Slosson stared at the men facing him. Dorns he did not know; the sight of Windsor and Armstrong here together brought an angry glint into his eyes. One of those eyes was very discolored, his face was bruised and cut, and his right hand was half concealed in bandages.
"Come in, Mr. Slosson," said Windsor genially, yet with a certain repressed eagerness in his voice which caused Armstrong to wonder. "You know Mr. Armstrong, I think; this is Mr. Robert Dorns. We came over here in order that you and Mr. Williams might answer a few questions in regard to these affidavits, if you don't mind. Nothing compulsory at all. Mr. Armstrong merely wishes to satisfy himself on certain points. You look as though you'd had a pretty bad accident."
"I did." Slosson entered, dropped his hat on a chair, and himself into another. "I was robbed and dropped off my train—had a devil of a time. Well, what can I do for you?"
He flung a glance at Dorns which was half defiant, half alarmed. The name must have startled him. Dorns, being the man he was, took instant advantage of what he read in Slosson's glance, and leaned forward.
"I'd like to know," he said, hard of eye and voice, "just what took place at Armstrong's house when you called there—"
"Not so fast, Mr. Dorns," cut in Windsor coolly. "Mr. Armstrong is doing the questioning here, if you please, and so am I. Do you care to answer that question Mr. Slosson? This is a conversation among ourselves, understand, and not a matter of record."
"It's none of his business, then," shot out Slosson defiantly.
Windsor smiled in his cordial manner, and glanced at Armstrong.
"Do you care to ask the question now, or defer it?" he inquired.
Armstrong suddenly perceived something tense in the manner of Windsor, and this query startled him into swift thought.
"I'd like to see Slosson in your presence, or in private," he rejoined calmly. Under his look, Slosson's bold gaze wavered. "I'll defer my questions, if you wish."
"Very well, then." Windsor produced a cigar and mouthed it, unlighted. "Mr. Slosson, there's something I'd like to ask you myself. A check for five thousand dollars was made out to you by Consolidated Securities on the eighth day of April, Saturday last—"
"It was made out on—" The intervention of Williams was swiftly checked.
"Be quiet, please!" cut in Windsor curtly. "I'm asking this question."
Williams sat back in his chair, his furtive eyes filled with uneasiness. Windsor looked again at Slosson, who was frowning suspiciously. Armstrong and Dorns, equally puzzled to understand what Tom Windsor was driving at, awaited some clue.
"This check was made out to you on April eighth. I'd like you to tell me why it was given you—for what service."
Slosson was obviously doing some quick thinking. Windsor took from the desk the two checks and idly fingered them, as though the discrepancy in his dates were of no moment. Slosson darted a look at his partner, then made response with a shrug.
"Why, we put over a deal in the stock of a new company for Consolidated, and those checks were given in payment for our services."
"I see," said Windsor, and nodded. He regarded Slosson, a reflective look in his clear gaze. "Mr. Williams has already given us the details of the affair. You see, our friend Armstrong, here, suspected that there might be some connection between my case against him and Lawrence Macgowan. We are endeavoring to disabuse his mind of that impression, and it is important that both you and Williams be absolutely frank and open with me."
Slosson threw Armstrong an angry, defiant glance.
"You'll not get away with any of your fancy bluffs around here—"
"Just a moment, please!" intervened Windsor pleasantly. Both Armstrong and Dorns were now watching him keenly. Ried Williams was watching both him and Slosson, in uneasy and anxious suspense. "Mr. Slosson, I understand that you've had no further relations with Macgowan, beyond this transaction?"
"That's right," affirmed Slosson.
"These two checks are all that you have received or will receive?"
"Sure. We want nothing else to do with Macgowan or his company, I can tell you!" rejoined Slosson easily.
"Oh!" said Windsor. "But it is a most extraordinary fact that these two checks are dated yesterday—the tenth! Whereas, the other check, also in the sum of five thousand dollars, issued to you on the eighth—"
He paused meditatively.
In the moment of silence that ensued, Slosson realized that he had made a frightful blunder. As the others realized that Windsor must have some information of which they knew nothing, they tensed; the air of the room became charged, vibrant. Slosson burst out in a swift and angry denial, as vehement as it was inspired.
