Indiana State Sentinel, Indianapolis, Marion County, 17 February 1892 — Page 12

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THE INDIANA STATE SENTINEL. WEDNESDAY MORNING. FEBRUARY 17. 1892-T WELTE PAGES.

LOVE'S Y0UN6 DREAM; Or, ft SPLENDID EGOTIST. . A STORY BY JEANNETTE H. WALWORTH, Tho author of "That Girl From Texas," "The Bar Sinister," "The New Man at Rossmerc," etc

CHAPTER XTV'Iir. "Friends of the promising: young sculptor, Mr. Randall Mackaye, whose handsome face and figure -were seen often in iashionable parlors during the past spring, will regret to hear that he has completely broken down under tho strain of the severe labor he imposed upon himself during the recent heated term, and that he now lies suffering from an attack of nervous prostration, ia hia rooms, Studio building, X. Washington square. "Mr. Mackaye's genius ia equaled only by his ambition. He has for several years been industriously at work upon a statue from which he deservedly hoped to reap fame and fortune. It was hia fatal resolve to complete tbis 6tatue in time for the next academy opening which led to his overworking himself. "Iiis masterpiece now stands finished in bis studio, but if his own vigorous young life if to be sacrificed to it, one can hardly aive it the full meed of praise its transcendent merit claims." Perhaps of the thousands of eyes which were arrested by those three paragraphs in the City Sezeer for November of a certain date, in an uncertain year, three pair only read them a second time, and reading them, pondered them anxiously. Jeanne Lenox always read the City Hewer. It was "spicy." It "carved people up with 8ach a nice eharp knife." Even Miss Hildah was not above suspicion of haviug occasionally surreptitiously perused und enjoyed its highly-epiced malice. Jeanne read that statement about Randall Mackaye, and bending ner pretty Lead low over the papr. cried tempestuously for a little while in a really heartbroken fashion. That accounted for everything! accounted for Kiindall's not having been sear her 6ince they parted at Mrs. ChiltfcrnV, accounted for his queer, short replies to the notes she had sent him, conveying gentle little reproaches for his neglect of "his best friends." "Poor dear!" he had been killing himself trying to get that statue done, so that he could take Ida place before all men his proud, rightful place as a genius. As if she cared for anything but him just him just as he wasl And now perhaps he was going to die, and her father in Europe, and she nothing but a poor helpless girl, and nobody to help him ! Florence should, find out for her just how ill he was. If very ill, she would eo to him go to him in spite o the whole world. He was hers and she loved him! Js'o wonder Jeanne's toars flowed hot and fast Dolly Chiltern read it. Polly always read the City timer when he was in town. It was "so deucedly personal" that oue knew just exactly what everybody was up to without tbe trouble or personal inquiry. He would go straight to Mackaye. The fellow must be lonely, and it wasn't his fault that Jeanne Lenox had chosen to give her atTectiona to a penniless Bohemian rather than to him, Dolly Chiltern, worth half a miliion in his own rizht. He would "stand by Mackaye." Mrs. Roper read them and turned anxiously to look at tho date. The City Sewer waa not in her line. This copy had been left in her reception-room by a fashionable customer. It was a week old. He might be dead and buried by that time! And, whatever he might be, however he may have treated her. all was forgotten now, and she only remembered the child she had promised to care for all her life. In tremulous haste she sot into her very best dress and bonnet. ISome of his fashionable friends minht happen in while there, and ehe shouldn't like Ran to be ashamed of her. It was with a feeling akin to awe that she stepped into the Ftadio. The janitor had pointed it out to her. It was entirely unlike anything she had ever seen before, with its litter of white plaster casts and ghostly busts and pictures, and.there, mysteriously draped, "that tall thing," which rauit be the statue he had almost killed himself working at. On a sola-bed, so placed that his sad eyes, when open, must rest on it, lay Randall, his black hair matted over his broad, white forehead, and ono long, thin hand lying upon the back of the sofa. His eyes were closed when Mrs. Roper tiptoed cautiously toward him. She stood over him, with her best black kid gloves crossed meekly in front of her; there were tears in her gentle eyes. "Ran," ehe said softly bending over him with hushed breath. He opened his eyes, but evinced no surprise or emotion at her presence. He im ply gazed at hr. "It's me, Ran; your sister, Rebecca." 'Iknow you, Becky, and I am glad to eeyou. Find a chair for youself, won't you?" Th tears sprang afresh into good Mrs. Jloper'n eyes, tears of sorrow, perhaps, at eeeing Ran her Ran, who had looked so pay and handsomo and Btron? that night, fitting there in the square, lying here so white, wan and helpless tears of trratitade, perhaps, for the tardy words, "I an ! glad to see you." . ! thought, perhaps, if there was no pody you'd rather have, Kan, you'd let me txy and nurse you. I read about you in thm papers." There's nobody I'd rather have, Becky it is good of you to come, and I am glad to see you. You won't mind if I go to ;!eep. I am very tired. Kiss me, Becky, i Kiss mo good night as you used to a lonj 'time ago a pardoning kiss, sister." " bhe stooped down and kisaed him. That kies bridged over all these long years of neglect. It was the Ran of long ago come back to her. fche laid her bonnet and gloves aside, and stole about noiselessly setting things straight while he closed bis eves, fcihe heard hira sigh once a tired sigh ; then he lay quite still. There waa no end of medicine bottles etanding all about; and there were boufjuets in various stages of dacay. These Mrs. Roper bundled unceremoniously into a basket and. carrying theia to the elevator, asked the elevator boy if he would "kindly dump them in the 6treet: ''The mll of 'em is enough to kill a well man." "Them's the young lady's flowers. Did he say dump W out? ßhe fetches 'em very day." -Which young lady?" Mrs. Roper looked at the basketful of flowers anxiously. I'erhaps she was going a little too fast. Ran mignt be angry. "The one that comes 'bout dark, ßbe's a stunner. Petter-looking than the one that staid here at first with him. We all thought that one was Mrs. Mac." Mrs. Iloper'a eyes dilated with horror. "What depths of iniquity her poor Randall reust have sounded! She supposed all rti.ts were that war, however. J am jlr. Mocaye' auter." she eaii.

