the name on this manuscript? Frederic Walters? I've exhausted all the catalogues without finding the name anywhere; I'm sure I never heard it before. Of course it may be assumed, but the fact that no other name is given in his letter rather disposes of that. I dug up some old letters of Harlow's and compared the writing with the signature of Walters's typewritten letter but there's no similarity. Wycherly, given as the address, is one of those big industrial towns just outside of Pittsburgh."

"Some of our strenuous rivals muckraked it a few years ago; it can hardly be the sort of place a man like Harlow would deliberately choose as a place of exile." "That," said Fenton quickly, "almost disposes of the possibility of Harlow's being responsible for this Walters manuscript. Harlow was a fastidious fellow. I've never known a man so fussy about his personal comfort-food, clothes, things like that. His taste was exquisite-no other word would describe it. He not only knew literature but music and art. In our college days we used to listen to a good deal of music together, and he would flinch and be uncomfortable if an interpretation of something he knew well didn't suit him. Music was a great passion with him, and before the writing bug seized him we used to think he would land high as a composer. He had it in him, I think. His mother was a remarkable amateur, and he had been brought up in a musical atmosphere studied the piano from boyhood. We got him to write a song for our class, but it was too good for that sort of thing-had to have a full orchestra to get the effects out of it. His extravagances were a joke in those days; he'd been indulged at home to the spoiling-point and never could deny himself anything he coveted strongly. His parents died before he came to college and he was constantly at war with his guardian over the purchase of ceramics, prints, and that kind of loot that doesn't usually attract college boys."

These memories were interrupted by the telephone, and when Fenton had answered it a caller was announced.

"The question is as to the acceptance of the manuscript," said Welborn rising. "It would make a great magazine feature

-the best serial in sight; and of course the book rights should be secured for the house. We'd better wire the author and see if he can come to town to talk over the contract and decide on an illustrator."

Fenton laughed. "I've already tried that. Here's an answer, very brief but courteous, saying it isn't convenient for him to come to New York now and asking us to suggest terms. I've already decided that you're to go down there with a contract in your pocket and have a look at him. If we're to serialize the story we ought to announce it in November as our big card for next year."

"I hoped you'd suggest that," said Welborn. "I've never been so aroused by any other manuscript that's come into the office. I'll wire Walters to expect me tomorrow."

"Good-the quicker the better! Inotice from your memorandum that points of criticism occurred to you as they did to me. Here and there a chapter shows a slight weakening of the stroke-fatigue perhaps. There are places where he seems too intent upon getting style at the expense of his usual vigor. There are half a dozen such chapters that I think he could work over a little in the interest of consistency."

"Yes," Welborn assented. "It's remarkable that a man of his evident fine critical sense shouldn't have seen for himself that he let down a little here and there. I'll broach the matter cautiously, if I find him supersensitive; we don't want to offend him. I feel that it's important to establish friendly relations with him for the future. Even with these weak spots his work is the most promising that's turned up here in years.'

"It's in your hands. You'll be back in a day or two, I suppose; but take all the time necessary."

II

WELBORN had half-expected that Walters would meet him at the Wycherly station, and he lingered on the platform until the other passengers had left before fumbling in his pocket for Walters's last note. No. 451 Wharton Street was written clearly at the top of the page, and after taking counsel of the station-master Wel

born set off hurriedly through the gray atmosphere, in which smoke and fog mingled with a cold, drizzling rain.

Wycherly struck Welborn as the oddest conceivable place for genius to flourish-it was difficult to believe that a man of cultivation and literary aspirations had deliberately chosen it as the scene of his labors. Walters very likely was a young man, possibly an intelligent mechanic, who had instinctively sought to express himself in literature without really knowing the worth of what he wrote. There had been such cases. Or he might be the son of a local magnate, who had turned his back upon business for a try at literature. This latter seemed the more plausible theory; but the directions were leading him rapidly away from the homes of the prosperous with their well-kept grounds into a region of tenements and small cottages.

Wharton Street was as uninviting a thoroughfare as he had ever visited, and he sought Walters's number with growing mystification. After traversing several blocks of tenements he was relieved to find No. 451 a detached house, a storyand-a-half frame cottage, in a row that repeated the same simple architecture monotonously. The home of Frederic Walters was differentiated from the others by flower-beds, and white-curtained windows whose cleanliness asserted a certain superiority to the grime of neighboring

panes.

Welborn's knock was answered without delay by a tall man with a close-clipped gray beard and noticeably large gray eyes, who settled at once any doubts as to his identity.

