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“The Woman Thou Gavest Me” L Streets--“for Baby’s Sake*’ W*%mW -■.■ft >•«:•«? ■umL M§m. smm i»ira ip ■; sraE** i;T ■*>„;■>}*' ASp' H 4 |Kpl v >.; 'M f. ■'• '''-4£ : . r -?. -" -A'-: '■ fg5$V& Sv.V": S\ •f-T'wVi . ' ■ :.: :. Hall Caine’s Descriptive Masterpiece of Maternal Self-Sacrifice in the Current Number of HEARST’S MAGAZINE ¥ N all Hall Calm*. the dlstinKuinhod Eng I llsh novelist, has written of the ad ventures of his heroine in “The Woman Thou Gavest Me,' he has not produced a chapter sci poignantly Interesting and truly illuminative as the chapter that deals with her despair in this month’s Issue of Hearst s Magazine Here, as on a great canvas, he has drawn the picture of the wicked Piccadilly Circus of London and the hapless women who march about it. Properly to appreciate this masterpiece of maternal self-sacrifice, a brief synopsis of what has gone before is necessary. Mary O’Neill, the delicate convent-bred daughter of a self-made millionaire, is sold n marriage by her ambitious father to the dissipated and profligate Lord Ilea. Too late she realizes the horror and sin of a loveless marriage, and on her wedding night she and her husband enter Into an agree ment to live as man and wife In name only. She meets Martin Conrad, an old friend of her childhood, whc has become an ant arctic explorer. Mary and Conrad fall into the trap set fop them by her husband and the woman with whom he has become In fatuated. Conrad sails on another polar xploration trip leaving Mary to face the consequences of their passion. Lord Rea discovers the situation, and Mary O’Neill flies to London, and there her baby is born. Cut off by her family, Conrad far away, she faces want. The baby becomes ill through lack of nourishment. Mary, who has been earning a meagre pittance by needlework, meets another old friend who has joined the women of Piccadilly Circus. 8he spends a night with her. She returns to the people who are looking after her baby, only to find it perilously ill. She is turned away by the people for whom she has been working. In her distress she is faced by the prob lem of earning enough money to give her baby life. How will she do it? Following is the way Mr. Caine presents the situation. From the current instalment of “The Woman Thou Gavest Me,” in Hearst’s Mag azine and reprinted by permission of Hearst’s Magazine. F EELING tliat I did not yet know the whole truth (though I was trembling In terror of it), I handed baby to Mrs. Oliver and followed the doctor t<» the door. “Doctor/* I said, “Is my baby very 111?" He hesitated for a moment and then an swered. “Yes.” “Dangerously 111?" Again he hesitated, and then, looking closely .it me (I felt my lower lip trembling), ho said, ■f won’t say that. She’s suffering from mar asmus, provoked by overdoses of the perni cious stuff that is given by ignorant and un scrupulous people to a restless child to k<»ep her cjuiet. Hut her real trouble comes from maternal weakness, and the only cure for that is good nourishment, and, above all, fresh air and sunshine.” “Will she get bet ter V" “If you can take her away into the country she will, certainly.” “And if ... if I c^n’t,” I asked, the words fluttering up to my Ups, “will she . . dirt" The doctor looked steadfastly at me again • I was biting my lip to keep it firm), and said. “.She mat/." When I returned to the kitchen I knew that I was face to face with another of the great mysteries of a w-oman’s life—Death the death of my child, which my very love and tender- ness had exposed her to. • • * A ND now' God looked down on the sufferings ** of my baby, who was being killed for my conduct—killed by my poverty! By this time a new kind of despair had taken hold of me. It was no longer tin* para lyzing despair, but the despair that has a driv ing force in it. “My child shall not. die,” I thought. “At least Poverty shall not kill her'" Mauy times during the day I had heard Mrs. Oliver Lying to comfort me w ith various forms of sloppy sentiment. Children were a great rial; they were alius makin' and keepln' peo ple pore, and it was sometimes better for the dears themselves to be in their ’eavenly Fath er’s boosim. I hardly listened It was the same as if somebody were talking to me In my sleep. But toward nightfall my deaf ear caught some thing about myself—that “it" (1 knew what that meant > might be better for me also, for then 1 should be free of encumbrances and could marry again. “Of course you could—you so young and good lookin'. Only the other day the person at number five could tell me as you were the prettiest woman ns comes up the Row, and the Vicar’s w ife couldn’t hold a candle to you. 'Fine feathers makes flue birds.’ says she. ‘-Give your young lady a nice frock and a bit o' color in her cheeks, and there ain't many Rn could best her in the West End either.’” 