Project Gutenberg's The Redemption of Freetown, by Charles M. Sheldon This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license Title: The Redemption of Freetown Author: Charles M. Sheldon Release Date: March 31, 2015 [EBook #48616] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE REDEMPTION OF FREETOWN *** Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, and The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) The Redemption of Freetown By REV. CHARLES M. SHELDON Author of "In His Steps," etc. United Society of Christian Endeavor Boston and Chicago Copyright, 1898 By United Society of Christian Endeavor CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE Introduction 5 I. —The Problem of Freetown 7 II. —Judge Vernon's Trouble 14 III. —Howard Douglass's Plan 21 IV. —The Carltons' Trouble 28 V. —Callers at Mr. Douglass's 35 VI. —Some Momentous Decisions 42 VII. —The Freetown Settlement Started 50 VIII. —Fifteen Years After 57 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS The Escape 12 Claude Vernon's Return 19 "Have you heard the news?" 26 Inez Comes Home 31 Winifred and Isabel 36 "Will you live there yourself?" 44 "Burke Williams's case has been called up to a higher court" 51 "As he reached the corner, he stopped and looked back" 63 INTRODUCTION h is little story was first read by me to my Young People's society of Christian Endeavor in the Central Church, Topeka, Kan., during the spring of 1898. There is nothing impossible in the story, which is largely founded on actual facts known to very many besides myself. What seems to be miraculous or impossible in the redemption of humanity seems so because too often the Christian disciple does not give himself for the solution of the human problem. This is the one great truth I have wished to impress by the telling of this history, which is partly true, and might easily be wholly so; the truth that it is God with us, Emmanuel, who is redeeming the world, and it must be ourselves, the Christ in us, with the unredeemed humanity near us, that must redeem it. The moment the churches, the Endeavor societies, the Christian disciples everywhere, put themselves into any unredeemed spot in any town or city or place, the miracle of redemption will begin. It is with the prayer that all who read this little story will give something of this redeeming love to a needy world that the book is sent out. There is the secret of the atonement in the three short words, "Who gave Himself." Charles M. Sheldon. CHAPTER I. THE PROBLEM OF FREETOWN. t was very still in the district courtroom. The jury had just brought in a verdict of guilty, and the judge was about to pronounce the sentence. The room was filled with the usual crowd of spectators. The lawyers occupied the space railed off from the raised seats at the rear where the public was admitted. All whispers and noise on the part of witnesses, attorneys, and court officers had ceased, and every eye was on the man who had just been pronounced guilty. "Prisoner at the bar," said Judge Vernon, leaning a little forward in his chair until his arm rested on the desk in front of him, "have you anything to say why sentence should not be pronounced upon you?" The prisoner was a young negro not more than twenty years old. He had been standing when the verdict of the jury was given. His hand rested on the back of a chair, and he faced the judge with a look of stolid, sullen defiance. "I've got only this to say, judge. The shooting was accidental. If I'd had a fair trial, I'd been let off. But everything's been against me here." There was a pause while the man passed the back of his hand over his mouth and shifted his position nervously. Judge Vernon waited a moment. "Is that all you have to say?" "That's all, unless—I think I ought to have another trial. I don't count this fair, judge." "You have been fully and fairly tried," replied the judge firmly. Then, after a moment of silence, he continued: "Prisoner at the bar, I sentence you to the penitentiary for twenty years. Bailiff, remove the prisoner. Call the next case." The prisoner made a movement as if he intended to utter a word, but his lawyer behind him pulled him down into a seat; the bailiff came to the little gate of the railing and beckoned to the prisoner, who was led out. The machinery of the court went on, the next case was called, and the usual stir of the courtroom rose again, in sharp contrast with the moment's intense stillness that had just preceded. The evening of that same day, as Judge Vernon sat down to dinner in his residence up on the boulevard, his wife noticed an unusual seriousness in his face. She did not speak of it at once, however. "Where is Claude?" the judge asked, as his wife and two girls took their places at the table. They all remained standing, for the judge held to the custom which his father before him had observed, of waiting until every member of his family [5] [7] [8] was present before sitting down to the table. "He was invited out to a card-party at the Carltons'," said Mrs. Vernon, slowly. The judge frowned, but said nothing. They all sat down, and