"Mr. Welborn? I was expecting you. It's very kind of you to take so much trouble, but I dread journeys and New York seems rather formidable."

It was with a distinct shock of disappointment that Welborn surveyed Walters after calling him by name to assure himself that there was no question of identity. He had hoped to find a young man with a long career before him, but Walters looked fifty and might have been more. His brown beard and scant hair were grizzled; his face and brow were deep-furrowed. The hands clasped upon his knees testified to a life of hard labor.

He seemed conscious of Welborn's surprise and, finding in an awkward silence that the young man's gaze was bent upon his hands, he thrust them into his trousers pockets. His clothing was a mechanic's Sunday best. The collar of the ill-fitting coat stuck out behind, perhaps due to the pronounced stoop in the man's shoulders. He wore a gray flannel shirt with a black tie knotted under the soft collar. He was clean and neat; there was something a little pathetic in his neatness. But the gray eyes were arresting; the man's soul published itself there; and there, at least, was some hint of the power that was so ineluctably written in Frederic Walters's manuscript.

"We are pleased, greatly pleased, with your novel," Welborn began, with some feeling that Walters would not care greatly for his praise. However, his eyes lighted, and something of warmth stole into his pale face. He listened attentively, encouragingly, and Welborn repeated what Fenton had said and the deep interest of the house in the manuscript.

"It's a new note in American fiction," Welborn concluded. "It's the kind of thing we've all felt should be done; we've all been waiting for just this."

"Thank you," said Walters quietly. "Of course, it's deeply gratifying to hear such things."

The elation that had sent the blood into his face had passed quickly, and his acknowledgment of Fenton's praise was marked by what the young man accepted as a habitual repression. Innumerable questions struggled for utterance as he saw that Walters was unlikely to volunteer anything.

"You write as though you had known this life always," Welborn remarked, hating himself for attempting to force a citadel so sternly guarded. "I assume that you're a native of Pennsylvania-you could hardly have done 'The Heart of Life' without long and intimate knowledge of the country, the people, and this enormous industrial activity."

"I was not born here, but for twenty years I have lived in such communities as this. I have been in Wycherly ten years it offers the best blending of elements I have found-everything is here!"

He threw out his arms with a gesture

that emphasized the breadth of experience afforded by Wycherly. For the first time he smiled and his smile was winning. Welborn's eye fell again upon the laborworn hands, and his thoughts flew back to the manuscript that had so roused his curiosity. If he had indeed found Harlow, his imagination was unequal to the task of reconciling the traits Fenton had described with the man before him. Several times he mentioned Fenton carelessly in the hope of eliciting some word or a gleam of the gray eyes that would encourage and strengthen suspicion; but Walters met his gaze with perfect serenity. A curtain had fallen between this man and his past, whatever it might be, and Welborn was convinced that he was not likely to startle him into drawing it aside.

"We all feel that the publication of this novel will be an event in the history of the house, and we want you to be satisfied in every particular," he said warmly, feeling that, after all, his chief concern was with the man's work.

Walters expressed his thanks courteously; but when Welborn attempted to speak of terms his mind seemed to have wandered far afield, and then, as though he were thinking aloud, he began speaking of the great masters of fiction. Welborn, momentarily annoyed by this tangential departure from the course of the interview as he had planned it, became aware that he was listening to very unusual talk. In his mind's eye Welborn saw it falling into paragraphs, into pages; it was criticism of the most striking sort, incisive, vigorous, broad in its sweep. He determined that Walters should write it out, that he might carry it back in triumph to Fenton to be published in the number preceding the first instalment of "The Heart of Life." Walters, without lifting his voice and with only an occasional smile, a quiet gesture, was saying memorable things.

"For years," he concluded, "I've schooled myself for such work as I've attempted in 'The Heart of Life.' I have tried to find out what these men think and feel who spend their days underground, who are scorched daily by the great furnaces-what they and their women-folk and their children suffer and hope and gain and lose. That is what I have prayed

God to show me how to do! To express something of the deep underlying passion of America, to measure and weigh the happiness striven for, won or lost, by these thousands-that's what I have aimed at, in the hope of making some contribution to my country's literature that would live a little while."

He caught himself up with an impatient shrug of the shoulders. "I hate talking about it," he added, frowning; "there's altogether too much talk about it; and after all I may have failed."