with spirit, "and I have come here to nurse him, I shall see that no one else intrudes on him." "All right, mum. I guess he needs a sister or some womankind to take him in hand. I can tell you " The electric button below cut short the elevator boy's confidence. lie drew the sliding door between him and Mrs. Roper and shot downward. Adoctorcame. looked at Randall, looked at the glass by his side, gave a few directions to Mrs. Roper, who eimply announced herself a9 his nurse, and went away. Randall still elept. A young man came, a tall, fair-haired, clear-eyed young man, who greeted Mrs. Roper courteously, bent solicitously over Randall, put a basket of grapes near the sofa, and, leaving a message from "Dolly Chiltern," went away. No one elso came. Tho ehort November afternoon wore away quickly. It was growing dusky in the studio. Out there in the corridors the gas was alizht Mrs. Roper cast about for something which would produce a mellow light in the studio. Nothing suitable could she find but the antique lamp, swingine: by its three silver chains, in the arch of the alcove where stood that shrouded "thing." She climbed on a chair to light it. "One of the sort of things the foolish virgins carried," she made no doubt. The yeliow flame responded quickly to her match. It caetsoft shadows over and about the veiled statue, over and about Randall, lying there in a dull sleep, over and about a girl's form

which was suddenly framed in the open doorway. She held a bunch of rose-buds in her hand. Mrs. Koper glided noiselessly toward the door, bnst'ing, all over with virtuous indignation. Rutting her two hands on the intruder's shoulders she quietly backed her into the corridor, until she had her immediately under a gas jet, all the time peerintr angrily into the veiled face. "Now, madam, who are you and what are you doing here? Heavens! Miss Lenox I" Her sacrilegious hands dropped from the shoulders of Jeanne's velvet basque! and hung limply by her eides. "I might have known that basque, anyway," the little reflection shot through her in that one second of amazement. "Roper!" The recognition was mutual. Jeanne bore no malice for the recent assault upon her. She clasped both hands about her assailant's neck. Her pretty face was pale and voebegone. "Don't keep me from him. Roper. I did not know you were a nurse. Rut I'm glud it h you who are with him, Koper, Oh, don't keep me from going in. He dots not know it. I come always when I know he will be asleep. I should die if I could not." Mrs. Roper could feel her trembling in hergraen. After all, if Randall got well this pretty thing would make him a sweet wife. Rut what a risk the poor, motherless thing was running! "Miss Lenox, are you engaged to that young man in there?" ehe aked, gently. "Yes no that is oh, Roper! I know I am putting myself completely in your power, but " "You are safe with me, Miss Lenox ; but there's, the world at large." Tho girl snapped her little fin sera fiercely. "That for the world at large ! I love him. He loves me. Ho would not speak out, because I was rich and he was poor. Oh, my love, my love, how could you be eo foolish ?" She pushed by Roper, and gliding noiselessly into the room, knelt for a second, with clasped hands, at the head of Randall's lounge. It seemed scarcely a moment before she stood bv Mrs. Roper, with shining tears in her big eyes. "I have not harmed him. Roper. Ho don't know that I have ever been here. Nobody does but Florence, my maid. If I could not come here and kneel there to ask God to make him well I could not stand it, Roper I could not stand it. I hae left the roses." Mrs. Roper traversed the long corridor with the girl's little hand in hers. l'oor, motherless, wayward child! So reckless and yet so pure. She wished somebody would lock her up. "When she got back to the studio Randall's eyes were wide open. A feverish spot burned on both his cheeks. He looked up at her absently, as ehe bent over him. Then the liht of recognition came slowly back into his eyes. "I thought, maybe, you had gone away from me, Becky. "Who did that?" He pointed feebly toward the swaying lamp. "I did. I cast about for a lamp that would make a soft light, and that was the oniy one I could find. A poor, heathenishlooking thing it is, too." "I like it. I am glad you did it. "Would vou mind taking that sheet oJf her face, Becky?" Iii eyes were fixed eagerly on the statue. "1 have not cared to uncover it for anybody else, but I'd like you to see hovr beautiful she wa?. Take the eheet off. Reeky." Mrs. Roper walked slowly toward the statute. Boor Kan, he certainly must bo wandering, to talk of a thing of marble as her. The sheet was off now, and, though the face was not visible from her point of view, the little dressmaker stood back in an attitude of startled wonder and admiring awe, which was not thrown away on Randall. "You like her, Becky?" "Like it, Randall! It's superb. She looks as if she had just turned her head J away to listen for something ehe wanted to hear. And her neck, and that arm and hand! Randall, tho world will ring with your name after once that thing ha.i been put on exhibition. "Then it will never ring with my name, Becky." "Come, now, that's a sick man's fancy. You think, because you are a little done op, the end of all things have come. "Wait till I get to coddling you with