“WHO'Sthat, I wonder?” asked Nell Peter as the dark, close-veiled figure glided past them on the stairs.
“Oh, she's a policy-drunkard,” answered Pinky, loud enough to be heard by the woman, who, as if surprised or alarmed, stopped and turned her head, her veil falling partly away, and disclosing features so pale and wasted that she looked more like a ghost than living flesh and blood. There was a strange gleam in her eyes. She paused only for an instant, but her steps were slower as she went on climbing the steep and narrow stairs that led to the policy-office.
“Good Gracious, Pinky! did you ever see such a face?” exclaimed Nell Peter. “It's a walking ghost, I should say, and no woman at all.”
“Oh, I've seen lots of 'em,” answered Pinky. “She's a policy-drunkard. Bad as drinking when it once gets hold of 'em. They tipple all the time, sell anything, beg, borrow, steal or starve themselves to get money to buy policies. She's one of 'em that's starving.”
By this time they had reached the policy-office. It was in a small room on the third floor of the back building, yet as well known to the police of the district as if it had been on the front street. One of these public guardians soon after his appointment through political influence, and while some wholesome sense of duty and moral responsibility yet remained, caused the “writer” in this particular office to be arrested. He thought that he had done a good thing, and looked for approval and encouragement. But to his surprise and chagrin he found that he had blundered. The case got no farther than the alderman's. Just how it was managed he did not know, but it was managed, and the business of the office went on as before.
A little light came to him soon after, on meeting a prominent politician to whom he was chiefly indebted for his appointment. Said this individual, with a look of warning and a threat in his voice,
“See here, my good fellow; I'm told that you've been going out of your way and meddling with the policy-dealers. Take my advice, and mind your own business. If you don't, it will be all day with you. There isn't a man in town strong enough to fight this thing, so you'd better let it alone.”
And he did let it alone. He had a wife and three little children, and couldn't afford to lose his place. So he minded his own business, and let it alone.
Pinky and her friend entered this small third-story back room. Behind a narrow, unpainted counter, having a desk at one end, stood a middle-aged man, with dark, restless eyes that rarely looked you in the face. He wore a thick but rather closely-cut beard and moustache. The police knew him very well; so did the criminal lawyers, when he happened to come in their way; so did the officials of two or three State prisons in which he had served out partial sentences. He was too valuable to political “rings” and associations antagonistic to moral and social well-being to be left idle in the cell of a penitentiary for the whole term of a commitment. Politicians have great influence, and governors are human.
On the walls of the room were pasted a few pictures cut from the illustrated papers, some of them portraits of leading politicians, and some of them portraits of noted pugilists and sporting-men. The picture of a certain judge, who had made himself obnoxious to the fraternity of criminals by his severe sentences, was turned upside down. There was neither table nor chair in the room.
The woman in black had passed in just before the girls, and was waiting her turn to examine the drawn numbers. She had not tasted food since the day before, having ventured her only dime on a policy, and was feeling strangely faint and bewildered. She did not have to wait long. It was the old story. Her combination had not come out, and she was starving. As she moved back toward the door she staggered a little. Pinky, who had become curious about her, noticed this, and watched her as she went out.
“It's about up with the old lady, I guess,” she said to her companion, with an unfeeling laugh.
And she was right. On the next morning the poor old woman was found dead in her room, and those who prepared her for burial said that she was wasted to a skeleton. She had, in fact, starved herself in her infatuation, spending day after day in policies what she should have spent for food. Pinky's strange remark was but too true. She had become a policy-drunkard—a vice almost as disastrous in its effects as its kindred, vice, intemperance, though less brutalizing and less openly indulged.
“Where now?” was the question of Pinky's friend as they came down, after spending in policies all the money they had received from the sale of Flora Bond's clothing. “Any other game?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Come along to my room, and I'll tell you.”
“Round in Ewing street?”
“Yes. Great game up, if I can only get on the track.”
“What is it?”
“There's a cast-off baby in Dirty Alley, and Fan Bray knows its mother, and she's rich.”
“What?”
“Fan's getting lots of hush-money.”
“Goody! but that is game!”
“Isn't it? The baby's owned by two beggar-women who board it in Dirty Alley. It's 'most starved and frozen to death, and Fan's awful 'fraid it may die. She wants me to steal it for her, so that she may have it better taken care of, and I was going to do it last night, when I got into a muss.”
“Who's the woman that boards it?”
“She lives in a cellar, and is drunk every night. Can steal the brat easily enough; but if I can't find out who it belongs to, you see it will be trouble for nothing.”
“No, I don't see any such thing,” answered Nell Peter. “If you can't get hush-money out of its mother, you can bleed Fanny Bray.”
