The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-12-24
By HAROLD MocGRATH

selma reached down and took up one"
 What a wonderful thing intuition isi It is key to life. These pipes, this desk, ready! Well, take him back. l hear no children's voices in this house. It is very empty. His happiness-that is all I ask; for my self-nothing.
 Selma laid down the pipe The fire was gone out of her.
 Suddenly Mrs. Lane covered her face with her hands and held them there for a space. Then she let them drop heavily to her sides.
 There is God.' she said "I had begun to doubt. And He brought you here today. How T have hated you! I have tortured you, torn you limb from limb. beaten you, cursed you. And you are only human like myself. I knew that sooner or later he would tire of you.'
 "Sooner or later; that's the man of it-always in pursuit of mysteries. Go on. I left my pride outside your gate"
 q did not intend to hurt you. ought to thank you for some of your truths. But there are some instincts born in me that nothing will eradi- cate.'
 Any one of these is that I must be immoral, and being immoral, of ne- cessity low and basel After all. what should l care what you think? It is here.'' cried Selma, striking her heart. that I know the right or wrong of my actions. What do I care what you think of me, if you take him back and understand him? What instinct was 1t that caused you to be his wife?'
 Love said Mrs. Lane with fine dignity. It came to her sharply that she must not permit this woman to outdo her in magnanimity or frank ness She felt the primordial in- stincts stirring in her. but she rose about them.
 "Dimly. somehow. I sec that you are a great woman she went on. Until today l saw only the actress. armed with a hundred devices for snaring men, beautiful-and you are beautiful and intelligent. have tried to think of you as low, but knowing him even so little as I do. I could not. He left me because I let him go. You are right"
 Men will seek women when they are lonely. First I was blind-then full of fierce pride-then hurt and more hurt; and finally came under standing. I was afraid to send for him, for fear he would not come"
 "So you have opened the book of 1ife?" asked Selma. a little more cu- rious. 8 little less ironical.
 Yes answered the wife. "As you say, this is not the hour for subter- fuges. Do you suppose that I shall permit you to leave me with the feeling that all the magnanimity was on your side?"
 "oh. make no doubt that I shall always hate you-that I shall neither forget nor forgive you. But if you can be truthful, I can be no less so. When l married Herbert, I was asleep. l was even selfish. I had always had everything. I could not understand why A rich man should work as he did. His plays did bore me 1 was fool, Life meant going to teas and dinners and dances. and he detested those things"
 Life meant to me keeping up with my friends instead of my hus- band. You have called me crystal. I was but glass. But there is fire in me now. burning, burning! Three years! I have lived hundred. l have made a new hell for myself each day, and wandered in it."
 Selma nodded understandingly. Sbe saw something of this hell in the fu- sure.
 Possessing this key you call in- tultion," continued the wife did he see in me what did not realize was there? I understand so much these days, In you he found what he had hoped to find in me. And I failed him from the starti 1 loved. but did not know how 10 love. took, but did not know how to give. l was sleep. walker. But these three years,''
 There was superb abandon in the wide-armed gesture. and it stirred Selmas sense of dramatic values.
 .'ThnkinS is good for human be- ing Lanes wife said. never knew until after he was gone. what it was to think, think And then, after having thought. to wait. l have said that I shall always hate you: but none the less l can give you a kind of gratitude. You opened the door for me. |. Lena sCagliari-how I spelled our-that name! [ would be- come your equal and tear him away from you. 1t was in wild pride at first that I sat about to retrace his footsteps T studied. and the more a book bored me, the more tenaciously I stuck tc it."
 .'IIis books. his music. And one day the truth came to me that l loved him. do not ask to send him back. I can wait for he will come. know. (.1tt1 1.l t.fxt h hart