all the messes you used to love. Ran, don't you remember the time ycu came to school with the scarlet fever?" But be was not listening to her. He was lying on his side, gazing fixedly at the statue, over whowe brow the antique lamp shed a soft, lifelike radiance. He was repeating her own words: "Listening for something she wanted to hear. Oh, my love, my lore, my beautiful, have you not heard it of late? Have you not heard all my remorse, all my love, all my agony, over and over again? Would you come back to me if you could, my sweet? Could you only come back to me from the cold, cold water, and let me hear you say 'I forgiv you,' would you do it, my beautiful one? Have I not knelt and kissed your marble feet, my own? have I not pressed my hot cheeks to your little cold hands, darling, and you would not take pity on me ? Do you not know, where you are, my dear, that I would not let your image be gazed at by vulgar eyes?" "Ra.dall!" Mrs. Roper placed her email, black per

son resolutely between the statue and those Btariug eyes on the lounge and hurriedly replaced the sheet over the figure. He frightened her. He had worked at the beautiful (white fiend until 6he had bewiched him. He started perceptibly aa ! she called his name and broke his trance. His eyelids drooped heavily. He lifted them to ask: "Reeky, has Mr. Grayson been here?" "Mr. Grayson? no a Mr. Chiltern has been here and he told me to say, Randall, that he means to bring his own doctor here to-morrow. He says yours is a poor quack, but his will make a new man of you in no time." "Dolly is a good fellow a loyal friend. I don't deserve his friendship." "You deserve everybody's friendship Ran. You always did have the knack of making folks lovo you, Ran, from a little bov up." "She was smoothing his matted hair back from his forehead. The touch of a woman's hand was inexpressibly soothing. His eyes closed again, but he was not asleep. "If Mr. Grayson comes while I am asleep, Becky, make him stay and make tho old man comfortable, won't you, Becky?" "Yes, Ran. But who is Mr. Grayson, dear?" "He is my father-in-law, and my companion in grief." "Your father-in-law, Randall?" Hut no sound came from his drawn lips. She leaned forward and studied his face carefully. How beautitul it was! sc clean-cut, so pure in its outlines! "Yes, Rau had always had the fatal gift of beau tv. But what could he mean by a father-in-law?" CHAPTER XIX. It was when ehe was gfving hira his breakfast the next morning, pouring hia tea in the saucer to cool it. and buttering his toast for him, "for all the world as if he had just come home from school with the scariet fever," that Mrs. Roper first realized the ravages which illness had made in Randall's massive frame. Too weak to lift the cup to his lips, he lay there as docile as a little child, and seemingly deaf to her persistently cheerful chatter. Sne chattered to him of everything, beginning with his first trousers and concluding with a mysterious allusion to Jeanne's fiowers,-which wero now nodding their pretty heads at him over the edge of a crystal bowl on the stand at his elbow. Since Mrs. Roper had discovered that the llowers which were enough to "make a well man sick" were Jeanne Lenox's offerings, her views on that Bubject had undergone material modification. "Jeanne and Ran would be man and wife some of these days so it was all right." "I think I'll just run home for a few minutes and tell 'cm I'm not coming, Ran. You Bee, I didn't know, yesterday, whether you would let me stay or not, eo I came oifin something of a hurry." The toast was all eaten up and the teacup was empty. She would run home and lay out the work for the girls. But Ran must not know he was "putting her out" in the least. "Take thoso things with you, Reeky, and tell them not to bring any more here." She turned from the glass, where she was tying her black bonnet strings under her chin, to discover what it was she was to take away. It was Jeanne's roses. "But I can't, dear. That is oh, Ran. vou wouldn't hurt her feelings, would you?" "Hurt her feelings! Hurt whose feeling-. Reeky?" "Hers she's the one that brings them that sends them, I mean. My, ho he does stare !" Mrs. Roper wa3 floundering in deep waters. It had occurred to her, sitting there by Ran's lounge, keeping lonely vizils in tho night just gone, tnat che miht possibly 6mootb the way for these two loving young hearts. If only Ran could be made to understand that his poverty need not keep him and Jeanne Lenox apart, it would be smooth sailing. Nothing had seemed simpler the night before. She had settled the entire matter with "neatness and dispatch ;" had married Jeanne and Randall light there by Ran's sofa-bed; had effaced herself completely once more, and seen the happy couple start for a continental tour, all without moving from the patent rocker, w hich only rocked when she had leaned forward to look into the still, white face on the lounge. Nothing seemed more difficult, with the prosaic light of a gray November dav fall