“That's so, and I'm going to bleed her. The mother, you see, thinks the baby's dead. The proud old grandmother gave it away, as soon as was born, to a woman that Fan Bray found for her. Its mother was out of her head, and didn't know nothing. That woman sold the baby to the women who keep it to beg with. She's gone up the spout now, and nobody knows who the mother and grandmother are but Fan, and nobody knows where the baby is but me and Fan. She's bleeding the old lady, and promises to share with me if I keep track of the baby and see that it isn't killed or starved to death. But I don't trust her. She puts me off with fives and tens, when I'm sure she gets hundreds. Now, if we have the baby all to ourselves, and find out the mother and grandmother, won't we have a splendid chance? I'll bet you on that.”
“Won't we? Why, Pinky, this is a gold-mine!”
“Didn't I tell you there was great game up? I was just wanting some one to help me. Met you in the nick of time.”
The two girls had now reached Pinky's room in Ewing street, where they continued in conference for a long time before settling their plans.
“Does Fan know where you live?” queried Nell Peter.
“Yes.”
“Then you will have to change your quarters.”
“Easily done. Doesn't take half a dozen furniture-cars to move me.”
“I know a room.”
“Where?”
“It's a little too much out of the way, you'll think, maybe, but it's just the dandy for hiding in. You cart keep the brat there, and nobody—”
“Me keep the brat?” interrupted Pinky, with a derisive laugh. “That's a good one! I see myself turned baby-tender! Ha! ha! that's funny!”
“What do you expect to do with the child after you steal it?” asked Pinky's friend.
“I don't intend to nurse it or have it about me.”
“What then?”
“Board if with some one who doesn't get drunk or buy policies.”
“You'll hunt for a long time.”
“Maybe, but I'll try. Anyhow, it can't be worse off than it is now. What I'm afraid of is that it will be out of its misery before we can get hold of it. The woman who is paid for keeping it at night doesn't give it any milk—just feeds it on bread soaked in water, and that is slow starvation. It's the way them that don't want to keep their babies get rid of them about here.”
“The game's up if the baby dies,” said Nell Peter, growing excited under this view of the case. “If it only gets bread soaked in water, it can't live. I've seen that done over and over again. They're starving a baby on bread and water now just over from my room, and it cries and frets and moans all the time it's awake, poor little wretch! I've been in hopes for a week that they'd give it an overdose of paregoric or something else.”
“We must fix it to-night in some way,” answered Pinky. “Where's the room you spoke of?”
“In Grubb's court. You know Grubb's court?—a kind of elbow going off from Rider's court. There's a room up there that you can get where even the police would hardly find you out.”
“Thieves live there,” said Pinky.
“No matter. They'll not trouble you or the baby.”
“Is the room furnished?”
“Yes. There's a bed and a table and two chairs.”
After farther consultation it was decided that Pinky should move at once from her present lodgings to the room in Grubb's court, and get, if possible, possession of the baby that very night. The moving was easily accomplished after the room was secured. Two small bundles of clothing constituted Pinky's entire effects; and taking these, the two girls went quietly out, leaving a week's rent unpaid.
The night that closed this early winter day was raw and cold, the easterly wind still prevailing, with occasional dashes of rain. In a cellar without fire, except a few bits of smouldering wood in an old clay furnace, that gave no warmth to the damp atmosphere, and with scarcely an article of furniture, a woman half stupid from drink sat on a heap of straw, her bed, with her hands clasped about her knees. She was rocking her body backward and forward, and crooning to herself in a maudlin way. A lighted tallow candle stood on the floor of the cellar, and near it a cup of water, in which was a spoon and some bread soaking.
“Mother Hewitt!” called a voice from the cellar door that opened on the street. “Here, take the baby!”
Mother Hewitt, as she was called, started up and made her way with an unsteady gait to the front part of the cellar, where a woman in not much better condition than herself stood holding out a bundle of rags in which a fretting baby was wrapped.
“Quick, quick!” called the woman. “And see here,” she continued as Mother Hewitt reached her arms for the baby; “I don't believe you're doing the right thing. Did he have plenty of milk last night and this morning?”
“Just as much as he would take.”
“I don't believe it. He's been frettin' and chawin' at the strings of his hood all the afternoon, when he ought to have been asleep, and he's looking punier every day. I believe you're giving him only bread and water.”
But Mother Hewitt protested that she gave him the best of new milk, and as much as he would take.
“Well, here's a quarter,” said the woman, handing Mother Hewitt some money; “and see that he is well fed to-night and to-morrow morning. He's getting 'most too deathly in his face. The people won't stand it if they think a baby's going to die—the women 'specially, and most of all the young things that have lost babies. One of these—I know 'em by the way they look out of their eyes—came twice to-day and stood over him sad and sorrowful like; she didn't give me anything. I've seen her before. Maybe she's his mother. As like as nor, for nobody knows where he came from. Wasn't Sally Long's baby; always thought she'd stole him from somebody. Now, mind, he's to have good milk every day, or I'll change his boarding-house. D'ye hear!”
