ter of sentiment with me if you wish. I asked you about your plans for the future. I am glad that you are to live here after I am gone, because you can gratify this desire of mine. I wish that the urn containing my ashes be broken and buried among the roots of this noble tree. Let what

ever of my body has not gone into the air, go into the earth, to feed the life of this great elm, to be taken up in its veins and become a part of it. And then, my Thalia, you may still come and commune with me. And still I will embrace you-with shadowy arms; still I will talk to you-in leafy whisperings."

CHAPTER 52

TWILIGHT OF EVENING OR OF MORNING?

Two days more passed. On the third morning, after Thalia had completed her early duties, Paul called her to his chair. He drew her close to him and leaned his head against her. Then he looked up and said:

"Throw open the shutters and windows, love, and let in the golden sunlight and the fresh, fragrant air upon us. See, my Thalia, is it not beautiful? Life is worth living, even the half of its rightful span.".

He drew her head to him and kissed her with a fervor and a look that, even in the shadow of the parting, carried their thoughts back to that August day when their two lifestreams had met and blended into one. And now the current must again divide.

The sound of childish laughter broke in upon them.

"Listen to those echoes of our own voices," he exclaimed. “O, wife, it is true-we are immortal, body and mind! Already in those young lives I live again."

An hour they sat, living over the thrilling memories of their early love, the coming of their babes, all the gladsome past, with kiss and caress and loving look. Little did Thalia say, and again and again did her eyes fill with tears that she could not check. Yet she did not give way. He Twould not let her. He talked on and on, calmly, even cheerfully; and in spite of the sorrow that filled her almost to overflowing, he held her engrossed, as he meant to, till Dr. Gardner came. At Paul's request, Thalia and the

children went with Dr. Gardner's horse for a half-hour's drive, while he remained with Paul.

"Paul," said Dr. Gardner gravely, after a hasty but critical examination, "I greatly fear

“And I am content," interrupted Paul, with a look that told Ned that he need say no more.

"Ned," Paul presently began, at first quietly, but with growing earnestness, "I have been thinking this morning of what you said to me years ago about the slowness and deliberation of Nature in working out her plans in the affairs of men. How grand it would be to stay and watch the gradual unrolling of the scroll! But that privilege comes to no man, and after beholding the process for two score years more I should doubtless be as loath to leave as now. It may take a century to ripen the next great change in the social order.'

He was silent for a few moments, with a far-away look, as though trying to penetrate the future.

"Ned," he continued, "it seems clear to me that America and Europe are already in the first throes of a mighty industrial revolution, like unto the religious revolution of the sixteenth century and the political revolutions of the eighteenth. Whether this later movement will work out its certain end with more or with less of civil strife and destruction of human life, no man can foretell. But of one thing we may be sure: COMPETITION belongs to the past, CO-OPERATION to the future. Humanity shall yet achieve its industrial salvation, till each man shall have, not merely something better than what his father had before him, but his full, just share of the joint product of the industrial system under which he works; till the struggle for bread, when there is enough and to spare, shall no longer drain the sweetness from human life; till luxurious idleness shall no longer ride upon the shoulders of patient toil; till if a man work not, neither shall he eat. And in Coöperation, Ned, peace, harmony, brotherly love, shall rule the actions of men, where now strife, hypocrisy, lving and cheating and robbing and killing-the offspring of Competition-degrade and brutalize man and desolate the home. The divine right of the king to rob the subject has fallen before the sword of reason: the divine right of man to rob his fellow-man under the cloak of 'business' still abides with us; but it shall go, as the other has gone."

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Again he was silent. "It is indeed well, Ned," he went on, for us to keep ever before us the fact that the present is better than the past-not to make us content with what is, but to console us for what is not, and to give us hope that better things will yet be; that long, long after we have done our little best, and perhaps in some degree because we have done itA better time will come, And better souls be born.'

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He closed his eyes a few moments. Dr. Gardner sat with bowed head. Then Paul opened his eyes and turned them upon Dr. Gardner, and in a different tone resumed: Come very early each morning hereafter, Ned. Mrs. Merwin will expect you and will let you in without ringing. As soon as you find that I have cut loose, you are to take Thalia and the children to the station at once and place them on board the cars to go to her father's. You will then send my body to the crematory. I have made all necessary preliminary arrangements, and you will find full directions. about that and other matters in this envelope "—handing him a sealed packet-" which you may open at your leisure."

