Massingale had come so tempestuously, had gone so like a roaring blast, that she had felt swept up and whirled about in a revolving, benumbing cycle. She followed him in a daze to the hall, leaning over the balusters, watching the slipping white of his hand descend and vanish. She crossed to the window, peering through the blurred dripping panes for a last sight of his skidding car. Then she returned, perceived the door left open, closed it and came incredulously back.

"So I am going! It's all decided. All!" she whispered.

It was no longer the fabric of dreams, but actuality, that confronted her. This was new, uncomprehended, despite all her dramatizations. This was a fact. She was to leave in two hours, vanish forever from the curious massive room, with its belfried clock over the roofs and its blank brick wall at the side, out into the gray restlessness of a March night. Whither? With whom? With a strange man—a Massingale she had wrought herself, and whom she now scarcely recognized.

"I love him. I said I would go! It's what I've wanted all along!" she repeated, struck by the idea. "Yes, that's true; it's what I've wanted!"

But now there was a difference. For the first time, it was not she who sought to incite him to misty romance, but the man himself who had come and asked. It was no longer a question of how he loved, where he would go at her beckoning, her will over him. All this had been miraculously achieved. It was now only a matter of what she would do, and she had said that she would go—in two short hours! She remained immovable and listening, and already it seemed to her that she felt the shaken iron rush of a flying train, hurrying her onward into the unknown.

"Snyder!"

Terrified, overwhelmed with loneliness, she had cried out, longing for a human soul to listen, ready to pour out her whole story in confidence. But no answer returned. She went hastily to the door and flung it open. The room was empty, filled only with the vague shadows in the same barren dusk that pervaded her own. She returned, lighted the feeble gas-jet by her bed, and going to the embrasure of the window, sat down, her hands weakly in her lap, her head thrown back, gazing inertly at the yellow clock-face rising through the rain flurries.

No! This Massingale was not the man who had held her in fascination by his quiet mastery, whom she had despaired ever to move! Yet she had wished to see him thus, uncontrolled, at her feet, wild and shaken! She had wished it; yet, at the bottom, had she ever really believed it possible? Now, the spectacle of his disorder rather terrified her, and this terror brought a certain liberation. She was satisfied; she could wish for no completer victory over this man who, by a trick of fate, scarce five months ago had caught and tamed her. How the rÔles were reversed! How abject was now his surrender! For her he was sacrificing everything—career, friends, family, all—to go out with her into dark ways. What had she wrought, a miracle or a crime?

"I must pack; I must make ready!" she said to herself. But she did not rise. No longer framing her thoughts, lost in indefiniteness, prey to a heavy mental stupor, her hands lay weakly in her lap, her head thrown back, staring. Later her fingers stopped upon the sharp facets of the ring which had been pledged as a troth. Garry! What should she say to him? How make him understand? She rose heavily, and going to the writing-desk, brought back pad and pencil. Slowly, seeing dimly the sheet on her lap, she began:

"Garry dear: I am going away—"

She stopped. She could not add another word. What could be added? The pencil slipped from her fingers, the pad slid finally to the floor. She returned again into the stupor, incapable of thought or action, waiting, seeing only the jerky advance of a minute-hand around the yellow surface, until an hour had gone by without a single preparation.

All at once a tear gathered in her eye and went slowly down her cheek—a tear of profound fatigue, of listlessness, rather than the touch of an aching thought. This tear, hot and unbidden, seemed to dissipate, all at once, the frigidity of her mind. She sat up hastily, with a frightened glance at the clock. It was already past six.

"What am I doing?" she thought, dismayed. "He's coming! I must hurry!"

She went to the closet and brought out a dress-suit-case, laid it open across a table and gazed helplessly about her. What next?

Ten minutes later, Snyder, coming hastily in, found her camped on the floor, sorting an enormous pile of stockings, which she rolled and unrolled without decision. Nothing had yet been placed in the open suit-case, though every drawer was ajar and every trunk-lid up.

"Dodo!" cried Snyder, with a rapid survey. "In the name of heaven, what are you up to?"