And laughing at this sally, the woman turned away to spend in a night's debauch the money she had gained in half a day's begging.
Left to herself, Mother Hewitt went staggering back with the baby in her arms, and seated herself on the ground beside the cup of bread and water, which was mixed to the consistence of cream. As she did so the light of her poor candle fell on the baby's face. It was pinched and hungry and ashen pale, the thin lips wrought by want and suffering into such sad expressions of pain that none but the most stupid and hardened could look at them and keep back a gush of tears.
But Mother Hewitt saw nothing of this—felt nothing of this. Pity and tenderness had long since died out of her heart. As she laid the baby back on one arm she took a spoonful of the mixture prepared for its supper, and pushed it roughly into its mouth. The baby swallowed it with a kind of starving eagerness, but with no sign of satisfaction on its sorrowful little face. But Mother Hewitt was too impatient to get through with her work of feeding the child, and thrust in spoonful after spoonful until it choked, when she shook it angrily, calling it vile names.
The baby cried feebly at this, when she shook it again and slapped it with her heavy hand. Then it grew still. She put the spoon again to its lips, but it shut them tightly and turned its head away.
“Very well,” said Mother Hewitt. “If you won't, you won't;” and she tossed the helpless thing as she would have tossed a senseless bundle over upon the heap of straw that served as a bed, adding, as she did so, “I never coaxed my own brats.”
The baby did not cry. Mother Hewitt then blew out the candle, and groping her way to the door of the cellar that opened on the street, went out, shutting down the heavy door behind her, and leaving the child alone in that dark and noisome den—alone in its foul and wet garments, but, thanks to kindly drugs, only partially conscious of its misery.
Mother Hewitt's first visit was to the nearest dram-shop. Here she spent for liquor five cents of the money she had received. From the dram-shop she went to Sam McFaddon's policy-office. This was not hidden away, like most of the offices, in an upper room or a back building or in some remote cellar, concealed from public observation, but stood with open door on the very street, its customers going in and out as freely and unquestioned as the customers of its next-door neighbor, the dram-shop. Policemen passed Sam's door a hundred times in every twenty-four hours, saw his customers going in and out, knew their errand, talked with Sam about his business, some of them trying their luck occasionally after there had been an exciting “hit,” but none reporting him or in any way interfering with his unlicensed plunder of the miserable and besotted wretches that crowded his neighborhood.
From the whisky-shop to the policy-shop went Mother Hewitt. Here she put down five cents more; she never bet higher than this on a “row.” From the policy-shop she went back to the whisky-shop, and took another drink. By this time she was beginning to grow noisy. It so happened that the woman who had left the baby with her a little while before came in just then, and being herself much the worse for drink, picked a quarrel with Mother Hewitt, accusing her of getting drunk on the money she received for keeping the baby, and starving it to death. A fight was the consequence, in which they were permitted to tear and scratch and bruise each other in a shocking way, to the great enjoyment of the little crowd of debased and brutal men and women who filled the dram-shop. But fearing a visit from the police, the owner of the den, a strong, coarse Irishman, interfered, and dragging the women apart, pushed Mother Hewitt out, giving her so violent an impetus that she fell forward into the middle of the narrow street, where she lay unable to rise, not from any hurt, but from sheer intoxication.
“What's up now?” cried one and another as this little ripple of disturbance broke upon that vile and troubled sea of humanity.
“Only Mother Hewitt drunk again!” lightly spoke a young girl not out of her teens, but with a countenance that seemed marred by centuries of debasing evil. Her laugh would have made an angel shiver.
A policeman came along, and stood for a little while looking at the prostrate woman.
“It's Mother Hewitt,” said one of the bystanders.
“Here, Dick,” and the policeman spoke to a man near him. “Take hold of her feet.”
The man did as told, and the policeman lifting the woman's head and shoulders, they carried her a short distance, to where a gate opened into a large yard used for putting in carts and wagons at night, and deposited her on the ground just inside.
“She can sleep it off there,” said the policeman as he dropped his unseemly load. “She'll have a-plenty to keep her company before morning.”
And so they left her without covering or shelter in the wet and chilly air of a late November night, drunk and asleep.
As the little crowd gathered by this ripple of excitement melted away, a single figure remained lurking in a corner of the yard and out of sight in its dark shadow. It was that of a man. The moment he was alone with the unconscious woman he glided toward her with the alert movements of an animal, and with a quickness that made his work seem instant, rifled her pockets. His gains were ten cents and the policy-slip she had just received at Sam McFaddon's. He next examined her shoes, but they were of no value, lifted her dirty dress and felt its texture for a moment, then dropped it with a motion of disgust and a growl of disappointment.