ing harshly into the studio through its big uncurtained window, with beer trucks trundling noisily by the house every little while, and Randall staring at her with intensely wide-open eyes, and with such an excessively displeased look about his lips. "What do you mean, Becky?" "Nothing. Ran; only I think the roses are so lovely, and whoever spent their money on them must have been thinking kind thoughts about you, dear; don't you think eo?" "Bid a lady bring theeo flowers here, Becky?" Whatever came, Jeanne should not puffer at her hands if she had to lie right through and pray for forgiveness all the rest of her days, was the resolution quickly formed and stubbornly adhered to by Mrs. Koper. "A young woman, Ran might have been the waitress, you know, of some of your lady trieads, you know." "A young woman! Was she slight and graceful?" "Slight enough, Ran. You know them hard-workin? girls don't accumulate none too much llesh. I wasn't looking for grace. I was looking for your other slipper." "Eves like a little child' 6? big, innocent eyes?" "Dear me, Ran, yon sound like a detective. .She may have squinted, for all I know, or worn green spectacles. She wasn't hf re five minutes" (thank heaven for the privilege of inserting that much truth !) "and you're asking me to describe her like I was a photograph man who had been taking her points for half an hour. I'm going now. Ran, and I'll be back within half an hour. She would not stay there and have tbe truth jerked out of her. "Take the roses with you, Becky ; I do not want them. Take them away. Reeky." Mrs. Roner lifted Jeanne's roses from the crystal bowl with mixed emotions. It was a pity Miss Lenox's oMering should be slighted in this way, but Ran was so cross and masterful this morning that he must begetting well and there was solid comfort in that thought. When she got back to the studio, after having laid out the day's work for her girls, Mrs. Roper found two strange men there. They were standing in the big uncurtained window. Randall was sleeping heavily. The men were talking. These two men presented a very eharp contrast to each other. The older one was quite feeble. Hisjform was bent, his face was deeply furrowed with lines of care, and the finger he had laid impressively on the younger man's broadclothed arm was tho trembling finger of an old man. The younger man was listening with the gravest attention to something the other was saving. She was Randall's sister and his nurse.

and if they were talking about Ran she had a right to hear. She came and stood near them. "I am his nurse," ehe said. "I've come to stay." The old man waived her an old-fashioned bow; the younger said curtly: "He needs you more than he needs me, I imagine, madam." But the old man was impatient of this interruption. He plucked the other by his sleeve pettishly: "He may wake up, doctor, and, as I waa saying, I think we ought to do by our doctors as we do by our lawyers, tell them the whole truth and not leave them to guess at cause from effect." "You are quite right, sir; I am listening with intereet." It was John Milbank standing there looking down into old Mr. Grayson's face. Ever since, sent by Dolly Chiltern, he had entered the studio and lound this feeblo old man walking restlessly up and down in front of the sick man's lounge, he had been puzzling over, that rugged face, with its searching eyes peering from under their 6haggy gray eyebrows. He had not yet connected it with the photograph, which in itself had meant nothing to him, but which, when found M'ith Marianne's agitated scrawl on its back, had suddenly become sacred in his eyes, Thotos are often misleading. This old, rugged man had not euzgestedthis. "I feel like a criminal every time I look at him," tho old man was saying, with peevish misery in his voice. "I ought to have known better than to break bad news to him so suddenly; but you see, doctor you Eee, I thought men always found tho grit when it was needed, and I thought it was only womankind that had to have things broken to them gradually." "There is an exploded theory to that effect," eaid Dr. Millbank, caressing his close-cropped whiskers absently. "Nobody broke it to me. It came on me like a blow from a hammer in a tri ant's hand. It came in a telegram from Davie Lockhardt in plain, bold words; but every one of them dropped on my heart like a red-hot coal, doctor. Nannie is dead! Drowned.' I suppose Davio couldn't afford to make it longer. Rut I 'most wish he had waited to write it iu a letter. Telegrams are euch hard sort of things, you know." Dr. Milbank had turned suddenly away from the old man and walked toward the alcove whero the shrouded statue stood. He knew now why that rugsred old face had haunted him so. That was the father, and doubtless that other one, tho husband. Quaer that he, John Milbank, who rather prided himeelf on his ability to read character, should have fallen such an easy prey to a beautiful face and a soft Voice. These were the men she had wilfully deserted why, he was never to know, perhaps. The old man had followed him to the alcove. "Y'ou think I'm consuming your time uselessly, don't you. Doctor? But I thought if you knew the whole truth you micht work to better advantage." "I should like to know the whole truth very much indeed. Sit down, Mr. Grayson." "Queer how you trot hold of my name, seeing there was nobody to introduce us ! That is my son-in-law, doctor, and the 'Nannie' that is dead was my daughter, hi3 wife. She was a beautiful woman, and we both loved her. I never knew how much he loved her till I came here that morning and broke the news to him without any warning." Yes yes 6he was away on a