[Frontispiece: Her lover was beside her and was suggesting that he escort her home.] THE UNDERCURRENT BY ROBERT GRANT WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY _F. C. Yohn_ CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS NEW YORK :::::::::::::: 1904 COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS Published, October, 1904 TO MY WIFE LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Her lover was beside her and was suggesting that he escort her home . . . . . . _Frontispiece_ "I have missed you two young people at church lately" "Oh, Emil, my husband, how could you!" she moaned "Give it to me, Paul," demanded the young woman imperiously "I am sure that this woman will tell me her story" There were moments, even from the first, when he let her perceive that he regarded her as a social companion Constance would find her in possession at Lincoln Chambers "I should like to marry because I am in love" "Refuse a man like that who's crazy to marry you!" The flowers were the bright, shining milestone "I have surrendered" THE UNDERCURRENT "Those whom God has joined together let no man put asunder." It seemed to the bride that the Rev. George Prentiss laid especially solemn stress on these words, and as she listened to the announcement that, forasmuch as Emil Stuart and Constance Forbes had consented together in holy matrimony, he pronounced them to be man and wife, her nerves quivered with satisfaction at the thought that she was Emil's forever. The deed was done, and she was joyous that the doubt which had harassed her in her weak moments--whether she was ready to renounce her ambition to help in the great work of education for the sake of any man--was solved and merged in the ocean of their love. Doubtless Emil was not perfect, but she adored him. No one had even hinted that he was not perfect, but she had made up her mind not to be ridiculous in her rapture, and to look the probable truth squarely in the face as became an intelligent woman. She knew that until recently he had been only a clerk with Toler & Company, lumber merchants, and that he had just started in business on his own account. He was dependent for support on his individual labors, but she had in her own name the nice little nest-egg of five thousand dollars, realized from the sale of the family homestead at Colton, the country town, ten miles distant, from which, an orphan, she had come to Benham a year previous. She was marrying for love a young man who had his own way to make, just as hundreds of others were doing every day, and she was proud of her part in the compact. A great happiness had come into her life, almost against her will, but now that it had come she recognized that it was nature working in the ordinary way, and that she would not remain single for all the kindergartens in creation. She had known Emil only a year; still that year had been one of courtship, and no one had ever spoken ill of him, though she had been told that Mr. Prentiss, as a rector