As he came out from the yard with his poor booty, the light from a street-lamp fell on as miserable a looking wretch as ever hid himself from the eyes of day—dirty, ragged, bloated, forlorn, with scarcely a trace of manhood in his swollen and disfigured face. His steps, quick from excitement a few moments before, were now shambling and made with difficulty. He had not far to walk for what he was seeking. The ministers to his appetite were all about him, a dozen in every block of that terrible district that seemed as if forsaken by God and man. Into the first that came in his way he went with nervous haste, for he had not tasted of the fiery stimulant he was craving with a fierce and unrelenting thirst for many hours. He did not leave the bar until he had drank as much of the burning poison its keeper dispensed as his booty would purchase. In less than half an hour he was thrown dead drunk into the street and then carried by policemen to the old wagon-yard, to take his night's unconscious rest on the ground in company with Mother Hewitt and a score besides of drunken wretches who were pitilessly turned out from the various dram-shops after their money was spent, and who were not considered by the police worth the trouble of taking to the station-house.
When Mother Hewitt crept back into her cellar at daylight, the baby was gone.
FORmore than a week after Edith's call on Dr. Radcliffe she seemed to take but little interest in anything, and remained alone in her room for a greater part of the time, except when her father was in the house. Since her questions about her baby a slight reserve had risen up between them. During this time she went out at least once every day, and when questioned by her mother as to where she had been, evaded any direct answer. If questioned more closely, she would show a rising spirit and a decision of manner that had the effect to silence and at the same time to trouble Mrs. Dinneford, whose mind was continually on the rack.
One day the mother and daughter met in a part of the city where neither of them dreamed of seeing the other. It was not far from where Mrs. Bray lived. Mrs. Dinneford had been there on a purgational visit, and had come away lighter in purse and with a heavier burden of fear and anxiety on her heart.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“I've been to St. John's mission sewing-school,” replied Edith. “I have a class there.”
“You have! Why didn't you tell me this before? I don't like such doings. This is no place for you.”
“My place is where I can do good,” returned Edith, speaking slowly, but with great firmness.
“Good! You can do good if you want to without demeaning yourself to work like this. I don't want you mixed up with these low, vile people, and I won't have it!” Mrs. Dinneford spoke in a sharp, positive voice.
Edith made no answer, and they walked on together.
“I shall speak to your father about this,” said Mrs. Dinneford. “It isn't reputable. I wouldn't have you seen here for the world.”
“I shall walk unhurt; you need not fear,” returned Edith.
There was silence between them for some time, Edith not caring to speak, and her mother in doubt as to what it were best to say.
“How long have you been going to St. John's mission school?” at length queried Mrs. Dinneford.
“I've been only a few times,” replied Edith.
“And have a class of diseased and filthy little wretches, I suppose—gutter children?”
“They are God's children,” said Edith, in a tone of rebuke.
“Oh, don't preach to me!” was angrily replied.
“I only said what was true,” remarked Edith.
There was silence again.
“Are you going directly home?” asked Mrs. Dinneford, after they had walked the distance of several blocks. Edith replied that she was.
“Then you'd better take that car. I shall not be home for an hour yet.”
They separated, Edith taking the car. As soon as she was alone Mrs. Dinneford quickened her steps, like a person who had been held back from some engagement. A walk of ten minutes brought her to one of the principal hotels of the city. Passing in, she went up to a reception-parlor, where she was met by a man who rose from a seat near the windows and advanced to the middle of the room. He was of low stature, with quick, rather nervous movements, had dark, restless eyes, and wore a heavy black moustache that was liberally sprinkled with gray. The lower part of his face was shaved clean. He showed some embarrassment as he came forward to meet Mrs. Dinneford.
“Mr. Feeling,” she said, coldly.
The man bowed with a mixture of obsequiousness and familiarity, and tried to look steadily into Mrs. Dinneford's face, but was not able to do so. There was a steadiness and power in her eyes that his could not bear.
“What do you want with me, sir?” she demanded, a little sharply.
“Take a chair, and I will tell you,” replied Freeling, and he turned, moving toward a corner of the room, she following. They sat down, taking chairs near each other.
“There's trouble brewing,” said the man, his face growing dark and anxious.
“What kind of trouble?”
“I had a letter from George Granger yesterday.”
“What!” The color went out of the lady's face.
“A letter from George Granger. He wished to see me.”
“Did you go?”
“Yes.”
“What did he want?”
Freeling took a deep breath, and sighed. His manner was troubled.
“What did he want?” Mrs. Dinneford repeated the question.
“He's as sane as you or I,” said Freeling.
“Is he? Oh, very well! Then let him go to the State's prison.” Mrs. Dinneford said this with some bravado in her manner. But the color did not come back to her face.
“He has no idea of that,” was replied.
“What then?” The lady leaned toward Freeling. Her hands moved nervously.
“He means to have the case in court again, but on a new issue.”
“He does!”
