232
Cass hesitated. He knew not how to begin. Then, yielding to a sudden impulse, he asked the girl to mention briefly the place of her birth, her parentage, and other statistical data, leading up to her association with the defendant.
The story that followed was simply given. It was but the one she had told again and again. Yet the room hung on her every word. And when she had concluded, Cass turned her back again to Simití, and to Rosendo’s share in the mining project which had ultimated in this suit.
A far-away look came into the girl’s eyes as she spoke of that great, black man who had taken her from desolate Badillo into his own warm heart. There were few dry eyes among the spectators when she told of his selfless love. And when she drew the portrait of him, standing alone in the cold mountain water, far up in the jungle of Guamocó, bending over the ladenbatea, and toiling day by day in those ghastly solitudes, that she might be protected and educated and raised above her primitive environment in Simití, there were sobs heard throughout the room; and even the judge, hardened though he was by conflict with the human mind, removed his glasses and loudly cleared his throat as he wiped them.
Ames first grew weary as he listened, and then exasperated. His lawyer at length rose to object to the recital on the ground that it was largely irrelevant to the case. And the judge, pulling himself together, sustained the objection. Cass sat down. Then the prosecution eagerly took up the cross-examination. Ames’s hour had come.
“Boast not thyself of to-morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth,” murmured the white-haired man in the clerical garb far back in the crowded room. Had he learned the law of Truth to error, “Thou shall surely die”? Did he discern the vultures gnawing at the rich man’s vitals? Did he, too, know that this giant of privilege, so insolently flaunting his fleeting power, his blood-stained wealth and his mortal pride, might as well seek to dim the sun in heaven as to escape the working of those infinite divine laws which shall effect the destruction of evil and the establishment of the kingdom of heaven even here upon earth?
Ames leaned over to whisper to Hood. The latter drew Ellis down and transmitted his master’s instructions. The atmosphere grew tense, and the hush of expectancy lay over all.
“Miss Carmen,” began Ellis easily, “your parentage has been a matter of some dispute, if I mistake not, and––”
Cass was on his feet to object. What had this question to do with the issue?
233
But the judge overruled the objection. That was what he was there for. Cass should have divined it by this time.
“H’m!” Ellis cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses. “And your father, it is said, was a negro priest. I believe that has been accepted for some time. A certain Diego, if I recall correctly.”
“I never knew my earthly father,” replied Carmen in a low voice.
“But you have admitted that it might have been this Diego, have you not?”
“It might have been,” returned the girl, looking off absently toward the high windows.
“Did he not claim you as his daughter?” pursued the lawyer.
“Yes,” softly.
“Now,” continued Ellis, “that being reasonably settled, is it not also true that you used the claim of possessing this mine, La Libertad, as a pretext for admission to society here in New York?”
The girl did not answer, but only smiled pityingly at him. He, too, had bartered his soul; and in her heart there rose a great sympathy for him in his awful mesmerism.
“And that you claimed to be an Inca princess?” went on the merciless lawyer.
“Answer!” admonished the judge, looking severely down upon the silent girl.
Carmen sighed, and drew her gaze away from the windows. She was weary, oh, so weary of this unspeakable mockery. And yet she was there to prove her God.
“I would like to ask this further question,” Ellis resumed, without waiting for her reply. “Were you not at one time in a resort conducted by Madam Cazeau, down on––”
He stopped short. The girl’s eyes were looking straight into his, and they seemed to have pierced his soul. “I am sorry for you,” she said gently, “oh, so sorry! Yes, I was once in that place.”
The man knew not whether to smile in triumph or hide his head in shame. He turned to Hood. But Hood would not look at him. Ames alone met his embarrassed glance, and sent back a command to continue the attack.
Cass again rose and voiced his protest. What possible relation to the issue involved could such testimony have? But the judge bade him sit down, as the counsel for the prosecution doubtless was bringing out facts of greatest importance.
Ellis again cleared his throat and bent to his loathsome task. “Now, Miss Ariza, in reference to your labors to incite the mill hands at Avon to deeds of violence, the public considers234that as part of a consistent line of attack upon Mr. Ames, in which you were aiding others from whom you took your orders. May I ask you to cite the motives upon which you acted?”
Cass sank back in abject despair. Ketchim was being forgotten!
“We have not attacked Mr. Ames,” she slowly replied, “but only the things he stands for. But you wouldn’t understand.”
Ellis smiled superciliously. “A militant brand of social uplift, I suppose?”
