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China Turns to Multilateralism

China’s recent rapid economic growth has drawn global attention to its foreign
policy, which increasingly has had an impact on world politics. In contrast with
China’s long-standing preference for bilateralism or unilateralism in foreign
policy, recent decades have seen changes in the PRC’s attitude and in its
declaratory and operational policies, with a trend toward the accepting and advo-
cating of multilateralism in international affairs. Whilst China’s involvement has
been primarily in the economic arena, for example, participation in the World
Trade Organization and ASEAN+3, it has more recently expanded into inter-
national security institutions, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
This book records, analyses, and attempts to conceptualize this phenomenal
development in Chinese foreign policy and its impact on international relations,
with the emphasis on China’s active participation in multilaterally oriented
regional security regimes. Written by an impressive team of international schol-
ars, this book is the first collective effort in the field of China studies and inter-
national relations to look at China’s recent turn to multilateralism in foreign
affairs. It will appeal to students and scholars of Chinese politics and foreign
policy, security studies, and international relations.

Guoguang Wu holds Chair in China and Asia-Pacific Relations at the Univer-

sity of Victoria, where he is also Associate Professor of Political Science and
History. Helen Lansdowne is Assistant Director at the Centre for Asia-Pacific
Initiatives, and also lectures at the University of Victoria and at Camosun
College.
Routledge contemporary China series

1 Nationalism, Democracy and National Integration in China

Leong Liew and Wang Shaoguang

2 Hong Kong’s Tortuous Democratization

A comparative analysis
Ming Sing

3 China’s Business Reforms

Institutional challenges in a globalised economy
Edited by Russell Smyth and Cherrie Zhu

4 Challenges for China’s Development

An enterprise perspective
Edited by David H. Brown and Alasdair MacBean

5 New Crime in China

Public order and human rights
Ron Keith and Zhiqiu Lin

6 Non-Governmental Organizations in Contemporary China

Paving the way to civil society?
Qiusha Ma

7 Globalization and the Chinese City

Fulong Wu

8 The Politics of China’s Accession to the World Trade Organization

The dragon goes global
Hui Feng

9 Narrating China
Jia Pingwa and his fictional world
Yiyan Wang
10 Sex, Science and Morality in China
Joanne McMillan

11 Politics in China Since 1949

Legitimizing authoritarian rule
Robert Weatherley

12 International Human Resource Management in Chinese Multinationals

Jie Shen and Vincent Edwards

13 Unemployment in China
Economy, human resources and labour markets
Edited by Grace Lee and Malcolm Warner

14 China and Africa

Engagement and compromise
Ian Taylor

15 Gender and Education in China

Gender discourses and women’s schooling in the early twentieth century
Paul J. Bailey

16 SARS
Reception and interpretation in three Chinese cities
Edited by Deborah Davis and Helen Siu

17 Human Security and the Chinese State

Historical transformations and the modern quest for sovereignty
Robert E. Bedeski

18 Gender and Work in Urban China

Women workers of the unlucky generation
Liu Jieyu

19 China’s State Enterprise Reform

From Marx to the market
John Hassard, Jackie Sheehan, Meixiang Zhou, Jane Terpstra-Tong and
Jonathan Morris

20 Cultural Heritage Management in China

Preserving the cities of the Pearl River Delta
Edited by Hilary du Cros and Yok-shiu F. Lee
21 Paying for Progress
Public finance, human welfare and inequality in China
Edited by Vivienne Shue and Christine Wong

22 China’s Foreign Trade Policy

The new constituencies
Edited by Ka Zeng

23 Hong Kong, China

Learning to belong to a nation
Gordon Mathews, Tai-lok Lui, and Eric Kit-wai Ma

24 China Turns to Multilateralism

Foreign policy and regional security
Edited by Guoguang Wu and Helen Lansdowne
China Turns to
Multilateralism
Foreign policy and regional security

Edited by Guoguang Wu and

Helen Lansdowne
First published 2008
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 1006
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
© 2008 Selection and editorial matter Guoguang Wu and Helen
Lansdowne; individual chapters, the contributors
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested

ISBN 0-203-94632-4 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN10: 0-415-42571-9 (hbk)

ISBN10: 0-203-94632-4 (ebk)

ISBN13: 978-0-415-42571-1 (hbk)

ISBN13: 978-0-203-94632-9 (ebk)
Contents

List of illustrations x
Contributors xi
Acknowledgements xiv

PART I
Introduction 1

1 International multilateralism with Chinese characteristics:

attitude changes, policy imperatives, and regional impacts 3
GUOGUANG WU AND HELEN LANSDOWNE

PART II
Global concerns 19

2 China’s new internationalism 21

LOWELL DITTMER

3 Racing to integrate, or cooperating to compete? Liberal and

realist interpretations of China’s new multilateralism 35
THOMAS G. MOORE

4 The new player in the game: China, arms control, and

multilateralism 51
JING-DONG YUAN
viii Contents
PART III
Regional security 73

5 China’s multilateralism and regional order 75

MICHAEL YAHUDA

6 China and the North Korean nuclear problem: diplomatic

initiative, strategic complexities, and relevance of security
multilateralism 90
SHI YINHONG

7 China and SCO: towards a new type of interstate relations 104

JIANWEI WANG

8 Chinese and ASEAN responses to the US Regional Maritime

Security Initiative 127
GAYE CHRISTOFFERSEN

9 Maritime security and multilateral interactions between

China and its neighbours 147
KEYUAN ZOU

PART IV
Peaceful rise? 173

10 Intentions on trial: “peaceful rise” and Sino-ASEAN relations 175

YONGNIAN ZHENG AND SOW KEAT TOK

11 Peaceful rise? Soft power? Human rights in China’s new

multilateralism 198
JEREMY PALTIEL

12 China’s petroleum diplomacy: Hu Jintao’s biggest challenge

in foreign and security policy 222
WILLY WO-LAP LAM

13 China’s multilateralism and its impact on cross-strait

relations: a view from Taipei 241
DONG-CHING DAY
 Contents ix
14 An exception to the growing emphasis on multilateralism:
the case of China’s policy towards Hong Kong 253
JEAN-PHILIPPE BÉJA

PART V
Conclusion 265

15 Multiple levels of multilateralism: the rising China in the

turbulent world 267
GUOGUANG WU

Index 290
Illustrations

Figure
13.1 Changes in the Taiwanese/Chinese identity as tracked in
surveys by the Election Study Centre, NCCU 248

Tables
4.1 China and international/multilateral nonproliferation treaties/
regimes 59
4.2 Evolution of China’s export control system since the 1990s 63
9.1 Selected marine laws of the people’s republic of China 150
9.2 Contracting parties to the LOS convention in East Asia 151
Contributors

