about Annie, and she did not know just 
 why she had it, the feeling that here was a person 
 who could not be very greatly harmed, could not 
 be completely absorbed by routine, oould not, for 
 some reason she could not have given, be utterly 
 vanquished by any circumstance. She went about 
 her work as if that were one thing — and then there 
 were other things ; as if she were in no danger of 
 being swallowed up in her manner of living. 
 There was something apart that was dauntless. 
 Euth wondered about her, she wanted to find out 
 about her. She wanted for herself that valiant 
 spirit, a certain unconquerableness she felt in 
 Annie. 
 
 Annie broke a pause to say : ' ' You can 't know, 
 Euth, how much it means to have you here. ' ' 
 
 Euth's face lighted and she smiled; she started 
 to speak, but instead only smUed again. She 
 wanted to tell what it meant to her to be there, but 
 that seemed a thing not easily told. 
 
 "I wish you could stay longer," Annie went on, 
 all the while working. "So — " she paused, and 
 continued a little diffidently — "so we could really 
 get acquainted; really talk. I hardly ever have 
 anyone to talk to," she said wistfully. "One gets 
 pretty lonely sometimes. It would be good to have 
 someone to talk to about the things one thinks." 
 
 "What are the things you think, Annie?" Euth 
 asked impulsively. 
 
FIDELITY 265 
 
 "OK, no mighty thoughts," laughed Annie; 
 "hut of course I'm always thinking about things. 
 We keep alive by thinking, don't weV 
 
 Euth gave her a startled look. 
 
 "Perhaps it's because I haven't had from life 
 itself much of what I'd like to have," Annie was 
 going on, "that I've made a world within. Can't 
 let life cheat us, Euth, ' ' she said brightly. " If we 
 can't have things in one way — ^have to get them 
 in another." 
 
 Again Euth looked at her in that startled way. 
 Arniie did not see it, reaching over for more aspar- 
 agus ; she was all the time working along in that 
 quick, sure way — doing what she was doing clev- 
 erly and as if it weren't very important. "Per- 
 haps, Euth," she said after a minute, "that that's 
 why my school-girl fancy for you persisted — 
 deepened — the way it has." She hesitated, then 
 said simply: "I liked you for not letting life 
 cheat you." 
 
 She looked up with a quick little nod as she said 
 that but found Euth's face very serious, troubled. 
 "But I don't think I've done what you mean, 
 Annie, ' ' she began uncertainly. ' ' I did what I did 
 — ^because I had to. And I'm afraid I haven't — ■ 
 gone on. It begins to seem to me now that I've 
 stayed in a pretty small place. I've been afraid ! ' ' 
 she concluded with sudden scorn. 
 
 "That isn't much wonder," Annie murmured 
 gently. 
 
266 FIDELITY 
 
 "But witli me," she took it up after a little, 
 " I 've had to go on. " Her voice went hard in say- 
 ing it. "Things would have just shut right dowi 
 on me if I would have let them," she finished 
 grimly. 
 
 "I married for passion," she began quietly aftei 
 a minute. "Most people do, I presume. At leas1 
 most people who marry young." 
 
 Euth colored. She was not used to saying 
 thiugs right out like that. 
 
 "Eomantic love is a wonderful thing," Annif 
 pursued; "I suppose it's the most beautiful thia^ 
 in the world — ^while it lasts." She laughed in t 
 queer, grim little way and gave a sharp twist tc 
 the knot she was tying. ' ' Sometimes it opens uj 
 to another sort of love — love of another quality— 
 and to companionship. It must be a beautifu 
 thing — ^when it does that." She hesitated a mo 
 ment before she finished with a dryness that had 
 that grim quality : ' ' With me — it didn 't. 
 
 "So there came a time," she went on, and 
 seemed newly to have gained serenity, "when ] 
 saw that I had to give up — go under — or gel 
 through myself what I wasn^t going to get througl 
 anyone else. Oh, it's not the beautiful way — ^noi 
 the complete way. But it's one way ! ' ' she flashec 
 in fighting voice. "I fought for something, Ruth 
 I held it. I don'^t know that I've a name for it— 
 but it's the most precious thing ia life. My lif( 
 itself is pretty limited; aside from the children' 
 
FIDELITY 267 
 
 — she softened in speaMng of them — "my life is — 
 pretty barren. And as for the children" — that 
 fighting spirit broke sharply through, "they're all 
 the more reason for not sinldng into things — ^not 
 sinMng into them," she laughed. 
 
 As she stopped there Euth asked eagerly, eyes 
 intently upon her : ' ' But just what is it you mean, 
 Annie? Just what is it you fought for — ^kept?" 
 
 "To be my ownl" Annie flashed back at her, 
 like steel. 
 
 Then she changed; for the first time her work 
 fell unheeded in her lap; the eyes which a minute 
 before had flashed fight looked far off and were 
 dreamy; her face, over which the skin seemed to 
 have become stretched, burned by years of sun and 
 wind, quivered a little. When she spoke again it 
 was firmly but with sadness. "It's what we think 
 that counts, Euth. It's what we feel. It's what 
 we are. Oh, I'd like richer living — ^more beauty 
 — ^more joy. "Well, I haven't those things. For 
 various reasons, I won 't have them. That makes it 
 the more important to have all I can take!" — ^it 
 leaped out from the gentler thinking like a sent 
 arrow. "Nobody holds my thoughts. They travel 
 as far as they themselves have power to travel. 
 They bring me whatever they can bring me — and 
 I shut nothing out. I'm not afraid ! " 
 , Euth was looking at her with passionate ear- 
 nestness. 
 
 ' ' Over there in that town, ' ' — ^Annie made a little 
 
268 FIDELITY 
 
 gesture toward it, "are hundreds of women who 
 would say they have a great deal more than I have. 
 And it's true enough," she laughed, "that they 
 have some things I'd like to have. But do you 
 think I'd trade with them? Oh, no! Not much! 
 The free don't trade with the bond, Euth." 
 
 And still Euth did not speak, but listened with 
 that passionate intentness. 
 
 "There in that town," Annie went on, "are 
 people — ^most a whole townful of them — ^who are 
 going through life without being really awake to 
 life at all. They move around in a closed place, 
 doing the same silly little things — copy-cats — re- 
 peaters. They're not their own — ^they're not 
 awake. They're like things run by machinery. 
 Like things going in their sleep. Take those girls 
 we used to go to school with. Why, take Edith 
 Lawrence. I see her sometimes. She always 
 speaks sweetly to me ; she means to be nice. But 
 she moves round and round in her little place and 
 she doesn't even know of the wonderful things go- 
 ing on in the world today! Do you think I'd 
 trade with her? — social leader and all the rest of 
 it!" She was gathering together the bundles of 
 asparagus. She had finished her work. "Very 
 sweet — ^very charming," she disposed of Edith, 
 "but she simply doesn't count. The world's mov- 
 ing away from her, and she," — ^Annie laughed with 
 a mild scorn — "doesn't even know that!" 
 
CHAPTEE TWENTY-FOUR 
 
 It was late when. Eutli went to sleep that night; 
 she and Annie talked through the evening — of 
 books Annie was reading, of the things which were 
 interesting her. She was rich in interests ; ideas 
 were as personal things to her; she found per- 
 sonal satisfactions in them. She was following 
 things which Euth knew little about ; she had been 
 long away from the centers of books, and out of 
 touch with awakened people. A whole new world 
 seemed to open from these things that were vital 
 to Annie ; there was promise in them — a quiet road 
 out from the hard things of self. There were 
 new poets in the world ; there were bold new think- 
 ers; there was an amazing new art; science was 
 reinterpreting the world and workers and women 
 were setting themselves free. Everywhere the 
 old pattern was being shot through with new ideas. 
 Everywhere were new attempts at a better way of 
 doing things. She had been away from all that; 
 what she knew of the world's new achievement had 
 seemed unreal, or at least detached, not having 
 any touch with her own life. But as disclosed by 
 Annie those things became realities — things to en- 
 rich one's own life. It kindled old fires of her 
 girlhood, fanned the old desire to know. Personal 
 
 269 
 
270 FIDELITY 
 
 tHngs had seemed to quell that ; the storm in her 
 owiL life had shut down around her. Now she 
 saw that she, like those others whom Annie 
 scorned, had not kept that openness to life, had let 
 her own life shut her ia. She had all along been 
 eager for books, but had not been fortunate in the 
 things she had come upon. She had not had ac- 
 cess to large libraries — ^many times not even to 
 small ones; she had had little money for buying 
 books and was so out of touch with the world that 
 she had not had much initiative in trying to get 
 hold of things. She felt now that she had failed 
 miserably in that, but there were years when she 
 was like a hurt thiag that keeps in hiding, most of 
 aU wanting to escape more hurt. It had been a 
 weakness — she clearly saw that now, and it had 
 been weakening to her powers. Most of the books 
 she had come upon were of that shut-in life Annie 
 scorned, written from within that static living, and 
 for it. People in them had the feeling it was 
 right people should have, unless there were bad 
 people in the book, and then they were very defi- 
 nitely bad. Many of those books had been not 
 only unsatisfying, but saddening to her, causing 
 her to feel newly apart from the experiences of 
 people of her kiad. 
 
 But now Annie's books let her glimpse a new 
 world — a world which questioned, a world of pro- 
 test, of experiment, a world in which people un- 
 afraid were trying to find the truth, trying to build 
 
FIDELITY 271 
 
 freshly, to supplant things outworn with the vital 
 forms of a new reality. It was quickening. It 
 made her eager. She was going to take some of 
 those books home, she would send for others, 
 would learn how to keep in touch with this new 
 world which was emerging from the old. It was 
 like breaking out from a closed circle. It was ad- 
 venture ! 
 
 Even after she went to her room that night, late 
 though it was, she did not go at once to bed. She 
 sat for a time looking off at the lights of that town 
 for which she had so long grieved, the town that 
 had shut her out. The fact that it had shut her 
 out had been a determining thing in her life, to 
 her spirit. She wondered now if perhaps she had 
 not foolishly spent herself in grieving for a thing 
 that would have meant little could she have had it. 
 For it seemed now that it had remained very much 
 a fixed thing, and now she knew that, with it all, 
 she herself had not been fixed. The things of 
 which Annie talked, things men of this new day 
 were expressing, roused her like this, not because 
 they were all new, but because of her own inner 
 gropings. Within herself she had been stumbling 
 toward some of those things. Here was the sure 
 expression of some halting thoughts of her own. 
 It was exciting to find that there were people who 
 were feeling the things that, even in that timid, 
 uncertain way, she had come to feel by herself. 
 She had been half afraid to formulate some of the 
 
272 FIDELIT"^ 
 
 things that had come into her mind. This gath- 
 ered together the timid little shoots. She was 
 excited about the things of which Annie talked — 
 those new ideals of freedom — not so much because 
 they were new and daring and illumining things, 
 as because they did not come all alien. There was 
 something from within to go out to them. In that 
 — not that there were interesting things she could 
 have from without — ^but that she, opened to the 
 new stimulus, could become something from 
 within, was the real excitation, the joy of the new 
 promise was there. And this new stir, this 
 promise of new satisfactions, let her feel that her 
 life was not all mapped out, designed ahead. She 
 went to sleep that night with a wonderful new feel- 
 ing of there being as much for her in life as she 
 herself had power to take. 
 
 And she woke with that feeling ; she was eager 
 to be up, to be out in the sunshine. Annie, she 
 found, had gone early to town with her vegetables. 
 Euth helped eleven-year-old Dorothy, the eldest 
 child, get off for school and walked with her to the 
 schoolhouse half a mile down the road. The little 
 girl's shyness wore away and she chatted with 
 Euth about school, about teachers and lessons and 
 play. Euth loved it ; it seemed to set the seal of a 
 human relationship upoii her new feeling. What a 
 wonderful thing for Annie to have these children ! 
 Today gladness in there being children in the world 
 went out past sorrow in her own deprivation. The 
 
FIDELITY, 273 
 
 night before she had said to Annie, ''You have 
 your children. That makes life worth while to you, 
 doesn't it?" And Annie, with that hard, swift 
 look of being ruthless for getting at the truth — 
 for getting her feeling straight and expressing 
 it truly, had answered, "Not in itself. I mean, 
 it's not all. I think much precious life has 
 gone dead under that idea of children being enough 
 — ^letting them be all. We count — I count ! Just 
 leaving life isn't all; living it while we're here — 
 that counts, too. And keeping open to it in more 
 than any one relationship. Suppose they, in their 
 turn, have that idea; then life's never really lived, 
 is it? — always just passed on, always put off." 
 They had talked of that at some length. "Cer- 
 tainly I want my children to have more than I 
 have," Annie said. "I am working thai they 
 may. But in that working for them I'm not go- 
 ing to let go of the fact that I count too. Now's 
 my only chance," she finished in that grim little 
 way as one not afraid to be hard. 
 
 Thinking back to that it seemed to Euth a bigger 
 mother feeling than the old one. It was not the 
 sort of maternal feeling to hem in the mother and 
 oppress the children. It was love in freedom — 
 love that did not hold in or try to hold in. It 
 would develop a sense of the preciousness of life. 
 It did not glorify self-sacrifice — ^that insidious foe 
 to the fullness of living. 
 
 Thinking of that, and going out from that to 
 
274 FIDELITYi 
 
 other things, she sat down on a log by the roadside, 
 luxuriating in the opulence and freshness of the 
 world that May morning, newly tuned to life, 
 vibrant with that same fresh sense of it, glad 
 gratefulness in return to it, that comes after long 
 sickness, after imprisonment. The world was full 
 of singing birds that morning, — ^glorious to be in a 
 world of singing birds! The earth smelled so 
 good! There were plum trees in bloom behind 
 her; every little breeze brought their fragrance. 
 The grass under her feet was springy — ^the world 
 was vibrant, beautiful, glad. The earth seemed 
 so strong, so full of still unused powers, so ready 
 to give. 
 
 She sat there a long time; she had the courage 
 this morning to face the facts of her life. She 
 was eager to face them, to understand them that 
 she might go on understandingly. She had the 
 courage to face the facts relating to herself and 
 Stuart. That was a thing she had not dared do. 
 "With them, love had to last, for love was all they 
 had. They had only each other. They did not 
 dare let themselves thini: of such a tbing as the 
 love between them failing. 
 
 Well, it had not failed; but she let herself see 
 now how greatly it had changed. There was 
 something strangely freeing in just letting herself 
 see it. Of course there had been change; things 
 always changed. Love changed within marriage 
 — she did not know why she should expect it to be 
 
FIDELITY 275 
 
 different with her. But in the usual way — within 
 marriage — it would matter less for there would be 
 more ways of adapting one's self to the changing. 
 Then one could reach out into new places in life, 
 gaining new channels, taking on new things as 
 old ones slipped away, finding in common inter- 
 ests, common pleasures, the new adjustment for 
 feeling. But with them life had seemed to shut 
 right down around them. And they had never 
 been able to relax in the reassuring sense of the 
 lastingness of their love. She had held herself 
 tense in the idea that there was no change, would 
 be none. She had a feeling now of having tried 
 too hard, of being tired through long trying. 
 There was relief in just admitting that she was 
 tired. And so she let herself look at it now, ad- 
 mitting that she had been clutching at a vanished 
 thing. 
 
 It would have been different, she felt, had the 
 usual channels of living been opened to them. 
 Then together they co^ld have reached out into 
 new experiences. Their love had been real — 
 great. Belated to living, surely it could have re- 
 mained the heart of life. Her seeing now that 
 much of the life had gone out of it did not bear 
 down upon her with the great sadness she would 
 have expected. She knew now that in her heart 
 she had known for a long time that passion had 
 gone. Facing it was easier than refusing to see. 
 It ceased to be a terrible thing once one looked at 
 
276 FIDELITY 
 
 it. Of this she was sure : love should be able to be 
 a part of the rest of life; the big relationship, but 
 one among others; the most intense interest, but 
 one with other interests. Unrooted, detached, it 
 might for the time be the more intense, but it had 
 less ways of saving itself. If simply, naturally, 
 they could have grown into the common life she 
 felt they might have gone on without too much 
 consciousness of change, growing into new things 
 as old ones died away, half unconsciously making 
 adjustments, doubtless feeling something gone but 
 in the sharing of new things not left desolate 
 through that sense of the passing of old ones. 
 Frightened by the thought of having nothing else, 
 they had tried too hard. She was tired; she be- 
 lieved that Stuart too was tired. 
 
 There was a certain tired tenderness in her 
 thinking of him. Dear Stuart, he loved easy 
 pleasant living. It seemed he was not meant for 
 the too great tests, for tragically isolated love. 
 She knew that he had never ceased to miss the 
 things he had let go — ^his place among men, the 
 stimulus of the light, pleasant social relationships 
 with women. He was meant for a love more flex- 
 ibly related to living, a love big and real but fitted 
 more loosely, a little more carelessly, to life. 
 There was always so deep a contrition for his irri- 
 tations with her. The whole trouble was indi- 
 cated right there, that the contrition should be all 
 out of proportion to the offence. It would have 
 
FIDELITY 277 
 
 been better had be felt more free to be irritated ; 
 one should not have to feel frightened at a little 
 bit of one's own bad temper — appalled at cross- 
 ness, at hours of ennui. Driving them back to- 
 gether after every drifting apart all of that made 
 for an intensity of passion — passion whipped to 
 life by fear. But that was not the way to grow 
 into life. Flames Mndled by fear made intense 
 moments but after a time left too many waste 
 places between them and the lives of men. 
 
 Today her hope for the future was in the open- 
 ing of new places. She was going back with new 
 vision, new courage. They must not any longer 
 cling together in their one little place, coming 
 finally to actual resentment of one another for the 
 enforced isolation. They must let themselves go 
 out into living, dare more, trust more, lose that 
 fear of rebuff, hope for more from life, claim more. 
 As she rose and started towards home there was a 
 new spring in her step. For her part, she was 
 through with that shrinking back ! She hoped she 
 could bring Stuart to share her feeling, could in- 
 spire in him this new trust, new courage that had 
 so stimulated and heartened her. Her hope for 
 their future lay there. 
 
 Climbing a hill she came in sight of the little 
 city which they had given up, for which they had 
 grieved. Well, they had grieved too much, she 
 resolutely decided now. There were wider hori- 
 zons than the one that shut down upon that town. 
 
278 FIDELITIQ 
 
 She was not conquered! She would not he con- 
 quered. She stood on the hilltop exulting in that 
 sense of heiag free. She had heen a weakling to 
 think her life all settled! Only cowards and the 
 broken in spirit surrendered the future as pay- 
 ment for the past. . Love was the great and beauti- 
 ful wonder — ^but surely one should not stay with it 
 in the place where it found one. Why, loving 
 should light the way ! Far from engulfing all the 
 rest of life it seemed now that love should open 
 life to one. Whether one kept it or whether one 
 lost it, it failed if it did not send one farther along 
 the way. She had been afraid to think of her love 
 changing because that had seemed to grant that it 
 had failed. But now it seemed that it failed if it 
 did not leave her bigger than it had found her. 
 Her eyes filled in response to the stern beauty of 
 that. Not that one stay with love in the same 
 place, but rather the meaning of it all was in just 
 this : that it send one on. 
 
 Eyes still dimmed with the feeling of it, she 
 stood looking as if in a final letting go at that town 
 off there on the bend of the river. It became to 
 her the world of shut-in people, people not going 
 on, people who loved and never saw the meaning 
 of love, whose experiences were not as wings to 
 carry them, but as walls shutting them in. She 
 was through grieving for those people. She was 
 going on — past them — so far beyond them that 
 her need for them would fall away. 
 
FIDELITY 279 
 
 She "was conscious of an approaching horse and 
 buggy and stepped aside ; then walked on, so aglow 
 with her own thoughts that a passing by did not 
 break in upon her. She did not even know that 
 the girl in the run-about had stopped her horse. 
 At the cry: "Oh — I'm so glad!" she was as 
 startled as if she had thought herself entirely 
 alone. 
 
 It was a big effort to turn, to gather herself 
 together and speak. She had been so far away, 
 so completely possessed that it took her an instant 
 to realize that the girl leaning eagerly toward her 
 was Mildred Woodbury. 
 
 Mildred was moving over on the seat, inviting 
 her to get in. "I'm so glad!" she repeated. "I 
 went to Mrs. Herman's, and was so disappointed 
 to miss you. I thought maybe I'd come upon you 
 somewhere," she laughed gladly, though not with- 
 out embarrassment. 
 
 There was a moment of wanting to run away, of 
 really considering it. She knew now — ^had re- 
 membered, realized — ^what it was about Mildred. 
 
CHAPTEE TWENTY-FIVE 
 
 Her instinct to protect herself from tMs young 
 girl was the thing that gaiaed composure for her. 
 At first it was simply one of those physical in- 
 stincts that draw us hack from danger, from pain ; 
 and then she threw the whole force of her will to 
 keeping that semblance of composure. Her in- 
 stinct was not to let reserves break down, not to 
 show agitation; to protect herself by never leav- 
 ing commonplace ground. It was terribly hard 
 — this driving back the flood-tide of feeling and 
 giving no sign of the struggle, the resentment. It 
 was as if every nerve had been charged to full life 
 and then left there outraged. 
 
 But she could do it ; she could appear pleasantly 
 surprised at Mildred's having come to take her 
 for a drive, could talk along about the little things 
 that must be her shield against the big ones. 
 Something in her had gone hard in that first mo- 
 ment of realizing who Mildred was. She was not 
 going to be driven back again ! And so she forced 
 herself to talk pleasantly of the country through 
 which they went, of Mildred's horse, of driving 
 and riding. 
 
 But it was impossible not to grow a little inter- 
 ested in this young Mildred Woodbury. She sat 
 
 280 
 
FIDELITY 281 
 
 erect and drove in a manner that had the little 
 tricks of worldliness, but was somehow charming 
 in spite of its artificiality. Euth was thinking that 
 Mildred was a more sophisticated young person 
 than she herself had been at that age. She won- 
 dered if sophistication was increasing in the world, 
 if there was more of it in Freeport than there used 
 to be. 
 
 They talked of Euth's father, of Mildred's 
 people, of the neighborhood both knew so well. 
 From that it drifted to the social life of the town. 
 She was amused, rather sadly amused, at Mil- 
 dred's air of superiority about it; it seemed so 
 youthful, so facile. Listening to Mildred now 
 pictures flashed before her: she and Edith Law- 
 rence — girls of about fifteen — going over to the 
 Woodburys' and eagerly asking, "Could we take 
 the baby out, Mrs. Woodbury?" "Now you'll be 
 very, very careful, girls?" Mrs. "Woodbury would 
 say, wrapping Mildred all up in soft pink things. 
 "Oh, yes, Mrs. Woodbury," they would reply, a 
 little shocked that she could entertain the thought 
 of their not being careful. And then they would 
 start off cooing girlish things about the cunning 
 little darling. This was that baby — in spite of her 
 determination to hold aloof from Mildred there 
 was no banishing it; no banishing the apprehen- 
 sion that grew with the girl's talk. For Mildred 
 seemed so much a part of the very thing for which 
 she had this easy scorn. Something in the way she 
 
282 FIDELITY, 
 
 held tlie lines made it seem she would not belong 
 anywhere else. She looked so carefully prepared 
 for the very life for which she expressed disdain. 
 
 She tried to forget the things that were coming 
 back to her — ^how Mildred would gleefully hold up 
 her hands to have her mittens put on when she and 
 Edith were about to take her out, and tried too to 
 turn the conversation — ^breaking out with some- 
 thing about Mrs. Herman's children. But it be- 
 came apparent that Mildred was not to be put off. 
 Everything Euth would call up to hold her off she 
 somehow forced aroxmd to an approach for what 
 she wanted to say. 
 
 And then it came abruptly, as if she were tired 
 of trying to lead up to it. "I've been wanting to 
 see you — Euth," she hesitated over the name, but 
 brought it out bravely, and it occurred to Euth 
 then that Mildred had not known how to address 
 her. "When I heard you were here," she added, 
 "I was determined you shouldn't get away with- 
 out my seeing you." 
 
 Euth looked at her with a little smile, moved, in 
 spite of herself, by the impetuousness of the girl's 
 tone, by something real that broke through the 
 worldly little manner. 
 
 "I don't feel as the rest of them do." She 
 flushed and said it hurriedly, a little tremulously ; 
 and yet there was something direct and honest in 
 her eyes, as if she were going to say it whether it 
 seemed nice taste or not. It reached Euth, went 
 
FIDELITY 283 
 
 through, her self-protective determination not to 
 be reached. Her heart went out to Mildred's 
 youth, to this appeal from youth, moved by the 
 freshness and realness beneath that surface 
 artificiality, saddened by this defiance of one who, 
 it seemed, could so little understand how big was 
 the thing she defied, who seemed so much the 
 product of the thing she scorned, so dependent on 
 what she was apparently in the mood to flout. "I 
 don't know that they are to be blamed for their 
 feeling, Mildred," she answered quietly. 
 