Mrs. Vernon looked carefully across the table at her husband. It was then that she spoke of his look of care, greater, it seemed to her, than usual. "Have you had a trying day, John?" asked Mrs. Vernon, a little timidly. She did not often venture to question her husband about his duties as judge. "Yes," Judge Vernon answered, almost curtly. Then he looked across at his wife, and went on in a different tone. "The fact is, Eliza, the condition of affairs out at Freetown is getting desperate. To-day I sentenced one of the boys from that district to twenty years for a shooting affray. That makes over fifteen criminal cases from that neighborhood in two weeks. Crime and rowdyism of every description seem to be on the increase there." "Why don't you double up the sentences, father?" asked one of the girls, a stylishly dressed young woman. Judge Vernon looked at her, and smiled slightly. "I'm afraid that doubling the sentences is not the cure for the crimes committed. In fact, Isabel, I am afraid that the heavier the sentence, the more the convicted criminals are regarded as heroes by their companions and so regard themselves." "There ought to be some law to prevent the dreadful state of things in Freetown," said Winifred, the other girl, a little younger than her sister. "Claude was telling me the other day that the hardest, worst elements in the city are crowded into Freetown, and that it isn't safe to walk through it after midnight. Just think of it! Right near the best residence part of the city, too. I think there ought to be a law compelling those folks to sell out to the white people!" continued Winifred, whose ideas of law were somewhat vague and general. "I'm afraid they are there to stay," said Judge Vernon, absently. He seemed to be brooding over something, and even the light-minded Isabel was afraid to interrupt her somewhat stern father when he looked that way. He did not speak for some time, and then, as the girls were talking over a theatre party to be formed for an evening of that week, Judge Vernon suddenly asked again about his son. "Has Claude finished that writing I gave him to do?" he asked his wife. Mrs. Vernon looked down at the table, as she answered in a low voice, "He has not touched it yet." Judge Vernon looked angry. "Send him into the library when he comes in," he said. He rose abruptly, and went into a little room adjoining the library, used for a private reading-room by himself. Isabel and Winifred looked at each other. The look said very plainly, "I'm glad I'm not in Claude's place." After supper Isabel went to the piano, and Winifred took up a book. Mrs. Vernon sat down to some fancy-work. The evening passed on slowly. It was an unusual thing for the girls to be at home. They found it very stupid. At last they went up to their rooms, and Mrs. Vernon sat on by her beautiful lamp, apparently deeply interested in her work. But she was thinking of her son, and was not happy. Often she lifted her head to listen while the fingers ceased to be busy, and as often she dropped her head again and went on. The night was very still, and it seemed impossible that events were rapidly shaping which would before morning change the lives of more than one person in the city of Merton. The prisoner had been taken at once from the courtroom to the county jail. He had been put in the cage where a dozen other criminals were confined. He had at once gone to a corner, and remained there in sullen silence, refusing to talk with any one. The day had drawn to its close. The lights in the corridors had been turned on, supper had been served, and most of the men who had been walking about in the cage had gone into their cells. The jailer suddenly came down a short flight of stone steps that led from the detention-room, and, unlocking the cage door, called out, "Burke Williams!" At first there was no answer. Then the figure of the negro rose and came towards the door. "What do you want?" the prisoner asked in a surly voice. "Come out here!" called the jailer, roughly. "And keep a civil tongue. You're wanted up in the detention-room. Quick, now! Move along!" The prisoner came out, and the jailer locked the door, and, taking out the keys, shoved the man along the short corridor towards the flight of steps. The negro purposely delayed his going as much as possible. "Move along!" cried the jailer. The prisoner pretended to stumble, and the jailer roughly caught hold of his arm and pulled him forward. At the same instant, as quick as lightning the prisoner seized the jailer, and with the exercise of all his young strength threw him heavily upon the floor. The jailer's head struck on the corner of the stone step, and he lay there stunned. With a rapidity that seemed impossible from his awkward movements before, the prisoner snatched the keys where the [9] [10] [11] jailer had let them fall, and with one bound was up the stone steps and in the detention-room. This opened from the jailer's office, and that had a door opening directly on the street. There was one man in the detention-office, and he had risen and was near the door leading to the guard-room. The