“Yes; says that he's innocent, and that you and I know it—that he's the victim of a conspiracy, and that we are the conspirators!”
“Talk!—amounts to nothing,” returned Mrs. Dinneford, with a faint little laugh.
“I don't know about that. It's ugly talk, and especially so, seeing that it's true.”
“No one will give credence to the ravings of an insane criminal.”
“People are quick to credit an evil report. They will pity and believe him, now that the worst is reached. A reaction in public feeling has already taken place. He has one or two friends left who do not hesitate to affirm that there has been foul play. One of these has been tampering with a clerk of mine, and I came upon them with their heads together on the street a few days ago, and had my suspicions aroused by their startled look when they saw me.”
“'What did that man want with you?' I inquired, when the clerk came in.
“He hesitated a moment, and then replied, 'He was asking me something about Mr. Granger.'
“'What about him?' I queried. 'He asked me if I knew anything in regard to the forgery,' he returned.
“I pressed him with questions, and found that suspicion was on the right track. This friend of Granger's asked particularly about your visits to the store, and whether he had ever noticed anything peculiar in our intercourse—anything that showed a familiarity beyond what would naturally arise between a customer and salesman.”
“There's nothing in that,” said Mrs. Dinneford. “If you and I keep our own counsel, we are safe. The testimony of a condemned criminal goes for nothing. People may surmise and talk as much as they please, but no one knows anything about those notes but you and I and George.”
“A pardon from the governor may put a new aspect on the case.”
“A pardon!” There was a tremor of alarm in Mrs. Dinneford's voice.
“Yes; that, no doubt, will be the first move.”
“The first move! Why, Mr. Freeling, you don't think anything like this is in contemplation?”
“I'm afraid so. George, as I have said, is no more crazy than you or I. But he cannot come out of the asylum, as the case now stands, without going to the penitentiary. So the first move of his friends will be to get a pardon. Then he is our equal in the eyes of the law. It would be an ugly thing for you and me to be sued for a conspiracy to ruin this young man, and have the charge of forgery added to the count.”
Mrs. Dinneford gave a low cry, and shivered.
“But it may come to that.”
“Impossible!”
“The prudent man foreseeth the evil and hideth himself, but the simple pass on and are punished,” said Freeling. “It is for this that I have sent for you. It's an ugly business, and I was a weak fool ever to have engaged in it.”
“You were a free agent.”
“I was a weak fool.”
“As you please,” returned Mrs. Dinneford, coldly, and drawing herself away from him.
It was some moments before either of them spoke again. Then Freeling said,
“I was awake all night, thinking over this matter, and it looks uglier the more I think of it. It isn't likely that enough evidence could be found to convict either of us, but to be tried on such an accusation would be horrible.”
“Horrible! horrible!” ejaculated Mrs. Dinneford. “What is to be done?” She gave signs of weakness and terror. Freeling observed her closely, then felt his way onward.
“We are in great peril,” he said. “There is no knowing what turn affairs will take. I only wish I were a thousand miles from here. It would be safer for us both.” Then, after a pause, he added, “If I were foot-free, I would be off to-morrow.”
He watched Mrs. Dinneford closely, and saw a change creep over her face.
“If I were to disappear suddenly,” he resumed, “suspicion, if it took a definite shape, would fall on me. You would not be thought of in the matter.”
He paused again, observing his companion keenly but stealthily. He was not able to look her fully in the face.
“Speak out plainly,” said Mrs. Dinneford, with visible impatience.
“Plainly, then, madam,” returned Freeling, changing his whole bearing toward her, and speaking as one who felt that he was master of the situation, “it has come to this: I shall have to break up and leave the city, or there will be a new trial in which you and I will be the accused. Now, self-preservation is the first law of nature. I don't mean to go to the State's prison if I can help it. What I am now debating are the chances in my favor if Granger gets a pardon, and then makes an effort to drive us to the wall, which he most surely will. I have settled it so far—”
Mrs. Dinneford leaned toward him with an anxious expression on her countenance, waiting for the next sentence. But Freeling did not go on.
“How have you settled it?” she demanded, trembling as she spoke with the excitement of suspense.
“That I am not going to the wall if I can help it.”
“How will you help it?”
“I have an accomplice;” and this time he was able to look at Mrs. Dinneford with such a fixed and threatening gaze that her eyes fell.
“You have?” she questioned, in a husky voice.
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Mrs. Helen Dinneford. And do you think for a moment that to save myself I would hesitate to sacrifice her?”
The lady's face grew white. She tried to speak, but could not.
“I am talking plainly, as you desired, madam,” continued Freeling. “You led me into this thing. It was no scheme of mine; and if more evil consequences are to come, I shall do my best to save my own head. Let the hurt go to where it rightfully belongs.”
“What do you mean?” Mrs. Dinneford tried to rally herself.
