SOCIALIST WHITE-SLAVER!Rotten Affair Unearthed by Police!Gabriel Armstrong, Socialist Leader, Caught With the Goods!!!Rochester, July 4."In one of the most sensational raids ever made in this city, by the vice squad, under the auspices of the Purity League, what is believed to be a well-organized white-slave business was unearthed last night. The leader and brains of the association, Gabriel Armstrong, a Socialist speaker and worker of national prominence, was arrested, and is now lodged in Police Headquarters, with serious charges pending."The arrest was made as a result of the keen work of Officer Michael P. Duffey, sergeant of the vice squad. Hearing screams in the assignation house at 42A Belding street, he made his way up stairs, accompanied by two or three citizens. The screams were coming from a room on the second floor. Duffey promptly battered the door down only to be met by a furious assault from Armstrong, who was intoxicated and extremely violent."A savage hand-to-hand struggle took place, in which furniture was broken, the policeman badly injured and two of the volunteers knocked out. Armstrong was finally subdued, however, by the jiu-jitsu method, in which Duffey is an expert, and was lodged in the Central Station, together with the woman."According to her statement, the man, Armstrong, had not only been guilty of grossly immoral practices with her, but had also been trying to force her to share with him the proceeds of her life of shame, thus making out against him a clear case under the Mann White-Slave Traffic law. She has material evidence of this fact—money which he had given her, to finance her till she could begin bringing in revenue to him, and also his name and address, written by his own hand. A significant fact is that the address given by this white slaver is Socialist headquarters, in Chicago. The police are now working on the theory that the entire Socialist organization is honeycombed with this traffic, and that the Socialist movement is only a blind to cover a wholesale distribution of women for immoral purposes.Drastic Federal action against the Socialist Party is now being considered."Still further and more sensational facts are expected to develop at the preliminary hearing, which will take place tomorrow morning. In case Armstrong is bound over to the Grand Jury, and convicted, he may get a heavy fine and as much as five years in a Federal penitentiary. He is described as being a surly, low type, reticent and vindictive, of vicious characteristics and mentally defective. The local Socialists have already taken up arms in his defense, as was to be expected."Interest is added to the case by the fact that Armstrong is known to be the man who, at the time of the recent automobile accident to Miss Catherine Flint—daughter of Isaac Flint, of Englewood, N. J.—gave the alarm. A theory is now being formed that he was, in some way, involved in a plot with Miss Flint's chauffeur to wreck the machine and share a big reward for rescuing the girl. The plot, however, evidently miscarried, for the chauffeur was killed, and Armstrong, after giving the alarm, feared to divulge his identity but fled in disguise."Public interest is greatly aroused in this matter. And if, as now seems positively certain, this arrest and forthcoming conviction break up the vicious white-slave gang for some time operating in Rochester and Ontario Beach, the public will have a still greater debt of gratitude toward the Purity League, the Vice Squad and the untiring efforts and bravery of Sergeant Duffey."
SOCIALIST WHITE-SLAVER!
Rotten Affair Unearthed by Police!
Gabriel Armstrong, Socialist Leader, Caught With the Goods!!!
Rochester, July 4.
"In one of the most sensational raids ever made in this city, by the vice squad, under the auspices of the Purity League, what is believed to be a well-organized white-slave business was unearthed last night. The leader and brains of the association, Gabriel Armstrong, a Socialist speaker and worker of national prominence, was arrested, and is now lodged in Police Headquarters, with serious charges pending.
"The arrest was made as a result of the keen work of Officer Michael P. Duffey, sergeant of the vice squad. Hearing screams in the assignation house at 42A Belding street, he made his way up stairs, accompanied by two or three citizens. The screams were coming from a room on the second floor. Duffey promptly battered the door down only to be met by a furious assault from Armstrong, who was intoxicated and extremely violent.
"A savage hand-to-hand struggle took place, in which furniture was broken, the policeman badly injured and two of the volunteers knocked out. Armstrong was finally subdued, however, by the jiu-jitsu method, in which Duffey is an expert, and was lodged in the Central Station, together with the woman.
"According to her statement, the man, Armstrong, had not only been guilty of grossly immoral practices with her, but had also been trying to force her to share with him the proceeds of her life of shame, thus making out against him a clear case under the Mann White-Slave Traffic law. She has material evidence of this fact—money which he had given her, to finance her till she could begin bringing in revenue to him, and also his name and address, written by his own hand. A significant fact is that the address given by this white slaver is Socialist headquarters, in Chicago. The police are now working on the theory that the entire Socialist organization is honeycombed with this traffic, and that the Socialist movement is only a blind to cover a wholesale distribution of women for immoral purposes.Drastic Federal action against the Socialist Party is now being considered.