“No, Mr. Ellis, but just Christianity.”
“H’m. And that is the sort of remedy that anarchists apply to industrial troubles, is it not?”
“There is no remedy for industrial troubles but Christianity,” she said gently. “Not the burlesque Christianity of our countless sects and churches; not Roman Catholicism; not Protestantism; nor any of the fads and fancies of the human mind; but just the Christianity of Jesus of Nazareth, who knew that the human man was not God’s image, but only stood for it in the mortal consciousness. And he always saw behind this counterfeit the real man, the true likeness of God. And––”
“You are diverging from the subject proper and consuming time, Miss Ariza!” interrupted the judge sternly.
Carmen did not heed him, but continued quietly:
“And it was just such a man that Jesus portrayed in his daily walk and words.”
“Miss Ariza!” again commanded the judge.
“No,” the girl went calmly on, “Jesus did not stand for the intolerance, the ignorance, the bigotry, the hatred, and the human hypothesis, the fraud, and chicanery, and the ‘Who shall be greatest?’ of human institutions. Nor did he make evil a reality, as mortals do. He knew it seemed awfully real to the deceived human consciousness; but he told that consciousness to be not afraid. And then he went to work and drove out the belief of evil on the basis of its nothingness and its total lack of principle. The orthodox churches and sects of to-day do not do that. Oh, no! They strive for world dominion! Their kingdom is wholly temporal, and is upheld by heartless millionaires, and by warlike kings and emperors. Their tenets shame the intelligence of thinking men! Yet they have slain tens of millions to establish them!”
What could the Court do? To remove the girl meant depriving Ames of his prey. But if she remained upon the stand, she would put them all to confusion, for they had no means of silencing her. The judge looked blankly at Ames; his hands were tied.
235
Ellis hurried to change the current of her talk by interposing another question.
“Will you tell us, Miss Carmen, why you have been working––”
“I have been working for God,” she interrupted. Her voice was low and steady, and her eyes shone with a light that men are not wont to see in those of their neighbors. “I have not been working for men. He alone is my employer. And for Him I am here to-day.”
Consternation was plainly discernible in the camp of the prosecution. Cass knew now that he need make no more objections. The defense had passed from his hands.
At this juncture James Ketchim, brother of the defendant, thinking to relieve the strain and embarrassment, gave audible voice to one of his wonted witticisms. All turned to look at him. But the effect was not what he had anticipated. No one laughed.
“Hold your tongue, Mr. Ketchim!” roared the exasperated judge, bending far over his desk. “You are just a smart little fool!” And the elder Ketchim retired in chagrin and confusion.
“Miss Carmen,” pursued Ellis, eager to recover his advantage, for he saw significant movements among the jury, “do you not think the unfortunate results at Avon quite prove that you have allied yourself with those who oppose the nation’s industrial progress?”
Carmen sat silent. Order had now been restored in the court room, and Ellis was feeling sure of himself again.
“You have opposed the constructive development of our country’s resources by your assaults upon men of wealth, like Mr. Ames, for example, have you not?”
Then the girl opened her mouth, and from it came words that fell upon the room like masses of lead. “I stand opposed to any man, Mr. Ellis, who, to enrich himself, and for the purpose of revenge, spreads the boll weevil in the cotton fields of the South.”
Dull silence descended upon the place. And yet it was a silence that fell crashing upon Ames’s straining ears. He sat for a moment stunned; then sprang to his feet. All eyes were turned upon him. He held out a hand, and made as if to speak; then sank again into his chair.
Ellis stood as if petrified. Then Hood rose and whispered to him. Ellis collected himself, and turned to the judge.
“Your Honor, we regret to state that, from the replies which Miss Ariza has given, we do not consider her mentally competent as a witness. We therefore dismiss her.”
But Cass had leaped to the floor. “Your Honor!” he cried. “I should like to examine the witness further!”
236
“She is dismissed!” returned the judge, glowering over his spectacles at the young lawyer.
“I stand on––”
“Sit down!” the judge bellowed.
“Miss Carmen!” called Cass through the rising tumult, “the lawyer for the prosecution has heaped insults upon you in his low references to your parentage. Will you––”
The judge pounded upon his desk with the remnant of his broken gavel. Then he summoned the bailiffs.
“I shall order the room cleared!” he called in a loud, threatening voice.
