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HOW THE EAST END WAS REDEEMED
(Continued from last week.)
CHAPTER IV.
Two weeks after the evening on which Guendolin
Cobb had sung, “Consider the Lilies,” she went
away. They all missed her, the “interesting shad
ow” had grown to be a very real part of the lovely
home life of the Wightman’s. If Dr. Falkenham
missed her more than the rest, he made no sign,
and Morris had begun to think his interest in the
two had misled him into erroneous conclusions.
One night, however, as they all sat reading in
Hildred’s sitting room, Dr. Falkenham suddenly
threw the daily paper down on the floor, and ex
claimed :
“Great Heavens! Guendolin Cobb is singing
in the East End slums. An article in the Journal
states that the crowd stood ten deep outside of a
little missionary chapel to hear her, last night. Hil
dred,” and he turned abruptly to his niece, “did
you know anything about this mad freak?”
Hildred answered like the serene, intellectual wo
man she was, “Mad, is a strange adjective to use
in this connection,” she asserted with a smile.
“And if I must tell the truth, I know all about it.
At least, I knew that instead of going home, Guen
went to board in the house of the resident mission
ary of the East End, in order that she might share
in the labors of the minister and his wife. Singing,
I suppose, is about the only delightful part of her
work. ’ ’
Harold Falkenham remembered Mrs. Cobb’s talk
about Shiloh, and he thought that some such plan
of doing good had led her into the undertaking.
He put his hand on Hildred’s chair.
“How long has it been since she left us, two or
three months? It seems an age. Tell me all about
her like a good little girl. What is she doing and
what does she wish to achieve?”
“To achieve forgetfulness of course,” his niece
returned with a half sigh, “by helping somebody
else to be better, braver, sweeter.”
“Give me some of the details,” he commanded, in
a voice which betrayed the depth of his interest.
“I know you must have seen her often, although
you have kept Morris and me so completely in the
dark about it.”
“Well then, the details are deadly prose,” Hil
dred answered. “ She reads the Bible to the old, and
she does anything that comes up, from bathing the
face of a child to nursing a woman with typhus
fever. She sings at all their church services,” she
went on, a thrill in her voice, “until, she says,
sometimes her throat aches worse than it used to
do, when she cried all night. But, she merely men
tioned that as a physical fact.”
Dr. Falkenham passed his strong white hand sus
piciously over his eyes, and then he took a card and
pencil out of his coat pocket.
“Give me her address,” he said with perempt
ory softness.
Hildred’s fine mouth hardened into a straight
line. “When I have kept her secret, even from
Morris all these days! You are crazy, Harold. If
she had wanted you in her scheme of sociology, she
would have told you.”
“Very well,” he answered, evidently amused at
Hildred’s indignation. “I think I can find her with
the data I have. Resident clergyman, East End!”
“That is very vague,” Hildred returned trium
phantly, “and the East End is a labyrinth of squal
id tenements. I hope you will fail.”
“But that is something I never do, Hildred,”
he answered, a flash of humor in his blue eyes.
“And Guendolin Cobb needs me, or some other phy
sician to take her in hand, if she suffers with her
throat, as you say.”
Morris Wightman whistled softly: “Where is my
true love?” as he exchanged a prolonged glance
with his wife, thinking his uncle too much absorbed
to notice him. But Dr. Falkenham turned quickly
and pinioned him by the shoulders.
“You handsome idiot,” he exclaimed, “if you
By ODESSA STRICKLAND PAYNE, Author'of “Psyche,” “Little Cal,” Etc.
The Golden Age for November 22, 1906.
whistle another bar of that tune, I’ll be tempted to
throttle you before Hildred’s eyes.”
And then, Dr. Falkenham loosed him, and they
all laughed. They were so glad the secret was
out, for the same thought was in all their minds,
and that was, that Guendolin Cobb could come back
to them now, sometimes. They had souls whom
the white wings of song might uplift toward higher
things, as well as the denizens of the East End;
and more than that, they were all her friends, and
interested in the brave fight she was making against
bereavement and destiny.
Dr. Falkenham got through his heavy list of pa
tients, next day, with a celerity that was perfectly
astonishing. He felt like he could dispose of the
work of ten men, in as many hours. He had been
somehow renewed in the spirit of his mind, and was
as enthusiastic and care-free as a school boy on
a summer vacation.
At four o’clock Dr. Falkenham drove out to the
East End, and at half past four he was ushered into
the house where Mrs. Cobb boarded. The room in
which he sat down to wait for her coming, was lined
on all sides with pine shelves filled with books.
There was a square table of mahogany in the cen
ter of the room and a fine copy of the Angelus
hung over the mantel.
Dr. Falkenham was standing by the window, with
his crushed felt hat in his hand, looking very hand
some, and entirely at his ease, when Guendolin
Cobb, >at last made her appearance.
“Are you very angry with me for discovering
you?” he inquired, as they shook hands.
Mrs. Cobb had that look of spiritual exaltation
in her face which he thought always made her beau
tiful, as she replied in a quiet tone:
“No, I thought I should be, but I am not.”