“Just this,” was answered: “if I am dragged into court, I mean to go in as a witness, and not as a criminal. At the first movement toward an indictment, I shall see the district attorney, whom I know very well, and give him such information in the case as will lead to fixing the crime on you alone, while I will come in as the principal witness. This will make your conviction certain.”
“Devil!” exclaimed Mrs. Dinneford, her white face convulsed and her eyes starting from their sockets with rage and fear. “Devil!” she repeated, not able to control her passion.
“Then you know me,” was answered, with cool self-possession, “and what you have to expect.”
Neither spoke for a considerable time. Up to this period they had been alone in the parlor. Guests of the house now came in and took seats near them. They arose and walked the floor for a little while, still in silence, then passed into an adjoining parlor that happened to be empty, and resumed the conference.
“This is a last resort,” remarked Freeling, softening his voice as they sat down—“a card that I do not wish to play, and shall not if I can help it. But it is best that you should know that it is in my hand. If there is any better way of escape, I shall take it.”
“You spoke of going away,” said Mrs. Dinneford.
“Yes. But that involves a great deal.”
“What?”
“The breaking up of my business, and loss of money and opportunities that I can hardly hope ever to regain.”
“Why loss of money?”
“I shall have to wind up hurriedly, and it will be impossible to collect more than a small part of my outstanding claims. I shall have to go away under a cloud, and it will not be prudent to return. Most of these claims will therefore become losses. The amount of capital I shall be able to take will not be sufficient to do more than provide for a small beginning in some distant place and under an assumed name. On the other hand, if I remain and fight the thing through, as I have no doubt I can, I shall keep my business and my place in society here—hurt, it may be, in my good name, but still with the main chance all right. But it will be hard for you. If I pass the ordeal safely, you will not. And the question to consider is whether you can make it to my interest to go away, to drop out of sight, injured in fortune and good name, while you go unscathed. You now have it all in a nutshell. I will not press you to a decision to-day. Your mind is too much disturbed. To-morrow, at noon, I would like to see you again.”
Freeling made a motion to rise, but Mrs. Dinneford did not stir.
“Perhaps,” he said, “you decide at once to let things take their course. Understand me, I am ready for either alternative. The election is with yourself.”
Mrs. Dinneford was too much stunned by all this to be able to come to any conclusion. She seemed in the maze of a terrible dream, full of appalling reality. To wait for twenty-four hours in this state of uncertainty was more than her thoughts could endure. And yet she must have time to think, and to get command of her mental resources.
“Will you be disengaged at five o'clock?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“I will be here at five.”
“Very well.”
Mrs. Dinneford arose with a weary air.
“I shall want to hear from you very explicitly,” she said. “If your demand is anywhere in the range of reason and possibility, I may meet it. If outside of that range, I shall of course reject it. It is possible that you may not hold all the winning cards—in fact, I know that you do not.”
“I will be here at five,” said Freeling.
“Very well. I shall be on time.”
And they turned from each other, passing from the parlor by separate doors.
ONEmorning, about two weeks later, Mr. Freeling did not make his appearance at his place of business as usual. At ten o'clock a clerk went to the hotel where he boarded to learn the cause of his absence. He had not been there since the night before. His trunks and clothing were all in their places, and nothing in the room indicated anything more than an ordinary absence.
Twelve o'clock, and still Mr. Freeling had not come to the store. Two or three notes were to be paid that day, and the managing-clerk began to feel uneasy. The bank and check books were in a private drawer in the fireproof of which Mr. Freeling had the key. So there was no means of ascertaining the balances in bank.
At one o'clock it was thought best to break open the private drawer and see how matters stood. Freeling kept three bank-accounts, and it was found that on the day before he had so nearly checked out all the balances that the aggregate on deposit was not over twenty dollars. In looking back over these bank-accounts, it was seen that within a week he had made deposits of over fifty thousand dollars, and that most of the checks drawn against these deposits were in sums of five thousand dollars each.
At three o'clock he was still absent. His notes went to protest, and on the next day his city creditors took possession of his effects. One fact soon became apparent—he had been paying the rogue's game on a pretty liberal scale, having borrowed on his checks, from business friends and brokers, not less than sixty or seventy thousand dollars. It was estimated, on a thorough examination of his business, that he had gone off with at least a hundred thousand dollars. To this amount Mrs. Dinneford had contributed from her private fortune the sum of twenty thousand dollars. Not until she had furnished him with that large amount would he consent to leave the city. He magnified her danger, and so overcame her with terrors that she yielded to his exorbitant demand.
On the day a public newspaper announcement of Freeling's rascality was made, Mrs. Dinneford went to bed sick of a nervous fever, and was for a short period out of her mind.
