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-mm JI YBkb0W BY @ IOTA. CHAPTER XXXVII. The next day Strange went down and told Mrs. Fellowes more or less about it, and put his wife entirely into her hands. People were less surprised than might have been supposed at Strange’s suddenly-organized expedition. He had broken con ventional laws now for so long that if he had settled down into a solid every day life, without some characteristic protest, he would have been regarded rath er as a fraud. The first possible companion his thoughts fell on, was Bry- don. “It would be bringing him out into the wilderness with a vengeance,” he said, and as* mings mio mue neaps,T|__ matter of fact it was just what a ^ er kind; when that was land into which Strange meant to penetrate, and of which he certainly possessed a most inti mate knowledge, Gwen used to watch him with a curious cold sort of pain, and wonder if he were human, till one day Mrs. Fellowes found out the exist ence of these ghastly entertain ments and stopned them. One morning when Mr. War ing was thus engaged, his wife sped away in a half furtive fash ion and shut herself into the children’s nursery. Kneeling down by the drawers she began to pull out great heaps of soft white lawn and lace and creamy flannel, then with much puzzled : doubt she set to sorting the things into little heaps, each Brydon wanted at the time, and he was overjoyed at the offer. When Tolly heard of the pro posed move, he came to a firm resolve to be in it. At first Strange absolutely refused to take him, but at last his persist ence became so annoying that he gave in, but not till Tolly had taken the most powerfully- expressed oaths of abstinence. When all this was settled. Tolly looked up with a grin and remarked deprecatingly: “If you ’adn’t given in to take me straight, I meant to reach you crooked at Suez, sir; I never intended, your honor, to let you face them black varmint, with out me.” Strange looked at the hideous grinning creature, that one good puff of wind could blow off the face of the earth. “Do you know you lire an idiot, Tolly?” “Yes, sir,” said Tolly cheer fully. “And that you’re very likely going to your death?” “Not when you’re about, sir; death and you ain’t mates.” “You’re to go with Bell to-day and get rigged out,” said Strange. Yes, sir, thank your honor, but I’ve took notice of them pants and sich as were sent to your honor and ’ave bordered the same for myself ban in’ a worser quality.” “Well upon my word!” “Arrivin’ at Suez without no thin’ to suit the climate might ’ave inconvenienced your honor” remarked Tolly with bland con sideration. “I have likewise perwided a breechloader and a rewolver.” “Oh, have you? Bring me those weapons without a mo ment’s delay, and then go with Bell and get your outfit; I pay for those pants, and now, don’t go about the place crowing over the other servants.” “Oh Lord, sir, il you were to hoar them over my teeth you’d take back that order. Seein’ likewise that the teeth came out of your honor’s own pocket and are a credit to your establish mei t, as the dentist hisself said.” “Will you be good enough to go to the devil, Tolly, I’m busy.” “Yes, sir,” said Tolly, and he took himself off to crow con scientiously the rest of the day. For the next two months Gwen comported herself to the satisfaction of no one; she was reticent with the Fellowes, and her mother simply appalled her. Mrs. Waring’s nervous gentle little attempts at being a moth er; the delicate tendrils she kept constantly throwing out in he* daughter’s direction; her queer quaint experiments in the ex pression of the emotions, simply worried Gwen to death. She refused to let herself see the pathos of it all, or to be touch ed. Indeed, as lime went on and her weakness grew more ap parent to others, the demeanor of her mother grew into a terror to her. She would fly from it to her own room, where she would sit with her idle hands lying in her lap in a quiet agony of loneliness. It was a point of honor with her to keep herself calm; she ate and drank too, and she rest- ed_obediently whenever Mary, who had taken the physicial part of her under her charge, said she needed rest; she drove when the old woman prescribed air, and walked when move ment was supposed to be neces sary. She was a mere autom ation in her absolute yielding to orders concerning her health During this time Mr. Waring made a wild attempt to expand into a father. He would issue from time to time from his lib rary with a bundle of random papers in his hand, and enter tain Gwen with discourse grave, and gay, mostly concerning Africa, of which continent he had rather a- poor opinion and which he painted with lurid colors. As he reeled out anecdotes