“‘No, when he left me he went to California and killed my traducer, he is serving a term of ten years for manslaughter, and I am waiting for him.’” TALE SEVEN. MY LOVER’S BEQUEST. TWO WOMEN. “I know two women and one is chaste, And cold as the snows on a Winter waste, Stainless ever in act and thought A cruel tongue and a jealous mind. (As a man, born dumb, in his speech errs not), But she had malice toward her kind, Void of pity and full of greed, She judges the world by her narrow creed; A brewer of quarrels, a breeder of hate, Yet she holds the key to ‘Society’s’ gate. The other woman with heart of flame, Went mad for love that marred her name; And out of the grave of her murdered faith, She rose like a soul that has passed through death. Her aims are noble, her pity so broad, It covers the world like the mercy of God, A soother of discord, a healer of woes, Peace follows her footsteps wherever she goes, The worthier life of the two no doubt, And yet ‘Society’ locks her out.” “You ask me why my house is so gorgeously furnished, why the music, why the beautiful young women lounging about? You say the oriental splendor reminds you of what your ideas have always been as to the making of a typical harem. I do not blame you. Men are very apt to make more serious mistakes than you have made in this instance. Would you like to see my girls? You would, eh?” As this tall, dignified woman completed her monologue, she touched an ivory button on the side of the mahogany secretary in front of which she was seated. The silence which followed the closing of her remarks was broken only by the sounds of sweet strains of music, which floated through this spacious house on one of the notable streets of the “Tenderloin” district of Chicago.