 "Oh, yes, they are!" hotly contended the girl. 
 "It's because they don't understand. It's be- 
 cause they can't understand!" The reins had 
 fallen loose in her hand; the whip sagged; she 
 drooped — ^that stiff, chic little manner gone. She 
 turned a timid, trusting face to Euth — a light shin- 
 ing through troubled eyes. " It 's love that counts, 
 isn't it, — Ruth?" she asked, half humble, half de- 
 fiant. 
 
 It swept Euth's heart of everything but sympa- 
 thy. Her hand closed over Mildred's. "What is 
 it, dear ? " she asked. ' ' Just what is it r ' 
 
 Mildred's eyes filled. Euth could understand 
 that so well — ^what sympathy meant to a feeling 
 shut in, a feeling the whole world seemed against. 
 "It's with me — as it was with you," the girl an- 
 swered very low and simply. "It's — ^like that." 
 
 Euth shut her eyes for an instant; they were 
 passing something fragrant; it came to her — an 
 
284 FIDELITY 
 
 old f ra^ance — ^like something out of things past ; 
 a robin was singing; she opened her eyes and 
 looked at Mildred, saw the sunshine finding gold 
 in the girl's hair. The sadness of it — of youth and 
 suffering, of pain in a world of beauty, that reach 
 of pain into youth, into love, made it hard to speak. 
 "I'm sorry, dear," was all she could say. 
 
 They rode a little way in silence ; Euth did not 
 know how to speak, what to say ; and then Mildred 
 began to talk, finding relief in saying things long 
 held in. Euth understood that so well. Oh, she 
 understood it all so well — the whole tumult of it, 
 the confused thinking, the joy, the passion, — the 
 passion that would sacrifice anything, that would 
 let the whole world go. Here it was again. She 
 knew just what it was. 
 
 "So you can see," Mildred was saying, "what 
 you have meant to me." 
 
 Yes, she could see that. 
 
 They were driving along the crest of the hills 
 back of the town. Mildred pointed to it. ' ' That 
 town isn't the whole of the world!" she exclaimed 
 passionately, after speaking of the feeling that 
 was beginning to form there against herself. 
 "What do I care?" she demanded defiantly. 
 "It's not the whole of the world!" 
 
 Euth looked at it. She could see the Lawrence 
 house — it had a high place and was visible from 
 all around; Mildred's home was not far from 
 there ; her own old home was only a block farther 
 
FIDELITY 285 
 
 on. She had another one of those flashing pic- 
 tures from things far back : Mrs. Woodbury — Mil- 
 dred 's mother — standing at the door with a bowl 
 of chicken broth for Mrs. Holland — Euth's mother 
 — who was ill. ' ' I thought maybe this would taste 
 good," she could hear Mrs. Woodbury saying. 
 Strange how things one had forgotten came back. 
 Other things came back as for a moment she con- 
 tinued to look at the town where both she and Mil- 
 dred had been brought up, where their ties were. 
 Then she turned back to Mildred, to this other 
 girl who, claimed by passionate love, was in the 
 mood to let it all go. "But that's just what it is, 
 Mildred," she said. "The trouble is, it is the 
 whole of the world. ' ' 
 
 "It's the whole of the social world," she an- 
 swered the look of surprise. "It's just the same 
 everywhere. And it's astonishing how united 
 the world is. You give it up in one place — ^you've 
 about given it up for every place." 
 
 "Then the whole social world's not worth it!" 
 broke from Mildred. "It's not worth — enough." 
 
 Euth found it hard to speak ; she did not know 
 what to say. She had a flashing sense of the hap- 
 hazardness of life, of the power, the flame this 
 found in Mildred that the usual experiences would 
 never have found, of how, without it, she would 
 doubtless have developed much like the other girls 
 of her world — ^how she might develop because of 
 it — ^how; human beings were shaped by chance^ 
 
286 FIDELITYi 
 
 She looked at Mildred's face — troubled, passion- 
 ate, a confused defiance, and yet something real 
 there looking through the tumult, something flam- 
 ing, something that would fight, a something, she 
 secretly knew, more flaming, more fighting, than 
 might ever break to life in Mildred again. And 
 then she happened to look down at the girl's feet 
 — the very smart low shoes of dnll kid, perfectly 
 fitted, high arched — the silk stockings, the slender 
 ankle. They seemed so definitely feet for the 
 places prepared, for the easier ways, not fitted for 
 going a hard way alone. It made her feel like 
 a mother who would want to keep a child from a 
 way she herself knew as too hard. 
 
 "But what are you going to put in the place of 
 that social world, Mildred?" she gently asked. 
 * ' There must be something to fill its place. What 
 is that going to be?" 
 
 "Love will fill its place!" came youth's proud, 
 sure answer. 
 
 Euth was looking straight ahead; the girl's tone 
 had thrilled her — ^that faith in love, that courage 
 for it. It was so youthful! — so youthfully sure, 
 so triumphant in blindness. Youth would dare so 
 much — youth knew so little. She did not say any- 
 thing ; she could not bear to. 
 
 "Love can fill its place!" Mildred said again, 
 as if challenging that silence. And as still Euth 
 did not speak she demanded, sharply, "Can't it?" 
 
 Euth turned to her a tender, compassionate 
 
FIDELITY 287 
 
 face, too full of feeling, of conflict, to speak. 
 Slowly, as if she could not bear to do it, she shook 
 her head. 
 
 Mildred looked just dazed for a moment, then so 
 much as if one in whom she had trusted, on whom 
 she had counted for a great deal had failed her 
 that Ruth made a little gesture as if to say it was 
 not that, as if to say she was sorry it seemed like 
 that. 
 
 Mildred did not heed it. * ' But it has with you, ' ' 
 she insisted. 
 
 "It has not!" leaped out the low, savage an- 
 swer that startled the woman from whom it came. 
 "It has not!" she repeated fiercely. 
 
 Her rage was against the feeling that seemed 
 to trick one like that ; the way love got one — ^made 
 one believe that nothing else in the world mattered 
 but just itself. It wasn't fair! It was cruel! 
 That made her savage — savage for telling Mil- 
 dred the other side of it, the side love blinded her 
 to. In that moment it seemed that love was a 
 trap ; it took hold of one and persuaded one things 
 were true that weren't true ! Just then it seemed 
 a horrible thing the way love got one through 
 lovely things, through beauty and tenderness, 
 through the sweetest things — ^then did as it pleased 
 with the life it had stolen in upon, i Fiercely she 
 turned the other face, told Mildred what love in 
 loneliness meant, what it meant to be shut away 
 from one's own kind, what that hurting of other 
 
288 FIDELITT21 
 
 lives did to one's self, what isolation made of one, 
 what it did to love. Things leaped out that she 
 had never faced, had never admitted for true ; the 
 girl to whom she talked was frightened and she 
 was frightened herself — at what she told of what 
 she herself had felt, feeling that she had never ad- 
 mitted she had had. She let the light in on things 
 kept in the dark even in her own soul — a cruel 
 light, a light that spared nothing, that seemed' to 
 find a savage delight in exposing the things deep- 
 est concealed. She would show the other side of 
 it! There was a certain gloating in doing it — 
 getting ahead of a thing that would trick one. 
 And then that spent itself as passion will and she 
 grew quieter and talked in a simple way of what 
 loneliness meant, of what longing for home meant, 
 of what it meant to know one had hurt those who 
 had always been good to one, who loved and 
 trusted. She spoke of her mother — of her father, 
 and then she broke down and cried and Mildred 
 listened in silence to those only half -smothered 
 sobs. 
 
 When Euth was able to stop she looked up, 
 timidly, at Mildred. Somethiag seemed to have 
 gone out of the girl — somethiug youthful and su- 
 perior, something radiant and assured. She 
 looked crumpled up. The utter misery in her 
 eyes, about her mouth, made Ruth whisper : " I 'm 
 sorry, Mildred." 
 
fidelity; 289 
 
 Mildred looked at her with a bitter little laugh 
 and then turned quickly away. 
 
 Euth had never felt more wretched in her life 
 than when, without Mildred- having said a word, 
 they turned in the gate leading up to Annie's. 
 She wanted to say something to comfort. She 
 cast around for something. "Maybe," she be- 
 gan, ''that it will come right — anywray." 
 
 Again Mildred only laughed in that hard little 
 way. 
 
 When they were half way up the hill Mildred 
 spoke, as if, in miserable uncertainty, thinking 
 things aloud. "Mrs. Blair has asked me to go to 
 Europe with her for the summer," she said, in a 
 voice that seemed to have no spring left in it. 
 "She's chaperoning a couple of girls. I could go 
 with them." 
 
 "Oh, do, Mildred!" cried Euth. "Do that!" 
 It seemed to her wonderfully tender, wonderfully 
 wise, of Edith. She was all eagerness to induce 
 Mildred to go with Edith. 
 
 But there was no answering enthusiasm. Mil- 
 dred drpoped. She did not look at Euth. "I 
 could do that," she said in a lifeless way, as if it 
 didn't matter much what she did. 
 
 When they said good-by Mildred's broken smile 
 made Euth turn hastily away. But she looked 
 back after the girl had driven off, wanting to see 
 if she was sitting up in that sophisticated little 
 
290 FIDELITX 
 
 way she had. But Mildred was no longer sitting 
 that way. She sagged, as if she did not care any- 
 thing about how she sat. Euth stood looking after 
 her, watching as far as she could see her, longing 
 to see her sit up, to see her hold the whip again in 
 that stiff, chic little fashion. But she did not do 
 it ; her horse was going along as if he knew there 
 was no interest in him. Euth could not bear it. 
 If only the whip would go up at just that right 
 little angle! But it did not. She could not see 
 the whip at aU — only the girl's drooping back. 
 
CHAPTEE TWENTY-SIX 
 
 When Mildred had passed from sigM Euth 
 slowly turned toward the house. She noticed the 
 vegetable wagon there in front of the bam — so 
 Annie had come home. She turned away from 
 the kitchen door she had been about to enter; 
 she did not want to talk to Amiie just then. But 
 when she had passed around to the other sidie of 
 the house she saw, standing with their backs to 
 her in the little flower garden, Annie and a woman 
 she was astonished to recognize as her sister Har- 
 riett. 
 
 She made a move toward the little hill that rose 
 behind the house. She would get away! But 
 Mr. Herman appeared just then at the top of the 
 hill. He saw her; he must see that she had seen 
 the others. So she would have to stay and talk to 
 Harriett. It seemed a thing she absolutely could 
 not do. It had come to seem she was being made 
 some kind of sport of, as if the game were to 
 buffet her about between this feeling and that, let 
 her gain a little ground, get to a clearing, then 
 throw her back to new confusion. That day, any- 
 way, she could bear no more of it. It was hard 
 to reply to Mr. Herman when he called something 
 to her. Annie heard their voices and then she 
 had to join her and Harriett." 
 
 291 
 
292 FIDELITYi 
 
 "Why, Euth!" Annie cried in quick solicitude 
 upon seeing Euth's face, "you went too far. 
 How hateful of you," she laughed, as if feeling 
 there was something to laugh off, "to come look- 
 ing like this just when I have been boasting to 
 your sister about how we've set you up!" 
 
 "You do look tired, Euth," said Harriett com- 
 passionately. 
 
 Harriett said she had come for a little visit with 
 Euth, and Annie proposed that they go up under 
 the trees at the crest of the hill back of the house. 
 It was where Euth had sat with Annie just the 
 day before. As she sat down there now it seemed 
 it was ages ago since she and Annie had sat there 
 tying the asparagus into bunches. 
 
 Annie had come up with some buttermilk for 
 them. As she handed Euth hers she gave her 
 shoulder an affectionate little pat, as if, looking 
 at her face, she wanted to tell her to take heart. 
 Then she went back to the house, leaving the two 
 sisters alone. 
 
 They drank their buttermilk, talking of it, of 
 Annie's place, of her children. In a languid way 
 Euth was thinking that it was good of Hairiett to 
 come and see her; had she come the day before, 
 she would have been much pleased. In that worn 
 way, she was pleased now; doubtless it had been 
 hard for Harriett to come — so busy, and not well. 
 Perhaps her coming meant real defiance. Any- 
 way, it was good of her to come. She tried to be 
 
FIDELITY 293 
 
 nice to Harriett, to talk about things as if she liked 
 having her there to talk with. But that final pic- 
 ture of Mildred's drooping back was right there 
 before her all the time. As she talked with Har- 
 riett about the price of butter and eggs — the liv- 
 ing to be had in selling them, she was all the while 
 seeing Mildred — ^Mildred as she had been when 
 Euth got into the buggy; as she said, "Love can 
 take its place!" — as she was when she drove away. 
 She had a sick feeling of having failed; she had 
 failed the very thing in Mildred to which she had 
 elected to be faithful in herself. And why? 
 What right had one to say that another was not 
 strong enough? How did one hnowf And yet 
 she wanted Mildred to go with Edith ; she believed 
 that she would — ^now. That blighting sense of 
 failure, of having been unfaithful, could not kill a 
 feeling of relief. Did it mean that she was, after 
 all, just like Edith? Had her venturing, her ex- 
 perience, left her much as she would have been 
 without it? Just before meeting Mildred she was 
 strong in the feeling of having gained something 
 from the hard way she had gone alone. She was 
 going on! That was what it had shown her — 
 that one was to go on. Then she had to listen to 
 Mildred — and she was back with the very people 
 she had felt she was going on past — one with those 
 I>eople she had so triumphantly decidfed were not 
 worth her grieving for them. 
 
 She had been so sure — so radiantly sure, happy 
 
294 FIDELITY. 
 
 in that sense of having, at last, found herself, of 
 being rid of fears and griefs and incertitudes. 
 Then she met Mildred. It came to her then — 
 right while she was talking with Harriett about 
 what Flora Copeland was going to do now that 
 the house would be broken up — ^that it was just 
 that thing which kept the world conservative. It 
 was fear for, others. It was that feeling she had 
 when she looked down at Mildred's feet. 
 
 One did not have that feeling when one looked 
 at one's own feet. Fear of pain for others was 
 quite unlike fear for one's self. Courage for 
 one's self one could gain; in the fires of the heart 
 that courage was forged. When the heart was 
 warm with the thing one wanted to do one said no 
 price in pain could be too great. But courage for 
 others had to be called from the mind. It was an- 
 other thing. When it was some one else, — one 
 younger, one who did not seem strong — then one 
 distrusted the feeling and saw large the pain. 
 One knew one could bear pain one's self. There 
 was something not to be borne in thinking of an- 
 other's pain. That was why, even among ven- 
 turers, few had the courage to speak for ventur- 
 ing. There was something in humankind — ^it was 
 strongest in womankind — ^made them, no matter 
 how daring for themselves, cautious for others. 
 And perhaps that, all crusted round with things 
 formal and lifeless, was the living thing at the 
 heart of the world's conservatism. 
 
FIDELITY 295 
 
 Harriett was talking of the monument Cyrus 
 thought there should be at the cemetery; Ruth 
 listened and replied — seemed only tired, and all 
 the while these thoughts were shaping themselves 
 in her inner confusion and disheartenment. She 
 would rather have stopped thinking of it, but 
 could not. She had been too alive when checked ; 
 there was too much emotion in that inner con- 
 fusion. She wondered if she would ever become 
 sure of anything; if she would ever have, and 
 keep, that courage of confidence which she had 
 thought, for just a few radiant moments, she had. 
 She would like to talk to Annie about it, but she 
 had a feeling that she was not fit to talk to Annie. 
 Annie was not one of those to run back at the 
 first thought of another's pain. That, too, Annie 
 could face. Better let them in for pain than try 
 to keep them from life, Annie would say. She 
 could hear her saying it — saying that even that 
 concern for others was not the noblest thing. 
 Fearing would never set the world free, would 
 be Annie 's word. Not to keep people in the safe 
 little places, but to shape a world where there 
 need not be safe little places ! While she listened 
 to what Harriett said of how much such a monu- 
 ment as Cyrus wanted would cost, she could hear 
 Annie's sharp-edged little voice making those re- 
 plies to her own confusion, could hear her talking 
 of a sterner, braver people — ^hardier souls — ^who 
 would one day make a world where fear was not 
 
296 FIDELITY 
 
 the part of kindness. Annie would say that it was 
 not the women who would protect other women 
 who would shape the future in which there need 
 not be that tight little protection. 
 
 She sighed heavily and pushed hack her hair 
 with a gesture of great weariness. ' ' Poor Euth ! ' ' 
 it made Harriett murmur, "you haven't really got 
 rested at all, have you?" 
 
 She pulled herself up and smiled as best she 
 could at her sister, who had spoken to her with 
 real feeling. "I did," she said with a little 
 grimace that carried Harriett back a long way, 
 "then I got so rested I got to thinking about 
 things — ^then I got tired again." She flushed 
 after she had said it, for that was the closest they 
 had come to the things they kept away from. 
 
 "Poor Euth," Harriett murmured again. 
 "And I'm afraid," she added with a little laugh, 
 "that now I'm going to make you more tired." 
 
 "Oh, no," said Euth, though she looked at her 
 inquiringly. 
 
 "Because," said Harriett, "I've oome to talk 
 to you about something, Euth." 
 
 Euth's face made her say, "I'm sorry, Euth, 
 but I'm afraid it's the only chance. You see 
 you're going away day after tomorrow." 
 
 Euth only nodded; it seemed if she spoke she 
 would have to cry out what she felt — that in com- 
 mon decency she ought to be let alone now as any 
 worn-out thing should be let alone, that it was not 
 
FIDELITY 297 
 
 fair — ^hnmajie — to talk to her now. But of course 
 she could not make that clear to Harriett, and with 
 it aU she did wonder what it was Harriett had to 
 say. So she only looked at her sister as if wait- 
 ing. Harriett looked away from her for an in- 
 stant before she began to speak: Euth's eyes 
 were so tired, so somber; there was something 
 very appealing about her face as she waited for 
 the new thing that was to be said to her. 
 
 "I have felt terribly, Euth," Harriett finally 
 began, as if forcing herself to do so, "about the 
 position in which we are as a family. I'll not go 
 into what brought it about — or anything like that. 
 I haven't come to talk about things that happened 
 long ago, haven't come with reproaches. I've 
 just come to see if, as a family, we can't do a little 
 better about things as they are now." 
 
 She paused, but Euth did not speak; she was 
 very still now as she waited. She did not take her 
 eyes from Harriett's face. 
 
 "Mother and father are gone, Euth," Harriett 
 went on in a low voice, "and only we children are 
 left. It seems as if we ought to do the best we can 
 for each other," Her voice quivered and Euth's 
 intense eyes, which did not leave her sister's face, 
 dimmed. She continued to sit there very still, 
 waiting. 
 
 "I had a feeling," Haxriett went on, "that 
 father's doing what he did was as a — ^was as a 
 sign, Euth, that we children should come closer to- 
 
298 FIDELITY 
 
 gether. As if father couldn't s€e his way to do it 
 in his lifetime, but did this to leave word to ns 
 that we were to do something. I took it that 
 way," she finished simply. 
 
 Euth's eyes had brimmed over; but still she did 
 not move, did not take her eyes from her sister's 
 face. She was so strange — as if going out to Har- 
 riett and yet holding herself ready at any moment 
 to crouch back. 
 
 "And so," Harriett pursued, all the while in 
 that low voice, "that is the way I talked to Edgar 
 and Cyrus. I didn't bring Ted into it," she said, 
 more in her natural way, "because he's just a boy, 
 and then — " she paused as if she had got into 
 something that embarrassed her — ^"weU, he and 
 Cyrus not feeling kindly toward each other just 
 now I thought I could do better without Ted." 
 
 Euth flushed slightly at the mention of the feel- 
 ing between her brothers; but still she did not 
 speak, scarcely moved. 
 
 Harriett was silent a moment. "That's one of 
 the reasons," she took it up, "why I am anxious 
 to do something to bring us together. I don't 
 want Ted to be feeling this way toward Cyrus. 
 And Edgar, too, he seems to be very bitter against. 
 It makes him defiant. It isn't good for him. I 
 think Ted has a little disposition to be wild," she 
 said in a confidential tone. 
 
 Euth spoke then. "I hadn't noticed any such 
 disposition," she said simply. 
 
FIDELITY 299 
 
 "Well, he doesn't go to oliurcli. It seems to me 
 lie doesn't — accept things as he ought to." 
 
 Euth said nothing to that, only continued to look 
 at her sister, waiting. 
 
 "Sol talked to them, ' ' Harriett went on. ' ' Of 
 course, Euth, there's no use pretending it was 
 easy. You know how Cyrus feels ; he isn't one to 
 change much, you know." She turned away and 
 her hand fumbled in a little patch of clover. 
 
 "But we do want to do something, Euth," she 
 came back to it. "We all feel it's terrible this 
 way. So this is what Edgar proposed, and Cyrus 
 agreed to it, and it seems to me the best thing tq 
 do." She stopped again, then said, in a blurred 
 sort of voice, fumbling with the clover and not 
 looking at Euth: "If you will leave the — ^your — 
 if you will leave the man you are — living with, 
 promising never to see him again, — if you will 
 give that up and come home we will do everything 
 we can to stand by you, go on as best we can as if 
 nothing had happened. We will try to — " 
 
 She looked up — and did not go on, but flushed 
 uncomfortably at sight of Euth's face — eyes wide 
 with incredulity, with something like horror. 
 
 "You don't mean that, do you, Harriett?" Euth 
 asked in a queer, quiet voice. 
 
 "But we wanted to do something — " Harriett 
 began, and then again halted, halted before the 
 sudden blaze of anger in Euth's eyes. 
 
 "And you thought this—^" She broke off with 
 
300 fidelity; 
 
 a short laugh and sat there a moment trying to 
 gain control of herself. When she spoke her voice 
 was controlled but full of passion. "I don't 
 think," she said, "that I've ever known of a more 
 monstrous — a more insulting proposal being made 
 by one woman to another ! ' ' 
 
 ' ' Insulting ? ' ' faltered Harriett. 
 
 Euth did not at once reply but sat there so 
 strangely regarding her sister. ' ' So this is your 
 idea of life, is it, Harriett? ' ' she began in the man- 
 ner of one making a big effort to speak quietly. 
 "This is your idea of marriage, is it? Here is 
 the man I have lived with for eleven years. For 
 eleven years we've met hard things together as 
 best we could — ^worked, borne things together. 
 Let me teU you something, Harriett. If that 
 doesn't marry people — ^teU me something. If that 
 doesn't marry people — just tell me, Harnett, 
 what does?" 
 
 "But you know you're not married, Euth," 
 Harriett replied, falteringly — ^for Euth's burning 
 eyes never left her sister's face. "You know — 
 really — ^you're not married. You know he's not 
 divorced, Euth. He's not your husband. He's 
 Marion Averley's," 
 
 ' ' You think so ? " Euth flung back at her. ' ' You 
 really think so, do you, Harriett? After tho§e 
 years together — ^brought together by love, united 
 by living, by effort, by patience, by courage — I 
 
FIDELITY 301 
 
 ask you again, Harriett, — if the things there have 
 been between Stuart Williams and me can't make 
 a marriage real — what can?" 
 
 "The law is the law," murmured Harriett. 
 "He is married to ]ier. He never was married to 
 you. ' ' 
 
 Euth began hotly to speak, but checked it with 
 a laugh and sat there regarding her sister in si- 
 lence. "When she spoke after that her voice was 
 singularly calm. "I'm glad to know this, Har- 
 riett; glad to know just what your ideas are — 
 yours and Edgar's and Cyrus's. You have done 
 something for me, after all. For I've grieved a 
 great deal, Harriett, for the things I lost, and you 
 see I won't do that any more. I see now — see 
 what those things are. I see that I don't want 
 them." 
 
 Harriett had colored at that, and her hand was 
 fumbling in the little patch of clover. When she 
 looked up at Euth there were tears in her eyes. 
 "But what could we do, Euth?" she asked, gently, 
 a little reproachfully. "We wanted to do some- 
 thing — ^what else could we do?" 
 
 Her tone touched Euth. After all, what else — 
 Harriett being as she was — could she do? Mon- 
 strous as the proposal seemed to her, it was Har- 
 riett's way of trying to make things better. She 
 had come in kindness, and she had not been kindly 
 received. It was in a different voice that Euth 
 
302 FIDELITY 
 
 began: "Harriett, don't you see, when you come 
 to look at it, that I couldn't do this? Down in 
 your heart — ^way down in your heart, Harriett — 
 don't you see that I couldn't? Don't you see that 
 if I left Stuart now to do the best he could by him- 
 self, left him, I mean, for this reason — came creep- 
 ing back myself into a little corner of respect- 
 ability — the crumbs that fall from the tables of re- 
 spectability — I You know, Harriett HoUaud," 
 she flamed, "that if I did that I'd be less a woman, 
 not a better one!" 
 
 "I — I knew it would be hard," granted Har- 
 riett, unhappily. "Of course — after such a long 
 time together — But you're not married to him, 
 Euth," she said again, wretchedly. "Why" — ^her 
 voice fell almost to a whisper — "you're liviag ia 
 — adultery." 
 
