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I left for my appointment in Washington. They passed out of my life, the Tallants, in the selfish preoccupation of my new interests and the absence of any actual ties or pressing invitations that could bring me back to Chicago.

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It was ten years before I saw Tallant again, or nearly ten years, and then it was only by accident that I ran into him in a Washington club. The club was pompous and conservative; I was only dining there because I was alone. My wife had gone north, the summer heat was baleful, the cook had a vacation, and I was forced to go somewhere near in order to be on deck early in the morning. Almost no one was eating in the lofty dining-room when I saw Tallant enter, not a bit stockier than he was ten years before, his hair a little thinner, his manner even quieter, and a sobriety of word and pace that made me wonder if I had ever really known him. He accepted my invitation to sit down and have dinner with me, and he did it with sincere willingness. But there was no nerve of heartiness in his response to me. It was acquiescence, no more.

He had nothing against me. He spoke to me without the least complication, asked after my family and my interests, smiled very pleasantly about my supposed successes, and answered readily enough about himself. Yet, Lord! how strange it was to talk to this husk and pretend it was the same man! There was no fire in his eye. His spirit in some mysterious way had become meager and dull. I tried to infuse him with sympathy, to inspire him, to arouse him. Nothing I said made him un

quiet or uneasy. He was agreeable when I referred to the walks we had had together, and to the various experiences we had really shared. He was ready to talk of his wife with perfect ceremony. But the genuine man, the soul, the personality—it never answered me. It was dead and gone, completely. For all his bodily presence, for all his bulk and substance, there was nothing left of him. He was a cinder. Flame touched him, but he no longer burned.

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I recall this meeting at the present time because I have just been spending the evening with Frida Tallant. It is exactly five years now since I had that casual dinner in Washington with Eugene, and it is about two years since I was shocked and grieved to hear of his death. Last week I learned from an old Chicago friend that Frida was to be in New York at a hotel in Fiftyeighth Street for three or four days. I called her up at once, and she asked me to dine tête-à-tête. I have just sat through the whole evening with her, before the open French window of her high room, in the half-dark. We talked, or rather she did. Strange evening. Strange evening. I think that at last I understand them.

Your quiet business man indeed! I always knew Eugene had depths in him, but I was not prepared for the depths, the glowing and gleaming depths, she revealed to me. As for herself, poor forlorn devil, she deserves it, but who wants to get what he really deserves? I don't deny there was something evil in Frida, and I think there remains something evil. I kissed her good-by, for the

first time, and my heart moved to her as it had never done when I had a more facile heart. She has become positively witch-like, long and thinfaced, with claw hands and coiled intractable hair. Unlike my plump self, she is meager about her food and I think about her money and her leisure. There is something exacting and tense about her. Not more than fifty, she might be older. Life has shattered on her, has fined her and withered her. And yet there is a narrow turbulent force between those bleak walls.

It was she who began to speak of Eugene. She did not try to hide her story; she told it without a tear, sitting straight up, no longer the invalid or suffering woman. She had done something to him, she had wronged the essential man, and yet I cannot judge her easily. She is too bitterly her own judge.

"Eugene deceived me," she said to me, in the half-dark room. "He began going away quite often, saying he had business that required his absence. Often he had real business trips, but I couldn't fit his stories together. He didn't lie when I asked him, but he evaded me.

"I can't remember if you were still in Chicago when we first heard the poet Vachel Lindsay. Well, that man fascinated my husband, though he'd laugh and shake his head and say, 'Queer cuss; never heard such a queer cuss.' It was after hearing Lindsay and reading every line that he wrote that Eugene began going away from me."

"That's odd," I said; "I don't see the connection."

"Wait. I was very much troubled by Eugene's absences, and I was sure

it must be a woman. It seemed so likely. I knew that in some wayHe loved me too. But perhaps he spoke about himself to you. You often saw the tension between us."

I shook my head. "No, Frida. I could see there was tension at times, but Eugene never said a syllable.'

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"It went back very far, Martin. I fell in love with him when he was engaged to another woman. He broke the engagement for my sake, on my account, but I never could be sure, I never could be sure, that he wanted to."

"You suspected him of being in love with Peggy Townsend-Peggy Wade?"

"Oh, that! I hoped he was in love with Peggy. I hoped he was in love with any of the girls who came to us. Don't you see? That would have proved he was cured. You can see that."

"But then it was all right; there was this other woman he deceived you for?"

"Let me tell you. He went away so often and so mysteriously that at last I made up my mind to follow him. That shocks you, doesn't it? The girl he had been in love withshe was noway near Chicago, and yet I thought perhaps I might be mistaken. I knew that if Eugene discovered he would never be able to forgive me. I knew that. But I was torn by my suspicions night and day. I suffered tortures. If you've never been jealous, Martin, you can't know what I suffered. I lived in hell. I told myself I could find out about him without his ever suspecting. I knew he was innocent, and yet I was in agony. If he were innocent it couldn't hurt him to have me know

it, but if I didn't have certainty I should die.

"I wanted to speak to you. You were the only person who could understand. But you had left, and even so I was afraid. You knew that Eugene was finer clay than I am. Yes, you did. It's true. So I had to help myself as well as I was able. "I thought of telling my brother what I suspected, but I couldn't. There wasn't a soul I could speak to. So the next time Eugene left home I followed him. It was in June. I I traced him to the station, and when he left the ticket-window I asked the clerk for a ticket 'to the same place,' with a smile. He gave me a ticket to a small town in Iowa, without a word.

"It was a Saturday, and when we reached there it was about nine in the evening. I held back until I saw him leave the depot, and then I walked after him. I saw him step into the Palace Hotel, and I went on to the other hotel; I think it was called the Murray House. I was at my wit's end when I registered. Could I go back to the Palace Hotel and ask about him? I didn't dare. And yet that is what I did.