Jean-Philippe Béja Senior Researcher at the Centre of International Research in

Paris and at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, he is a member
of the Editorial Board of China Perspectives, Perspectives Chinoises and
Chinese Cross-Currents (Macau). He supervises PhD dissertations at IEP and
at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris. Areas of research are:
Chinese politics, the changing nature of the Chinese political system, the
emergence of new social categories, floating labour (mingong) and entre-
preneurs, the intellectuals and the Party: 1949–97, the history and politics of
Hong Kong, and the Wenzhou communities in Europe.
Gaye Christoffersen Associate Professor of Political Science at Soka Univer-
sity of America, Aliso Viejo, California. She has previously taught at the
Naval Postgraduate School, Chinese Foreign Affairs University, and Far
Eastern National University in Vladivostok (the latter two as a Fulbright Lec-
turer). Her teaching and research interests include Chinese studies, Asia-
Pacific international relations, Asian multilateralism and Northeast Asian oil
politics. In her teaching and research, she has tried to foster a wider dialogue
about US–China relations among her colleagues and Chinese government
officials.
Dong-ching Day Adjunct Assistant Professor at Chihlee College of Technology
and Research Fellow at the Foundation on International and Cross-Strait
Studies (FICS).
Lowell Dittmer Professor of Political Science at the University of California at
Berkeley and editor of Asian Survey. He has written or edited Sino-Soviet
Normalization and its International Implications (1992), China’s Quest for
National Identity (with Samuel Kim, 1993), China Under Reform (1994), Liu
Shaoqi and the Chinese Cultural Revolution (rev. edn, 1997), (with Haruhiro
Fukui and Peter N.S. Lee), Informal Politics in East Asia (Cambridge, 2000),
and many scholarly articles. His most recent book is South Asia’s Nuclear
Security Dilemma: India, Pakistan, and China (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 2005).
Willy Wo-Lap Lam is Professor of China and Global Studies, Akita International
University, Japan, and a Senior Fellow at Jamestown Foundation, a foreign-
xii Contributors
policy think tank in Washington, DC. He is the author of The Era of Jiang
Zemin; his book on the Hu Jintao administration will be appearing soon.
Helen Lansdowne has a BA and MA in Pacific and Asian Studies, University of
Victoria and has been with CAPI since 1998. Ms Lansdowne’s area of exper-
tise is rural China state–society relations. Her most recent area of study
includes mainland Southeast Asia, particularly development and gender
related issues. Her work at CAPI includes assisting with the Centre’s CIDA
funded Projects, Cambodia–Canada Legislative Support Project and Vietnam
Legislative Assistance Support Project. In addition, she oversees the publica-
tions at the Centre and is in charge of overall administration of CAPI’s
various programs. Ms Lansdowne also teaches courses on Southeast Asia and
Developmental Theory in the Department of Pacific and Asian Studies at
UVic and in the Department of Social Sciences at Camosun College
Thomas G. Moore Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Uni-
versity of Cincinnati. Areas of teaching and research specialization include
international political economy, US foreign policy, and Asian politics.
Among other publications, he is the author of China in the World Market:
International Sources of Reform and Modernization in the Post-Mao Era
(Cambridge University Press, 2002).
Jeremy Paltiel Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Carleton
University. He specializes in comparative politics, Chinese politics and
society, government and foreign policies of Asia (China and Japan), and
development politics.
Shi Yinhong Professor of International Relations, Director of American Studies,
Renmin University, Beijing. He is a leading scholar in China on the history of
international politics, strategic studies, and foreign policies of China and the
United States.
Sow Keat Tok A research associate in the China Policy Institute, University of
Nottingham, UK. Previously, he worked as a research officer in the East
Asian Institute, National University of Singapore between January 2004 and
December 2005, where he co-authored many in-house publications on
China’s foreign policy, including China–ASEAN, China–Japan, and
China–Hong Kong relations. He had also produced several works analysing
Chinese foreign-policy thinking.
Jianwei Wang Professor and Eugene Katz Letters and Science Distinguished
Faculty Member, Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin-
Stevens Point; Guest Professor, School of International and Public Affairs,
Fudan University. US–China relations expert, a prolific scholar whose areas
of interest also include East Asian international relations, Chinese foreign
policy, and Sino-Japanese relations.
Guoguang Wu China Chair in Asia-Pacific Relations, Centre for Asia-Pacific
Initiatives, and Associate Professor of Department of Political Science and
 Contributors xiii
Department of History, University of Victoria. Research interests include
comparative politics (developing, authoritarian, and communist countries),
liberalization and democratization, East Asian politics, China, Hong Kong,
Taiwan, Asia-Pacific international relations, and Chinese political thought.
Michael Yahuda Professor Emeritus of International Relations, the London
School of Economics and Political Science, currently a Fellow at the
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC. Areas
of interest are politics and foreign relations of China, Hong Kong, Taiwan,
and international relations of Asia and the Pacific.
Jing-dong Yuan is Director of the education program for East Asia Nonprolif-
eration Program at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, and an Associate
Professor of International Policy Studies at the Monterey Institute of Inter-
national Studies where he teaches Chinese Politics, Northeast Asian Security
and Arms Control, Chinese Nonproliferation and Security Policy, Compara-
tive National Security Policy Making, US Asia Policy, Export Controls, and
the multi-lingual Current Issues in Nonproliferation. A graduate of the Xi’an
Foreign Language University, People’s Republic of China (1982), he
received his PhD in Political Science from Queen’s University in 1995 and
has had research and teaching appointments at Queen’s University, York
University, the University of Toronto, and the University of British Colum-
bia, where he was a recipient of the prestigious Iaazk Killam Postdoctoral
Research Fellowship. He is the co-author of China and India: Cooperation or
Conflict? (Lynne Rienner, 2003).
Yongnian Zheng Professor and Head of Research, China Policy Institute, Uni-
versity of Nottingham, UK. Research and teaching interests include national-
ism and international relations, international and regional security in East
Asia, China’s foreign policy, globalization, state transformation and social
justice, social movements and democratization, comparative central–local
relations, and Chinese politics.
Keyuan Zou is Senior Research Fellow at the East Asian Institute (EAI),
National University of Singapore. His speciality is international law and
Chinese law. He obtained LLD (JSD) in 1989 from Peking University in
China. Before joining EAI in 1998, he taught and conducted researches at
Dalhousie University (Canada), Peking University (China), and University of
Hannover (Germany). He has published Law of the Sea in East Asia
(London/New York: Routledge, 2005), China’s Marine Legal System and the
Law of the Sea (Leiden/Boston: Martinus Nijhoff, 2005), and over 40 articles
in international refereed journals. He is member of the editorial boards of the
International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law, Ocean Development and
International Law, the Chinese Journal of International Law, and the China
Ocean Law Review. He has been appointed as Academic Advisor to the
China National Institute for the South China Sea Studies since 2000.
Acknowledgements

The editors would like to acknowledge, first of all, the generous support pro-
vided by the Foundation on International and Cross-Strait Studies (FICS), which
enabled a conference on ‘China’s Diplomacy of Multilateralism’ in December
2004. This volume is the fruit of that conference. In particularly, we thank our
friends at the FICS, especially Jonathan Chen, for their help in applying for the
conference grant.
The Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives at the University of Victoria, with
which we are affiliated, organized the conference and facilitated the editing of
this publication. Our colleagues at CAPI, including Richard King, Director;
Heidi Tyedmers, Program Officer; Joseph Kess, Chair in Japan and Asia-Pacific
Relations; and Andrew Harding, Chair in Asia-Pacific Legal Relations, provided
great personal, intellectual, and administrative support. Our special thanks go to
Stella Chan, CAPI Secretary, who undertook the hard work from conference
organizing to volume editing with constant enthusiasm and efficiency.
We are grateful to all the contributors to this volume, and to other particip-
ants in the 2004 conference, including those who served as discussants and
chairs. Their input made this volume possible.
Stephanie Rogers, our editor at Routledge, has shown her confidence in the
volume and has demonstrated her outstanding professionalism since the begin-
ning. She and her colleagues, Helen Baker and Hayley Norton, have been very
supportive throughout the process, turning the original drafts of chapters into a
book. The anonymous review was helpful for improving the manuscript.
Thanks also go to our families: for Helen Lansdowne to Fenwick, Tristram
and Emma, for Guoguang Wu to Xiaoying, Sandy and Felix. They understand
perfectly how a collective endeavour often occupies a great amount of the
editors’ time that would otherwise belong to them.
Finally, we are happy to dedicate this volume to William (Bill) Neilson, our
former colleague and Director at the Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives and
Chair in Asia-Pacific Legal Relations, as a small appreciation of his leadership,
mentorship, and friendship.
Guoguang Wu and Helen Lansdowne
Part I

