rcy Square. Why did he come? What fate
led him away? What devil has lured him back? Hold! Hold! There is
Esther! Lift her veil! Give her air! Esther, the beautiful!

The reporter for the Eau Claire paper groans with the people. His
heart falls to the bottom of the sea. She loves him! God bless her!
She loves him! Why did he not believe it at home? God bless her! Is
she not noble?

"She's a great dame," Corkey whispers loudly. "Special friend of mine.
You bet your sweet life I'd do anything for her. I'll find that yawl,
too!"

"The late honorable David Lockwin," begins the pastor of the
fashionable church.

"The late honorable David Lockwin," write the reporters.

"The late honorable David Lockwin," writes David Lockwin.

He grows ill and dizzy once more. The exercises proceed. He will fall
if he do not look at Esther's face.

"I know," cries the shrill soprano, "that my--Redeemer liveth."

There comes upon the widow's face an ecstatic look of hope. She will
meet her husband in heaven, and he will praise her love and fidelity.

"God bless her!" writes the Eau Claire reporter, and hastily scratches
the sentence as he reads it.

A messenger approaches the reporters. A note is passed along.

"I got to go!" whispers Corkey, "you can stay. They sent for me at the
office. I guess something's up."

David Lockwin is only too glad to escape. He dreads to leave Esther,
yet what is Esther to him? He will hurry away to New York before he
falls into the abyss that opens before him.

"Do you suppose she loved her husband as much as it seems?" he asks.

"I wish she'd love me a quarter as much, though I'm a married man.
Love him! Well, I should say!"

Corkey tries to be loquacious. But his dark face grows darker.

"Oh! it's bad business. I'm sorry for her, and it knocks me out, I
ain't my old self. I got up feeling beautiful, and it just knocks me.
I don't think she ought to build no monument, nor no hospital, for it
keeps her hoping. What's the use of hoping? I'll find that yawl.
Curious about that yawl. Wouldn't it be great stuff if he should show
up? Wonder what he'd think of his monument and his hospital? A
hospital, now, ain't so bad. You could take his name off it. They'll
do that some day, anyhow, I reckon. I've seen the name changed on a
good many signs in Chicago. But what's a monument good for after the
duck has showed up? Old man, wouldn't it be a sensation? Seven
co