There is confusion worse than death, Trouble on trouble; pain on pain⁠— Tennyson...

To my sister Helen Fauset Lanning whose persistent faith has made me ashamed to falter...

Joanna’s first consciousness of the close understanding which existed between herself and her father dated back to a time when she was very young. Her mother, her brothers and her sister had gone to c...

Joanna was like her father not only so far as ambition was concerned but also in her willingness to work. She had a fine serious mind, a little slow-moving at first, but working with a splendid precis...

It was Joanna’s love for beauty that made her consciously see Peter Bye. It is true that almost as soon as she saw him she lost sight of him again, for the boy did not come up to her requirements whic...

Isaiah did not marry until he was thirty-one, which was an advanced age for his times. Even then he had married earlier than his father. Old Joshua, who died long before Isaiah’s marriage, had been in...

It may seem a cold-blooded thing to say, but the dying of Meriwether Bye was about the best thing he could have done for his son, Peter. Certainly that was what Miss Susan Graves thought as she viewed...

It was Joanna who first acquainted Peter with himself. But neither of the children knew this at the time. And although Peter came to realize it later it was many years before he told her so. For, thou...

Sylvia and Joanna, walking through Sixty-third Street on an errand for their mother, came upon groups of children playing games. Italians, Jews, colored Americans, white Americans were there disportin...

If Peter was unconscious of the utter desirability of association with the young Marshalls, Maggie Ellersley was not. Ever since her childhood when she had overheard a conversation between a cousin an...

She played her cards with an odd mixture of deliberation and spontaneity. “Maggie adores you, Sylvia,” said Joanna. “I think she does,” Sylvia replied modestly. “I don’t know why, I’m sure. She certai...

Sunday was always an important day in the Marshall household. Its importance, it is true, took on a different character as the years sped. In the early days Mr. Marshall looked forward to it as the ou...

Peter had accompanied Maggie as far as the subway station. “You won’t mind if I don’t go all the way home with you, Maggie? Fact is, I don’t feel so well today, so if you’ll excuse me⁠—” His voice tra...

“Really, Joanna, you ought to treat me better. You know I’m staying in New York just on account of you!” “How do you want me to treat you, Peter?” “Oh, hang it all. Why can’t you be nicer to me? When ...

The vacation sped as vacations will. Peter played in the awful cabaret, saved his money and adored Joanna. Joanna practiced trills, danced, thought of Peter and allowed him to adore her. As the early ...

Poor Maggie! How relentlessly and completely had her illusions flown! She had enjoyed the ride to Atlantic City. Her husband had surrounded her with magazines, fruit, candy, even books. She had had a ...

Sylvia was arranging the smallest birthday cake in the world. It bore one very small candle and it was for the very small baby who, propped up in a high chair, sat and watched the birthday proceedings...

The house on South Fifteenth Street saw Peter often after that. Mason could have given him work every night if he had wanted it. As it was he gave him enough to cause him to come for rehearsals three ...

They enjoyed the opera and sang snatches of it coming home as they walked to the subway. Once in the express train, however, Joanna lapsed into sadness. “I don’t think my voice is as big as that prima...

If she had only answered the letter, then, that very moment! But she had said to her impulse: “No, I must wait. I can’t let him off too easily.” Perhaps, too, there was a little sense of satisfaction ...

One of the mysteries of the ages will be solved with the answer to the question: Why do men consider women incalculable? Peter had been hurt by Joanna’s indifference again and again, she had refused a...

Sylvia had written. “He doesn’t mean it, of course”⁠— But Joanna knew better. Even while dumbfounded she stood staring at the note, trying to believe there must be some mistake, her heart, her every s...

Joanna was in agony. Her life, hitherto a thing of light and laughter and pleasant work, became a nightmare of regret and morbid introspection. She could not blame herself enough. Nothing that Sylvia ...

Ten months later Tom Mason leaned back against the red plush of the car seat and jingled some coins in his pocket. “Tell you what, Bye, we really are cleaning up. I hadn’t expected anything like this ...

It had been increasingly easy for him to forget her. When he had first broken with Joanna, when he had written her that virtuous letter, Maggie’s rooms, Maggie’s arms were a haven. She was always read...

Joanna stood on the steps of the New York Public Library, gazing at the paralysis of traffic which at the bidding of an autocratic policeman had fallen on the massed ranks of vehicles. Subconsciously ...

While Joanna was sitting at her desk, Maggie Ellersley some fifty blocks away brooded over plans of her own. She had hoped, vainly as it turned out, that her absence from Philadelphia would quicken Pe...

A few moments later Mr. Simpson came rushing up the front steps. He tried the door gingerly and found to his relief that it was not locked. That meant Mrs. Ellersley had not yet returned to chide him ...

The day’s excitement made Joanna sleep soundly, and in the morning she awoke strongly refreshed and rested. No gesture that she could make to Fate would ever restore Peter. She had been willing to mak...

The District Line Theater was jammed every night now. People came from all over New York and all its suburbs to see the new dancer⁠—Joanna Marshall. Her success and fame were instant. The newspapers f...

At first the war presented itself to Peter in a purely personal aspect. It was a long time before he envisaged the struggle as a great stupendous whole. Boyishly egotistic, he saw it simply as the nex...

The interminable voyage was over and Peter debarked to spend still more interminable days at Brest. Dr. Meriwether Bye left immediately for La Courtine, where Peter later caught sight of him once more...

Chambéry, the capital of Savoy, a town situated toward the south of the extreme east of France, has not always been as well known to America as its more important neighbors, Grenoble and Lyons. Up to ...

Into the midst of her newfound content came Philip. At first she could hardly believe it. She supposed vaguely that he had enlisted but she was and had been out of touch so long with the Marshall fami...

The War was over, the men were coming home. All Harlem was delirious with excitement. Everything conceivable must be done for “the boys,” for those boys who having fought a double battle in France, on...

Peter had seen her. His first free hours in New York were spent sitting segregated in the portion of the balcony set apart for colored people, watching Joanna in the “Dance of the Nations.” And the re...

Maggie and Philip had returned from the sanitarium to New York, but Philip undoubtedly was dying. Peter and Harry Portor were at his bedside every day, but not because of their ability to help him. Th...

Joanna and Peter married and Peter came at Joel’s insistent request to live in the One Hundred and Thirty-eighth Street house. It was marvelous to see how the two old people renewed themselves in the ...