way.

"_Hast thou a Wife and Children_?

"_Yes, but I am so laden with this Burden that I cannot take that
pleasure in them as formerly; methinks I am as if I had none_."

Tears filled my eyes and I laid down the book. The bridge party was
going home. I could hear them shouting good-bys in the front hall and my
wife's shrill voice answering Good night! From outside came the toot of
horns and the whir of the motors as they drew up at the curb. One by one
the doors slammed, the glass rattled and they thundered off. The noise
got on my nerves and, taking my book, I crossed to the deserted drawing
room, the scene of the night's social carnage. The sight was enough to
sicken any man! Eight tables covered with half-filled glasses; cards
everywhere--the floor littered with them; chairs pushed helter-skelter
and one overturned; and from a dozen ash-receivers the slowly ascending
columns of incense to the great God of Chance. On the middle table lay
a score card and pencil, a roll of bills, a pile of silver, and my
wife's vanity box, with its chain of pearls and diamonds.

Fiercely I resolved again to end it all--at any cost. I threw open one
of the windows, sat myself down by a lamp in a corner, and found the
place where I had been reading. Christian had just encountered Charity.
In the midst of their discussion I heard my wife's footsteps in the
hall; the portieres rustled and she entered.

"Well!" she exclaimed. "I thought you had gone to bed long ago. I had
good luck to-night. I won eight hundred dollars! How are you feeling?"

"Anna," I answered, "sit down a minute. I want to read you something."

"Go ahead!" she said, lighting a cigarette, and throwing herself into
one of the vacant chairs.

"_Then said Charity to Christian: Have you a family? Are you a married
man_?"

"CHRISTIAN: _I have a Wife and_ ... _Children_."

"CHARITY: _And why did you not bring them along with you_?"

"_Then Christian wept and said: Oh, how willingly would I have done it,
but they were all of them utterly averse to my going on Pilgrimage_."

"CHARITY: _But you should have talked to them, and_ _have endeavored to
have shown them the danger of being behind_.

"CHRISTIAN: _So I did, and told them also what God had shewed to me of
the destruction of our City; but I seemed to them as one that mocked,
and they believed me not_.

"CHARITY: _And did you pray to God that He would bless your counsel to
them_?

"CHRISTIAN: _Yes, and that