across wild fields, and green rounded hills with white gashes in them, to the shining gray of the sea. When they looked to the west, their own spacious gray-stone summer "cottage" with its gay awnings and irregular complement of verandas and wide-swung windows filled the view; while here and there to the north and south were other hedgedefended gardens and luxurious, misnamed "cottages." There was a sharp touch in the air, and even the vegetation by the sea showed that autumn was well advanced.

"I suppose you know," said Mrs. Morton, "that Paul has not been at his office for over two weeks."

"No; I did not," replied Ethel in a low tone.

For the next few minutes they moved among the beds in silence, but it was plain they were both thinking of something else. Mrs. Morton twitched sharply at the flowers she stooped for, and moved rapidly from place to place. Ethel would disengage a blossom from its foliage and lift it into the light, and then stand or stoop staring at it, forgetting what she was looking at.

"I thought," said Ethel presently, "when the baby came that he would take his old interest in his profession."

"H'm!" snorted Mrs. Morton impatiently. "That man seems to have lost all proper pride. If he were not my brother, I could almost despise him."

"Oh, Carrie!"

"Well, look at him! There is no more brilliant lawyer in New York than he is. He might be at the head of his profession. His firm have kept his name all these years because of what he promised to be. And now he does nothing!"

"But he did go back to his office for a while."

"Yes; until they began to give him some real work to do”—and Mrs. Morton was off again, briskly snipping here and jabbing there.

V.

rant table where he could command a view of the street. He was taking his luncheon alone, for none of his friends knew that he was in the city that day. He had not been to the office, though he had kissed Stella and "the boy" goodbye in the morning on the understanding that "Daddy was going to work." Stella had even made a great play of pretending that she was telling "the boy" where to carry his dinner-pail at noon.

A waiter who had been regarding him from behind over the top of a screen, with open contempt on his smug, vulgar face, now came to his side.

"Ah!" said Paul with satisfaction, "Isn't this your table?”

"No"-with disgust-"the immigrant that runs this place has moved me to another room."

"What room?" "The pink."

"I'll remember."

"Dutchy may move me again ”—in restrained resignation.

"Oh, well!-Any news?"-looking up at the shifty eyes that were set well back in the pallid, greasy-skinned face of the man who vulgarized his evening dress.

"She is livin' with a chap called Dan. Steacy—a broker-over in Jersey; nice little villa-a maid-credit at a livery— The waiter stopped, and glanced with a familiar, "we-understand-each-other" sort of expression at Paul.

Paul caught the look fairly in the face and shrank from it with a disgust at himself which he hid with difficulty. "Thanks," he said shortly. "Want the address?" "You might give it to me."

The waiter grinned at his assumption of carelessness, and slipped him a card. Paul dipped his finger into his vest-pocket, and when his hand went to that of the waiter, there was a crinkle and a glint of green.

"Thank you, sir!" said the waiter with habitual obsequiousness and turned slowly away.

"A moment," said Paul, looking over his shoulder. "Did she see you to know

Paul's slow-growing disgust came to attention at the last phrase.

"I said you were back-and at your law again

"Did she say anything more?"

The waiter shifted uneasily on his feet. "Oh, nothing much," he replied presently.

"What?" insistently, from Paul.

"Oh! some woman's tommy - rot. Said she was glad to hear it-that you were a great man, and well rid of the likes of her." And the waiter grinned to cover his discomfort in repeating so much

womanish sentiment.

Paul sat perfectly still looking through the window out into the street until another waiter awaked him by asking for his next order. And that afternoon, he went into the offices of his firm, and sat until closing hour at his old desk.

VI.

Paul grew quite assiduous in the practice of the law, though his partners soon learned that it would not do to burden him with too much detail. The overmastering appetite for work which had characterized him in the first days, long ago, had not returned; but he came to the office doggedly, and had flashes of brilliant insight and inspiration in discussing difficult cases with them.

One morning, not long after the Christmas holidays, Stella was in a great state of excitement. She had got up an hour earlier than was usual with her; and, going to the kitchen, had superintended herself the making of Paul's coffee and had put the cook into quite a temper making sure that every detail of the breakfast would be exactly as Paul liked it.

For Paul was to plead a case in court that morning. It was an affair of such

importance that Paul's picture had been in the papers twice in connection with it already.

Anxiously she regarded him from behind the cream-jug and breakfast cups as he ate his orange. She feared that he looked pale; but she would not let him know it for worlds. She must be cheerful and send him off in good spirits.

"Will you have time for luncheon, do you think?" she asked as if it were a matter of the gravest importance.