visit when she'?" "Not just exactly, doctor. Nannie was a etrange creature one of that fanciful sort that was always looking for the path of duty in some out-of-the-way track aud determining to follow it out accctding to her own lights, he would have oeen burned at the stake if she had li ed in the days when it was risky to be a Christian. "Ran wasn't always the quiet thins you see lying there now, Doctor. I think he and Nannio made a mistake in getting married. Rut that's neither here nor there. Then when they moved over to the city here, and Ran got to be run after, like rising artists will, you know Doctor, Nannie got a sort of morbid notion that she was amilletone around bis neck, and that he could climb better without her than with her. Then they had a little titf one day young married people w ill, you know. Doctor and he used an ugly word. It was 'hampered.' She tried to get him to take it back, but he wouldn't. Then, you see, she came to the conclusion that he really meant it, and she went away, telling him she meant to leave him free to make the very most of his talents. Nannie was always wiltul." "And she went away without consulting you?" If this whole matter had concerned persons he had never heard of before, Dr. Milbank's voice could not have loen quieter or hia manner more thoroughly slf-contained. He was holding himself in with a mighty effort "No ehe came to see mo. Nannie was alwavs good and sweet to me. She told me all that I have told you, that night, and she told me not to worry about her I should hear from her if she was not well. I have heard, Doctor." "Why did vou not keep her with

vou She would not star, Doctor. She said Ran would need me. You see, he wob au old pupil of mine, and had never got out of the way of sort of leaning on me, and she thought he would not come to mo if ehe was thero. She always believed ) 'andall could do something great f he wanted to and wasn't hampered." "Has he justified her expectations?'' The old man pointed to the ehrouded statue. "Thero etands a work of art which would make the name of that poor boy lying there famous forever." Dr. Milbank looked at th shrouded figure with an interest that was positively painful. It was the altar upon which ehe had been immolated. "When will it bo put on exhibition?" "Never." "No?" "No. He did not finish it for that. He worked at it like a madman all summer, doctor. He seemed all at once to realizo what a grand, what an unsc-liish thiner his wile had done, and all his vanity, all his listlessness seemed to drop away from him in consequence. He carm ovr to see me in Hoboken I think it was about the first week in August to hear if I had heard anything of Nannie. I told him I hado't. He sat thinking a long time, then he eaid suddenly: 'Father-in-law, I was not worthy of her. I could not understand her then, but I do now. She will give no sign until the masterpiece is finished and the world calls me great. Then ehe will come back and be my own loving, forgiving, gentle Nan-nan again. She is watching me from somewhere.' After he got that idea into his head he never seemed happy unless he was at work on the etatue. And do you know, doctor maybe ycu, as a physician, may underst and this part better than I do the longer he worked the more in love with it, or with his wLe, he seemed to become, until, by heavens, sir, the passion grew to be a consuming one and he never was happy away from it." "Pygmalion and Galatea,' said John Milbank, under his breath. It hurt him sorely to think that the woman to whom he had given his heart's first, strong, pure ove should ever have been the wife of hat vacillating weakling, lying there now. vacillating between life and death. "Why is the world not to have tbe benefit of this wife's sacrifice?" he asked, turning curious eyes once more upon the etatue. "Recause." said the old man, his voice

sinking to a husky whisper, "she stood for the model. It's her my beautiful child turned to 6tone, that stands there." A consuming desire to see it once, only once, took possession of the outwardly quiet man into whose ears Mr. Grayson had poured this story. "Might not I be made a solitary exception of? I am not the general public I will not look on it with profane eyes." The old portrait painter turned his eyes anxiously toward the lounge. "Seeing you're his doctor I might " "He will sleep for an hour yet," said Di. Milbank, impatiently. "He's very much exhausted." I shall prescribe a tonic." He obeyed a motion from the old man's hand. Retween them they noiselessly drew the portiere in Iront of the alcove. Then the old man applied a match to the antique lamp and drew aside the veil that hid the masterpiece from view. With her beautiful head turned slightly to one sid9, her right hand upraised, the left hanging by her side, resting against the folds of marble drapery, ehe stood. He had seen her just in that attitude, when, turning once in the water, he had glanced back toward the rock he had left her standing on. She was dressed in white flannel no spot of color about her. She had lifted her hand, almost as if beckoning him back to her tide. Iu spite of his anger he had then in his heart called her "majestic" and "superb." Standing there before her tfigy he called her so now. "I think I will go back to Ran ; I can't stand looking at it yet doctor. Rut out the