"There was another check, yes! I called up Macgowan about this ten thousand, on Saturday morning—told him we wanted the money. He said he'd mail out the check Monday. I told him that wouldn't do. He said he'd send me one for five thousand then, to my hotel, and would mail Williams another for five thousand on Monday, and I assented. That check was in my pocket when I was robbed. How the devil you knew about it, I don't know or care! I called up Macgowan long distance on Sunday morning, from the town where I was picked up, and he agreed to stop payment on that check and send me another with Ried's on Monday. That's how there were two checks issued."
In the eyes of Ried Williams gleamed admiration, but only for an instant. Windsor nodded assent.
"I see," he said suggestively. "Then of course your explanation can be easily proven."
"Sure it can!" blustered Slosson. "Call up Macgowan long distance and see."
A knock sounded at the door. The typist entered, and looked at Windsor.
"There are some people here to see you, sir—"
Windsor leaped to his feet. "I'll see them outside. Wait here, gentlemen!"
He went out, closed the door, but almost instantly was back in the room. In his hand was a slip of paper. He went to the desk, and then turned to Slosson. All the genial tolerance was suddenly gone from his air; here was the assistant attorney general, curt, crisp, suspicious. His words came like a whipcrack:
"Come here and endorse this check, Slosson. We'll send it out to a bank and have them call up New York about the number of this check."
Mechanically Slosson stepped forward. It was a moment before he could actually realize that this was the check, the identical bit of paper, of which he had been robbed. Then a tide of color leaped into his cheeks, and with an abrupt outburst of fury he caught up the check and tore it asunder.
"So you hired a thug to waylay me, did you?" he cried out at Armstrong. "Thought you'd lay a trap for me, did you?"'
The words died upon his lips as he perceived the absolute futility of speech. Williams had sunk back in his chair, ashen to the lips; Windsor was cold and accusative, though silent. Armstrong and Dorns were on their feet, eager, watching, tense. Then, in the moment of silence, Windsor went to the office door and opened it.
"Come in, please," he said. Jimmy Wren and Dorothy Armstrong entered.
Armstrong stiffened as he met the jubilant grin of Wren and looked past him to see Dorothy. Into her cheeks mounted a faint color upon meeting the gaze of her husband, but she was given no chance to speak, for the moment. Windsor addressed Jimmy Wren curtly.
"Wren, where did you get this check?"
Jimmy Wren regarded the bruised features of Slosson, and chuckled heartily.
"Out of that bird's pocket. We had a scrap on the train, and went over the rail—he was pretty drunk, and got a grip on my throat that's there yet!" He grinned again as a low exclamation broke from Slosson. "Didn't know me, did you? Well, I knew you, Slosson! Why, as to the check, Mr. Windsor, I took all the papers I found on him. Yep, deliberately and with malice aforethought, you might say. Got that check, and a few other things, and Mrs. Armstrong helped me figure matters out and then brought me here to see you. Looks like I'd landed right in the middle of a party, too! By the way, Windsor, here's a letter of introduction you might like to glance over. Macgowan sent Slosson to that Milligan law firm and told 'em to lay the town at his feet, and said what a good friend Slosson was—
"Give me those papers!" burst forth Slosson. "I demand—"
The huge hand of Robert Dorns dropped on his shoulder and crushed him into a chair.
"Sit there, me lad! Your demands don't go here."
From the broken figure of Ried Williams sounded a low groan. Windsor quietly glanced over the letter that Jimmy Wren handed him, and a flame shot into his eyes. He looked at Slosson with contempt, then turned to Ried Williams.
"So that offer of a job in New York was a bribe, was it?"
Williams swallowed hard. "It—Macgowan thought it—that it would repay you—"
His voice died out. Windsor swung from him. "Gentlemen, kindly remember those words. Mr. Armstrong, I withdraw all my previous words to you, and apologize for them. I'm going to the bottom of this thing—and I don't think the bottom's very deep now. Williams, here is your one and only chance: Do you wish to withdraw those affidavits in regard to how Armstrong handled Food Products stock, or not?"
"Yes," said Williams in a hollow voice. "Yes. They—we were mistaken about his part in things—"
"Very well," said Tom Windsor crisply. "Mr. Armstrong, I congratulate you. I'm going through with this thing whether you prosecute or not. Now, Williams, turn around to that desk and write out a statement for me."