"Sure!" said Paul gaily. "The court eats, you know."

"Yes; but I was afraid you might be tempted to read up then"; and her eyes pleaded with him to do nothing so foolish. Oh, no. Henderson is fagging out

66

the law."

"Now "-with brisk importance-" will you just try that egg, Paul, and see that it is not too hard. If it is the least bit hard, you must n't take it. I'll have another boiled."

Paul tapped it gently. "It's prime!" he said with anticipatory enjoyment in his tones.

"Let me see!"—with playful tyranny. Paul held it up for her inspection. "Yes," she said, gravely. "I think that will do."

"You must remember, darling," he said, protestingly, "that I am suffering from no mortal disease just now."

"But it is so important that you should feel at your best this morning," she explained with an effort not to be too serious.

When he was ready to go, "the boy" was held up to kiss him "good-bye,” and then to kiss him "good luck," and then to kiss him a wish that "Daddy would win." And then two wifely lips were held out to him, tremulous and passionate; and while they pressed against his, he was conscious that the voice behind them was whispering "Success! Success! Dearest, Success!"

When addressing the court, he had the pleasurable sensation that he was doing well; but when the counsel for the other side replied, he knew that he had lacked

for detail. He know that he should have worked harder and got the detail. But why should he? It was drudgery-But, damn it all! that fellow was winning the case because he had been a drudge. He had a poor style about him, too; but he must have searched the law-libraries of the world for so many parallel cases. Paul knew from the way his partners looked at him that they thought he was losing his grip. But he was n't. He was just as good as he ever was-only he did not make a slave of himself any longer. He could see a point twice as quickly as any of those chaps-their minds were dray-horses. But they cared nothing about living-they worked-workedworked

The opposing counsel was now entering upon quite a new field which Paul had left entirely unexplored. He could have made a good deal out of it, too, for his side; but he had not had time while at the office to look it up properly. Jove! there was a slip; and Paul was up calling the attention of the court to it. The court ruled promptly with him, and Paul looked triumphantly at his partners. There was a gleam of relief on their faces; but it was such as the partisans of a beaten player might wear at a chance good shot which, however, could not affect the final result. Again the stream of fact and precedent flowed from the dull opposing counsel, and the court took notes industriously. Paul knew that he was being beaten. It was not enough in this field merely to be brilliant.

And for years he had been king in his world without an effort!

Bah! These grubbing lawyers! What did they matter? What did their opinion of him matter? A woman, the blueveined snow of whose shoulder was worth them all, called that elder partner of his "four eyes ❞—and a good name it was!— and the other partner was-let me see! oh, yes!" spindle-shanks"; and a derisive smile lay on Paul's face which had no reference to the pertinence of the case which the opposing counsel was just then quoting.

Again Mrs. Morton waited in the Norwood drawing-room for Stella to come down. It was one year after Paul had lost his "case." Again, she was going to appeal to Stella to do her duty.

Stella came into the room with a firm step, her head held erect, her eyes stormswept but resolute.

Stella," said Mrs. Morton. "I've come to beg of you to reconsider.”

"I have considered, and re-considered, and re-re-considered," returned Stella. "I know you have been long-suffering," admitted Mrs. Morton.

"Long-suffering!" cried Stella. "My heart has been torn out in fragments. If it had not been for my boy, I never would have endured it half so long." "And for your boy's sake nowgan Mrs. Morton.

be

"It is for my boy's sake that I am enduring all this publicity," said Stella. "I want no blackguard to have a father's claim to him."

Mrs. Morton looked at her with level eyes. "I shall not dispute that epithet,” she said, "although it applies to my own

"My God! What right had you to think about a thing of that kind. You ought to have been sure-sure before you sacrificed my life on-on the chance."

"I?-Sacrificed your life?" “Yes”—firmly, her eyes blazing right upon Mrs. Morton's "You were the married woman-the woman of experience-you pretended to know men-and he was your brother. I was a young girl who knew nothing nothing! 'Duty was a big word to me; and you used it pitilessly pitilessly. And I gave my very soul to him." Her eyes flooded with tears of self-pity, and she moved away toward the window.

"Then it is no use to plead ?" "None!-He is dead!-Do think" you -her voice steadied with an earnest scorn -"that the flaccid creature, without ambition, without honor, who quarrels with another man for a woman they have both had, like dogs in the street, is the husband I married?"

Mrs. Morton did not answer, but said after a moment: "Well, I have made my last effort to save him." It was plain that she made a virtue of it, and thought that she might well wash her hands of him now.