prisoner saw in an instant that it was the attorney who had conducted his case. He had come to have an interview with reference to some part of the case relating to a motion for a new trial. In special cases prisoners were allowed to confer with visitors in the detention-room. The negro dashed through the room before the astonished attorney could stop him. The jailer's door was locked, but from the bunch of keys the prisoner chanced to choose the right one first. He thrust it into the lock, turned the bolt just as the bewildered lawyer rushed upon him, opened the door, shut it, and, bracing his excited strength upon it, locked it again. He was outdoors and for the moment free. He could hear the uproar from within the jail as the assistant jailer and a companion rushed into the office from the corridors where they had been busy clearing up the prisoners' supper things. THE ESCAPE. It was just at this moment that Judge Vernon sat down to dinner. CHAPTER II. JUDGE VERNON'S TROUBLE. [12] [13] [14] he escaped prisoner looked up and down the street an instant, and then leaped across the short distance between the rock-pile yard and the alley. A man on the other side of the street, attracted by the unusual uproar in the jail, ran across just in time to see the figure of the negro escaping up the alley. He disappeared in the dusk before the man could determine which way he had turned when reaching the end of the block. The city lay about him in the gathering night. He knew that it would be some time before the jail could be opened, as all the doors were now locked and heavy bars closed every window. But the alarm would soon be given to officers on the outside, and the pursuit would be swift and thorough. In his sullen rage he determined to seek refuge in his old haunts in Freetown. The police would surely seek him there, but so they would everywhere. Skulking close to buildings, dodging up alleys, seeking every spot of darkest shadow, the man made his way rapidly toward the district which had grown notorious in the criminal history of the city. As he ran, his sinful heart beat alternately with anger at the justice that pursued him, and with coarse joy at his temporary escape from it. A little after ten o'clock Judge Vernon came into the sitting-room where his wife still sat with her fancy-work. He walked back and forth several times without saying a word. At last he stopped and sat down by the table. "Eliza, what shall we do about Claude? He is simply making a wreck of his life the way he is living." "I know it." The mother's fingers trembled as she rested them on the work in her lap. "It was only yesterday that I learned of his drinking at these parties to which he goes so often. What are the fathers and mothers of Merton thinking of, that they allow their boys to learn these habits in the best society?" Judge Vernon spoke with a force that lost sight, for the time, of the fact that he himself was one of the very fathers that he so severely condemned. "Do you think it is the best society, John?" asked Mrs. Vernon with a boldness that was not a part of her character. "No! And yet we say we belong to it. And we let our girls and Claude frequent these entertainments night after night. Eliza, I cannot endure it any longer. The thought of Claude's growing into the wild, dissipated, society fast young man is a horror to me." Judge Vernon paused, and then went on with an unusual agitation in his voice and manner. "Eliza, I have not been able to shut out the picture, since I heard of Claude's drinking, of his appearance in court, in my court some day, charged with some crime. That picture has haunted me all day. While I was sentencing that colored man, I kept thinking, 'What is to prevent Claude, my own son, from standing here some day, here or in some court, charged with some crime while under the influence of drink, just as the negro committed his crime while under the influence of liquor?'" "O John, don't talk so!" Mrs. Vernon let her work fall on the floor, and her face was pale and her lips quivered nervously. She had never known her husband to break out so forcibly from his habitual stern repression of feeling, and it frightened her. "It is simply what we must face sooner or later. Our girls—." The judge crowded down a rising passion, and for a moment there was perfect silence in the room. "Each of our girls one of these days will marry one of these society young men, such men as I am free to confess I never would choose for them." Mrs. Vernon was silent. She was astonished at her husband's words. "I see things in my court, Eliza, that convince me daily of the need of a great transformation in the city of Merton in its social life. I am simply appalled at the number of divorce cases. I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that the fast life lived by so many of the young people is utterly ruinous to soul and body. Hardly a case comes up that does not illustrate in some form the terrible influence of drink and gambling, much of it learned at the very parties where Claude is a frequent guest, at the very party, no doubt, where he is now." He rose