lamp, please, when you get through." He had heard an old man's husky voice paving this at his elbow. He had heard the portiere softly lifted and dropped again. Then he stood there alone with it alone with her alone with his dead! How long, he did not know. He heard voices in the outer room, among them the sick loan's querulous tones. The old portrait painter was once more at his elbow, quickly shrouding the statue and extinguishing the lamp. "Do you wonder now," he was saying, '"that when I put that cruel telegram before his eyes without a moment's warning he broke "down, doctor?" "No. I don't wonder at that." What he did wonder at was that the woman, whom, thank God! he could once more think of as something truer, stronger and sweeter than the best woman he had ever known, could have wasted her truth, her ßtrenzth and her sweetness on the man whom Dolly Ciltern had sent hira there to physic, and for whose benefit he was presently exercieing his best professional talents. CHAPTER XX. Tho note which Dolly Chiltern had written to Dr. Milbank, requesting Lira "as a personal favor" to call at tbe 6'udio building on North Washington square and see what could be done for "hie friend," Mr. Randall Machaye, had contained the supplemental request that the doctor on his way back from this visit would drop in at Dolly's ciub and lunch with him. Now, Dr. Milbank was a favorite with the entire Chiltern crowd, and, as Mrs. Chiltern always moved into town on the first of November, nothing would have been easier than for Dolly to indicate the house on Fifty-seventh-st. as the place of rendezvous for lunch. Rut the boy was meditating a kindness, and he felt shy and guilty about it. ''Milbank" must manage tho entire business for him, and they could talk it over better in one of the snug little private dining rooms at the club, where the tables were to be laid for two, than up home "among the women." He was waiting for Milbank in one of the library alcoves at the club, at the precise moment when John Milbank was etanding behind the portiere in Randall's studio, wrapped in contemplation of the sculptor's masterpiece. Dolly was poring over a portfolio of engravings. He had seen the things a hundred times before, but he must do something with his eyes while waiting for Milbank. With his ears ho was just then beginning to take note of the talk of the two men ia the next aicove. The jutting bookshelves shut them from view, but he believed he knew the voices. The talk had floated about him as tho buzzing of insects, until he imagined he heard two names brought into it. Tbe names were "Jeanne Lenox" and "Mackaye, the masher." Dolly, with his elbows leaning on the table in front of him, and his chin supported in his palms, flushed from cheek to temple, bat sat perfectly still to make Eure he was not mistaken. No, he was not mistaken. Miss Lenox's name came into the talk again. Then he got up, and laying the prints back in their portfolio with precision, he sauntered into the alcove where the two men gossips sat, their feet stretched before the glowing anthracite fire, and their newspapers lying across their knees. Roth were old club men men who had tried life in its various aspects and found it lacking in flavor in all of them. Dolly lolled against the mantelpiece, one elbow resting on it as he looked down at them. There was a glitter in his blue eyes, which might have been caught from the fiames of the anthracite fire, but was not. One cf the men ulanced up at him pleasantly: "Reynolds here was just telling me that Mackaye is down with a low fever. You know him, I believe." "Yes, I know him. I believe he ia ill. Overwork, they say, or something of that sort." "A man is a fool to work for a living when ho can make it without work. But perhaps he has yearnings fame immortal glory and all the rest of it, you know." "Perhaps! Thero are some men, those who are not so fortunate as to be born rich and satiated, who do have yearnings, as you call them. Or, perhaps, Mr. Mackaye has not discovered that secret of making a living without work, which youalludo to." "It has not been the girl's fault if he has not, then." "Which girl?" "Dolly was still lounging languidly against the low marble mantel. Odo hand was gloved, and through it he was slowly drawing his empty glove. His glittering eyes were fastened on the men sitting there below him, and his strong young frame was vibrating to the passion that rilled every inner recess. "Which girl? Why Jerome Lenox's daughter. She has made a perfect fool of herself about the fellow, especially since he has been laid up." Dolly's face blanched, but his voice remained perfectly steady. "What has she done since he has been laid up?" "Nothing much only visited his room every day, carrying flowers, etc., etc." "Do you know that to be true?" "I know that to be true." "Then you are an infernal cad for not keeping it to yourself." The young voice was still stead v, though fierce in its intense scorn, as Dolly leaned forward quickly and drew the fingers of his empty glove across the man's lips. There was a start of amazement an audible oath or two a flash of silver hurling through the air, and then Dolly Chiltern lay quite still, stunned by a blow from a heavy goblet taken from a tray near by. His assailant was kneeling over him, pouring abject apologies into hia- ears when Dr. Milbank entered the room. Retween them they got the tall form stretched noon a "sofa and their worst