The murmur subsided. The judge sat down and mopped his steaming face. Hood and Ellis bent in whispered consultation. Ames was a study of wild, infuriated passion. Cass stood defiantly before the bar. Carmen sat quietly facing the crowded room. She had reached up and was fondling the little locket which hung at her throat. It was the first time she had ever worn it. It was not a pretty piece of jewelry; and it had never occurred to her to wear it until that day. Nor would she have thought of it then, had not the Beaubien brought it to the Tombs the night before in a little box with some papers which the girl had called for. Why she had put it on, she could not say.
Slowly, while the silence continued unbroken, the girl drew the slender chain around in front of her and unclasped it.
“I––I never––knew my parents,” she murmured musingly, looking down lovingly at the little locket. Then she opened it and sat gazing, rapt and absorbed, at the two little portraits within. “But there are their pictures,” she suddenly announced, holding the locket out to Cass.
It was said afterward that never in the history of legal procedure in New York had that court room held such dead silence as when Cass stood bending over the faces of the girl’s earthly parents, portrayed in the strange little locket which Rosendo had taken from Badillo years before. Never had it known such a tense moment; never had the very air itself seemed so filled with a mighty, unseen presence, as on that day and in that crisal hour.
Without speaking, Hood rose and looked over Cass’s shoulder at the locket. A muffled cry escaped him, and he turned and stared at Ames. The judge bent shaking over his desk.
“Mr. Hood!” he exclaimed. “Have you ever seen those pictures before?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Hood in a voice that was scarcely heard.
“Where, sir?”
Hood seemed to have frozen to the spot. His hands shook, and his words gibbered from his trembling lips.
237
“The––the woman’s portrait, sir––is––is––the one in––in Mr. Ames’s yacht!”
“My God!”
The piercing cry rang through the still room like a lost soul’s despairing wail. Ames had rushed from his seat, overturning his chair, thrusting the lawyers aside, and seized the locket. For a moment he peered wildly into it. It seemed as if his eyes would devour it, absorb it, push themselves clean through it, in their eagerness to grasp its meaning.
Then he looked up. His eyes were red; his face ashen; his lips white. His unsteady glance met the girl’s. His mouth opened, and flapped like a broken shutter in the wind. His arms swung wildly upward; then dropped heavily. Suddenly he bent to one side; caught himself; straightened up; and then, with a horrifying, gurgling moan, crashed to the floor. The noise of the tremendous fall reverberated through the great room like an echo of Satan’s plunge into the pit of hell.
Pandemonium broke upon the scene. Wild confusion seized the excited spectators. They rushed forward in a mass, over railings, over chairs and tables, heedless of all but the great mystery that was slowly clearing away in the dim light that winter’s morning. Through them the white-haired man, clad in clerical vestments, elbowed his way to the bar.
“Let me see the locket!” he cried. “Let me see it!”
He tore it from Hood’s hand and scanned it eagerly. Then he nodded his head. “The same! The very same!” he murmured, trembling with excitement. Then, shouting to the judge above the hubbub:
“Your Honor! I can throw some light upon this case!”
The crowd fell back.
“Who are you?” called the judge in a loud, quavering voice.
“I am Monsignor Lafelle. I have just returned from Europe. The woman’s portrait in this little locket is that of Doña Dolores, Infanta, daughter of Queen Isabella the Second, of Spain! And this girl,” pointing to the bewildered Carmen, who sat clinging to the arms of her chair, “is her child, and is a princess of the royal blood! Her father is the man who lies there––J. Wilton Ames!”
238CHAPTER 18
Borne on pulsing electric waves, the news of the greatdénoûementflashed over the city, and across a startled continent. Beneath the seas it sped, and into court and hovel. Madrid gasped; Seville panted; and old Padre Rafaél de Rincón raised his hoary head and cackled shrilly.
To the seething court room came flying reporters and news gatherers, who threw themselves despairingly against the closed portals. Within, the bailiffs fought with the excited crowd, and held the doors against the panic without.
Over the prostrate form of Ames the physicians worked with feverish energy, but shook their heads.
In the adjoining ante-room, whither she had been half carried, half dragged by Hitt when Ames fell, sat Carmen, clasped in the Beaubien’s arms, stunned, bewildered, and speechless. Hitt stood guard at the door; and Miss Wall and Jude tiptoed about with bated breath, unable to take their eyes from the girl.
In the court room without, Haynerd held the little locket, and plied Monsignor Lafelle with his incoherent questions. The excited editor’s brain was afire; but of one thing he was well assured, the Express would bring out an extra that night that would scoop its rivals clean to the bone!