 "Well if I am," retorted Euth — "forgive me 
 for saying it, Harriett — ^that adultery has given 
 me more decent ideas of life than marriage seems 
 to have given you ! ' ' 
 
 Her feeling about it grew stronger as the day 
 wore on. That evening she got the Woodburys' 
 on the telephone and asked for Mildred. She did 
 not know just what she would say, she had no plan, 
 but she wanted to see Mildred again. She was 
 told, however, that Mildred had gone to Chicago 
 on a late afternoon train. At the last minute she 
 had decided to go to Europe with Mrs. Blair, the 
 
FIDELITY 303 
 
 rvant who was speaking said, and had gone over 
 Chicago to see about clothes. 
 Euth hxmg up the receiver and sat looking into 
 le telephone. Then she laughed. So Mildred 
 id been "saved." 
 
CHAPTEE TWENTY-SEVEN 
 
 On tKe afternoon of lier last day in Freeport 
 Euth. took a long tramp with. Deane. She was go- 
 ing that night ; she was all ready for leaving when 
 Deane came out and asked if he couldn't take her 
 for a ride in his car. She suggested a walk in- 
 stead, wanting the tramp before the confinement 
 of travelling. So they cut through the fields back 
 of Annie 's and came out on a road well known to 
 them of old. They tramped along it a long way, 
 Euth speaking of things she remembered, talk- 
 ing of old drives along that road which had been 
 a favorite with all of their old crowd. They said 
 things as they felt like it, but there was no con- 
 straint in their silences. It had always been like 
 that with her and Deane. Finally they sat down 
 on a knoll a little back from the road, overlooking 
 pastures and fields of blowing green. 
 
 "I love these little hills," Euth murmured; "so 
 many little hiUs," she laughed affectionately — 
 "and so green and blowy and fruitful. Witb us 
 it's a great flat valley — a plain, and most of it dry 
 — ^barren. You have to do such a lot to make 
 things grow. Here things just love to grow. 
 And trees!" she laughed. 
 
 "But moimtains there," suggested Deane. 
 
 304 
 
FIDELITY 305 
 
 "Yes, but a long way off from us, and some- 
 times they seem very stem, Deane. I've so many 
 times had the feeling I couldn't get beyond them. 
 Sometimes they have seemed like other things I 
 couldn't hope to cross." After a little she said: 
 "These little hills are so gentle; this country so 
 open." 
 
 Deane laughed shortly. "Yes, the hills are 
 gentle. The country is open enough!" 
 
 She laughed too. "It is beautiful country, 
 Deane," she said, as if that were the thing matter- 
 ing just then. There was an attractive bit of 
 pasture just ahead of them : a brook ran through 
 it — a lovely little valley between two of those 
 gentle hiUs. 
 
 Deane was lying on the grass a little way from 
 her — sprawled out in much his old awkward way, 
 his elbow supporting his head, hat pulled down 
 over his eyes. It was good to be with him this 
 last afternoon. It seemed so much as it used to 
 be ; in that moment it was almost as if the time in 
 between had not been. It was strange the way 
 things could fall away sometimes — great stretches 
 of time fall away and seem, for a little while, to 
 leave things as they had been long before. 
 
 "Well, Euth," Deane said at last, "so you're 
 going back. ' ' 
 
 "Going back, Deane," she answered. 
 
 So much they did not say seemed to flow into 
 that ; the whole thing was right there, opened, liv- 
 
306 FIDELITY 
 
 ing, between them. It had always been like that 
 with her and Deane. It was not necessary to say 
 things out to him, as it was with everyone else. 
 Their thinking, feeling, seemed to oome together 
 naturally, of itself; not a matter of direction. 
 She looked at Deane stretched out there on the 
 grass — older, different in some ways — ^today he 
 looked as if something was worrying him — ^yet 
 with it aU so much the Deane of old. It kept re- 
 curring as strange that, after all there had been in 
 between, they should be together again, and that 
 it could be as it used to be. Just as of old, a little 
 thing said could swing them to thinking, feeling, 
 of which perhaps they did not speak, but which 
 they consciously shared'. Many times through the 
 years there had come times when she wanted noth- 
 ing so much as to be with Deane, wanted to say 
 things to him that, she did not know just why, 
 there would have been no satisfaction in saying 
 to Stuart. Even things she had experienced with 
 Stuart she could, of the two, more easily have 
 talked of with Deane. It was to Deane she could 
 have talked of the things Stuart made her feel. 
 IWithin a certain circle Stuart was the man to 
 whom she came closest; somehow, with him, she 
 did not break from that circle. She had' always 
 had that feeling of Deane 's understanding what 
 she felt, even though it was not he who inspired 
 the feeling. That seemed a little absurd to her — 
 to live through things with one man, and have 
 
FIDELITY 307 
 
 what that living made of her seem to swing her to 
 some one elsei, 
 
 Thinking of their miique companionship, which 
 time and distance and circumstances had so little 
 affected, she looked at Deane as he lay there near 
 her on the grass. She was glad to have this re- 
 newal of their old friendship, which had always 
 remained living and dear to her. And now she 
 was going away for another long time. It was 
 possible she would never see him again. It made 
 her wish she could oome closer to what were now 
 the big things in his life. 
 
 "I'm so glad, Deane," she said, somewhat tim- 
 idly, "about you." 
 
 He pushed back his hat and looked up in in- 
 quiry. 
 
 * ' So glad you got married, goose ! ' ' she laughed. 
 
 At his laugh for that she looked at him in as- 
 tonishment, distinctly shocked. He was chewing 
 a long spear of grass. For a moment he did not 
 speak. Then, "Amy's gone home," he said 
 shortly. 
 
 Euth could only stare at him, bewildered. 
 
 He was running his hand over the grass near 
 him. She noticed that it moved nervously. And 
 she remarked the puckered brows that had all 
 along made her think he was worried about some- 
 thing that day — she had thought it must be one of 
 his cases. And there was that compression of the 
 lips that she knew of old in Deane when he was 
 
308 FIDELITY 
 
 hurt. Just then his face looked actually old, the 
 face of a man who has taken hard things. 
 
 "Yes, Amy's gone home for; a little while," he 
 said in a more matter of fact voice, but a voice 
 that had a hard ring. He added: "Her mother's 
 not well," and looked up at Euth with that char- 
 acteristic little screwing up of his face, as if tell- 
 ing her to make what she could of it. 
 
 "Why, that's too bad," she stammered. 
 
 Again he looked up at her in that queer way of 
 mixed feeling, his face showing the marks of pain 
 and yet a touch of teasing there too, mocking her 
 confusion, looking like a man who was suffering 
 and yet a little like a teasing boy. Then he ab- 
 ruptly pulled his hat down over his eyes again, as 
 if to shade them from the sun, and lay flat on his 
 back, one heel kicking at the grass. She could 
 not see his eyes, but she saw his mouth ; that faint 
 touch of pleasure in teasing which had perversely 
 lurked in pain had gone now; that twist of his 
 compressed lips was pure pain. 
 
 She was utterly bewildered, and so deeply con- 
 cerned that she had to get ahead of Deane some 
 way, not let him shut himself in with a thing that 
 made his mouth look as if he was bearing physical 
 pain. And then a new thought shot into her con- 
 cern for him, a thought that seemed too prepos- 
 terous to entertain, but that would not go away. 
 It did not seem a thing she could speak of ; but as 
 she looked at Deane, his mouth more natural now, 
 
FIDELITY 309 
 
 but the suggestion of pain left there, she had a 
 sudden new sense of all that Deane had done for 
 her. She couldn't leave things like this, no mat- 
 ter how indelicate she might seem. 
 
 "Deane," she began timidly, "I don't — in any 
 way — for any reason — ^make things hard for you, 
 do I?" 
 
 For the moment he did not speak, did not push 
 his hat back so she could see his eyes. Then she 
 saw that he was smiling a little ; she had a feeling 
 that he was not realizing she could see the smile ; 
 it was as if smiling to himself at something that 
 bitterly amused him. It made her feel rather 
 sick; it let that preposterous idea spread all 
 through her. 
 
 Then he sat up and looked quizzically at her. 
 *'Well, Euth, you don't expect me to deny, do you, 
 that you did make a thing or two rather hard?" 
 He said it with that touch of teasing. "Was I so 
 magnanimous," he added dryly, "that I let you 
 lose sight of the fact that I wanted you?" 
 
 Euth colored and felt baffled; she was sure he 
 knew well enough that was not what she referred 
 to. He looked at her, a little mockingly, a little 
 wistfully, as if daring her to go on. 
 
 "I wasn't talking about things long ago, 
 Deane," she said. "I wondered — " She hesi- 
 tated, looking at him in appeal, as if asking him to 
 admit he understood what she meant without forc- 
 ing her to say such a thing. 
 
310 FIDELITY 
 
 For a minute lie let the pain look ont of his eyes 
 at her, looked for all the world as if he wanted her 
 to help him. Then qnickly he seemed to shut him- 
 self in. He smiled at her in a way that seemed to 
 say, h&H mockingly, "I've gone!" He hurt her 
 a little; it was hard to be with Deane and feel 
 there was something he was not going to let her 
 help him with. And it made her sick at heart ; for 
 surely he knew what she was driving at, driving 
 at and edging away from, and if he could have 
 laughed at her fears wouldn't he have done so? 
 She thought of all Deane had done for her, borne 
 for her. It would be bitter indeed if it were really 
 true she was bringing him any new trouble. But 
 how could it be true? It seemed too preposter- 
 ous; surely she must be entirely on the wrong 
 track, so utterly wrong that he had no idea what 
 it was she had in mind. 
 
 As they sat there for a moment in silence she 
 was full of that feeling of how much Deane had 
 done for her, of a longing to do something for 
 him. Gently she said: "I must have made 
 things very hard for you, Deane. The town — 
 your friends — ^your people, because of me you 
 were against them all. That does make things 
 hard — ^to be apart from the people you are with." 
 She looked at him, her face softened with affec- 
 tionate regret, with a newly understanding grati- 
 tude. "I've not been very good for your life, 
 
FIDELITY 311 
 
 have I, Deane?" she said, more lightly, but her 
 voice touched with wistfulness. 
 
 He looked at her, as if willing to meet that, as 
 if frankly considering it. **I can't say that 
 you've been very good for my happiness, Ruth," 
 he laughed. And then he said simply, with a cer- 
 tain simple manliness, "But I should say, Euth, 
 you have been very gc^od for my life." His face 
 contracted a little, as if with pain. That passed, 
 and he went on in that simple way: "You see 
 you made me think about things. It was because 
 of you — through you — I came to think about 
 things. That's good for our lives, isn't it?" 
 That he said sternly, as if putting down something 
 that had risen in him. ' ' Because of you I've ques- 
 tioned things, felt protest. Why, Buth," he 
 laughed, "if it hadn't been for you I might have 
 taken things in the slick little way they do," — ^he 
 waved a hand off toward the town. ' ' So just see 
 what I owe you !" he said, more lightly, as if leav- 
 ing the serious things behind. Then he began to 
 speak of other things. 
 
 It left Euth unsatisfied, troubled. And yet it 
 seemed surely a woman would be proud of a man 
 who had been as fine in a thing, as big and true 
 and understanding, as Deane had been with her. 
 Surely a woman would be proud of a man who 
 had so loyally, at such great cost, been a woman's 
 friend, who, because of friendship, because of 
 
312 FIDELITY 
 
 fidelity to his own feeling, would stand out that 
 way against others. She tried to think that, for 
 she could not go back to what Deane had left be- 
 hind. And yet she could not forget that she had 
 not met Amy. 
 
 They walked toward home talking quietly about 
 things that happened to come up, more as if they 
 were intimate friends who had constant meetings 
 than as if they had been, years apart and were 
 about to part for what would probably be years 
 more. But that consciousness was there under- 
 neath; it ruled the silences, made their voices 
 gentler. It was very sweet to Euth, just before 
 again leaving all home things behind, to be walk- 
 ing in the spring twilight with Deane along that 
 road they knew when they were boy and girl to- 
 gether. 
 
 Twilight was deepening to evening when they 
 came to the hill from which they could see the 
 town. They stood still looking off at it, speaking 
 of the beauty of the river, of the bridge, of the 
 strangeness of the town lights when there was still 
 that faint light of day. And then they stood still 
 and said nothing, looking off at that town where 
 they had been brought up. It was beautiful from 
 there, bent round a curve in the broad river, built 
 upon hills. She was leaving it now — again leav- 
 ing it. She had come home, and now she was go- 
 ing away again. And now she knew, in spite of 
 her anger of the day before, in spite of all there 
 
FIDELITY 313 
 
 had been to hurt her, in spite of all that had been 
 denied her, that she was not leaving it in bitter- 
 ness. In one sense she had not had much from 
 her days back home ; but in a real sense, she had 
 had much. She looked at that town now with a 
 feeling of new affection. She believed she would 
 always have that feeling of affection for it. It 
 stood to her for things gone — dear things gone; 
 for youth's gladness, for the love of father and 
 mother, for many happy things now left behind. 
 But now that she had come back, had gone' through 
 those hard days, she was curiously freed from that 
 town. She had this new affection for it in being 
 freed of it. She would always love it because of 
 what it had meant in the past, but love it as one 
 does love a thing past. It seemed she had to 
 come back to it to let it lose its hold on her. It 
 was of the past, and she knew now that there was 
 a future. What that future was to be she did not 
 know, but she would turn from this place of the 
 past with a new sense of the importance of the 
 future. Standing there with Deane on the hilltop 
 at evening, looking off at that town where they 
 had both been brought up, she got a sense of the 
 significance of the whole thing — the eleven years 
 away, and the three years preceding those years ; 
 a sense too of the meaning of those days just past, 
 those recent days at home when there were times 
 of being blinded by the newly seen significance of 
 those years of living. They had been hard days 
 
314 FIDELITY 
 
 because things had been crowded so close ; it had 
 come too fast ; currents had met too violently and 
 the long way between cause and effect had been 
 lighted by flashes too blinding. It had been like 
 a great storm in which elements rush together. 
 It had almost swept her down, but she had come 
 through it and this was what she had brought out 
 of it: a sense of life as precious, as worth any- 
 thing one might have to pay for it, a stirring new 
 sense of the future as adventure. She had been 
 thinking of her life as defined, and now it seemed 
 that the future was there, a beautiful untouched 
 thing, a thing that was left, hers to do what she 
 could with. Somehow she had broken through, 
 broken through the things that had closed in 
 around her. A great new thing had happened to 
 her : she was no longer afraid to face things ! In 
 those last few days she had been tossed, now this 
 way, now that ; it seemed she had rather been made 
 a fool of, but things had got through to her — she 
 was awake, alive, unafraid. Something had been 
 liberated in her. She turned to Deane, who was 
 looking with a somber steadiness ahead at the 
 town. She touched his arm and he looked at her, 
 amazed at her shining eyes, shining just as they 
 used to when as a girl she was setting out for a 
 good time, for some mischief, excitement. 
 
 "Well, anyTv^ay, Deane," she said in a voice 
 that seemed to brush everything else aside, "we're 
 alive!" 
 
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT 
 
 The summer had gone by and Ted Holland, who 
 had gone "West with Euth in May, was back in 
 Freeport "breaking up the house." The place 
 was offered for sale ; things had to be cleared out 
 in one way or another. What none of the chil- 
 dren wanted was being sold to anybody who did 
 happen to want it; what nobody wanted was to 
 be given away to such people as had to take what 
 they could get. And there was a great deal of 
 it not even in the class for giving away; "just 
 truck" Ted kept callously calling it to Harriett 
 and their Cousin Flora. He whistled vigorously 
 over some of the "truck," — a worn dog's collar, 
 an old pair of the queer kind of house shoes his 
 mother wore, a spectacle case he had used to love 
 to hear his father snap shut, dusty, leaky sofa- 
 pillows that had bristled with newness in the 
 "den" which was the delight of his sLsteen-year- 
 old heart. He kept saying to Cousin Flora that 
 there was no end to the junk — old school readers, 
 Ruth's party slippers. Just burn it all up, he 
 said, in a crisp voice of efBcieney; what was it 
 good for, anyhow? Certainly it had taught him 
 a lesson. He'd never keep anything. 
 
 They had been at it for a week — sorting, de- 
 
 315 
 
316 FIDELITY 
 
 stroying, disbursing, scattering what a family's 
 life through a generation had assembled, break- 
 ing up "the Hollands." Ted, in. his own room 
 that morning, around him the things he was going 
 to put in his trunk for taking back West, admitted 
 to himself that it was grtiesome business. 
 
 Things were over ; things at home were aU over. 
 This pulling to pieces drove that home hard. 
 Father and mother were gone and now "their 
 stuff" was being got out of the way. After this 
 there would not even be a place where the things 
 they had used were. But he would be glad when 
 they could get through with it; he was finding 
 that there was something wrenching about things 
 that were left, things that had been used and that 
 now there was no longer any use for. The sight 
 of them stabbed as no mere thioking about things 
 could do. It was hard work throwing away 
 "truck" that something seemed to cling to. It 
 was hard to really get it, he was thinking ; a fam- 
 ily lived in a place — seemed reaUy a part of that 
 place, an important part, perhaps; then things 
 changed — ^people died, moved away, and that fam- 
 ily simply wasn't any more — and things went on 
 just about the same. Whistling, he put some 
 shirts in his trunk, trying to fix his mind on how 
 many new shirts he needed. 
 
 He was going back West — ^to live, to work. Not 
 right where Ruth was, in southwestern Colorado,, 
 but in the country a little to the north. He and 
 
FIDELITY 317 
 
 a fellow he had made friends with out there had 
 bought an apple orchard — the money he was to 
 have from his :£ather would go into it and some 
 of Euth's money — she wanted him to invest some 
 of hers with his. It was that had made it possi- 
 ble for him to go in with this fellow. He was 
 glad he could do it. The West had "got" him. 
 He believed he could make things go. 
 
 And he shouldn't have liked staying on in Free- 
 port. Too many things were different for him 
 to want to stay there. And too many things 
 hurt. Euth had come to mean too much to him 
 to let him be happy with people who felt as the 
 people there did about her. 
 
 He heard Harriett downstairs and went down 
 to speak to her about the price the stove man 
 offered for the kitchen range. He remembered 
 his mother's delight in that range as new; some- 
 how it made him hate selling it for this pittance. 
 
 Harriett thought, however, that they had better 
 let it go. One couldn't expect to get much for 
 old things, and they didn't want it on their hands. 
 
 They stayed there awhile in the dining-room, 
 considering the problem of getting out of the way 
 various other things there was no longer any use 
 for. Harriett was looking at the bay window. 
 "If the Woodburys take the house," she said, 
 "they won't want these shades." 
 
 "Oh, no," replied Ted, "they wouldn't be good 
 enough for Mildred." 
 
318 FIDELITY 
 
 The Woodburys had been there the night be- 
 fore to look at the house ; they thought of buying 
 it and Mildred, just recently home from Europe 
 with Edith Blair — they had had a hard time get- 
 ting home, because of the war — ^had, according to 
 his own way of putting it, made Ted tired. She 
 was so fretful with her father and her ideas of 
 how the place could perhaps be made presenta- 
 ble by being all done over had seemed to Ted 
 "pretty airy." He'd rather strangers had the 
 house. He heard that Mildred was going about a 
 lot with Bob Gearing — one of the fellows in town 
 who had money. 
 
 Ted pulled out his watch. "I want to get down 
 and see Deane at his noon office hours," he said. 
 
 Harriett turned from the window. "What 
 have you got to see him about?" she asked 
 sharply. 
 
 "Why — ^just see him," he answered in sur- 
 prise. "Why shouldn't I want to see him? 
 Haven't seen him since I got back. He'U want to 
 hear about Euth. ' ' 
 
 Harriett seemed about to speak, then looked at 
 the door of the kitchen, where a man was packing 
 dishes. "I don't think I'd go to him for that," 
 she said in lowered voice. 
 
 Ted looked at her in bewildered inquiry. 
 
 "Mrs. Franklin has left him," she said shortly. 
 She glanced at the kitchen door, then added in a 
 
FIDELITY 319 
 
 voice that dropped still lower: ''And the talk 
 is that it's because of Euth." 
 
 For a mimite Ted just stood staring at her. 
 Then his face was aflame with angry blood. 
 "The talk!" he choked. "So that's the new 
 'talk'! Well—" 
 
 "S — h," warned Harriett, and stepped over and 
 closed the kitchen door. 
 
 "I'd like to tell some of them what I think of 
 their 'talk,'" he blazed. "Oh, I'd like to tell 
 some of these warts — " 
 
 "Ted!" she admonished, nodding her head to- 
 ward the closed door. 
 
 "What do I care? I'd like to have 'em hear 
 me! I want them to know that I—" He broke 
 off and stood looking at her. "It doesn't seem 
 to worry you much!" he thrust at her. 
 
 ' ' It did, Ted, ' ' she said patiently. ' ' I— it did. ' ' 
 She looked so distressed, so worn as she said it 
 that it mollified him until she added: "And 
 still, you mustn't be too hard on people. A 
 woman who has put herself in that position — " 
 
 ' ' There you go ! ' Put herself in that position ! 
 Put herself!" he jeered angrily, "in that posi- 
 tion ! As if the position was something Ruth got 
 into on purpose ! And after all these years ! — still 
 talking about her 'position.' Let me tell you 
 something! I'll tell you the woman that's 'put 
 herself in the position I'd think would make her 
 
320 FIDELITY 
 
 hate herself ! That's Mrs. Williams! She's the 
 one that's 'put herself — " 
 
 "Ted," she broke in sternly, "you must not!" 
 
 But, "You make me sick!" he flung back at her 
 and snatched hat and coat from the hall rack 
 and left the house with a violent bang of the front 
 door. 
 
 He did not go down to Deane's oflSce. He 
 stalked ahead, trying to hold down the bitter 
 rage that was almost choking him. At one time 
 when he looked up he saw that he was passing 
 the house Deane Franklin had built before his 
 marriage and noted that it was closed, all the 
 shades were clear down. Flower beds that had 
 been laid out in the spring had been let go. It 
 looked all wrong to see a new place so deserted, 
 so run down. He remembered seeing Deane 
 working out in that yard in the spring. He hur- 
 ried on by. His heart was hot with resentment — 
 real hatred — of the town through which he walked. 
 He loathed the place! he told himself. Picking 
 on Euth for this — ready to seize on her for any- 
 thing that put her in bad ! He had been with Euth 
 for four months. He knew now just how things 
 were with her. It gave him some idea of what it 
 was she had gone through. It made him hate the 
 town that had no feeling for her. 
 
 He had walked out from town, not giving any 
 thought to where he was going, just walking be- 
 cause he had to be doing something. He was 
 
FIDELITY 321 
 
 about to cross a little bridge and stepped to the 
 side of the road to let the vehicle right behind 
 him get ahead. He stood glaring down at the 
 creek and did not look up until he heard the 
 wagon, just as it struck the bridge, stop. Then 
 he saw that it was a woman driving the market 
 wagon and recognized her as Mrs. Herman, who 
 had been so good to Euth. 
 
 He stepped up eagerly to greet her; his face 
 quickly cleared as he held out his hand and he 
 smiled at her with a sudden boyish warmth that 
 made her face — it was thin, tired — also light with 
 pleasure. He kept shaking her hand; it seemed 
 wonderfully good of her to have come along just 
 then — she was something friendly in a hostile 
 world. He went out eagerly, gratefully, to the 
 something friendly. He had had about all he 
 could stand of the other things, other feelings. 
 He had told Euth that he would be sure to go 
 and see Mrs. Herman. He got in with her now 
 and they talked of Euth as they jogged through 
 the country which he now noticed was aflame with 
 the red and gold of October. 
 
 He found himself chatting along about Euth 
 just as if there was not this other thing about 
 her — the thing that made it impossible to speak 
 of her to almost anyone else in the town. It 
 helped a lot to talk of Euth that way just then. 
 He had seemed all clogged up with hatred and 
 resentment, fury at the town made him want to 
 
322 FIDELITY 
 
 do something to somebody, and pity for Euth 
 made Mm feel sick in Ms sense of helplessness. 
 Now those ugly things, those choking, bliuding 
 things fell away in his talking about Euth to tMs 
 woman who wanted to hear about her because she 
 cared for her, who wanted to bear the simple 
 little tMngs about her that those other people had 
 no interest in. He found himself chatting along 
 about Euth and Stuart — their house, their land, 
 the field of peas into which they turned their 
 sheep, the potatoes grown on their place that sum- 
 mer. He talked of artesian wells and irrigation, 
 of riding western horses and of camping in the 
 mountains. Thinking of it afterwards he didn't 
 know when he had talked so much. And of 
 course, as everyone was doing those days, they 
 talked about the war. She was fairly aflame with 
 feeling about it. 
 