"Still further and more sensational facts are expected to develop at the preliminary hearing, which will take place tomorrow morning. In case Armstrong is bound over to the Grand Jury, and convicted, he may get a heavy fine and as much as five years in a Federal penitentiary. He is described as being a surly, low type, reticent and vindictive, of vicious characteristics and mentally defective. The local Socialists have already taken up arms in his defense, as was to be expected.
"Interest is added to the case by the fact that Armstrong is known to be the man who, at the time of the recent automobile accident to Miss Catherine Flint—daughter of Isaac Flint, of Englewood, N. J.—gave the alarm. A theory is now being formed that he was, in some way, involved in a plot with Miss Flint's chauffeur to wreck the machine and share a big reward for rescuing the girl. The plot, however, evidently miscarried, for the chauffeur was killed, and Armstrong, after giving the alarm, feared to divulge his identity but fled in disguise.
"Public interest is greatly aroused in this matter. And if, as now seems positively certain, this arrest and forthcoming conviction break up the vicious white-slave gang for some time operating in Rochester and Ontario Beach, the public will have a still greater debt of gratitude toward the Purity League, the Vice Squad and the untiring efforts and bravery of Sergeant Duffey."
"That, ah that," remarked old Flint, as he finished his last reading, "is what I call literature! It may not be Scott or Shelley or Dickens, but it's got far more thantheyever had—tremendous value to—er—to the rightful masters of society. I dare say that this article and also others like it that are bound to be printed during the trial and after, will do more to secure our position in society than a whole army with machine guns. Socialism, eh? After this campaign gets through, by God, we'll sweep up the leavings in a dustpan and throw them out the window!"
Again he surveyed the article, smiling thinly.
"Literature, yes," he repeated. "The writer of thoselines, and the master-minds who engineered the whole affair, must and shall be liberally rewarded. Editors, preachers, writers, they're all on our side. All safe and sane—that is, nearly all—enough, at any event, to assure our safety. I rejoice that I have lived to see this day!"
He turned the sheets of the paper, to see if any other notice of the affair was printed; and as he looked, he pondered.
"Imagine the effect of this, on Kate!" thought he. "It will be just as I planned it. Nothing will be left in her mind now, but loathing, hate and rage against this man. In two days, she and Waldron will have patched up their little difference, and all will be well. A master-stroke on my part, eh? Yes, yes indeed, a master-stroke!"
His eye caught another blue-pencilling.
"Editorial, eh?" said he, adjusting his glasses. "Better and better! This affair will sweep those troublemakers off the map, or I'm a beggar!"
Then, with the keenest of satisfaction, he focussed his attention on the sapient editorial:
SOCIALISM UNVEILED.The arrest and impending conviction of Gabriel Armstrong, the noted Socialist leader, on a white-slave traffic charge, will do much to set all sane thinkers right in regard to this whole matter of Socialist ethics. Socialists, as we have all heard, contend that their system of thought teaches a high and pure form of morality. How will they square this assertion with the hard, cold facts, as brought to light in this most revolting case?Much more seems to lie beneath the surface than at first sight appears. Though we desire to suspend judgment until all the data are known, it appears conclusively proved that Armstrong is but one of a band of white-slaversoperating through the organization of, and with the consent of the Socialist party, or at least of its responsible officials.If this prove to be the case, it will substantiate the suspicion long felt in many quarters that this whole movement, ostensibly political, is really a menace to the moral and social welfare of the nation. A foreign importation, openly standing against the home, the family and religion, may well be expected to foster such crimes and to be a "culture-medium" for the growth of such vile microbes as this man Armstrong, and others of his kind.Turn on the light! Bring the social antiseptics! Let all the facts be established; and when known, if—as we anticipate—they prove this nasty conspiracy, let us make an end, now and forever, to this un-American, immoral and filthy thing, Socialism! To this object this paper now and henceforth pledges its policy; and all decent publications, all citizens who love their country, their God, their homes, their flag, will join with it in a nation-wide crusade to choke this slimy monster of Anarchy and Free-love, and fling it back into the Pit where it belongs.Long live religion, purity and the flag! Down with Socialism!
SOCIALISM UNVEILED.
The arrest and impending conviction of Gabriel Armstrong, the noted Socialist leader, on a white-slave traffic charge, will do much to set all sane thinkers right in regard to this whole matter of Socialist ethics. Socialists, as we have all heard, contend that their system of thought teaches a high and pure form of morality. How will they square this assertion with the hard, cold facts, as brought to light in this most revolting case?
