Spread no wingsFor sunward flight, thou soul with unplumed vans!Sweet is the lower air and safe, and knownThe homely levels.Dear is the love, I know, of wife and child;Pleasant the friends and pastimes of your years.Live—ye who must—such lives as live on these;Make golden stairways of your weakness; riseBy daily sojourn with those fantasiesTo lovelier verities.(Buddha's Sermon—The Light of Asia.)—Arnold.
Spread no wingsFor sunward flight, thou soul with unplumed vans!Sweet is the lower air and safe, and knownThe homely levels.Dear is the love, I know, of wife and child;Pleasant the friends and pastimes of your years.Live—ye who must—such lives as live on these;Make golden stairways of your weakness; riseBy daily sojourn with those fantasiesTo lovelier verities.
(Buddha's Sermon—The Light of Asia.)—Arnold.
Jack made another mistake in coming on to Toronto after finding out the disastrous failure of his supposed marriage. If he had gone to Lockport and found Nina at her friend's house, perhaps some arrangement could have been made for their marriage in Buffalo on the following day. Mr. Toxham, the clergyman on whom Jack called at the parsonage, had tried to get his ear for advice on this subject. But, as mentioned before, when Jack read the address of Matthew Simpson he immediately bolted out, without waiting to listen to the suggestions which the clergyman tried to make. If this idea occurred to Jack, there were reasons why he did not act upon it. He was due at the bank the next morning, and regularity at the bank was a cast-iron creed with him—the result of continually subordinating his own wishes to that which the institution expected of him. The clerk who was doing his work there would be leaving for his own holidays on the following day, and Jack felt the pressure his duty brought upon him. Again, how would it be possible, after finding where Nina was staying in Lockport, to call at the house and take her away from her friends almost before she had fairly arrived? Geoffrey would have got over this difficulty. But he had the inventive mind which goes on inventing in the presence of shock and surprise. Jack was not like him on land. He had this ability only on a yacht during a sudden call for alert intelligence. His nerve had not been educated to steadiness by escapades on land, nor had he had experience in any trouble that required much insight into consequences. The discovery that the woman for whom he existed was not his wife seemed to prostrate and confuse thought. He felt the need of counsel, and was afraid to trust his own decision. If he could only get home and tell Geoffrey the whole difficulty, he felt that matters could be mended.
He arrived in Toronto about ten o'clock at night feeling ill and faint, having eaten nothing since a light breakfast thirteen hours before. He dropped in at the club and took a sandwich and some spirits to make him sleep. Then he went to his lodgings (Geoffrey was out somewhere), rolled into bed, and slept the clock round till eight the next morning.
As he gradually awoke, thoroughly refreshed, there was a time during which, although he seemed to himself to be awake, he had forgotten about his supposed marriage. He was single John Cresswell again, with nothing on his mind except to be at the bank "on time." So his troubles presented themselves gently; first as only a sort of dream that he had once been married to the love of his life—to Nina. When he fully awoke he began to realize everything; but not as he realized it the night before. Then, the case seemed almost hopeless. Now, his invigorated self promised success in some way. He was glad he had not met Geoffrey the night before. The morning confidence in himself made Geoffrey seem unnecessary. Rubbing his sleepy eyes, he walked through the museum of a sitting-room and into Hampstead's bedroom, where he fell upon that sleeping gentleman and rudely shook him into consciousness.
"Hello, Jack! Got back?" growled Geoffrey as he awoke.
"Yes. You had better get up if you want to attend the bank to-day."
"All right," said Geoffrey, sitting up. "What sort of a time did you have? Old people well?"
Jack was supposed to have been in Halifax, where his parents lived with the other old English families there.
"Yes, I had a pretty good time," said Jack. "The old people are fine!" he added, freshly. "How are things in the bank?"
Geoffrey then retired to his bath-room, and an intermittent conversation about the bank and other matters went on for a few minutes during the pauses created by cold water and splashing.
It was a relief to Jack that neither at breakfast nor afterward did Geoffrey ask any more questions about his fortnight's holiday. Hampstead knew better.
During the next six weeks Geoffrey was decidedly unsettled. "Federal" went up as a matter of course, and he sold out with advantage. He cleared five thousand dollars on this transaction, and had now a capital of fifteen thousand dollars. He was rather lucky in his venture into the stock market. His experience on Wall Street had given him a keen insight into such matters, and he studied probabilities until his chances of failure were reduced, keeping up a correspondence by telegraph and letter with his old Wall Street employers who, in a friendly way, shared with him some of their best knowledge.
Immediately after he had sold out "Federal" an American railway magnate died. This man almost owned an American railway which was operating and leasing a Canadian railway. No sooner was the death known than the stock of the Canadian Railway took a tumble. For a moment public confidence in it seemed to be lost. Now Geoffrey had studied chances as to this line. He knew that it was one of the few Canadian railways that under fair management was able to pay a periodical dividend—a small one at times, perhaps, but always something. It did not go on for years without paying a cent like some of the others. He had waited for this millionaire to die in order to buy the largely depreciated stock. When the opportunity arrived he bought on margin a very large quantity of it at a low figure. But the trouble was that the public did not agree with him and the few cool heads who tried to keep quiet, hold on, and wait till things reinstated themselves. An ordinary man's chances in the stock market do not depend upon his own sagacity more than does guessing at next week's weather. Fortunes are lost, like lives, not from the threatened danger but from panic. Bad rumors about the railway were afloat and the stock continued to go down. Geoffrey hastily sold out his other stocks for what he could get, and stuffed everything available into the widening gap through which forces seemed to be entering to overwhelm him.
In the meantime while Nina was at Lockport, Jack had gone on quietly with his work in the Victoria Bank. He had not given notice of his intentions to leave that institution, because, after his return, he had thought he would like to take more money than he had already saved to California with him. His brother had written previously to say that he ought to bring with him at least three thousand dollars, to put into the business of grape-farming, and Jack thought if he could only hold on at the bank, where he was fairly well paid, he might in a few months complete the sum required. Already he had put away over twenty-five hundred dollars, and it would not take long to save the balance.
Nina came back from Lockport blaming herself for her former unreasoning infatuation for Geoffrey. Hers was a nature that had of necessity to lavish its affection on something or somebody. If she could have given this affection, or part of it, to her own mother it would have been a valuable outlet in these later years. The confidences that ought to have existed between them would then have been the first links to be sundered when she sought Hampstead's society.
Unluckily Mrs. Lindon was not in every way perfect. While she had continued to be "not weary in well doing," as she called it, her daughter had been gradually commencing to consider how her duties and social law might be evaded. While Mrs. Lindon visited the Haven and listened to the stories of the women there which were always so interesting to her, and while she expended her time in ways that her gossip-loving nature sought, her daughter had been left the most defenseless person imaginable.