and walked up and down the room again. Mrs. Vernon sat silent and agitated. "And I cannot help thinking of the people in Freetown. In the very heart of our Christian (as we call it) city there is a condition of lawlessness and impurity that very few realize. I see the results of it daily in my court, and my heart grows sick as I feel my powerlessness. Somehow—" Judge Vernon turned to his wife with a look and manner she had never known in him before. "Eliza, somehow I cannot help connecting the crime in Freetown, the dissipation and immorality in that district, with the same thing in what we call our best society. Somehow I am oppressed by the feeling that this city will suffer some great calamity even in its best homes because we have allowed such evils to grow up uncorrected in the right way. It seems to me sometimes as I sit in my place on the bench, that a judgment is hanging over this city, so fair in its outward appearance, yet so wrong in much of its human life." John Vernon, judge of the district court, had been a man who all his life gave the impression, even to the members of his own family, that he was a stern, self-controlled person, whose emotions were held in check with almost Puritan or Spartan coldness. His wife wondered in her heart at the unusual exhibition of his feeling this evening. Finally she asked, "The prisoner you sentenced to-day, John,—he is one of a large class, do you think?" [15] [16] [17] "More than half the crime that is committed in the city comes from that class of young men." "And you sentenced him to twenty years' imprisonment?" "Yes; it was a brutal shooting affair. The other negro was lamed for life. Will probably lose an arm and foot." "It is horrible, as you say. I do not see what we are coming to. But I do not see what connection there can be between the condition of things among the negroes in Freetown and that of the white people in the society we know." Judge Vernon did not answer at once. Then he said: "Crime and immorality never can be confined to one spot in a city. They spread like contagion. In fact, they spread worse than disease, for we can restrain and shut in disease, but vice, until it becomes crime, may go unchecked anywhere. There is a sure contamination from Freetown spreading through the entire city, and I cannot escape the feeling that the best families in the place are in danger. Our own, perhaps. And really, Eliza, when you consider the superior training and advantages of the white race, have we very much to boast of when our own young men and women grow up to be drunkards and gamblers and unloving husbands and wives?" He had risen again, and was nervously walking up and down. The clock struck the half-hour. The sound had only died away when the door-bell rung. The judge walked into the hall and opened the outer door. "It's you, Mr. Douglass? Come in." "It is late to make a call, judge," said a deep, strong voice. "But I was just getting home from the meeting of the Christian Citizens' League; and, seeing a light, I thought I would just stop a moment. Have you heard the news from the jail?" The Rev. Howard Douglass came into the hall, and Mrs. Vernon, who had risen and gone out there, greeted him. "No; what news?" "The negro, Burke Williams, has escaped, and is now at liberty. He assaulted the jailer, and succeeded in locking the door on the officers in the jail. The police are hunting for him now." Judge Vernon listened in a greater degree of excitement than he had shown even during his conversation with his wife. "Come in here, Mr. Douglass. If you can spare the time, I should like to talk over matters in Freetown. We are waiting for Claude to come home. This news of Williams adds to the thought I have been having lately about the people in Freetown." Howard Douglass hesitated. "It is rather late. But I am specially interested in the conditions over there. In fact, the matter of what to do with Freetown was the main subject of discussion at our League meeting to-night. Something ought to be done over there, or we shall have a heavy account to answer for at last, when the deeds of the body are summed up for judgment. The Christian people of Merton will be held largely responsible, I believe, for failure to help Christianize that spot." [18] [19] [20] CLAUDE VERNON'S RETURN. "I begin to believe the same," replied Judge Vernon gravely. He had paused thoughtfully with the evident purpose of going on to propose some plan, when they were startled by the sound of many heavy steps coming up the veranda walk. Before the persons outside could ring the bell, Judge Vernon had flung the door open. Mrs. Vernon and Douglass stood close behind him. Looking out on the lighted veranda, they saw a group of men, among them two police officers, and carried on some rude couch, in the midst of the group, lay the form of a man covered with a blanket. One of the officers addressed Judge Vernon. "Judge, this is a hard piece of news to bring to you. In hunting for Burke Williams we found your son Claude lying near the end of Free Street, wounded and unconscious. That fiend Burke probably did it. He is