On Tuesday afternoon
a Boston lawyer, who had been
trying a
case in Vermont, was standing
on the siding at White River
Junction when the Canadian Express
pulled by on its northward journey.
As the day-coaches at the rear
end of the long train swept by
him, the lawyer noticed at one
of the windows a man's head,
with thick rumpled hair. "Curious," he
thought; "that looked like Alexander,
but what would he be doing back
there in the daycoaches?"
It was, indeed, Alexander.
That morning a telegram from
Moorlock had reached him, telling
him that there was serious trouble
with the bridge and that he was
needed there at once, so he had
caught the first train out of
New York. He had taken a seat
in a day-coach to avoid the risk
of meeting any one he knew, and
because he did not wish to be
comfortable. When the telegram
arrived, Alexander was at his
rooms on Tenth Street, packing
his bag to go to Boston. On Monday
night he had written a long letter
to his wife, but when morning
came he was afraid to send it,
and the letter was still in his
pocket. Winifred was not a woman
who could bear disappointment.
She demanded a great deal of
herself and of the people she
loved; and she never failed herself.
If he told her now, he knew,
it would be irretrievable. There
would be no going back. He would
lose the thing he valued most
in the world; he would be destroying
himself and his own happiness.
There would be nothing for him
afterward. He seemed to see himself
dragging out a restless existence
on the Continent--Cannes, Hyeres,
Algiers, Cairo-- among smartly
dressed, disabled men of every
nationality; forever going on
journeys that led nowhere; hurrying
to catch trains that he might
just as well miss; getting up
in the morning with a great bustle
and splashing of water, to begin
a day that had no purpose and
no meaning; dining late to shorten
the night, sleeping late to shorten
the day.
And for what? For a mere folly,
a masquerade, a little thing
that he could not let go. AND
HE COULD EVEN LET IT GO, he told
himself. But he had promised
to be in London at mid- summer,
and he knew that he would go.
. . . It was impossible to live
like this any longer.
And this, then,
was to be the disaster that
his old professor
had foreseen for him: the crack
in the wall, the crash, the cloud
of dust. And he could not understand
how it had come about. He felt
that he himself was unchanged,
that he was still there, the
same man he had been five years
ago, and that he was sitting
stupidly by and letting some
resolute offshoot of himself
spoil his life for him. This
new force was not he, it was
but a part of him. He would not
even admit that it was stronger
than he; but it was more active.
It was by its energy that this
new feeling got the better of
him. His wife was the woman who
had made his life, gratified
his pride, given direction to
his tastes and habits. The life
they led together seemed to him
beautiful. Winifred still was,
as she had always been, Romance
for him, and whenever he was
deeply stirred he turned to her.
When the grandeur and beauty
of the world challenged him--
as it challenges even the most
self-absorbed people-- he always
answered with her name. That
was his reply to the question
put by the mountains and the
stars; to all the spiritual aspects
of life. In his feeling for his
wife there was all the tenderness,
all the pride, all the devotion
of which he was capable. There
was everything but energy; the
energy of youth which must register
itself and cut its name before
it passes. This new feeling was
so fresh, so unsatisfied and
light of foot. It ran and was
not wearied, anticipated him
everywhere. It put a girdle round
the earth while he was going
from New York to Moorlock. At
this moment, it was tingling
through him, exultant, and live
as quicksilver, whispering, "In
July you will be in England."
Already he dreaded the long,
empty days at sea, the monotonous
Irish coast, the sluggish passage
up the Mersey, the flash of the
boat train through the summer
country. He closed his eyes and
gave himself up to the feeling
of rapid motion and to swift,
terrifying thoughts. He was sitting
so, his face shaded by his hand,
when the Boston lawyer saw him
from the siding at White River
Junction.
When at last Alexander roused
himself, the afternoon had waned
to sunset. The train was passing
through a gray country and the
sky overhead was flushed with
a wide flood of clear color.
There was a rose-colored light
over the gray rocks and hills
and meadows. Off to the left,
under the approach of a weather-stained
wooden bridge, a group of boys
were sitting around a little
fire. The smell of the wood smoke
blew in at the window. Except
for an old farmer, jogging along
the highroad in his box-wagon,
there was not another living
creature to be seen. Alexander
looked back wistfully at the
boys, camped on the edge of a
little marsh, crouching under
their shelter and looking gravely
at their fire. They took his
mind back a long way, to a campfire
on a sandbar in a Western river,
and he wished he could go back
and sit down with them. He could
remember exactly how the world
had looked then.