Neither Mr. Dinneford nor Edith had failed to notice a change in Mrs. Dinneford. She was not able to hide her troubled feelings. Edith was watching her far more closely than she imagined; and now that she was temporarily out of her mind, she did not let a word or look escape her. The first aspect of her temporary aberration was that of fear and deprecation. She was pursued by some one who filled her with terror, and she would lift her hands to keep him off, or hide her head in abject alarm. Then she would beg him to keep away. Once she said,
“It's no use; I can't do anything more. You're a vampire!”
“Who is a vampire?” asked Edith, hoping that her mother would repeat some name.
But the question seemed to put her on her guard. The expression of fear went out of her face, and she looked at her daughter curiously.
Edith did not repeat the question. In a little while the mother's wandering thoughts began to find words again, and she went on talking in broken sentences out of which little could be gleaned. At length she said, turning to Edith and speaking with the directness of one in her right mind,
“I told you her name was Gray, didn't I? Gray, not Bray.”
It was only by a quick and strong effort that Edith could steady her voice as she replied:
“Yes; you said it was Gray.”
“Gray, not Bray. You thought it was Bray.”
“But it's Gray,” said Edith, falling in with her mother's humor. Then she added, still trying to keep her voice even,
“She was my nurse when baby was born.”
“Yes; she was the nurse, but she didn't—”
Checking herself, Mrs. Dinneford rose on one arm and looked at Edith in a frightened way, then said, hurriedly,
“Oh, it's dead, it's dead! You know that; and the woman's dead, too.”
Edith sat motionless and silent as a statue, waiting for what more might come. But her mother shut her lips tightly, and turned her head away.
A long time elapsed before she was able to read in her mother's confused utterances anything to which she could attach a meaning. At last Mrs. Dinneford spoke out again, and with an abruptness that startled her:
“Not another dollar, sir! Remember, you don't holdallthe winning cards!”
Edith held her breath, and sat motionless. Her mother muttered and mumbled incoherently for a while, and then said, sharply,
“I said I would ruin him, and I've done it!”
“Ruin who?” asked Edith, in a repressed voice.
This question, instead of eliciting an answer, as Edith had hoped, brought her mother back to semi-consciousness. She rose again in bed, and looked at her daughter in the same frightened way she had done a little while before, then laid herself over on the pillows again. Her lips were tightly shut.
Edith was almost wild with suspense. The clue to that sad and painful mystery which was absorbing her life seemed almost in her grasp. A word from those closely-shut lips, and she would have certainty for uncertainty. But she waited and waited until she grew faint, and still the lips kept silent.
But after a while Mrs. Dinneford grew uneasy, and began talking. She moved her head from side to side, threw her arms about restlessly and appeared greatly disturbed.
“Not dead, Mrs. Bray?” she cried out, at last, in a clear, strong voice.
Edith became fixed as a statue once more.
A few moments, and Mrs. Dinneford added,
“No, no! I won't have her coming after me. More money! You're a vampire!”
Then she muttered, and writhed and distorted her face like one in some desperate struggle. Edith shuddered as she stood over her.
After this wild paroxysm Mrs. Dinneford grew more quiet, and seemed to sleep. Edith remained sitting by the bedside, her thoughts intent on the strange sentences that had fallen from her Mother's lips. What mystery lay behind them? Of what secret were they an obscure revelation? “Not dead!” Who not dead? And again, “It's dead! You know that; and the woman's dead, too.” Then it was plain that she had heard aright the name of the person who had called on her mother, and about whom her mother had made a mystery. It was Bray; if not, why the anxiety to make her believe it Gray? And this woman had been her nurse. It was plain, also, that money was being paid for keeping secret. What secret? Then a life had been ruined. “I said I would ruin him, and I've done it!” Who? who could her mother mean but the unhappy man she had once called husband, now a criminal in the eyes of the law, and only saved by insanity from a criminal's cell?
Putting all together, Edith's mind quickly wrought out a theory, and this soon settled into a conviction—a conviction so close to fact that all the chief elements were true.
During her mother's temporary aberration, Edith never left her room except for a few minutes at a time. Not a word or sentence escaped her notice. But she waited and listened in vain for anything more. The talking paroxysm was over. A stupor of mind and body followed. Out of this a slow recovery came, but it did not progress to a full convalescence. Mrs. Dinneford went forth from her sick-chamber weak and nervous, starting at sudden noises, and betraying a perpetual uneasiness and suspense. Edith was continually on the alert, watching every look and word and act with untiring scrutiny. Mrs. Dinneford soon became aware of this. Guilt made her wary, and danger inspired prudence. Edith's whole manner had changed. Why? was her natural query. Had she been wandering in her mind? Had she given any clue to the dark secrets she was hiding? Keen observation became mutual. Mother and daughter watched each other with a suspicion that never slept.
It was over a month from the time Freeling disappeared before Mrs. Dinneford was strong enough to go out, except in her carriage. In every case where she had ridden out, Edith had gone with her.