Introduction
1 International multilateralism with
Chinese characteristics
Attitude changes, policy imperatives,
and regional impacts
Guoguang Wu and Helen Lansdowne

China’s turn to multilateral diplomacy: phenomenon and

questions
China’s recent turn to multilateralism in its foreign policy, as evidenced in both
its declaratory and operational polices,1 has been both apparent and demonstra-
ted in China’s increasing involvement in global and regional multilateral organi-
zations. First and foremost, this involvement has been in the economic arena,2
but now, in the new century, it has remarkably advanced into international
security institutions. This volume records, analyses, and attempts to conceptual-
ize this phenomenal development in Chinese foreign policy and its impact on
international relations, with the emphasis on China’s active participation in
multilaterally oriented regional security regimes.
Notoriously, China has for a long time clung to bilateralism or unilateralism
in its handling of regional disputes and managing of its foreign relations. Yet,
also notoriously, China has constantly, over the decades since 1949, changed its
ways and styles of dealing with the outside world in responding to various shift-
ing internal and external factors. This recent multilateralistic adjustment,
however, is nevertheless phenomenal enough to call serious attention to it. More
than ever before, this adjustment brings the People’s Republic of China (PRC)
much closer to the evolving Western mentality in the way of viewing world
affairs, as, concurrently, multilateralism rises as a principle in the guidance of
governmental foreign-policy making in major advanced industrialized countries.
This is true except in the case of the United States, but even there multilateral-
ism is equally as powerful as everywhere else in intellectual thought, even
though not so in the governmental mentality of constructing the new world since
the September 11 tragedy. These two intellectual disparities, namely, that
between the United States administration and other democratic countries, and
that between the administration and others within the United States, help situate
the multilateralistic China in the “mainstream” of international mentality of
post-Cold War world politics. Partially due to such closeness between Beijing’s
declaration of multilateralism and the intellectual trend of international politics,
China’s multilateralist turn is widely applauded in Western public opinion,
4 G. Wu and H. Lansdowne
praised as China’s “new diplomacy.”3 This welcome is extended to China not
totally from real-politik considerations as it once emerged during the period of
Cold-War strategic tripolarity. Rather, it is based on a perceived share by China
of the principles prevailing in international societies of knowledge and, with
some limits, of policy, to conduct post-Cold War world politics.
Some questions arise concerning the Chinese concept of “multilateralism,”
however, as one notices that the phrase is repeated in almost every foreign-
policy statement issued by Beijing. What is the Chinese notion of “multilateral-
ism” as it is reflected in both rhetoric and practice of Chinese foreign policy?
Has Beijing heartily embraced this principle as it is understood in international
society, or has China redefined it with its own understanding? Or has it “cor-
rectly” comprehended the concept but intentionally practised it with “Chinese
characteristics,” to use an infamous phrase affiliated with the new “socialism” in
reform China that reflects the Chinese leaders’ skill in holding onto Communist
dogmatism while practising revisionism? If they are embracing international
multilateralism, why are they doing so? If they have their own “multilateralism,”
what is it? What is the difference between international multilateralism and the
Chinese understanding of it? Why did the PRC leaders choose a revisionist
version of multilateralism rather than inventing their own doctrine of foreign
policy? How does China incorporate multilateralism into its deep-rooted real-
politik perception and practice of international politics?
Whatever the answers to these questions, the phenomenon requires further
explanations. In other words, in whatever sense China embraces multilateralism,
why has this new policy orientation occurred? What, among those elements
explaining policy adjustment, such as interest calculation, policy learning, struc-
tural transformation, domestic politics, and the like, better accounts for the
Chinese multilateralistic turn? How did the leaders in Beijing balance those dif-
ferent factors shaping their foreign-policy choice? What does this Chinese
policy change reveal for our knowledge of international politics, foreign policy,
and, in particular, of the Chinese logic in the playing of both?
Equally important are the questions of the policy practice and its impact on
China’s multilateralist adjustment. Needless to say, the policy implications of
such an embracing by China of multilateralism and, therefore, the embracing by
Western societies of China’s multilateral adjustment are profound yet compli-
cated. As China emerges as a great power in economic, military, and diplomatic
terms, particularly in East, Southeast, and Central Asia, a policy and behaviour
change of China in dealing with regional and global issues inevitably affects,
first and foremost, regional stability and, generally, international security. The
problems regarding the implications of China’s diplomacy of multilateralism in
a wider sense are as significant as those concerning the concept and mechanism
of the policy. What implications does the Chinese multilateralistic turn of diplo-
macy have, first of all, on China’s role in Asia and the Pacific? How do regional
systems of international relations interplay with China’s adjustment of foreign
engagement? Are those volatile regions neighbouring China, namely, the
Taiwan Strait, the Korean Peninsula, and South China Sea, safer and more stable
 Multilateralism with Chinese characteristics 5
than before with a multilateral China? And, how does China’s multilateralism
contribute to, or influence, security on those hot points?
Addressing the global level, is the multilateralist China now a responsible
player in international relations? As international security is the arena in which
cooperation and multilateralism are arguably difficult to achieve, how could
China realize its multilateralism in regional and global security affairs?
In both the theoretical and practical senses, the shaping of multilateral
regimes in the East, Southeast and Central Asian regions and the dynamic
involvement of China therein have formed a front-line territory to which stu-
dents of international politics and Chinese foreign policy should pay much atten-
tion. This volume, based on the papers presented to the conference “China’s
Diplomacy of Multilateralism,” organized in December 2004 by Centre for
Asia-Pacific Initiatives, University of Victoria, is a scholarly effort to venture
collectively into that territory. Although many previous studies have already
noticed the significant change in Chinese foreign policy, this volume is the first
systematic examination of the phenomenon. Since the beginning of the twenty-
first century, China has broadened its multilateral participation beyond eco-
nomics to the security realm, moving in the direction of cooperative security.
This is the central concern of this volume. For sketching the arguments pre-
sented in this collection, this introductory chapter will be organized according to
the discussions of the three groups of questions, namely, those concerning the
concept, motivations, and implications of Chinese multilateralism.