The fact to be remarked was, that the same impulses which had led Nina into wrong-doing previously were now becoming her greatest power for good. For those who claim to distinguish the promptings that come from Satan from those that come from Heaven, there is in nature a good deal of irony. Nature is wonderfully kind to the pagan, considering his disadvantages. When self has been abandoned for an inspiring object there is no reason to think that the self-surrendered devoted Buddhist, or the self-offered victim to Moloch, experiences, any less than the Salvation Army captain, that deep, heart-felt, soul-set, almost ecstatic gladness—that sensation of consecration and confidence—that internal song which the New Testament so beautifully puts words to. It is a great thing for a woman to be allowed to lavish her affection in a way permitted by society, for few have enough strength of character to hold up their heads when society frowns.
Nina was just such a woman as many whom her mother liked to converse with at the Haven. They were poor and she was rich and well educated, but she was neither better nor worse than the majority of them. Nevertheless, from a social point of view, she was on the right track now, apparently. From a social point of view, Mrs. John Cresswell with society at her feet would not be at all the same person as Nina Lindon disgraced. True, it would require subtlety and deception before she could feel that she had re-established herself safely, but, as Hampstead quoted, "some sorts of dirt serve to clarify," and to her it seemed the only way feasible. She did not like painstaking subtlety any more than other people. It gave her intense unrest. She looked gladly forward to the time when she would leave Toronto with Jack for California, said she longed with her whole heart for the necessity of deception to be over and done with. She did not know—Jack had not told her—that their supposed marriage was void, and she was following out the train of thought that leads toward ultimate good. She was saddened and subdued, wept bitter tears of contrition for her faults, and prayed with an agonized mind for forgiveness and strength to carry her through what lay before her.
The change in her was due to improved conditions under which her nature became able to advance by woman's ordinary channels toward woman's possible perfection. A great after-life might be opening before her. Some time, probably, her father's wealth would be hers. After long years of chastening remembrances of trouble, after years of the outflow toward good of a heart that refused to be checked in its love, and would be able from personal experience to understand, and thus lift up lovingly, wounded souls, and with many of the perfections of a ripened womanhood, we can imagine Nina as admirable among women, a power for good, controlling through the heart rather than the intellect, as generous as the sun.
But where will these beautiful possibilities be if her sin is found out?
Since her return Jack had not told Nina the terrible news which awaited her. The secret on his mind made him uneasy in her presence. When he had called once or twice in the afternoon he was very silent and even depressed, but she considered that he had a good deal to think about, and it was also a relief to her not to be expected to appear brilliantly happy. What he thought was that after he had earned the rest of the money he required they could get married at the first American town they came to on their way to California. He could not bring himself to tell her the truth, which would make her wretched in the mean time, and he did not see why the real marriage should not be deferred until it was more convenient for him to leave Canada. When Nina had spoken about going away, he had evaded the topic, and she did not wish to press the point. He explained his long periods of absence during this time by several excuses. His secret weighed so heavily upon him that he dreaded lest in a weak moment he might tell her. It was significant of the change in Nina toward him that, during the time he was there, nothing would induce her to sacrifice the restful moments to anybody. She would sit beside him, talking quietly and restfully, holding his hand in hers, or with her head upon his shoulder. Once, when he was leaving, all the hope she now felt welled up within her as she said good-by. All that was good and kind seemed to her to be personified in Jack, and it smote him when she put her arms round his neck and, with a quiet yearning toward good in her face, said:
"Good-by, Jack, dear husband!"
Jack's great heart was rent with pity and affection as he saw through the gathering mists that calm, wondrous yearning look in her face that afterward haunted him. He did not understand fully from what depths of black anguish that look came, straining toward the light. But he knew that he was not her husband, and he could see that when she called him by this name she was uttering a word which to her was hallowed.
Another week now slipped by, and Geoffrey could not understand why Jack had not gone to California. He called on Nina to ascertain how matters stood. She received him standing in the middle of the room. To-day Geoffrey closed the door behind him. It was the last time he ever intended to be in this house, and so he did not care much what the inquisitive door-opener might think.
There was no mark of special recognition on either side. He walked quickly toward her, seeing, at one quick glance, that he was not regarded as a friend.
"Why have you and Jack not gone yet to California?" he said, without prelude.
"I don't know," she answered coldly, still standing and eyeing him with aversion, as he also stood before her. "Has not Jack given any notice of his intention to leave the bank?"
"I have not heard of any. You ought to know that better than I," said Geoffrey. "By the way," he added, "you might as well sit down, Nina. There is no use that I see in playing the tragedy queen." His voice hardened her aversion to him.
"No," she said, her voice deep and full with resentment. "If I am always allowed to choose, I will never sit down in your presence again. You have come here to look after your own interests, and I have got to listen to you, to learn from your lips your devil's cunning. You are forced to tell me the proper plans, and I am forced to listen and act upon them. Now go on and say what you have to say."
Hampstead nodded, and said simply: "Perhaps you are right. I don't know that it is worth your while to take so much trouble, but I respect the feeling which prompts it."
Nina looked angry.
"Don't think I say this unkindly. You, or rather your conditions, have changed, and I merely wish to acknowledge the improvement. We will speak very simply to each other to-day. Now, about California; it appears to me that Jack does not intend to go there for a good while if allowed to do as he likes. You must go at once. He very likely is wishing to make more money before he leaves, but this won't do. He must go at once."
"I think," said Nina, "that there need be no further reason for your seeing me again after this interview. You have always, lately, been Jack's confidant. Send him to me this evening, and I will tell him to consult with you. After that, you can arrange with him everything necessary about our departure. He will need advice, perhaps, in many ways, and then he can (here Nina's lip curled) benefit by your wisdom."
"I would not sneer too much at the wisdom if I were you. My devil's cunning, as you are pleased to call it, has put you on the right track, whatever its faults may be. It has stood us both in good stead this time, and, if I did force you to marry Jack, you should not blame me for that now, and I do not think you do."
He turned to move toward the door. He did not consider that he had any right to say good-by, or anything else beyond what was absolutely necessary. But his reference to Jack, in a way that seemed to speak of his worth, aroused Nina; and this, together with the thought that she would never again see this man who had treated her whole existence as a plaything, induced her to speak again to him.
"Stop," she said. "I do indeed owe you something. You forced me to marry Jack, out of your own selfishness, of course, but still I must thank you for it. To my last hour I will thank you for that. Yes, I will even thank you for more—for the careful way you have shown me my way from out of my troubles. I think I am nearly done with anguish now. A little more will come, no doubt, and after that, please God, whatever troubles I endure will not be shameful. And now something tells me, Geoffrey, that I shall never see you again. I can not let you go without saying that I forgive you all. Some time, perhaps, you will be glad I said so. You have been by turns cunning, selfish, wise, and loving to me. You have also seemed—I don't know that youwere, but you haveseemed—cruel to me; but I do not think, now that I look back upon everything more calmly, that you have been unjust. No; a woman should bear her part of the consequences of her own deeds. I am glad that Margaret's happiness is still possible and that I did not drag anybody down with me. The more I think of everything the less I blame you. You will think I am getting wise to look at it in this way, but I never could look at it like this until now."