Armstrong found Dorns pulling at his elbow. "Let me have a word with you outside, quick! Mr. Windsor, I'm glad to have met you; I want to catch a noon train for New York. Let me know if you want any testimony from me in this matter, and you'll get it."
Armstrong followed him outside and closed the door. Dorns turned and caught his hand in a hard, cordial grip that spoke more than words.
"We've done it, me lad—hurray! Talk quick, now. D'you want to prosecute Macgowan or will you make terms? Windsor is goin' after him anyhow, I take it."
"If we can chuck him and Findlater out of Consolidated, I'll make terms," said Armstrong promptly. "But we've no direct evidence on Macgowan yet—"
"Windsor's getting it now." Dorns grinned. "We'll take a leaf out o' Mac's own book, and arrest him anyhow. I'll get hold of Judge Holcomb to-morrow and we'll nab him for conspiracy. You see to it at this end that no warning is sent him. Trust me and Holcomb to arrange a settlement, will you?"
"Of course. But I'll want both him and Findlater out of the company."
"Listen!" Dorns tapped him on the breast. "When I get done with that crook to-morrow night, he'll be clean—clean! So long, and good luck. I got to rush. Where'll I wire you?"
Armstrong's face brightened in a smile.
"Wire me—well, wire me at Evansville, and hope for the best!"
Dorns clapped him on the shoulder, and was gone.
Armstrong went back into the private office. Slosson, in a dazed panic, had just been checked in an outburst of speech by Windsor. As for Ried Williams, he was a broken man.
"I have a little matter to settle with Slosson," said Armstrong quietly. "Strictly a personal matter, Mr. Windsor. Dorothy, will you kindly go into the adjoining office and wait for us?"
He received a smiling assent from her that made his heart leap, and she left the room. Windsor put out a hand to Armstrong.
"Hold on a second! What was that about Slosson being at your house?"
"That's what I'm going to find out now." Armstrong turned to Slosson. "Come along!"
"What for?" demanded the other with a show of defiance.
Armstrong answered very softly.
"Either you come or I'll force you. Why, you damned cur, do you want me to drag you in there by the collar?"
Slosson turned to the door without a word. Armstrong paused for an instant to grip the hand of Jimmy Wren, and to utter a quick word.
"Jimmy, you're all right! Watch out, now, that no warning message is sent Macgowan. I'll be back in a few minutes."
Dorothy was seated before the desk in Slosson's office. When the two men entered, she looked up at them; under her gaze, the sullen eyes of Slosson dropped.
"Our friend is going to tell us something, Dorothy." Armstrong motioned to a chair. "Sit down, Slosson."
The other man stole a half-frightened glance at him, flinching under the crisp asperity of the words. He was startled and perturbed at the very manner of Armstrong, which was all untouched by victory. The intoxication of that sweeping triumph in the other office had now gone entirely from him. No trace of emotion, of exultancy, of domination, showed in him. He was his usual cool self, as though this affair were of no very great import.
Yet to Slosson this imperturbable calm was terrible; behind it, he sensed an inexorable and frightful force which was moving to crush him. Despite his guilty conscience he did not entirely comprehend what was coming next. His own wretched blunders, the abject breakdown they had caused in Williams, his exposure at the hands of Jimmy Wren—all had left him confused and helpless. Behind his remnants of effrontery, he was conscious that he faced prison. All the fabric of his strutting and posturing had been stripped away. He beheld himself as these other people beheld him, and the reality staggered him.
"When I was away in Wilmington," said Armstrong, watching him closely, "you came one morning to my home. Suppose you relate what passed between you and Mrs. Armstrong."
A sudden pallor crept across the face of Slosson. According to the code by which men of his caliber lived and moved, he saw himself facing a retribution of swift and brutal personal violence—a bullet, perhaps. He knew no other code.
Then, as he hesitated, Dorothy spoke quietly. "I can tell you, Reese." Armstrong turned to her. He was conscious of a sense of relief in her manner, a gladness that everything at last was coming open before them. She went on, without heat:
"He came with a pretended warning for you, Reese. He had learned, he said, about this case of Tom Windsor's and wanted to warn you. Now I know that he lied to me. Also, he told me that you had robbed my father, that you had planned long ahead of time to take Food Products away from him—oh, it was so cleverly done, Reese! I was completely taken in. I had been led to suspect the Food Products affair, from little things—it was Macgowan all the time, making me think so! I believe now that it was all a terrible lie, Reese. Well, after Slosson went away, I called Jimmy Wren at Wilmington. He admitted that he had been in Evansville a month before our wedding—"
Armstrong nodded, no trace of any emotion marring the even calm of his features.