fears relieved by the doctor's prompt verdict: "He ia only stunned. Will come around presently. I should prefer, gentlemen, tfcat he should see no one but me when he does come to himself." The men all went away and Dr. Milbank worked with Dolly alone until the blue eyes opened with a startled expression and he sat up suddenly, putting his hand to his temple. 'What happened to me? Oh yes curse him ! Where is he?" "Stuart?" "Yes." "He is gone. But he left his humble apology with me for something. What was it, Dolly? Have you been measuring lances with that antiquated old reprobate ? He is an ox tor strength, Dolly." "He epoke insolently of a lady and I could not help it. Will this thing ehow?" he touched his temple with one finger. "Why, you've plastered me!" His face was füll öf disgust. "You've got an ugly cut there. Tho edge of the goblet was sharp." "And that will involve a lie. I'll have to explain that cut to five different women tell a distinct lie five times over." "Let me do it for you," said Dr. Milbank, smiling down in the white, boyish face on the sofa. "I think I can save you the lie at least." 'Then you'll be saving me the toughest part of it. It's astonishing, doctor, how good women will drive men into corners. Rut I say, doctor, unless Stuart takes it back his apology won't etand. I don't wan't hira to apologize to me for doing this." "I think he means to make it entirely satisfactory. He said you should hear from him. I don't know what you did, but it seems to have enhanced his respect for you." "Then that's all right. Now, then, tell me about Mackaye. This beastly business drove him clean out of my head for a while." Dr. Milbank's voice grew decidedly less pleasant. It is not a case for physic. The man has overtaxed his strength, and complete rest, with change of scene, is all that can help him." "I thought as much myself." said Dolly, reflectively ; "and that was the reason I wanted to see you here alone, Doctor. I want you to manage it for me. I don't exactly know how to go about it. You do." lie was stammering and blushing most absurdly. "You" mean that you want me to lend him the money to take tho trip on, Dolly?" "Exactly." "That's good of you, and very much like Dolly Chiltern. Rut how do you know he can't'afford ithimself?" "I take it he is not very prosperous yet. They say he's been banking on this masterpiece of his to bring him in something substantial. But that is not sold yet, you see. I might offer to buy that couldn't I, now? Y'ou eee, I don't want him to suepect that it's a sort of veiled charity, and he would suspect me. Doctor; but if you were to ofier to buy the statue it could not be anything but a purely commercial transaction." "No, oh no, it could not be anything but a purely commercial transaction with me. But it "happens, Dolly, that the statue is not on the market." ",oton the market!" "No not even to be exhibited." "Who says so?" "His father-in-law." "Father-in-law !" "Yes. It seems that the etatue was modelled from his own wife, and it was the shock of hearing that she was dead which brought about this attack." Dolly Chiltern sat on the sofa, staring into Dr. Milbank's face incredulously. Dr. Milbank returned his Etare with eyes absolutely steady and grave. No one could have suspected that the tragedy of Randall Mackaye's life touched both these men almost as nearly as it did himself. "Do you mean to tell me that he has lost his wife recently, Milbank?" "The lDth day of August." Who knew the date better than he? Dolly sprang tempestuously to his feet. His face was purple with wrath. His hands were clenched until the nails indented his flesh. Dr. Milbank watched him in mute perplexity as he made the circuit of the long library, staggering like a drunken man. "You had better sit down, Chiltern. You've had eomething of a shock this morning, and you're not at all steady on your feet. I don't quite understand your present excitement. Dolly came back to the sofa and fell back upon its cushions with a sigh of profound depression. "He is an accursed fraud, and I hope he may" "Come, don't be childish, Dolly. What are you epitting out baby anathemas for? Has this man Mackaye injured you in any way? He seems to be in a good many people's way." Dolly looked up piteously. He would like very much to tell Milbank the whole etory but perhaps now that the wife was dead, Mackaye and Jeanne would get married, and then the gossips' tongues would cease wagging. Thero was no knowing how much a woman would forgive a man if she loved him. "Do you suppose he Mackaye, knew his wife was living up to August, doctor?" he asked, hoarsely. Dr. Milbank looked at him contemptuously. "Is it likely a man should have a wife living, a handsome wife, too, Dolly, from whom he had never been divorced, and not know it?" "But she is dead now." "She is dead now." "You are quite sure of that?" "Quite snre." (Who so sure ss he?) "Thank God?" "For what? For the death of a woman? Perhaps she was a true woman, Dolly, who could not bear contumely and neglect. Perhaps she was a brave woman, who dared follow her convictions, even though they led her through the valley of the shadow of death. Perhaps she was a beautiful woman, who might have made the sunshine of eome