Nina was speaking in a way that surprised Geoffrey. Sorrow had altered her; dangers and changes were encompassing her. Though all love for him was dead, the man whom she had once worshiped stood before her for the last time. He, who had caused her more happiness and distress than any other person ever could again, stood in silence taking his leave of her—forever. Urged by hope, besieged by doubts and dangers, driven by necessities, her mind had acquired an abnormal activity, and she seemed all at once to be able to realize what it was to part from him for all eternity and to become conscious while she stood there of a power to rise in intelligence above everything surrounding her—above all the clogging conditions of our existence—and to judge calmly, even pityingly, of both herself and Geoffrey and of all the agonies and joys that now seemed to have been so small and unnecessary. As she spoke the whole of her life seemed spread out before her. She recollected, or seemed to recollect, all the events of her life, and she remained a moment gazing before her in a way that made her look almost unreal.
"I can see," she said slowly, in a calm, distinct voice, "everything that has happened in my life; but all the rest is all a blank to me."
Geoffrey noticed that, with her clearness of vision into the past, she evidently expected also to see something of the future and was startled and surprised at seeing nothing. She continued looking before her, as if unconscious of his presence, until she turned to him shuddering.
"Good-by, Geoffrey. I feel that something is going to happen in some way, either to you or to me; I don't know how. I see things to-day strangely, and there are other things I want to see and can not."
She looked at him with a look such as he had never seen in any one.
"You will never see me again, Geoffrey. I am certain of that. I pray that God may be as good to you as I have been."
Geoffrey grew pale. Something convinced him that she spoke the truth and that he never would see her again. There was something in her appearance and in her words that made him shudder. A rarefied beauty had spread over her; she seemed to be merely an intelligence, speaking from the purity of some other realm. It seemed as if it were no human prompting that urged her to the utterance of forebodings, and that her last words were as sweet as they were terrible.
He tried to look at her kindly, to cheer her, but he saw that, for the moment, the emotions of our ordinary life were totally apart from her and that he had become nothing to her but a combination of recollections.
He raised her hand to his lips, took a long look at her, and went his way, leaving her standing in the middle of the room calmly watching his retreat.
As Hampstead went back to the club he felt unstrung. He went in and drank several glasses of brandy to brace himself. He had been drinking a great deal during this excitement over his investments. At ordinary times he did not care enough about liquor to try to make a pastime of drinking. Now, there was a fever in his blood that seemed to demand a still greater fever. He did not get drunk, because his individuality seemed to assert itself over and above all he consumed. To-day, to add to the depression he felt about his prospects (for ruin was staring him in the face), the strange words of Nina—full of presentiment—her uncanny, prophetess-like eyes, and the conviction that he had seen her for the last time—all weighed upon him. Her last words to him haunted him, and he drank heavily all the evening.
He told Jack he had called to see Nina in the afternoon, and that she had expressed a wish to see him in the evening.
About eight o'clock Jack made his appearance at Mossbank. Mrs. Lindon had dragged her unwilling husband off to a dinner somewhere, so that the young people were not in anticipation of interruption.
Nina had got over the strange phase into which she had passed while saying good-by to Geoffrey during the afternoon, and was doing her best to appear natural and pleasant. After some conversation, she inquired whether he had given the bank notice of his intention to leave. When he said he had not, she let him know that she must leave Toronto at once, and the first thing he did was to ejaculate: "O my God, and we not married!"
Nina caught the words, and sprang toward him from the chair in which she had been sitting.
They were a pitiable pair; with faces like ashes, confronting each other.
"What did you say then, Jack? Tell me all—tell me quick, or you will kill me!"
"Yes, it's true," groaned Jack. "I found out when I went back to Buffalo that Simpson was only a blackleg criminal and no clergyman. We are no more married than we ever were."
As Jack said this he had his head down; it was bowed with the misery he felt. He dreaded to look at Nina. If he had looked, he would have seen her lips grow almost blue and her eyes lose their sight. The next moment, before he could catch her, she sank on the floor in shapeless, inert confusion.
Jack did not wish to call for help. He seized a large ornamental fan of peacock's feathers and fanned her vigorously.
She soon came to. But still lay for some time before she had strength to rise. At last he assisted her to a sofa, where she reclined wearily until able to go on with the conversation.
"Jack," she said, after a while, "if I don't get away from here in three days I will go mad. Think, now! I can not help you much in the arrangements to get away. You must arrange everything yourself. Just let me know when to go, and I will look after myself and will meet you somewhere—anywhere you propose. But I can not—I don't feel able to assist you more than that. Stop! an idea strikes me! You can not arrange everything yourself. There are always things that are apt to be forgotten. You must get somebody to help you think out things. When we go away I feel that it will be forever—at least, I felt so this afternoon. You will have to arrange everything, so that there need be no correspondence with Toronto any more."
"Yes," said Jack, "I think your advice is good. I have always relied on Hampstead. If you did not mind my telling him the whole story, Nina, I think his assistance would be invaluable."
"There is nothing that I dread his knowing," said Nina, as she buried her face in the cushions. "He is a man of the world, and will know I am innocent about our intended marriage. I thoroughly believe in his power, not only to help you to arrange everything, but also to take the secret with him to his grave."
"I am glad to hear you say so," said Jack. "I have always thought dear old Geoffrey, in spite of a good many things I would like to see changed, to be the finest all-round man I ever knew."
"Yes. Now go, Jack! I am too ill to talk a moment more. Simply tell me when and how I am to go and I will go. As for arranging anything more, my mind refuses to do it. Give me your arm to the foot of the stairs! So. Good-night!"
Mad, call I it; for to define true madness.What is't, but to be nothing else but mad?But let that go.Hamlet.
Mad, call I it; for to define true madness.What is't, but to be nothing else but mad?But let that go.
Hamlet.
After leaving Nina, Jack went to the club, where he found Geoffrey playing pool with half a dozen others, whose demeanor well indicated the number of times the lamp had been rubbed for the genius with the tray to appear. Geoffrey seemed to be in good-humor, but he gave Jack the idea of playing against time. He strode around the table rapidly as he took his shots, as if not caring whether he won or lost. The only effect the liquor seemed to have upon him was to make him grow fierce. Every movement of his long frame was made with a quick nervous energy, inspiriting enough to watch, but giving an impression of complete unrest. He was playing to stave off waking nightmares. Thoughts of his probable ruin on the following day came to him from time to time—like a vision of a death's head. The others with him noticed nothing different in him, but Jack, who was quietly smoking on one of the high seats near by, saw that he was in a more reckless mood than he had ever seen him before. He could not help smiling as his friend strode around the table in his shirt-sleeves, playing with a force that was almost ferocity and a haste apparently reckless but deadly in the precision that sense of power, skill, and alcohol gave him. After a while, in a pause, he spoke to Geoffrey, who at once divined that more trouble of some kind awaited him.
When they arrived at their chambers, Jack told him briefly of the journey with Nina for the purpose of getting married in Buffalo, and of what Nina had just said.
Geoffrey nodded; he was waiting for the something new that would affect himself—the something he was not prepared for.
"Is that all?" he asked sharply.
"No. That is not all," answered Jack gloomily.
"Go on, then."
"I don't feel as if I could go on," said Jack, not noticing the rough tone in which he was commanded to proceed. "But I suppose I must. The fact is, Geoffrey, I found out afterward that I was not married at all to her, and I never let her know until to-night."
"Is she dead, then?"
