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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.) 7