Multilateralism and multipolarism: combining concept with

reality
Scholars of international politics agree that multilateralism can be defined as the
“practice of coordinating national policies in groups of three or more states,
through ad hoc arrangements or by means of institutions.”4 This concept high-
lights two dimensions of international multilateralism, namely, that of multilat-
eral institutional involvement and that of policy practice substantively affected
by such involvement.
In the first regard, involvement and participation in international organi-
zations, governmental and non-governmental, regional and global, are, of
course, an important way to practise multilateralism. By this standard, China is
increasingly practising multilateralism, as many chapters in this volume as well
as some previous publications indicate. This practice of China can actually be
traced back to the 1980s, when China opened its doors through economic liber-
alization reforms. Since then, China has developed an expanding involvement in
regional and global interstate politics and various international, multilateral
organizations, and has benefited much from such participation in terms of
technology transfer, trade development, foreign-investment inflow, and cultural
and educational exchanges.5 Such active participation in international organi-
zations has been recently extended to the spheres beyond those such as the
economy, culture, science and technology, and one primary feature of the
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kept Stephen's worst troubles a secret from herself when that was
possible. She surmised with distress that they had recently grown
more acute. Now she opened the door quickly.
"Did you just come in, Ellen?"
"Yes," answered Ellen, her face in shadow.
"Well, you needn't do anything more downstairs."
Ellen closed the door of her own room and stood against it.
"How dreadful!" she said to herself. "It is she who is shameless."
When she had had her supper she walked a little distance along the
river-bank to a favorite bench. She looked back at the gray house
and saw the moon shining on its irregular roof. There were trees
between it and her and it seemed to stand isolated, a grim and
solemn habitation.
So Mrs. Lanfair was like that! How troubled Dr. Lanfair must be!
Resentment had now faded wholly, she was filled with pity. Then
suddenly in her dark eyes appeared the emotion expressed by
Fetzer's single eye, by Miss Knowlton's pale blue orbs and by Miss
MacVane's dim vision, the tenderness with which most women
regard a man who for some reason is reduced from the superior
position which should be his. She longed, as they did, with her
whole heart, to be of some supreme service to him. Her wish was
soon to be granted.
When she went into the office the next afternoon to put drops into
Miss MacVane's eyes, she looked at her with curiosity. She had not
the remotest claim to beauty; she was short of speech and
sometimes irritable, and her thick glasses, without which she could
see nothing, disfigured her. It was not possible that Mrs. Lanfair
feared good Miss MacVane!
Miss MacVane removed her green shade and her thick glasses, and
Ellen lifted the little rack and took from the bottle the attached
medicine-dropper. A penetrating odor frightened her.
"I'm ready," said Miss MacVane patiently. "I'm better, thank God!"
The expletive was heartfelt—she did thank God.
Ellen's hand poised motionless above the little vials.
"What's the matter, Ellen?"
"Why—" began Ellen.
"What is it?" Miss MacVane blinked unseeing.
Still Ellen made no motion. There was something wrong. Ammonia
was not a medicament for the eye, but the lotion seemed to be pure
ammonia!
"What is it, Ellen?"
Ellen believed suddenly that she understood what had happened—
Dr. Lanfair had made a mistake. Her next act, quickly conceived and
executed, was like a protecting gesture. Into her eyes came again
the expression with which Fetzer and Miss Knowlton and Miss
MacVane regarded their master. No wonder that he had made a
mistake! She put deliberately into Miss MacVane's eyes two drops of
distilled water.
When Miss MacVane had gone, Ellen stood holding the bottle and
looking at it. What should she do now? Had she behaved with
unwarrantable officiousness? She stood in the same spot holding the
bottle in her hand when Stephen entered and stared at her in
surprise and then in amazement. For an instant they regarded each
other, for the first time straightforwardly. A vaguely disturbing
recollection troubled Stephen's mind and then was immediately lost
in a sharper emotion.
"What's the matter?"
Ellen grew pale and her knees weakened. But it was better to have
been unwarrantably officious than to have used the wrong medicine!
"I've been putting drops into Miss MacVane's eyes in the afternoon,
so that Miss Knowlton wouldn't have to stay, and to-day there's
something wrong with it."
Stephen took the flask roughly.
"It's different from yesterday," said Ellen, "there's a great deal more
of it, and there's an odor."
Stephen held the little bottle with both hands.
"If I did wrong, I'm sorry. I can go to Miss MacVane's house if you
want me to."
At last Stephen looked up.
"Couldn't you smell this stuff?" he demanded. "Couldn't she? Where
is she?"
"I didn't use it!" cried Ellen.
"Oh, you didn't!"
"I used distilled water. I didn't say anything to her."
Stephen looked at his housemaid, bewildered.
"Why didn't you?"
"I thought it was your mistake and that I'd better tell you."
"You say the solution was all right yesterday?"
"I think so."
"It didn't burn?"
"No; I'm sure it didn't."
His gaze held Ellen's eyes helplessly. He tried vainly to remember her
name, but at any rate her name didn't matter.
"Was this bottle in its usual place?"
"Yes."
Stephen grew white; his hand trembled and he set the rack with the
little vials down quickly.
"Tell Fetzer to come here, please."
Ellen climbed to the third story and found Fetzer in her room. Hilda
had gone motoring and the house was soundless.
"What ails you, Ellen?" asked Fetzer. "You look so queer."
"Dr. Lanfair wants you to come to the office."
"What's the matter?"
"I don't know," answered Ellen honestly.
She went into her room and stood looking out the window. He had
not even thanked her! Could the mistake have been Miss
Knowlton's? What had Fetzer to do with it? Perhaps he had called for
Fetzer on other business. Five minutes passed, ten minutes, and she
stood looking down upon the river.
When her bell rang she went to the office, and was there bidden to
close the door, whether by Stephen or Fetzer she did not know. She
saw only two white faces. Fetzer had sat down because she could
not stand. Ammonia in eye-wash—she knew how that would
madden and perhaps destroy! Her hand covered her scarred cheek.
Vividly recollected sensations paralyzed her mind; she sought as yet
no solution of this strange event, but dwelt only on the imagined
agony.
"Fetzer tells me that you use ammonia for household purposes," said
Stephen. "Where do you keep it?"
Ellen's eyes sought Fetzer's for confirmation.
"In the cupboard in the hall."
"Have you ever missed any?"
"Why, no!"
"Does any one but yourself go to the cupboard?"
"No"—then Ellen corrected herself. She still spoke straightforwardly
and innocently. "Mrs. Lanfair got some there yesterday; she filled
one of the engraved bottles from her bathroom; at least I think so."
"What makes you think so?"
Ellen flushed.
"Because I saw that a new bottle had been opened, and when I
cleaned Mrs. Lanfair's bathroom I saw there was ammonia in her
violet water bottle. I think she probably wanted to clean a chain or
something."
"Thank you," said Stephen.
When Ellen had gone he looked down at the floor and Fetzer looked
at him. Her lips had parted; she pressed her hand against them as
though to close them. She had always known that Hilda was a
wicked woman, but not that she was as wicked as this!
Ellen climbed the steps slowly. She heard presently Hilda's motor
stop at the door, and Hilda come upstairs. Then quiet fell once more.
After an hour the door of the motor slammed again—Stephen and
Hilda had gone out to dinner. She heard late at night the sound of
their return. She had remembered now suddenly and clearly a
forgotten detail of their visit to the farmhouse.
"Dementia, Father!" she heard herself say. "Who has dementia?"
She looked at her open door. Did she hear the sound of a creeping
approach? She sat upright. If she closed and locked her door she
would leave Fetzer to the mercy of she knew not what. But she
would lock the door at the head of the stairs; then they would both
be safe. But she might shut out a call for help! Did she hear now a
half-smothered voice? She rose and slipped barefooted into the
passage. There she saw a small dark figure.
"Is that you, Ellen?" asked a sharp voice.
"I thought I heard a noise."
"You were dreaming. It was nothing. Go back to bed and shut your
door."
Ellen obeyed, and Fetzer sat down on the upper step from which she
had risen, and suddenly the clock struck two. The sound of voices
was not imaginary.
"Can't you sleep, Hilda?"
"No, I can't sleep."
"Is there anything I can do for you?"
"You can attend to your own affairs."
Fetzer's eyes sought longingly the window at the end of the hall. If
morning would only come! She guessed now what ailed her
mistress, and her kind heart ached with remorse and terror. Madness
—she knew what madness was!
 CHAPTER XXIII
A STRANGE JOURNEY