Geoffrey looked at him with his brow lowered, his eyes glittering. He felt like striking Jack.
"Gracious heavens, no! Why should she die?" cried Jack, startled from his gloom.
"It's enough to kill her," said Geoffrey. His contempt for Jack assisted the rage he felt against him. He had been drinking steadily all day, and now could hardly restrain the violent fury that seethed in him. "Go on, you infernal ass! Dribble it out. Go on."
"I see you feel for her, Geoffrey. Iamthe biggest fool that ever was allowed to live."
Then, with his face averted, he told Geoffrey the whole story of the mistake in Buffalo. His listener watched him, with lips muttering, while sometimes his teeth seemed to be bared and gleaming.
In this story, Geoffrey at first seemed to see a new danger to himself and his future prospects. Then it occurred to him that the new information did not much affect his own position. Two things seemed certain. One was, that Joseph Lindon would spare no expense to find out where Jack and Nina had gone and to be fully informed of everything that happened. Secondly, that Nina could never be able to show any legal marriage prior to the one now intended. This meant that Nina and Jack could not return to Toronto. A vague idea went through Geoffrey's head at this time.
When Jack had finished his story Geoffrey was calm in appearance. But his eyes were half closed, which gave him a cunning look.
Then he talked with Jack, so as to impress upon his mind the fact that it would be impossible for them ever to visit Canada again.
"Yes," said Jack. "Unless you come out to visit us you will never see us again. I could never make it right with the Toronto people. I will never again be able to return to Toronto; that's clear."
When he proposed to make arrangements as to the best ways and means of leaving Toronto, Geoffrey said he must have time to think over everything. It was late. It would be better to sleep, if possible, and arrange things further to-morrow. They parted for the night, having settled that Jack was to draw out his money at once.
On the next morning Geoffrey ascertained that he was ruined. The stock that he held in the Canadian railway had gone down beyond redemption as far as he was concerned. He had mortgaged everything he possessed, raised money on indorsed notes, raised it in every shape and way within his means, but he had been unable to tide over the depression. A further call had been made for margins, and he had not another cent to fill the gap and all his stock passed to other hands. He drank steadily all day and even carried a flask with him into the office, which he soon emptied. Hampstead was not by any means the same man now that he was three weeks previously. He looked sufficiently like his right self to escape a betrayal, but the liquor and the thought of his losses raged within him, and all the time an idea was insinuating itself into his frenzied brain. He had gone so far as carefully to consider many schemes to avert his ruin which he would not have countenanced before. His weakened judgment now placed Jack before him as one who conspired against his peace. He cunningly concealed it, but to him the mere sight of Jack was like a red flag to a bull. Just when all his plans were demolished, all his hopes gone, his entire ruin an accomplished fact, this fool came in to add fuel to the fire that burned him. In this way he regarded his old friend.
While in this state and while at his work in the bank the next morning he said to Jack, who occupied the next stall to him, that he had hit upon the best way for him and Nina to depart. It would be better for Jack to go away without giving any notice to the bank. The notice would be of no use if he did so, because, if he must go away the next morning, the notice would only raise inquiry. He told Jack to slip out and go down to the docks and find if there would be any sailing vessels leaving for American ports the next day. Jack could depart on a schooner; Nina could make some excuse at home and follow him by steamer.
Jack liked this proposal. He would have one more sail on old Ontario before he left it forever. He skipped out of the side door, and soon found a vessel at Yonge Street wharf that would finish taking in its cargo of fire-bricks and start for Oswego at noon the following day. He tried to arrange with the mate to go as a passenger, but the captain was going to take his wife with him on this trip, so Jack, if he wanted to go, would be obliged to sleep in the forecastle. He did not mind this much, and engaged to go "before the mast."
In the afternoon he told Nina about his intentions, and explained that she could take the steamer to Oswego on the day after he left, so that she would probably arrive there about the same time. He had drawn all his money out of the bank and was now ready to go. Nina said she could arrange about her own departure, and after they had made a few other plans as to her course in case she got to Oswego first, Jack kissed her and tried to cheer her from the depression in which she had sunk, and then he departed.
All that day Geoffrey grew more moody and further from his right self. To drown the recollections of his ruin and his other worries, he went on drinking steadily. The thought came to him again and again that his marriage with Margaret was now almost impossible. He knew that, as a married man, he could never live on his bank salary alone, and the capital to speculate with was entirely gone. What made him still more frenzied was the fact that he knew that this stock he had bought was bound to re-establish itself in a very short time. But, for the moment, every person else had gone mad. He alone was sane. Public lunacy about this stock had robbed him of his fifteen thousand dollars. He drank still harder when he thought this, and although he did not get drunk, he got what can be described vaguely as "queer," and the next stage of his queerness was that he became convinced that the public had in a manner robbed him, and that society owed him something. When a man's brain is in this state, he is in a dangerous condition.
Jack wished heartily that they should dine together, as this was his last evening in Toronto, but Geoffrey avoided doing so. He hated the sight of Jack, but he carefully concealed the aversion which he felt. He made an excuse and absented himself until nine or ten o'clock, and during this time he wandered about the city and continued drinking. He had not seen Margaret for over two weeks. Everything had been going wrong with him. Besides his own losses, he would be heavily in debt to the men who had "backed" his paper and who would have to pay for him.
Jack found him in their chambers when he returned for his last night at the old rooms, and there they sat and talked things over. Geoffrey tried to brace himself up for the conversation with a bottle of brandy which he had just uncorked, but it was quite impossible for him to pretend to be as cheerful as he wished.
Jack thought he was depressed, and said:
"I am sorry to see you in such bad spirits to-night, Geoffrey."
"Well, it's a bad business," said Hampstead, sententiously, looking moodily at the floor. As this might mean anything, Jack thought that Geoffrey was taking his departure to heart. He had every right to think that Hampstead would miss him.
It was now getting late, and Jack arose and laid his hand on Geoffrey's shoulder: "Don't be cut up, old man," he said; "I have been a fool, but I am glad that I know it and am able to make things as right as they can be made. I know you feel for Nina and me, but you will get some other fellow to room with you and—"
During the conversation Hampstead had drunk a good deal of the brandy. The kind words that Jack was speaking filled him with a fury which lunatic cunning could scarcely conceal. The idea in his mind had been settling itself into a resolve, and at this moment it did finally settle itself. He shook Jack's hand off his shoulder as he arose, glared at him for an instant, and then turned off to his bedroom. "Good night," he said over his shoulder. "It's late. I'm off." Then he entered his bedroom, shut the door, and bolted it.
As he went, Jack looked at his retreating form with tears standing in his eyes.
"I never," he said, "saw Geoffrey show any emotion before. I never felt quite sure whether he cared much about me until now. And now I know that he does. I hate to see him so cut up about it; but it is comforting to think, on going away, that he really liked me all this time."
