CRIMINAL RECORDS.
There was great excitement in Rossignol over news of the attempted burglary at French Cross, and coupled with it was a mild indignation at Miss Gastonguay for allowing the disabled burglar to escape.
She was saluted by a volley of remonstrances from every friend and acquaintance who called during the day to offer congratulations on her safe issue from the perils of the night.
"Why did you allow him to hoodwink you?" inquired Mrs. Jonah Potts, warmly.
"He didn't hoodwink me," said Miss Gastonguay, obstinately, "and he was my burglar, I had a right to do what I liked with him."
"But one burglary is always followed by another. He will be breaking into our houses next."
"He will not," said Miss Gastonguay, wearily. "I talked the matter over with him. He will attempt no more robberies in Rossignol."
"You—talked—with—him!" ejaculated Mrs.Jonah, in long-drawn-out dismay. "With—that—wretch!"
"No more wretch than you and me. He's made of the same flesh and blood. He steals in one way, we in another."
"I—steal!"
"Your husband does."
"Thank you, Miss Gastonguay. Good afternoon."
"Don't be precipitate. I don't mean to offend you. Your husband ought to give the mill hands a share in his profits."
"They are well paid, Miss Gastonguay."
"Well paid? Would you like to change places with them?"
"Certainly not."
"Then you're stealing from them. You are bound to look out for them. Your husband needn't give them as much as he takes himself, for he supplies the brains and they only the labour, but for charity's sake, Dorinda Potts, go and visit some of these cottages where children are pale and puny from lack of the necessities of life."
Miss Gastonguay turned away to another caller, and Mrs. Jonah went uneasily home.
Jane Gastonguay was haggard, almost broken down, and with what unusual softness had she spoken of the mill hands. The tiny seed of compassion stirred restlessly in the untilled ground of Mrs.Jonah's heart. Some day it would grow into a large and generous plant, and would extend its healing leaves over some unhappy mortals scorched and tortured for lack of a comforting shade.
The young burglar, in the meantime, sat reading a novel in a parlour-car, his foot comfortably extended on a cushion, his ears tingling not at all as he became more and more of a topic of conversation in Rossignol.
Prosperity and Tribulation, frightened into silence by Miss Gastonguay, said nothing of the manner of his going; and while the astute police of the town scoured the country to find some footprints of a limping burglar, the black thoroughbred cantered gaily homewards with hanging bridle, and whinnied joyfully as the coachman greeted him with a peculiar smile.
Justin arrived early in the morning, and took his wife home. He was considerably alarmed when he heard of the risk she had run in attacking two full-fledged burglars; but so full of glee was she over his return, Miss Gastonguay's safety, and the escape of the burglars that he could do nothing with her in the way of extorting a promise for more cautious behaviour in future.
"It is your own fault for leaving me," she said, stopping his reproving words by laying her soft cheek against his lips.
Justin would never leave her again. He did not say so, but he made the resolve as he watched her flying about the house. She was in wild spirits, and when evening came she demanded to be taken up to French Cross to find out whether Miss Gastonguay's nerves were in good order for her night's sleep.
He willingly complied. He had only had a brief glimpse of his wife's aunt in the morning, and he felt a real and sympathetic concern with regard to her.
Derrice, without waiting to take off her wraps, ran into the drawing-room as soon as they reached the old château. "Dear Miss Gastonguay, I have thought of a notice for the newspapers,—'Warning to Burglars. I, Miss Jane Gastonguay, truthfully declare that all my silver and gold plate and other valuables will be from this time forth locked in a burglar-proof safe during every instant they are not in use, and I also declare from this time forth I will only keep in my possession enough money for daily expenditure. The rest must be obtained by application to Justin Mercer, cashier National Bank, Rossignol.'"
Miss Gastonguay, still pale and shaken, became cheerful as Derrice rattled on. "There, silly child," she said, at last, "go take off your cloak, and come talk to Chelda and Captain Veevers. They seem to be having a dull time in that corner."
Derrice did as she was told, and coming back, was quietly appropriated by Captain Veevers. He took a keen interest in criminal law, and hoped to get a full account of the attempted robbery of the night before, but Chelda, instead of being brilliant and dramatic this evening, was strangely vague and unsatisfactory. This eager girl would follow his lead; and, calmly placing his long, lank figure in such a position that she would naturally look at him rather than at the other occupants of the room, he startled her with a question, "What was the first sound to waken you last night?"