Mayne answered Stephen's telephone call with his usual abounding

cordiality. He was glad to hear Stephen's voice and he had been
thinking about running up to spend the night. Yes he could come
very soon—and bring Dr. Good?
"And bring Dr. Good," he repeated. "Did I understand you correctly?"
"Yes."
"You wish Good to come professionally?"
"Yes, as soon as possible."
Mayne understood the significance of the invitation. He was not
prepared to meet this emergency, forewarned though he had always
been. He mopped his brow. His hair was now entirely gray, but he
was still ruddy of complexion and possessed a boy's vigor of body. A
chill fear passed over him, not only for Hilda, but for himself.
"Lanfair has requested me to bring you to Harrisburg," he explained
to Dr. Good. "I anticipate some serious development. I had begun to
believe my fears to be groundless." He mopped his forehead again.
"It is distressing. I judge there has been some acute crisis, but when
I called her to announce our prospective visit—I suggested to Lanfair
that I do that—her voice sounded natural."
He had a moment with Stephen upon their arrival and reported the
result of his interview to Dr. Good—whispered it, though they were
alone in Good's bedroom with the door closed. His alarm grew
hourly stronger. One of his aunts had become violent, had lived for
several years in an asylum, and had at last put an end to her life.
"It seems that Hilda has taken an intense dislike to a half-blind,
middle-aged woman in Lanfair's office and resented the fact that he
felt it professionally necessary to remain here to watch this woman's
eyes when she wished him to accompany her away. She is known to
have taken ammonia from the household supplies the day before
ammonia was put into this Miss MacVane's eye-wash. The woman is
a harmless lonely soul whom Lanfair saved from blindness."
Dr. Good shook his head. He was a small man remarkable for his
bright eyes, his large steel-rimmed spectacles, and a strong
Pennsylvania German accent which he would never lose.
"If a homicidal mania is developing, as frequently happens in such
cases," he said, "she should be confined at once. Lanfair should be
persuaded of the necessity for it. She should be got quietly to the
King Sanatorium."
Dr. Good was secretly glad that the problem of transportation was
not his. He remembered that Lanfair had been comparatively a poor
man—he had paid dearly for his riches!
The problem of transportation proved to be, however, quite simple.
Hilda greeted her guests at dinner. It was a season when dress
patterns were scant and she wore little, but her slender body
appeared to be inadequate to sustain even her bright, filmy dress
and her string of pearls. She seemed to be becoming as ethereal as
the smoke of the cigarettes which she so constantly used. Dr. Good
was quick to observe that she was suspicious and uneasy, that she
seemed to be under great tension. It was by no means improbable
that a crisis was at hand.
Poor Hilda welcomed her uncle. She was miserably conscious of the
turmoil within, and she felt that his presence would steady her.
Several times she put out her hand toward him across the corner of
the table and he covered it with his own.
"But your hand is cold!" cried Hilda. "What is the matter?"
"Nothing is the matter," answered Mayne with a nervous cough. He
felt that they surrounded her, three great men, like enemies, a
fluttering, helpless creature in her own house. She should not be
confined unless there were no other way. She was, as far as he
could see, wholly normal. While Good talked to Stephen about a
problem with which both ophthalmists and psychiatrists were
concerned, he clasped Hilda's hand a little more closely.
It may have been that his ill-concealed anxiety and alarm roused her
suspicions, or that the cunning plan which she believed that she was
carrying out excited her beyond the point of safety; it may have
been merely that her disease advanced rapidly to a climax. Suddenly
she felt that he—that they all—were against her. It was no longer
possible for her to restrain herself. She began to stammer and to
point her forefinger at Stephen. Hers was the dreadful gaze of a bird
at a snake or a prisoner at a hated jailer.
"Uncle," she said earnestly in her clear, high voice, "he's not true to
me." The three men heard; so did Ellen, impressed into service by
the absence of the waitress, and so did Fetzer in the pantry. "I can
tell you about the many, many women. I can—"
"As I was saying, ..." went on Dr. Good.
"Hilda, I have something to tell you," said Mayne, desperately.
But Hilda would not be silenced. She rose, pushing away from her
the silver tray with its coffee service and its delicate cups. A flask of
cognac which was not well balanced fell with a light crash upon a
piece of fragile china; then her hands, spread suddenly apart in a
frantic gesture, sent her pearls in all directions.
"You'll listen while I tell you everything! You'll—"
A terrified, watchful Fetzer came a little beyond the screen which
stood before the pantry door. She knew the purpose of their coming
—did they understand that Hilda was really mad, and did they know
that madness was cunning and quick and dangerous?
Hilda turned her head and looked at Fetzer, her hatred leaping to her
eyes.
"There is one of them, Uncle!" As Mayne rose she threw herself into
his arms. "I want to go home with you!"
Mayne's eyes filled with tears.
"Now?"
"Yes."
"Can you prepare to go at once?"
Hilda fixed her eyes upon Ellen who had neither pretensions to
learning nor connection with Stephen's hated work.
"She'll help me." She looked about wildly and Mayne and Ellen
guided her up the stairs.
"I'll give you some medicine to make you feel better, then this girl
will assist you." Mayne was trembling. It was, alas, not to his house
that they would take poor Hilda!
Ellen helped the shivering figure into a street dress. The medicine
began to have its effect; Hilda grew drowsy and lost control of her
tongue. When Mayne returned she pointed to Ellen.
"What is it, Hilda? Are you afraid of her?"
Hilda shook her head.
"Do you wish her to accompany you?" Even in moments like this
Mayne chose his words.
Hilda nodded and Mayne went to speak to Stephen. When he
returned they helped Hilda down the stairs. She became more
drowsy and had difficulty in finding the step of the throbbing motor.
She laid her head on Ellen's shoulder and Ellen steadied her with her
arm. The car gave a premonitory whirr, then it seemed to spring
ahead. It did not move as though guided by the expert hand of
Fickes and Ellen realized that Stephen was at the wheel and that Dr.
Good sat beside him.
Once in the long journey Mayne asked a question.
"Isn't Mrs. Lanfair heavy against your shoulder?"
"No," answered Ellen.
Mayne's voice was thick and Ellen herself had shed tears.
At eleven o'clock the car stopped beneath a porte-cochère and a
nurse and two orderlies came down the steps. They received poor
Hilda tenderly and with businesslike hopefulness. The three men
followed the little procession into the lighted doorway.
Until they reappeared, a space of time which seemed long, but
which was in reality short, Ellen looked up at the beautiful doorway
and at the dimly outlined ornamental shrubbery. A stranger had now
joined Lanfair and his companions and together they approached the
car.
"She'll sleep till morning, Stephen, then I'll be here, and Good also.
We'll go into the city for the night."
Ellen heard a new voice, smooth, a little hesitating, and very kind.
Dr. King had new theories and indestructible enthusiasm, and his
experiments were being eagerly watched.
"I should advise against the patient seeing you at once, Dr. Lanfair."
"I understand," answered Stephen. He looked frowning at the car.
"That girl's got to be taken back. I may as well go home."
"She has comported herself admirably." Mayne raised his voice so
that Ellen might hear.
Stephen stepped into the car as one who feels his way. He looked at
Ellen as though her outline were dim.
"You'd better sit beside me. It will be rough riding there on the back
seat."
He did not speak again until the journey was almost over, when, in
the city limits, he slackened his speed.
"You've been of great service—" again he tried vainly to remember
Ellen's name.
Ellen wiped her eyes.
"I'm very sorry for her," she said.
"Yes," said Stephen heavily. His own eyes smarted, though he had
never expected to shed tears for Hilda.
Fetzer, hearing the motor, opened the door. She felt, it must be
confessed, a little jealousy—it was she who should have helped
Stephen! She climbed with Ellen the narrow stairway at the back of
the house, and Stephen went up the broader stairway to his
dressing-room. She sat with Ellen while she got ready for bed.
"It was God's will that the colored girl was out," she said devoutly.
"Nobody will know anything. Even those women in the office don't
need to know, ain't it so, Ellen?"
"I shan't tell them."
Fetzer rose and laid her hand across her cheek.
"Most people think he laid all this time on a bed of roses. But we
know."
Ellen lay down and pushed the pillow away and turned over on her
face, her cheek on her arm. Her heart throbbed, her cheek was
flushed. The strange journey, Stephen's eyes, his long, slim hand,
the touch of his arm against hers as she stepped to her place beside
him, the darkness, the swift, unbroken pace, once a deep breath—all
passed through her mind. She did not think coherently; she merely
recalled each detail with nervous excitement.
Stephen wheeled his bed to the bay-window from which he could
look out upon the river. Sleep was far from him. It was many years
since he had thought of Hilda with tenderness, but he thought of her
tenderly now. After a while he rose and went across to her rooms
and sat down. The low moon illuminated some of the luxurious
furnishings and cast others into shadow. He sat motionless, recalling
the early days of his devotion, the hours of dreaming before Edward
Levis's meager fire, Hilda's advances, his shy response, his rapture.
Then other recollections thronged, and face and heart burned. He
rose quickly. He would not think of her unkindly in this house, nor in
this hour, now that she was gone. No blame could be imputed to
her; she was a creature unfinished, spoiled, ill. He wished that he
had been as patient in his heart as he had been unfailingly kind in
his behavior. Now she was gone, she could trouble him no more,
harass him no more, embarrass, shame, terrify him no more. He
went to his bed and to sleep.
 CHAPTER XXIV
AN UNHAPPY SCHOLAR