Snyder's arrival was like a ray of hope to DorÉ. She rose quickly, her strength of mind suddenly restored—at last some one to whom she could talk, to whom she could tell of the great romance that was sweeping her on!

"Snyder, I'm leaving now, at seven o'clock," she said firmly.

"Leaving, honey? For how long?"

"I guess forever, Snyder!" she answered, with a little shortness of breath.

Snyder, with a quick motion flung off her rain-coat, rolling it in a ball and hurling it through the open door into her room. Then she went rapidly to Dodo, grasping her arms, peering into her face, crying:

"Dodo! That Massingale?"

She nodded, answering aggressively:

"I adore him!"

The woman recoiled, wringing her hands, overcome with grief, crying:

"Oh, petty, petty! I knew it would come! O God of mercy!"

"But, Snyder, I am happy!" DorÉ said. Yet the words seemed to her heavy, there in the shadowy room, watching, amazed, the agony of affection and terror that shook the woman.

"Happy!" cried Snyder, with a mocking laugh. "God! Do you know what you are doing?"

"Yes, yes, I know!" Suddenly a thought struck her, and she added hastily: "Snyder, you are wrong! It isn't Massingale. It's I who have done it all!"

"That's what you think!"

"No, no; it's so!"

"Where are you going?"

"I don't know!"

"When?"

"To-night!"

"And after?"

"What?"

"And after?"

"I don't understand!"

"What's he going to do? Give up his wife? Divorce her?"

"No, no!"

"And after!—what's to become of you?"

Dodo was silent. All the fantastic scheme she had imagined—a year, and then each to return—seemed so inadequate an answer now. All at once Snyder, in a sudden rage, bounded to the table, and catching the suit-case, flung it scurrying across the room.

"No, petty! You shan't do it! I won't let him. I'll kill him first!"

"Snyder, Snyder, you don't understand!" she cried.

"Don't I? I know! Honey, I tell you, I know! You're the one who don't understand! Honey, I tell you, it ain't a fair world! No; it's a rotten unfair world! The chances ain't equal! A woman ain't a man! Think of your own security first, honey. You've got to, or God help you! I know!"

"What do you mean, Snyder?"

"I mean, you shan't do what I did!" said the woman, clutching her arm—"what I did blindly!"

"You weren't—"

"Married? Never! You didn't know it? I thought you guessed. The others did!"

"No, no! I thought, at times—but I didn't know!"

"Do you know where I had my child?" she said, folding her arms across her heart and flinging back her head as if to breast a storm. "I, nineteen years old, a girl? In a charity hospital, between a black woman and a raging shrieking dago with the fear of death in her! The story? Hell! Any one's story! What does that matter? Anyhow, I believed! I had ideas, like you: liberty, woman same as man. That suited him! It suits them all! What do they risk? Honey, if I told you what I went through those last months, you'd never look at a man again! You think I'm bitter, hard? Yes, I am hard, through and through! And I believed in him. And proud? God! how proud I was!"

"Snyder! Snyder!" She put out her hands as if to ward off the picture that rose luridly to her eyes.

"You don't know—no woman knows what the hell of suffering is," she continued doggedly, "until they're caught, until they've got to bring into the world another soul, and you stand branded, with every tongue against you! God! What a world! You marry—you're safe! You can be a fiend incarnate, lower than the gutter. Nothing to say! But the other? To be a girl, to believe, to love, to bear a child, as God intended you to, in love—every one against you, your own family cursin' you, closing the doors on you, telling you to go and starve! Don't talk to me! I know! Marry, honey, marry! You've got to, in this world!"

She was weeping now, and the sight of these unwonted tears on the iron countenance of Snyder terrified Dodo more than all she had heard. She felt now very little, very weak, far from the volatile Dodo of dreams and fantasies.

"Oh, Snyder!" she cried brokenly, "why didn't you tell me before? I've misjudged you so!"

"Yes, you've done that!" said Snyder, flinging away the tears and coming back into the steeled attitude again. "You thought I didn't care for the kid—for Betty; didn't you?"

Dodo nodded dumbly, great lumps in her throat.

"Why, honey, I love the ground she walks on! I live for her! Every cent I can scrape together she's to have! She's to go to the finest school, to get an education. She's to marry, have a home!..."