 He rode all the way home with Mrs. Herman, 
 stayed for lunch and then lingered about the 
 place for an hour or more after that. He felt 
 more like himself than he had at any time since 
 coming home; he could forget a little about that 
 desolate house that was no longer to be Ms home, 
 and the simple friendly interest of this woman 
 who was Euth's friend helped to heal a very sore 
 place in his heart. 
 
 But afterwards, back there at home where it 
 was as if he was stripping dead years, what came 
 over Mm was the feeling that things were not as 
 
FIDELITY 323 
 
 tli€y had seemed out there with Mrs. Herman. 
 She was like that, but in being that way she was 
 different from the whole world, at least from prac- 
 tically the whole of the world that he knew. 
 Working with old things cast him back to it all. 
 He brooded over it there in the desolate place 
 of things left behind ; the resentful feeling toward 
 the town, together with that miserable, helpless 
 feeling of passionate pity for Euth settled down 
 upon him and he could not throw it off. 
 
 He saw Deane that night; he saw him at the 
 Club where he went to play a game of pool, be- 
 cause he had to get away from the house for 
 awhile. I>eane was sitting apart from the various 
 groups, reading a magazine. Ted stood in the 
 door of that room looking at him a minute before 
 Deane looked up from the page. He saw that his 
 face was thinner; it made him look older; indeed 
 he looked a good deal older than when, just the 
 spring before, Ted used to see him working 
 around that place that was all shut up now. And 
 in that moment of scrutiny he saw something more 
 than just looking older. If you didn't know 
 Deane you'd think — ^well, you'd think you didn't 
 want to know him. And he looked as if he didn't 
 care about your knowing him, either; he looked 
 as if he'd thank people to let him alone. Then 
 he glanced up and saw Ted and it seemed there 
 were a few people he didn't want to have let him 
 alone. 
 
324 FIDELITY 
 
 But thougli he brightened on seeing him, looked 
 like himself as he came quickly up to shake hands, 
 he was not like himself in the talk that followed. 
 It was as if he wanted to be, tried to be, but he 
 was constrained in asking about the West, "the 
 folks." He seemed to want to hear, yet he wasn't 
 like himself, though Ted could scarcely have de- 
 fined the difference. He was short in what he 
 said, cut things off sharply, and in little pauses 
 his face would quickly settle to that moroseness. 
 Ted told of his own plans and Deane was enthu- 
 siastic about that. Then he fell silent a moment 
 and after that said with intensity: "I wish I was 
 going to puU out from here!" 
 
 "Well, why don't you?" laughed Ted, a little 
 diffidently. 
 
 "Haven't got the gumption, I guess," said 
 Deane more lightly, and as he smiled gave Ted 
 the impression of trying to pull himself out from 
 something. 
 
 Later in the evening a couple of men were talk- 
 ing of someone who was ill. "They have Frank- 
 lin, don't they?" was asked, and the answer came, 
 "Not any more. They've switched." 
 
 Walking home, he thought it had been said as 
 if there was more to it, as if there had been 
 previous talk about other people who had 
 "switched." Why, surely it couldn't be that be- 
 cause — ^for some reason or other — ^his wife had 
 
FIDELITY. 325 
 
 left him people were taldng it out on his practice ? 
 That seemed not only too unfair but too prepos- 
 terous. Deane was the best doctor in town. 
 "What had his private affairs — no matter what the 
 state of them—got to do with him as a physician? 
 Surely even that town couldn't be as two-by-four 
 as that ! 
 
 But it troubled him so persistently that next 
 morning, when they were alone together in the 
 attic, he brought himself to broach it to Harriett, 
 asking, in the manner of one interested in a thing 
 because of its very absurdity, just what the talk 
 was about Ruth and the; Franklins. 
 
 Harriett went on to give the town's gossip of 
 how Deane had gone to Indianapolis to see his 
 wife, to try and make it right, but her people were 
 strongly of the feeling that she had been badly 
 treated and it had ended with her going away 
 somewhere with her mother. Harriett sighed 
 heavily as she said she feared it was one of those 
 things that would not be made right. 
 
 "I call it the limit!" cried Ted. "The woman 
 must be a fool!" 
 
 Harriett sadly shook her head. "Tou don't un- 
 derstand women, Ted," she said. 
 
 "And I don't want to — ^if that's what they're 
 like!" he retorted hotly. 
 
 "I'm afraid Deane didn't — ^manage very well," 
 sighed Harriett. 
 
326 FIDELITY 
 
 "Wlio wants to manage such a little fool!" 
 snapped Ted. 
 
 "Now, Ted — " she began, but "You make me 
 tired, Harriett!" he broke in passionately, and no 
 more was said of it then. 
 
 They worked in silence for awhile, Ted raising 
 a great deal of dust in the way he threw things 
 about, Harriett looking through a box of old books 
 and papersj sighing often. Harriett sighed a 
 great deal, it seemed to Ted, and yet something 
 about Harriett made him sorry for her. From 
 across the attic he looked at her, awkwardly sit- 
 ting on the floor, leaning against an old trunk. 
 She looked tired and he thought with compassion 
 and remorse for the rough way he had spoken to 
 her, of how her baby was only a little more than 
 two months old, that it must be hard for her to 
 be doing the things she was doing that week. Har- 
 riett had grown stout; she had that settled look 
 of many women in middle life ; she looked as if she 
 couldn't change much — ^in any way. Well, Ted 
 considered, he guessed Harriett couldn't change 
 much; she was just fixed in the way she was and 
 that was aU there was to it. But she did not look 
 happy in those things she had settled into; she 
 looked patient. She seemed to think things 
 couldn't be any different. 
 
 She was turning the pages of an old album she 
 had taken from the box of her mother's things 
 she was sorting. "Oh!" she exclaimed in a low 
 
FIDELITY 327 
 
 voice, bending over tlie pages. Her tone brought 
 Ted over to her. "A picture of Euth as a baby," 
 she murmured. 
 
 He knelt down and looked over her shoulder 
 into the dusty, old-fashioned album at a picture 
 of a baby a year or so old whose face was all 
 screwed up into a delighted laugh, tiny hands 
 raised up and clenched in the intensity of baby 
 excitement, baby abandonment to the joyousness 
 of existence. 
 
 "She was like that," murmured Harriett, a 
 little tremulously. "She was the crowingest 
 baby!" 
 
 They bent over it in silence for a minute. 
 "Seems pretty tickled about things, doesn't she?" 
 said Ted with a queer little laugh. Harriett 
 sighed heavily, but a moment later a tear had 
 fallen down to one of the baby hands clenched 
 in joyousness ; the tear made him forgive the sigh, 
 and when he saw her carefully take the picture 
 from the album and put it in the pocket of her 
 big apron, it was a lot easier, somehow, to go on 
 working with Harriett. It was even easy, after 
 a little, to ask her what he wanted to know about 
 Deane's practice. 
 
 It was true, she feared, that the talk had hurt 
 him some. Mrs. Lawrence had stopped having 
 him. It seemed she had taken a great fancy to 
 Amy Franklin and felt keenly for her in this. 
 She had made other people feel that Deane had 
 
328 FIDELITY 
 
 not been fair or kind and so there was some feel- 
 ing against Mm. 
 
 "I suppose she can't claim," Ted cried hotly, 
 "that it hurts him as a doctor?" 
 
 "No," Harriett began uncertainly, "except 
 that a doctor — of course the personal side of 
 things — " 
 
 "Now, there you gn, Harriett," he interrupted 
 furiously. "You make me tired! If it wasn't 
 that you've a sneaking feeling for Euth you'd fall 
 for such a thing yourself!" 
 
 "There's no use trying to talk to you, Ted," 
 said Harriett patiently. 
 
 Two days later the house was about disman- 
 tled. Ted was leaving the next day for the West. 
 He was so sick of the whole thing that it had 
 gone a little easier toward the last, blunted to 
 everything but getting things done. When Har- 
 riett, her eyes reddened, came downstairs with a 
 doll and wanted to know if he didn't think Euth 
 might like to have it, saying that it was the doll 
 Euth had loved all through her little girl days, 
 and that she had just come upon it where her 
 mother had carefully packed it away, he snatched 
 the doll from her and crammed it into the kitchen 
 stove and poked at it savagely to make it burn 
 faster. Then he slammed down the lid and looked 
 ruthlessly up at Harriett with, "We've had about 
 enough of this sobbing around over jwnk!" 
 
 Harriett wanted him to come over to her house 
 
FIDELITY 329 
 
 that last nigM but he said he'd either go home 
 with one of the fellows or bring one of them home 
 with him. She did not press it, knowing how lit- 
 tle her brother and her husband liked each other. 
 He went to the theatre that night with a couple 
 of his friends. He was glad to go, for it was as 
 good a way as he could think of for getting 
 through the evening. They were a little early and 
 he sat there watching the people coming in ; it was 
 what would be called a representative audience, 
 the society of the town, the "best people" were 
 there. They were people Ted had known all his 
 life; people who used to come to the house, peo- 
 ple his own family had been one with; friends of 
 his mother came in, associates of his father, old 
 friends of Euth. That gathering of people rep- 
 resented the things in the town that he and his 
 had been allied with. He watched them, thinking 
 of his own going away, of how it would be an en- 
 tirely new group of people he would come to 
 know, would become one with, thinking of the Hol- 
 lands, how much they had been a part of it all 
 and how completely they were out of it now. As 
 he saw all these people, such pleasant, good-look- 
 ing people, people he had known as far back as 
 he could remember, in whose homes he had had 
 good times, people his own people had been asso- 
 ciated with always, a feeling of really hating to 
 leave the town, of its being hard to go away, crept 
 up in him. He talked along with the friend next 
 
330 FIDELITY 
 
 him and watched people taking their seats with 
 a new feeling for them all; now that he was ac- 
 tually leaving them he had a feeling of affection 
 for the people with whom he sat in the theatre 
 that night. He had known them always; they 
 were "mixed np" with such a lot of old things. 
 
 Some people came into one of the boxes during 
 the first act and when the lights went np for the 
 intermission he saw that one of the women was 
 Stuart Williams' wife. 
 
 He turned immediately to his friends and be- 
 gan a lively conversation about the play, painfully 
 wondering if the fellows he was with had seen 
 her too, if they were wondering whether he had 
 seen her, whether he was thinking about it. His 
 feeling of gentle regret about leaving the town 
 was struck away. He was glad this was his last 
 night. Always something like this! It was for- 
 ever coming up, making him feel uncomfortable, 
 different, making him wonder whether people 
 were thinking about "it," whether they were won- 
 dering whether he was thinking about it. 
 
 Through the years he had grown used to see- 
 ing Mrs. Williams; he had become blunted to it; 
 sometimes he could see her without really being 
 conscious of "it," just because he was used to 
 seeing her. But now that he had just come home, 
 had been with Euth, there was an acute new shock 
 in seeing her. 
 
 During the first intermission he never looked 
 
FIDELITY 331 
 
 back after that first glance; but when the house 
 was darkened again it was not at the stage he 
 looked most. From his place in the dress circle 
 across the house he could look over at her, se- 
 cured by the dim light could covertly watch her. 
 It was hard to ]j:eep his eyes from her. She sat 
 well to the front of the box; he could see every 
 move she made, and every little thing about her 
 wretchedly fascinated him. She sat erect, hands 
 loosely clasped in her lap, seemingly absorbed in 
 the play. Her shoulders seemed very white above 
 her gauzy black dress ; in that light, at least, she 
 was beautiful; her neck was long and slim and 
 her hair was coiled high on her head. He saw a 
 woman bend forward from the rear of the box 
 and speak to her; it brought her face into the 
 light and he saw that it was Mrs. Blair — Edith 
 Lawrence, Euth's old chum. He crumpled the pro- 
 gram in his hand until his friend looked at him in 
 inquiry; then he smiled a little and carefully 
 smoothed the program out. But when, in the 
 next intermission, he was asked something about 
 how he thought the play was going to turn out, 
 he was at a loss for a suggestion. He had not 
 known what that act was about. And he scarcely 
 knew what the other acts were about. It was all 
 newly strange to him, newly sad. He had a new 
 sense of it, and a new sense of the pity of it, as 
 he sat there that last night watching the people 
 who had been Euth's and Stuart's friends; he 
 
332 FIDELITY 
 
 thought of how they had once been a part of all 
 this ; how, if things had gone differently it was the 
 thing they wonld stUl be a part of. There was 
 something about seeing Edith Lawrence there with 
 Mrs. Williams made him so sorry for Ruth that it 
 was hard to keep himself pulled together. And 
 that house, this new sense of things, made him 
 deeply sorry for Stuart Williams. He knew that 
 he missed all this, terribly missed the things this 
 represented. His constant, off-hand questionings 
 about things — about the growth of the town, 
 whether so and so was making good, who was 
 running this or that, showed how he was missing 
 the things he had turned away from, of which he 
 had once been so promising a part. Here to- 
 night, among the things they had left, something 
 made him more sorry for Euth and Stuart than 
 -he had ever been before. And he kept thinking 
 of the strangeness of things ; of how, if there had 
 not been that one thing, so many things would 
 have been different. For their whole family, for 
 the Williams' family, yes, for Deane Franklin, 
 too, it would have been all different if Euth had 
 just fallen in love with some one else. Somehow 
 that seemed disloyalty to Euth. He told himself 
 she couldn't help it. He guessed she got it the 
 worst; everything would have been different, eas- 
 ier, for her, certainly, if she, like the other girls 
 of her crowd, had fallen in love with one of the 
 fellows she could have married. Then she would 
 
FIDELITY 333 
 
 be there with Edith Lawrence tonight; probably 
 they would be in a box together. 
 
 It was hard, even when the lights were up, to 
 keep his eyes from that box where Ruth's old 
 friend sat with Mrs. Williams. He would seem 
 to be looking the house over, and then for a min- 
 ute his eyes would rest there and it would be an 
 effort to let go. Once he found Mrs. Williams 
 looking his way ; he thought she saw him and was 
 furious at himself for the quick reddening. He 
 could not tell whether she was looking at him or 
 not. She had that cool, composed manner she 
 always had. Always when he met her so directly 
 that they had to speak she would seem quite un- 
 perturbed, as if he stirred in her no more feeling 
 than any other slight acquaintance would stir. 
 She was perfectly poised; it would not seem that 
 he, what he must suggest, had any power to dis- 
 turb her. 
 
 Looking across at her in the house darkened 
 for the last act, covertly watching her as she sat 
 there in perfect command of herself, apparently 
 quite without disturbing feeling, he had a rough 
 desire to know what she actually did feel. A 
 light from the stage surprised her face and he 
 saw that it showed it more tired than serene. She 
 looked bored ; and she did not look content. See- 
 ing her in that disclosing little shaft of light — 
 she had drawn back from it — the thought broke 
 into the boy's mind — ^What's she getting out of it? 
 
334 FIDELITY 
 
 He had never really considered it purely in the 
 light of what it must be to her. He thought of 
 her as a hard, revengeful woman, who, because 
 hurt herself, was going to harm to the full meas- 
 ure of her power. He despised the pride, the 
 poise, in which she cloaked what he thought of 
 as her hard, mean spirit; he thought people a 
 pretty poor sort for admiring that pride. But 
 now, as he saw her face when she was not expect- 
 ing it to be clearly seen, he wondered just what 
 she was actually like, just what she really felt. It 
 would seem that revenge must be appeased by now ; 
 or at least that that one form of taking it — not 
 getting a divorce — ^must have lost its satisfaction. 
 It would not seem a very satisfying thing to fill 
 one's life with. And what else was there? What 
 was she getting out of it ? The question gave him 
 a new interest in her. 
 
 Caught in the crowd leaving the theatre he 
 watched her again for a moment, standing among 
 the people who were waiting for motors and car- 
 riages. The thin black scarf around her head 
 blew back and Edith Lawrence adjusted it for 
 her. Her car came up and one of the men helped 
 her into it. There was a dispute ; it seemed some- 
 one was meaning to go with her and she was pro- 
 testing that it was not necessary. Then they were 
 saying goodnight to her and she was going away 
 alone. He watched the car for a moment as it 
 
FIDELigCY 335 
 
 was halted by a carriage, then skirted it and 
 sharply turned the corner. 
 
 He had intended to take one of his friends home 
 with him, had thought it would be too dismal alone 
 there in the bare place that last night. But now 
 he did not want anyone with him, did not want to 
 have to talk. Though when he let himself in the 
 front door he wished he was not alone. It was 
 pretty dismal to be coming into the abandoned 
 house. He had a flashing sense of how absolutely 
 empty the place was — empty of the people who had 
 lived there, empty even of those people's things. 
 There was no one to call out to him. His step 
 made a loud noise on the bare stairs. He went 
 back down stairs for a drink of water; he walked 
 through the living-room, the dining-room, the 
 kitchen. There used to be people there — things 
 doing. Not any more. A bare house now — so 
 empty that it was queer. He hurried back up- 
 stairs. At the head of the stairs he stood still 
 and listened to the stillness from the bedrooms. 
 Then he shook himself angrily, stamped on to his 
 own room, loudly banged the door behind him 
 and whistled as he hurriedly got ready for bed. 
 
 He tried to go right to sleep, but could not get 
 sleepy. He was thinking of the house — of things 
 that had gone on there. He thought of Euth and 
 Stuart — of the difference they had made in that 
 house. And he kept thinking of Mrs. Williams, 
 
336 FIDELITY 
 
 thinking in this new way of the difference it must 
 have meant to her, must have made in her house. 
 He wondered about the house she had just gone 
 home to, wondered if she got lonely, wondered 
 about the feeling there might be beneath that 
 manner of not seeming to mind. He wondered 
 just what it was made her keep from getting a 
 divorce. And suddenly the strangest thought shot 
 into his mind — Had anyone ever asked her to get 
 a divorce ? 
 
 Then he laughed ; he had to make himself laugh 
 at the preposterousness of his idea. The laugh 
 made such a strange sound in the bare room that 
 he lay there very still for a moment. Then loudly 
 he cleared his throat, as if to show that he was 
 not afraid of making another noise. 
 
 But the house was so strangely still, empty in 
 such a queer way; it was too strange to let him 
 go to sleep, and he lay there thinking of things 
 in a queer way. That preposterous idea kept 
 coming back. Maybe nobody ever had asked her 
 to get the divorce ; maybe it had just been taken 
 for granted that she would be hard, would make 
 it as hard as she could. He tried to keep away 
 from that thought, something made him want to 
 keep away from it, but he could not banish that 
 notion that there were people who would be as 
 decent as it was assumed they would be. He had 
 noticed that with the fellows. Finally he got a 
 little sleepy and he had a childish wish that he 
 
FIDELITY 337 
 
 were not alone, that it could all be again as it had 
 been long ago when they were all there together — 
 before Euth went away. 
 
 He slept heavily toward morning and was at 
 last awakened by the persistent ringing of the 
 door-bell. It was a special delivery letter from 
 Euth. She said she hoped it would catch him be- 
 fore he started West. She wanted him to stop in 
 Denver and see if he could get one of those "Jap" 
 men of all work. She said: "Maggie Gordon's 
 mother has 'heard' and came and took her home. 
 I turn to the Japanese — or Chinese, if it's a China- 
 man you can get to come, — as perhaps having less 
 fear of moral contamination. Do the best you 
 can, Ted; I need someone badly." 
 
 He was to leave at five o'clock that afternoon. 
 The people whom he saw thought he was feeling 
 broken up about leaving; he had to hold back 
 all feeling, they thought; it was that made his face 
 so set and queer and his manner so abrupt and 
 grim. 
 
 He had lunch with Harriett. She too thought 
 the breaking up, the going away, had been almost 
 too much for him. She hated to have him go, and 
 yet, for his sake, she would be glad to have it 
 over. 
 
 At two o'clock he had finished the things he had 
 to do. He had promised to look iu on a few of 
 his friends and say good-by. But when he waited 
 on the corner for the car that would take him 
 
338 FIDELITY 
 
 down town he knew in Ms heart that he was not 
 going to take that car. He knew, though up to 
 the very last he tried not to know, that he was 
 going to walk along that street a block and a half 
 farther and turn in at the house Stuart Williams 
 had built. He knew he was not going to leave 
 Freeport without doing that. And when he 
 stood there and let the car go by he faced what 
 he had in his heart known he was going to do ever 
 since reading Euth's letter, turned and started 
 toward Mrs. Williams', walking very fast, as if to 
 get there before he could turn back. He fairly 
 ran up the steps and pushed the bell in great 
 haste — ^having to get it pushed before he could re- 
 fuse to push it. 
 
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE 
 
 "WTien he could not get away, after tlie maid 
 had let him in and he had given his name and 
 was waiting in the formal little reception room, 
 he was not only more frightened than he had ever 
 been in his life, but frightened in a way he had 
 never known anything about before. He sat far 
 forward on the stiff little French chair, fairly 
 afraid to let his feet press on the rug. He did 
 not look around him; he did not believe he would 
 be able to move when he had to move; he knew 
 he would not be able to speak. He was appalled 
 at the consciousness of what he had done, of where 
 he was. He would joyfully have given anything 
 he had in the world just to be out doors, just not 
 to have been there at all. There was what seemed 
 a long wait and the only way he got through it 
 was by telling himself that Mrs. Williams would 
 not see him. Of course she wouldn't see him! 
 
 There was a step on the stairs ; he told himself 
 that it was the maid, coming to say Mrs. Williams 
 could not see him. But when he knew there was 
 someone 'in the doorway he looked up and "then, 
 miraculously, he was on his feet and standing 
 there bowing to Mrs. Williams. 
 
 He thought she looked startled upon actually 
 
 339 
 
340 FIDELITY 
 
 seeing him, as if she had not believed it was really 
 he. There was a hesitating moment when she 
 stood in the doorway, a moment of looking a little 
 as if trying to overcome a feeling of being suddenly 
 sick. Then she stepped forward and, though 
 pale, had her usual manner of complete self-pos- 
 session. "You wished to see me?" she asked in 
 an even tone faintly tinged with polite incredulity. 
 
 "Yes," he said, and was so relieved at his voice 
 sounding pretty much all right that he drew a 
 longer breath. 
 
 She looked hesitatingly at a chair, then sat 
 down ; he resmned his seat on the edge of the stiff 
 little chair. 
 
 She sat there waiting for him to speak ; she still 
 had that look of polite incredulity. She sat erect, 
 her hands loosely clasped ; she appeared perfectly 
 poised, unperturbed, but when she made a move- 
 ment for her handkerchief he saw that her hand 
 was shaking. 
 
 "I know I've got my nerve to come here, Mrs. 
 "Williams," he blurted out. 
 
 She smiled faintly, and he saw that as she did 
 so her lip twitched. 
 
 "I'm leaving for the "West this afternoon. I'm 
 going out there to live — to work." That he had 
 said quite easily. It was a little more effort to 
 add: "And I wanted to see you before I went." 
 
 She simply sat there waiting, but there was still 
 that little twitching of her lip. 
 
FIDELITY ' 341 
 
 "Mrs. Williams," he began quietly, "I don't 
 know whether or not you know that I've been with 
 my sister Euth this summer." 
 
 When she heard that name spoken there was a 
 barely perceptible drawing back, as when some- 
 thing is flicked before one's eyes. Then her lips 
 set more firmly. Ted looked down and smoothed 
 out the soft hat he was holding, which he had 
 clutched out of shape. Then he looked up and 
 said, voice low : * ' Euth has come to mean a great 
 deal to me, Mrs. Williams." 
 
 And still she did not speak, but sat very straight 
 and there were two small red spots now in her pale 
 cheeks. 
 
 "And so," he murmured, after a moment, 
 "that's why I came to you." 
 
 "I think," she said in a low, incisive, but un- 
 steady voice, "that I do not quite follow." 
 
 He looked at her in a very simple, earnest way. 
 "You don't?" he asked. There was a pause and 
 then he said, " I saw you at the theatre last night. ' ' 
 
 "Indeed?" she murmured with a faint note of 
 irony. 
 
 But she did not deflect him from that simple 
 earnestness. "And when I went home I thought 
 about you." He paused and then added, gently, 
 ' ' Most all night, I thought about you. ' ' 
 
 And still she only sat there looking at him and 
 as if holding herself very tight. She had tried to 
 smile at that last and the little disdainful smile had 
 
342 FIDELITY 
 
 stiffened on her lips, making them look pulled out 
 of shape and set that way. 
 
 "I said to myself," Ted weiit on, " 'What's she 
 getting out of it?' " His voice came up on that; 
 he said it rather roughly. 
 
 Her face flamed. "If this is what you have 
 come here to say — " she began in a low angry 
 voice. "If this is what you have intruded into my 
 house for — i/ou — !" She made a movement as if 
 about to rise. 
 
 Ted threw out his hand with a little gesture of 
 wanting to explain. "Maybe I shouldn't have put 
 it that way. I hope I didn't seem rude. I only 
 meant," he said gently, "that as I watched you 
 you didn't look as though you were happy." 
 