No sooner had Amos let Ellen go away from him than he regretted
his foolishness. He might as well have walked back with her to the
house where she lived and thus have been much longer in the half-
paradise, half-purgatory of her company. He did not cross to the
next street as he had intended, but walked rapidly after her.
The sun was setting and the river was bathed in golden light. Over
all lay a spell broken only by bird-songs. Men and women walked
slowly; a succession of lovers wandered arm-in-arm; automobiles
moved quietly; and occasionally a pair of horses trotted briskly by,
drawing a mistress who clung, for this hour at least, to the vehicle of
an older time. But Amos saw neither the river nor the pedestrians
nor heard the bird-songs; his eyes were fixed ahead searching for a
figure which had already vanished.
When he reached Ellen's habitation a sheltering twilight had fallen
and he sat down on a bench in the park. He saw lights shine here
and there and he thought that she might be lighting them, though
his idea of her duties was still vague. After a while he hid his face in
his hands. The ways of the world, the quickening of the pulse as
night drew on, the intercourse of delicate, silken-clad women and
predatory men, the prospect of fond assignations, the eluding of
watchful wives and guardians—it was the world of Evelyn Innes and
Anna Karenina in which Ellen was moving, though only a narrow
space of street and wall divided her from him. He felt that he should
go mad.
Presently he saw that a car had glided into place before the Lanfair
house. The door opened and let out a soft glow and at once a tall
man and a short woman came down the steps and drove away. The
man helped his companion into the car with careful solicitude—it
was, except for one, the last drive which Stephen and Hilda were to
have together. Amos saw himself and Ellen going thus happily.
When it was quite dark he rose and went on his way, past other
handsome houses to a cross-street by which he approached the
square. There again he stood still as though his powers of
locomotion were sufficient to carry him only a short distance. The
large, open space wore an air of festivity. In the center, as from the
center of a spider's web, street-cars started to suburban districts,
and round this center circled perpetually the gleaming lights of
automobiles. In a still wider circle coincident with the pavement
moved the human throng. At the curb stood more or less permanent
groups held by the eloquence of a traveling quack or soap-vender.
The largest group listened to the loud singing and tambourine-
playing of the Salvation Army, and Amos, hearing their music, moved
idly toward them. The company was made up of two men and three
women to whom religion was not a dull habit, but a burning passion,
and on whose faces were recorded struggles as fierce as his own.
Their leader was a short man with immensely broad shoulders and a
countenance which expressed an almost savage earnestness. He had
mounted a box in order to be seen and he was speaking rapidly,
reminding his audience that they were sinners who needed a
Saviour. He gesticulated with disproportionately large hands,
hardened by work in the steel mill. He did not hold work to be a
curse but a means of salvation.
Amos gazed without seeing and heard without understanding.
Presently he moved on down the street, looking absently at jewels
and boxes of candy and delicate slippers. In the window of the
department store he saw a sign, "New Titles in the Thinker's
Library." Alas, the store was closed!
When he reached the Kloster it was almost midnight, but
Grandfather was awake and spoke feebly as soon as the door
opened.
"Well?"
The vague question was startling. For an instant Amos could not
remember the object of his journey.
"Oh, yes," he cried catching his breath, "I saw her; she's all right;
she works hard."
"Will she come home?"
"No," said Amos. He stood with bent head, looking at the floor. He
felt a sharp envy of Ellen. After a while a slight movement startled
him. He saw Grandfather standing in the doorway. He had wrapped
the sheet about him and might have passed for the importunate
ghost of the King of Denmark. It seemed to Amos that Grandfather
had been looking at him for a long time.
"Did you try to persuade her to come home?"
"Yes," answered Amos vaguely.
"And she wouldn't listen?"
"No."
Grandfather went slowly back into his room and lay down. After a
while he uttered a sigh which seemed unending.
 CHAPTER XXV
A PROJECTED ATONEMENT