Chelda took up her embroidery and seated herself within hearing distance, and in a spot from which she could command a view of Miss Gastonguay and Justin.
The latter was answering questions about Mr. Huntington. "Yes, his father has forgiven him. The man knows he must die and has broken down."
"And what is Mr. Huntington's state of mind?"
"He is calmer," replied Justin. "He was ill for a week after we went away,—slight fever and light-headedness. I have brought back his resignation from the pastorate of the church."
"That's a good thing; he was in no condition to preach."
"He will come back sometime for a visit," Justin went on. "Through me he sends kind messages toall his friends. He hopes to see them at some future time."
As he spoke, he raised his voice in order to include Chelda in his remark, but she went on serenely with her work and made no response.
"So he is not coming back," mumbled Miss Gastonguay, "not coming back," and leaving Justin she began an aimless ramble about the room. The restlessness of premature old age was upon her, and Chelda waited patiently for her to make a certain discovery.
In the meantime, Justin Mercer must not sit there staring so persistently at the little manly figure, and rising she presented to him in a natural and easy manner the evening papers from Bangor that Prosperity had just brought in.
Justin, glad to be relieved from the necessity of talking to her, buried his face in the freshly folded sheets, just as Miss Gastonguay stopped in the place where Chelda wished her to stop, and ejaculated, "What's this? Who has rammed this volume behind my Rouen bracket? It is almost impossible to get it out. Was this your doing, Chelda?"
Chelda lifted her long black eyelashes. "Yes, aunt, I wanted to get the stupid thing out of the way. I thought it was a story when I bought it, but it is only some accounts of criminal life."
Justin's paper rustled slightly in his hand. Cheldaheard it, but did not look at him, neither did she look at her aunt, whose sudden subsidence and sudden click of her eyeglasses against the buttons of her house coat told that she was sitting down to examine the volume.
For some time there was silence. Miss Gastonguay was uttering words below her breath. "Criminals have usually chestnut brown eyes,—no, not all criminals, only thieves, and murderers. How interesting. What is this? 'Career of the most celebrated criminal of modern times, the inventor of the modern kit of marvellously small and fine burglars' tools that can be carried in a hand-bag, the versatile Henry JonesaliasThomas MartinaliasJames Smith and half a dozen other aliases, but known to his confederates as Gentleman George. A perfect gentleman.' Gentleman, indeed," she repeated, and without the quiver of a muscle, the flutter of an eyelid, she ran over the account of a life that she knew was in reality the life led by her long lost brother.
"Very clever," she ejaculated when she had finished, then raising her head she saw that her niece and Justin were both gazing at her.
"You made a mistake not to study these worthies, Chelda," she said, ironically. "Just listen,—'Uncle Sam's Hawkshaws in secret service work. An ingenious organisation of counterfeiters. Thefts of valuables. Eight hundred post-offices robbed every year. New ones constructed with peep-holes enabling detectives to watch clerks and carriers at work. Secret passages and stairs connected with basement.' I wonder what century we are in? This sounds like the Middle Ages,—'Extraordinary tale of a postal clerk who rifled letters by his sense of smell.' I don't wonder he could smell some bank-notes. But he knew fresh ones, too. Clever man, and misplaced ingenuity. I should not like to get my living that way. Come, listen to this,—you can discover a bank-note in an envelope by drawing a thread through with a knot in it."
"Can you? In what way?" asked Chelda, without raising her head from her work.
"Some of the fibre paper of the note will come out with the knot. Ah, here is the cut of a sneak thief who dropped his hat over a package of three thousand dollar notes in the issue room of the Treasury and carried them away without being discovered. Here also is a lady who added to her small income in the redemption division by raising dollar bills into tens. Accomplished young person,—sure to get on until discovered. That is the drawback connected with all this smartness. My dear, don't you want to go into opium smuggling? You can hollow out a cargo of logs and fill them with the drug and make your fortune. You can bribe firemen and stokers tohide it in coal where it is almost impossible to find it. You can put it in between the walls of state-rooms. You can drop it overboard in cans with sinkers and floats attached, or carry it in buckets with false bottoms. Perhaps, though, you will want to go into the diamond business. In that case, you can invest abroad in the gems and bring them to this country under a porous plaster on your back, or in the heels of your shoes, or inside the Paris doll you are bringing to your niece, or you can get a pet pelican and feed him with diamonds until his pouch is full. Bah! take the book away,—it sickens me. No, Derrice, you cannot see it. You are too young to read of such rascalities. Captain Veevers, I give it to you. Take the pitchy thing out of my house."