"Yes, Jimmy was there. We knew that Food Products was going under. Jimmy was observing the general conduct of things at the plant, and I was trying to formulate some method of saving the company."
"According to Slosson," and Dorothy looked squarely at the man, "Jimmy was then making arrangements with the directors to take the company out of father's hands!"
Armstrong laughed. "And according to Macgowan, Jimmy was then arranging to issue the stock, acting as a go-between from me to the old directors. Well, Pete? How about it?"
Under their gaze, Slosson whitened still further, wet his lips, could not answer. His whole cosmos of artifice and peacock lies had crashed down about him. No longer was he a fine arbiter of destiny, one whose subtle genius could control things around—but a petty trickster, unmasked, facing retribution. One could see the horror of this exposure, the bitter physical fear of Armstrong, working in his brain.
"Speak up!" snapped Armstrong. He moved slightly; a movement of swift restraint. It became suddenly evident that this calm manner of his was deceptive; his was the quiet of effort, of tension, of a sane mind controlling surging impulses. "Do you want me to make you speak, you cur?"
Slosson broke.
"No, no!" The wretched man threw out his hands in a miserable gesture of despair. "I—it was all false, Dorothy. It—that visit—Macgowan wanted me to do it all, to tell you those things—"
He paused. His dead and lifeless voice rang upon the stillness of the room with inert tones.
"He wanted you to think that—that Armstrong had robbed your father. He'd been working a long time to make you believe that. When you were in Evansville at Christmas, Williams said something that was meant to be overheard by you—"
He lifted his glance to Dorothy. What he read in her eyes caused the words to falter on his lips, brought a slow, deep tide of color into his face. He came to his feet and went stumblingly out of the office; nor was his departure stayed.
When the door had closed, Armstrong rose and went to Dorothy's side.
"Lady!" he said softly. She raised her face to him.
"Reese—can you forgive me?"
A happy laugh shook him as his arm went about her shoulders.
"Dear lady—forget everything but our gladness! Everything's won, but the best of all is that I've won you back. Nothing else matters now; Macgowan, all the rest of it!"
She was silent a long moment, trembling against him, blinded with quick tears of joy. Then, suddenly, she moved.
"Dear—is it true? That everything is won, and the fight over?"
"I think so," he said gravely. "Yes."
"I'm so glad! And I know what's in your heart, Reese, what your eyes are shining about! The sixteen thousand—"
"Oh, plague take the sixteen thousand!" His laugh rang out clear and vibrant. "It's you, my dear, you! Just ourselves, set right again."
A tremulous smile broke on her lips. "Yes—and I've been so jealous of those sixteen thousand! Now kiss me—and forget everything—"
Their lips met.
Wednesday night in New York—a warm, sweet night of April. The windows of Mrs. Fowler's apartment were open to the touch of melting spring that drifted in from Central Park, just across the street.
Lawrence Macgowan glanced across the room, caught the eye of Mrs. Fowler, and a slight smile touched his lips. Undoubtedly his hostess quite comprehended the subtle depths of that smile, for her answering glance was whimsical and flitted lightly to Mrs. Findlater. For Henry C. Findlater was here, pursily important, and his wife—a meek, colorless woman who was distinctly not at her ease.
Here, too, was Milligan, of the law firm in which Macgowan was silently interested; and Harry Lorenz, a cynically genial bachelor who cherished a fancied resemblance to John Drew; and finally Mrs. Fowler's accompanist, one Percival Hemingway. This last was a smoothly sweet person who spoke in lisping accents mild and was a delicately cultured soul. His affiliations with a musical journal made him quite useful at times.
Over this gathering Macgowan reigned supreme, for various and sundry reasons. He was deferred to and lionized, and enjoyed himself mightily—enjoyed the half-frightened toadying of Findlater, enjoyed above all the art of his hostess. For Mrs. Fowler could sing, and Macgowan, possessing a real discrimination, laid at her feet a tribute of appreciation which was sincere.