robbed." Mrs. Vernon pressed through between her husband and all the others. "Claude, my son! Is he dead?" "No, ma'am," replied the officer as he took off his hat. But he added in a lower tone as the terrified mother drew the blanket from the face of her boy, "No, not yet." CHAPTER III. HOWARD DOUGLASS'S PLAN. [21] t was Sunday morning at Merton after an unusually exciting week. And, as the Rev. Howard Douglass went into his pulpit, and thoughtfully looked at the large congregation that crowded the church, his mind was filled with one idea, and that idea was the redemption of Freetown. He had just come from Judge Vernon's. He had prayed in the room where Claude Vernon lay, his young life wavering on the border-land of that other country, where death is forever shut out, but where judgment still is potent; and with the memory of that still, white face the minister faced his people. He had been spending the entire week in gathering materials for his sermon, and the escape of the prisoner from the jail, the assault on Claude Vernon, the son of the judge, and the uncertainty of the prisoner's whereabouts, together with the flickering life of the young man, formed a natural climax to what the minister had prepared. It had been a long time since a sermon in Merton had produced such a sensation. Yet it was quietly delivered, was full of figures, and was not sensational in the common use of that word. "What have we ever done to redeem Freetown?" asked Howard Douglass, after giving the people a look at the place, fortified by undisputed facts as to its needs. "It lies in the midst of a Christian city practically uncared for. It is cursed and feared and criticised for the vice and crime that flow out of it. But how much have the Christian people of this town ever done to check or remove the source of that evil? How much money have we ever spent over there? How much time have we ever given from our receptions and parties and entertainments to teach Freetown the way to eternal life? "I am unable to escape the burden of personal responsibility whenever I pass through this place. I believe the Judge of all the earth will condemn the Christian disciples of Merton in the last great day if they do not give up their endless round of pleasure-seeking and waste of God's wealth, and personally throw the strength of their lives into the solution of this problem. "How shall we redeem Freetown? It is not an impossibility. It is not a vague dream of what may be. It is within the reach of actual facts. It can be redeemed. The place can be saved, even as a soul by itself can be saved by Jesus. But it is God's way to save men by means of other men. He does not save by means of angels, or in any way apart from the use of men as the means. What will you do to redeem Freetown? I have a plan. I want you to listen to it." He then rapidly sketched his plan. People all over the church leaned forward and listened excitedly. Here and there heads nodded in assent, but for the most part there was simply a fixed attention that did not at once show that it had reached the minister's conclusions. The sermon was over, the last hymn sung, the benediction pronounced, and people were going out of the church. As they went out, they were talking over the minister's plan for redeeming Freetown. "What do you think of it?" asked Deacon Culver of his neighbor, the Hon. William Brooks. Mr. Brooks was one of the most talented lawyers in Merton. "I think it is largely visionary. Mr. Douglass is enthusiastic and of an imaginative temperament. But he does not take everything into the account. I doubt if he can make his plan work." "At the same time something ought to be done, don't you think?" asked the deacon, a little timidly, for he had a very great respect for his neighbor's great legal attainments. "O, no question about the need," replied Mr. Brooks somewhat impatiently. "But whether what Mr. Douglass proposes will do anything or not, is a question." "Don't you think we ought to give it a trial, at least? It is better to try something than let matters continue as they are at present. We are none of us safe. What is to prevent your boy or mine from meeting the same experience as Claude Vernon?" "I hear that he was under the influence of liquor at the time he was assaulted. It is said he walked home through Freetown to save time, but that he would never have done it if he had been sober," said Mr. Brooks in a low tone. "I'm afraid it's true," replied Deacon Culver. "It looks a little as if we white people needed some plan to redeem us, don't you think, Brooks?" Mr. Brooks walked on for some time without answering. Then he turned toward the deacon, and said impressively: "Deacon, our social life here in Merton is in a dangerous condition. There is no use to hide the fact that we are in a serious case. Something ought to be done. I was talking with Judge Vernon last week, and to my great surprise I found that he believed as I do. He did not say much, but his few words showed plainly how deeply he felt about the matter." The deacon sighed. He had reason to feel anxious over his own boy who was just entering