Jack was a clean-souled fellow. He was one of those who, no matter how uproarious or slangy they are, always give the idea that they are gentlemen. With this nature a certain softness of heart must go. He stood watching the door through which Geoffrey had passed, and he thought drearily that never again would they have such good times together, and that most likely they would never meet again. He thought of Geoffrey's winning ways, of his prowess, of his strength, his stature, his handsome face, and his devil-may-care manner. He thought of their companionship, the incidents, and even dangers they had had together. He thought of the way Geoffrey had done his work that night on the yacht when returning from Charlotte. He stood thinking of all these things with an aching heart. As he turned away sadly, his heart full of grief at parting, he burst out with "Darned if I don't love that man," and he closed his door quickly, as if to shut out the world from witnessing a weakness.
On the inner side of Geoffrey's bedroom door there was something else going on, which represented a very different train of thought.
Geoffrey, after bolting his door, went to his dressing-case and took from it a pair of scissors and a threaded needle. Then he took an old waistcoat and cut the lining out of it. Then he took a second old waistcoat and sewed the pieces of lining against the inside of it, and also ran stitches down the middle of each piece after it was sewed on. Thus he had a waistcoat with four long pockets on the inside—two on each side of it, all open at the top.
When this was done he rolled into bed, where Nature hastened to restore herself.
Before breakfast in the morning, Jack hailed a cab and took his two valises to the Yacht Club beside the water's edge, and left them in his locked cupboard there. He only intended to take this amount of luggage with him. The rest of his things could come on when Geoffrey packed up and forwarded his share of their joint museum and library. Geoffrey did not turn up at breakfast. He breakfasted on a cup of strong coffee and brandy at a restaurant, and went to the bank early.
Mr. St. George Le Mesurier Hector Northcote, commonly called "Sappy" in the bank, was a younger son of a long-drawn-out race. He had been sent out to make his fortune in the colonies, and he had progressed so far toward affluence that, in eight years of "beastly servitude, you know," he had attained the proud position of discount clerk at the Victoria Bank, and it did not seem probable that his abilities would be ever recognized to any further extent. The great scope of his intelligence was shown in the variety of wearing apparel he was able to choose, all by himself, and he was the showman, the dude, theincroyableof the Victoria Bank. When he met a man for the first time he weighed him according to the merits of the garments he wore. He met Geoffrey as he came into the bank this morning.
"My deah fellah," he said, "where did you get that dreadful waistcoat?"
"None of your business, Sappy. You used to wear one yourself when they were in fashion. I remember your rushing off to get one from the same piece when you first saw this one."
Mr. St. George Le Mesurier Hector Northcote had a weak child's voice, which he cultivated because it separated him from the common herd—most effectually. It made all ordinary people wish to kick him every time he opened his mouth. He liked to be thought to have ideas about art, and he talked sweetly about the furniture of "ma mothah" (my mother.)
Geoffrey walked past this specimen with but little ceremony. The brandy and coffee and another brandy without coffee had succeeded in putting him into just the same state in which he had gone to bed on the previous night. He could talk to any person and could do his work, but fumes of alcohol and abandonment of recklessness had for a time driven out all the morality he ever possessed; and where some ideas of justice had generally reigned there flourished, in the fumes of the liquor which he had drunk, noxious weedy outgrowths of a debased intelligence unchecked by the self-respect of civilization. To-day, he was, to himself, the victim of a public that had robbed him. Society owed him a debt.
They all went to work in the usual way. About a quarter-past eleven o'clock Jack put his head to Geoffrey's wicket and they whispered together:
Jack said, "Time for me to be off?"
"Yes, just leave everything as if you were coming back. If you put away anything, or close the ledger, they may ask where you are before you get fairly off. By the way, how are you carrying your money?"
"By Jove! I forgot that," said Jack, "or I might have made the package smaller by exchanging for larger bills. It makes a terrible 'wollage' in my pocket."
Geoffrey stepped back a moment and picked two American bills for one-thousand dollars each from a package of fifty of them lying beside him.
"Here," he said. "Take these two and pin them in the watch-pocket of your waistcoat. Don't give me back your money here. Just run up to our chambers and leave your two thousand under my bed-clothes. I don't want any one to see you paying me the money here, or they will think I connived at your going. I can get it during the afternoon and make my cash all right."
Jack did not quite see the necessity of this, but he had not time to think it out, and even if he had, he would have done what Geoffrey told him.
"All right," he said, "thank you. That will make two 'one-thousands' and seven 'one hundreds,' and the rest small, for immediate use."
"Very well. Go into the passage, now, and wait at the side door. I will come out and say good-by to you."
Jack took his hat and sauntered out into the passage.
In a minute Geoffrey, with his hands in his pockets, strolled to the side door.
"Good-by, Jack," he said hastily. "When your schooner sails past the foot of Bay Street here, just get up on the counter and wave your handkerchief so that I may see the last of you."
"All right, dear old man. I'll not forget to take my last look at the old Vic, and to do as you say. I must run now, and leave the two thousand in your bed, and then get on board. Good-by. God bless you!"
Geoffrey sauntered back to his stall and took a drain at a flask of brandy to keep off the chill he felt for a moment, and to brace himself up generally.
Jack hurried off to the chambers, counted out the two thousand dollars which he had wished to get rid of, and after taking a last look at the old rooms, he hurried to the Yacht Club. Here he put the valises into his own skiff after changing his good clothes for the old sailing clothes already described. Then, under an old soft-felt hat with holes in the top, he rowed down to the schooner, threw his valises on board, and climbed over the side. He let his skiff go adrift. He had no further use for it. There were some stone-hookers at the neighboring dock. He called to the men on one of them and said, "There's a boat for you!" Then he dropped down the forecastle ladder with his luggage.
His arrival on board was none too early, for the covers were off the sails and the tug was coming alongside to drag the vessel away from the wharf, and start her on her way with the east wind blowing to take her out of the bay. The tug was towing her toward the west channel as they passed the different streets in front of the city. At Bay Street, Jack left off helping to make canvas for a minute, and, running to the counter, sprang up on the bulwarks and waved his handkerchief to somebody who, he knew, was watching through the windows of the Victoria Bank.
There was nothing to detain the schooner now. The wind was from the east, and consequently dead ahead for the trip, but it was a good fresh working breeze, and Geoffrey, when he saw how things looked on the schooner, knew that it had fairly started on its passage to Oswego.
He glanced around him to make assurance doubly sure, and then he divided the pile of forty-eight (formerly fifty) one-thousand-dollar bills into four thin packages. These he slipped hurriedly into the four long pockets which he had made in the waistcoat the previous night. He then buttoned up the waistcoat, and from the even distribution of the bills upon his person it was impossible to see any indication of their presence.
When this was done and he had surveyed himself carefully, he took another pull at the flask on general principles and proceeded to take further steps. He might as well have left the liquor alone, because his nerve, once he commenced operations, was like iron.
He banged about some drawers, as if he were looking for something, and then called out:
"Jack?"
No answer.
"Jack?"
Still no answer.
The ledger-keeper from A to M, who occupied the stall beyond Jack's, then growled out:
"What's the matter with you?"
"Where's Jack?"
"I don't know. He asked me to look after his ledger for a moment, and then went out. He has been out for over an hour, and if the beggar thinks I'm going to be skipping round to look up his confounded ledger all day he's mistaken. I'll give him a piece of my mind when he comes in."
"A to M" went on growling and sputtering, like a leaky shower-bath.
