I  
Far off, deep in the underground regions of the city at the focus of the republic's vast industrialism, the presses were reeling and clanging again, heavy with their story of disaster. The civilization of the day went on.
 
Somewhere out upon the mountain tops, somewhere in the forests, the forces of nature gathered, marched on toward the sea. Somewhere dumbly, mutely, uncomplaining, the great river and its mate the great power, inter-stellar, not international—they two, as he but now vauntingly had dreamed, erstwhile silent partners of John Rawn—did their work.... For whom? For what? Answer that, my brothers. The answer is your own. As you and I shall speak in that answer, so shall our children eat well sleep well, in days yet to come, in this country which we still call our own, now all too little ours.
 
 
 
 
II
 
It was far past midnight when John Rawn again came down the stair, sobered and whitened by what he had seen in the death chamber. He tiptoed now back to the library door, through which and beneath whose silken curtains still there pierced a little shaft of light. He opened the door, peered in.
 
He saw Virginia sitting there silent, white, unagitated, her features cameo-sharp, her skin waxen, indeed marble white, a woman as motionless, as silent, apparently as little animate as the one he had left behind him in the death chamber beyond the stair. She turned her eyes, not her face, toward him, but did not speak. The edge of her gown was moist, stained.
 
John Rawn looked in turn at the long figure upon the couch, motionless, silent, its hands folded. Neither did it speak to him. Suddenly oppressed, suddenly afraid, he turned once more away. Irresolution was in his soul, uncertainty.
 
Rawn was hardly sure that he still lived, that he still was the same John Rawn he once had known. It seemed impossible that all these things could have fallen upon him, who had not deserved them! He pitied himself with a vast pity, revolting at the many injustices of fortune now crowding upon him, a wholly blameless man. Why, a day before, he had held in his hand power such as few men could equal; had had, presently before him, power none other ever could hope to equal. That opportunity still existed. But how now could he avail himself of that opportunity, how could he go on to be the great John Rawn, if this figure on the couch could not arise, could not speak to him, could not perform the obvious duty of rendering needful assistance to him, John Rawn? The cruelty of it all rankled in the great and justice-loving soul of Mr. Rawn. Why, he was penniless—he—John Rawn! He was not even sure about his wife, yonder. She had said things to him he could not understand, could not believe.
 
He left the room, and walked still farther down the hall, his head sagging, his lower lip pendulous, his face warped into a pucker of self-pity—so absorbed, that at first he did not heed an approaching footfall. He paused almost in touch of some one who approached him in the half-lighted hall; some one who was coming down the stair and along the hall with steady tread.
 
 
 
 
III
 
There stood before him now the same tall, gray-haired, unfashionably dressed woman whom so recently he vaguely had noted at a distance in the hall above; some woman apparently busy with duties connected with the death chamber, as he had reflected when he saw her; some neighbor, he presumed, and certainly useful! It was kind of her to come at this time. He could not, at the time, recollect that he had seen her before. Yes, he would reward her—he would express his thanks.
 
He looked up at her now sharply, and gasped.
 
"Laura!" he exclaimed. "Is it you?"
 
"Why, yes, John," answered the tall, gaunt woman gently. "Didn't you see me, up there? I suppose you were too much troubled to notice me, John. Yes, I'm here. I thought maybe I ought to come.
 
"But you see—this—" she held out to him the letter she had picked up from the hall table. "This didn't get to her—Grace—not in time. She died this morning, before noon, they tell me. She never knew her mother was coming to her when she was in trouble. She hadn't seen my letter to her, telling I was coming. I knew she was in trouble—and I saw all the stories in the papers. I thought I'd tell her I was coming to her—and you, John. She was my girl, after all! I knew she was in trouble."
 
"How did you know?"
 
"Why, she wrote to me, of course. A girl always writes to her mother when she's in trouble. She wrote to me right often. She wasn't—well, she wasn't happy, John, and she often told me that. Something wrong was going on between her and Charley, I don't know what."
 
He stood looking at her, stupefied, as she went on, simply.
 
 
 
 
IV
 
"John, married folks oughtn't to be apart too much. They sort of get weaned from each other. Grace was too ambitious. She'd got, here, what she thought her husband couldn't get, what she'd come to think she had to have. I might have told her better, but I wasn't here. Not that I'm reproving you, John, not at all. Besides, we have all got to go, some day. But I loved her.... And the baby."
 
"So did I love her, and the baby," he began. Tears were in his eyes. "Laura, I have had nothing but trouble. And now you have come here—"
 
"Yes, I know; it must seem a little queer to you, John; so I'm going right away again, to-night—before morning, if there's any way I can get down-town."
 
"Yes, yes!"
 
"—Because, I know if I was seen around here, and people found out who I am, who I—was—there might be some sort of talk which would be hard for you, John. I reckon you have trouble enough without that. I didn't want to bother you. I came mostly because of Grace. But—John, I always did like to tell the truth, and I have got to tell it now—I came a little, too, because of you!"
 
"Of me? Why Laura!"
 
"Yes, I did. I read the papers, of course, all the time. I have known about you, although you haven't heard of me. You have moved up in the world, John, and as for me—well, I have just gone back to Kelly Row, where we used to live. Of course, I'm glad you have been lucky. But then, lately, the papers all began to say you were in trouble. I've read all kinds of things about you. I heard you were ruined—that you hadn't a dollar left in all the world!"
 
"It's true," he growled; "as near as I know, it's true. There is no hope for me now. It's all up!"
 
"But, John, you had so much money!"
 
"Yes, but it's gone now. It doesn't take it long to go when it starts the other way. The market makes a man, and it breaks him just as quick, and a lot quicker. It's done me, Laura. I'm ruined. I haven't a thing left in the world; not even my wife. Have you come here to twit me with it? What do I owe you, that I have to listen to you?"
 
"Why, nothing, John, that's true; nothing at all, not in the least. I have no right here at all, I know that. I understood that, when I—when—I went away from here. But that wasn't why I came back to-night."
 
"Then why did you come? You always had the faculty, Laura, of doing the wrong thing. You've been a curse to me all my life!"
 
"Some of that's true, John," she answered simply, "and a good deal of it isn't. Maybe I said t............