1 s the woman talked dark thoughts took possession of me. 1 began to think of Angela 1 tried not to. but I could not help it. \ml Wien came the moment of my fiercest trial. With a sense of Death hanging over my child, I told myself that the only way to drive it off was to make some great Sacrifice. Hitherto 1 had thought of everything 1 pos sessed as belonging to baby, but now I felt that I myself belonged to tier. 1 had brought her into the world, and it was my duty to see tiiat she did not suffer. All this time the inherited instinct of my religion was fighting hard with me. and I was saying many Hail Marys to prevent myself from doing what I meant to do. “//ail, 3/ary, full of grace; the Lord is with I felt as if I were losing mv reason. But was of no use tniggling against the awful up * -v of self-sacrifice (for such I thought It) bleb had taken hold of my mind, and at last •j.iquered me. I f “I must, have money/' I thought. “Unless I get money my child will die. I—must—get —money.” Toward 7 o’clock I got up. g ive baby to Mrs. Oliver, put on my coat and fixed with nervous fingers my hat and hatpins. "Where are you going to, pore thing?” asked Mrs. Oliver “I am going out. I'll lie back In the morn ing,” I answered. Ami then, after kneeling and kissing my baby again my sweet child, my Isabel—I tore the street door .open and pulled it shut noisily behind mo. * • * I OPENED my trunk and took out my clothes —nil that remained of the dresses I had brought from Elian. They were few, and more than a little out of fashion, but one of them, though far from gay. was bright and stylish a light blue frock with a high collar and some white lace over the bosom. 1 remember wondering why 1 had not thought of pawning It during the week, when I had had so much need of money, and then being glad that I had not done so. It was thin and ligh\ being the dress I had worn on the day I cam*** first to tin* East End, carrying my baby to Ilford, when the weather was warm, which now was cold, but I paid no hoed to that, thinking only that it was my best and most attractive After I had put it on and glanced at myself In my little swinging looking glass. I was pleased, but I saw at the same time that my face was deadly pale, and that made me think of some bottles and cardboard boxes which lay in the pockets of my trunk. I knew what they contained—the remains of the cosmetics which I had bought in Egypt in the foolish days when I was trying to make my husband love me. Never since then had I looked at them, but now I took them out (with a rabbit’s foot and some pads and brushes) and began to paint my pale face— reddening my cracked ami colorless lips and powdering out the dark lings under my eyes. “What a farce!” I thought. “What a heart less farce!” Then I put on my hat, which was also not very gay, and, taking out of my trunk a pair of long, light gloves, which I had never worn since I left Elian. I began to pull them on. I *vas standing before the looking-glass in the art <»f doing this, and trying (God pity me!) to smile at myself, when 1 was suddenly smitten by a new thought. I was about to commit suicide—the worst kind of suicide, not the suicide which is fol lowed by oblivion, but by a life on earth after death! After that night Mary O’Neill would no longer exist. 1 should never be able to think of her again! I should have killed lus and buried her and stamped the earth down on her. and she would be gone from me for ever! That made a grip at my heart—awakening memories of happy days in my childhood, bringing back the wild bliss of the short period of my great love, and even making nit* think of my life in Rome, with its confessions, its masses and the sweetness of its church hells. I w r as saying farewell to Mary O’Neill! And parting with one’s self seemed so terrible that when I thought of it my heart seemed to be ready to burst. “Hut who can blame me when my child’s lift* is in danger?" 1 asked myself again, still tugging at my long gloves By the time I had finished dressing the Sal vatlonists were going off to their barracks with their followers behind them. Under the sing ing I could fantly hear the shuffling of bad shoes, which made a sound like the wash of an ebbing tide over the teeth of a rocky beach— up our side street, past the Women’s Night Shelter (where the beds never had time to he roine cool) and beyond the public house, with the placard in the window saying the ale sold then* could be guaranteed to make everybody drunk fur fourpence. “11 r'll stand the storm, it won't he long, ind we'll anchor in the street by and bp.” I listened and tried to laugh again, but l could not do so now. There was one. last spasm of my cruelly palpitating heart in which I covered my face with both bands, and cried: "For baby’s sake! For my baby’s sake!” And then I opened my bedroom door, walked boldly downstairs and went out into the street. * 0 * 1 remember taking the electric car going west and swing the