Much more seems to lie beneath the surface than at first sight appears. Though we desire to suspend judgment until all the data are known, it appears conclusively proved that Armstrong is but one of a band of white-slaversoperating through the organization of, and with the consent of the Socialist party, or at least of its responsible officials.
If this prove to be the case, it will substantiate the suspicion long felt in many quarters that this whole movement, ostensibly political, is really a menace to the moral and social welfare of the nation. A foreign importation, openly standing against the home, the family and religion, may well be expected to foster such crimes and to be a "culture-medium" for the growth of such vile microbes as this man Armstrong, and others of his kind.
Turn on the light! Bring the social antiseptics! Let all the facts be established; and when known, if—as we anticipate—they prove this nasty conspiracy, let us make an end, now and forever, to this un-American, immoral and filthy thing, Socialism! To this object this paper now and henceforth pledges its policy; and all decent publications, all citizens who love their country, their God, their homes, their flag, will join with it in a nation-wide crusade to choke this slimy monster of Anarchy and Free-love, and fling it back into the Pit where it belongs.
Long live religion, purity and the flag! Down with Socialism!
Flint regarded this masterpiece with an approving eye. Then, chuckling to himself, he arose and with slow steps advanced toward the dining-room where already Catherine was awaiting him.
"Now," he murmured to himself, and smiled thinly, "now for a little scene with Kate!"
The meal was almost at an end—silently, like all their hours spent together, now—before the old man sprang hiscoup. It was characteristic of him to wait thus, to hold his fire till what he conceived to be the opportune moment; never to act prematurely, under any circumstances whatever.
"By the way, Kate," he remarked, casually, when coffee had been served and he had motioned the butlers out of the room, "by the way, I've been rather badly disappointed, today. Did you know that?"
"No, father," she answered. She never called him "daddy," now. "No, I'm sorry to hear it. What's gone wrong?"
He looked at her a moment before replying, as though to gauge her mind and the effect his announcement might have. Very charming she looked, that evening, in a crêpe de Chine gown with three-quarter lace sleeves and an Oriental girdle—a wonderful Nile-green creation, very simple (she had told herself) yet of staggering cost. A single white rose graced her hair. The low-cut neck of the gown revealed a full, strong bosom. Around her throat she wore a fine gold chain, with a French 20-franc piece and her Vassar Phi Beta Kappa key attached—the only pendants she cared for. The gold coin spoke to her of the land of her far ancestry, a land oft visited byher and greatly loved; the gold key reminded her of college, and high rank taken in studies there.
Old Flint noted some of these details as he sat looking at her across the white and gleaming table, where silver and gold plate, cut glass and flowers and fine Sèvres china all combined to make a picture of splendor such as the average workingman or his wife has never even dreamed of or imagined; a picture the merest commonplace, however, to Flint and Catherine.
"A devilish fine-looking girl!" thought he, eyeing his daughter with approval. "She'd grace any board in the world, whether billionaire's or prince's! Waldron, old man, you'll never be able to thank me sufficiently for what I'm going to do for you tonight—never, that is, unless you help me make the Air Trust the staggering success I think you can, and give me the boost I need to land the whole damned world as my own private property!"
He chuckled dryly to himself, then drew the paper from his pocket.
"Well, father, what's gone wrong?" asked Kale, again. "Your disappointment—what was it?"
She spoke without animation, tonelessly, in a flat, even voice. Since that night when her father had tried to force Waldron upon her, and had taunted her with loving the vagabond (as he said) who had rescued her, something seemed to have been broken, in her manner; some spring of action had snapped; some force was lacking now.
"What's wrong with me?" asked Flint, trying to veil the secret malice and keen satisfaction that underlay his speech. "Oh, just this. You remember about a weekago, when we—ah—had that little talk in the music room—?"
"Don't, father, please!" she begged, raising one strong, brown hand. "Don't bring that up again. It's all over and done with, that matter is. I beg you, don't re-open it!"
"I—you misunderstand me, my dear child," said Flint, trying to smile, but only flashing his gold tooth. "At that time I told you I was looking for, and would reward, if found, the—er—man who had been so brave and quick-witted as to rescue you. You remember?"
"Really, father, I beg you not to—"
"Why not, pray?" requested Flint, gazing at her through his pince-nez. "My intentions, I assure you, were most honest and philanthropic. If I had found him—then—I'd have given him—"
"Oh, but he wouldn't have taken anything, you see!" the girl interrupted, with some spirit. "I told you that, at the time. It's just as true, now. So please, father, let's drop the question altogether."