college. The two men walked on in silence. At last the deacon said: "Mr. Brooks, I shall give all I can to make Mr. Douglass's plan a success. I believe he is right when he says the best way to make Merton right, our own homes included, is to work for the redemption of Freetown. I never felt before to-day how closely all the sins of the world are bound together. I for one have done very little to make any part of the city what it ought to be." "If you say that, how much do you think I have ever done?" said Mr. Brooks with a short laugh. "At the same time, I [22] [23] [24] cannot feel as you do about that plan. It is a remarkable plan in many ways, but I believe it will fail. I am willing to give something toward it, but I doubt very much if it ever amounts to anything." The two men parted, and each went into his home thinking seriously. The conversation was in one sense a good example of the way in which the congregation had received the minister's plan. Some opposed it. Some had no faith in it. Some were ready at once to give money to make the plan a success. Others thought it would be a sheer waste of time and expense. Still others, however, were so surprised at the proposed plan that they confessed to a need of more time to think it over. At Judge Vernon's that afternoon a remarkable scene was taking place. Claude still lay in his room, his condition unchanged. Judge Vernon, his wife, and the girls were in the next room. The doctor was talking with the family. "There is something mysterious about this assault on Claude," said the doctor. "The wound on his head was evidently caused by a blow from behind, but the contusion on his face might have been made by the blow of a fist directly in front of him." "The police officers seemed to think there was no doubt that Burke Williams assaulted him," said Judge Vernon slowly. "They may be mistaken. They sometimes are." "Why, who else could have done it, doctor?" exclaimed Isabel excitedly. "We all know the colored people have done just such things repeatedly. They are simply awful. They ought to be punished. I for one believe they were a good deal better off in slavery. It's where they belong." "Isabel!" said Mr. Vernon. "It's what I believe. The miserable creatures! Of what use are they?" "I feel the same," cried Winifred. "I think every negro in Freetown ought to be transported to Africa, so we could get Merton forever rid of them. There's no question in my mind that this wretch Williams is guilty; and, if Claude dies, he ought to be hung." Suddenly the family was startled by a voice from the room where Claude was lying. "Mother!" he called. The doctor stepped into the room, followed by the rest. Claude still lay with his eyes closed. Mrs. Vernon went up and kneeled by him. He feebly moved one of his hands. His mother took it, and, bending her head over it, placed her lips upon it while her tears fell fast. "Do you know me, Claude?" "Yes. Tell father and the rest—Burke Williams—Freetown—." He seemed to choke for a word, and there was a moment of awful stillness in the room. They waited, but he seemed unable to speak, and lapsed into his previous condition of stupor, leaving them smitten into wonder and praying that he might be spared. "Do you think we had better rouse him, doctor?" the judge asked after a while. "It will do no harm. He was trying to tell us about the affair in Freetown." They tried to rouse him from his stupor, but failed. It was growing late in the afternoon; and, as the sun went down, they all waited and prayed. [25] [26] "Have you heard the news?" The evening service at Emmanuel Church was over, and the Rev. Howard Douglass was just going out of the church with his wife, talking with a small group of church-members, as he went, about the plan to redeem Freetown. As they came out upon the steps, a man came walking up hastily. "Have you heard the news?" he called out. "They have caught Burke Williams. He was hiding in a barn up in Freetown." The little company of church people stood still. The minister looked grave. "That is not all," said the man. "I just came by Judge Vernon's. His son died a few minutes ago." The Rev. Howard Douglass turned to the people around him. "Let us go back into the church and pray," he said. They turned and entered the building. The sexton had begun to put out the lights. They kneeled in the rear of the church and prayed for the living. And over the city of Merton, in the thought of Howard Douglass as he kneeled there, the Spirit was brooding, yearning that men might listen to the words of eternal life, and turn from their sins and be redeemed. CHAPTER IV. THE CARLTONS' TROUBLE. [27] [28] t was two weeks after Claude Vernon's death. The Carlton house was lighted brilliantly, and a gay card-party was in progress. The rooms were beautifully decorated with carnations. Great vases of Niphetos and Perle roses stood on the marble mantels. Festoons of costly vines were hung about the walls, and a fountain of perfumed water played in the wide hall. A band of mandolin musicians was stationed in a handsome alcove near the stairway. As one entered this richly adorned