It was quite dark and Alexander
was still thinking of the boys,
when it occurred to him that
the train must be nearing Allway.
In going to his new bridge at
Moorlock he had always to pass
through Allway. The train stopped
at Allway Mills, then wound two
miles up the river, and then
the hollow sound under his feet
told Bartley that he was on his
first bridge again. The bridge
seemed longer than it had ever
seemed before, and he was glad
when he felt the beat of the
wheels on the solid roadbed again.
He did not like coming and going
across that bridge, or remembering
the man who built it. And was
he, indeed, the same man who
used to walk that bridge at night,
promising such things to himself
and to the stars? And yet, he
could remember it all so well:
the quiet hills sleeping in the
moonlight, the slender skeleton
of the bridge reaching out into
the river, and up yonder, alone
on the hill, the big white house;
upstairs, in Winifred's window,
the light that told him she was
still awake and still thinking
of him. And after the light went
out he walked alone, taking the
heavens into his confidence,
unable to tear himself away from
the white magic of the night,
unwilling to sleep because longing
was so sweet to him, and because,
for the first time since first
the hills were hung with moonlight,
there was a lover in the world.
And always there was the sound
of the rushing water underneath,
the sound which, more than anything
else, meant death; the wearing
away of things under the impact
of physical forces which men
could direct but never circumvent
or diminish. Then, in the exaltation
of love, more than ever it seemed
to him to mean death, the only
other thing as strong as love.
Under the moon, under the cold,
splendid stars, there were only
those two things awake and sleepless;
death and love, the rushing river
and his burning heart.
Alexander sat up and looked
about him. The train was tearing
on through the darkness. All
his companions in the day-coach
were either dozing or sleeping
heavily, and the murky lamps
were turned low. How came he
here among all these dirty people?
Why was he going to London? What
did it mean--what was the answer?
How could this happen to a man
who had lived through that magical
spring and summer, and who had
felt that the stars themselves
were but flaming particles in
the far-away infinitudes of his
love?
What had he done to lose it?
How could he endure the baseness
of life without it? And with
every revolution of the wheels
beneath him, the unquiet quicksilver
in his breast told him that at
midsummer he would be in London.
He remembered his last night
there: the red foggy darkness,
the hungry crowds before the
theatres, the hand-organs, the
feverish rhythm of the blurred,
crowded streets, and the feeling
of letting himself go with the
crowd. He shuddered and looked
about him at the poor unconscious
companions of his journey, unkempt
and travel-stained, now doubled
in unlovely attitudes, who had
come to stand to him for the
ugliness he had brought into
the world.
And those boys back there,
beginning it all just as he had
begun it; he wished he could
promise them better luck. Ah,
if one could promise any one
better luck, if one could assure
a single human being of happiness!
He had thought he could do so,
once; and it was thinking of
that that he at last fell asleep.
In his sleep, as if it had nothing
fresher to work upon, his mind
went back and tortured itself
with something years and years
away, an old, long-forgotten
sorrow of his childhood.
When Alexander awoke in the
morning, the sun was just rising
through pale golden ripples of
cloud, and the fresh yellow light
was vibrating through the pine
woods. The white birches, with
their little unfolding leaves,
gleamed in the lowlands, and
the marsh meadows were already
coming to life with their first
green, a thin, bright color which
had run over them like fire.
As the train rushed along the
trestles, thousands of wild birds
rose screaming into the light.
The sky was already a pale blue
and of the clearness of crystal.
Bartley caught up his bag and
hurried through the Pullman coaches
until he found the conductor.
There was a stateroom unoccupied,
and he took it and set about
changing his clothes. Last night
he would not have believed that
anything could be so pleasant
as the cold water he dashed over
his head and shoulders and the
freshness of clean linen on his
body.
After he had dressed, Alexander
sat down at the window and drew
into his lungs deep breaths of
the pine-scented air. He had
awakened with all his old sense
of power. He could not believe
that things were as bad with
him as they had seemed last night,
that there was no way to set
them entirely right. Even if
he went to London at midsummer,
what would that mean except that
he was a fool? And he had been
a fool before. That was not the
reality of his life. Yet he knew
that he would go to London.
Half an hour later the train
stopped at Moorlock. Alexander
sprang to the platform and hurried
up the siding, waving to Philip
Horton, one of his assistants,
who was anxiously looking up
at the windows of the coaches.