 "And what if I'm not?" she cried, as if stung by 
 that. " What if I 'm not ? Does that give you any 
 right to come here and tell me so ? " 
 
 He shook his head, as if troubled at again put- 
 ting things badly. "I really came," he said, in a 
 low earnest voice, "because it seemed to me it must 
 be that you did not understand. It occurred to me 
 that perhaps no one had ever tried to make you un- 
 derstand. I came because it seemed fairer — to 
 everybody." 
 
 Something new leaped into her eyes. "I pre- 
 sume it was suggested to you?" she asked sharply. 
 
 "No, Mrs. Williams, it was not suggested to 
 me." As she continued to look at hiTn with sus- 
 picion he colored a little and said quietly: "You 
 
FIDELITY 343 
 
 wiU have to believe that, because I give you my 
 word that it is true." 
 
 She met the direct look of his clear hazel eyes 
 and the suspicion died out of her own. But new 
 feeling quickly flamed up. "And hasn't it oc- 
 curred to you," she asked quiveringly, "that you 
 are rather a — ^well, to be very mild indeed, rather 
 a presumptuous young man to come to me, to come 
 into my house, with this?" There was a big rush 
 of feeling as she choked: "Nobody's spoken to 
 me like this in all these years!" 
 
 "That's just the trouble," said Ted quickly, as 
 if they were really getting at it now. ' ' That 's just 
 the trouble." 
 
 "What do you mean?" she asked sharply. 
 
 "Why — just that. Nobody has talked to you 
 about it. Everybody has been afraid to, and so 
 you've just been let alone with it. Things get 
 worse, get all twisted up, get themselves into a 
 tight twist that won't come out when we're shut up 
 with them." His face looked older as he said, "I 
 know that myself." He meditated upon that an 
 instant; then, quickly coming back to her, looked 
 up and added gently: "So it seemed to me that 
 maybe you hadn't had a fair show just because 
 everybody has been afraid of you and let you 
 alone." 
 
 Her two trembling hands were pulling at her 
 handkerchief. Her eyes were very bright. "And 
 vou aren't afraid of me?" she asked with a little 
 
344 FIDELITY 
 
 laugh that seemed trying to be mocking but was 
 right on the edge of tears. 
 
 He shook his head. "That is," he qualified it 
 with a slight smile, "not much — ^now." Then he 
 said, as if dropping what they were talking about 
 and giving her a confidence: "While I was wait- 
 ing for you I was so scared that I wished I could 
 drop dead." 
 
 His smile in saying it was so boyish that she too 
 dropped the manner of what they were talking 
 about and faintly smiled back at him. It seemed 
 to help her gain possession of herself and she re- 
 turned to the other with a crisp, "And so, as I un- 
 derstand it, you thought you'd just drop in and set 
 everything right ? ' ' 
 
 He flushed and looked at her a little reproach- 
 fully. Then he said, simply, "It seemed worth 
 trying." He took a letter from his pocket. "I 
 got this from my sister this morning. The girl 
 who has been working for her has gone away. 
 Her mother came and took her away. She had 
 'heard.' They're always 'hearing.' This has 
 happened time after time. ' ' 
 
 "Now just let me understand it," she began in 
 that faintly mocking way, though her voice was 
 shaking. "You propose that I do something to 
 make the — the servant problem easier for your 
 sister. Is that it? I am to do something, you 
 haven't yet said what, to facilitate the domestic 
 arrangements of the woman who is living with my 
 
FIDELITY 345 
 
 husband. That's it, isn't it?" she asked with 
 seeming concern. 
 
 He reddened, but her scoffing seemed to give him 
 courage, as if he had something not to be scoffed 
 at and could produce it. "It can be made to sound 
 ridiculous, can't it?" he concurred. "But — " he 
 broke off and his eyes went very serious. "You 
 never knew Euth very well, did you, Mrs. Wil- 
 liams ? " he asked quietly. 
 
 The flush spread over her face. "We were not 
 intimate friends," was her dry answer, but in that 
 voice not steady. 
 
 He again colored, but that steady light was not 
 driven from his eyes. "Euth's had a terrible 
 time, Mrs. Williams," he said in a quiet voice of 
 strong feeling. "And if you had known her very 
 well — ^knew just what it is Euth is like — ^it seems 
 to me you would have to feel sorry for her. ' ' 
 
 She seemed about to speak again in that mock- 
 ing way, but looking at his face — ^the fine serious- 
 ness, the tender concern — she kept silence. 
 
 "And just what is it you propose that I do?" 
 she asked after a moment, as if trying to appear 
 faintly amused. 
 
 Very seriously he looked up at her. "It would 
 help — even at this late day — if you would get a 
 divorce." 
 
 She gasped ; whether she had been prepared for 
 it or not she was manifestly unprepared for the 
 simple way he said it. For a moment she stared 
 
346 FIDELITY 
 
 at him. Then she laughed. "You are a most 
 amazing young man ! ' ' she said quiveringly. 
 
 As he did not speak, but only looked at her in 
 that simple direct way, she went on, with rising 
 feeling, "You come here, to me, into my house, 
 proposing that — in order to make things easier for 
 your sister in living with my husband — ^I get a di- 
 vorce!" 
 
 He did not flinch. "It might do more than 
 make things easier for my sister," he said quietly. 
 
 "What do you mean?" she demanded sharply. 
 
 "It might make things easier for you. ' ' 
 
 "And what do you mean by that?" she asked in 
 that quick sharp way. 
 
 "It might make things easier," he said, "just to 
 feel that, even at this late day, you've done the 
 decent thing." 
 
 She stood up. "Do you know, young man, that 
 you've said things to me that are outrageous to 
 have said ? ' ' She was trembling so it seemed hard 
 to speak. "I've let you go on just because I was 
 stupified by your presumption — staggered, and 
 rather amused at your childish audacity. But 
 you've gone a little too far! How dare you talk 
 to me like this?" she demanded with passion. 
 
 He had moved toward the door. He looked at 
 her, then looked away. His control was all broken 
 down now. "I'm sorry to have it end like this," 
 he muttered. 
 
 She laughed a little, but she was shaken with the 
 
FIDELITY 347 
 
 sobs she was plainly making a big effort to hold 
 back. "I'm so sorry," he said with such real 
 feeling that the tears brimmed from her eyes. 
 
 He stood there awkwardly. Somehow her house 
 seemed very lonely, comfortless. And now that 
 her composure was broken down, the way she 
 looked made him very sorry for her. 
 
 "I don't want you to think," he said gently, 
 "that I don't see how bad it has been for you." 
 
 She tried to laugh. "You don't think your sis- 
 ter was very — ^fair to me, do you?" she asked chok- 
 ingly, looking at him in a way more appealing than 
 aggressive. 
 
 ' ' I suppose not, ' ' he said. ' ' No, I suppose not. ' ' 
 He stood there considering that. "But I guess," 
 he went on diffidently, "I don't just know myself — 
 but it seems there come times when being fair gets 
 sort of — lost sight of." 
 
 The tears were running down her face and she 
 was not trying to check them. 
 - He stood there another minute and then timidly 
 held out his hand. * ' Gfood-by, Mrs. Williams, ' ' he 
 said gently. 
 
 She took his hand with a queer, choking little 
 laugh and held it very tight for a minute, as if to 
 steady herself. 
 
 His own eyes had dimmed. Then he smiled — a 
 smile that seemed to want to go ahead and taie 
 any offence or hurt from what he was about to say. 
 "Maybe, Mrs. Williams, that you will come to feel 
 
348 FIDELITY 
 
 like being fairer to Euth ttan Ruth was to you." 
 His smile widened and lie looked very boyish as he 
 finished, "And that would be one way of getting 
 back, you know ! ' ' 
 
CHAPTEE THIETY 
 
 Freeport had a revival of interest in Mrs. Stu- 
 art Williams that fall. They talked so much of 
 her in the first years that discussion had pretty 
 well spent itself, and latterly it had only been 
 rarely — to a stranger, or when something came up 
 to bring it to them freshly — ^that they did more 
 than occasionally repeat the expressions which 
 that first feeling had created. There was no new 
 thing to say of their feeling about her. No one 
 had become intimate with her in those years, and 
 that itself somehow kept the picture. She was 
 unique, and fascinated them in the way she was one 
 of them and yet apart. The mystery enveloping 
 her made it mean more than it could have meant 
 through disclosures from her. It kept it more 
 poignant to speculate about a concealed suffer- 
 ing than it could have continued to be through dis- 
 cussing confidences. But even speculation as to 
 what was beneath that unperturbed surface had 
 rather talked itself out, certainly had lost its keen 
 edge of interest with the passing of the years. 
 
 That fall, however, they began to speak of a 
 change in her. They said first that she did not 
 look well ; then they began to talk about her man- 
 ner being different. She had always kept so calm, 
 
 340 
 
360 FIDELITY 
 
 and now there were times when she appeared 
 nervous. She had had throughout a certain cold 
 serenity. Now she was sometimes irritable, dis- 
 closing a fretfulness close under the untroubled 
 surface. She looked older, they said; her brows 
 knit and there were lines about mouth and eyes. 
 She seemed less sure of herself. It made interest 
 in her a fresh thing. They wondered if she were 
 not at last breaking, spoke with a careful show of 
 regret, concern, but whetted anticipations gave 
 eagerness to voices of sympathy. They wondered 
 if Euth Holland's having come home in the Spring, 
 the feeling of her being in the town, could have 
 been too much of a strain, preying upon the de- 
 serted wife and causing her later to break. There 
 were greedy wonderings as to whether she could 
 possibly have seen Euth Holland, whether any^ 
 thing had happened that they did not know about. 
 Late one December afternoon Mrs. Williams 
 came home from a church bazaar and curtly tele- 
 phoned that she would not be back for the evening. 
 She spoke of a headache. And her head did ache. 
 It ached, she bitterly reflected, from being looked 
 at, from knowing they were taking observations 
 for subsequent speculation. She had been in 
 charge of a table at the bazaar ; a number of little 
 things had gone wrong and she got out of patience 
 with one of her assistants. Other people got irri- 
 tated upon occasions of that sort — and that was aU 
 there was to it. But she was not at liberty to 
 
FIDELITY 351 
 
 show annoyance. She knew at the time that they 
 were whispering aronnd about it, connecting it 
 with the thing about her that it seemed never 
 really went out of their minds. The sense of that 
 had made her really angry and she had said sharp 
 things she knew she would be sorry for because 
 they would just be turned over as part of the thing 
 that was everlastingly being turned over. She 
 was not free; they were always watching her; 
 even after all these years always thinking that 
 everything had something to do with that. 
 
 Mrs. Hughes, her housekeeper and cook, had 
 followed her upstairs. At the door of her room 
 she turned impatiently. She had known by the 
 way the woman hung around downstairs that she 
 wanted to say something to her and she had petu- 
 lantly not given her the chance. She did not want 
 anything said to her. She wanted to be let alone. 
 
 "Well?" she inquired ungraciously. > 
 
 Mrs. Hughes was a small trim woman who had a 
 look of modestly trying not to be obtrusive about 
 her many virtues. She had now that manner of 
 one who could be depended upon to assume re- 
 sponsibilities a less worthy person would pass by. 
 
 "I thought perhaps you should know, Mrs. Wil- 
 liams," she said with faintly rebuking patience, 
 "that Lily has gone to bed." 
 
 "Oh, she's really sick then, is she?" asked Mrs. 
 Williams, unbending a little. 
 
 "She says so," replied Mrs. Hughes. 
 
352 FIDELITY 
 
 The tone caused lier to look at the woman in 
 surprise. "Well, I presume she is then," she an- 
 swered sharply. 
 
 Lily was the second girl. Two servants were 
 not needed for the actual work as the household 
 consisted only of Mrs. Williams and an aged aunt 
 who had lived with her since she had been alone, 
 but the house itself did not seem adapted to a one 
 servant menage. There had been two before, and 
 in that, as in other things, she had gone right on in 
 the same way. Mrs. Hughes had been with her for 
 several years but Lily had been there only three 
 or four months. She had been a strange addition 
 to the household; she laughed a good deal and 
 tripped about at her work and sang. But she had 
 not sung so much of late and in the last few days 
 had plainly not been well. 
 
 "If she's really sick, we'll have to have a doctor 
 for her," Mrs. Williams said, her hand on the 
 knob she was about to turn. 
 
 "She says she doesn't want a doctor," answered 
 Mrs. Hughes, and again her tone made Mrs. Wil- 
 liams look at her in impatient inquiry. 
 
 "Well, I'll go up after while and see her my- 
 self," she said, opening the door of her room. 
 "Meanwhile you look after her, please. And oh, 
 Mrs. Hughes, ' ' she called back, "I shan't want any 
 dinner. I had a heavy tea at the bazaar," she 
 added hurriedly, and as if resentful of having to 
 make any explanation. 
 
FIDELITY 353 
 
 Alone, she took off her hat, pushed back her hair 
 as if it oppressed her, then sank into a low, luxur- 
 ious chair and, eyes closed, pressed her fingers 
 over her temples as if to command quiet within. 
 But after a moment she impatiently got up and 
 went over to her dressing-table and sat looking 
 into the mirror. 
 
 The thing that had started her afternoon wrong 
 was that a friend of her girlhood, whom she had 
 not seen for about thirteen years, had appeared 
 unexpectedly at her table, startling her and then 
 laughing at her confusion. She had not known 
 that Stella Cutting was in town ; to be confronted 
 that way with some one out of the past had been 
 unnerving, and then she had been furious with her- 
 self for not being able more easily to regain com- 
 posure. People around her had seen; later she 
 saw them looking at her strangely, covertly inter- 
 ested when she spoke in that sharp way to Mildred 
 "Woodbury because she had tossed things about. 
 She had been disturbed, for one thing, at finding 
 Mildred Woodbury at her table. 
 
 She was looking in the glass now because Stella 
 Cutting had been one of her bridesmaids. She was 
 not able to put down a miserable desire to try to 
 see just what changes Stella had found. 
 
 The dissatisfaction in her face deepened with 
 her scrutiny of it. Doubtless Stella was that very 
 minute talking of how pitifully Marion Averley 
 had changed ; how her color used to be clear and 
 
54 FIDELITY 
 
 ven, features firmly molded, eyes bright. She 
 erself remembered bow she bad looked tbe night 
 tella Cutting was her bridesmaid. And now her 
 olor was muddy and there were crow's feet about 
 er eyes and deep lines from her nostrils to the 
 omers of her mouth. 
 
 Stella Cutting looked older herself, very con- 
 Iderably older. But it was a different way of 
 )oking older. She had grown stout and her face 
 ^as too full. But she did not look pvMed at like 
 lis. As she talked of her children hers was the 
 ace of a woman normally, contentedly growing 
 Ider. The woman sitting before the mirror bit- 
 jrly turned away now from that reflection of dis- 
 atisfaction with emptiness. 
 
 It was that boy had done it ! she thought with a 
 ew rise of resentment. She had been able to go 
 long very evenly until he impertinently came into 
 er house and rudely and stupidly broke through 
 le things she had carefully builded up around her- 
 elf . Ever since he had plunged into things even 
 te herself had been careful not to break into, 
 lere had been this inner turmoil that was giving 
 er the look of an old woman. If Stella Cutting 
 ad come just a few months earlier she could not 
 ave had so much to say about how terribly 
 larion Averley had changed. 
 
 Why was she so absurd as to let herself be up- 
 et? she angrily asked of herself, beginning to 
 nf asten the dress she was wearing that she might 
 
FIDELITY 355 
 
 get into something loose and try to relax. A hook 
 caught in some lace and in her vexation at not be- 
 ing able at once to unfasten it she gave it a jerk 
 that tore the lace. She bit her lips and could have 
 cried. Those were the things she did these days ! 
 — since that boy came and blunderingly broke into 
 guarded places. 
 
 She sat in a low, deep chair before the open fire 
 that burned in the sitting-room adjoining her bed- 
 room. It was the room that had been her hus- 
 band's. After he went away she took it for an up- 
 stairs sitting-room — a part of her program of un- 
 concern. As she sank down into the gracious 
 chair she told herself that she would rest for that 
 evening, not think about things. But not to think 
 about things was impossible that night. Stella 
 Cutting had brought old things near and made 
 them newly real: her girlhood, her falling in love 
 with Stuart Williams, her wedding. Those 
 reminiscences caught her and swept her on to 
 other things. She thought of her marriage; 
 thought of things that, ever since that boy came 
 and made her know how insecure she really was in 
 the defences she had put up for herself, it had been 
 a struggle to keep away from. 
 
 She had not done much thinking — ^probing — as 
 to why it was her marriage had failed. That was 
 another one of the things her pride shut her out 
 from. When it failed she turned from it, clothed 
 in pride, never naked before the truth. There was 
 
356 FIDELITY 
 
 sometliing relaxing in just letting down the bar- 
 riers, barriers which had recently been so shaken 
 that she was fretted with trying to hold them up. 
 
 She wondered why Stella Cutting's marriage 
 had succeeded and hers had failed. The old an- 
 swer that her marriage had failed because her hus- 
 band was unfaithful to her — answer that used al- 
 ways to leave her newly fortified, did not satisfy 
 tonight. She pushed on through that. There was 
 a curious emotional satisfaction in thus disobey- 
 ing herself by rushing into the denied places of 
 self-examination. She was stirred by what she 
 was doing. 
 
 Her long holding back from this very thing was 
 part of that same instinct for restraint, what she 
 had been pleased to think of as fastidiousness, that 
 had always held her back in^love. It was alien to 
 her to let herself go ; she had an instinct that held 
 her away from certain things — from the things 
 themselves and from free thinking about them. 
 What she was doing now charged her with excite- 
 ment. 
 
 She was wondering about herself and the man 
 who was still legally her husband. She was think- 
 ing of how different they were in the things of 
 Iqve ; how he gave and wanted giving, while her in- 
 stinct had always been to hold herself a little apart. 
 There was something that displeased her in aban- 
 donment to feeling. She did not like herself 
 when she fully gave. There had been something 
 
FIDELITY 357 
 
 in her, some holding back, that passionate love out- 
 raged. Intense demonstration was indelicate to 
 her; she was that way, she had not been able to 
 help it. She loved in what she thought of as her 
 own fastidious way. Passion violated something 
 in her. Falling in love had made her happy, but 
 with her love had never been able to sweep down 
 the reserves, and so things which love should have 
 made beautiful had remained for her ugly facts of 
 life that she had an instinct to hold herself away 
 from. What she felt she did not like herself for 
 feeling. And so their marriage had been less 
 union than manceuvering. 
 
 She supposed she had, to be very blunt, starved 
 Stuart's love. For he wanted much love, a full 
 and intense love life. He was passionate and 
 demonstrative. He gave and wanted, perhaps 
 needed, much giving. He did not understand that 
 constant holding back. For him the beauty of 
 love was in the expression of it. She supposed, in 
 this curious self-indulgence of facing things to- 
 night, that it had been he who was normal ; she had 
 memories of many times when she had puzzled and 
 disappointed and hurt him. 
 
 And so when Gertrude Freemont — an old school 
 friend of hers, a warm-natured Southern girl — 
 came to visit her, Stuart turned away from things 
 grudging and often chill to Gertrude's playfulness 
 and sunniness and warmth. There was a curious 
 shock to her tonight when she found herself actu- 
 
358 FIDELITY 
 
 ally thinking that perhaps it was not much to be 
 wondered at. He was like that. She had not 
 made him over to be like her. 
 
 At first he had found Gertrude enlivening, and 
 from a flirtation it went to one of those passages 
 of passion between a man and a woman, a thing 
 that flames up and then dies away, in a measure a 
 matter of circumstance. That was the way he 
 tried to explain it to her when, just as Gertrude 
 was leaving, she came to know — even in this pres- 
 ent abandonment to thinking she went hurriedly 
 past the shock of that terrible sordid night of 
 "finding out." Stuart had weakly and appeal- 
 ingly said that he hadn't been able to help it, that 
 he was sorry — ^that it was all over. 
 
 But with it their marriage was all over. She 
 told him so then — told him quite calmly, it would 
 seem serenely; went on telling him so through 
 those first days of his unhappiness and persist- 
 ence. She was always quite unperturbed in telling 
 him so. Politely, almost pleasantly, she would tell 
 him that she would never be his wife again. 
 
 She never was. She had known very certainly 
 from the first that she never would be. Tonight 
 she probed into that too — ^why she had been so 
 sure, why she had never wavered. It was a more 
 inner thing than just jealousy, resentment, hurt, 
 revenge — though aU those things were there too. 
 But those were things that might have broken 
 down, and this was not a thing that would break 
 
FIDELITY 359 
 
 down, It was more particularly temperamental 
 than any of those things. It was that thing in 
 her which had always held her back from giving. 
 She had given — and then her giving had been out- 
 raged! Even now she burned in the thought of 
 that. He had called out a thing in her that she had 
 all along — just because she was as she was — re- 
 sented having had called out. And then he had 
 flouted it. Even after all those years there was 
 tonight that old prickling of her scalp in thinking 
 of it. The things she might have said — of its be- 
 ing her own friend, in her own house — she did not 
 much dwell upon, even to herself. It was a more 
 inner injury than that. Something in her that was 
 curiously against her had been called to life by him 
 — and then he had outraged what she had aU along 
 resented his finding in her. To give at all had 
 been so tremendous a thing — then to have it lightly 
 held ! It outraged something that was simply out- 
 side the sphere of things forgivable. 
 
 And that outraged thing had its own satisfac- 
 tion. What he had called to life in her and then, 
 as it seemed, left there unwanted, what he had 
 made in her that was not herself — then left her 
 with, became something else, something that made 
 her life. From the first until now — or at any rate 
 until two months ago when that boy came and 
 forced her to look at herself — the thing in her that 
 had been outraged became something that took the 
 place of love, that was as the other pole of love, 
 
360 FIDELITY 
 
 something that yielded a satisfaction of its own, a 
 satisfaction intense as the things of love are in- 
 tense, but cold, ordered, certain. It was the power 
 to hurt; the power to bring pain by simply doing 
 nothing. It was not tempestuously done; it had 
 none of the uncertainty of passionate feeling; it 
 had the satisfaction of power without effort, of 
 disturbing and remaining undisturbed, of hurting 
 and giving no sign. It was the revenge of what 
 was deeply herself for calling her out from her- 
 self, for not wanting what was found in her that 
 was not herself. 
 
 Stuart wanted her again; terribly wanted her, 
 more than ever wanted her. He loved and so 
 could be hurt. He needed love and so could be 
 given pain. He thought she would give in; she 
 knew that she would not. There was power in 
 that knowledge. And so she watched him suffer 
 and herself gained new poise. She did not con- 
 sider how it was a sorry thing to fill her life with. 
 When, that night that was like being struck by 
 lightning, she came to know that the man to whom 
 she had given — she — ^had turned from her to an- 
 other woman it was as if she was then and there 
 sealed in. She would never let herself leave again. 
 Outraged pride blocked every path out from self. 
 She was shut in with her power to inflict pain. 
 That was all she had. And then that boy came 
 and made her look at herself and know that she 
 was poor! That was why Stella Cutting could be 
 
FIDELITY 361 
 
 talking of how Marion Averiey had "broken." 
 They were talking about it, of course ; about her 
 and Euth Holland and her husband. Eer hus- 
 band, she thought insistently, but without getting 
 the accustomed satisfaction from the thought. 
 Miserably she wondered just what they were say- 
 ing ; she flinched in the thought of their talk about 
 her hurt, her loneliness. And then she felt a little 
 as if she could cry. She had wondered if she had 
 anybody's real pity. 
 
 That thought of their talking of it opened it to 
 her, drew her to it. She thought of Euth Holland, 
 gave up the worn pretense of disinterest and let 
 herself go in thinking of her. 
 
 The first feeling she had had when she sus- 
 pected that her husband was drawn to that girl, 
 Euth Holland, was one of chagrin, a further hurt 
 to pride. For her power to give pain would be 
 cut off. Once she saw the girl's face light as 
 Stuart went up to her for a dance. She knew then 
 that the man who had that girl's love could not be 
 hurt in the way she had been hurting. At first she 
 was not so much jealous as strangely desolated. 
 And then as time went on and in those little ways 
 that can make things known to those made acute 
 through unhappiness she came to know that her 
 husband cared for this girl and had her love, anger 
 at having been again stripped, again left there out- 
 raged, made her seize upon the only power left, 
 that more sordid, more commonplace kind of 
 
362 FIDELITY 
 
 power. She could no longer hurt by witKholding 
 herself; she could only hurt by standing in the 
 way. Bage at the humiliation of being reduced to 
 that fastened her to it with a hold not to be let go. 
 All else was taken from her and she was left with 
 just that. Somehow she reduced herself to it; she 
 became of the quality of it. 
 
 Pride, or rather self-valuation, incapacity for 
 self-depreciation, had never let her be honest with 
 herself. As there were barriers shutting the 
 world out from her hurt and humiliation, so too 
 were there barriers shutting herself out. She did 
 not acknowledge pain, loneliness, for that meant 
 admission that she could not have what she would 
 have. She thought of it as withdrawal, dignified 
 withdrawal from one not fit. She had always tried 
 to feel that her only humiliation was in having 
 given to one not worth her — one lesser. 
 