“If you don't care about riding, it's no matter,” the mother would say, when she saw Edith getting ready. “I can go alone. I feel quite well and strong.”
But Edith always had some reason for going against which her mother could urge no objections. So she kept her as closely under observation as possible. One day, on returning from a ride, as the carriage passed into the block where they lived, she saw a woman standing on the step in front of their residence. She had pulled the bell, and was waiting for a servant to answer it.
“There is some one at our door,” said Edith.
Mrs. Dinneford leaned across her daughter, and then drew back quickly, saying,
“It's Mrs. Barker. Tell Henry to drive past. I don't want to see visitors, and particularly not Mrs. Barker.”
She spoke hurriedly, and with ill-concealed agitation. Edith kept her eyes on the woman, and saw her go in, but did not tell the driver to keep on past the house. It was not Mrs. Barker. She knew that very well. In the next moment their carriage drew up at the door.
“Go on, Henry!” cried Mrs. Dinneford, leaning past her daughter, and speaking through the window that was open on that side. “Drive down to Loring's.”
“Not till I get out, Henry,” said Edith, pushing open the door and stepping to the pavement. Then with a quick movement she shut the door and ran across the pavement, calling back to the driver as she did so,
“Take mother to Loring's.”
“Stop, Henry!” cried Mrs. Dinneford, and with an alertness that was surprising sprung from the carriage, and was on the steps of their house before Edith's violent ring had brought a servant to the door. They passed in, Edith holding her place just in advance.
“I will see Mrs. Barker,” said Mrs. Dinneford, trying to keep out of her voice the fear and agitation from which she was suffering. “You can go up to your room.”
“It isn't Mrs. Barker. You are mistaken.” There was as much of betrayal in the voice of Edith as in that of her mother. Each was trying to hide herself from the other, but the veil in both cases was far too thin for deception.
Mother and daughter entered the parlor together. As they did so a woman of small stature, and wearing a rusty black dress, arose from a seat near the window. The moment she saw Edith she drew a heavy dark veil over her face with a quickness of movement that had in it as much of discomfiture as surprise.
Mrs. Dinneford was equal to the occasion. The imminent peril in which she stood calmed the wild tumult within, as the strong wind calms this turbulent ocean, and gave her thoughts clearness and her mind decision. Edith saw before the veil fell a startled face, and recognized the sallow countenance and black, evil eyes, the woman who had once before called to see her mother.
“Didn't I tell you not to come here, Mrs. Gray?” cried out Mrs. Dinneford, with an anger that was more real than feigned, advancing quickly upon the woman as she spoke. “Go!” and she pointed to the door, “and don't you dare to come here again. I told you when you were here last time that I wouldn't be bothered with you any longer. I've done all I ever intend doing. So take yourself away.”
And she pointed again to the door. Mrs. Bray—for it was that personage—comprehended the situation fully. She was as good an actor as Mrs. Dinneford, and quite as equal to the occasion. Lifting her hand in a weak, deprecating way, and then shrinking like one borne down by the shock of a great disappointment, she moved back from the excited woman and made her way to the hall, Mrs. Dinneford following and assailing her in passionate language.
Edith was thrown completely off her guard by this unexpected scene. She did not stir from the spot where she stood on entering the parlor until the visitor was at the street door, whither her mother had followed the retreating figure. She did not hear the woman say in the tone of one who spoke more in command than entreaty,
“To-morrow at one o'clock, or take the consequences.”
“It will be impossible to-morrow,” Mrs. Dinneford whispered back, hurriedly; “I have been very ill, and have only just begun to ride out. It may be a week, but I'll surely come. I'm watched. Go now! go! go!”
And she pushed Mrs. Bray out into the vestibule and shut the door after her. Mrs. Dinneford did not return to the parlor, but went hastily up to her own room, locking herself in.
She did not come out until dinner-time, when she made an effort to seem composed, but Edith saw her hand tremble every time it was lifted. She drank three glasses of wine during the meal. After dinner she went to her own apartment immediately, and did not come down again that day.
On the next morning Mrs. Dinneford tried to appear cheerful and indifferent. But her almost colorless face, pinched about the lips and nostrils, and the troubled expression that would not go out of her eyes, betrayed to Edith the intense anxiety and dread that lay beneath the surface.
Days went by, but Edith had no more signs. Now that her mother was steadily getting back both bodily strength and mental self-poise, the veil behind which she was hiding herself, and which had been broken into rifts here and there during her sickness, grew thicker and thicker. Mrs. Dinneford had too much at stake not to play her cards with exceeding care. She knew that Edith was watching her with an intentness that let nothing escape. Her first care, as soon as she grew strong enough to have the mastery over herself, was so to control voice, manner and expression of countenance as not to appear aware of this surveillance. Her next was to re-establish the old distance between herself and daughter, which her illness had temporarily bridged over, and her next was to provide against any more visits from Mrs. Bray.