When she rose and asked for suggestions, it was at Macgowan that she glanced.
"Don't let Percival trot out any of his favorite problem pieces," he responded. "Save 'em for the concerts, Percy—sweet angel! Let's have something with music in it, and none of this French and Swedish stuff. The older the better, I say."
Harry Lorenz spoke up, his mustache lifting in a thin and ironic smile.
"Quite so, quite so!" he approved smoothly. "There's one thing, Mrs. Fowler, which I should like to hear you sing. I believe it would be distinctly appropriate, and is quite in line with Mac's suggestion. My request number is—'He Shall Feed His Flock.'"
At this, Milligan broke into a roar of laughter, while Findlater discreetly smothered his smile. Macgowan, relishing the cynicism of his friend, tendered Mrs. Fowler a smiling nod of assent.
"By all means! It's one of the few perfect things; the simplest is always the best in music, despite the critics. Percival, don't look so pained! It won't hurt you to get back to the farm for once and see where real music came from. Have you the number? And look up some Cherubini while you're about it."
Hemingway began to rustle through the cabinet. Macgowan turned to the others, with his amused chuckle.
"Harry, there's more truth than poetry in your palpable hit! I've a grand idea for Consolidated to take hold of, if our esteemed president in the corner yonder doesn't sit on the notion. How about an Academy of Musical Art, eh? Plenty of money in the idea—at least, in the stock end of it. Something new in the stock line, too."
Findlater started slightly. "Come, Lawrence! You're not serious?"
"Dead serious." Macgowan eyed his uneasy victim and chuckled again. "Put Mrs. Fowler at the head of it. Get some of these vaudeville hicks from the Village, plaster 'em with Russian names and titles, call it the Imperial Russian Academy. How's that? Can't you see the provinces falling for that stuff, Harry?"
"Splendid!" responded Lorenz with enthusiasm. "You've said something, Mac! Why not widen out into a general cultural establishment? Teach the fine arts, writing, painting, dancing, a course on social accuracy and when to tuck napkins in the neck! Anybody can teach anything. With a prince or a countess in charge of each department you'll put the S.R.O. sign up in a month's time! Even Broadway will fall for it hard."
Findlater struggled for air. "But, Macgowan—er—you don't really purpose that Consolidated should back such a project?"
"Surely you'd not veto it?" returned Macgowan. His genial words, however, were accompanied by a sudden flashing glance which caused Findlater to change countenance. "Think of it, Henry C.! Every one who buys a share of stock can send the young hopeful to the Imperial Russian Academy at reduced rates; think how the nobility worshipers will eat it up! What say, Milligan?"
The lawyer nodded thoughtful approval.
"It looks like a good scheme. As a stock proposition, can you get away with it?"
"Wait and see. Didn't we get away with Consolidated?"
Findlater flung an uneasy glance at his wife. Harry Lorenz turned serious.
"Don't shout until you're out of the woods; you're not through with that case yet! What's become of your old pal Armstrong?"
"He's headed for the high places," said Macgowan coolly. "Going to jail, and soon." He glanced up and smiled slightly at Mrs. Fowler. "Academically speaking, he's headed for prison. At least, I had a tip that such is the case. I'm shedding no tears."
There was a general laugh, and then Hemingway intervened.
"Ready, Mrs. Fowler?" he piped up hopefully, and a chord from the piano silenced the talk.
Macgowan leaned forward, intent, drinking in the music with eager senses. He was supremely content with the world, supremely confident in himself and his ability. This was his hour of relaxation, of triumph. Success had crowned his talents, and in the past week he had been drinking deep from the cup of victory.
As the final chords of the music died away, Macgowan was aware of the maid, who leaned over his shoulder with a quiet word.
"There's a gentleman in the hall, sir, who wants to see you. He wouldn't give his name or come inside."
Macgowan nodded, and under cover of the applause, rose and left the room. He passed out into the entrance-hall and closed the room door behind him. The closing of that door was symbolic, had he but known it.
He found himself face to face with Robert Dorns, and behind Dorns was the blue-clad figure of an officer.
"Come along, Mac," said Dorns.