In a few minutes the bailiffs fought the mob back from the doors and admitted a man, a photographer, who had been sent out to procure chemicals in the hope that the portrait of the man in the locket might be cleaned. Ten minutes later the features of J. Wilton Ames stood forth clearly beside those of the wife of his youth. The picture showed him younger in appearance, to be sure, but the likeness was unmistakable.
“Lord! Lord! Monsignor, but you are slow! Come to the point quickly! We must go to press within an hour!” wailed Haynerd, shaking the churchman’s arm in his excitement.
“But, what more?” cried Lafelle. “I saw the portrait in the Royal Gallery, years ago, in Madrid. It impressed me. I could not forget the sad, sweet face. I saw it again in the stained-glass window in the Ames yacht. I became suspicious. I inquired when I returned to Spain. There was much whispering, much shaking of heads, but little information. But this I know: the queen, the great Isabella, had a lover, a wonderful tenor, Marfori, Marquis de Loja. And one day a babe was taken quietly to a little cottage in the Granada hills. Rumor said that it was an Infanta, and that the tenor was its father. Who knew? One man, perhaps: old Rafaél de Rincón. But239Rome suddenly recalled him from Isabella’s court, and after that he was very quiet.”
“But, Ames?” persisted Haynerd.
Lafelle shrugged his shoulders. “Mr. Ames,” he said, “traveled much in Europe. He went often to Spain. He bought a vineyard in Granada––the one from which he still procures his wine. And there––who knows?––he met the Infanta. But probably neither he nor she guessed her royal birth.”
“Well! Good Lord! Then––?”
“Well, they eloped––who knows? Whether married or not, I can not say. But it is evident she went with him to Colombia, where, perhaps, he was seeking a concession from Congress in Bogotá. So far, so good. Then came the news of his father’s sudden death. He hastened out of the country. Possibly he bade her wait for his return. But a prospective mother is often excitable. She waited a day, a week––who knows how long? And then she set out to follow him. Alas! she was wild to do such a thing. And it cost her life. She died at the little riverine town of Badillo, after her babe, Carmen, was born. Is it not plausible?”
“God above!” cried Haynerd. “And the girl’s wonderful voice?”
“A heritage from her grandfather, the tenor, Marfori,” Lafelle suggested.
“But––the portraits––what is the name under that of Ames? Guillermo? That is not his!”
“Yes, for Guillermo in Spanish is William. Doubtless Ames told her his name was Will, contracted from Wilton, the name he went by in his youth. And the nearest the Spanish could come to it was Guillermo. Diego’s name was Guillermo Diego Polo. And after he had seen that name in the locket he used it as a further means of strengthening his claim upon the girl.”
“Then––she is––a––princess!”
“Yes, doubtless, if my reasoning is correct. Not an Inca princess, but a princess of the reigning house of Spain.”
Haynerd could hold himself no longer, but rushed madly from the room and tore across town to the office of the Express.
Then came the white-enameled ambulance, dashing and careening to the doors of the building where Ames lay so quiet. Gently, silently, the great body was lifted and borne below. And then the chattering, gesticulating mob poured from the court room, from the halls and corridors, and out into the chill sunlight of the streets, where they formed anew into little groups, and went over again the dramatic events but a few minutes past.
Then, too, emerged Carmen, heavily veiled from the curious,240vulgar gaze of the rabble, and entered the waiting limousine, with the Beaubien and Hitt. Miss Wall and the gasping Jude followed in another. The judge had bidden the girl go on her own recognizance. The arrest at Avon; the matter of bail; all had merged into the excitement of the hour and been forgotten. Ketchim went out on Cass’s arm. The judge had ordered the clerk to enter an adjournment.
All that afternoon and far into the night a gaping, wondering concourse braved the cold and stood about the walk that led up to the little Beaubien cottage. Within, the curtains were drawn, and Sidney, Jude, and Miss Wall answered the calls that came incessantly over the telephone and to the doors. Sidney had not been in the court room, for Haynerd had left him at the editor’s desk in his own absence. But with the return of Haynerd the lad had hurried into a taxicab and commanded the chauffeur to drive madly to the Beaubien home. And once through the door, he clasped the beautiful girl in his arms and strained her to his breast.
“My sister!” he cried. “My own, my very own little sister! We only pretended before, didn’t we? But now––now, oh, God above! you really are my sister!”
The scarce comprehending girl drew his head down and kissed him. “Sidney,” she murmured, “the ways of God are past finding out!”