"What would you do with those people?" asked Chelda, softly drawing a silk thread out of her work.
"With what people,—criminals, you mean?" asked her aunt.
"Yes,—those low creatures who prey on society?"
"I would do with them just what is done now; only I should be more severe."
"As you were last night," remarked Chelda, in a low voice.
Her aunt did not hear her. She was addressing a question to Derrice, "Child, suppose all the criminals in the world were suddenly thrown into your power; what would you do with them?"
Derrice had some time ago finished her conversation with Captain Veevers, and had been listening to the extracts from the book. Her face now glowed vividly at the possibility suggested. "Oh, I would put them all together—no, I would scatter them. I would put a few here, a few there, all among good people. I would beg them to change—"
"And suppose they would not," pursued Miss Gastonguay.
"They would change, dear Miss Gastonguay. I am sure they would, but if there were some who were very bad I would have a nice little prison for them where they would be happy, but that they could never get out of."
Miss Gastonguay smiled grimly, and turned to Chelda. "And you, my niece, what would you do?"
Chelda's soul was steeped in the very bitterness of hatred as she surveyed the compassionate face beyond her, but she gave no outward sign of it, and responded with her usual composure, "Such people all seem like vipers to me. They are not of our kind. I should not allow one to run loose, not one. I would severely isolate them so that they might not bite me."
"You are wrong—wrong!" interposed Derrice. "They are like ourselves. They are not different. Once when I was going along a street in New Yorkwith my father I saw a poor man being arrested. My father said—"
She stopped short, overpowered not by the remembrance of the criminal, but by her loss of the dear companionship of former days.
"Well, what did your father say?" asked Miss Gastonguay, in a hard, dry voice.
"He said," Derrice continued, with difficulty, "he said, 'They have got the wrong man.' I tried to drag him forward to tell the policeman, but he held me back. 'You can't get the real criminal,' he told me. 'Probably you would have to dig him out of some grave. This man is what his parents have made him.'"
"Now that is not so," said Miss Gastonguay, angrily, "that is nothing but a lie. I say degeneracy is innate in some mortals. Nothing takes it out."
Derrice scarcely heard her. "My father went on to tell me," she continued, in a dreamy voice, "of a man he once knew who did not want to be bad. There was something in him striving, protesting, fighting with evil, but he had no powers of resistance. He said that the man had had a father who indulged him, and a mother to whom his wish was law, because he was her youngest child. I can remember my father's very words,—he said that the child was encouraged to trample on domestic law, and when he grew up he could not keep thepublic law. It was a very sad case, for my father almost broke down when he told me of the spoiled boy grown up and going raging out into the world. He said he was lost, hopelessly lost, and I cried dismally, for my father said that I might have met him, or if not him, many another like him, in the throngs of people in great cities. Would you call that young man a viper?" and she turned to Chelda.
"Yes, a viper, a degenerate," said Chelda, sweetly. "I dare say his family was highly respectable. He had probably deceived your father. We make ourselves."
Derrice's eyes flashed. She forgot the new ornament of a meek and lowly spirit that she had lately put on, and was just about to make an irritated retort when her husband's paper rustled again. It called her attention to him. She felt his unexpressed and heartfelt sympathy, and, choking back her emotion, she silently sank back in her seat.
Miss Gastonguay had left the room, ostensibly to see why Prosperity had not brought in the tea on the stroke of ten.
She met him in the hall, but she did not turn back. "Tell them I have gone to bed," she said, shortly. "I have a headache." Then, going on her way up-stairs, she soliloquised, wearily, "Not heredity, but environment. Environment only,—then are my skirts clean? Louis was nine—no, ten—when our mother died. I had a hand in his upbringing. Bah! I will not believe it. Not environment, say I, but heredity only. Heredity and individual responsibility. There is bad blood in the family. He knows it as well as I do."