 But in this reckless and curiously exciting mood 
 of honesty tonight she got some idea of how great 
 the real hurt had been. She knew now that when 
 she came to know — to feel in a way that was know- 
 ing — that her husband loved Euth Holland she suf- 
 fered something much more than hurt to pride. 
 It was pride that would not let her look at herself 
 and see how she was hurt. And pride would not 
 let her say one word, make one effort. It was 
 simply not in her to bring herself to try to have 
 love given her. And so she was left with the sor- 
 did satisfaction of the hurt she dealt in just being. 
 
FIDELITY 363 
 
 That became her reason for existence — the ugly 
 reason for her barren existence. She lived alone 
 ■with it for so long that she came to be of it. Her 
 spirit seemed empty of all else. It had kept her 
 from everything ; it had kept her from herself. 
 
 But now tonight she could strangely get to her- 
 self, and now she knew that far from Euth Holland 
 not mattering her whole being had from the first 
 been steeped in hatred of her. Her jealousy had 
 been of a freezing quality; it had even frozen her 
 power to know about herself. When, after one 
 little thing and then another had let her know 
 there was love between her husband and this girl, 
 to go to places where Euth Holland was would 
 make her numb — ^that was the way it was with her. 
 Once in going somewhere — a part of that hideous 
 doing things together which she kept up because 
 it was one way of showing she was there, would 
 continue to be there — she and Stuart drove past 
 the Hollands', and this girl was out in the yard, 
 romping with her dog, tusseling with him like a lit- 
 tle girl. She looked up, flushed, tumbled, pant- 
 ing, saw them, tried to straighten her hair, laughed 
 in confusion and retreated. Stuart had raised his 
 hat to her, trjdng to look nothing more than dis- 
 creetly amused. But a little later after she — ^his 
 wife — ^had been looking from the other window as 
 if not at all concerned she turned her head and 
 saw his face in the mirror on the opposite side of 
 the carriage. He had forgotten her ; she was tak- 
 
364 FIDELITY 
 
 ing him unawares. Up to that time she had not 
 been sure — at least not sure of its meaning much. 
 But when she saw that tender little smile playing 
 about his mouth she knew it was true that her 
 power to hurt him had reduced itself to being in 
 his way. That she should be reduced to that made 
 her feeling about it as ugly as the thing itself. 
 
 She did not sleep that night — after seeing Euth 
 HoUand romping with her dog. She had cried — 
 and was furious that she should cry, that it could 
 make her cry. And furious at herself because of 
 the feeling she had — a strange stir of passion, a 
 wave of that feeling which had seemed to her un- 
 lovely even when it was desired and that it was 
 unbearably humiliating to feel unwanted. It was 
 in this girl he wanted those things now; that girl 
 who could let herself go, whom life rioted in, who 
 doubtless could abandon herself to love as she 
 could in romping with her dog. It tortured her to 
 think of the girl's flushed, glowing face — ^panting 
 there, hair tumbled. She cringed in the thought 
 of how perhaps what she had given was measured 
 by what this girl could give. 
 
 As time went on she knew that her husband was 
 more happy than he had ever been before — and in- 
 creasingly unhappy. Her torture in the thought 
 of his happiness made her wrest the last drop of 
 satisfaction she could from the knowledge that she 
 could continue the unhappiness. Sometimes he 
 would come home and she would know he had been 
 
FIDELITY 365 
 
 with this girl, know it as if he had shouted it at 
 her — it fairly hreathed from him. To feel that 
 happiness near would have maddened her had she 
 not been able to feel that her very being there 
 dealt unhappiness. It was a wretched thing to 
 live with. Beauty had not come into her Ufe; it 
 would not come where that was. 
 
 And then she came to know that they were being 
 cornered. She — ^knowing — saw misery as well as 
 love in the girl's eyes — a hunted look. Her hus- 
 band grew terribly nervous, irritable, like one 
 trapped. It was hurting his business; it was 
 breaking down his health. Not until afterward 
 did she know that there was also a disease break- 
 ing down his health. She did not know what dif- 
 ference it might have made had she known that. 
 By that time she had sunk pretty deep into lust for 
 hurting, into hating. 
 
 She saw that this love was going to wreck his 
 life. His happiness was going to break him. If 
 the world came to know it would be known that her 
 husband did not want her, that he wanted some- 
 one else. She smarted under that — and so forti- 
 fied herself the stronger in an appearance of un- 
 concern. She could better bear exposure of his 
 uncaringness for her than let him suspect that he 
 could hurt her. And they would be hurt! If it 
 became known it would wreck life for them both. 
 The town would know then about Euth Holland — 
 that wanton who looked so spiritual ! They would 
 
366 FIDELITY 
 
 know then what the girl they had made so much 
 of really was! She would not any longer have to 
 listen to that talk of Euth Holland as so sweet, so 
 fine! 
 
 And so she waited; sure that it would come, 
 would come without her having given any sign, 
 without her having been moved from her refuge of 
 imconcern — she who had given and not been 
 wanted! That week before Edith Lawrence's 
 wedding she knew that it was coming, that some- 
 thing was happening. Stuart looked like a crea- 
 ture driven into a corner. And he looked sick ; he 
 seemed to have lost hold on himself. Once as she 
 was passing the door of his room it blew a little 
 open and she saw him sitting on the bed, face 
 buried in his hands. After she passed the door 
 she halted — but went on. She heard him moving 
 around in the night; once she heard him groan. 
 Instinctively she had sat up in bed, but had lain 
 down again — remembering, remembering that he 
 was groaning because he did not want her, be- 
 cause she was in the way of the woman he wanted. 
 
 She saw in those days, that week before Edith 
 Lawrence's wedding, that he was trying to say 
 something to her and could not, that he was 
 wretched in his fruitless attempts to say it. He 
 would come where she was, sit there white, miser- 
 able, dogged, then go away after having said only 
 some trivial thing. Once — she was always quite 
 
FIDELITY 367 
 
 cool, unperturbed, through those attempts of his — 
 he had passionately cried out, "You're pretty su- 
 perior, aren't you, Marion? Pretty damned 
 serene ! " It was a cry of desperation, a cry from 
 unbearable pain, but she gave no sign. Like steel 
 round her heart was that feeling that he was pay- 
 ing now. 
 
 After that outburst he did not try to talk to her ; 
 that was the last night he was at home. He came 
 home at noon next day and said he was going away 
 on a business trip. She heard him packing in his 
 room. She knew — felt sure — that it was some- 
 thing more than a business trip. She felt sure 
 that he was leaving. And then she wanted to go 
 to him and say something, whether reproaches or 
 entreaties she did not know ; listened to him mov- 
 ing around in there, wanted to go and say some- 
 thing and could not ; could only sit there listening, 
 hearing every smallest sound. She heard him 
 speak a surly word to a servant in the hall. He 
 never spoke that way to the servants. When he 
 shut the front door she knew that he would not 
 open it again. She got to the window and saw 
 him before he passed from sight — carrying his 
 bag, head bent, stooped. He was broken, and he 
 was going away. She knew it. 
 
 Even tonight she could not let herself think 
 much about that afternoon, the portentous empti- 
 ness, the strangeness of the house; going into hi^s 
 
368 FIDELITY 
 
 room to see what lie had taken, in there being tied 
 up as with panic, sinking down on his bed and un- 
 able to move for a long time. 
 
 She had forced herself to go to Edith Law- 
 rence's wedding. And she knew by Euth Hol- 
 land's face that it was true something was happen- 
 ing, knew it by the girl's face as she walked down 
 the aisle after attending her friend at the altar, 
 knew it by her much laughter, by what was not in 
 the laughter. Once during the evening she saw 
 Edith put her arm around Ruth Holland and at 
 the girl's face then she knew with certainty, did 
 not need the letter that came from Stuart next day^ 
 She had the picture of Ruth Holland now as she 
 was that last night, in that filmy dress of pale yel- 
 low that made her look so delicate. She was 
 helped through that evening by the thought that if 
 she was going to be publicly humiliated Ruth Hol- 
 land would be publicly disgraced. She would have 
 heard the last about that fine, delicate quality — 
 about sweetness and luminousness ! They would 
 know, finally, that she was not those things she 
 looked. 
 
 And after it happened the fact that they did 
 know it helped her to go on. She went right on, 
 almost as if nothing had happened. She would 
 not let herself go away because then they would 
 say she went away because she could not bear it, 
 because she did not want them to see. She must 
 stay and show them that there was nothing to see. 
 
FIDELITY 369 
 
 Forcing herself to do that so occupied her as to 
 help her with things within. She could not let 
 herself feel for feeling would show on the surface. 
 Even before herself she had kept up that manner 
 of unconcern and had come to be influenced by her 
 own front. 
 
 And so the years went by and her life had been 
 made by that going on in apparent unconcern, and 
 by that inner feeling that she was hurting them by 
 just being in life. It was not a lovely reason for 
 being in life ; she had not known what a poor thing 
 it was until that boy came and forced her to look at 
 herself and consider how little she had. 
 
 She rose and stood looking into the mirror above 
 the fireplace. It seemed to her that she could tell 
 by her face that the desire to do harm had been her 
 reason for living. 
 
 Several hours had gone by while she sat there 
 given over to old things. She wished she had a 
 book, something absorbing, something to take her 
 away from that other thinking that was lying in 
 wait for her — those thoughts about what there was 
 for her to live with in the years still to be lived. 
 The magazine she had picked up could not get any 
 hold on her; that was why, though she had made 
 it clear she did not want to be disturbed, there was 
 relief in her voice as she answered the tap at her 
 door. 
 
 She frowned a little though at sight of Mrs. 
 Hughes standing there deferential but visibly ex- 
 
370 FIDELITY 
 
 cited. She had that look of trying not to intrude 
 her worthiness as she said: "Excuse me, Mrs. 
 Williams, for disturbing yon, but there is some- 
 thiag I thought you ought to know." In answer 
 to the not very cordial look of inquiry she went on, 
 "It's about Lily; she says she won't have a doctor, 
 but — she needs one." 
 
 There was something in her manner, something 
 excited and yet grim, that Mrs. Williams did not 
 understand. But then she did not much trouble 
 herself to understand Mrs. Hughes, she was al- 
 ways appearing to see some hidden significance in 
 things. "I'U. go up and see her," she said. 
 
 After the visit she came down to telephone for 
 her doctor. She saw that the girl was really iU, 
 and she had concluded from her strange manner 
 that she was feverish. LUy protested that she 
 wanted to be let alone, that she would be all right 
 in a day or two; but she looked too ill for those 
 protestations to be respected. 
 
 She telephoned for her own doctor only to learn 
 that he was out of town, tlpon calling another 
 physician's house she was told that he had the grip 
 and could not go out. She then sat for some min- 
 utes in front of the 'phone before she looked up a 
 number in the book and called Dr. Deane Frank- 
 lin. When she rose after doing that she felt as if 
 her knees were likely to give way. The thought 
 of his coming into her house, coming just when she 
 had been living through old things, was unnerv- 
 
FIDELITY 371 
 
 ing. But she was really worried about the girl 
 and knew no one else to call whom she could trust. 
 
 When he came she was grateful to him for his 
 professional manner which seemed to take no ac- 
 count of personal things, to have no personal 
 memory. "I'd like to see you when you come 
 down, doctor," she said as Mrs. Hughes was tak- 
 ing him to the maid's room on the third floor. 
 
 She was waiting for him at the door of her up- 
 stairs sitting-room. He stepped in and then stood 
 hesitatingly there. He too had a queer grim look, 
 she thought. 
 
 "And what is the trouble?" she asked. 
 
 He gave her a strange sideways glance and 
 snapped shut a pocket of the bag he carried. Then 
 he said, brusquely: "It's a miscarriage." 
 
 She felt the blood surging into her face. She 
 had stepped a little back from him. "Why — ^I 
 don't see how that's possible," she faltered. 
 
 He smiled a little and she had a feeling that he 
 took a satisfaction in saying to her, grimly, "Oh, 
 it's possible, all right." 
 
 She colored anew. She resented his manner and 
 that made her collect herself and ask with dignity 
 what was the best thing to do. 
 
 "I presume we'd better take her to the hos- 
 pital," he said in that short way. "She's been — 
 horribly treated. She 's going to need attention — 
 and doubtless it would be disagreeable to have her 
 here." 
 
372 FIDELITY 
 
 That too she suspected him of finding a satisfac- 
 tion in saying. She made a curt inquiry as to 
 whether the girl would be all right there for the 
 night. He said yes and left saying he wouldi be 
 back in the morning. 
 
 She escaped Mrs. Hughes — ^whom now she un- 
 derstood. She did not go up again to see Lily; 
 she could not do that then^ She was angry with 
 herself for being unnerved. She told herself that 
 at any other time she would have been able to deal 
 sensibly with such a situation. But coming just 
 when things were all opened up like that — old feel- 
 ing fresh — and coming from Deane Franklin! 
 She would be quite impersonal, rational, in the 
 morning. But for a long time she could not go to 
 sleep. Something had intruded into her guarded 
 places. And the things of life from which she had 
 withdrawn were here — ^in her house. It affected 
 her physically, almost made her sick — this prox- 
 imity of the things she had shut out of her life. It 
 was invasion. 
 
 And she thought about Lily. She tried not to, 
 but could not help wondering about her. She won- 
 dered how this had happened — ^what the girl was 
 feeling. Was there someone she loved? She lay 
 there thinking of how, just recently, this girl who 
 lived in her house had been going through those 
 things. It made her know that the things of life 
 were all the time around one. There was some- 
 thing singularly disturbing in the thought. 
 
FIDELITY 373 
 
 Next morning she went up to see Lily. She told 
 herself it was only common decency to do that, her 
 responsibility to a person in her house. 
 
 As she opened the door Lily turned her head and 
 looked at her. When she saw who it was her eyes 
 went sullen, defiant. But pain was in them too, 
 and with all the rest something wistful. As she 
 looked at the girl lying there — in trouble, in pain, 
 she could see Lily, just a little while before, laugh- 
 ing and singing at her work. Something she had 
 not felt in years, that she had felt but little in her 
 whole life, stirred in her heart. 
 
 "Well, Lily," she said, uncertainly but not un- 
 kindly. 
 
 The girl's eyes were down, her face turned a lit- 
 tle away. But she could see that her chin was 
 quivering. 
 
 "I'm sorry you are ill," Mrs. Williams mur- 
 mured, and then gave a little start at the sound of 
 her own voice. 
 
 The girl turned her head and stole a look. A 
 moment later there were tears on her lashes. 
 
 "We'll have to get you well," said Mrs. Wil- 
 liams in a practical, cheerful voice. And then she 
 abruptly left the room. Her heart was beating too 
 fast. 
 
 Mrs. Hughes lay in wait for her as she came 
 downstairs. "May I speak to you, Mrs. Wil- 
 liams?" she asked in a manner at once deferential 
 and firm. 
 
374 FIDELITY 
 
 "She's to be taken away, isn't she?" she in- 
 quired in a hard voice. 
 
 For a moment Mrs. Williams did not speak. 
 She looked at the woman before her, all tightened 
 up with outraged virtue. And then she heard her- 
 self saying: "No, I think it will be better for 
 Lily to remain at home." After she had heard 
 herself say it she had that feeling that her knees 
 were about to give way. 
 
 For an instant Mrs. Hughes' lips shut tight. 
 Then, "Do you know what 's the matter with her ? ' ' 
 she demanded in that sharp, hard voice. 
 
 "Yes," replied Mrs. Williams, "I know." 
 
 ' ' And you 're going to keep such a per son in your 
 house?" 
 
 "Yes," 
 
 "Then you can't expect me to stay in your 
 house!" flashed the woman who was outraged. 
 
 "As you like, Mrs. Hughes," was the answer. 
 
 Mrs. Hughes moved a little away, plainly dis- 
 comfited. 
 
 "I should be sorry to have you go," Mrs. Wil- 
 liams continued courteously, "but of course that is 
 for you to decide." 
 
 "I'm a respectable woman," she muttered. 
 "You can't expect me to wait on a person like 
 that!" 
 
 "You needn't wait on her, then," was the reply. 
 "Until the nurse comes, I will wait on her my- 
 self." And again she turned abruptly away. 
 
FIDELITY 375 
 
 Once more her heart was beating too fast. 
 When the doctor came and began about the ar- 
 rangement he had been able to make at the hos- 
 pital, she quietly told him that, if it would be as 
 well, she would rather keep Lily at home. His 
 startled look made her flush. His manner with 
 her was less brusque as he said good-by. She 
 smiled a little over that last puzzled glance he stole 
 at her. 
 
 Then she went back to Lily's room. She 
 straightened her bed for her, telling her that in a 
 little while the nurse would be there to make her 
 really comfortable. She bathed the girl's hot face 
 and hands. She got her a cold drink. As she put 
 her hand behind her head to raise her a little for 
 that, the girl murmured brokenly: "You're so 
 kind!" 
 
 She went out and sat in an adjoining room, to be 
 within call. And as she sat there a feeling of 
 strange peace stole through her. It was as if she 
 had been set free, as if something that had chained 
 her for years had fallen away. When in her talk 
 with Mrs. Hughes she became that other woman, 
 the woman on the other side, on compassion's side, 
 something just fell from her. When that poor girl 
 murmured, "You're so kind!" she suddenly knew 
 that she must have something more from life than 
 that satisfaction of harming those who had hurt 
 her. When she washed the girl's face she knew 
 what she could not unknow. She had served. 
 
376 FIDELITY 
 
 Slie could not find the old satisfaction in working 
 harm. The soft, warm thing that filled her heart 
 with that cry, "You're so kind!" had killed for- 
 ever the old cruel satisfaction in being in the way. 
 She felt very quiet in this wonderful new libera- 
 tion. She began shaping life as something more 
 than a standing in the way of others. It made 
 life seem a different thing just to think of it as 
 something other than that. And suddenly she 
 knew that she did not hate Euth Holland any more ; 
 that she did not even hate the man who had been 
 her husband. Hating had worn itself out; it fell 
 from her, a thing outlived. It was wonderful to 
 have it gone. For a long time she sat there very 
 quiet in the wonder of that peace of knowing that 
 she was free — freed of the long hideous servitude 
 of hating, freed of wanting to harm. It made life 
 new and sweet. She wanted something from life. 
 She must have more of that gentle sweetness that 
 warmed her heart when Lily murmured, "You're 
 so kind!" 
 
CHAPTEE THIETY-ONE 
 
 Euth Holland stood at the window looking out 
 at Colorado in January. The wide valley was 
 buried under snow. It was late afternoon and the 
 sun was passing behind the western mountains. 
 Erom the window where she stood she could not 
 see the western mountains, but the sunset colors 
 had been thrown over to the eastern range, some 
 fifty miles away. When she first came there, five 
 years before, it had seemed strange to find the 
 east lighted at sunset, more luminous than the 
 west. The eastern range was a mighty one. Now 
 there was snow down to its feet and there was no 
 warmth in the colors that lighted it. They only 
 seemed to reveal that the mountains were frozen. 
 It would not have seemed possible for red — those 
 mountains had been named Sangre de Cristo 
 because they went red at sunset — to be so daz- 
 zling cold. The lighted snow brought out the con- 
 tour of the mountains. They were wonderfully 
 beautiful so, but the woman looking out at them 
 was not thinking of them as beautiful. She was 
 thinking of them as monuments of coldness. To 
 her it was as if they had locked that valley in to 
 merciless cold. 
 
 But it was not the sunset colors that really 
 
 377 
 
378 FIDELITY 
 
 marked coming niglit for her. AU througli that 
 winter something else had marked night, some- 
 thing she tried to keep from looking out at, but 
 which she was not able to hold away from. She 
 was looking at it now, looking off into the adjoin- 
 ing field where the sheep were huddling for the 
 night. 
 
 They had begun their huddling some time be- 
 fore. With the first dimming of the light, the 
 first wave of new cold that meant coming night, a 
 few of them would get together; others woilld 
 gather around them, then more and more. Now 
 there was the struggle not to be left on the outside. 
 The outer ones were pushing toward the center; 
 they knew by other nights that this night would be 
 frigid, that they could only keep alive by that 
 warmth they could get from one another. Yet 
 there were always some that must make that outer 
 rim of the big circle, must be left there to the un- 
 broken cold. She watched them; it had become 
 a terrible thing for her to see, but she could not 
 keep from looking. Many of those unprotected 
 sheep had died that bitter winter ; others would die 
 before spring came. It was a cruel country, a 
 country of cold. 
 
 That was their flock of sheep. They had been 
 driven there the sixmmer before from the lambing 
 grounds in the mountains. The day they got there 
 the lambs were exhausted from the long journey. 
 One of them had dropped before the house and 
 
FIDELITY 379 
 
 died right there beside the field it had come the 
 long way to gain. Her efforts to revive it were 
 useless ; the little thing was worn out. They were 
 all of them close to worn out. And now they had 
 the winter to fight; night after night she watched 
 them huddling there, the big pitiful mass of them 
 out in the bitter cold. It was the way of the coun- 
 try to leave them so ; the only way, the sheep men 
 said, that sheep could be made to pay. They esti- 
 mated that the loss by freezing was small com- 
 pared with what would be the cost of shelter for 
 droves that ran into thousands, into tens of thou- 
 sands. 
 
 Euth would wake at night and think of them 
 huddled out there, would lie thinking of them as 
 she drew the covers around herself, think of them 
 when the wind drove against the house, and often, 
 as tonight, when it was every instant growing 
 colder, she wondered if what was before them filled 
 them with terror. Sometimes she could not keep 
 away and went nearer and looked at them; they 
 were unbearably pitiful to her, their necks 
 wrapped around each other's necks, trying to get 
 from one another the only warmth there was for 
 them, so helpless, so patient, they, play-loving 
 creatures, gentle things, bearing these lives that 
 men might finally use them for clothing and for 
 food. There were times when the pathos of them 
 was a thing she could not bear. They seemed to 
 represent the whole cruelty of life, made real to 
 
380 FIDELITY 
 
 h.er the terrible suffering of the world that winter 
 of the war. 
 
 She watched the sheep until the quick dusk had 
 fallen, and then stood thinking of them huddled 
 over there in the frigid darkness. When she 
 found that her face was wet and realized that she 
 had sobbed aloud she turned from the window to 
 the stove, drew a chair up close to it and put her 
 feet on the fender. It was so bitterly cold that 
 the room was warm only near the stove; over 
 there by the window she had grown chilled. And 
 as the heat enveloped her ankles she thought of 
 the legs of those poor frightened things that had 
 been the last comers and not able to get to the 
 inside of the circle — ^that living outer rim which 
 was left all exposed to the frigid January night 
 in that high mountain valley. She could feel the 
 cold cutting against their legs, could see their 
 trembling and their vain, frantic efforts to get 
 within the solidly packed mass. She was crying, 
 and she said to herself, her fingers clenched down 
 into her pahn, "Stop that! Stop that!" She 
 did not know what might not happen to her if 
 she were unable to stop such thinking as that. 
 
 To try and force herself away from it she got 
 up and lighted a lamp. She looked about on her 
 desk for a magazine she had put there. She 
 would make herself read something while waiting 
 for Stuart. He had had to drive into town. He 
 would be almost frozen when he got back from 
 
FIDELITY 381 
 
 that two-mile drive. She paused in her search 
 for the magazine and went into the kitchen to 
 make sure that the fire there was going well. Then 
 she put some potatoes in to bake ; baked potatoes 
 were hot things — they would be good after that 
 drive. The heat from the oven poured out to 
 her, and it swept her again to the thought of the 
 living huddled mass out there in the frigid dark- 
 ness. The wind beat against the house; it was 
 beating against them. She bit her hp hard and 
 again she said to herself — "No!" 
 
 She made some other preparations for supper. 
 She had those things to do herself now. The 
 Chinaman Ted had brought home with him in the 
 fall had left in December. He had appeared be- 
 fore her ready for leaving and had calmly said, 
 "Cold here, missis. And too all alone. Me go 
 where more others are. ' ' She had said nothing at 
 all in reply to him, in protest, too held by what 
 he had said — ' ' Cold here, and too all alone ! ' ' She 
 had stood at the window and watched him going 
 up the road toward town, going where ''more oth- 
 ers" were. 
 
 She went back now into their main room ; it was 
 both living and dining room these days, for since 
 the extreme cold had fastened on them they had 
 abandoned their two little upstairs bedrooms and 
 taken for sleeping the room which in summer was 
 used as-living-room. That could be heated a little 
 by leaving the door open, and it had seemed out 
 
382 FIDELITY 
 
 of tlie question to go to bed in those upstairs 
 rooms where the cold had heen left untouched. 
 Since they had been doing their own work all 
 extra things had had to be cut down; an upstairs 
 fire would mean more work, and it seemed there 
 was already more work than Euth could get done 
 and have time for anything else. She was tired 
 all the time these days; she would think during 
 the day of the good time she was going to have 
 with a book that evening, and then night would 
 find her so tired she could scarcely keep awake, 
 and she would huddle there before the fire, dread- 
 ing the cold of the night. 
 