Bartley took his arm and they
went together into the station
buffet.
"I'll have
my coffee first, Philip. Have
you had yours? And
now, what seems to be the matter
up here?"
The young man, in a hurried,
nervous way, began his explanation.
But Alexander
cut him short. "When
did you stop work?" he asked
sharply.
The young engineer
looked confused. "I
haven't stopped work yet, Mr.
Alexander. I didn't feel that
I could go so far without definite
authorization from you."
"Then why didn't
you say in your telegram exactly
what you
thought, and ask for your authorization?
You'd have got it quick enough."
"Well, really,
Mr. Alexander, I couldn't be
absolutely sure,
you know, and I didn't like to
take the responsibility of making
it public."
Alexander pushed
back his chair and rose. "Anything
I do can be made public, Phil.
You say
that you believe the lower chords
are showing strain, and that
even the workmen have been talking
about it, and yet you've gone
on adding weight."
"I'm sorry,
Mr. Alexander, but I had counted
on your getting
here yesterday. My first telegram
missed you somehow. I sent one
Sunday evening, to the same address,
but it was returned to me."
"Have you a
carriage out there? I must
stop to send a wire."
Alexander went up to the telegraph-desk
and penciled the following message
to his wife:--
I may have to be here for some
time. Can you come up at once?
Urgent.
BARTLEY.
The Moorlock Bridge lay three
miles above the town. When they
were seated in the carriage,
Alexander began to question his
assistant further. If it were
true that the compression members
showed strain, with the bridge
only two thirds done, then there
was nothing to do but pull the
whole structure down and begin
over again. Horton kept repeating
that he was sure there could
be nothing wrong with the estimates.
Alexander grew
impatient. "That's
all true, Phil, but we never
were justified in assuming that
a scale that was perfectly safe
for an ordinary bridge would
work with anything of such length.
It's all very well on paper,
but it remains to be seen whether
it can be done in practice. I
should have thrown up the job
when they crowded me. It's all
nonsense to try to do what other
engineers are doing when you
know they're not sound."
"But just now, when there is
such competition," the younger
man demurred. "And certainly
that's the new line of development."
Alexander shrugged his shoulders
and made no reply.
When they reached
the bridge works, Alexander
began his examination
immediately. An hour later he
sent for the superintendent. "I
think you had better stop work
out there at once, Dan. I should
say that the lower chord here
might buckle at any moment. I
told the Commission that we were
using higher unit stresses than
any practice has established,
and we've put the dead load at
a low estimate. Theoretically
it worked out well enough, but
it had never actually been tried." Alexander
put on his overcoat and took
the superintendent by the arm. "Don't
look so chopfallen, Dan. It's
a jolt, but we've got to face
it. It isn't the end of the world,
you know. Now we'll go out and
call the men off quietly. They're
already nervous, Horton tells
me, and there's no use alarming
them. I'll go with you, and we'll
send the end riveters in first."
Alexander and the superintendent
picked their way out slowly over
the long span. They went deliberately,
stopping to see what each gang
was doing, as if they were on
an ordinary round of inspection.
When they reached the end of
the river span, Alexander nodded
to the superintendent, who quietly
gave an order to the foreman.
The men in the end gang picked
up their tools and, glancing
curiously at each other, started
back across the bridge toward
the river-bank. Alexander himself
remained standing where they
had been working, looking about
him. It was hard to believe,
as he looked back over it, that
the whole great span was incurably
disabled, was already as good
as condemned, because something
was out of line in the lower
chord of the cantilever arm.
The end riveters had reached
the bank and were dispersing
among the tool-houses, and the
second gang had picked up their
tools and were starting toward
the shore. Alexander, still standing
at the end of the river span,
saw the lower chord of the cantilever
arm give a little, like an elbow
bending. He shouted and ran after
the second gang, but by this
time every one knew that the
big river span was slowly settling.
There was a burst of shouting
that was immediately drowned
by the scream and cracking of
tearing iron, as all the tension
work began to pull asunder. Once
the chords began to buckle, there
were thousands of tons of ironwork,
all riveted together and lying
in midair without support. It
tore itself to pieces with roaring
and grinding and noises that
were like the shrieks of a steam
whistle. There was no shock of
any kind; the bridge had no impetus
except from its own weight. It
lurched neither to right nor
left, but sank almost in a vertical
line, snapping and breaking and
tearing as it went, because no
integral part could bear for
an instant the enormous strain
loosed upon it. Some of the men
jumped and some ran, trying to
make the shore.