"That's all very well," said Geoffrey; "but you fellows are playing a trick on me, and I don't scare worth a cent."
Everybody could hear this conversation. Geoffrey then stepped on a stool and leaned over the partition, smiling, and seized the hard-working receiving-teller by the hair.
"Come, you beggar, I tell you I don't scare. Just hand over the money. Really, it's a very poor kind of a joke."
"What's a poor kind of a joke? Seizing me by the hair?"
Geoffrey looked at him smilingly, as if he did not believe him and still thought there had been a plan to abstract the money and frighten him.
"Well, I don't care much personally; but that packet of fifty thousand is gone, and if any fellow is playing the fool he had better bring it back."
Several of the clerks now came round to his wicket. This sort of talk sounds very unpleasant in a bank.
"Where did you leave the bills?" they asked.
"Right here," said Geoffrey, laying his hand on a little desk close beside the wicket, opening into the box in which Jack had worked.
"Well, you had better report the thing at once," said several, who were looking on with long faces.
"I shall, right straight," said Geoffrey energetically. His face bore an admirable expression of consternation, checked by thesang froidof an innocent bank-clerk. He strode off into the manager's room.
"Excuse me for interrupting you, sir. I thought it was a hoax at first, but it looks very much as if fifty thousand dollars had been taken from my box."
"What, stolen!"
"Looks like it—very. If you would kindly step this way, sir, I will explain what I know about it."
Geoffrey then showed the manager where the bills had been laid, and did not profess to be able to tell anything more.
"Mr. Northcote, ring up the chief of police, and tell me when he is there," said the manager. "Where is Mr. Cresswell?"
No answer.
"Does anybody know where Mr. Cresswell is?"
Ledger-keeper from A to M then said that Mr. Cresswell went out over an hour ago, and had asked him to look after his ledger for five minutes. Mr. Cresswell had not returned.
The manager walked into Jack's box and looked around him. Everything was lying about as if he had just stopped working, and this, to the manager's mind, seemed to give the thing a black look. It seemed as if Jack, if he had made off with the money, had left things in this way as a blind.
The telephone was ready now, and the manager requested the chief of police to send a couple of his best detectives at once. Only one was available at first. This man, Detective Dearborn, appeared in five minutes, and was made acquainted with all the known circumstances. When this was done, fully two hours had elapsed since Jack's departure, and still he had not turned up.
Detective Dearborn was a man with large, usually mild, brown eyes. There was nothing in the upper part of his face to be remarked except general immobility of countenance. The lower part of his face, however, was suggestive. His lower jaw protruded beyond the upper. Whether this means anything in the human being may be doubted, but one involuntarily got the idea that if this man once "took hold," nothing short of red-hot irons would burn him off.
He took a careful, mild survey of the premises, listened to everything that was said, remarked that the package could not have been taken from the public passageway if left in the place indicated, looked over Jack's abandoned stall, asked a few questions from the manager, and, like a sensible man, came to the conclusion that Jack had taken the money.
He walked into the manager's room and asked him several questions about Jack's habits and his usual pursuits. Geoffrey was called in to assist at this. Yes, he could take the detective to Jack's room. Jack had no habits that cost much money. "Had he been speculating at all?" Geoffrey thought not, although some time ago Mr. Cresswell had said that he was "in a little spec.," and hoped to make something. Did not know what the "spec." was.
"May I ask," said Dearborn, "when you last spoke to Mr. Cresswell?"
"We spoke to each other for a minute just before he went out. He asked me if I was going to the Dusenalls' 'shine' to-night. I said I was. Then he spoke about several young ladies of our acquaintance, and other things which had no reference to this matter."
"Was the lost money in the place you say at that time?"
"Yes. I remember having my hand on the packet while I spoke to him."
"May I ask if you at any time during the morning left your stall?"
"Yes, I did, once. I went out as far as the side door for an instant shortly after Mr. Cresswell went out."
"What for?"
"Well," said Geoffrey, smiling, "I was thinking of boating this afternoon, and I wanted to see how the sky promised for the afternoon."
The mild eyes looked at Geoffrey with uncomfortable mildness at this answer. It might be all right, but Dearborn thought that this was the first suspicious sound which he had heard.
"My young gentleman, I'll keep my eye on you," he thought. "That reply did not sound quite right, and you seem a trifle too unconcerned."
Another detective arrived now, and he was detailed to inform the others and to watch the railway stations and steamboats. Immediately afterward, descriptions of Jack flew all over Canada to the many different points of exit from the country. Had he tried to leave Canada by sail or steamboat he would have been arrested to a certainty. Geoffrey laughed in his sleeve as he thought of the way he had sent Jack off in a schooner—a way that few people would dream of taking, and yet, perhaps, the safest way of all, as schooners could not, in the ordinary course of things, be watched by the detectives. But if the news got beyond police circles that Jack had absconded with money, or if it should be discovered in any way that he had gone on the schooner to Oswego—if this were published—Joseph Lindon might become alarmed, and prevent his daughter from going to Oswego also. Even the news of Jack's departure for parts unknown might make him suspicious. With this in view he immediately said to the manager and the detective:
"I would like to make a suggestion, if there be no objection."
"Certainly, Mr. Hampstead. We will be glad to listen to what you have to say."
"Of course, I can not think that Mr. Cresswell took the money," said Geoffrey. "But I think if complete secrecy were ordered, both in the bank and elsewhere, while every endeavor was being made at discovery, the detectives would have a better chance of success, on whatever theory they may work. Possibly the money may be recovered before many hours are over, and in that case the bank might wish to hush the matter up quietly. Prematurely advertising a thing like this often does harm; and there can be no question about the interests of the bank in the matter."
"I will act upon that suggestion at once," said the manager. "In the mean time, you will go, please, with the detective and admit him to Mr. Cresswell's rooms, and see what is to be seen there. I will give the strictest orders that nothing of this is to be told outside by the officials or police."
Orders were delivered to all the detectives to give no items to newspaper reporters, and the chance of Nina's getting away on the following morning seemed secured. Geoffrey laughed to himself as he thought he had crushed the last adder that could appear to strike him.
He let Mr. Dearborn into Jack's room. Everything was in confusion. Bureau drawers were lying open, and Jack's valises were gone. Dearborn saw at a glance that Cresswell had fled, and he lost no time, but turned on his heel immediately, thanked Hampstead, and rattled down-stairs. Geoffrey first ascertained that he was really gone, and then went back, took out the two thousand dollars that Jack had put under his bed-clothes, and, hastily taking the forty-eight stolen bills from the interior of his waistcoat, he stuffed the whole amount into an old Wellington boot that was hanging on a nail in a closet. Out of Jack's two thousand he put several bills in his pocket to pay for his evening's amusements. He then returned to the bank. It will be seen that his object in not taking this two thousand from Jack at the bank was that he could not safely conceal such a large package on his person, and he could not put it with his cash, because, in case his cash was examined, it would be found to contain two thousand dollars too much, which would cause inquiry.