Whitechapel road shooting by me. with its surging crowds of pedestrians, its public houses, its Cimerna shows and Jew ish theatres * 1 remember getting down at Ahlgate Pump and walking through that dead belt of ihe city, which, lying between east and west, Is alive like a beehive by day aud silent and deserted by night. Then her that. remem walking at random round St. Martin’s Church Into Lei cester Square, I came upon three “public women” who were swing ing along with a li 1 gli step and laughing loudly, and that one if them was Angela, n n d t h a t. she stopped on seeing me and cried: “Hello! Here I nm again, you see! Out on tin* streets for money? Uto rn uni's dead, and / don't rare a damn /” I retnem her 11) a t she sa id something else— it was about Sis ter Mildred, but rny mind did not take It in—and at the next moment she left me and I heard her laughter once m ore ns she swept round the (•.•iiier and out of sight. 1 hardly know xvhat happened next, for here comes one of the blank places In my memory, with nothing to 1 i g bt it except vague thoughts of Martin (and that soulless night in Bloomsbury, when the newspapers announced that he was lost), until, wandering a i m- lessly t h r o u gh streets a i d streets of people — such multitudes of peo ple. no end of peo ple— I found my self back at Char ing Cross. The w a i t lng crowd was now eager and more excited than before, and the traffic at both sides of the station was stopped and dammed back in long waiting lines. “He’s coming! He’s coining! Here he is! the people *-rled. and then the r e were deafen ing shouts and cheers a.& for the return of a hero 1 recall the sight of a line of policemen push ing people back (I was myself pushed back); i recall the sight of a big motor ear containing three men and a woman, ploughing it* way through; I recall the sight of one of the men raising his cup; of the crowd rushing to shake hands with him; then of the car swinging u:i' aud of the people running after »i with a noise like that of the racing of a noisy river. It is the literal truth that never once did I ask myself what this tumult was about, and that for tome time after it was over—a full hour at least—1 had a sense of walking in my sleep, as if my body were passing through the streets of the* West End of London while my soul was somewhere else altogether. Thus at one moment, as I was going by the National Gallery and thought 1 caught the sound of Martin’s name, 1 felt as if I were back in Glen Ran, and it was myself who bad been calling it iu the fratio hunger of my desire. At another moment, when 1 was standing at the edge of the pavement in Piccadilly Circus, which was ablaze with electric lights anS thror ged w ith people (for the theatres and music halls were emptying men in uniform were running . bout with whistles, policemen were directing the traffic and streams of car riages were Mowing by), i felt us if 1 were back in my native island, where 1 was alone on the dark shore, while the sea was smiting me. Again, after a brusque voice had said. “Move on, please,” I followed the current of pedes trians down Piccudilly—it must have been Pic cadilly- and saw lines of public women, chiefly French and Belgian, sauntering along, and heard men throwing light word to them as they passed, I was thinking of the bleating sheep and the barking dog. >'4 r ■ ' : A \ .’2 ~ 2A,. ' A ND again, when I was passing a man s club and the place where I had met Angela. 1 began to paint my pale face red, for I was going out into the streets—for baby’s sake!” Another Craig Drawing for “The Woman Thcu Gavest Me.” my dazed mind was harking back to Ilford (with a frightened sense of the length of time since I hml been there—“Good heavens, it must be five hours, at least!”), and wondering if Mrs. Olivf brandy But some! seemed to I saw things clearly and sharply out of Oxford street into Regent street. The traffic was then rapidly dying down, the streets were darker, the cafes were closing, men and women were coming out of supper 44 looms, smoking cigarettes, getting into taxis ‘You have been out ail night.” he said. “Can you tell me where you have been?”, and driving away; and another London day was passing into another night. People spoke to me. I made no answer. At one moment an elderly woman said something to which I replied, “No, no,” and hurried on At another moment a foreign-looking man ad dressed me, and I pushed past without reply ing. Then a string of noisy young fellows, stretching across the* broad pavement arm in arm, encircled me and cried, "Here we are, my dear. Let’s have a kissing-bee.” Rut with angry words and gestures 1 com pelled them to let me go, whereupon one of the foreign women who were sauntering by said derisively for me to hear: “What does she think she’s out for, I wonder?” At length 1 found myself standing under a kind of loggia at the corner of Piccadilly Cir cus. which was now half-dark, the