mansion, everything pleased the eye, the young people were laughing and jesting, the groups about the different tables were animated groups of happy color; and, if there was another world outside, of vice and sin and need, no hint of such a world was suggested by the surroundings of this party of pleasure-seekers. Yet there was a cloud on the face of the mistress of all this gayety. Mrs. Carlton herself was evidently disturbed and unhappy. Even her accustomed habit of self-control, that mask which society often compels its slaves to wear, could not conceal her real feelings. "What is the matter, Louise?" asked one of her friends, Mrs. Lynde, as she stopped by the hostess near the staircase; "are you ill?" "No, but I'm worried about Inez and her father. A telegram just came, saying they would be here on the one-o'clock train. Of course I feel badly about Claude and all that. It seems almost unfortunate that the party should come so soon after, and all this other——. I feel a little nervous about it; but of course I could not foresee events." "Of course not. You owe something to society. This will be the event of the season." "Do you think so?" Mrs. Carlton spoke anxiously, but her face lighted up with the selfish pleasure of a woman who has reached a point where the one great object of her life is to win the distinction of surpassing all other society leaders in social ways. "There is no doubt of it. See if The Sunday Caterer does not say so." And Mrs. Lynde passed into the next room. Mrs. Carlton looked pleased; and, as she mingled with the young people, her face seemed to lose its anxious look. But, when the last game had been played, the refreshments served, the last guest had gone, and she was alone, she betrayed at once the unrest and excitement she had been unable to conceal during a large part of the evening. It was half-past twelve, and she sat down in the hall reception-room, and waited for her husband and daughter. As she sat there, her mind was busy with thoughts that made her grow increasingly unhappy. Her husband had been called abroad six months before, and had taken their only child, Inez, with him. She was nineteen years old, and had been studying art at home. When Claude Vernon died, Mrs. Carlton knew that Inez and her father were about to sail for home. Her last letter from them had come from Athens. Mrs. Carlton had not written the news of the tragedy at Judge Vernon's because she knew it would not have time to reach them before they sailed. This was what troubled her now. It was possible that Inez and Mr. Carlton might reach home in ignorance of Claude's death. Mrs. Carlton suspected that before she went away Inez had come to have more than a girl's fancy for Claude. How far her feelings had gone the mother did not know. How severely the blow would fall on her daughter she was unable to conjecture. But, as she looked around the elegant rooms, heavily perfumed with the evening's adornment, she could not avoid a feeling of dread at what the home-coming of the father and daughter might mean. With it all was also more than a vague self-reproach that this party had followed so close upon the death of Claude Vernon. She rose and nervously turned out the light in one of the rooms, as if to shut out the sight of the evening's gayety. She even carried several vases of roses into the library, and removed from the hallway some of the carnations that had stood there. As she came back and opened the door, feeling oppressed by the air in the house, a carriage drove up, and the travellers greeted her gayly as they came up the veranda steps. With the first glance at her daughter, whose face she sought even before that of her husband, Mrs. Carlton knew that she was still ignorant of Claude's death. "Why, mother, you have been having a gay time during our absence. 'When the cat's away, the mice will play;' isn't that so, father?" cried Inez, as she flung her arms about her mother, while Mr. Carlton said something with a laugh, and kissed his wife as she turned to him from her daughter's embrace. "I've been having a little company to-night," Mrs. Carlton answered slowly. "Just a few of our friends. It was such a disappointment that you came just too late for it." "Who has been here, mother?" asked Inez, as she put her arm about her mother and playfully drew her into the dining- room. [29] [30] [31] INEZ COMES HOME. "Don't you and Frank want something to eat?" Mrs. Carlton desperately fought against the inevitable disclosure that must come. "Yes. I'm hungry. We rushed every minute of the way from New York. Didn't even take time to read the papers. What's happened since we've been away? But you have not told us who was here." Inez, still talking, sat down at the table, and Mrs. Carlton ordered one of the servants to bring in refreshments. Mrs. Carlton murmured over the names of several people. Her manner was so agitated that her daughter and husband both noticed it. "What's the matter, Louise? Are you ill?" asked her husband. "No, but I'm very tired," exclaimed Mrs. Carlton. She was almost hysterical in her nervousness as she saw no way of escaping