ts were going their way, asking no one's permission, yet harming
no one.... His hand was twitching a little; he coughed with a sound of
hurt bewilderment; but she held his hand firmly, and over this first
rough part of the road the mother of tenderness led him pityingly on.

CHAPTER XII

Out of a black curdled ocean where for ages he had struggled and
stifled, Seth Appleby raised his head for an instant, and sank again.
For longer ages, and more black, more terrible, he fought on the bottom
of the ocean of life. He had reached the bottom now. He began to rise.
His coughing was shaking him into a half-consciousness, and very dimly
he heard her cough, too. He feverishly threw out one hand. It struck the
mouth-organ he had thrown upon the bed, struck it sharply, with a pain
that pierced to his nerve-centers.

He had the dismaying thought, "I'll never play the mouth-organ to her
again.... We won't ever sit in the rose-arbor while I play the
mouth-organ to her. Where is she? Yes! Yes! This is her hand." He was
trying to think now. Something said to him, sharply, "Suicide is
wicked."

Yes, he reflected, in the tangles of a half-thought, he had always been
told that suicide was wicked. Let's see. What was it he was trying to
think--suicide wicked--blame the cowards who killed themselves--suicide
wicked-- No, no! That wasn't the thought he was trying to lay hold of.
What was it he was trying to think? Suicide wicked-- God, how this cough
hurt him. What was it-- Suicide? No! He violently pushed away the
thought of suicide and its wickedness, and at last shouted, within
himself: "Oh, that's what I was thinking! I must play to Mother again!
Where is she? She needs me. She's 'way off somewhere; she's helpless;
she's calling for me--my poor little girl."

He hurled himself off the bed, to find her, in that cold darkness. He
stood wavering under the gas-jet. "Why--oh, yes, we turned on the gas!"
he realized.

He thrust his hand up and reached the gas-jet. Then, staggering, feeling
inch by inch for leagues along the edge of the cupboard, raising his
ponderous hand with infinite effort, he touched a plate, feebly fitted
his fingers over its edge, and with a gesture of weak despair hurled it
at the window. The glass shattered. He fell to the floor.

Strained with weeks of trying to appear young and brisk in the store,
Mother had become insensible before the gas could overcome him, and he
awoke there, limp on the floor, b