“Well,” he said, with a smile of satisfaction, as
he sat down in front of her. “Tell me all about it,
why you left us, and if you have missed,” he
paused and looked at her intently a moment before
he added, “our conversations.”
“Why, of course, I have,” she answered, with
charming candor. I get tired sometimes of the
shadow-side of humanity. And as much as I love
my people, there is so much tragedy in their lives,
the blighting grind of disease and poverty and
death, that I long often for the bright optimism of
the Wightman home.”
Dr. Falkenham sighed.
“You will come back to us now, occasionally,
will you not?”
“Oh, yes, I suppose so,” Mrs. Cobb answered.
“But reality I shall have but little leisure. I have
a scheme in my head,” she continued, a vibration
of restrained feeling in her voice, “for redeeming
this entire quarter, and if I carry it out, it will
take a lifetime.”
“Tell me all about it,” he said earnestly, “per
haps, I can help you.”
And she, remembering that he lived for the eter
nal brotherhood and that he had led her into the
thorny path of self-forgetfulness, could not hesi
tate.
“I have that sort of artistic temperament,” she
said, throwing her head back and interlacing her
fingers, while her voice gained in melody, as she
went on, “which makes me plan beautifully and
broadly, even if I fail ignominiously. I want this
East End slum redeemed, not a few houses in it,
but from center to circumference. I am sick to.
death of the Charity which lives in self-indulgence
and luxury, and meekly says: ‘I can only give a lit
tle but I give that freely.’ The kind of people, Dr.
Falkenham, who give one dollar where they ought
to give one hundred, or a hundred where they
should give a thousand. They don’t know how to
give what is due their suffering fellow-men. I have
been called an idealist, all my life, but I have a
paper upstairs in my desk, which would make my
friends open their eyes. It simply bristles with
practical calculations, figures and statistics.
“I have been able, through real estate agents and
others, to find out what it would cost to buy out
the East End. The estimate includes everything—
saloons, beer gardens, grocery stores and tene
ments.”
Dr. Falkenham’s deep eyes kindled.
“What is the totality in round numbers?” he
asked, a thrill in his rich voice.
“There are so many dilapidated stores and shack
ling houses,” Guen answered, “that it can be pur
chased for about half the sum I expected. In oth
er words, the East End can be bought for half a
million dollars.”
“Have you thought of any plan for raising the
money?”
“A partial one,” she said, with a sigh, “I have
subscribed ten thousand, Mrs. Wightman five, and
some others have put their names down for various
sums; but the whole is not more than twenty-five
thousand.” He hears the break in her beautiful
voice; he sees the shadows in her eyes as she goes
on. “For the balance, I have thought of singing
myself to death, in some of the up-town churches.”
Then, after a pause, Mrs. Cobb adds half appeal
ingly, a ghost of a smile on her lips.
“You have a big masculine brain, Dr. Falkenham,
why not apply it to this immense problem in finance
and help me out?”
“Oh, that is easy,” he returned, restrained pas
sion in his voice, “marry a man in sympathy with
your aims, worth a million.”
“You talk like all the rest,” she replied, white
with anger, “the abominable jargon of the draw
ing room, and I though that you were my friend.”
“I am, the man I am talking about—loves you
with all his heart,” said Dr. Falkenham.
She was so utterly unprepared for both state
ments that the intensity of her wrath was dissipat
ed by her surprise.
“You are very young, it seems to me,” she said
at last in a meditative tone, “to have amassed such
a fortune.”
Dr. Falkenham smiled. “I earned only one-third
of it. I inherited the balance. Well,” he added
with abrupt tenderness, “are you going to entertain
my proposition?”
'“No!”
Dr. Falkenham brushed a small leaf off of his
coat sleeve, which was memento of the fact that he
had a long drive out through the park—before he
answered.
“You do not dislike me, Guen. I know that by
signs which any man of sense could interpret. How
many times have you told me that you did not care
for anything under heaven, except intellectual com
panionship?”
Mrs. Cobb smiled. “I have told a number of gift
ed married men the same thing, and I am perfectly
sure that they did not regard the remark as a per
sonal compliment.”
Dr. Falkenham took her small hand in his, and
held it with remorseless cruelty—a moment.
“Do you expect me to believe,” he said earnestly,
“that you do not know that the mental sympathy
which exists between us is not of ordinary charac
ter, or that it means absolute affinity whether you
deny or acknowledge it?”
“Perhaps, I have never thought about it,” she
answered with perfect composure, “sufficiently, to
classify it.”
“Have you not?” Dr. Falkenham returned in a
tone of utter disbelief. “Somebody else can feel
the thought waves vibrate besides you. Oh, Guen,
why be cruel? We both are tired of belonging to
the 1 Elect of the Sorrowful,’ at least, I am sure
that I am.
“I think, if you would marry me, I should find
it an easy task to make life beautiful for you. I
understand you so perfectly that with little effort
I could hand you back the flowers of thought and
fancy you might cull in away that would give you
intellectual happiness, indeed. Trust me, let me
try.”
“Do you think I would surrender my beautiful
(Concluded on page 11.)
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