His hands worked convulsively from the stress of his long speech. He placed a tightened fist upon his heart as though to stifle a sudden pain, and paid no heed to Welborn's cordially expressed praise of his high aspirations and stern apprenticeship. Welborn was inured to much discussion of the questions Walters had expounded so freshly and strikingly; in quiet club corners late at night young men had explained in familiar clichés their own theories of the novelist's craft, but here was a man who had entered upon a long and laborious preparation and whose bowed shoulders and scarred, twisted hands testified to his intense sincerity. Welborn was humble, deeply humble, before Frederic Walters, who had probed so deep into the heart of life, who had won all that the senses may yield of the particular thing he had sought to master.

Sounds from the rear of the house hinted of preparations for the noonday meal, and it was in Welborn's mind to withdraw and return later in the day. The raucous blasts of whistles from the mills that rimmed the town brought him to his feet.

"Oh, I want you to stay for luncheon we call it dinner in our simple menage," Walters remarked. "We live alone-my daughter and I. She takes very good care of me." His smile had an added charm from its rarity and unexpectedness. Seeing that Welborn hesitated, he added: "Helen is up to date in the domestic arts, and you'll find her cooking superior to anything the village inn offers. We expected you to stay.'

With deepening mystification Welborn murmured his acceptance. The presence of the daughter, as yet unseen, lent color

to a suspicion that this might indeed be Harlow; and yet Harlow, as Fenton had described him, would be the last man in the world to subject himself to a laborer's lot, much less impose exile upon a daughter, unless spurred by necessity. Welborn saw the already vast area of his ignorance of this man, who had written a novel of challenging power, extending beyond the range of speculation.

The door opened and he rose to confront a tall, fair girl who paused for a moment on the threshold and then advanced quickly into the room. She wore a plain blue skirt and white waist with a wide collar. Her abundant light hair was combed back loosely from her forehead. Her eyes they were a feminized version of Walters's—met his gravely. She gave her hand cordially, saying:

"It's so kind of you to come when father couldn't go to you. I may know everything, too, papa, mayn't I? Won't you go right on with your talk at the table?"

She had placed a cup of broth at each place before calling them, and after tasting a spoonful Walters praised it, smiling at his daughter in a way that satisfied Welborn of their perfect sympathy and accord.

"Helen is a public-school girl," Walters remarked. "She took what the high school had to offer and stopped there. Beyond that we have made some little experiments at home."

"Knowing father is in itself a liberal education," laughed the girl. "But he's a very, very hard taskmaster!"-this with a smiling glance at Welborn that conveyed all necessary contradiction of this indictment. "I've been fortunate in being allowed to learn without really knowing I was acquiring knowledge. It's an admirable system!"

If Walters himself was a mystery, the girl was even more puzzling. Walters was praising the public schools; they were the great bulwark of democracy, he averred, but they had not yet realized all that had been expected of them. Welborn noticed that any statements Walters made were uttered in such phrases as he might have used in writing; he said nothing carelessly; he had lived intensely and showed the strain of it. The daughter,

however, had humor; to her father's manner of speech she had added a lightness that expressed itself drolly in self-mockery.

"I always warn papa that we must remember that democracy isn't a complete thing all tied up in pretty ribbons-and never can be; it's strife, it's struggle for a goal that never can be reached. If it were all perfected, then we shouldn't have anything to work for and fight for! And then there wouldn't be any fun!”

This she uttered quietly, with a smile playing about her lips, that parted upon even, white teeth. The color in her cheeks spoke for health and wholesome living. She imparted a sense of vigor, of youthful zest and spirit, of fathomless reserves. In her wonderful gray eyes alone there were serenity and maturity; they were enormously provocative. Welborn found himself awaiting with trepidation those moments when she turned them upon him, or he caught them subdued to one of the fleeting reveries to which they appeared to be habituated.

"That is true, very true indeed!" Welborn affirmed. "It's a part of the game to be patient and never to stop hoping."

They had put down their spoons and she rose quietly and took the cups away and brought in broiled chops and vegetables and resumed her place. Her movements were informed with a definite grace; it occurred to Welborn that she had probably trained herself to perform these of fices with a minimum amount of effort, deftly and quite as a matter of course

"The bread is my own making—if I may brag a little," she remarked, "so you won't mind if I cut the loaf here. It was Queen Victoria, wasn't it, who made a ceremonial of cutting her own bread?"

"I'm glad we haven't altogether abandoned the Victorian customs," said Welborn, noting that her hands, which were long and supple, showed little traces of the labor to which she confessed. He was watching them fixedly when, glancing up from the bread-cutting, she saw the direction of his gaze and reddened. Then immediately she laughed, saying:

"I see I'm in the way; you are really not talking about the book at all! I want to hear you say the things you wrote papa