Aye, for again, as of old, He had chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; He had chosen the weak to confound the mighty; and the base things, and the things despised, had He used to bring to naught the things that are. And why? That no flesh might glory in His terrible presence!
“Carmen!” cried the excited boy. “Think what this means to our book!”
The girl smiled up at him; then turned away. “My father!” she murmured. “He––my father!” she kept repeating, groping her way about the room as if in a haze. “He! It can’t be! It can’t!”
The still dazed Beaubien drew the girl into her arms. “My little princess!” she whispered. “Oh! But who would have dreamed it! Yet I called you that from the very first. But––oh, Carmen! And he––that man––your father!”
“Don’t! Mother, don’t! It––it isn’t proved. It––”
Then the Beaubien’s heart almost stopped. What if it were true? What, then, would this sudden turn in the girl’s life mean to the lone woman who clung to her so?
“No, mother dearest,” whispered Carmen, looking up through her tears. “For even if it should be true, I will not leave you. He––he––”
241
She stopped; and would speak of him no more.
But neither of them knew as yet that in that marvelous Fifth Avenue palace, behind those drawn curtains and guarded bronze doors, at which an eager crowd stood staring, Ames, the superman, lay dying, his left side, from the shoulder down, paralyzed.
In the holy quiet of the first hours of morning, the mist rose, and the fallen man roused slowly out of his deep stupor. And then through the dim-lit halls of the great mansion rang a piercing cry. For when he awoke, the curtain stood raised upon his life; and the sight of its ghastly content struck wild terror to his naked soul.
He had dreamed as he lay there, dreamed while the mist was rising. He thought he had been toiling with feverish energy through those black hours, building a wall about the things that were his. And into the design of the huge structure he had fitted the trophies of his conquest. Gannette toiled with him, straining, sweating, groaning. Together they reared that monstrous wall; and as they labored, the man plotted the death of his companion when the work should be done, lest he ask for pay. And into the corners of the wall they fitted little skulls. These were the children of Avon who had never played. And over the great stones which they heaved into place they sketched red dollar-marks; and their paint was human blood. A soft wind swept over the rising structure, and it bore a gentle voice: “I am Love.” But the toilers looked up and cursed. “Let us alone!” they cried. “Love is weakness!” And over the rim of the wall looked fair faces. “We are Truth, we are Life!” But the men frothed with fury, and hurled skulls at the faces, and bade them begone! A youth and a tender girl looked down at the sweating toilers. “We ask help; we are young, and times are so hard!” But the great man pointed to himself. “Look at me!” he cried. “I need no help! Begone!” And then the darkness settled down, for the wall was now so high that it shut out the sun. And the great man howled with laughter; the wall was done. So he turned and smote his companion unto death, and dipped his hands in the warm blood of the quivering corpse.
But the darkness was heavy. The man grew lonely. And then he sought to mount the wall. But his hands slipped on the human blood of the red, slimy dollar-marks, and he fell crashing back among his tinkling treasures. He rose, and tried again. The naked, splitting skulls leered at him. The toothless jaws clattered, and the eyeless sockets glowed eerily. The man raised his voice. He begged that a rope be lowered. He242would go out once more into the sunlit world. But the chill wind brought him only despairing moans.
Then he rushed madly to the wall, and smote it with his bare hands. It mocked him with the strength which he had given it. He turned and tore his hair and flesh. He gnashed his teeth until they broke into bits. He cursed; he raved; he pleaded; he offered all his great treasure for freedom. But the skulls grinned their horrid mockery at him; and the blood on the stones dripped upon his burning head. And above it all he heard the low plotting of those without who were awaiting his death, that they might throw down the wall and take away his treasure.
And then his fear became frenzy; his love of gold turned to horror; his reason fled; and he dashed himself wildly against the prison which he had reared, until he fell, bleeding and broken. And as he fell, he heard the shrill cackle of demons that danced their hellish steps on the top of the wall. Then the Furies flew down and bound him tight.
“Ah, my God, What might I not have made of Thy fair world Had I but loved Thy highest creature here? It was my duty to have loved the highest; It surely was my profit had I known.”
“Ah, my God, What might I not have made of Thy fair world Had I but loved Thy highest creature here? It was my duty to have loved the highest; It surely was my profit had I known.”
He awoke from his terror, dripping. He feebly lifted his head. Then he sought to raise his arms, to move. He was alive! And then the scream tore from his dry throat. His great body was half dead!