of the gruesomeness of the climate, the impracticability of travel ing, the hideous forms of dis ease assumed, the congenital villainy of the natives, more es- ially of that portion of the mm A done she went softly out, and in a few minutes returned with old Mary. “Has my daughter provided herself with those little things?” she asked nervously. “I don’t know, ma’am; I was thinking of speaking to her on the subject.” “These are good, are they not? The lace seems to me to be real and I do not see any holes.” “Lord, ma’am, they are like new, it Isn’t likely that I’d have my clothes lorn after two bab ies, I’ve brought a set through six, ma’am!” “Do the fashions in these things change, Mary?” “Bless you, no, ma’am! Set up long-clothes babies with fashions!” “Mary, would you be good enough to get me a pretty bas ket?” “You couldn’t have a prettier one than this one, ma’am,” said Mary, pulling out the old lace and muslin one that had held the belongings of her own baby children. Mrs. Waring took up the thing and examined it curious ly, and thought of the awe with which she used to regard it. “Do babies nowadays use these things?” she asked. “Lord, ma’am, yes, and will till the millennium.” Mrs. Waring put the little ihings in delicately, one by one. “Now, Mary, I will take them to my daughter,” she said with a little quiver of her lips. She knocked gently at her daughter’s door. As it happened she could hardly have come at a worse time. Gwen had just escaped from her father; beside, for three weeks now, there had come no news from Strange, and in spite of herself she was all on edge with unnamed terrors. When Mrs, Waring’s knock came, she was sitting listlessly looking out of the window. “Oh, I am so sickening tired,” she said, “and I wish ehe would not always knock in that tre mulous way.” So she harden ed her face and threw the door open. Her mother gave a quick little swallow and came forward fal- teringly, while Gwen still held the door open and watched her. “Will you please close the door, dear Gwen?” she asked. Gwen complied, and then came toward the basket and lifted one of the white frilly things carelessly. Suddenlv the truth flashed on her and she trembled with in dignation, while her mother stood pathetically before her, like a criminal at the bar. Gwen was the first to speak; her mother’s face touched her in a vague way. “Won’t you sit down, moth er?” she said, in her cold gentle voice. “Do you wish me to have these things? I am so very much obliged to you. I ordered some before I left Lon don, but I believe it is always better to have a reserve stock of everything.” “I thought I would like to see a child of yours in the little things,” faltered her mother A horrible feeling came on Gwen that her mother was about to cry. She took out one or two of the things “That is lovely lace,” she said hurriedly, “better than any the woman showed me. I had no idea you had any interest in such matters.” Then one fervent wish took possession of her, that her moth er would complete her gift and go, but she was not to be de fivered just yet. Mrs. Waring was on her waj to the door with bowed head when suddenly with a short smothered cry she turned anc faced her daughter. She saw the quick recoil in the girl’s face, and with a supreme effort the small fragile creature calm ed herself and sat down. “Gwen.” she said, looking at the tall woman brooding gloom ily above her, then set the bas ket on the bed, “will you try to suffer my love, dear? I cannot ask you for yours, I have not earned it, I never knew what it was to be a mother till too late. But, dear, take the love I bear you gently, don’t recoil from me as you did just now,”— Gwen winced “as you’ve done many times. I will not intrude on you, dear; I have made a mistake to-day in asking you to accept those things.” “No, no, mother,” interrupt ed the girl. “Yes, dear, I have; I do not reproach you but you are hard and that fault is mine more than yours. When you were a iittle child, Gwen, did you ever wish for my love—I mean the ordinary outspoken natural love that women give their child ren?” Mrs. Waring bent forward and looked into her daughter’s face with wide eager eyes. Gwen looked into the upturn ed face and her heart sirred with pity, then a dreary feeling came on her that the time was too solemn for lies. “I longed for it every day that I lived,” she said in a slow reluctant voice, turning away. “Ah, and now it is too late< I did cling to that last delusion, I did hope that in the careless vigor of childhood, in the fresh joy of a young animal, you might have forgotten to want the outward signs of mother love. Gwen, Gwen dear, let your child grow into your heart with every breath, and God keep you from suffering