 Life had reduced itself to necessities; things 
 had to be ruthlessly rearranged for meeting con- 
 ditions. She loved her own room to sleep in. 
 She needed it. But she had given that up be- 
 cause it was too cold, because she could not do 
 any more work. There was something that made 
 her cringe in the thought of their sharing a bed, 
 not because of love of being together, but because 
 of the necessity of fighting the cold. And it made 
 crowded quarters downstairs. She began "pick- 
 ing up" the room- now. Things were piled up on 
 the sewing machine, on the reading table. It 
 seemed impossible to keep them put away. She 
 tried hard to keep the room an attractive place 
 to sit in, but it was in disorder, uninviting, most 
 of the time. Often, after doing the kitchen work, 
 she would clean it all up with the idea of making it 
 
FIDELITY 383 
 
 attractive to sit in, then would be too utterly tired 
 to enjoy it. She lagged in putting things away 
 now ; she would stand holding them helplessly, not 
 knowing where to put them; she got sick of it and 
 just threw some of them into a closet, anything 
 to get them out of sight for the time. She knew 
 that was not the way to do, that it would make it 
 harder another time. She felt like crying. It 
 seemed things had got ahead of her, that she was 
 swamped by them, and somehow she did not have 
 the spirit, or the strength, to get a new start, make 
 a new plan. 
 
 Finally she had the room looking a little less 
 slovenly, not so sordid, and was about to sit down 
 with her magazine. But the lamp was flickering, 
 and then she remembered that she had not filled it 
 that day. She picked the lamp up and slowly, 
 drooping, started for the kitchen. She gave the 
 can an angry little tilt and the oil overflowed on the 
 table. She was biting her lips as she went about 
 looking for a cloth to wipe it up. She heard 
 sleigh bells and knew Stuart was coming. Hastily 
 she washed the oil from her hands, she always 
 hated herself when her hands smelled of kero- 
 sene, and began getting things ready for supper. 
 
 Stuart came hurrying and stamping in after 
 putting the horse away, quickly banging the door 
 shut and standing there pounding his feet and 
 rubbing his stiffened hands. 
 
 "Fearfully cold?" she inquired, hurriedly get- 
 
384 FIDELITY 
 
 ting out the box of codfish she was going to cream 
 for their supper. 
 
 "Cold!" he scoffed, as if in scorn for the in- 
 adequacy of the word. After a minute he came 
 up to the stove. "I was afraid," he said, holding 
 his right hand in his left, "that it had got these 
 fingers." 
 
 He took off his big bear-skin coat. A package 
 he had taken from the pocket of it he threw over on 
 the kitchen table. "Don't throw the bacon there, 
 Stuart," hurriedly advised Euth, busy with the 
 cream sauce she was making, "I've just spilled oU 
 there." 
 
 "Heavens!" he said irritably, shoving the ba- 
 con farther back. 
 
 His tone made Euth's hand tremble. "If you 
 think I'm so careless you might fill the lamps 
 yourself," she said tremulously. 
 
 "Who said you were careless T' he muttered. 
 He went in the other room and after a minute 
 called out, as one trying to be pleasant, "What 
 we going to have for supper?" 
 
 "Creamed codfish," she told him. 
 
 "For a little change!" he said, under his 
 breath. 
 
 "I don't think that's very kind, Stuart," she 
 called back, quiveringly. "It's not so simple a 
 matter to have 'changes' here now." 
 
 "Oh, I know it," he said, wearily. 
 
 She brought the things in and they began the 
 
FIDELITY 385 
 
 meal in silence. She had not taken time to lay 
 the table properly. Things were not so placed as 
 to make them attractive. Stuart tasted a piece 
 of bread and then hastily put it aside, not conceal- 
 ing a grimace of distaste. ' * What 's the matter ? ' ' 
 Euth asked sharply. 
 
 **I don't seem to care much for bread and oil," 
 he said in a voice it was plainly an effort to make 
 light. 
 
 Euth's eyes filled. She picked up the plate of 
 bread and took it to the kitchen. Stuart rose and 
 went after her. "I'll get some more bread, 
 Euth," he said kindly. "Guess you're tired to- 
 night, aren't you?" 
 
 She turned away from him and took a drink of 
 water. Then she made a big effort for control 
 and went to the dining-room. She asked some 
 questions about" town and they talked in a per- 
 functory way until supper was over. 
 
 He had brought papers and a couple of letters 
 from town. Euth was out in the kitchen doing 
 the dishes when she heard a queer exclamation 
 from him. "What is it, Stuart?" it made her 
 ask quickly, going to the dining-room door with 
 the cup she was wiping. 
 
 He gave her a strange look ; and then suddenly 
 he laughed. "What. is it?" the laugh made her 
 repeat in quick, shlarp voice. 
 
 "Well, you'll never guess!" he said. 
 
 She frowned and stood there waiting. 
 
386 FIDELITY 
 
 "Marion's going to get a divorce." He looked 
 at her as if he did not believe what he said. 
 
 Euth put her hand out to the casement of the 
 door. "She is?" she said dully. 
 
 He held up a legal looking paper. "Official no- 
 tice," he said. Then suddenly he threw the thing 
 over on the table and with a short hard laugh 
 pulled his chair around to the fire. Euth stood 
 a moment looking at it lying there. Then she 
 turned and went back to the dishes. When she 
 returned to the living-room the paper stUl lay 
 there on the table. She had some darning to do 
 and she got out her things and sat down, chair 
 turned to one side, not facing the legal looking 
 document. 
 
 After a little while Stuart, who had been figur- 
 ing in a memorandum book, yawned and said he 
 guessed he'd go to bed. He shook down the fire, 
 then got up and picked up the paper from the 
 table, folded it and took it over to the big desk 
 in the corner where his business things were. 
 "Well, Euth," he remarked, "this would have 
 meant a good deal to us ten or twelve years ago, 
 wouldn't it?" 
 
 She nodded, her head bent over the sock she was 
 darning. 
 
 "Oh, well," he said, after a pause, "maybe it 
 will help some even yet." . 
 
 She made no answer. 
 
 "I suppose Marion wants to get married," he 
 
FIDELITY 387 
 
 went on meditatively, after a moment adding bit- 
 terly, "Her wanting it is the only thing that would 
 ever make her do it." 
 
 He went down cellar for coal, and after he had 
 filled the stove began undressing before it. When 
 ready for bed he sat there a little before the fire, 
 as if taking in all the heat he could for the night. 
 Euth had finished her darning and was putting 
 the things away. "Coming to bed?" he asked of 
 her. 
 
 "Not right away," she said, her voice re- 
 strained. 
 
 "Better not try to sit up late, Euth," he said 
 kindly. "You need plenty of sleep. I notice 
 you're often pretty tired at night." 
 
 She did not reply, putting things in the ma- 
 chine drawer. Her back was to him. "Well, 
 Euth," he said, in a voice genial but slightly 
 ironic, "we can get married now." 
 
 She went on doing things and still did not speak. 
 
 "Better late than never," he said pleasantly, 
 yawning. 
 
 He stood up, ready for going into the bedroom, 
 but still hating to leave the fire, standing there 
 with his back to it, "When shall we get mar- 
 ried, Euth?" he went on, in a slightly amused 
 voice. 
 
 "Oh, I don't know, Stuart," she replied shortly 
 from the kitchen. 
 
 "Have to plan it out," he said sleepily, yawn- 
 
388 FIDELITY 
 
 ing once more. Then he laughed, as if the idea 
 more and more amused him. After that he mur- 
 mured, in the voice of one mildly curious about 
 a thing, "I wonder if Marion is going to get mar- 
 ried?" 
 
 Euth wanted to take a bath before she went to 
 bed. Taking a bath was no easy matter under 
 their circumstances. It was so much work and 
 usually she was so tired that she would sometimes 
 let it go longer than she would have supposed she 
 would ever let bathing go. She was determined 
 not to let it go tonight. She had the water on 
 heating ; she went down for the tub, went upstairs 
 into her frigid room for the fresh things to put 
 on in the morning. The room was so cold that 
 there was a sort of horror about it. She went 
 over to the window; the snow made the valley 
 bright. Dimly she could see a massed thing — 
 the huddled sheep. With a hard little laugh for 
 the sob that sliook her she hurried out of the room. 
 
 She took her bath before the fire in the living- 
 room. Stuart had piled on one chair the clothes 
 that he had taken off and would put on in the 
 morning. She placed on another the things for 
 herself. And suddenly she looked at those two 
 chairs and the thing that she had been trying not 
 to think about — that now they two could be mar- 
 ried — seemed to sear her whole soul with mock- 
 ery. She was rubbing some lotion on her red, 
 chapped hands, hands defaced by work and cold. 
 
FIDELITY 389 
 
 Slie had a picture of her hands as they used to 
 be — ^back there in those years when to have been 
 free to marry Stuart would have made life radi- 
 ant. She sat a long time before the fire, not want- 
 ing to go to bed. She particularly wanted to go 
 to bed alone that night. There seemed something 
 shameful in that night sharing a bed as a matter 
 of expediency. Stuart was snoring a little. She 
 sat there, her face buried in her hands. The 
 wind was beating against the house. It was beat- 
 ing against the sheep out there, too — it had a clean 
 sweep against that outer rim of living things. She 
 cried for a little while ; and then, so utterly tired 
 that it did not matter much, she went in the other 
 room and crept into bed. 
 
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO 
 
 But at last tlie cold had let go of them. It was 
 April, the snow had gone and the air promised 
 that even to that valley spring would come. Ruth, 
 out feeding the chickens, felt that spring nearness. 
 She raised her face gratefully to the breeze. It 
 had seemed almost unbelievable that the wind 
 would ever again bring anything but blighting 
 cold. 
 
 As she stood there, held by that first feel of 
 spring, an automobile came along, slowed, and 
 Stuart went running out of the house to meet it. 
 It was his friend Stoddard, a real-estate man 
 there. He had become friends with this man in 
 the last few months. He had had little in friend- 
 ships with men and this had brightened him amaz- 
 ingly. He had a new interest in business things, 
 new hopes. It had seemed to make him younger, 
 keener. He and Mr. Stoddard had a plan for go- 
 ing into Montana where the latter was interested ' 
 in a land developing company, ,and going into 
 business together. Stuart was alive with interest 
 in it; it promised new things for him, a new 
 chance. They would live in a town, and it would 
 be business life, which he cared for as he had 
 never come to care for ranching. He was be- 
 
 390 
 
FIDELITY 391 
 
 ginning to talk to Euth about moving, of selling 
 off their stock and sonie of their things. He was 
 eager to make the change. 
 
 She had gone in the house as the machine 
 stopped, having seen that there were people in 
 the car with Mr. Stoddard and not feeling pre- 
 sentably dressed. She went upstairs to do the 
 work and as she glanced down from the upper 
 window she saw Stuart in laughing conversation 
 with a girl in the automobile. Something about 
 it arrested her. He was standing to the far side 
 of the machine so she could see his face. There 
 was something in it she had not seen for a long 
 time — that interest in women, an unmistakable 
 pleasure in talking with an attractive girl. She 
 stood there, a little back from the window, watch- 
 ing them. There was nothing at all wrong about 
 it; nothing to resent, simply a little gay banter- 
 ing with a girl. It was natural to him; it had 
 been once, it could be again. His laugh came up 
 to her. So he could still laugh like that ; she had 
 not heard him for a long time. He turned and 
 started hurriedly for the house, the car waiting 
 for him. He was smiling, his step was buoyant. 
 "Euth," he called up to her, and his voice too 
 had the old buoyancy, "I'm going into town with 
 Stoddard. We want to go over some things. 
 He'll bring me back before night." 
 
 "All right, Stuart," she called back pleasantly. 
 
 She watched the car out of sight. Stuart, sit- 
 
392 FIDELITY 
 
 ting in the front seat with his friend, had turned 
 and was gayly talking with the women behind. 
 When she first knew him, when she was still a 
 little girl and used to see him around with his own 
 set, he had been like that. 
 
 She did not want to stay in the house. That 
 house had shut her in all winter. The road 
 stretched invitingly away. About a mile down it 
 there was a creek, willows grew there. Perhaps 
 there she would find some real spring. Anyway 
 she had an impulse to get out to the moving water. 
 She had seemed locked in, everything had seemed 
 locked in for so long. 
 
 As she was getting her coat she put into the 
 pocket a letter she had received the day before 
 from Deane Franklin. After she had sat a little 
 while by the running water she took the letter 
 out to reread, but did not at first open it. She 
 was wishing Deane were sitting there with her. 
 She would like to talk to him. 
 
 This letter was a gloomy one. It seemed that 
 Deane too was locked in. Soon after Ted came 
 back from Freeport in the fall she had got it out 
 of him about the Franklins. She had sensed at 
 once that there was something about Deane he did 
 not want to tell her, and before he left for his 
 own place she had it from him that the Franklins 
 had indeed separated, and that the gossip of Free- 
 port was that it was because of Mrs. Franklin's 
 resentment of her. And that was one of the 
 
FIDELITY 393 
 
 things liad seemed to make it possible for the win- 
 ter somehow to take her ; that was the thing had 
 seemed to close the last door to her spirit, the 
 last of those doors that had been thrown wide 
 open when she left Annie's home in Freeport the 
 spring before. 
 
 She had tried to write to Deane. She felt that 
 she should write to him, but she had a feeling 
 of powerlessness. Finally, only a little while be- 
 fore, she had brought herself to do it. She knew 
 it was a poor letter, a halting, constrained thing, 
 but it seemed the best she could do, and so finally, 
 after a great deal of uncertainty, she sent it. 
 
 His reply made her feel that he realized how 
 it had been, why she had been so long in writing, 
 why the letter had been the stilted thing it was. 
 It gave her a feeling that her friend had not 
 withdrawn from her because of what she had 
 brought down upon him, that that open channel 
 between him and her was there as it had ever 
 been. And though his letter did not make her 
 happy, it loosened something in her to be able to 
 feel that the way between her and Deane was not 
 closed. 
 
 "Don't distress yourself, Euth," she now re- 
 read, "or have it upon your spirit, where too 
 much has lain heavy all these years. You want 
 to know the truth, and the truth is that Amy did 
 resent my feeling about you — about you and your 
 situation — and that put us apart. But you see 
 
394 FIDELITY 
 
 it was not in us to stay together, or we could not 
 have been thus put apart. Love can't do it all, 
 Euth — ^not for long; I mean love that hasn't roots 
 down in the spirit can't. And where there isn't 
 that spiritual underneath, without a hinterland, 
 love is pretty insecure. 
 
 "I could have held on to it a while longer, I 
 suppose, by cutting clear loose from the thing 
 really me. And I suppose I would have done it 
 if I could? — ^I did in fact make attempts at it — 
 but that me-ness, I'm afraid, is most infernal 
 strong in my miserable make-up. And somehow 
 the withdrawal of one's self seems a lot to pay 
 for even the happiness of love. There are some 
 of us can't seem able to do it. 
 
 "So it's not you, Euth; it's that it was like 
 that, and that it came out through the controversy 
 about you. Cast from your mind any feeling ad- 
 ding the wrecking of my happiness to your list of 
 crimes. 
 
 "But, Euth, I'm not happy. I couldn't get 
 along in happiness, and I don't get along without 
 it. It's a paralyzing thing not to have happi- 
 ness — or to lose it, rather. Does it ever seem to 
 you that life is a pretty paralyzing thing? That 
 little by little — a little here and a little there — it 
 gets us ? "We get harness-broke, you see. Seems 
 to have gone that way with most of the people I 
 know. Seems to be that way with me. Don't let 
 it do it to you ! 
 
FIDELITY 395 
 
 "Somehow I don't believe it will. I tHnk that 
 you, Euth, would be a fine little prison-breaker. 
 Might stand some show of being one myself if 
 I were anywhere but in this town. There's some- 
 thing about it that has got me, Euth. If it hadn't 
 — ^I'd be getting out of it now. 
 
 "But of course I'm a pretty poor sort, not 
 worth making a fight for, or it wouldn't be like 
 this. And — ^for that matter — ^what's the differ- 
 ence? Lives aren't counting for much these days 
 —men who are the right sort going down by the 
 thousands, by the hundred of thousands, so what 
 — ^for heaven's sake — does it matter about me? 
 
 "I wish I could see you ! 
 
 "I'm glad for you about the divorce. I believe 
 the case comes up this April term, so it may be 
 all over by the time you get this letter. Pretty 
 late in coming, and I suppose it must seem a good 
 deal of a mockery — getting it now — but maybe it 
 will help some for the future, make you feel more 
 comfortable, and I'm awfully glad. 
 
 * ' Funny about it, isn't it ? I wonder what made 
 her do it! I was called there this winter, maid 
 sick — ^miscarriage — and Mrs. Williams puzzled 
 me. Didn't turn the girl out, awfully decent to 
 her. I would have supposed she would have been 
 quite the other way. And now this. Queer, don't 
 you think? 
 
 "Write to me sometimes, Euth. Sometimes 
 write to me what you're thinking about. Maybe 
 
396 FIDELITY 
 
 it will stir me up. Write to me to take a brace 
 and get out of this town! If you went for me 
 hard enough, called me all the insulting names 
 you could think of, and told me a living dead man 
 was the most cowardly and most disgusting ob- 
 ject cluttering up the earth, you might get a rise 
 out of me. You're the one could do it, if it can 
 be done. 
 
 "One thing I do know — ^writing this has made 
 me want like blazes to see you ! 
 
 "Deane." 
 
 Euth sat there in the arm of a low willow, her 
 hands resting upon Deane's letter, her eyes 
 closed, the faint breath of coming spring upon 
 her face. She was tired and very sad. She was 
 thinking of Deane's life, of her own life, of the 
 way one seemed mocked. She wished that Deane 
 were there; she could talk to him and she would 
 like to talk. His letter moved something in her, 
 something that had long seemed locked in stirred 
 a little. Her feeling about life had seemed a 
 thing frozen within her. Now the feeling that 
 there was still this open channel between her and 
 Deane was as a thawing, an outlet. 
 
 She thought of her last talk with Deane, of 
 their walk together that day, almost a year be- 
 fore, when he came to see her at Annie's, the very 
 day she was starting back West. She had felt 
 anything but locked in that day. There was that 
 
FIDELITY 397 
 
 triumphant sense of openness to life, the joy of 
 new interest in it, of zest for it. And then she came 
 back West, to Stuart, and somehow the radiance 
 went, courage ebbed, it came to seem that life was 
 all fixed, almost as if life, in the real sense, was 
 over. That sense of having failed, having been 
 inadequate to her own feehng, struck her down to 
 a wretched powerlessness. And so routine, hai;d 
 work, bitter cold, loneliness, that sense of the 
 cruelty of life which the sternness of the country 
 gave — those things had been able to take her; it 
 was because something had gone dead in her. 
 
 She thought of that spiritual hinterland Deane 
 talked about. She thought of her and Stuart. 
 She grew very sad in the thinking. She wondered 
 if it was her fault. However it was, it was true 
 they no longer found the live things in one an- 
 other. She had not been able to communicate to 
 him the feeling with which she came back from 
 Annie's. It was a lesser thing for trying to talk 
 of it to him. She did not reach him; she knew 
 that he only thought her a little absurd. After 
 that she did not try to talk to him of what she 
 felt. Life lessened; things were as they were; 
 they too were as they were. It came to seem just 
 a matter of following out what had been begun. 
 And then that news of the divorce had come to 
 mock her. 
 
 But she must do something for Deane. Deane 
 must not go like that. She had brought pencil and 
 
398 FIDELITY 
 
 "writing tablet with her, thinking that perhaps out 
 of doors, away from the house where she had 
 seemed locked in all winter, she could write to him. 
 She thought of things to say, things that should be 
 said, but she did not seem to have any power to 
 charge them with life. How could the dead rouse 
 the dead? She sat there thinking of her and 
 Deane, of how they had always been able to reach 
 one another. And finally she began : 
 
 "Dear Deane, 
 
 "You must find your way back to life." 
 
 She did not go on. She sat staring at what she 
 had written. She read it over ; she said it aloud. 
 It surged in upon her, into shut places. She sat 
 looking at it, frightened at what it was doing. Sat 
 looking at it after it was all blurred by tears — 
 looking down at the words she herself had written 
 — "You must find your way back to life." 
 
CHAPTER THIRTY-THEEE 
 
 Euth was very quiet through the next week. 
 Stuart was preoccupied with the plans he was 
 making for going to Montana ; when he talked with 
 her it was of that, of arrangements to be made for 
 it, and his own absorption apparently kept him 
 from taking note of her being more quiet than 
 usual, or different. It was all working out very 
 well. He had found a renter for the ranch, the 
 prospects for the venture in Montana were good. 
 They were to move within a month. And one 
 night in late April when he came home from town 
 he handed Euth a long envelope, with a laughing, 
 "Better late than never." Then he was soon 
 deep in some papers. 
 
 Euth was sorting a box of things; there were 
 many things to be gone through preparatory to 
 moving. She had put the paper announcing his 
 divorce aside without comment; but she loitered 
 over what she was doing. She was watching Stu- 
 art, thinking about him. 
 
 She was thinking with satisfaction that he 
 looked well. He had thrown off the trouble that 
 had brought about their departure from Freeport 
 twelve years before.. He was growing rather 
 stout ; his fair hair had gone somewhat gray and 
 
400 FIDELITY 
 
 his face was lined, lie had not the look of a young 
 man. But he looked strong, alert. His new hopes 
 had given him vigor, a new buoyancy. She sat 
 there thinking of the years she had lived with him, 
 of the wonder and the happiness she had known 
 through him, of the hard things they had faced to- 
 gether. Her voice was gentle as she replied to his 
 inquiry about what day of the month it was. 
 
 "I think," he said, "that we can get off by the 
 fifteenth, don't you, Euth?" 
 
 "Perhaps." Her voice shook a little, but he 
 was following his own thoughts and did not notice. 
 After a little he came and sat across the table from 
 her. "And, Euth, about this getting married bus- 
 iness — ' ' He broke off with a laugh. ' ' Seems ab- 
 surd, doesn't it?" 
 
 She nodded, fumbling with the things in the box, 
 her head bent over them. 
 
 "Well, I was thinking we'd better stop some- 
 where along the way and attend to it. Can't do it 
 here — don't want to there." 
 
 She lifted her hands from the box and laid them 
 on the table that was between him and her. She 
 looked over at him and said, quietly, in a voice that 
 shook only a little: "I do not want to get mar- 
 ried, Stuart." 
 
 He was filling his pipe and stopped abruptly, 
 spilling the tobacco on the table. "What did you 
 say?" he asked in the voice of one sure be must 
 have heard wrong. 
 
FIDELITY 401 
 
 "I said," she repeated, "that I did not want to 
 get married." 
 
 He stared at her, his face screwed up. Then it 
 relaxed a little. "Oh, yes — ^yes, I know how you 
 feel. It seems so absurd — after all this time — 
 after all there has been. But we must attend to it, 
 Euth. It's right that we should — ^now that we 
 can. Grod knows we wanted to bad enough — long 
 ago. And it will make us feel better about going 
 into a new place. We can face people better." 
 He gathered up the tobacco he had spilled and put 
 it in his pipe. 
 
 For a moment she did not speak. Then, "That 
 wasn't what I meant, Stuart," she said, falter- 
 ingly. 
 
 "Well, then, what in the world do you mean?" 
 he asked impatiently. 
 
 She did not at once say what she meant. Her 
 eyes held him, they were so strangely steady. 
 "Just why would we be getting married, Stuart?" 
 she asked simply. 
 
 At first he could only stare at her, appeared to 
 be waiting for her to throw light on what she had 
 asked. When she did not do that he moved impa- 
 tiently, as if resentful of being quizzed this way. 
 "Why — ^why, because we can now. Because it's 
 the thing to do. Because it will be expected of 
 us," he concluded, with gathering impatience for 
 this unnecessary explanation. 
 
 A faint smile traced itself about Euth's mouth. 
 
402 FIDELITY 
 
 It made her face very sad as slie said : "I do not 
 seem to be anxious to marry for any of those 
 reasons, Stuart." 
 
 "Euth, what are you driving at?" he demanded, 
 thoroughly vexed at the way she had bewildered 
 him. 
 
 "This is what I am driving at, Stuart," she be- 
 gan, a little more spiritedly. But then she 
 stopped, as if dumb before it. She looked over at 
 him as if hoping her eyes would tell it for her. 
 But as he continued in that look of waiting, impa- 
 tient bewilderment she sighed and turned a little 
 away. "Don't you think, Stuart," she asked, her 
 voice low, "that the future is rather too important 
 a thing to be given up to ratifying the past?" 
 
 He pushed his chair back in impatience that was 
 mounting to anger. "Just what do you mean?" 
 he asked, stiffly. 
 