theatres and music halls being closed, and only one group of arc lamps burning on an island about a statue. There were few people now where there had been so dense a crowd a while ago; police men were tramping leisurely along; horse cabs were going at walking pace, and taxis were moving slowly; but a few gentlemen (walking home from their clubs apparently) were passing at intervals, often looking at me One of Frank Craigs Charming Illustrations for “The Woman Thou Gavest Me” in HEARST’S MAGAZINE. and sometimes speaking as they went by. Then plainly and pitilessly the taunt of the foreign woman came back to me—what was I there for? I knew quite well, and yet I saw that not 3nly was I not doing what I came out to do, Out every time an opportunity had offered I had resisted it. It was just as if an inherited instinct of re pulsion had restrained me, or some strong unseen arm had always reached out and snatched me away. This led me—was it some angel leading me? —to think again of Martin and to remember our beautiful and sacred parting at Castle Raa. "Whatever happens to either of us. we be long to each other forever." he had said, and I had answered from my heart, "Forever and ever." It was a fearful shock to think of this now. I saw that if I did what I had come out to do not only would Mary O’Neill be dead to me alter to-night, but Martin Conrad would bo dead also. When I thought of that, I realized that al- Seaweeds to Supply Fertility to Farms- By Prof. JOHN L. COWAN, i the Noted Farming Expert. T fHAT the value of all products of the farms of the United States now approximates nine thousand millions of dollars an nually is justly regarded as good cause for national felicitation That a very large num ber of the farmers who contribute to the pro duction of this enormous total pursue the sui cidal policy of taking from the soil all they can get. with no attempt to restore to it the ele ments taken from it by growing crops, is a fact as undeniable as it is lamentable. Hence the i nited States Department of Agriculture and the State Agricultural Col leges and Experiment Stations have been of late assiduously preaching to the farmers of this country the fact that profitable farming, in the long run. is possible ouly when the elements taken from the soil are restored to it. at least in part. Roughly speaking, fertilizers are composed of phosphoric ucid, nitrate of soda and some form of potash salts. Florida. South Carolina and Tennessee contain great deposits of phosphate rock, so that, as yet. the provision of an ade quate supply of phosphoric acid presents no uiuiculties. In a recent report of Secretary Wilson, of the Department of Agriculture, based upo in VMStlgations made by scientists of the Bureau of Soils, the following important and ignificaut statements are made: "The most promising bouice of potash at present is found in the large areas of kelp proves, or sea algae, lying along the Pacific Coast, growing wherever there is a rocky bot tom and a rapid tideway, at depths of from six to ten fathoms. These groves are of various areas, from beds of a fraction of an acre up to stretches five miles in length and two or more miles in width. During the past Summer about 100 square miles of kelp groves have been mapped in different localities from Puget Sound to Point Doma. and have studied the character of the algae, as well as ti e conditions neces sary to their utilization commercially, and their maintenance as a permanent resource of the country. Many more areas yet remain to be studied and mapped, but from what has been accomplished in this preliminary work I am assured that a conservative estimate shows that the kelp which could be gathered from the 100 square miles already surveyed, and without detriment to the permanence of the groves, should yield 1,000,000 tons of chloride of potash annually, worth at least $:>o,00u,o00, or about thrice the value of present importations of potash salts from Germany. "Satisfactory methods of gathering the keip are * t to be worked out. out present only minor mechanical difficulties. The value of tiie kelp is. moreover, probably much greater titan is represented by the contents of the pot? h , , ue Our laboratories have shown that iod.ne nod other useful products can he obtained v.u.ca will pay in large measure, if not fatly. the cost of gathering and abstracting the pot ash salts. Enough has been accomplished to show that this country has wdthin its borders resources to meet the fertilizer requirements of the present and a greatly increased use in the coming years." The investigations undertaken by tlis Bureau of Soils, upon which Secretary Wilson s report is based, constitute the first serious at tempt that has ever been made at a systematic study of the kelp beds that border the coasts of California, Washington and Oregon. It has never before been thought worth while to map the forests of the sea, or