At the first shriek of the
tearing iron, Alexander jumped
from the downstream side of the
bridge. He struck the water without
injury and disappeared. He was
under the river a long time and
had great difficulty in holding
his breath. When it seemed impossible,
and his chest was about to heave,
he thought he heard his wife
telling him that he could hold
out a little longer. An instant
later his face cleared the water.
For a moment, in the depths of
the river, he had realized what
it would mean to die a hypocrite,
and to lie dead under the last
abandonment of her tenderness.
But once in the light and air,
he knew he should live to tell
her and to recover all he had
lost. Now, at last, he felt sure
of himself. He was not startled.
It seemed to him that he had
been through something of this
sort before. There was nothing
horrible about it. This, too,
was life, and life was activity,
just as it was in Boston or in
London. He was himself, and there
was something to be done; everything
seemed perfectly natural. Alexander
was a strong swimmer, but he
had gone scarcely a dozen strokes
when the bridge itself, which
had been settling faster and
faster, crashed into the water
behind him. Immediately the river
was full of drowning men. A gang
of French Canadians fell almost
on top of him. He thought he
had cleared them, when they began
coming up all around him, clutching
at him and at each other. Some
of them could swim, but they
were either hurt or crazed with
fright. Alexander tried to beat
them off, but there were too
many of them. One caught him
about the neck, another gripped
him about the middle, and they
went down together. When he sank,
his wife seemed to be there in
the water beside him, telling
him to keep his head, that if
he could hold out the men would
drown and release him. There
was something he wanted to tell
his wife, but he could not think
clearly for the roaring in his
ears. Suddenly he remembered
what it was. He caught his breath,
and then she let him go.
The work of
recovering the dead went on
all day and all
the following night. By the next
morning forty-eight bodies had
been taken out of the river,
but there were still twenty missing.
Many of the men had fallen with
the bridge and were held down
under the debris. Early on the
morning of the second day a closed
carriage was driven slowly along
the river-bank and stopped a
little below the works, where
the river boiled and churned
about the great iron carcass
which lay in a straight line
two thirds across it. The carriage
stood there hour after hour,
and word soon spread among the
crowds on the shore that its
occupant was the wife of the
Chief Engineer; his body had
not yet been found. The widows
of the lost workmen, moving up
and down the bank with shawls
over their heads, some of them
carrying babies, looked at the
rusty hired hack many times that
morning. They drew near it and
walked about it, but none of
them ventured to peer within.
Even half-indifferent sight-
seers dropped their voices as
they told a newcomer: "You see
that carriage over there? That's
Mrs. Alexander. They haven't
found him yet. She got off the
train this morning. Horton met
her. She heard it in Boston yesterday
--heard the newsboys crying it
in the street.
At noon Philip Horton made
his way through the crowd with
a tray and a tin coffee-pot from
the camp kitchen. When he reached
the carriage he found Mrs. Alexander
just as he had left her in the
early morning, leaning forward
a little, with her hand on the
lowered window, looking at the
river. Hour after hour she had
been watching the water, the
lonely, useless stone towers,
and the convulsed mass of iron
wreckage over which the angry
river continually spat up its
yellow foam.
"Those poor women out there,
do they blame him very much?" she
asked, as she handed the coffee-cup
back to Horton.
"Nobody blames
him, Mrs. Alexander. If any
one is to blame, I'm afraid
it's I. I should have stopped
work before he came. He said
so as soon as I met him. I tried
to get him here a day earlier,
but my telegram missed him, somehow.
He didn't have time really to
explain to me. If he'd got here
Monday, he'd have had all the
men off at once. But, you see,
Mrs. Alexander, such a thing
never happened before. According
to all human calculations, it
simply couldn't happen."
Horton leaned wearily against
the front wheel of the cab. He
had not had his clothes off for
thirty hours, and the stimulus
of violent excitement was beginning
to wear off.
"Don't be afraid to tell me
the worst, Mr. Horton. Don't
leave me to the dread of finding
out things that people may be
saying. If he is blamed, if he
needs any one to speak for him,"--for
the first time her voice broke
and a flush of life, tearful,
painful, and confused, swept
over her rigid pallor,-- "if
he needs any one, tell me, show
me what to do." She began to
sob, and Horton hurried away.