Stephen's forty-second birthday fell upon the day on which he made

the final arrangements for Hilda's residence at the King Sanatorium.
He had not seen her because she was obsessed by fear of him, and
he sat in the office until the superintendent returned with Mayne and
Dr. Good. Even Dr. King, sanguine as his temperament was, was in
this case not hopeful.
"The family history is not encouraging," he explained, with deepest
commiseration for Stephen, deprived before middle life of an
attractive companion. "But you must not despair."
"Is her physical condition also likely to grow worse?" asked Mayne.
He did not mop his brow upon this occasion; he felt, not without
self-reproach, a deep relief.
"We can't prophesy about that. We have had patients of her type
who have lived for a long time and others who lived only a few
months."
"What do you mean by a long time?"
"Well, for some years," said Dr. King in his kind voice.
Stephen rose and took his hat from the table. He was depressed and
intensely nervous. Mayne's large body and the superintendent's
sympathy and Dr. Good's bright, observant eyes irritated him.
"She's to have, of course, every possible attention. You have
Professor Mayne's address and mine."
"We make weekly reports unless we are directed otherwise. In case
of an unusual development we should telephone you. You
understand, Dr. Lanfair, that Mrs. Lanfair's attitude toward you is a
part of her malady?"
"I understand perfectly."
At the door Mayne and Stephen bade one another good-bye. Both
remembered a thin, eager boy with a black band on his gray sleeve
and a short, slender, black-eyed girl.
"It's hard on you, Stephen."
"And on you."
Stephen stepped into his car beside Fickes. For a while he stared at
the floor, his arms folded, his mind a blank. Gradually the expression
of his eyes changed, the pupils darkened. There waited for him at
the hospital a woman who had hastened a slow fire with coal oil; the
problem was even more difficult than that of Mrs. Fetzer, but he had
determined to solve it. He planned a course of treatment. He would
offer to take the next twenty burned cases at the hospital.
Presently he lifted his head and glanced about at a landscape which
recalled his visit to Edward Levis—was it two years or ten since he
had made his sudden descent upon him? Here was a friend! He
believed that he could even tell Levis his troubles; it would do him
good. He sat a little more erectly.
Then suddenly an electric thrill passed through his body. He was
free! Tears pressed upon his eyelids—he turned his head so that
Fickes might not see them—tears of profound relief. What anxiety
and torment had been his! And it was past, decently past, and he
had played the part of a man throughout. Moreover, no public
shame, no irremediable disaster had terminated the nightmare.
Hilda's valedictory was heard by only a few persons,—her uncle, Dr.
Good, Fetzer, upon whose devotion he could stake all that he had in
the world, and this unknown but apparently trustworthy creature
through whose quickness a serious calamity had been avoided. He
would tell Miss Knowlton and Miss MacVane where Hilda was, and he
would inform a few of the older friends whom she had inherited
from her parents, and to whom she had paid an indifferent
attention; then all would be concluded except the pitiful end of her
poor life.
They had begun to descend the hill toward the Kloster, and Stephen
looked at it curiously. When he visited Levis they would come over
here and prowl about. Ah, there were a thousand things to do in the
world, a thousand places to visit! Hilda had liked only main-traveled
roads on which there were theaters and shops; they had never seen
the interesting countries, the Far North, the tropics, Ceylon,
Carcassone, the church of Brou, the Far East. He was able to smile
at the old white-bearded man pottering about among the graves in
the cemetery of the Kloster, as though he smiled at Time himself.
Opening the door of his office he found Miss Knowlton and Miss
MacVane and went at once to work. There were a dozen patients
waiting, and as many to be informed that he had returned. Miss
Knowlton smiled at Miss MacVane when he began to prescribe for a
patient whose treatment would be extended. He meant evidently to
stay. But at other times he had meant to stay and had been
persuaded to go away. When he said that Hilda was in the King
Sanatorium they expressed their regret and went on with their work.
They were conscientious souls and both felt a vague self-reproach.
When he had had his dinner he returned to his office. But he was
tired; he would go for a walk. The night was clear, the air soft, and
the river reflected the stars. He ran up to his room, where he found
his housemaid engaged in laying back the covers of his bed. Ellen
expected to go out and she had coiled her hair on top of her head in
the transforming fashion condemned by Fetzer. She looked up and
answered Stephen's "Good-evening" with a bright flush. Her heart
beat quickly; it seemed to her now that it was never quiet. Stephen
looked at her, confused, as though she were a stranger.
"It's a warm night, isn't it?"
"Yes," said Ellen, "but there'll be a breeze from the river."
"Are you fond of the river?"
"It gets to seem like a friend."
She smiled and moved toward the door. She had learned her lesson
well; while she was a housemaid she would do as housemaids did—
or should. She carried with her now a pleasant anticipation—she had
changed her mind, some day she would tell Stephen who she was.
But the time was not yet ripe. In the doorway she paused.
"Would you like me to move your bed to the bay-window each
evening?"
Stephen was watching her free walk and her straight shoulders and
wishing for some young creature to walk and talk with, some boy or
girl like this.
"Did you speak to me?"
She repeated her question.
"O, thank you; I'll do that when I want to sleep there."
He decided not to walk; he would call on Dr. and Mrs. Salter and tell
them about Hilda and ask them to tell certain other persons. It was
a duty which seemed suddenly pressing.
He continued through the spring to work all day and a part of the
night. He had never felt more alert; after a while he attributed his
alertness to freedom from anxiety. What might a man not
accomplish under circumstances which were entirely favorable—with
health and fortune and domestic happiness?
It was with a sense of amusement that he found himself thinking
presently of the one creature in his house who was young. It was
pleasant to meet her once or twice a day and see the color deepen
in her cheeks. He did not realize that it was meeting him which
made her flush; it was simply that she had color which came and
went easily. She was always quiet, always unobtrusive, always low-
voiced. She smiled, but he had never heard her laugh.
He began to be curious about her, but he asked no questions either
of her or of Fetzer. He would learn, of course, that she was merely a
dull country girl and the impression of intelligence given by a single
instance of quick-wittedness would vanish when she began to talk.
She seemed to have within her some spring of interest or
satisfaction, but he could not guess what it was. But dull or not, she
was very lovely.
Then one warm, bright night when sleeping seemed a waste of time,
Stephen found his narrow bed pushed to the window. He smiled;
then suddenly he grew pale and turned on his heel and began to
walk up and down the room. He folded his arms across his breast as
though to hold by force some leaping savage, unrighteous, thing. He
was not so much appalled as astounded. He went down to his office
and brought up Farmingham on the Muscles of the Eye. At three
o'clock he laid the book down and turned out his light, smiling a little
weakly at himself. He refused to connect this absurdity with any
individual; he believed it was an effect of too close application to
work.
In a third-story room neatly arranged was the overflow of his
professional library, pamphlets and magazines which waited binding,
and books which had passed their usefulness, but which he might
still need for reference. On the day after his vigil, going thither to
find a pamphlet, he passed Fetzer's room and came to the door of
Ellen's room. There he saw Ellen's little bed, her table with its books,
its neatly sharpened pencils, its vase of flowers. All was sweet and
virginal and childlike. He remembered that Fetzer had said long ago
that the girl studied; he was curious about her studies. He stepped
in and lifted the three books from the table. The first was a
geometry, the second a general history, the third a copy of "Vanity
Fair" from his library. In the geometry lay several sheets of paper
covered with neat triangles and circles.
He found his pamphlet and went downstairs slowly. He was indebted
to this girl who had helped him in a hard place. Did she wish more
education?—if so there was no reason why her ambition should not
be gratified. He was positive now that she was superior to her
present situation. His savings were large and his income constantly
increasing; it would be pleasant to help an ambitious student. A
comfortable philanthropic glow quite banished his lingering disgust
at last night's unpleasant experience.
After dinner he rang for Ellen, who came to his study a little
frightened. She had changed her black uniform for a white dress.
Stephen knew her straight shoulders and her free step, but he had
never realized quite the depth of her gaze when her eyes were
squarely encountered.
"Sit down, Ellen."
Ellen took the chair indicated to her. The light shone full on her dark
hair and her round chin and white neck. Something stirred again in
Stephen's breast.
"Fetzer tells me you're a student."
"Yes," answered Ellen, blushing.
"What do you study?"
"Geometry and history and English and other subjects."
"Why do you study?"
"I'm going to college."
"Oh, you are! When?"
"In September—that is, if I can make certain arrangements."
"What arrangements?"
"If I can pass the examinations. Miss MacVane thinks I can enter the
Sophomore class. I'm arranging to borrow a little from a fund for
students who need help."
"Why are you going to college?" Stephen leaned forward in his chair.
His interest in her quickened. To borrow from a fund, was she?
"I mean to be a doctor."
"A doctor!" Had Fetzer announced her intention of being an aviator,
he would have been no more surprised. "Why a doctor?"
"My father meant to educate me to be a doctor as he was." Then
Ellen leaned forward, her lips trembling. She could keep her secret
no longer—her heart seemed to burst with it. "Don't you remember
me at all?"
Stephen looked curiously into Ellen's face and thought of the
hundreds of patients in hospital and office. But even though there
had been hundreds he seldom forgot the eyes which he treated—
certainly not such eyes as these!
"Were you ever a patient of mine?"
Ellen shook her head; he could see her lips tremble. She seemed to
be unhappy because he did not remember her! What an
extraordinary experience! He had never been more puzzled or more
charmed.
"Ellen Lewis is your name, Fetzer said. Is that right?"
"Ellen Levis is my name. They call me Lewis when they can't say 'v.'"
Still he stared without comprehension. Ellen grew pale with distress.
Was she the victim of an hallucination?
"Don't you remember now?"
"No." It was Stephen's turn to believe that some form of aphasia had
blotted out a part of his past.
"You came to see my father the day he died, you and Mrs. Lanfair."
Stephen frowned; his lifted hand covered his lips; then he leaned
backward into the shadow. He was shocked beyond expression.
"Not Edward Levis!" said he, at last quietly.
"Yes."
"You were the young girl who begged us to stay to supper? You
were studying with your father and you had a little table by the
window?"
"Yes."
"Your father isn't dead!"
"He died that evening of heart trouble."
"How do you happen to be here?" asked Stephen sharply.
"I wanted to earn my living."
"Had your father no property?"
"I'm not of age."
"Why didn't you go on to college?"
"My grandfather and my brother thought I had enough education,
and the farm was run down and my brother thought the income
should go to improving it."
"Did they drive you away?"
"Oh, no! I came of my free will. They thought what they did was
right. It happened to suit Matthew's plans for the farm, but he would
have done right even if it had inconvenienced him."
"Did you expect to earn enough to go to college in a housemaid's
position?"
"No; but I earned something and I had a little. Then Miss MacVane
encouraged me—she had nothing, and yet she went to college."
"How did you happen to come here? Did Fetzer advertise?"
"No," answered Ellen with difficulty. "My father and I passed here
and he stopped and looked at your house. I came to look at it one
day because it reminded me of him. I was very forlorn. I think I was
crying and I crossed the street in front of an automobile and was
struck and Mrs. Fetzer befriended me."
"When did you recognize me?"
"When you came home."
"Why didn't you speak?"
"I couldn't."
"Did your father ever speak of me?"
"He wanted to make you executor of his will, but he couldn't
complete it."
"Why didn't you find me?"
"I couldn't remember your name."
Stephen leaned his chin upon his hand. He looked through Ellen at
some object far beyond her. He saw a bare room in a dingy old
house in Philadelphia, an old desk and his own head bent in remorse
above it. He had been grateful, Heaven bore witness, for a while.
"So you have everything arranged?" he said at last.
"Yes."
"And you are happy?"
"Yes. I've quite forgotten how unhappy and forlorn I used to be."
"The prospect of studying delights you?"
"Yes." Ellen lifted her eyes to his. "I used to think that learning was
everything, but I've found that it isn't. One needs satisfaction for the
mind, but one needs satisfaction for the heart also. It seemed to me
that I had nobody."
Stephen rose and went to the side of his desk and stood leaning
upon it and looking down at Ellen.
"And you feel that now you have somebody?"
"Yes. I'm older and more sensible and I realize that Grandfather and
Matthew are fond of me even though we think differently."
"And is this understanding of their affection sufficient food for the
heart?"
Ellen's look was still straightforward, but her cheeks crimsoned.
Fetzer would wonder where she stayed. She rose and stood before
him.
"No."
"What else have you?"
"I have you," answered Ellen simply.
At that Stephen put his hand under Ellen's soft chin and lifted her
head. She smiled at him, and when Ellen smiled she invited
unconsciously more of a caress than a mere touch of hand. But he
did not move and she turned her cheek a little against the warm
palm, then went away. Her cup of happiness was full. Her father's
desires had hitherto been her law; she had now another law.
For a moment Stephen stood motionless beside his desk, then he
began to walk up and down. What an extraordinary chance! He
began to lay plans. She must come down out of her attic; she must
wait no more upon him. Fetzer and Miss MacVane and Miss Knowlton
must be told at once who she was, and there must be no slighting of
her because she had done this lowly work. One of his favorite
occupations in periods of enforced idleness in trains or on steamers
had been the construction of various schemes of education based
upon what he felt were the deficiencies of his own. He would see
what could be done with this girl.
Presently he paused and stood for a long time motionless by his
desk. Levis dead! There had been hunger in Levis's eyes, hunger
which he might have satisfied. But no reproach should rest upon him
henceforth; he would do all for this girl that Levis could have done,
perhaps he might do more. He would atone. It was a moment of
pure philanthropy, unalloyed by any less exalted impulse.
 CHAPTER XXVI
A VISIT TO EPHRATA