"He was registered there by his own name, Eugene Tallant, and he'd taken a single room. When the clerk told me that Mr. Tallant had asked for ice-water and was gone to bed already, I told him never to mind. The clerk was a chatty elderly man. 'He's ordered his team for nine-thirty to-morrow morning,' he said. I thanked him, pretending I had just wanted to make sure.

"Next morning was a lovely Sunday morning. I was up at six. I remember the hotel yard as I looked

out on it. It was like the heart of the country, the hen with her chickens pecking in the sun, the dog sunning himself, and the maid in high heels at the pump. She was young and light-hearted, and the tree over her head was shimmering in the early light. And there was I, in a fever, in my cold musty room, waiting to know my fate. I'll never forget it.

"I was out before nine-thirty. There was hardly a soul up in the little town. little town. I posted myself in sight of the hotel where Eugene was staying, but at a good long distance, by a tree. I saw the gate of the yard open, and he came out, leading a horse and wagon, an ordinary light farmer's wagon, with nothing in it but a wooden box.

"He went up the street away from me, at a walking pace, to the place where the court-house was, a big square with shade-trees all round, and very wide streets. There was a fountain in front of the court-house, and a statue to one side. He stopped by the edge of the path and hitched his horse. I can still see him do it. It was a poor-looking sorrel, just a hired horse.

"He was dressed the way you've often seen him, quite smartly, you know. But in a little while he stood up in the wagon, facing the empty street. A couple of people were going by, an elderly man and a woman, country people, and he spoke to them. They stopped. Then a foreigner went by and he stopped. And a couple of young men who had been delivering milk. In ten or fifteen minutes he had a small crowd, just a handful. I couldn't understand it. I nearly went forward to

see what was the matter with him. I thought he was gone mad.

"And then he began. Martin, I could not understand what had got into him. It was such an extraordinary thing to do. There he was, standing up there on the wagon, and he began singing to the little Sunday morning crowd, as if it were the most natural thing on this earth. I could hardly recognize him, he was so calm, he was so self-assured, he took it all so much as a matter of course. And he looked so young and healthy, with his hat off and his hair a little rumpled in the air. It was as if something had happened inside him. He wasn't a bit carried away or excited; he seemed at home with himself and absolutely serene and easy. I stood on the outskirt of the little crowd, where his glance passed over me. couldn't help staring at him, but I was in old clothes and a strange hat, and anyway the sun was in his eyes and he didn't see me at all.

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"He sang folk-songs. I never knew he had it in him to let go of himself at all. I never dreamt he could stand up on a wagon and raise his voice like that so thrillingly. He sang through a long ballad, every word clear, and everybody listened just as if they really knew him, and when he finished they gave him real applause, and he sat down for a second on the box he had on the wagon. Then he stood up, and he sang a couple of lovely little short songs. It touched me so that tears came in my eyes. There was a man near me, this gray-haired foreigner. 'I've heard him before,' he said to me, "in another town. Wait till you see what happens.' When Eugene sat down again, the foreigner turned to

me.

'Do you see? He doesn't pass the hat! He never makes a collection. Isn't that a new thing? My God, I said, the first time I hear him; there's a man singing just because he feels that way. Isn't it a won'erful thing!'

"That was the moment I meant to escape. I meant to slip away when he was sitting down or just as soon as some one else moved. I was breathless with what I'd found, my heart was galloping, and I could hardly wait until my chance came again.

"And then the sun passed under a cloud, and Eugene saw me.

"My heart stopped. I was riveted to the ground. Our eyes had met, and I could tell by the expression on his face that it had struck him like a blow. All that went through him at that instant was known to me-his happiness, his liberty, his self-confidence, his singing-everything shriveled in one instant as if I had stricken him with the evil eye. I never saw such a look as came into his face. It was almost as if his soul had died before my eyes. He sat perfectly still and perfectly rigid. It was as if he could never move again. And he stayed still so long that the crowd began to shuffle and look from one to the other for some action on his part. It was an unbearable silence, but at last he leaned and picked up his hat. He put it on, and stood up.

""Is that all, mister?' a man asked disappointedly.

""That's the end,' said Eugene in a dead voice, and the crowd loosened as they heard him, and began to straggle asunder before moving away.

"I waited. When they were all going, Eugene stepped down and walked over to me.

"How did you get here?' he asked dully.

"I heard you'd come here,' I answered defiantly, I don't know why; 'and I thought I'd find out what the mystery was. I must say!' "What do you want to do?' "Nothing,' I said. 'It's very pretty. Keep right on.'

"He said absolutely nothing. He went over and began to unhitch the horse.

"Where are you going?' I inquired.

"Back to the barn,' he said, 'to get rid of this.' He was crushed, too crushed to do anything except with his hands.

"You're at the Palace Hotel,' I said. 'I'll meet you inside.'

"He nodded, and I knew he'd come into the hotel when he'd led back the wagon.

"I tried to speak to him then, Martin. I tried to reach him. But it was no use. I had followed him; I had tracked him down; it had killed something between us, something

that was free in him. I couldn't give it back to him."

Frida paused, her face haggard and lined. I tried to say that it was her imagination.

A wistful smile crossed her desolate face.

"Imagination! Eugene died that day. After that day, he never went away. And yet he was further from me than he had ever been before."

She resumed after a bit: "You know, I can never quite get out of my head the words he was singing that day:

"He's tane three locks o' her yellow hair,

Binnorie, O Binnorie!

And wi' them strung his harp so fair By the bonny mill-dams o' Binnorie.""

"It's an old ballad," I said lamely. She did not hear me. "The first woman-she had yellow hair. All the time I was trying to reach him, I kept thinking that." I said nothing.

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