The old-fashioned Deming mansion in Evansville, so often a witness to scenes of gayety or sorrow or boredom, was to-day shrouded in a singular and terrible air of hushed expectancy. Voices were low, every action was tense. Old Doctor Irvin, curator of the family's health these two-score years and more, had come over from Louisville, and through the high halls flitted two white-capped nurses. The servants were tremulous, afraid, gulping in their throats.
Thus Armstrong found the place when he arrived on the noon train from New York. Deming took him into the library, and to his flood of questions lifted a protesting hand. Dorothy was ill before her time, and no one knew what was happening upstairs.
"Irvin's got those rooms to himself—he's turned us all out and has refused to give out any information," said Deming brokenly. "Something's wrong, we know, but there's nothing to be done. Irvin has never lost a case in sixty years of practice—well, well, hope for the best. How did things turn out? No more trouble?"
Armstrong, pacing up and down the room, laughed harshly.
"No more trouble," he repeated, almost bitterly. He was fresh from victory, master of those who had sought his destruction; destiny lay in his hand, yet he turned on Deming with a swift irony. "The trouble's over. We smashed Macgowan—but that devil has a most uncanny brain. The very last thing, he gave me a word and a look that I'll never forget. 'How long,' he said to me, with his damnable sneer, 'how long will these folks let you go on playing with their money?' That was all. And it started me to thinking—"
Armstrong resumed his nervous stride up and down. Deming nodded slowly, wearily.
"The easiest thing on earth, Reese, is for a man to fool himself—"
At this instant the door swung open. The nurse appeared, but shook her head at Deming.
"The doctor wants Mr. Armstrong upstairs."
Armstrong left the library and hastened to the upper hall. There he found old Doctor Irvin, outside the closed door of Dorothy's room. Irvin swung around to meet Armstrong, faced him, put hands to shoulders with a sudden air of challenging defiance. In the narrowed, keen old eyes Armstrong read a momentary flare of vivid enmity which astounded him. "What is it?" he demanded swiftly. "Is she so ill—"
"You call yourself a husband?" said Irvin, the Donegal burr coming harshly from his tongue. "What've ye been lookin' at all these months, eh? Why haven't ye been gripping at the big things instead o' the dollars? No, not you. Grip, grip, grip! That's all ye can see or do. Well, there's one thing you can't grip, my man."
"What d'you mean?" Armstrong exclaimed, wondering. "Is Dorothy—"
"There's one thing ye can't grip, as you'll learn. No; I'm telling the truth when I tell ye that I don't know about Dorothy. This thing is mental and spiritual with her. She's been so bent on having it out with ye that it'll either kill or cure—oh, ye poor blind fool! There's no fool like a sincere fool—"
Armstrong smiled suddenly. "I know it, Irvin," he said quietly. "I should have written Dorothy—but it's one of those things that's mighty hard to write. I think I know what you mean, and if I'd only known earlier that Dorothy realized it also—well, no matter now. Is she very ill?"
"She is," said Irvin, staring at him with penetrating gaze. "D'you mean to say that you've seen this thing for yourself? Well, go your way to her and talk it out, and heaven send ye may cool down the fever that's in her heart! It's her only chance."
He swung Armstrong to the door.
The room was empty save for the figure on the bed. Armstrong crossed the floor, knelt beside Dorothy, felt her fingers creep into his. Her blue eyes fluttered open, her look fell upon him like a caress.
"Dear!" she said, faintly. "What kept you away? You wrote that you'd won—"
"Yes, we won," said Armstrong, yet cold sweat sprang on his face. Dorothy's voice, her mortal pallor, above all the look in her eyes—these things pierced him. He knew that he must talk swiftly to keep her from talking, as Irvin had ordered him.
"There was more trouble that kept me," he went on. "Macgowan made a remark that opened my eyes—dear girl, I've had a tough time trying to realize the truth of it all, now I've seen it at last."
He paused, trying to find words, and a sudden wondering smile came to her lips.
"Reese! Nothing has been visible to you except the things you have seen—do you understand? The things which are seen are temporal—but those which are not seen are eternal; and you never saw them. Is that it? Have you—"
"Hush, my dear," he commanded, and smiled down into her eyes. "Yes, that's one way of putting it. And the queer thing is that it should have come to me from Macgowan—"
"It didn't—it came to you from me, from my heart and mind!"'
