Richmond planet. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1883-1938, 1929-10-19
Final Instalment

IuQI tklCSo411AVAS
And so one morning they crossed
the Mississippi and into Calvery'
AS they stepped down from their
car, both gasped and clutched.
The Reverend Doctor Steddon
was a few yards away from them,
studying the off-getting passengers
Let's see if he knows US" snick-
cred Mrs. Steddon, with relapse
TO girlishness.
"Let'sp said Mem. =.
They knew him instantly, OF
course. He wore the same suit
they had left him in, and the only
change they could descry was
little more white in little less
hair. :,
But he did not know them at all.
II amused them to pass him by and
note his casual glance at the smart
hat and the polite travelling suit OF
his wife. He had expected change
in his daughter, but he was prob
ably braced for something loud and
gaudy.
So her father rasseu her oy;
When Mrs. Steddon turned and
hailed him in voice that was
piadder and more tender than she
knew, he whirled with his heart
bounding, and they heard his
hungry, feasting heart groaning.
81 thank Thee, 0 God! Now let
test Thou Thy servant depart IN
peace" -.
But neither the Lord nor his
family granted that prayer. His
wife had turned time far back.
Poor thing! She had never known
till this year the rapture of being
fashionable; had never dared, never
understood how, to look her best
Hiding under his high chin, Mem
begged his forgiveness for all the
heartaches she had caused him.
She wept on his white bow tie,
twisting a button on his coat and
pouring out her regret for dragging
his wife away from him and caus-
ing them to quarrel over her: She
sail that it was a crime for her to
- taken her mother on East and
lett him alone, but he protested:
"D'you suppose / wanted my
little girl travelling in those wicked
cities I'll by herself?"
chs gladdened Mem exquisitely.
! owed that, for all her wanton
she was still in her fathers
an innocent child who must
b. protected tsom the world. OF
course, It was, rather, the world
that needed to be protected from
her. But she would not disturb his
sweet delusion.
The mayor had come down to
g. Mem welcome, as soon as he
ccald push through the mob OF
StcLdon children that devoured
Me;n and their mother.
The manager of the Calverly
CAPITOL, with its capacity Of Two
hundred, brushed the mayor de
and claimed Mrs. Steddon and his
prize. He had car waiting for her,
and room at the hotel in case the
parsonage was over-crowded.
Doctor Steddon grew Isaiah as he
stormed back:
My daughter stays in her own
homer
,lis brought Mem smuggling to
his elbow.
AS their car moved off, with
sudden stab she remembered Ell
wood Farnaby and the far-off CIR!
thai he had loved too madly well IN
that moonlit embrasure. How little
and pitiful that Mem had been!
There was a toyish unimportance
in her very fall, the debacle of a
narionette world. But Elwood
Farnaby was great by virtue of his
absence and his death. He was
hero now with Romeo and Leander
and Abelard and the other geniuses
OF passion whose shadows had
grown gigantically long in the
sunset Of a tragic punishment for
their ardors.
A horrifying thought came 70
I Mem: if he had not died, she would
have become his wife and the
mother of his premature child. She
would have been laushing-stock,
material for ugly whispers about
! the village. And she would have
been the shabbiest Of wives even
here. She would never have known
fame or ease or wealth.
After lunch she found DR.. Breth-
erick and had him drive her to the
cemetery. "Apd," she said, ~ want
to give you the installment I for
got, of the conscience money.
Please get It to papa as soon as
you car. And here's little extra"
The doctor took the bills with q
curious smile. She seemed to feel
his sardonic perplexity ss she
unused aloud alopg well-thought
path. :.
"If I hadn't been q fallen woman
] couldn't have saved pspa's church
from ruin. How do you explain II
WHAT'S the right and wrong Of 1t
allf"
The old doctor shook his head:
"I'm no longer fool enough,
honey, to try to explain anything
that happens to US here. Accord
ing to one line of thinking, your
mfsster was the divine plan. Ac-
cording to another, good can never
come out of evil. OF course we
know it does, every day; and evil
out of good. So let's be as human
as we can, and l guess that's about
as divine as we'll ever get Down