When he came back at four o'clock
in the afternoon he was carrying
his hat in his hand, and Winifred
knew as soon as she saw him that
they had found Bartley. She opened
the carriage door before he reached
her and stepped to the ground.
Horton put
out his hand as if to hold
her back and spoke
pleadingly: "Won't you drive
up to my house, Mrs. Alexander?
They will take him up there."
"Take me to
him now, please. I shall not
make any trouble."
The group of
men down under the riverbank
fell back when
they saw a woman coming, and
one of them threw a tarpaulin
over the stretcher. They took
off their hats and caps as Winifred
approached, and although she
had pulled her veil down over
her face they did not look up
at her. She was taller than Horton,
and some of the men thought she
was the tallest woman they had
ever seen. "As tall as himself," some
one whispered. Horton motioned
to the men, and six of them lifted
the stretcher and began to carry
it up the embankment. Winifred
followed them the half-mile to
Horton's house. She walked quietly,
without once breaking or stumbling.
When the bearers put the stretcher
down in Horton's spare bedroom,
she thanked them and gave her
hand to each in turn. The men
went out of the house and through
the yard with their caps in their
hands. They were too much confused
to say anything as they went
down the hill.
Horton himself
was almost as deeply perplexed. "Mamie," he
said to his wife, when he came
out of the spare room half an
hour later, "will you take Mrs.
Alexander the things she needs?
She is going to do everything
herself. Just stay about where
you can hear her and go in if
she wants you."
Everything happened as Alexander
had foreseen in that moment of
prescience under the river. With
her own hands she washed him
clean of every mark of disaster.
All night he was alone with her
in the still house, his great
head lying deep in the pillow.
In the pocket of his coat Winifred
found the letter that he had
written her the night before
he left New York, water-soaked
and illegible, but because of
its length, she knew it had been
meant for her.
For Alexander death was an
easy creditor. Fortune, which
had smiled upon him consistently
all his life, did not desert
him in the end. His harshest
critics did not doubt that, had
he lived, he would have retrieved
himself. Even Lucius Wilson did
not see in this accident the
disaster he had once foretold.
When a great man dies in his
prime there is no surgeon who
can say whether he did well;
whether or not the future was
his, as it seemed to be. The
mind that society had come to
regard as a powerful and reliable
machine, dedicated to its service,
may for a long time have been
sick within itself and bent upon
its own destruction.
EPILOGUE
Professor Wilson had been living
in London for six years and he
was just back from a visit to
America. One afternoon, soon
after his return, he put on his
frock-coat and drove in a hansom
to pay a call upon Hilda Burgoyne,
who still lived at her old number,
off Bedford Square. He and Miss
Burgoyne had been fast friends
for a long time. He had first
noticed her about the corridors
of the British Museum, where
he read constantly. Her being
there so often had made him feel
that he would like to know her,
and as she was not an inaccessible
person, an introduction was not
difficult. The preliminaries
once over, they came to depend
a great deal upon each other,
and Wilson, after his day's reading,
often went round to Bedford Square
for his tea. They had much more
in common than their memories
of a common friend. Indeed, they
seldom spoke of him. They saved
that for the deep moments which
do not come often, and then their
talk of him was mostly silence.
Wilson knew that Hilda had loved
him; more than this he had not
tried to know.
It was late when Wilson reached
Hilda's apartment on this particular
December afternoon, and he found
her alone. She sent for fresh
tea and made him comfortable,
as she had such a knack of making
people comfortable.
"How good you were to come
back before Christmas! I quite
dreaded the Holidays without
you. You've helped me over a
good many Christmases." She smiled
at him gayly.
"As if you
needed me for that! But, at
any rate, I needed YOU.
How well you are looking, my
dear, and how rested."
He peered up at her from his
low chair, balancing the tips
of his long fingers together
in a judicial manner which had
grown on him with years.
Hilda laughed
as she carefully poured his
cream. "That means
that I was looking very seedy
at the end of the season, doesn't
it? Well, we must show wear at
last, you know."
Wilson took
the cup gratefully. "Ah,
no need to remind a man of seventy,
who has just been home to find
that he has survived all his
contemporaries. I was most gently
treated--as a sort of precious
relic. But, do you know, it made
me feel awkward to be hanging
about still."