"Well, it came," he went on hastily. "It's like Irvin said—I've done nothing but grip. I've denied it, I've never believed it, but it's been true. Oh, it's hard to see myself as I really have been, stripped bare of my fine theories and plausible words! Yes, I've reached out only for the things actual and temporal. All my fine reasonings were false at bottom—I was blinded by everything."
Even now, clearly as he saw the fact, he shrank from the admission; he moved dry lips, trying to deny it, yet forced himself on to lay bare his inmost self before those blue eyes that stared up at him, to expose to this wife of his all the struggle through which he had so lately passed.
It was the veriest truth that behind all his actions for others had been his action for himself. Had it been to save Deming that he had gripped so hard, on his wedding-day? So he had thought, yet now he found the thought crumbling before the deeper truth. Had it been for the sixteen thousand that he had fought Macgowan—or to keep himself from going under? He understood now the flaming will to victory which even in his own sight had been masked. He could no longer delude himself, hypnotize himself. The truth faced him in naked guise, and it was ugly.
All this poured from his lips, and Dorothy's fingers gripped ever more tightly on his, and tears came into her eyes until she closed them to ease the smart. Here, where least expected, she found a new Reese Armstrong—a man never glimpsed ere this, glowing with discovery and eager with action, yet humble and bitterly penitent withal.
"I fought it out with myself, Dorothy, and then I took action," concluded Armstrong. "I realized that when it came down to rock bottom, that last bitter jibe of Macgowan's had a ring of truth. After all, I've been playing with other people's money—just that. Nothing criminal in it, nothing wrong in it; yet there's dynamite underneath. I've managed to readjust my whole viewpoint on things, Dorothy—or I hope that I have."
"To find the things which are not seen, dear?" came the faint voice.
"I hope so." Armstrong nodded and drew a long breath. "Well, here's what happened! I had the whip-hand, so I came down to the office four days ago and began to clean house. First, I got clear out of Consolidated,—lock, stock and barrel. I turned over every scrap of stock and practically all the ready money I had and could raise—in return for which I procured a controlling interest in the Deming Food concern here. Then I went to work and smashed Consolidated—put it into liquidation. I don't dare leave that structure to be grabbed by other men like Macgowan once I'm out of it. I've personally guaranteed that every investor gets his money back in full anytime, if he doesn't care to wait for the profits of the liquidation—but they'll all wait, never fear! Consolidated can get rid of all the other companies and then liquidate itself; and the result will be a good profit for every investor who hangs on. And as for me—"
"Yes, Reese?" asked Dorothy quickly, as he paused. A smile touched his lips.
"Well, as for me, Dorothy—that's up to you. I've sort of figured on selling our little estate, coming back here, settling down and running the Deming concern, if your father wants to go into partnership with me. What do you say? I'm through with the big town and the whole game—through for good. I don't want to play with other people's money any more, Dorothy—just with my own, after this. And besides—"
"The things which are seen are temporal," said Dorothy, and a low laugh came from her throat. "Oh, Reese, you've made me so happy! And now we'll find the other things together—the things that are eternal—"
Armstrong felt her fingers reach out to him. He put down his face and kissed the soft palms, gently, and then knelt there silently for a long while. When at last he lifted his head and looked at her again, she was asleep, and a smile was on her lips. The hall door was opening, and he looked up to see Irvin coming across the room. Quietly he disengaged himself and went to the door. Irvin, after a brief examination, joined him in the hall, closed the door, then caught Armstrong's shoulder.
"Look here—what have you done to her?" he snapped out.
Armstrong smiled wearily and wiped his forehead. He was very pale.
"I don't know, Irvin. I think the only thing I did was to make her happy," he said simply. "How is she looking—"
"You're a better doctor than I am, for she's turned the corner this blessed minute," said Irvin emphatically—then suddenly struck Armstrong on the shoulder and gripped his hand. "Oh! By the piper, I clear forgot to tell you! I wouldn't let a soul know about it until I was sure which way Dorothy was goin'—go on into the next room across the hall—"
"What for?" demanded Armstrong, in astonishment at this outburst.
Irvin seized his arm and propelled him across the hall-way, abruptly giving vent to a low and whimsical cackle of laughter. He flung open the door.
"Go in, ye big rascal, and see what the stork left for ye!"
THE END