In late September Matthew began to cut the corn in the field which
he had ploughed a year ago when Ellen went away. He began early
in the morning and worked doggedly and alone. The next day he
would have help, but to-day he rejoiced—if so bright a word could
describe his state of mind—in his loneliness. He breathed heavily; he
was angry and mortified. His life had not turned out as he had
expected; he had made, it was now perfectly clear, a basic error
from the effect of which he should never escape. He had always
believed that one could direct one's life and that so intelligent a
person as himself could direct it successfully, but he had been
mistaken.
He had chosen his wife with impeccable judgment—she was pretty
and quiet and domestic and religious and troubled by no
unbecoming ambition. She was still all of these, but each quality had
been modified in some unexpected way. Her prettiness was spoiled
by untidiness; her quietness was only quietness in comparison with
the clatter of her family; her housewifely accomplishments proved
slighter than he had expected; and her religion was, though he did
not realize it, a good deal like his own, a possession for eternity, but
of little practical use in this life.
She had slipped back quickly into the idioms which she had once
tried to weed from her speech in order to please him, and little
Matthew who was learning to talk copied her. About this subject she
had already quarreled with her husband whom she accused of being
ashamed of her.
He had not reckoned upon the physical depression which
accompanies the bearing of children of whom there were now two.
Millie was preoccupied with her sensations; she was constantly on
the watch for fresh symptoms which she retailed to whoever would
listen. The description of her morning miseries greeted Matthew's
opening eyes; the account of her evening faintness kept him awake
at the end of a weary day. She implied that for all her troubles he
was to blame; a bride married by capture could have uttered a no
more triumphant "Whose fault is it?"
From the pressure of unpleasant conditions Matthew was free only
when he was in the fields. Domestic activities were now carried on,
except for sleep, in the kitchen, and there on cold evenings even
preparations for sleep were made. The fashion in which he had been
brought up came to possess for him a moral and religious
significance. When he remembered his youth—and he remembered
it more and more often—he saw his father working at his desk, a
mouselike Ellen by the window, Mrs. Sassaman busy with her tasks
in a distant kitchen, and himself in his own room. Each might have if
he wished the privacy which was an inalienable right, the solitude in
which mind and soul could grow.
Though Esther was at present away, she had become a fixture in the
house. She liked the freedom and the wages and she preferred
Millie's company to that of her other sisters. She was certain that
Matthew wished her gone, but his dislike did not trouble her; she
knew that he feared her departure while he desired it. She had left
once, and Matthew, with harvesting waiting, had done the washing.
He had repented his insolence to his grandfather and had been
forgiven by him, but he was not at peace, though he went regularly
to church. He had confidently expected that God would smooth his
path when he so earnestly besought Him, and instead his path
seemed to be growing each day rougher.
When in the middle of the afternoon Ellen came up the sloping road
outside the field, he did not recognize her. She wore a changed
aspect, the appearance of one intensely preoccupied with pleasant
thoughts. He saw her wave her hand, and in the light of Millie's
prejudices believed that she was some bold creature beckoning to
him. When she slipped between two fence posts he knew her with a
pang. He did not go to meet her, but stood bending forward a little
until she reached to her full height to kiss his cheek. He had often
accepted her kisses as though they were an infliction; now they
brought tears.
"Well, Matthew!"
He looked down at her, recognizing the change in her state of mind;
she felt herself to be, it was plain, fortunate and happy. He had
made up his mind that when she returned she should not be
received like a prodigal but now her expression made clear that she
was not a prodigal in any sense.
"You've surprised me!" he said, astonished at his own delight.
"Are you glad to see me?" Ellen looked at him almost coquettishly.
"Yes," he answered with a deep breath. Then in the midst of his
pleasure he was discomfited. She might stay to supper, and a
welcome was doubtful. The secondary cause of all Millie's woes was
Ellen.
"Can't you stop work a little while and sit down in the woods and
talk to me?"
"Yes," said Matthew.
The oak trees, whose foliage was now a dark red, were but a step
away and the two sat side by side on the old log. There was
between them the most astonishing contrast. Matthew's youthful
beauty was gone; his skin was tanned to a darker shade than his
light hair; he did not sit erect and he was unshaven; but more
startling was his air of weariness and dullness. He looked ten years
older than Ellen and seemed to belong to a different race. She laid
her hand on his knee.
"I have a long story to tell you."
"Well?" Matthew's eyes devoured her. He was bewildered and made
uneasy by his delight. He wished to gather her into his arms and
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