Alexander's Bridge

the table she spoke to the butler: "Thomas, I am going down to the kitchen now to see Norah. In half an hour you are to bring the greens up from the cellar and put them in the library. Mr. Ale

this room, and the red

, even in the streets. A foot of snow had fallen during the morning, and the wide space over the river was thick with flying flakes that fell and wreathed the masses of floating ice. Winifred was sta

h me, Winifred. The Common is beautiful. The boys have swept the s

did ones! But aren't you

and change my coat. I shall be down in a m

went with her into the library. "When did the azalea

im to put

's much the fin

There is too much color in tha

ut I feel piggish to have it. However, we really spend more time t

his weight, and began to twist the tough stems o

coming on because an old uncle up in Vermont has conveniently died and left Wilson a little money-

tate Street to the steamship offices. He will get a good many trips out of tha

afternoon. And now, don't you want to go upstairs and lie down for an ho

sping his big hands as if he were trying to realize something. The clock ticked through the minutes of a half-hour and the afternoon outside began to thicken and darken turbidly. Alexander, since he first sat down, had not changed his position. He leaned forward, his hands between his knees, scarcely breathing, as if he were holding himself away from his

people to dinner to-night, and Winifred's lying down. You will excuse her,

. "You HAVE been busy. Bartley, if I'd had my choice of all possible places in which to spend Christmas, your house would certainly be the place I'd have chosen. Happy people do a great deal

Winifred says I always wreck the house when I try to do anything. Do you know, I am quite tired. Looks as if I were not

er twice since I was here i

more than a month this time. Winifred and I have been up in Canada for most of the autumn. That Moorlock Bridge is on my bac

there is some trouble about a tidew

the truth is, we are having to build pretty well to the strain limit up there. They've crowded me too much on the cost. It's all very well if everything goes well, but these estimates have never been used fo

r he went into his study, where he found his

s. Hastings," she said, smiling, "a

He went up to the table and took her hands away from the flowers, drying them with his pocket handkerchief. "They've been awfully happy ones, all of them, haven't they?" He took her in his arms and bent back, lif

ied, Bartley. I wish you always seemed as you do to-night. But you

houlders and swung them back and forth

but I want you to wear them to-night." He took a little leather box out of his pocket and opened it. On the white velvet

ver find such go

lemish. Isn

l things, dear. But, you kn

ere must be a good ear, to begin with, and a nose"-he waved his hand-"above reproach. Most women

o the lobes of her ears. "Oh, Bartley, that old foolishness about my being hard.

to the door with her. "Not hard to me, Winifr

f which he knew nothing except that it was sullen and powerful, and that it wrung and tortured him. Sometimes it came upon him softly, in enervating reveries. Sometimes it battered him like the cannon rolling in the hold of the vessel. Always, now, it brought with it a sense of quickened life, of stimulating danger. To-night it came upon him suddenly, as he was walking the floor, after his wife left him. It seemed impossible; he could not believe it. He glanced entreatingly at the door, as if to call her back. He

s streaked with fog and the rain drove hard against the windows of the breakfast-room. Alexander had finished his coffee and was pacing up and down. His wi

ust like him. He will go on getting measureless satisfaction out of you by his study fire. What a man he is for looking on at life!" Bartley sighed, pushed t

ly help you out at all," Mrs. Alexander spoke soothing

things would let me rest. I'm tired of work, tired of people, t

r. "That's what you always say, poor Bartley! At bottom y

people, and with me it's always a messy sort of patchwork. It's like the so

confidence and fearless pride. "Oh, I faced that long ago, when you were on your first bridge, up at old Al

crackled in the grate, the rain beat insistently upon the

t sound at the door. "Shall Edw

him not to forget the big p

ley turned away from his wife, still holding h

up, waving her tail in vexation at these ominous indications of change. Alexander stooped to stroke her, and then plunged into his coat and drew on his gloves. His wife held his stick, smiling. Bartley smiled too, and his eyes cleared. "I'll work like the devil, Winifred, and be home again before you realize I've gone." He kissed her quickly several times, hurried

tache. He seldom moved except to brush them away. The great open spaces made him passive and the restlessness of the water quieted him. He intended during the voyage to decide upon a course of action, but he held all this away from him for the present and lay in a blessed gray oblivion. Deep down in him somewhere his resolution was weakening and strengthening, ebbing and flowing. The thing that perturbed him went on as steadily as his pulse, but he was almost unconscious of it. He was submerged in the vast impersonal grayness about him, a

to the wet deck, piled his damp rugs over him again, and sat smoking, losing himself in the obliterating blackness and drows

ent on deck the sky was blue and blinding, with heavy whiffs of white cloud, smoke-colored at the edges, moving rapidly across it. The water w

eant to. When he went above, the wind had risen and the deck was almost deserted. As he stepped out of the door a gale lifted his heavy fur coat about his shoulders. He fought his way up the deck with keen exhilaration. The moment he stepped, almost out of breath, behind the shelter of the stern, the wind was cut off, and he felt, like a rush of warm air, a sense of close and intimate companionship. He started back and tore his coat open as if something warm were actually clinging t

nother of those gray days Alexander drowsed and mused, drinking in the grateful moisture. But the complete peace of the first part of the voyage was over. Sometimes he rose suddenly from his chair as if driven out, and paced the deck for hours. People noticed

morning or when he stepped into a warm place after being chilled on the deck, he felt a sudden painful delight at being nearer another shore. Sometimes when he was most despondent, when he thought himself worn out with this