CHAPTER XXXIIITHE STUFF IN MARY REGAN
Therewas again a long silence. Clifford’s heart leaped strangely at Morton’s announcement, as perhaps hearts should not at words of death. Then Mr. Morton spoke once more, still in the low, controlled voice, his words and steady eyes directed at Mary.
“I shall arrange to take Jack to Chicago. Since you are his widow, of course you will come along.” And then the emotionless voice of this hard-driving man of great affairs broke with emotion. “And, Mary,—I want you to come because you are my daughter-in-law. I know now you did all a woman could for Jack; I have come to respect you for what you are. You are all I have—I need you, Mary. I hardly need tell you,—since it may make little difference to you, you are so strange,—but all I have will go to you, and your life is to be the life of my daughter.”
Mary stood staring at him, loose-lipped, and did not speak. Clifford watched her, dazed by this last turn of circumstances. He saw the realities and prospects that Morton’s words had given her. She now possessed, open and aboveboard, all that she had ever dreamed to gain by trickery—yes, andmore! And she had it all unhampered! All these months he had tried to make Life test her—and Life had responded by, in the end, giving her everything!
Still Mary did not speak. Mr. Morton went on, a note of urging, of reassurance, in his subdued voice:
“And, Mary,—whatever I may have said in the past,—you have nothing to fear from me. You are my daughter, and you have my respect. And you have nothing to fear from any one else, since I know everything.... There’s an afternoon train out of here; we’ll be taking that, Mary.”
And then Mary spoke. Her voice was low, but its tone was steady.
“I shall be willing—and glad—to do all I can to help. But I cannot go with you as your daughter.”
“What?” cried Mr. Morton. And then: “I don’t understand.”
The low voice went on:—
“I married Jack solely to make money and gain position. Even before last night I had decided never to take them. And now, after what has happened, even more can I never take them. Believe me, I mean no offense to you, but I cannot be your daughter-in-law.”
“What?” repeated Mr. Morton.
Clifford gazed at her, stupefied.
“While Jack lived my marriage to him was a secret,” the low voice went on. “Now that he is dead, I prefer to have it continue to remain unknown,if that can be managed. I think it can. If the few who know are made to believe that I am trying to force myself upon you, they will keep silent out of pure malice toward me. That is, I want it to remain unknown, unless Mr. Clifford needs my testimony to convict in his cases.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” said Clifford. “Loveman’s case is closed. As for Bradley, Lieutenant Kelly found that Mordona necklace on him, and Hilton, seeing that the game is over, has just turned State’s evidence and confessed that he and Bradley stole it. That should be sufficient to take care of Bradley.”
Mary turned again to Mr. Morton. “Then I prefer to have it all remain as it has been—unknown. I do not want even the profit out of this of having Jack’s name.”
Then came a quick set to the jaw of this man long accustomed to having his own way. “But I can publicly proclaim you to be my daughter!”
“But you will not,” she returned quietly, “since I ask you not to.”
The set look continued for a moment. Then it relaxed.
“All right—just as you say.” He drew an envelope from an inner pocket. “But if you will not accept my fortune, you cannot escape Jack’s, for it is this moment automatically and legally yours.” From the envelope—it was the one Loveman had addressed in the car—he drew out three slips ofpaper and handed them to her. “There it is—three checks totaling one hundred and eighty thousand dollars. And you do not need to reveal yourself as Jack’s widow to get the money, since the checks are made out to ‘Cash.’ All you need to do is to deposit them.”
She gazed at the checks, then looked up at him. “If Jack had had no wife, I suppose his fortune would revert to you.”
“Naturally.”
“You understand, I can make nothing out of this—nothing.” Slowly she tore up the checks. “I can be of no service to you?—or Jack?”
“None. Except in ways you have refused.”
She turned to Clifford. “Am I needed here?”
Clifford shook his head.
“Then I think I’ll be going back to town,” she said quietly.
Morton held out his hand, which she took. “You are the strangest person I ever knew,” he said huskily. “Good-bye, Mary,—and—and God bless you!”
“Good-bye,” said his daughter-in-law.
She turned and went out. Clifford watched her as she passed through the broad hospital corridor and then disappeared down the wide stairway.