to ascertain their ex tent or the character and possible usesAff the vegetation found in them. However, the principal office of seaweeds in the economy of nature is to perform the same function in the water that ordinary forms of vegetation perform on land—that of making animal life possible. They assimilate inorganic matter, existing in the water as impurities, and transform it into materials essential to animal life. Beyond doubt by far the greater mass of seaweeds exists in microscopic forms, floating everywhere, near the surface of the water, in inconceivable numbers. These seaweeds form the basis of the food supply of all animal life in the ocean, and fishes aud other animals that do not subsist directly upon seaweeds must prey upon smaller or weaker creatures that do. Scientists, then, have long recognized the t-d u.u. toe economic value of seaweeds is very great; but this form of vegetation has been regarded, in general, as of little value for industrial purposes. Until the official an nouncement was made by Secretary Wilson, tile thought could have occurred to but few' that the kelps of the Pacific Coast might be of ines timable value to agriculturists of the interior, and were capable of bringing to pass a material modification of our trade relations with Ger many . However, months before Secretary Wil son's report was made public a company was organized at San Diego for the purpose of har vesting kelps and extracting from them the potash and other valuable constituents. The plans of this company, and the methods it pro poses to follow, have been kept profoundly se cret. It is roughly estimated that there are about 15.000 species of seaweeds. The simplest of all plants are the minute algae (both salt and fresh water), known as the blue-green slimes, of which there are approximately 1,000 species, found on rocks, wharves, the sides of ditches aud on mud almost everywhere. The most numerous of the algae are the grass-green sea weeds (also both fresh water and marine), of which there are from 8,000 to 10,000 species found floating on the surface of the ocean, lakes, rivers, brooks, ponds, ditches and pud^ dies; on damp earth, walls, fences, on the sur face of leaves and the bark of trees in damp forests, and existing in almost every place where there is moisture. though I had accepted without question the newspaper reports of Martin's death, he ha^ never hitherto been really dead to me at all. He had lived wdth me every moment of my life since, supporting me, sustaining me, and inspiring me, so that nothing I had ever done— not one single thing—would have been differ ent if I had believed him to be alive and been sure that he was coming back. But now 1 was about to kill Martin Conrad as well as Mary O’Neill by breaking the pledge (sacred as any sacrament) which they had made tor life and for ail eternity. Could I do that? In this hideous way, too? Never! Never! Never! I should die in tho streets first. I remember that I was making a movement to go back to Ilfcrd (God knows how), w'hen, on -he top of all my brave thinking, came the pitiful thought of my child. My poor helples? little baby; who had made no promise and was party to no pledge. She needed nourishment and fresh air and sunshine, and if she could not get them—if I went back to her penniless —there was no help for it, she would die! My- sweet darling! My Isabel! My only treasure! Martin’s child and mine! That put a quick end to all my qualms. Again I bit my lip until it bled, and told my self that I should speak to the very next man who came along. “Yes, the very next man who comes along,’ I thought. • 1 was standing at that moment in the shadow of one of the pilasters of the ioggia, almost leaning against it, and in the silence of the street I heard distinctly the sharp firm step of somebody w'ho was coming my way. It was a man. As he came near to me he , slowed down and stopped. He was then tm- “ mediately behind me. I heard his quick breathing. I felt that his eyes were fixed on me One sidelong glance told me that he was wearing a long ulsti* and a cap, that he was young, tall, powerfully built, had a strong, firm, clean-shaved face, and an indescribable sense of the open air about him. "Now', now!” I thought, and (to prevent my self from running away) I turned quickly round to him and tried to speak, really tried to speak. But I said nothing. I did not know what women say to men under such circumstances! I found myself trembling violently, and befor ’ 1 was aware of what was happening 1 had burst into tears. Then came another blinding moment and over me there sw-ept a tempest of conflicting feelings. 1 felt that the man had laid hold of me. tlia: his strong hands w'ere grasping my arms, and that he was looking into my face. (The full Instalment of "The Woman Thou Gavest Me,” from which the foregoing excerpt) are taken, will be found in the current numb» of HEARST’S MAGAZINE.)