such as mine!” She stood up softly and was about to go, but Gwen stopped her. "Mother,” she cried, “you couldn’t be expected to under stand children; you were meant for intellectual uses altogether! It seems to me hard and unjust that you should now be hamper ed with these feelings. Why can you not go back to your old peaceful life? You were happy in it, now your work is interfer ed with, and you are not happy. ' wish I could do anything for you, I wish I could satisfy you!” Ah, dear, you don’t know how very little love would still my pain, but I don’t think that even if you would, you could give it to me—I don’t think you understand, dear, what love is.” “Mother,” said the girl, in a low curiously soft tone, “I do not.” Directly she had made the confession a horrible feeling of shame came on her. “She knows everything of me there is to know now!” she thought, with a dull ache, “I wonder what use she will make of it.” After a long wait she got some little idea. Her mother came and stood beside her sil ently for a minute or two, then she stooped down and kissed the girl’s hand tremulously, took up ler basket with its burden, and went out of the room and up stairs. Gwen Ipoked at the little dent made by the basket on the bed, and a new rush of loneliness flooded her. . CHAPTER XXXVIII. There was always a sort of studious hush over Waring Park, encompassing the whole place as in a garment, but one day a change crept suddenly in to the nature of the hush, it lost all at once in culture and grew full of trembling awe; for Mrs. Waring lav upstairs on her jreat oak bed, her blue eyes ooking out of her thin face full of a piteous longing. She had only a slight attack of pleurisy, nothing to account for her quick run down, but her mart was very weak and irre pilar, the old doctor said, and le asked for an opinion from town. The shock of the thing had a queer effect on Mr. Waring, even from a physical point of view. As he sat hour by hour and watched her in a dumb vague horror, one hand always in his, his breath came in short gasps with strong pain, his eyes grew congested, his lips turned a dull blue, and dried and cracked, the very blood slowed in his veins. The old doctor sounded him anxiously as soon as he noticed his condition, and found his lungs as sound as a bell. It was only that the two were abso lutely one flesh; she could suffer nothing and leave him untouch ed. She was so sorry for him and whenever she could gather up her strength for the effort, she put a great strain on her self to breathe naturally, but hour by hour her power over herself grew less, and her breathing more constantly la borious. And Gwen? Fear had found her at last, and it tore and tor tured her. She knew very little of sickness, and in this sickness of her mother’s there was a pale ghastly shade of some other thing that touched the infinities. She went in and out. of her mother’s room in a vague search alter duty, but she never touch ed even her bed; she was afraid of the awful shadowy thing, and more afraid still of her mother’s eyes following her hungrily. No softening grew in her eyes, no love—only fear. And so the days wore on and the hush fell closer round the house, and crept into the hearts of those that dwelt there. Yet there seemed small cause for it all; the doctors saw no tangible reason for alarm, and yet they were uneasy and came frequently. It was the eighth day of the illness, just as twilight was falling. Mrs. Waring had had her bed moved near the window that commanded the Park, and she was looking wistfully out on the south terrace watching Gwen walking up and down. Gwen, in obedience to her promise to take care of herself, always chose this particular walk, bathing herself in the sunlight and drinking in great draughts of thq sweet clear air that came across a healthy hill in the distance, and trying to gather up shreds of happy thought to feed her loneliness with, and to soothe the vague aching that seemed to have made its home in her. “Mary,” said Mrs. Waring suddenly,—her husband had been literally dragged out for a drive by the old doctor—“will you call Gwen, but first give me that tonic. I feel as n I would slip away in spite of my self, and I know,” she murmur ed softly to herself, “there is something I ought to say.