"Seventy? Never mention it
to me." Hilda looked appreciatively
at the Professor's alert face,
with so many kindly lines about
the mouth and so many quizzical
ones about the eyes. "You've
got to hang about for me, you
know. I can't even let you go
home again. You must stay put,
now that I have you back. You're
the realest thing I have."
Wilson chuckled. "Dear
me, am I? Out of so many conquests
and the spoils of conquered cities!
You've really missed me? Well,
then, I shall hang. Even if you
have at last to put ME in the
mummy-room with the others. You'll
visit me often, won't you?"
"Every day in the calendar.
Here, your cigarettes are in
this drawer, where you left them." She
struck a match and lit one for
him. "But you did, after all,
enjoy being at home again?"
"Oh, yes. I
found the long railway journeys
trying. People
live a thousand miles apart.
But I did it thoroughly; I was
all over the place. It was in
Boston I lingered longest."
"Ah, you saw
Mrs. Alexander?"
"Often. I dined with her, and
had tea there a dozen different
times, I should think. Indeed,
it was to see her that I lingered
on and on. I found that I still
loved to go to the house. It
always seemed as if Bartley were
there, somehow, and that at any
moment one might hear his heavy
tramp on the stairs. Do you know,
I kept feeling that he must be
up in his study." The Professor
looked reflectively into the
grate. "I should really have
liked to go up there. That was
where I had my last long talk
with him. But Mrs. Alexander
never suggested it."
"Why?"
Wilson was
a little startled by her tone,
and he turned his
head so quickly that his cuff-link
caught the string of his nose-glasses
and pulled them awry. "Why? Why,
dear me, I don't know. She probably
never thought of it."
Hilda bit her
lip. "I don't
know what made me say that. I
didn't mean to interrupt. Go
on please, and tell me how it
was."
"Well, it was
like that. Almost as if he
were there. In a way,
he really is there. She never
lets him go. It's the most beautiful
and dignified sorrow I've ever
known. It's so beautiful that
it has its compensations, I should
think. Its very completeness
is a compensation. It gives her
a fixed star to steer by. She
doesn't drift. We sat there evening
after evening in the quiet of
that magically haunted room,
and watched the sunset burn on
the river, and felt him. Felt
him with a difference, of course."
Hilda leaned
forward, her elbow on her knee,
her chin on her
hand. "With a difference? Because
of her, you mean?"
Wilson's brow
wrinkled. "Something
like that, yes. Of course, as
time goes on, to her he becomes
more and more their simple personal
relation."
Hilda studied
the droop of the Professor's
head intently. "You
didn't altogether like that?
You felt it wasn't wholly fair
to him?"
Wilson shook
himself and readjusted his
glasses. "Oh, fair enough.
More than fair. Of course, I
always felt that my image of
him was just a little different
from hers. No relation is so
complete that it can hold absolutely
all of a person. And I liked
him just as he was; his deviations,
too; the places where he didn't
square."
Hilda considered
vaguely. "Has
she grown much older?" she asked
at last.
"Yes, and no.
In a tragic way she is even
handsomer. But colder.
Cold for everything but him.
`Forget thyself to marble'; I
kept thinking of that. Her happiness
was a happiness a deux, not apart
from the world, but actually
against it. And now her grief
is like that. She saves herself
for it and doesn't even go through
the form of seeing people much.
I'm sorry. It would be better
for her, and might be so good
for them, if she could let other
people in."
"Perhaps she's
afraid of letting him out a
little, of sharing
him with somebody."
Wilson put
down his cup and looked up
with vague alarm. "Dear
me, it takes a woman to think
of that, now! I don't, you know,
think we ought to be hard on
her. More, even, than the rest
of us she didn't choose her destiny.
She underwent it. And it has
left her chilled. As to her not
wishing to take the world into
her confidence--well, it is a
pretty brutal and stupid world,
after all, you know."
Hilda leaned
forward. "Yes,
I know, I know. Only I can't
help being glad that there was
something for him even in stupid
and vulgar people. My little
Marie worshiped him. When she
is dusting I always know when
she has come to his picture."
Wilson nodded. "Oh,
yes! He left an echo. The ripples
go
on in all of us. He belonged
to the people who make the play,
and most of us are only onlookers
at the best. We shouldn't wonder
too much at Mrs. Alexander. She
must feel how useless it would
be to stir about, that she may
as well sit still; that nothing
can happen to her after Bartley."
"Yes," said Hilda softly, "nothing
can happen to one after Bartley."
They both sat looking into
the fire.
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