the dreadful news. The more she looked at Inez, the more she was struck with a new look on the girl's face. It was the look a girl would carry who had recently come to know what love is. "Mother," Inez rattled on, "you have not given the whole list of those who were here; was, was—Claude Vernon here?" The girl looked at her mother with a blush on her face, and then suddenly with an impulsive gesture she said, as she held her hand out over the table: "Mother, I must tell you! Father knows. Claude asked me a week before we sailed from Havre. We are engaged. We—." She paused, seeing that in her mother's face which drove the color out of her own. Mrs. Carlton sat there in miserable silence. She hoped she might faint. She hoped for anything that would relieve her of the horror of the occasion. "Mother!" cried Inez, "what is it?" She ran around the table, and Mr. Carlton at the same time came and supported his wife. "O, it is too terrible! I cannot! I cannot tell it!" "What! Is it Claude? Is anything the matter?" cried Inez, swiftly imagining evil where she loved the most. "Yes! Yes! O my God! O child! Claude is—." "He is dead!" said Inez calmly, but in a strange voice. Mrs. Carlton threw her arms about her daughter and sobbed hysterically. When she finally recovered to realize what the news meant, Inez lay unconscious in her mother's arms. She had fainted. Mr. Carlton took her and laid her down, and telephoned for a doctor. As he came back into the room, his wife flung her arms on the table, weeping aloud. She was unmindful of the fact that one of her hands had struck a vase of roses and upset it. The flowers lay across her arm, and the vase lay in broken fragments across the table. [32] [33] It was the morning after the party at the Carltons', and Rev. Howard Douglass was talking with his wife about the subject which now absorbed nearly all his thought. "If we could only get the society people interested in the plan! O, if we could only get the money that is used simply for parties and entertainments, we could carry out the plan of redeeming Freetown with every prospect of success." He spoke anxiously, and his wife listened sympathetically. "Now imagine," he continued, "a woman like Mrs. Carlton ready to throw the weight of her social influence on the side of our attempt to uplift and change Freetown. She is a leader in social circles. She has money and friends and leisure and ability. And yet she spends her time and strength in the regular round of parties and receptions year after year. The money spent on her party last night might go a long way toward building the foundation of our social-settlement hall." "That's true," Mrs. Douglass said thoughtfully. Then after a pause she went on. "Howard, somehow I have felt lately as if a change was to come over that woman's life. Have you thought that Inez Carlton was beginning to think a good deal of Claude Vernon before she went abroad?" "No," replied Mr. Douglass, somewhat startled. "I have. If the girl comes home to receive the news of his death, it will change her life and her mother's possibly." "I have never thought of such a thing. The woman seems wholly given over to her social life. It seems to me like an awful waste of God's time and money to spend them as she does all these years. If we could in some way make her see the needs of Freetown! We need money and influence to do what ought to be done over there." He was still talking when the bell rung. He was near the stairs, on his way to his morning's work in his study. He opened the door, and a messenger handed him a note. It read as follows:— "My Dear Mr. Douglass:—Mrs. Carlton and Inez would like to see you. Can you call at the house this morning? We are in trouble. Very truly yours, "Frank L. Carlton." The minister handed the note to his wife without a word. "Perhaps the Lord is leading her in some way of his own," she said, and the words sounded in Howard Douglass's ears repeatedly as he hurried toward the Carlton mansion, not knowing why he had been summoned there. CHAPTER V. CALLERS AT MR. DOUGLASS'S. ave you heard the strange news?" asked Isabel Vernon of her sister Winifred several days after that night when Inez Carlton had fainted in her mother's arms. "No. Don't make me guess; tell me," replied Winifred languidly. She was engaged in untying some knots in a skein of embroidery-silk. Isabel had just come into the room. She looked strangely excited. "Did you know that Claude was engaged to Inez while she was abroad?" Winifred dropped her work on the floor. Her face trembled, and her whole manner showed excitement. "I knew he cared a good deal for her. But not that way." "He did. I have been to see Inez. But that is not the strange news I have to tell." Isabel showed the marks of the recent death of Claude. She trembled while she spoke, and her face was pale and drawn. "Inez and her mother are going to help Mr. Douglass in his work in Freetown!" "What?" "Inez told me so this morning. She—she wants us to help her." There was a silence in the room. Winifred clasped her hands together, and her lips trembled with inward passion. [34] [35] [36]