—Are her eyes still sealed as she walks there communing with her own sad heart?” she thought as she looked out at Gwen. “Will love never touch her— never? Will the child’s life open the gate—or—must it be the death of that little child?” She shivered down into the bedclothes, and shut her eyes. “Ma’am, dear heart, drink this,” said Mary, softly raising lier, and with a. great leap of her heart she saw death on the white face, “drink it, my dear ie,” she repeated returning un consciously to the old term of thirty-nine years ago, and kiss ing the little furrows between the brows. “You are very young, dearie,” she said, softly stroking her hair, “not fit io he a grandmother!” A soft pink flush crept into her cheeks “Will you please call Gwen?” she murmured. When Gwen came in, < her mother’s eyes were closed and her face like marble. She shivered and half turned; a horrible inclination to fly took hold of her, but she drove back her cowardice and came swiftly up to the bed, one of her full sleeves touched it, and she drew it away. Her mother’s eyes opened just in time to see her little action, she shivered, and Gwen’s heart began to ache in a new spet. It all seems so hopeless,” she thought, “it is so terrible to hurt her, so pitiless, and under bred.” She stooped over her, a tress of hair escaped from her coil and fell on Mrs. Wanng’s cheek. Neither of them touched it for a minute. The mother felt a sudden long ing to ruffle it softly as she had once done to a village baby’s, and to feel the soft silkiness slip through her fingers, but she re strained herself and only breath ed a little quicker. “You want me, mother?” said Gwen gently, lifting up her head and fastening up her hair. “Yes, I want you, dear.” She closed her eyes and rested. Gwen moved uneasily, the stillr ness oppressed her, and some change m the sick woman’s face made her heart feel tight. Pres ently Mrs. Waring drew a long breath and threw off seme of the clothes feebly. ^ They are so heavy,” she said. Mary lifted her higher on the pillows. “Yes, that’s bet ter, thank you, and now, Mary, go and rest. My daughter will stay with me.” Gwen heard the resolute mas terful use of the word in abso lute terror; she had a coerced, trapped feeling, and for a min - ute a passionate revolt shook her. What was she to do, to say. She felt as if she were caught in a mesh of bleeding quivering nerves, she found her breath almost imperceptibly, for fear of touching raw sur faces ■> “What is it mother?” she cried out. There was • tone of appeal in her voice, born of her terror Thjf strengthened her mother; sherelt older than her child and with a power to protect hei. The ghost of a smile moved her mouth and flickered in her eyes. “It is death, dear,” she said. with gentle gravity. Gwen stared at her and in uncomprehending rigid way she repeated—“Death, death!” “Yes,” whispered the woman, “it is hard to realize—I have been so strong, but life has been losing its hold on me for some time, I think. Gwen, let me take your hand, dear, touch me as if you were used to it, as if you had tumbled oyer me and I had played with you ever since you can remember.” Gwen’s hand shook as she gave it with white lips and wide eyes. What waa that growing shadow on the small face, what waa this bringing such confidence, such a eui compelling air of possession in to the timid eyes? Mrs. Waring gave a soft far away little langh, that made Gwen’s blood turn in the ghastly listening silence. “I saw the other day a young mother, a little creature with blue eyes and yellow hair and so young—so young—put her little baby's fingers into her mouth, and bite them softly in play, and the baby laughed and kick ed. Jubelte! Why does Eng lish sometimes fall so short? Ah, Gwen, I wish you could have it, nothing is like it, nothing—” Gwen stirred in anguish, her brain was surging wildly, her whole heart and soul were pros trate in one wild prayer for help from the horrors that were clos ing her in. There was no idea of God in the prayer, howev er. "Humphrey, Humphrey. Humphrey!” was the only thought that possessed her, and tried to break aloud in sound through her dry lips. Then her mother’s eyes closed again and she murmured in her half sleep; when she aroused herself after a few minutes her gentle eyes were bright and wild. She caught Gwen’s dim pled pink fingers and put them into her mouth and she set to bite them softly and kiss them with little ripples of a girl’s laughter, and her few wrinkles smoothed themselves and the sweet rosy color came again in to the thin cheeks, and she was a careless, happy young mother playing with her first Mild. Mr. Waring had come softly into the room some minutes be fore; he paused and peered ea gerly forward, and then there leaped into his eyes a blinding agony; he swayed, shivering, and dropped on his knees by the bed. But of this Gwen saw nothing. As her mother kissed, and bit, and mumbled over her hand, and half sang little quaint snatches of baby song, and took her pretty fingers one by one and told them with low silvery laughs “this little one went to market and the other stayed at home!” and broke out in a loud er ripple as “the little one cried