The attendants flew to his couch. The physicians bent over him and sought to soothe his mental agony. The man’s torture was fearful to behold; his weakness, pitiable. He sank again into somnolence. But the sleep was one of unbroken horror; and those in the room stopped in the course of their duties; and their faces blanched; and they held their hands to their ears, when his awful moans echoed through the curtained room.
Through his dreams raced the endless panorama of his crowded life. Now he was wading through muddy slums where stood the wretched houses which he rented for immoral purposes. He was madly searching for something. What could it be? Ah, yes, his girl! Some one had said she was there. Who was it? Aye, who but himself? But he found her not. And he wept bitterly.
And then he hurried to Avon; and there he dug into those fresh graves––dug, dug, dug, throwing the dirt up in great heaps behind him. And into the face of each corpse as he243dragged it out of its damp bed he peered eagerly. But with awful moans he threw them from him in turn, for she was not there.
Then he fled down, down, far into the burning South; and there he roamed the trackless wastes, calling her name. And the wild beasts and the hissing serpents looked out at him from the thick bush, looked with great, red eyes, and then fled from him with loathing. And, suddenly, he came upon another mound near the banks of a great river. And over it stood a rude cross; and on the cross he read the dim, penciled word,Dolores. Ah, God! how he cried out for the oblivion that was not his. But the ghastly mound froze his blood, and he rushed from it in terror, and fell, whirling over and over, down, down into eternal blackness filled with dying men’s groans!
The awful day drew to a close. The exhausted attendants stood about the bed with bated breath. The physicians had called Doctor Morton in consultation, for the latter was a brain specialist. And while they sat gazing at the crazed, stricken giant, hopelessly struggling to lift the inert mass of his dead body, Reverend Darius Borwell entered. He bowed silently to them all; then went to the bedside and took the patient’s hand. A moment later he turned to the physicians and nurses.
“Let us ask God’s help for Mr. Ames,” he said gravely.
They bowed, and he knelt beside the bed and prayed long and earnestly; prayed that the loving Father who had made man in His image would take pity on the suffering one who lay there, and, if it be His will, spare him for Jesus’ sake.
He arose from his knees, and they all sat quiet for some moments. Then Doctor Morton’s heavy voice broke the silence of death. “Mr. Borwell,” he said in awful earnestness, extending his hand toward the bed, “cure that man, if your religion is anything more than a name!”
A hot flush of indignation spread over the minister’s face; but he did not reply. Doctor Morton turned to the physicians.
“Gentlemen,” he said solemnly, “Mr. Ames, I think, is past our aid. There is nothing on earth that can save him. If he lives, he will be hopelessly insane.” He hesitated, and turned to a maid. “Where is his daughter Kathleen?” he asked.
“Upstairs, sir, in her apartments,” answered the maid, wiping her red eyes.
“See that she remains there,” said the doctor gruffly. “Gentlemen,” turning again to the physicians, “I have but one suggestion. Send for––for––that little girl, Carmen.”
“It is ill-advised, Doctor,” interrupted one of the men. “It would only further excite him. It might hasten the end.”
“I do not agree with you,” returned Doctor Morton. “As it is, he is doomed. With her here––there may be a chance.”
244
The others shook their heads; but Doctor Morton persisted stubbornly. Finally Doctor Haley gave his ultimatum. “If she is sent for, I shall retire from the case.”
“Very well,” announced Doctor Morton evenly, “then I will take it myself.” He rose and went out into the vestibule where there was a telephone. Calling for the Beaubien cottage, he gave a peremptory order that Carmen come at once in the automobile which he was sending for her.
The Beaubien turned from the telephone to the girl. Her face was deathly pale.
“What is it, mother dearest?”
“They––they want––you!”
“Why––is it––is he––”
“They say he is––dying,” the woman whispered.
Carmen stood for a minute as if stunned. “Why––I––didn’t know––that there was––anything wrong. Mother, you didn’t tell me! Why?”
The Beaubien threw her arms around the girl. Father Waite rose from the table where he had been writing, and came to them.
“Go,” he said to Carmen. “The Lord is with thee! Go in this thy might!”
A few minutes later the great bronze doors of the Ames mansion swung wide to admit the daughter of the house.
Doctor Morton met the wondering girl, and led her directly into the sick-room. The other physicians had departed.
“Miss Carmen,” he said gravely, “Mr. Ames is past earthly help. He can not live.”
The girl turned upon him like a flash from a clear sky. “You mean, heshallnot live!” she cried. “For you doctors have sentenced him!”