"Yes," said Stella, her tones growing deeper. "And your last effort was to 'procure' a maiden for him."

were older and wiser-and I was a child. I would know now."

"I won't listen to such insulting talk," rapped out Mrs. Morton ineffectively.

"If there is a bar of justice in the universe, you will!" returned Stella. "Yours was a criminal conspiracy against me. It could never have 'saved' your brother, and you knew it. It might have kept him outwardly a respectable married man, and saved you from disgrace. It might have induced him to abandon a woman he had no right to abandon! But after years of living on her level-seeking the approval of her world-he never could have been made such a man again as my young girl's heart thought him. Our home could never have been more than the refuge of a crippled man—-—”

"But you knew-all that," Mrs. Morton managed to say.

"My girl's instinct did," said Stella; "but you you talked it down. You made me believe there was still a Paul Parker to be saved."

"The worst of sinners are saved," said Mrs. Morton, steadying herself by taking hold of a theological rock.

"Yes," said Stella; "but not by committing a greater sin. If he married that

woman

66

Shocking!" cried Mrs. Morton, feeling that Stella was now delivering herself into her hands. "You cannot mean that."

"God has so made it," said Stella solemnly, "that when a man and a woman mate, their souls marry whether they will or not, and grow more and more like each other. There may be no ceremony, but there is marriage. Your brother and I married, and my soul is sick yet with the dirt he left on it."

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"What right had he to marry me?" demanded Stella, never giving a step. "You knew that he had no right. You

"I am not so sure," said Stella; and they bowed to each other in farewell. ALBERT R. CARMAN.

Montreal, Canada.

Stuyvesant Fish: The Man Who Refused to Prostitute His Mental and Moral Integrity at The Behest of Wall Street "High Financiers.”

TO MAN in America has been more in the public eye of late than Stuyvesant Fish, whose discussion of "Economy" in THE ARENA for March has been so widely and favorably noted by the press. Mr. Fish has long been president of the Illinois Central Railroad and one of the leading practical railroad men of the nation. He, however, has enjoyed a distinction as honorable as unique among the great railway and financial leaders of modern times, in that he has resolutely refused to join the band of Wall-street gamblers who have brought such discredit upon American financiers by making the great utilities and natural monopolies the stakes in colossal games of chance-or rather, in schemes for enrichment through gambling with loaded dice. For the years have long since passed when the great Wallstreet financiers who reap millions from longplanned and carefully-worked bull and bear measures in railway, mining and other securities took any serious chances in their speculative or gambling games. The master-spirits have long played with stacked cards. The people have been deliberately deceived by a vast and skilfully manipulated campaign of deception, with the result that going and coming the inside ring, or the "high financiers," reaps millions of unearned wealth by methods that at heart are not different from those employed by the disreputable gambling sharks who play with loaded dice.

From this community of the criminal rich Mr. Fish has resolutely held aloof, while in common with all thoughtful Americans he has regarded with increasing alarm the growing business and political subserviency to powerful interests in the hands of the modern Corsican financiers who are as shrewd intellectually as they are innocent of conscientious scruples or the old ideals of moral rectitude and business integrity.

When last autumn Mr. Fish accepted a position on the house-cleaning committee of the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, he did so with the distinct understanding and pledge in advance that the investigation should be at once thorough and honest; that the motto should be “Let no guilty man escape." When, however, the Standard Oil interests found that Mr. Fish insisted on a full and complete exposure of the criminal methods and of the criminals; that he refused to allow any wrong-doers to be screened; when they found that he would not stand for a report that would make scapegoats of two or three who had already been exposed and thoroughly discredited, while shielding and protecting others guilty of flagrant crimes, they gave him to understand that he must be silent or be crushed.

Here a great business man was brought face to face with a serious situation. On the one hand was the most powerful and most unscrupulous financial organization in the nation. To expose its members or friends meant war to the death in the business world. No man knew better than did Stuyvesant Fish the significance of a threat from the RogersHarriman-Peabody combination. It meant that all the vast power of the Standard Oil oligarchy, reinforced as it is in every part of the political, business and social world, would be set at work, outwardly or surreptitiously, to injure, discredit, crush and destroy him. Moreover, to break with the investigating committee meant alienation and the antagonizing of a large number of business associates who were in various ways entangled in the Standard Oil web. But to remain silent in the presence of such criminality as was here revealed would be to prove recreant to his nation, to the business world and to his own higher self. It would be to prostitute his brain and moral nature, and by his silence to lend the aid of his name to the forces of dishonor and dishonesty in the great battle between sound morality and criminal “high finance." Mr. Fish, knowing full well what