"But then, Snyder, why put her away from you?"

"Why?" She stopped, drew a long breath, crossed her arms with a characteristic brutal motion and said, her face set in hardness: "That's the horror of it! Because, honey,—don't you see?—I'm training myself to do without her, training myself to go on without depending on others, doing for myself. You don't see? Supposin' I had her with me, bless her heart! Supposin' I got to tying up my life to hers, needing her, clinging to her? Then what would come? The day would come when she'd learn the truth, and turn against me. And—God! I couldn't stand anything more!"

"Oh, no, Snyder, she wouldn't!"

"Yes, she would! I know!" she said, shrugging her shoulders. "No. Better as it is! I'm getting used to myself. It's a rut, but it keeps me going!"

Dodo sank into a chair, shuddering and cold, burying her face in her hands.

"Snyder! Snyder! Why did you tell me?"

"Because I love you, honey! You know I love you! I couldn't see anything hard happen to you! It's not a fair world, petty! You've got to play the game. A woman's got to think of her security first, I tell you! For, when you get on the other side of the wall, it's hell! All your arguing about what ought to be don't change it! That's why I say to you, 'And after?' Supposin' you can believe him, suppose he dies in the next months, where'll you turn? It's a rotten world. They're millions and millions, and you're only just yourself!"

"Don't! Don't! No more!" she cried. "Oh, Snyder, what am I going to do?"

Yes, she felt this inequality now. Millions on millions against one, all her courage gone, dismayed, aghast before the ugliness of reality. Courage? She had none, not the slightest shred of daring left! She drew back against the wall, huddled and little, so weak, so tired, so unable to struggle any longer!

"Ah, what am I going to do?"

"I'll tell you, honey," said Snyder, starting toward her with outstretched arms. But, as she advanced, there came a knock, and answering Dodo's terrified gesture by one of assurance, she went to the door.

"No one—no one! I can see no one!" said Dodo, recoiling.

Snyder received the card from Josephus, said something unintelligible, and came back radiant. One glance at her face made Dodo suspect the truth. She sprang forward with a frightened cry:

"Who is it? Snyder, tell me!"

But the woman, struggling, refused the card.

"It's not Garry? Not he?" she said frantically. "Any one but him! I won't see him! I won't!"

And, as she was still struggling to see the card, the door opened and Garry came powerfully in. Dodo stopped short, caught her throat with an exclamation of terror, her head thrown back against the table, looking at the strong glowing figure with the light of resurrection in his eyes; and as she looked, all at once a beneficent calm seemed to fall about her, clothing her with peace. All the good she had accomplished was there. She looked at him, and she knew!

Snyder, gliding to him, said but three words:

"Now! At once!"

Then, drawing back, she remained by the door to her room, her whole being concentrated on the scene, her hands clasped as if in prayer.

He came directly to DorÉ, and lifted her up in his arms, clear of the floor, not rapaciously or uncontrolled, as the acquisition of the other men, but cradling her like a child, tender and strong, his lips on the lightest fluttering golden tress of her hair. She felt no passion, but a great thankfulness; and she closed her eyes.

"Ah, Dodo, how have I ever lived a day from you!" he said rapidly. "Child, how I love you! Poor, tired little child, with such a great strength! How have I ever existed a day away from you?"

Suddenly he set her down reverently, and said firmly:

"Now, put on your coat and hat!"

She looked up at him, too tearfully happy to comprehend.

"Your coat and hat, and come!" he said, smiling his strong adoring smile.

The next moment Snyder had stepped to her side, holding out her coat. She had one arm in, her eyes on him, when suddenly she started away, comprehending.

"What do you mean? Where?" she asked breathlessly.

"To end all this, Dodo! To marry me—to begin a real life—our life!" he said firmly.

She went from him, shaking her head, putting out her hands in her characteristic defensive gesture.

"No, no, Garry, I can't! It wouldn't be fair—it wouldn't be just to you!"

"What wouldn't be fair? Child, don't you realize that you love me?"

"No, I don't, Garry; I don't know!"

"I know!" he said triumphantly. "Every letter you've written me has breathed it! And now—Dodo, can you doubt?"