The startled man bowed before the rebuke. Then a sense of her magnificent environment, of her strange position, and of the vivid events of the past few hours swept over her, and she became embarrassed. The nurses and attendants, too, who stood about and stared so hard at her, added to her confusion.
But the doctor took her hand. “Listen,” he said, “I am leaving now, but you will remain. If I am needed, one of the maids will summon me.”
Carmen stood for a moment without speaking. Then she walked slowly to the bed and looked down at the man. Doctor Morton motioned to the attendants to withdraw. Then he himself stepped softly out and closed the door. When the girl turned around, she was alone––with death.
245CHAPTER 19
A curious, gossiping world, dwelling only in the froth of the human mind, will not comprehend for many a year to come what took place in that dim, tapestried chamber of the rich man in those next hours. When twilight began to steal through the marble halls of the great, shrouded mansion, the nurse in charge, becoming apprehensive, softly opened the door of the sick-room and peeped in. Through the darkness she saw the girl, sitting beside the bed, with the man’s right hand clasped in both of hers, and her head resting upon his shoulder. And the nurse quickly closed the door again in awe, and stole away.
The girl sat there all that day and all that night, nor would leave but for brief moments to eat, or to reassure the Beaubien over the telephone that all was well. Doctor Morton came, and went, and came again. Carmen smiled, and held his hand for a moment each time, but said little. Ames had slept. And, more, his cheeks were stained where the scalding tears had coursed down them. But the doctor would ask no questions. He was satisfied. The nurses entered only when summoned. And three days and nights passed thus, while Carmen dwelt with the man who, as the incarnation of error, seeking the destruction of others, had destroyed himself.
Then Doctor Morton announced to a waiting world that his patient would live––but he would say no more. And the world heard, too, that Kathleen Ames had left her father’s roof––left in humiliation and chagrin when she learned that Carmen had come there to live––and had gone to England for a prolonged visit with the Dowager Duchess of Altern and her now thoroughly dismayed son. But Sidney came; and with him the black-veiled Beaubien. And they both knelt beside the bed of suffering; and the hand of the now quiet man slowly went out and lay for a moment upon their bowed heads, while Carmen stood near. Then Willett was sent for; and he came often after that, and took his master’s scarce audible instructions, and went away again to touch the wires and keys that ended the war of hatred at Avon; that brought Father Danny in the master’s private car to the great metropolitan hospital; that sent to the startled Hitt the canceled mortgage papers on the Express; and that inaugurated that great work of restitution which held the dwellers in the Ames mansion toiling over musty books and forgotten records for months to come.
What had passed between the man and the sweet-faced girl246who hovered over him like a ray of light, no one may know. That he had trod the glowing embers of hell, his cavernous, deep-lined face and whitening hair well testified. It was said afterward that on that third day he had opened his eyes and looked straight into those of the girl. It was said that she then whispered but one word, “Father.” And that, when the sound of her low voice fell upon his straining ears, he had reached out the arm that still held life, and had drawn her head down upon his breast, and wept like a motherless babe. But what he had said, if aught, about the abandoned mother who, on the banks of the distant river, years gone, had yielded her life to him and his child, no one knew. Of but one thing was there any certainty: the name of Padre Josè de Rincón had not crossed their lips during those dark days.
And so two weeks passed. Then strong men lifted the giant from his bed and placed him in a wheel chair; and Carmen drew the chair out into the conservatory, among the ferns and flowers, and sat beside him, his hand still clasped in both of hers. That he had found life, no one who marked his tense, eager look, which in every waking moment lay upon the girl, could deny. His body was dead; his soul was fluttering feebly into a new sense of being.
But with the awakening of conscience, in the birth-throes of a new life, came the horrors, the tortures, the wild frenzy of self-loathing; and, but for the girl who clung so desperately to him, he would have quickly ended his useless existence. What had he done! God! What mad work had he done! He was a murderer of helpless babes! He was the blackest of criminals! The stage upon which the curtain had risen, whereon he saw the hourly portrayal of his own fiendish deeds, stood always before him like a haunting spectre; and as he gazed with horrified eyes, his hair grew hourly white.