The manager while brooding over the event, and asking questions, soon found out that the missing bills had been all in one deposit. The receiving teller had taken them in the day before. The item was looked into and it was noted that this was a deposit of the Montreal Telegraph Company. On inquiry it was found to be a balance due from the Western Union Telegraph Company in the States for exchanges. The Montreal Telegraph Company had received the money from New York by express, and to guard against loss the Western Union had taken the precaution to write by mail to the company at Toronto giving the number of each bill in full, and saying that all the bills were those of the United States National Bank at New York. In two hours, therefore, Dearborn was supplied with the numbers of all the bills. Geoffrey was startled at this turn of events. But he thought it did not matter much. He could slip over to the States in a few months and get rid of the whole of the money in different places.
While all this internal commotion was going on at the Victoria Bank, Nina was paying a little visit to her father's office. She alighted from an equipage every part of which, including coachman, footman, horses, and liveries, had been imported from England. The coachman and footman did not wear their hats on one side or cross their legs and talk affably to each other as they seem to do in the American cities. Joseph Lindon was, in effect, perfectly right when he said they were the "real thing"—"first chop."
Nina swept through the outer office, looking more charming than ever. After she had passed in, one of the clerks, called Moses, indulged in the vulgar pantomime peculiar to clerks of low degree. He placed both hands on his heart, gasped, and rolled back against the wall to indicate that he was irretrievably smashed by her appearance.
Her father received her gladly.
"Ah!" he said, "you have condescended to pay me a visit, my fine lady! It's money you're after. I can see it in your eye. Now, how much, my dear, will this little visit cost me, I wonder? Just name your figure, my dear, and strike it rather high." Mr. Lindon was in a remarkably good humor.
"No, father, I did not come altogether for money. I came to know if I could go over to Oswego for a week. Louisa Dallas, who stayed with us last winter, wants me to go over."
"Certainly, my dear, you can do anything you please—in reason. I thought the Dallases lived in Rochester?"
"So they did; but they have moved. Well, that is all right. Now, if you have any money to throw away upon me I will try to do you credit with it. Don't I always do you credit?"
"Credit? You are the handsomest girl I ever saw. Do me credit? Why, of course, and always will. Come and kiss me, my dear. I declare you would charm the heart of a wheel-barrow. Now, how much would you like this morning? Strike it high, girl. Understand, you can have all the money you want. You will go to Oswego and see your friends and have a good time. Perhaps they won't have much money to throw away, but don't let that stand in the way. Trot out the whole of them and set up the entire business yourself. Take them all down to Watkin's Glen, or some place else. There's nothing to do in Oswego. You can't spend half the money I can give you. Why, dash it, I cleared fifty thousand dollars before lunch-time to-day, and now how much will you have of it?"
"Well, there's a little bill at Murray's for odds and ends."
"How much?"
"Oh, five or six hundred, perhaps."
"Blow five or six hundred! Is that all the money you can spend? Of course you are the best-dressed woman in town, but you must do better than this. I tell you you have just got to sweep all these other women away like flies before you. I'll clothe you in gold if you say the word. Five or six hundred! Rubbish!"
He struck a bell, and the impressionable Moses appeared.
"How much will you have?" he said to Nina, smiling. He loved to try and stagger her with his magnificence.
"I suppose Murray ought to be paid and a few other bills lying about." Nina thought this would be a good chance for Jack, and she said to herself she would strike it high.
"I suppose a thousand dollars would do," she said, rather timidly; adding, "with Murray and all."
"Damn Murray and all!" cried Mr. Lindon, in a burst of good nature. "You sha'n't pay any of them.—Moses, write Miss Lindon a check for a couple of thousand, and bring it here."
While Moses wrote the check out, Lindon, with a display of affection he rarely showed, drew Nina down upon his knee.
"How did you make so much money to-day, father?" she asked.
"Oh, you don't know anything about such matters. Yesterday I bought the stock of a Canadian railway. At ten o'clock this morning it took a sudden rise because I let people know I was buying. I got a lot of it before I let them know, and then up she went, steadily, the whole morning. At twelve o'clock I had made at least fifty thousand, and by nightfall I may have made a hundred thousand. I don't know how it stands just now, and I don't much care."
This was the identical stock Hampstead had been unable to retain. If he could have held on a few hours longer he would have made more honestly on this day than he had stolen at the same hour.
The check was signed and handed to Nina. She put it in her shopping-bag and took her father's head between her hands and kissed his capable old face with a warmth that surprised him a little. To her this was a final good-by.
"You're a good old daddy to me," she said, feeling her heart rise at the thought of leaving him forever. She ran off then to the door to conceal her feelings.
"Just wait," he said, "till we go to England soon, and then I'll show you what's what."
She made an effort to seem bright, and cast back at him a glance like bright sun through mists, as she said:
"Of course—yes. We must not forget 'the dook.'"
She cashed the check with satisfaction, knowing that it took Jack a long time to save two thousand dollars.
When she rolled down to the wharf the next day in the Lindon barouche, the officials on the steamboat's deck were impressed with her magnificence and beauty.
For most men, nothing could be more sweetly beautiful than her appearance, as she went carefully along the gangway to the old Eleusinian, and there was quite a competition between the old captain and the young second officer as to who should show her more civility.
Comprehensive talkers are apt to be tiresome when we are not athirst for information; but to be quite fair, we must admit that superior reticence is a good deal due to lack of matter. Speech is often barren; but silence also does not necessarily brood over a full nest.—George Eliot—(Felix Holt).
Comprehensive talkers are apt to be tiresome when we are not athirst for information; but to be quite fair, we must admit that superior reticence is a good deal due to lack of matter. Speech is often barren; but silence also does not necessarily brood over a full nest.—George Eliot—(Felix Holt).
It did not take Detective Dearborn long to find out that Jack had engaged a cab early in the morning and had then removed some luggage from his rooms. This confirmed him in the idea that the crime had been a carefully planned one. But his trouble lay in not being able to find the driver of the cab. This man had driven off somewhere on a trip that took him apparently out of town, and Dearborn began to wonder whether Jack had been driven to some neighboring town, so as to proceed in a less conspicuous way by some railway.
Late at night, however, Jehu turned up at his own house very drunk. The horses had brought him home without being driven. He had been down at Leslieville all day, with some "sports," who were enjoying a pigeon-shooting match at that place, and who had retained cabby at regulation rates and all he could drink—a happy day for him. Dearborn found he could tell him nothing about the occurrence of the morning of the same day, or where he had gone with Jack's valises; so, perforce, he had to let him sleep it off till morning.
The first rational account the detective could get out of him was at ten o'clock on the morning following. He then found out why the valises had not been seen at the railway stations, or at any of the usual points of departure. The caretaker of the yacht club could only tell him, when he called, that Mr. Cresswell had been at the club somewhere about noon the day before, and had gone away in his boating-clothes, rowing east round the head of the wharf close by.
"I must tell you," said Dearborn to the caretaker, "that Mr. Cresswell's friends are alarmed at his absence and have sent me to look after him. Would you know the boat he went in if you saw it?"
"Oh, yes. I handle it frequently, in one way and and another. I painted it for him last spring."
"Well, if you don't mind making a dollar, I'd be glad if you would walk along the docks and help me find it."