"I will follow your directions, Paul," said Dr. Gardner. "Ned," continued Paul presently, speaking more tenderly, "I believe I foresee that happier days than you have yet known are in store for you, and the thought rejoices me more than I can tell you. I want you to remember, Ned, that I have said this to you."

Certainly, Paul, I will remember," replied Dr. Gardner, while Paul gazed into his eyes earnestly for a moment, with a peculiar look that impressed him.

66 And you will not neglect her after I am gone?" Paul continued. "You will still be her friend as you have been mine? You will still come and go as you have ever since our marriage?"

"Yes, my friend; nothing that I can do for her or for your children shall be left undone.'

Thank you, Ned, thank you for everything."

With clasped hands the two men looked into each other's eyes, but said no more. Then Dr. Gardner passed out of

the room.

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THE WOMAN AND THE MAN

361

When Thalia entered a few minutes later she thought Paul asleep; but he opened his eyes and smiled upon her. How fresh and cool and sweet you look," he said, with eyes full of tenderness, as she came and kissed him. "And now we will go out under the elm.”

There, with their children about them, they staid till noon. Dinner over, Paula went to her nap and Harlow and Guy to their play. Paul and Thalia remained in his room. "Bring Tennyson," he said.

She brought the copy that he had carried to her on his first visit to her home.

"Read what I read to you on that first evening."

She turned the leaves and read:

"The woman's cause is man's: they rise or sink
Together.

Not like to like, but like in difference.
Yet in the long years liker must they grow;
The man be more of woman, she of man.

seeing either sex alone

Is half itself, and in true marriage lies
Nor equal, nor unequal: each fulfils
Defect in each, . .

O we will walk this world

Yoked in all exercise of noble end,

And so thro' those dark gates across the wild

That no man knows."

He drew her head to his bosom. She threw her arms around him and clung to him convulsively. A great sob shook her, and another, and another. Her tears fell in torrents and she sobbed aloud. With his head on her shoulder he too wept-wept as he had not before since his mother breathed away her life in his arms. Yet he did not wholly lose control of himself. Even in his hour of agony he vaguely felt that it was best for them both that their grief should in some measure spend itself, and leave them calmer for the evening hour. And they wept on, cling

ing to each other in an embrace that was to them truly the embrace of death.

"Oh, Paul! she cried in agony, must it be? Must you go from me, my husband? Can you not take me with you?" A peal of childish laughter floated in through the open window.

"Your answer, dearest," he murmured.

It was many minutes before she moved or spoke again. Gradually the sobs died away. Then she lifted her head, with that ineffable look, and with tones once more steady and firm.

"Yes, my husband," she said; "even could I go, for their dear sake I must stay."

She gazed into his eyes through her tears.

"And for their dear sake, and for yours," she continued, "I will be self-controlled. Oh, if I could but make good the loss of opportunity and happiness to our childrenif I could but take upon myself all the loss!"

He pressed her hand for reply.

"And now, my Thalia," he said, "for the present I want you and our little ones with me each evening from six to eight o'clock. When the clock strikes eight, you and they will leave me, and you will go to bed as soon as they are asleep; for you also must sleep and save yourself against the time of greater need. It is my strong hope, too, that I may live in your memory and in that of our children—your last thoughts of me as you and they will see me in these evening hours."

She was near breaking down again, when a childish cry of distress broke the silence.

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"You are needed," said the father.

She kissed him and hurried away. Through the open window Paul heard Harlow's voice in explanation:

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'We were just playing dead folks, and Guy got dead, and I tumbled him into a hole, and was burying him, and some sand got into his eye, and he cried, and I told him dead folks didn't cry, but he didn't stop.'

"Playing dead folks!" muttered Paul, with a grim smile. "The child mocks at death, the man dallies with life."

At six o'clock all gathered in Paul's room. It had been the custom for the little ones to recount to papa and mamma at the evening hour the childish doings of the day, not merely for the pleasure that all found in these recitals