 She picked up the long envelope lying on the 
 table between them. She held it in her hand a 
 moment without speaking. For as she touched it 
 she had a sense of what it would have meant to 
 have held it ia her hand twelve years before, over 
 on the other side of their life together, a new sense 
 of the irony and the pity of not having had it then 
 — and having it now. She laid it down between 
 them. "To me," she said, "this sets me free. 
 
 "Free to choose," she went on, as he only stared 
 at her. There was a moment of looking at him out 
 of eyes so full of feeling that they held back the 
 
FIDELITY 403 
 
 feeling that had flushed his face. "And my 
 choice," she said, with a strange steadiness, "is 
 that I now go my way alone." 
 
 He spoke then; but it was only to stammer: 
 "Why, — Ruth!" Helplessly he repeated: 
 "Ruth!" 
 
 ' ' But you see ? You do see ? " she cried. " If it 
 had not been so much — so beautiful! Just be- 
 cause it was what it was — " She choked and 
 could not go on. 
 
 He came around and sat down beside her. The 
 seriousness of his face, something she had touched 
 in him, made it finer than it had been in those last 
 years of routine. It was more as it used to be. 
 His voice too seemed out of old days as he said: 
 "Euth, I don't know yet what you mean — ^why 
 you're saying this?" 
 
 ' ' I think you do, Stuart, ' ' she said simply. ' ' Or 
 I think you wiU, if you'll let yourself. It's simply 
 that this-—" she touched the envelope on the table 
 before her — "that this finds us over on the other 
 side of marriage. And this is what I mean !" she 
 flamed. "I mean that the marriage between us 
 was too real to go through the mockery this would 
 make possible now!" She turned away because 
 she was close to tears. 
 
 He sat there in silence. Then, "Have I done 
 anything, Euth?" he asked in the hesitating way 
 of one at sea. 
 
 She shook her head without turning back to him. 
 
404 FIDELI^TY 
 
 "You apparently have got the impression," he 
 went on, a faint touch of resentment creeping into 
 his voice at having to make the declaration, "that 
 I don't care iany more. That — that isn't so," he 
 said awkwardly and with a little rise of resent- 
 ment. 
 
 Euth had turned a little more toward him, but 
 was looking down at her hands, working with them 
 as if struggling for better control. "I have no — 
 complaint on that score," she said very low. 
 
 "Things change," he went on, with a more open 
 manner of defence. "The first kind of love 
 doesn't last forever. It doesn't with anyone," he 
 finished, rather sullenly. 
 
 "I know that, Stuart," she said quietly. "I 
 know enough to know that. But I know this as 
 well. I know that sometimes that first kind of 
 love leaves a living thing to live by. I know that 
 it does — sometimes. And I know that with us — it 
 hasn't." 
 
 As if stung by that he got up and began walMng 
 angrily about the room. "You're talking non- 
 sense ! Why wouldn't we get married, I'd like to 
 know, after all this time together? "We will get 
 married — that's all there is to it! A nice spec- 
 tacle we would make of ourselves if we didn't! 
 Have you thought of that ? " he demanded. * * Have 
 you thought of what people would say?" 
 
 Again her lips traced that faint smile that 
 
FIDELITY 405 
 
 showed the sadness of her face. "There was a 
 time, Stuart," she said wearily, "when we were 
 not governed by what people would say. ' ' 
 
 He frowned, but went on more mildly: 
 "You've got the thing all twisted up, Ruth. You 
 do that sometimes. You often have a queer way 
 of looking at a thing ; not the usual way — a — ^well, 
 a sort of twisted way." 
 
 She got up. One hand was at her throat as if 
 feeling some impediment there ; the knuckles of her' 
 clenched hand. were tapping the table. "A queer 
 way of looking at things," she said in quick, shaip 
 voice that was like the tapping of her knuckles. 
 ' ' Not the usual way. A — sort of twisted way. 
 Perhaps. Perhaps that 's true. Perhaps that was 
 the way I had of looking at things twelve years 
 ago — when I left them all behind and went with 
 you. Perhaps that was what made me do it — that 
 queer, twisted way of looking at things ! But this 
 much is true, Stuart, and this you have got to know 
 is true. I went with you because I was as I was. 
 I'm going my way alone now because I am as I 
 am. And what you don't see is this, — ^that the 
 thing that made me go with you then is the thing 
 that makes me go my way alone now. ' ' 
 
 For a moment they stood there facing each 
 other, her eyes forcing home what she had said. 
 But she was trembling and suddenly, weakly, she 
 sat down. 
 
406 FIDELITY 
 
 "Well, I simply can't understand it!" lie cried 
 petulantly and flung open the door and stood look- 
 ing out. 
 
 "Look here, Euth," he turned sharply to her 
 after a little, "have you thought of the position 
 this puts me in? Have you thought of the posi- 
 tion you would put me in?" he contended hotly. 
 "Do you know what people would say about me? 
 You ought to know what they'd say! They'd say 
 / was the one! — ^they'd say I didn't want to do 
 it!" 
 
 There was a little catch something like a laugh 
 as she replied: "Of course. They'll say men 
 don't marry women of that sort, won't they?" 
 
 "Oh, you can't do this, Euth," he went on 
 quickly. "You see, it can't be done. I tell you it 
 wouldn't be right! It just wouldn't be right — 
 in any sense. Why can't you see that? Can't 
 you see that we've got to vindicate the whole 
 thing? That we've got to show them that it does 
 last! That's the vindication for it," he finished 
 stoutly, "that it's the kind of a love that doesn't 
 die! 
 
 "And I'd like to know where under the sun 
 you'd go!" he demanded hotly, irritated at the 
 slight smile his last words had brought. 
 
 "What I will do, Stuart, after leaving you, is for 
 me to deteimine, isn't it?" 
 
 "A nice way to treat me!" he cried, and threw 
 himself down on the couch, elbows on his knees and 
 
FIDELITY 407 
 
 Ms face buried in his hands. "After all these 
 years — after all there has been — that's a nice way 
 — "he choked. 
 
 She was quick to go over and sit beside him; she 
 leaned a little against him, her hajid on his arm, 
 just as she had sat many times when he needed 
 her, when she brought him comfort. The thought 
 of all those times rose in her and brought tears to 
 her eyes that had been burning dry a moment be- 
 fore. She felt the feeling this had whipped to life 
 in him and was moved by it, and by an underlying 
 feeling of the sadness of change. For his expostu- 
 lations spoke of just that — change. She knew this 
 for the last hurt she could help him through, that 
 she must help him through this hurt brought him 
 by this last thing she could do for hiin. Something 
 about things being like that moved her deeply. She 
 saw it all so clearly, and so sadly. It was not grief 
 this brought him; this was not the frenzy or the 
 anguish in the thought of losing her that there 
 would have been in those other years. It was 
 shock, rather — disturbance, and the forcing home 
 to him that sense of change. He would have gone 
 on without much taking stock, because, as he had 
 said, it was the thing to do. Habit, a sense of fit- 
 ness, rather than deep personal need, would have 
 made him go on. And now it was his sense that it 
 was gone, his resentment against that, his momen- 
 tary feeling of being left desolate. She looked at 
 his bowed head through tears. Gently she laid her 
 
408 FIDELITY 
 
 hand on it. She thought of him as he stood before 
 the automobile the other day lighting up in the gay 
 talk with that girl. She knew, with a sudden 
 wrench in her heart she knew it, that he would not 
 be long desolate. She understood him too well for 
 that. She knew that, hard as she seemed in that 
 hour, she was doing for Stuart in leaving him the 
 greatest thing she could now do for him. A tear 
 fell to her hand in her clear knowing of that. 
 There was deep sadness in knowing that, after aU 
 there had been, to leave the way cleared of her- 
 self was doing a greater thing than anything else 
 she could do for him. 
 
 A sob shook her and he raised his face upon 
 which there were tears and clutched her two wrists 
 with his hands. "Euth," he whispered, "it will 
 come back. I feel that this has — ^has brought it 
 back." 
 
 The look of old feeling had transformed his face. 
 After barren days it was sweet to her. It tempted 
 her, tempted her to shut her eyes to what she knew 
 and sink into the sweetness of believing herself 
 loving and loved again. Perhaps, for a little time, 
 they could do it. To be deeply swayed by this 
 common feeling, to go together in an emotion, was 
 ; like dear days gone. But it was her very fidelity 
 to those days gone that made her draw just a little 
 away, and, tears running down her face, shake her 
 head. She knew too well, and she had the courage 
 of her knowing. This was something that had 
 
FIDELITY 409 
 
 seeped up from old feeling; it had no life of its 
 own. What they were sharing now was grief over 
 a dead thing that had been theirs together. That 
 grief, that sharing, left them tender. This was 
 their moment — their moment for leaving it. They 
 must leave it before it lay there between them both 
 dead and unmoumed, clogging life for them. She 
 whispered to him: "Just because of all it has 
 meant — ^let's leave it while we can leave it like 
 this!" 
 
CHAPTER THIBTY-FOTJR 
 
 The man who worked for them had gone ahead 
 in the spring wagon with her trunk. She was 
 waiting for Ted to hitch the other horse to the 
 buggy and drive her in to the train. She was all 
 ready and stood there looking about the house she 
 was leaving. There were things in that room 
 which they had had since their first years together 
 — that couch, this chair, had come to them in Ari- 
 zona in the days wh6n they loved each other with 
 a passion that made everything else in the world 
 a pale thing before their love. She stood picking 
 out things that they had had when love was flaming 
 strong in them and it seemed they two fought to- 
 gether against the whole world. And as she stood 
 there alone in their place in common that she was 
 about to leave she was made sick by a sense of 
 failure — that desolate sense of failure she had 
 tried all along to beat down. That love had been 
 theirs — and this was what it had come to. That 
 wonder had been — and it ended in the misery of 
 this leavetaking. She turned sharply around, 
 opened the door and stood there in the doorway, 
 her back to the place she was quitting, her pale 
 stern face turned to the mountains — ^to that east- 
 ern range which she was going to cross. She 
 
 410 
 
FIDELITY 411 
 
 tried to draw something from them, draw 
 strength for the final conflict which she knew she 
 would have with Ted while they drove in to town. 
 She looked toward the barn-yard to see if he was 
 most ready, and could not but smile a little at his 
 grim, resolute face as he was checking up the 
 horse. She could see so well that he was going to 
 make the best of his time while driving her in to 
 the train. And it seemed she had nothing left in 
 her for combat ; she would be glad to see the train 
 that was to take her away. 
 
 Three days before Stuart had gone suddenly to 
 Denver, He went with his friend Stoddard, re- 
 garding some of their arrangements for Montana. 
 He had found only at the last minute that he would 
 have to go, had hurriedly driven out from town 
 to get his things and tell her he was going. 
 He had been in the house only a few minutes and 
 was all excitement about the unexpected trip. It 
 was two days after their talk. After their mo- 
 ment of being swept together by the feeling of 
 things gone he had, as if having to get a footing on 
 every-day ground, ended the talk with saying: 
 "I'll tell you, Euth, you need a little change. 
 We'll have to work it out." The next day they 
 were both subdued, more gentle with each other 
 than they had been of late, but they did not refer 
 to the night before. After he had hurriedly kissed 
 her good-by when leaving for Denver he had 
 turned back and gaid, "And don't you worry— 
 
412 FIDELITY 
 
 about things, Euth. We '11 get everything fixed up 
 — and a little change — ' ' He had hurried down to 
 the machine without finishing it. 
 
 She had gone to the window and watched him 
 disappear. He was sitting erect, alert, talking, 
 animatedly with his friend. She watched him as 
 far as she could see him. She knew that she would 
 not see him again. 
 
 And then she hitched up the horse and drove 
 into town and telephoned Ted, who lived about 
 fifty miles to the north. She told him that she was 
 going East and asked him to come down the next 
 day and see her. 
 
 She had known that Ted would not approve, 
 would not understand, but she had not expected 
 him to make the fight he had. It had taken every 
 bit of her will, her force, to meet him. Worn now, 
 and under the stress of the taking leave, at once 
 too tired and too emotional, she wished that he 
 would let it rest. But the grim line of his jaw 
 told her that he had no such intention. She felt 
 almost faint as they drove through the gate. She 
 closed her eyes and did not open them for some 
 time. 
 
 "You see, Euth," Ted began gently, as if 
 realizing that she was very worn, "you just don't 
 realize how crazy the whole thing is. It's ridicu- 
 lous for you to go to New York — alone! You've 
 never been there," he said firmly. 
 
FIDELITY 413 
 
 "No. That is one reason for going," she an- 
 swered, rather feebly. 
 
 "One reason for going!" he cried. "What '11 
 you do when the train pulls in? Where '11 you 
 
 gor' 
 
 "I don't know, Ted," she said patiently, "just 
 where I will go. And I rather like that — ^not 
 knowing where I will go. It's all new, you see. 
 Nothing is mapped out." 
 
 " It 's a fool thing ! " he cried. * ' Don 't you know 
 that something will happen to you?" 
 
 She smiled a little, very wearily. "Lots of 
 things have happened to me, Ted, and I've come 
 through them somehow." After a moment she 
 added, with more spirit: "There's just one thing 
 might happen to me that I haven't the courage to 
 face." He looked at her iiiquiringly. "Nothing 
 happening," she said, with a little smile. 
 
 He turned impatiently and slapped the horse 
 with the reins. "You seem to have lost your 
 senses," he said sharply. 
 
 He drove along in silence for a little. Kuth 
 looked at him and his face seemed hard. She 
 thought of how close she and Ted had come, how 
 good he had been, how much it had meant. She 
 could not leave him like this. She must make the 
 effort, must gather herself together and try and 
 make Ted see. "Perhaps, Ted," she began trem- 
 ulously, "you think I have taken leave of my 
 
414 FIDELITY 
 
 senses because you haven't tried very hard to 
 understand just what it is I feel." She smiled 
 wanly as she added, "You've been so absorbed in 
 your own disapproval, you know." 
 
 "Well, how can I be any other way?" he de- 
 manded. "Going away like this — ^for no reason 
 — on a wild goose chase! Isn't Stuart good to 
 yoii?" he asked abruptly. 
 
 "Yes, Ted," she answered, as if she were tired 
 of saying it, * ' Stuart is good enough to me. ' ' 
 
 "I suppose things aren't — just as they used to 
 be," he went on, a little doggedly. "Heavens! — 
 th^y aren't with anybody! And what will people 
 say?" he broke out with new force. "Think of 
 what people in Freeport will say, Euth. They'll 
 say the whole thing was a failure, and that it was 
 because you did wrong. They'll say, when the 
 chance finally came, that Stuart didn't want to 
 marry you." He colored but brought it out 
 bluntly. 
 
 "I suppose they will," agreed Euth. 
 
 "And if they knew the truth — or what I. know, 
 though heaven knows I'm balled up enough about 
 what the truth really is ! — they'd say it just shows 
 again that you are different, not — something 
 wrong," he finished bitterly. 
 
 She said nothing for a moment. "And is that 
 what you think, Ted?" she asked, choking a 
 Httle. 
 
 "I don't understand it, Euth," he said, less ag- 
 
FIDELITY 415 
 
 gressively. "I had thought you would be so glad 
 of the chance to marry. I — " he hesitated but 
 did not pursue that. He had never told her of 
 going to see Mrs. WUliams, of the effort he had 
 made for her. "It seemed that now, when your 
 chance came, you ought to show people that you 
 do want to do the right thing. It surprises me a 
 lot, Euth, that you don't feel that way, and — Oh! 
 I don't get it at all," he concluded abruptly. 
 
 Tears were very close when, after a little, she 
 answered: "Well, Ted, maybe when you have 
 less of life left you will understand better what 
 it is I feel. Perhaps," she went on in answer to 
 his look inquiry, "when the future has shrunk 
 down to fewer years you'll see it as more im- 
 portant to get from it what you can." 
 
 They drove for a little time in sUence. They 
 had come in sight of the town and she had not 
 won Ted; she was going away without his sym- 
 pathy. And she was going away alone, more 
 alone this time than she had been twelve years be- 
 fore. 
 
 She laid her hand on his arm, left it there while 
 she was speaking. "Ted," she said, "it's like 
 this. This has gone for me. It's all gone. It 
 was wonderful — ^but it's gone. Some people, I 
 know, could go on with the life love had made 
 after love was gone. I am not one of those peo- 
 ple — that's all. You speak of there being some- 
 thing discreditable in my going away just when 
 
416 FIDELITY 
 
 I could marry. To me there would be something 
 discreditable in going on. It would be — " she put 
 her hand over her heart and said it very simply, 
 "it would be unfaithful to something here." She 
 choked a little and he turned away. 
 
 "But I don't see how you can bear, Euth," he 
 said after a moment, made gentle by her confi- 
 dence, "to feel that it has — ^failed. I don't see 
 how you can bear — after all you paid for it — to 
 let it come to nothing." 
 
 "Don't say that, Ted !" she cried in a voice that 
 told he had touched the sorest place. "Don't say 
 that!" she repeated, a little wildly. "You don't 
 know what you're talking about. Failed? A 
 thing that glorified life for years — failedf" 
 
 Her voice broke, but it was more steadily she 
 went on: "That's the very reason I'm going to 
 New York — simply that it may not come to noth- 
 ing. I'm going away from it for that very reason 
 — ^that it may not come to nothing! That my life 
 may not come to nothing. What I've had — ^what 
 I've gone through — ^lives in me, Ted. It doesn't 
 come to nothing if I— come to something!" She 
 stopped abruptly with a choking little laugh. 
 
 Ted looked at her woiideringly ; but the hard- 
 ness had gone out of his look. "But what are you 
 going to do, Ruth?" he asked gently. 
 
 "I don't know yet. I've got to find out." 
 
 "You must see that I can't help but worry about 
 it," he went on. "Going so far away — ^to a place 
 
FIDELITY 417 
 
 absolutely unknown to you — ^where I'm afraid it 
 will be so much harder than you think. ' ' 
 
 She did not answer him, looking off to that 
 eastern range she was going to cross, as if the 
 mountains could help her to hold on to her own 
 feeling against the doubts he was trying to throw 
 around her. 
 
 "You see, Ruth," he went on, as if feeling his 
 way, not wanting to hurt her, "what has been 
 may make it hard to go on. You can't tell. You '11 
 never know — ^never be sure. Old things may come 
 up to spoil new ones for you. That's what I'm 
 so afraid of. That's what it seems you aren't 
 seeing. You would be so much — safer—to stay 
 with Stuart." 
 
 She turned to him with a little laugh, her lashes 
 wet. "Yes, Ted dear, I suppose I would. But 
 I never did seem to stay where I was safest — did 
 I?" 
 
 "Don't worry about me, Ted," she said just as 
 they were coming into town. "I'm going to take 
 some of father's money — ^yes, yes, I know it isn't 
 a great deal, but enough for a little while, till I 
 get my bearings — and I'm going to make things 
 come alive for me again. I'm not through yet, 
 that's all. I could have stayed with life gone 
 dead ; it would have been safer, as you say. But 
 you see I'm not through yet, Ted — I guess that's 
 the secret of it all. I want more life — ^more things 
 from life. And I'm going to New York just be- 
 
418 FIDELITY 
 
 cause it will be so completely new — so completely 
 beginning new — and because it's the center of so 
 many living things. And it's such a wonderful 
 time, Ted. It seems to me the war is going to 
 make a new world — a whole new way of looking 
 at things. It's as if a lot of old things, old ideas, 
 had been melted, and were fluid now, and were 
 to be shaped anew. That's the way it seems to 
 me, and that makes me the more eager to get some 
 things from life that I haven't had. I've been 
 shut in with my own experience. If I stayed on 
 here I'd be shut in with my own dead experiences. 
 I want to go on! I can't stop here — ^that's all. 
 And we have to find our way for going on. We 
 must find our own way, Ted, even," she choked, 
 "though what we see as the way may seem a wild 
 goose chase to some one we love. I'll tell you 
 why I'm going to New York," she flashed with 
 sudden defiance. "I'm going because I want 
 to!" 
 
 She laughed a little and he laughed with her. 
 Then she went on more gently : * * Because I want 
 to. Just the thought of it has made life come 
 alive for me — ^that's reason enough for going to 
 the ends of the earth! I'm going to live again, 
 Ted — ^not just go on with what living has left. 
 I'm going to find some work to do. Yes I can! 
 she cried passionately in response to his gesture. 
 "I suppose to you it seems just looking out for 
 myself — seems unfaithful to Stuart. WeU, it 
 
 >> 
 
FIDELITY 419 
 
 isn't — that's all I can say, and maybe some day 
 you'll see that it wasn't. It isn't unfaithful to 
 turn from a person you have nothing more to 
 offer, for whom you no longer make life a living 
 thing. It's more faithful to go. You'll see that 
 some time, Ted. But be good to Stuart," she 
 hastily added. "You stay with him till he can 
 get off. I've made all the arrangements with 
 Mrs. Baxter for packing up — sending on the 
 things. It would be hard for him to do that, I 
 know. And once away from here — ^new interests 
 — life all new again^oh, no, Ted dear," she 
 laughed a little chokingly, "don't worry about 
 Stuart." 
 
 "I'm not worrying about Stuart," he muttered. 
 "I'm worrying about you." 
 
 She squeezed his arm in affectionate gratitude 
 for the love in the growling words. "Don't 
 worry about me, Ted," she implored, "be glad 
 with me! I'm alive again! It's so wonderful to 
 be alive again. There 's the future — a great, beau- 
 tiful unknown. It is wonderful, Ted," she said 
 with insistence, as if she would banish his fears — 
 and her own. 
 
 They had a few minutes to wait, and Ted ran 
 over to the postoffice to get her mail for her — she 
 was expecting a paper she wanted to read on the 
 train. She tucked what he handed her into her bag 
 and then when she heard the train coming she held 
 on to Ted's arm, held it as if she could not bear let- 
 
420 FIDELITY 
 
 ting it go. "It's all right," were her last words 
 to him, smiling through tears. 
 
 She had been trying all along to hold her mind 
 from the thought that they would pass through 
 Freeport. Late the next afternoon, when she 
 knew they were nearing it, she grew restless. It 
 was then she remembered the paper in her bag— r 
 she had been in no mood for reading, too charged 
 with her own feeling. She got it out now and 
 found that with the paper was a letter. It was a 
 letter from Deane FranHin. 
 
 She held it for a little while without opening it. 
 It seemed so strange to have it just as she was 
 nearing Freeport. 
 
 The letter was dated the week before. It read : 
 
 "Dear Ruth: 
 
 "I'm leaving Freeport tonight. I'm going to 
 Europe — to volunteer my services as a doctor. 
 Parker, whom I knew well at Hopkins, is right in 
 the midst of it He can work me in. And the 
 ]jeed for doctors is going to go on for some time, 
 I fancy; it won't end with the war. 
 
 "I'm happy in this decision, Euth, and I know 
 you'll be glad for me. It was your letter that got 
 me — ^made me see myself and hate myself, made 
 me know that I had to ' come out of it. ' And then 
 this idea came to me, and I wish I could tell you 
 how different everything seemed as soon as I saw 
 
FIDELITY 421 
 
 some reason for my existence. I'm ashamed of 
 myself for not having seen it this way before. As 
 if this were any time for a man who's had my 
 training to sit around moping ! 
 
 "Life is bigger than just ourselves. And isn't 
 it curious how seeing that brings us back to our- 
 selves? 
 
 "I'll enclose Parker's address. You can reach 
 me in care of him. I want to hear from you. 
 
 "I can hardly wait to get there! 
 
 "Deane." 
 
 She managed to read the letter through with 
 eyes only a little dimmed. But by the time she 
 got to Parker's address she could not make it out. 
 "I knew it!" she kept saying to herself trium- 
 phantly. 
 
 Deane had been too big not to save himself. 
 Absorbed in thoughts of him she did not notice 
 the country through which they were passing. 
 She was startled by a jolt of the train, by the con- 
 ductor saying, "Freeport!" 
 
 For several minutes the train waited there. She 
 sat moticpiless through that time, Deane Frank- 
 lin's letter clasped tight in her hand. Freeport! 
 It claimed her: — ^what had been, what was behind 
 her; those dead who lived in her, her own past 
 that lived in her. Freeport. ... It laid strong 
 hold on her. She was held there in what had 
 been. And then a great thing happened. The 
 
422 FIDELITY 
 
 train jolted again — amoved. It was moviag — ^mov- 
 ing on. She was moving — moving on. And she 
 knew then beyond the power of anyone's disap- 
 proval to break down that it was right she move 
 on. She had a feeling of the whole flow of her 
 life — and it was still moving — amoving on. And 
 because she felt she was moving on that sense of 
 failure slipped from her. In secret she had been 
 fighting that all along. Now she knew that love 
 had not failed because love had transpired into 
 life. What she had paid the great price for was 
 not hers to the end. But what it had made of her 
 was hers I Love could not fail if it left one richer 
 than it had found one. Love had not failed — 
 nothing had failed — and life was wonderful, limit- 
 less, a great adventure for which one must have 
 great courage, glad faith. Let come what would 
 come ! — she was moving on. 
 
 THE END