queak!” her own baby “leapt in her womb” and the scales fell from her eyes and her heart melted within her, and the breast of her dying mothep was as an open book to her; she could read all the love there and the remorse and the infinite sor row. Gwen’s heart stopped and her breath refused to come—she would have died then. Her soul hovered shuddering on the threshold of life, but her baby stirred imperiously and pulled it back, and then a torrent of tears came to her help and left her with soft moist eyes, a child by her mother’s side. Mother, oh, mother!” the in finite tenderness in her voice smote into her own heart and made Mr. Waring rise quickly and wait trembling with fear and a great awe, “mother, oh, my darling—speak—touch me— love me, your child, Gwen—! “I will not let thee go unless thou bless me.” The picture involuntarily rose before Mr. Waring’s eyes as he murmured the words. “Speak to me once, mother— I know everything, now—every thing—do you her, darling?” But the mother still kissed and played with the trembling clinging fingers, and sang; her eyes looked up full of sunny ir responsible happiness, and saw things of which we have not thought in our philosophy. 'Mother, oh my mother!”— but still she babbled on, smil ing. Mr. Waring came forward with bowed head, silent, in fear ful reverence. It was not for him to speak or interfere; the ground whereon he stood was holy ground. “Mother, mother, mother!” The babbling had now grown drowsy and low, and Gwen had to bend close to catch it, then it ceased, and the mother lay very still. Gwen turned in terror and saw her father. “Help, help!” she cried, “she must speak—oh, God! she must!” Her father took her hand, and bending softly he took her mother’s, and held the two in his, and one soft shivering moan broke from him; then father and daughter stood in the palpita ting silence and waited breath less, but the silence grew and spread like a net around them, crushing hearts, and the breath ing of the woman grew less and and her face whiter and men, in had no balm and less outlet, she could not cry nor strive, she could not throw her whole soul against fate and fall back with the pain dulled from sheer tiredness. Every day with the little white mother lying cold on her bed, she still walked in the sun on the south terrace, and cher ished her child, but virtue had gone out of her. “She will kill me,” Mrs. Fel lowes told her husband, “if she looks like that long! she’s not tragic, not an atom, nor dramat ic; I think she must look like Dante did“when he stood before the gates of Saint Uario.” “Yes, one hardly dares think of the girl, walking, and eating, and sleeping; and she looks 1 saw her. 1« then a strong cry rent the of awful silence and Gwen forward as one dead on mother’s breast. veil fell her im CHAPTER XXXIX. “Waaever grief like unto my grief!” has been the cry of each wrung heart throughout ail ages—the truth is, there ie a dreary family likeness among tnem til, ana a horrible absence of originality. In this particular Gwen Strange could score over the whole sad brood , her grief vas aloof, alone, it differed in every point from the kindly race of younger than ever 1 saw What is he doing now? I must go up soon.” “Sitting holding her hand, ex cept when he is told to come to his meals. Of course, knowing the man, one could describe his grief to a T. It’s just himself.” “What will time do for the two, I wonder?” “There is something gone from Gwen that no time will give back to her: I wish, oh, I wish I knew how it was at the end. Did that woman go down into the grave still seeking her lost motherhood? Oh, John, John, God in heaven help wo* men! 1 wonder if He knew quite eyerything when He made us; He is all masculine. I don’t think Hd altogether did or He would have stayed His hand and have had mercy.” “My little Ruth, my poor little wife, life even for us is hard!” “But it is simpler; it is the complications which put barbs on our arrows, the vague yearn ings quivering in us ignorantly, not with the knowledgable, healthy hammer-strokes of men’s anguish; and our bodies are nearer our souls. Think of Gwen with her unborn child un der that heartful of unnameable pain! John, it’s only three o’clock—will you drive me into town? The market is full on—I must see some women who are too stolid for nerves—oh—the letters, and one from Humphrey! John, he’s down with fever, and Brydon’s only half-way through!” “ ‘Not a man-jack of the blacks—being mostly christian ized—is worth his salt. Only for Tolly we’d cave in altogeth er, the fellow’s a brick, and serms like developing the begin nings of an intellect, just in the nick of time too; never in all my life was 1 so knocked into a cocked hat as by this fever.’ “Look at the writing, John, it’s shocking. “ ‘As tor Brydon, he had a narrow squeak; he’s out of the bush now, but as weak as a rat. On the whole the sand flies are worse than the fever. Don’t dwell on this touch of fever to Gwen, it’s really of no conse quence, but it’s an awful nui sance on account of delay. From here we go on to a place about a hundred miles off, to where we have traced Broad. Hitherto the blacks have been friendly, but beyond the hills I hear we are to look out for squalls. Don’t expect many letters after this, as the modes of conveyance are very casual and untrustworthy, neither can I count upon receiving your let ters safely. I will hurry there and back with all possible speed. I know you will always see Gwen at least once a day.’ “See, John, I can hardly read it, what is it? Oh, ‘love for you’ and something for the rector I can hardly read.” “We will go in on our way to the market; the ponies are at thedoor.” Gwen was in ber boudoir when Mrs. Fellowes went to her. She was sitting with a bundle of papers in her hand. She thrust them into a drawer, and ran and as it were got into the other woman’s arms, and lay there with a short audible movement of pain. “Tell me just how you think my husband is,” she said. Mrs. Fellowes started. “Ah, you’re afraid too!” cried Gwen. “Gwen, I know really very little; those attacks are always very sharp, hardly ever danger ous except with bad constitu tions, John says—he has been reading up a medical book about African fevers.” “ ‘Bad constitutions and com- E lications,’ the book says, I ave it; and he has a complica tion in some sort of sun-stroke.” “Gwen!” “Yes,” she went on in a quiet level voice. “He missed the last mail by some idiocy of the blacks, and he walked ten miles all through a swamp to catch it, with the fever still on him; when he got home he was half delirious. He lay and it seems turned his heart inside out, both audibly and on paper, see, I have it all here in these sheets!” she said, with bitter irony, catching ber breath, as she took them out of the drawer. “Gwen, my Gwen, what do you mean?” “I mean he lay there and told out into words—blatant awful English words—on to these sheets, how he loves me, me! but in words no other man ever be fore used, or dared to use, or the soul of every loved woman would have been annihilated long ago, they are not fitted to bear such magnificent burdens! —He told, too, in precisely the same uncompromising way what he wants of me, and what he considers I am capable of in this line. Mrs. Fellowes, I know just exactly what it costs him to go away! Nothing is hid. Then yesterday—” She stood up rather wildly— “Do you know that yesterday I learned in one choking gulp the grinding truth of my poor mother’s poor tragedy of life. I learned too,” she said slowly, throwing out her arms softly, with a pathetic gesture ,of ap peal, “all in one blinding second my own infinite love for her; but there was no time to tell, she died first. I am crushed with knowledge, I am spared nothing, and then—ah, sickness is degra ding! Delilah’s shears are nothing to it! To think that here in my hands I hold the whole unsuppressed heart of a man!” “But, Gwen, I cannot grasp it—how came you by all this knowledge? Humphrey was too ill to write all that big bundle of sheets.” “He wrote, as he spoke, in de lirium, part of it is absolutely maniacal, but my God! there is truth enough in it! I see Hum phrey’s poor sick naked soul in every line!” She hid her face and moaned softly. “But, love, I don’t understand —how came you by those sheets?” “Brydon sent the letters. Poor boy, he wrote a little humble scrawl himself, that has a touch of pathos in it.” “I think Brydon was the more delirious of the two! What bus iness had he meddling in mat ters too big for him?” “Oh, he’s young and very ro mantic, and—have you ever heard of that picture he painted of me?” “That sketch for your moth er?” she said softly. Gwen winced. “No, oh no, one he came down and made of me the day I was married. It is a beautiful, sexful mother-woman; it was to that woman Humphrey wrote those things! I am the rival of my own picture.” Mrs. Fellowes jumped up and knelt, weeping bitterly, at Gwen’s knees. “Gwen, send for Humphrey, yon are his first duty, he will come in spite of that miserable missionary who never had any business venturing his nose where no one wanted it—he will come to you at once!” For a second Gwen stared frozenly at her; then she drew herself a little away. “But why, whyshould I?” she asked. “Can you not see, my God! can you not see that I am not ready for him?” The cold gray of her turned to a vivid red, and got up hastily and went to window. 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