other man's life, some man who knew how to deal with so line a spirit." "Perhaps granted all that and more. Still thank God ! For now her fair fame can be saved. One preys upon another, Doctor." He buried hia head in the sofa cushions, and it seemed as he would never raise it again. His frame was convulsed with a burst of grief which was no disgrace to his young manhood. John Milbank walked over to one of the windows and stood staring out into the street It looked out of the avenue and a stream of .glittering equipages, filled with well-dressed women, rolled by the line of his vision. They might have been so many stuffed dolls, in toy perambulators, for all he saw of them. He had gone back, as was his constant custom now, if he granted himself a moment's retrospection, to that moment when he had turned away from Marianne, with hot words of condemnation, and left her standing, majestic in her mute Borrow, upon the rocks of Tea Island. "I was a brute a maddened brute. Even then I knew it." He felt a touch on hia shoulder, and Dolly's arm fell about his neck caressingly. "1 want some advice, Doc, and it's of the 6ort I can't go to mother or the girls for. You are my only hope." "If mine will be worth anything to rou

it is entirely at your service. Rut let us sit down somewhere." They walked away from the window arm-in-arm. Dolly led the way into the room where the table had been laid for their luncheon, and ordered it serveL "We can talk here better. I was trying, as I lay there on the sofa, to make up my mind about eemething, doctor, and I can't. I'm not sure of my own motives, you eee. That alwavs hobbles a fellow." "Well, Dolly?" "I'm in love with a girl, doctor, a gir whom j-ou will say must fall very little short of perfection, when I tll you that mother and the girls have courted her about as hard as I have. They all wanted it" "Strong testimony to her worth, Dolly.'r "And 1 believe my chance with her waa. good. Doctor, more "than good, until eho met him." "Whom? The sculptor? "Yes Mackaye." Dolly's clear eyea darkened wrathfully. "Yoa see, nobody knew him for a married man and and he's won her affections, so that she's had no eyes nor thought since for anybody. I've winced under it, but I thought, until you told me about the wife, that it was all right, and I felt that it would be a shabby thing to let him lay there and dia for the want of a little dirty money." Here the boy suddenly lost all control of himeelf. "He's a scoundrel, doctor, a blackhearted fraud." "I quite agree with vou, Dollv; but go on." "And if the wife was living I'd knowex actly where I stand. I would go to Mr. the young lady's father, I mean and tell him to kick the fellow out of his doors the next tim he .darkened them. But a the" wife is dead " "You think it best to let her wed her black-hearted fraud in peace. Is that it, Dolly?" "Not exactly." Dolly bowed his head in ehauie. The huini iation was tor the woman he loved. "Not exactly that, doctor; but the gossips have got bold of her name and " "Ah, now I understand. By the way, my boy. your excitement has started thecut to bleeding again permit nie." He went over and etood behind Dolly, arranging a fresh piece of piaster over the cut with cool, skilful fingers. I would bo easier for Chiltern to talk with bim standin? behind him so. Dolly put a hand over his and gave it a slight pressure, which told him he was understood. "And perhaps I had better let thing take their course. Y"ou see, ehe lovos him. I know it. And 1 wouldn't be sure. of my own motives if I meddled. Not at all." "She thinks she loves him. She is an untrained little mortal, who has what the calls an enthusiasm for art ; and when art presents iteeli in the gtiio of a handoine artist, many a silly heart flutters nervously with what it is pleased to call .ove. Miss Lenox is no exception to the rule of giris whose views of liie are larpely determined for them by French maids." "Miss I.ienox'." Roily faced upon him fiercely '"then have you too " "Known that you were in love with Jerome Lenox's daughter? Quite a while, my dear bov. Rver since I baw you together at the lat Patriarchs'." "She is worthy any man's devotion." said Dolly lovallv. "I don't doubt'it. I den't doubt it at all, Dolly; but as for this other matter." "Well?" "I think I would let thr.t re?t, at least until it is sure that the man will cot die." "If money can save him, doctor, he shall not die. Promise me that!' And Dr. Milbank promised. tOXTIM KD NEXT WKKK. Swt Vnleutiltf. Sweet Valentine, give me tho ri,;ht, I frzr. To 11 thee thin, and though tUe north mini blows breath conpealei with driven suowg, That g'ittcr as the diamond's ;arklinf Tiy, Tbe name shall driTe the winter f&r awaj, And warm the heart with glorious drearus of lore; Such as might tempt a saint from re'ias above. Sweet Valentine, how lovely thy army Of charms and graces; sweetest voice il thine, Charming the hearer like a iuacic purt, Alas! too hii;h and pre'cr to be mine. Yet at thy fairy feet I lay my h-art And beg a glance, perhaps glaure dirire. Ia pity give it me. Sweet Valentine. J. S. Smith. Overtiming It. , iK. T. Weekly. Lobby Lounzer "The new piny didn't po very well, even for a first nicht?' Leading Man (wearily) ".No, it had been rehearsed so many times we all got tired of it."

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