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HOW THE EAST END WAS REDEEMED (Continued from last week. “Explain, will you?” _ “I do not know how, except that her part, it seems to me, in the drama of life, is of the highest sort, mind-ministry. She apparently gives herself away to the world, as unconsciously as the roses do, and as beautifully. She is a semi-invalid, you know, and we might expect her to be morbid and introspective at times, but she is not.” “No, Hildred is a remarkably well balanced character. Are you very fond of her?” “Hildred? I am not consciously fond of any body on earth now, but if I could make a deity out of a woman, I would select her. Her loveliness and unselfishness are a continual rebuke to me.” And then Mrs. Cobb bowed a little coldly, and took up a German love story, which was not a translation, and left the room. Dr. Falkenham smiled. A woman who could talk like that in cold blood, if enthused and waked up from her trance of death, and placed in a sunny atmosphere of appreciation and understanding, could certainly repay the awakening prince. And, after this thought, which Dr. Falkenham did not consider fine and chivalrous as it might be, he lay down on the couch and crossed his arms above his classic head. “May heaven forgive her sorrowful little high ness!” he exclaimed in surprise; “it has been just five minutes since I came in and she made her exit . . . . good!” Hildred Wightman loved her cousin too truly, not to make an earnest effort to restore her to a normal condition. And, besides, she and her hus band, as sharers in an ideal marriage, could not help but feel a great sympathy for her. It did not take any imagination to assure them that the sort of sorrow appointed her has to be dealt with wisely if it is ever conquered at all. They loved each other deeply enough to gauge her loss by their hap piness, as people who have married for lower rea sons can not. Hildred was not strictly beautiful, except in that higher sort of fashion, which everybody does not observe. She was a blond, with light auburn hair and eyes that made you think of the blue tenderness of mysterious spring skies. One morning Hildred pulled on her long black gloves in front of the mirror in the reception hall. She wore a gray tailor-made gown, with a white lingerie waist and a black picture hat. But she seemed to be perfectly oblivious of the fact that she was looking her be t. She was evidently think ing deeply upon some subject outside of her own charming personality. An hour later she surprised her husband by a visit to his up-town office. “Well, Hill!” he said, as she appropriated a great arm chair gracefully, “what is it?” “I think that you have made an improvement since I was last here,” she returned, glancing around. “Those large glass-doored bookcases give the room quite a library air. It looks almost like a theological study.” “Charmed,” he answered, with an indulgent smile, “to learn incidentally of your approval. Do I also look like a clergyman?” “No, you have a supremely judicial look, Harold, that the veriest child could interpret. And that makes me think of why I came here. It is about Guen.” “We have discussed her a number of times at home. Hildred,” he answered with a note of sur prise in his voice, “and I do not remember that we ever reached any satisfactory conclusion about her. Did you expert the air of the office to help solve the problem?” “No, but I am just from a consultation with Harold,” she said, making a brave effort to speak lightly, “and he says that Guen must be aroused or she will leave us for fairer worlds on high, and that, too, before long.” “Certain about the high, Hildred? Well, has my distinguished uncle any plan to propose for her rescue?” By ODESSA STRICKLAND PAYNE, Author ot "Psyche,” "‘Little Cal,” Etc. The Golden Age for November 8, 1906. “No, he simply asserts that she ought to be stir red up mentally, until she is broad awake in every fibre of her being. But how to achieve this much to be desired result he does not know—neither do I.” And Hildred looked pathetically puzzled. The handsome face opposite grew thoughtful. “Has your cousin any specialties or fads?” he asked at last. “Is there any one thing she used to prefer to do above all others?” “Why, she can sing, Harold!” Hildred exclaimed joyfully. “I remember, now that you make me that she sang like an angel the last time I visited her. In fact, we used to call her the family Patti.” Morris got up leisurely, took a rose from a crys tal vase which sat on his desk, and fastened it on Hildred’s jacket, looking down on her all the time with eyes of unspeakable tenderness. “Remember, Hildred, to thank the Giver of all perfect gifts that you are not Guendolin Cobb. And whatever else you do or don’t do, next time, consult me about the interesting shadow at home.” Hildred smiled, returning the caress in his eyes, but she drew herself up a trifle imperiously at his words, and Morris lifted his hand gracefully and misquoted: “ 1 N daughter of the gods, divinely tall, divinely fair—premeditated effect of a new blue dress.’ Hildred ignored the compliment, but she threw him a kiss from the doorway as she vanished, con sciously carrying away with her a thread of hope, which might develop into a cable of rescue in the right hands for her cousin. That afternoon, when Harold Falkenham camg home, he found his niece alone by the sitting-room fire. Hildred was engrossed in a piece of Kensing ton embroidery, and she sat with her back to the door, the light on her beautiful blond head. “I feel the presence of my uncle!” she exclaimed, “the atmosphere grows radiant, Dr. Falkenham must be in the room.” “Thanks,” he answered, “you make me feel like an angelic assistant at a seance. Where is your cousin, Mrs. Cobb?” “She is in her room,” she said, with a sigh. “She is out of harmony with the world today.” “Go up and ask her if she will go to ride with me. , It is lovely out this afternoon.” “Go up and ask her to take a broom-stick flight to the moon,” Hildred returned, sarcastically. “Have you lost your senses, Harold? Don’t you know she will not ride with you?” “I can’t,” he replied, calmly, “unless you deliver my message, and she replies negatively.” “Very well, then, you can have my assurance made doubly sure, if nothing else will content you.” And Hildred bowed low and gracefully to her un cle as she left the room, consciously excited over her mission. Hildred came back in a few minutes with Mrs. Cobb leaning on her arm. Mrs. Cobb greeted Dr. Falkenham, and expressed her regret'that she could not ride, briefly but decidedly. Hildred picked up her work, and, with a significant smile at her uncle, left the room. Mrs. Cobb sat down before the fire in a luxurious chair, clasped her hands in a medi tative mood and straightway forgot Dr. Falkenham’s existence. She looked very pale and unspeakably sad—evidently the woman so richly dowered by the gods had not a particle of interest in anything under heaven. Dr. Falkenham stood, and leaning one elbow on the mantel-shelf, looked down on Mrs. Cobb with eyes of comprehensive gloom. “Do you know,” he asked in a deep tone, that somehow sounded half tender, “what the great French philosopher says, Mrs. Cobb, lurks like a masked spectre behind such mioods as you in dulge?” “No, what is it?” “Atheism. To doubt the love of God, is to doubt everything. In other words, it makes life not worth living.” A slight bitter smile crossed her mouth. “I am sure I do not assert,” she answered in a dispassionate tone, “by any phase of my person ality, that it is.” “And yet if your friends are to be believed,” he returned, warmly, you used to 'be a bright, im perial force for good.” “That was before I was annihilated—when the sun shone in my world and the birds sang. You must know,” she continued with something like an appeal in the dark gray eyes, “that a happy heart is the best inspiration for service, and that I will never, never number among my possessions again.” “How do you know?” he answered, not unmoved. “I thought so, too, when I buried the fresh hopes of my young manhood in a woman’s grave.” “You!” she cried, incredulously, “you have not suffered; in that supreme, unbearable fashion—im possible!” “Why should you think so?” he asked, with in finite gentleness. “Well; call the discipline by what name you will, but because of it, my life trembled on the brink of insanity and suicide at one time for many months.” “If you did not swing back into harmony,” she answered, evidently interested, “on your love for some other woman, I shall be charmed to listen to your story. I assure you, I should like very much to know why you ever cared to live again.” ‘Well, first, being a man of active temperament,” he returned in a matter of fact tone, “I grew tired of my selfishness, for a great grief becomes nothing else when you indulge it too long. I read a poem from the pages of a daily paper one night to a friend, and it proved to be the bugle call back to the world. I have forgotten all the lines, except one verse, which threw a flash-light on Immortal Service—great work : “ ‘lf God thou searest, Rise up and do, thy whole life through, The duty that lies nearest.’ ” “Go on,” she commanded, gently. “ ‘The friendly word, the kindly deed. Though small the act in seeming, Shall, in the end, unto thy soul Prove mightier than thy dreaming’ “I went to my office the following day, and that afternoon a woman brought her blind son to my rooms to have a cataract removed from his eyes. The case interested me. I forgot myself; I began to be willing to do the next thing, to desire to live for others, in other words. And then, you under stand, the worst part of the conflict was over.” “Yes,” she answered, thoughtfully, “the pro cess seems easy enough in your case. After your awakening, you neccesarily found inspiration in your vocation, or more properly, profession. I haven’t a profession.” “You have the vocation of womanhood,” he said, with an inscrutable smile, “which is always, and unalterably the profession of loveliness. One of its tenets, I think, is to be obliging, is it not?” “Certainly.” “I sent Hildred just now,” Dr. Falkenham said, simply, “to ask you to ride with me; you refused. Will you go now?” Mrs. Cobb rose abruptly and walked to the win dow, her pale face luminous with conflict. Heavens! to surrender like other people, to be commonplace in her grief; to appear to forget her beautiful dead and live for the benefit of a world in which she had no interest, but the grave. She turned back to Dr. Falkenham with a flat denial trembling on her lips. “Mrs. Cobb,” he said, anticipating her half sternly, “I have not a particle of interest in you except as one other human being I would be glad to help. Do you wish to suffer as you do now, for years to come? Are you not ready yet for the com pensations by the way?” (Continued next week.) 7