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He shuddered. “O my God! Upon whom does the burden of guilt lie?”

* * * * *

On the night of his return he sat among his romping babes debating whether he should tell the story to his wife or not. As the little ones grew weary, the noise of the autumn wind–the lonely, woeful, moaning prairie wind–came to his ears and he shuddered. His wife observed it.

“What is it, Joe? Did you get a chill?”

“Oh, no. The wind sounds a little lonesome to-night, that’s all.” But he took his little girl into his arms and held her close.

IV. THE PASSING STRANGER.

This was the story the mystic told:

It was about eleven o’clock of an October night. The street was one of the worst of the city, but it was Monday–one of its quiet nights.

The saloons flared floods of feverish light upon the walk, and breathed their terrible odors, like caverns leading downward into hell. Restless, loitering crowds moved to and fro, with rasping, uncertain footsteps, out of which the click of health had gone.

Policemen occasionally showed themselves menacingly, and the crowd responded to their impact by action quickened, like a python touched with a red-hot rod.

It was nearly time to close, and the barkeepers were beginning to betray signs of impatience with their most drunken customers.

A dark, tall man in cloak and fez moved slowly down the street. His face was serene but somber. In passing the window of a brilliantly lighted drinking place he stopped and looked in.

In the small stall, near the window and behind the counter, sat three women and two men. All had mugs of beer in their hands. The women were all young, and one of them was handsome. They were dressed nattily, jauntily, in modish, girlish hats, and their dainty jackets fitted closely to their slight figures.

Their liquor had just been served, and their voices were ringing with wild laughter. Their white teeth shone from their rouged faces with a mirth which met no answering smile from the strange young man without. He stood like a shadow against the pane.

The smile on the face of the youngest girl stiffened into a strange contortion. Her eyes looked straight ahead into the eyes of the stranger.

Her smile smoothed out. Her face paled; her eyes expanded with wonder till they lost their insane glitter, and grew sad and soft and dark.

“What is it, Nell?” the others asked.

She did not hear them. She seemed to listen. Her eyes seemed to see mountains–or clouds. A land like her childhood’s home with the sunset light over it. Her mug fell with a crash to the table. She rose. Her hand silenced them, with beautiful finger raised:

“Listen! Don’t you hear him? His eyes are calling me. It is Christ.”

The others looked, but they saw only a tall figure moving away. He wore a long black cloak like a priest.

“Some foreign duffer lookin’ in. Let ‘im look,” said one of the other girls.

“One o’ them Egyptian jugglers,” said another.

“What’s the matter of ye, Nell? You look as if you’d seen a ghost of y’r grandmother. Set down an’ drink y’r beer.”

The girl brushed her hand over her eyes. “I’m going home,” she said in a low voice from which all individuality had passed. Her face seemed anxious, her manner hurried.

“What’s the matter, Nell? My God! Look at her eyes!–I’m going with her.”

The girl put him aside with a gesture. Her look awed him.

One of the others began to laugh.

“Stop! You fool,” one of the girls cried. They sat in silence as the younger girl went out, putting aside every hand stretched out to touch her. She walked like one in stupor–her face ghastly. The arch of her beautiful eyebrows was like that of Ophelia in her bitterest moment.