And the torture was rendered more poignant by the demands of his erstwhile associates and henchmen. They had taken fright at the first orders which had issued from the sick-bed, but now they swooped down upon the harassed man to learn what might be expected from him in the future. What were to be his policies now in regard to those manifold interests which he was pursuing with such vigor a few weeks ago? Was he still bent upon depriving Senator Gossitch of the seat which the Ames money had purchased? Was the Ketchim prosecution to continue? The Amalgamated Spinners’ Association must know at once his further plans. The Budget needed money and advice. His great railroad projects, his mining ventures, his cotton deals, his speculations and gambling schemes––whither should they tend now? Ward bosses, dive247keepers, bank presidents, lawyers, magnates, and preachers clamored for admission at his doors when they learned that he would live, but that a marvelous, incomprehensible change had swept over him.
The tired, hectored man turned to Carmen. And she called Hitt and Waite and the keen-minded Beaubien. The latter’s wide business experience and worldly knowledge now stood them all in good stead, and she threw herself like a bulwark between the stricken man and the hounds that roared at his gates. There were those among them who, like Ames, had bitterly fought all efforts at industrial and social reform, and yet who saw the dawning of a new era in the realms of finance, of politics, of religion. There were those who sensed the slow awakening of the world-conscience, and who resisted it desperately, and who now sat frightened and angered at the thought of losing their great leader. Their attitude toward life, like his, had been wrong from the beginning; they, like him, were striking examples of the dire effects of a false viewpoint in the impoverishing of human life. But, with him, they had built up a tremendous material fabric. And now they shook with fear as they saw its chief support removed. For they must know that his was a type that was fast passing, and after it must come the complete breakdown of the old financial order. His world-embracing gambling––which touched all men in some way, for it had to do with the very necessities of life, with crops, with railroads, with industries, and out of which he had coined untold millions––had ceased forever. What did it portend to them?
And to him also came Reverend Darius Borwell, in whose congregation sat sanctimonious malefactors of vast wealth, whose pockets bulged with disease-laden profits from the sales of women’s bodies and souls. Reverend Borwell came to offer the sufferer the dubious consolations of religion––and inquire if his beautiful change of heart would affect the benefaction which he had designed for the new church.
Ah, this was the hour when the fallen giant faced the Apostle’s awful question: What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed?For the end of those things is death!
And then came Monsignor Lafelle, asking not to see the sick man, but the girl. And, alone with her in the great library that day, he bent low over her hand and begged that she would forgive and forget. It was he who told Mrs. Ames that flagrantly false tale of the girl’s parentage. He had received it from Wenceslas, in Cartagena. It was he who, surmising the dark secret of Ames, had concluded that the supposed248Infanta had been his wife. And he had returned to New York to confront him with the charge, and to make great capital out of it. But he had never suspected for a moment Carmen’s connection with the mystery. And now––
But the girl saw only the image of God in the humiliated man. And when he kissed her hand and departed, she bade him know, always, that she loved him as a brother. And he knew it, knew that her love was of the spirit––it left all for the Christ.
A few days later there was delivered at the Ames mansion a cable message from Cartagena, in reply to one which the master had sent to the lawyer, Estrella. Ames shook with suppressed excitement when he read it. Then he bade Carmen send at once for Hitt, Willett, and Captain McCall, and leave them with him for a private conference.
“She must not know! She must not know!” Ames repeated, as the three men sat leaning eagerly forward an hour later, drinking in every word he spoke. “If the mission is successful, well and good. If it fails, then our silence now will be justified, for as yet I have said nothing to her regarding him. Peace is being concluded there. Wenceslas has won––but with––but of that later. When can you get under way, McCall?”
“To-night, sir. The bunkers are full.”
“Very good. I will go aboard at ten. You will weigh anchor immediately.”
“What?” cried Hitt. “You will go?”
“I will!” The sudden flash of his old-time energy nearly startled them from their chairs. “And,” he added, “you, Mr. Hitt, will accompany us. Now, Willett, have the door of my limousine widened to accommodate this wheel chair. I want a dozen men to insure our privacy, and to keep the way clear. No one not in our confidence must see us depart.”
Hitt gasped. “But––Carmen––”
“Goes with us,” returned Ames. “I can not spare her for a moment. Madam Beaubien will have charge of the house during our absence. We will be back here, weather favorable, in three weeks––or not at all!”
“Yet, she will know––”
“Nothing. I take the trip, ostensibly, for the change; to get away from those who are hounding me here; for recuperation––anything! Go, now, and make ready!” The man’s eyes glistened like live coals, and his sunken cheeks took on a feverish glow.
That night theCossack, enveloped in gloom, steamed noiselessly out of New York harbor, and turned her prow to the249South. And when she had entered the high sea, Captain McCall from his bridge aloft sent a message down to the waiting engineer:
“Full speed ahead!”