"Come along," said the caretaker. "There is nothing to do here, at this hour, but watch the club-house, and I certainly can't make an extra dollar doing that. We'll call it two dollars if I find the boat, seeing as how I'm dragged off from duty."
"All right," said Dearborn, who hadcarte blanchefor expenses from the bank.
They walked off together at a good pace.
"You say that none of the yachts left the harbor yesterday?"
"No. There they are, over there, every one of them."
"Well, what size was the skiff he went off in?"
"An ordinary fourteen-foot shooting-skiff. One of old Rennardson's. You mind old Rennardson? He built a handy boat, did the old man."
"Could it cross the lake?"
"Well it could, perhaps, on six days in the week, in summer. Perhaps on the seventh the best handling in the world wouldn't save her. But they are a fine little boat, for all that I've crossed the bay myself in them when there was an all-fired sea runnin'."
"Could it have crossed the lake yesterday?"
"I don't think Mr. Cresswell would be such a fool as to try. Perhaps he could have done it if anybody could. But risks for nothing ain't his style. Not but what he'll run his chances when the time comes. You should have seen him bring in that Ideal last fall, in the race I sailed with him. The wind sprung up heavy in the afternoon. Lord! it was a sight to see that boat come in to the winnin' buoy with the mast hanging over her bows like a Greek fruiter. You see, he had the wind dead after him, blowin' heavy, and he'd piled rags on to her, wings and all, till she was in a blind fury and goin' through it like a harpooned whale. The owner was a-standing by him a-watchin' for everythin' to carry out of her. 'Jack,' says he, 'she can't do it. The backstays won't do the work.' 'Slack them up, then, four inches, and let the mast do its own part of the work,' says Mr. Cresswell. And he kept on easin' backstays to give fair play all round, till the mast was hangin' forward like a cornstalk; but I'm dummed if he'd lift a rag on her till she passed the gun. Perhaps you don't care for that sort of thing. I follered the sea myself formerly. Lord! it was immense, that little sail! And thirty seconds ain't a great deal to win on. Nothin' but bull-head grit would ha' done it."
Mr. Dearborn was not much comforted by all this talk. Cresswell might have crossed the lake in his skiff. Evidently he was a man who would do it if he wished. They continued their search on every wharf and through every boat-house, which occupied a good deal of time.
Suddenly, near Yonge Street wharf, the caretaker said: "Give us your two dollars, mister. There's the skiff on the deck of the stone-hooker."
Inquiries soon showed that Jack had gone off on the schooner North Star to Oswego, and then Mr. Dearborn began to look grave. The schooner had got a long start. He was well acquainted with all different routes to different places, and he finally decided to go on the Eleusinian by water to Oswego. Possibly he might be able to come across the schooner in the lake before she arrived at Oswego, and bribe the captain to land him and his prisoner on Canadian soil, where his warrant would be good. He had still half an hour to spare, so he dashed off in a cab to the chief's office, and wired the Oswego police to arrest Jack, on the arrival of the North Star, on the charge of bringing stolen money into the States.
Of course, Dearborn knew he could not extradite Jack from Oswego for his offense, but he thought that after being locked up the money could be scared out of him, when he found that he could get a long sentence in the States on the above charge, which Dearborn knew could be proved if the stolen bills were found in his possession.
If Geoffrey had known what the able Mr. Dearborn had ferreted out, and what his plans were, he would have felt more uneasy.
As the afternoon wore on, it was interesting to watch two very unconcerned people at the bow of the upper deck of the Eleusinian. The steamer was making excellent time—plowing into the eye of the wind with all the power that had so nearly dragged the life out of the poor Ideal in the preceding summer. Nina was sitting in an arm-chair, cushioned into comfort by the assiduous second officer, who found that his duties much required his presence in that portion of the boat where Nina happened, to be. She was sitting, looking through the spyglasses from time to time at every sail that hove in sight, and seeming disinclined to leave the deck.
Mr. Dearborn was tempting providence by smoking a cigar close by. The steamer went almost too fast to pitch much, but there was a decided rise and fall at the bows. He noticed that the officer suggested to Nina that by sitting further aft she would escape some of the motion, and that she declined the change, saying she liked the breeze and was a good sailor. Once they passed close to a vessel with three masts. Dearborn had ascertained, before leaving, that the North Star had only two masts, so he was not anxious. Nina, however, knew nothing about the rig of the North Star, and she was up standing beside the bulwarks gazing intently through the binoculars at the crew. She seemed disappointed when she lowered the glasses, and Dearborn began to wonder whether this was "the woman in the case." He afterward watched her as she attempted to read a novel, and noticed that she continually stopped to scan the horizon. Still, nearly every person does this, more or less, and his idea rather waned again as he thought that this was quite too fine a person to bother her head about a poor bank-clerk—such a man as he was hunting. Mr. Dearborn, perhaps owing to the peculiar formation of his jaw, generally lost all idea of the respectability of a man as soon as he got on his trail. He might have the benefit of all doubts in his favor until the warrant for his arrest was placed in Mr. Dearborn's hands. After that, as a rule, the individual, whether acquitted or not at his subsequent trial, took no high stand in Mr. Dearborn's mind. If acquitted, it was only the result of lawyers' trickery; not on account of innocence. Men who ought to know best say that if a prize-fighter wishes to win he must actually hate his antagonist—must fight to really kill him; and that only when he is entirely disabled is it time enough to hope that he will not die. Mr. Dearborn, similarly, had that tenacity of purpose that made every attempt at escape seem to double the culprit's guilt, and in a hard capture this supplied him with that "gall" which could meet and overcome the desperate courage of a man at bay.
Soon another schooner loomed up in the moist air of the east wind, and, when the hull was visible, Mr. Dearborn approached Nina and said:
"Would you oblige me, madame, by allowing me to look through your glasses?"
"Certainly," said Nina; "they belong to the ship—not to me."
Dearborn took a long look at the approaching vessel. The North Star had been described to him as having a peculiar cut-away bow, and the vessel coming across their track had a perpendicular bow.
Nina then looked through the glasses intently, and for a moment they stood beside each other.
"I wonder why all the vessels seem to be crossing our track, instead of going in our direction," she said to quiet-looking Mr. Dearborn.
"I don't know much about sailing, miss. But I know that vessels can't sail straight into the wind. They seesaw backward and forward, first one way and then the other. How they get up against the wind I could never understand. They are like lawyers, I think. They see a point ahead of them, and they just beat about the bush till they get there. Some of these things are hard to take in."
Nina smiled.
"A good many of these vessels," added Mr. Dearborn, while he watched his fair companion, "are going to Oswego."
"Oh, indeed!" said Nina, unconsciously brightening.
"And the wind is ahead for that trip," said Dearborn.
"Is it?"
Nina had been round Lake Ontario in a yacht, and she had had an English boarding-school finish. She could have told the general course of the Ganges or the Hoang-ho, but she had no idea in what direction she was going on her own lake to Oswego. In English schools Canada is a land not worth learning about, and where hardly any person would live voluntarily. People go about chiefly on snow-shoes, and it is easy in most places to kill enough game for dinner from your own doorstep.
"Yes, it would take a sailing vessel a long time, I should think, to get to Oswego."