The One Woman | Page 6

or struggle against the tide any
more--that I was broken, bruised and done for all time, and I came
home feeling so--"
He paused a moment and a sigh caught his voice. His wife's face had
softened and a tear was quivering on her long eyelashes.
"I came home thus worn out to-night hoping for a word of cheer, yet
knowing it would be days before I could recover from the sheer

nerve-agony I had endured. What a reception you have given me! And
for what? A beautiful woman stopped to tell me my message had not
been in vain, that it had made for her a light on life's way, and that the
prayers in which I had tried to realise as my own, the people's thoughts
and hopes and fears had been a revelation to her, and because I
smiled--"
His wife was again staring at him with the glitter of jealousy. He saw it
and ceased to speak.
He suddenly sprang to his feet and walked to the door. Taking down his
hat and light overcoat from the rack, he said, as though to himself:
"We will spend the night under different roofs."
As he passed toward the door there was a faint cry fiom within scarcely
louder than a whisper, tense with agony and pitiful in its pleading
accents;
"Frank, dear, please come back!"
But when she summoned strength to rush to the door, crying with terror
she had never known before "Frank! Frank!" he had turned the corner
and disappeared.
CHAPTER II
VISIONS IN THE NIGHT

Gordon walked rapidly with the quick stride of the trained athlete.
Walking was a pet exercise.
His mind was now in a whirl of fury. He had never before given away
to passion in a quarrel with his wife. They had been married twelve
years, and, up to the birth of their boy, four years before, had lived as
happily as possible for two people of strong wills. Discord had slowly
grown as his fame increased. His wife was now jealous of almost every

woman who spoke to him.
They had quarreled before, but he had always kept a clear head and
laughed her out of countenance. These quarrels had ended with tears
and kisses and were forgotten until the next.
To-night somehow every thrust found his most sensitive spots. He
wondered why? Dimly conscious of a curious interest in the woman
who had spoken so sweetly to him at the close of his service, he
wondered if his wife divined the fact by some subtle power their long
association had developed and sharpened.
His enthusiasm for the Socialistic ideal was fast becoming an absorbing
passion, and was destined to lead him into strange company.
His wife felt this, resented it, and, becoming more and more
conservative, the gulf between them daily widened and deepened.
He cared nothing for her ridicule of his blond locks. He wore them half
in defiance of conventionality and half in whimsical love for the picture
of a beautiful mother from whom he had inherited them.
"What could have possessed her to-night?" he slowly muttered as he
emerged from Central Park and swung into Fifth Avenue. "Am I really
losing my grasp of truth because I am giving up traditional dogmas?
Has God given to her soul the power to look inside my heart and find
its secret thoughts? Why does she keep asking me if I have lost faith in
marriage? Never in word or deed have I hinted at such a thing."
And yet the memory of that beautiful woman, with a voice like liquid
music, friendly, soothing, reassuring, kept echoing through his soul.
As the tumult of passion died in the glow of the walk in the open air he
became conscious of the life of the city again. The avenue was a blaze
of light. Its miles of electric torches flashed like stars in the milky way.
He passed under dozens of awnings before palatial homes in front of
which stood lines of carriages. The old Dutch and English ancestors of

these people were once faithful observers of the Sabbath. Now they
went to church in the mornings as a form of good society and held their
receptions in the evenings. Some of them employed professional
vaudeville artists to enliven their Sunday social bouts.
New York, proud imperial Queen of the Night, seemed just waking to
her real life, a strange new life in human history--a life that had put
darkness to flight, snuffed out the light of moon and star, laughed at
sleep, twin sister of Death, and challenged the soul of man to live
without one refuge of silence or shadow.
And yet the warmth and glow, the splendour and beauty of it all stirred
his imagination and appealed to