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    A Woman's Will

    [Illustration]




    A Woman's Will
    By
    Anne Warner

    _Illustrated by J. H. Caliga_

    [Illustration: con passionato.]


    Boston
    Little, Brown, and Company
    1904


    _Copyright, 1904_,
    BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.


    _All rights reserved_
    Published April, 1904

    THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.




CONTENTS

                                     PAGE

    PART I
    THE RISE OF THE STORM               1

    PART II
    THE BEATING OF THE WAVES          171

    PART III
    THE BREAKING OF THE BARRIERS      297




ILLUSTRATIONS

    _From Pastel Drawings by I. H. Caliga_

    "And the unvoiceable wonder of his magic"             _Frontispiece_

    "She rose to receive them with radiant countenance"       _Page_ 19

    "They stood together on the Maximilianbrucke"                "  173

    "'I want you to pay a lot of attention to what I am
        going to say, Rosina'"                                   "  319




A Woman's Will

PART I

THE RISE OF THE STORM

Chapter One


"Good-bye--good-bye, Rosina!" cried Jack, giving one last violent wave
to his handkerchief. And then he put it back in his pocket, because the
crowd upon the deck of the departing Liner had now become a mere blur in
the distance, and distant blurs seemed to his practical nature unworthy
any further outlay of personal energy. "But oh!" he added, as he and
Carter turned to quit the dock, "how the family are just agoing to revel
in peace for these next few months! The Milennium!--well, I don't know!"

"I do not see how you and your Uncle John ever came to let her go off
all alone like that," Carter said, with a gloom that did not try to mask
a terrible reproach; "she'll be so awfully liable to meet some
foreigner over there and--and just marry him." He threw up his cane as
he spoke, intending to rap on the boarding by which they were that
instant passing.

Jack thrust his own cane out quickly and barred the other with an
excellent fencing _fente_.

"No rapping on wood!" he cried sharply; "not after that speech!--you
know!"

Carter turned two astonished eyes friend-ward.

"What do you mean?" he asked; "do you mean to say that you'd stand her
marrying any one over there for one minute?"

"Stand it!" said Jack, "would we _stand_ it, did you say? My dear
fellow, how plainly you betray the fact that you are in love with
Rosina. We,--myself and the family,--on the contrary, live with her. The
difference in the two propositions is too tremendous to be quickly
grasped by you even, but it is just about the same distance as that
between theory and practice."

"Nonsense!" said Carter, with an air of deep annoyance.

"I'll tell you how I personally regard Rosina," Jack went on, paying no
attention to the other's exclamation; "I look upon her as very likely to
marry abroad, because I don't know of but one man at home clever enough
to be able to marry her."

He laid his hand upon Carter's shoulder as he spoke, and Carter, who
didn't at all understand what he meant, thought that he understood, and
was correspondingly happy.

They boarded the ferry then, and went from Hoboken straight back to
civilization.

       *       *       *       *       *

The "Kronprinz" meanwhile was slowly wending her way down the river,
past the skyscrapers, and out towards the open sea.

Rosina, already established in her chair, with a mother-of-pearl
lorgnette upon her lap and a pair of field-glasses swinging from the
card-holder, felt more placidly happy than she had in years. If those
left behind who supposed that she was going abroad to get a second
husband could but have gazed into her heart, they would have
comprehended the utter and complete falsity of their views.

Her year and a half of widowhood had been one long-continued period of
quiet ecstasy.

Standing alone in her own room the morning after the funeral, she had
made a vow to never marry again.

"Enough is as good as a feast," she had said, surveying her crape-draped
self with a deep sense of satisfaction; "it never approached anything
like a feast, but it certainly has taught me to know when I have had
enough."

And then new orders had been issued to every department of her
establishment, and a peace approaching Paradise reigned in her heart.

When Carter, in a moment of daring courage, found words in which to
unfold the facts of his case, she listened in a spirit of intense wonder
that he could really be stupid enough to suppose that she would consider
such an idea for a minute.

Carter, his heart jumping wildly about behind his shirt-bosom, thought
that her look of amazement was a look of appreciation, and wound himself
up to a tension that was quite a strain on the situation.

"I'm going abroad in May," was her sole response when he had quite
finished.

"Oh, my God! don't go and marry some one over there!" he cried out, in
the sudden awful stress of the moment.

"I shall marry no one," she declared with freezing emphasis. "The very
idea! you all seem to think that I am anxious to render myself miserable
again; but I assure you that such is very far from being the case."

Poor Carter was stricken dumb under her lash, but he loved her none the
less, for it must be said that there was a certain passionate sweetness
in both the bow and quiver of Rosina's mouth which always took the worst
of the sting out of all of her many cruel speeches. And yet that very
same bow and quiver were bound to breed a fearful doubt as to the degree
of faith which one might be justified in holding in regard to the
impregnability of her position. Very likely she herself did firmly
intend remaining a widow forever; and yet--

And yet?--

Oh, the thought was unendurable!

Carter refused to endure it anyhow, but for all that the days had moved
right along until that worst of days came into being, leaving him on the
dock and sending the "Kronprinz" out to sea.

And, if the truth must be told, it is to be feared that if Rosina's
unhappy suitor could have caught a glimpse of her as night fell over
that same day's ending, his sickest doubts would have found food for
reflection and consequent misery in her situation, for when Ottillie,
the Swiss maid, came up on deck with a great, furred wrap, the most
personable man aboard was already installed at her mistress's side,
thanks to a convenient college acquaintance with her dearest of cousins;
and the way that the personable man grabbed the cloak from Ottillie and
heaped it gently around its owner would have stirred the feelings of
any casual lover whose bad luck it might be to happen along just then.

Rosina nestled back into the soft fur folds and smiled a smile of
luxurious content.

"I am so thoroughly imbued with utter bliss," she said; "only to think
that I am going _where_-ever I please, to do _what_-ever I please, just
_when_-ever I please,--indefinitely."

"It sounds like Paradise, surely," said the man, dropping into his own
seat and tucking himself up with two deft blows administered to the
right and left of his legs; "what do you suppose you'll do first?"

"I think that I shall do almost everything first," she answered
laughing, and then, taking a long look out upon the twinkles of Fire
Island, she sighed deeply and joyfully, and added, "Ah, but I'm going to
have a beautiful time!"

The man plunged a hand into his breast-pocket.

"Did you ever smoke a cigarette?" he asked.

"Never