"Listen, Garry!" she said, tormented with the fear of harming him, fighting against her own happiness. "I do care for you! I always have! But how? That I don't know! Garry, I tell you, I don't know anything to-night, but that I'm a miserable weak creature! Wait! Wait until I can know! Until I can be sure!"

"Put on your coat now!" he said, with a confident laugh.

"No, no! Don't you see?" she cried, shrinking away. "Don't you realize that I wouldn't harm you for anything in the world? I won't come to you until I'm sure I love you—you, and only you!"

"You will come now with me, and end all this nonsense!"

"To-morrow!"

"No, to-night!"

"But if I don't love you?"

"If you don't now, you will love me!" he said immovably. "Come, this must be ended! You're almost crazy now! You can't think or act! I'll take all responsibilities!"

He strode up to her, the coat in his hands, holding it out as she still shrank away.

"Oh, Garry! It isn't right! I haven't any strength left. I don't know anything! I'm not myself—no, I'm not myself! Be generous!"

"What are you afraid of? Of not loving me?" he cried.

"Yes—yes! Of not—of not—" She caught her voice and cried: "Oh, Garry! I am not worthy of you! I'm a vain, foolish, wild creature! You don't know me—how wicked I am! But I won't harm you! I wouldn't be unjust! Please! Please!"

She was struggling now, with a yielding strength. He caught her arms and drew her coat over them.

"Dodo, dear, I know! Believe me, I know!"

"But to-morrow?"

"No, now! Come! I'll take all responsibility!"

Abruptly, stridently, the telephone rang, and with it the booming notes of seven o'clock.

She gave a cry, frantic, remembering Massingale.

"No, no! Never! Not to-night! I will not!"

He stepped between her and the still ringing telephone.

"You shan't answer! You shall come with me!"

"No! For your sake, Garry, for your sake, I tell you!" she cried, her extended hands shaking with the intensity of her pleading. Massingale and the self she could not trust terrified her. No; she could never come to him with this fear of what another man had awakened in her veins. The telephone ceased. She had torn off her coat. He came quietly to her, unflinching in his resolve.

"Dodo, did you understand me, dear?" he said gently. "I will take all responsibilities!"

"You don't know what that means!" she said hoarsely.

"I do know!"

At this moment she saw Snyder in the corner, kneeling, her hands clasped above her head. A sudden flood of tears came to her. He drew the coat once more about her, his voice, too, shaken:

"Your hat now!"

She obeyed, reaching out her hand, holding it.

"Garry, I haven't the right!" she said brokenly. "If—if I weren't so weak! If—if—"

"Put it on!" he said.

"Oh, Garry! What will happen?" she said heavily. "Promise, whatever happens—forgive—"

She could not finish; her voice became inarticulate. And blindly obeying the touch of his fingers, she put on her hat, grotesquely turned about. The next moment his arm was about her, seeming to lift her from the ground. At the door, again the telephone burst out. She shrank back, afraid to pass it, seeing an omen.

"Come!" he said obstinately.

His arm tightened about her body, not to be denied. Her head buried against his shoulder, her hands clutching his coat, they swept out of the room, down-stairs and bravely into the pattering gusty night. Up-stairs the telephone continued to ring a long time, clamoring and insistent. And for a long time the figure of Snyder remained kneeling and tense and motionless.

At ten o'clock Snyder started from her seat. Dodo had come into the room. She was against the door, her face tortured and white, her eyes very big.

"His wife!" she said solemnly. She held up her hand, on which a thin gold band was shining. "We leave to-night. He is waiting below. Tell me, did he come?"

"Yes!"

"You told him?"

"I told him!"

She caught at her throat, and made as if to ask further questions, but suddenly checked herself, went to the desk and drew out writing-paper. She wrote but a few words, though once she stopped and rested her forehead in her hands. Then she rose.

"For him—yourself!" she said with difficulty. "To-night. This too."

With a hurried movement she joined the bracelet to the letter, and suddenly seized the woman in a straining desperate grip.

"Snyder! Snyder! If you've ever prayed for me—pray now!"

She drew her veil hurriedly over her tortured white face, and went rapidly away into the night.