“Mr. Morton,” said Clifford, “I’m not needed either—Lieutenant Kelly will remain in charge here. I’ll be going back to the city, too.”
Mr. Morton gripped Clifford’s hand. “Thanks,Clifford—and good-bye.” The habitually hard face softened yet further, and his voice lowered. “And, Clifford,—you’re a lucky man, if it turns out the way I think it will!”
It did. In the deepening dusk of a month later, from an interior and out-of-the-way county seat whose records were rarely looked over by inquisitive eyes that had an interest in transmitting what they saw to New York City, Clifford was driving a small roadster at an easy pace, one passenger beside him. A few minutes before that passenger had undergone a change of name. In New York City, if all went as expected, it would merely be known that she had changed her name from Mary Regan to Mary Clifford.
The marriage had been the ultimate achievement in privacy. No one had journeyed here with them. But one person, who had insisted on being taken into their confidence, had appeared discreetly and anonymously at the brief ceremony in the little court-house—Uncle George. And after the ceremony was over, he had kissed Mary with a simplicity, a sincerity, a tender dignity that sophisticated, cynical Broadway would have been amazed to see in its favorite.
“Mary,”—his hands on both her shoulders, his voice quavering a bit,—“I’m glad I’ve lived long enough to see the daughter of one old pal, and the niece of another old pal, definitely turn into thisroad. Yes, I’m mighty glad. It’s the only road that’s worth traveling—and I guess I ought to know. I know you’re going to be happy. God bless you, my dear!”...
And now, as the pair moved easily through the closing twilight, all bars at last were down between these two—all barriers of pride, of reserve, of reticence, of opposing wills, all the long masking of hearts. Their souls were very close together.
They had been riding for several miles in silence, both still awed by what had just taken place in the little town behind them—when Mary spoke softly:—
“You promised to tell me when—when this was over, what you and Commissioner Thorne were talking about this morning. Aren’t you going to tell me what it was?”
“Commissioner Thorne again offered me the position of Chief of the Detective Bureau.”
“And you?”
“I turned it down.”
“It was a wonderful chance!” she exclaimed. “You refused because of me?”
“No. But I thought you might think so; that’s why I didn’t want to tell you until everything was settled between you and me. I had thought it all out before. It was a big job he offered me, yes,—but primarily it was an office job, a routine, administrative job. I wanted to be out where I would be in contact with people and their problems; whereinstead of touching life only through the reports of subordinates, I would touch life at first hand. I felt that in my case I could be of more service in such a way. You understand?”
“Yes,” she said. “And I think, perhaps,—if you’d let me,—I could help at that kind of work.”
“I know you could!” said Clifford. He went on, after a brief pause: “And we talked of something else, Mary,—the Chief and I. He told me again of that talk he had had with you when you went to him almost a year ago; and, Mary,”—his voice lowered,—“our talk became for me a searchlight thrown backward upon all that has happened these last few months, and especially a searchlight upon you, Mary. You may have had many motives for deciding against me, and for doing what you did. But I now know there was one big motive which I never before fully realized, and of which you perhaps were never conscious.”
“And that?” she asked.
“You did what you did partly because you loved me, and because you have loved me all along. You believed that for you to marry me would injure what you saw as a big public career for me; you thought you were not the right wife for me. As for Jack, you didn’t really care for him—and in the beginning you weren’t concerned in what your action might mean to him. But me—me you didn’t want to hurt in any way.” He repeated himself: “I see that clearly now—even though you did notknow it, that was one of the motives that ruled you.”
“I would not dare say that in my own behalf,” she whispered. And then she went on: “But if, after all, I have turned out what you thought me, it is because you believed in me so long—and because your belief in me, and the way you handled me, forced me to become something different.... But it must have been hard for you—very, very hard!”
“It’s been a thousand times worth it all, Mary,” he breathed, “a thousand times worth it all!”
He caught her hand and held it tight beneath his on the steering-wheel—it was as though now they were jointly steering their united lives; and they sped on through the soft, star-blossoming night, in the silence of full understanding, southward toward the great city where so long they had fought each other, and where now at the last they were to begin to build a life together.
THE END