"I'm sorry not to be able to grant your request, my dear," said the old man, with hidden malice. "But really, this time, you must hear me. My disappointment arises from the fact that I've just discovered the young man's identity, and—"
"You—you have?" Kate exclaimed, grasping the edge of the table with a nervous hand. Her father smiled again, bitterly.
"Yes, I have," said he, with slow emphasis, "and I regret to say, my dear child, that my diagnosis of his character is precisely what I first thought. Any interest you may feel in that quarter is being applied to a veryunworthy object. The man is one of my discharged employees, a thorough rascal and hard ticket in every way—one of the lowest-bred and most villainous persons yet unhung, I grieve to state. The fact that he carried you in his arms, and that I owe your preservation to him, is one of the bitterest facts in my life. Had it been any other man, no matter of what humble birth—"
"Father!" she cried, bending forward and gazing at him with strange eyes. "Father! By what right and on what authority do you make these accusations? That man, I know, was all that innate gentleness and upright manhood could make any man. His nobility was not of wealth or title, but of—"
"Nonsense!" Flint interrupted. "Nobility, eh? Readthat, will you?"
Leering, despite himself, he handed the paper across the table to his daughter.
"Those marked passages," said he. "And remember, this is only the beginning. Wait till all the facts are known, the whole conspiracy laid bare and everything exposed to public view!Thentell me, if you can, that he is poor but noble! Bah! Sunday-school dope, that! Noble, yes!"
Catherine sat there staring at the paper, a minute, as though quite unable to decipher a word. Through a kind of wavering mist that seemed to swim before her eyes, she vaguely saw the words: "Socialist White Slaver!" but that these bore any relation to the man she remembered, back there at the sugar-house, had not yet occurred to her mind. She simply could not grasp the significance of the glaring headlines. And, turning a blank gaze on her father's face, she stammered:
"Why—why do you give me this? What has this got to do with—me?Withhim?"
"Everything!" snarled the Billionaire, violently irritated by his daughter's seeming obtuseness. "Everything, I tell you! That man, that strong and noble hero of yours, is this man! This white slaver! This wild beast—this Socialist—this Anarchist! Do you understand now, or don't you? Do you grasp the truth at last, or is your mind incapable of apprehending it?"
He had risen, and now was standing there at his side of the table, shaking with violent emotion, his glasses awry, face wrinkled and drawn, hands twitching. His daughter, making no answer to his taunts, sat with the paper spread before her on the table. A wine glass, overset, had spilled a red stain—for all the world like the workers' blood, spilled in war and industry for the greater wealth and glory of the masters—out across the costly damask, but neither she nor Flint paid any heed.
For he was staring only at her; and she, now having mastered herself a little, though her full breast still rose and fell too quickly, was struggling to read the slanderous lies and foul libels of the blue-penciled article.
Silently she read, paling a little but otherwise giving no sign to show her father how the tide of her thought was setting. Twice over she read the article; then, pushing the paper back, looked at old Flint with eyes that seemed to question his very soul—eyes that saw the living truth, below.
"It is a lie!" said she, at last, in a grave, quiet voice.
"What?" blurted the old man. "A—a lie?"
She nodded.
"Yes," said she. "A lie."
Furious, he ripped open the paper, and once more shoved it at her.
"Fool!" cried he. "Readthat!" And his shaking, big-knuckled finger tapped the editorial on "Socialism Unveiled."
"No," she answered, "I need read no more. I know; I understand!"
"You—you knowwhat?" choked Flint. "This is an editorial, I tell you! It represents the best thought and the most careful opinion of the paper. And it condemns this man, absolutely, as a criminal and a menace to society. It denounces him and his whole gang of Socialists or Anarchists or White-slavers—they're all the same thing—as a plague to the world. That's the editor's opinion; and remember, he's on the ground, there. He has all the facts. You—youare at a distance, and have none! Yet you set up your futile, childish opinion—"
"No more, father! No more!" cried Catherine, also standing up. She faced him calmly, coldly, magnificently. "You can't talk to me this way, any more. Cannot, and must not! As I see this thing—and my woman's intuition tells me more in a minute than you can explain away in an hour—this fabrication here has all, or nearly all, been invented and carried out by you. For what reason? This—to discredit this man! To make me hate and loathe him! To force me back to Waldron. To—"
"Stop!" shouted the old man, in a well-assumed passion. "No daughter of mine shall talk to me this way! Silence! It is monstrous and unthinkable. It—it is horrible beyond belief! Silence, I tell you—and—"
"No, father, not silence," she replied, with perfectpoise. "Not silence now, but speech. Either this thing is true or it is false. In either case, I must know the facts. The papers? No truth inthose!The finding of the courts? today, they are a by-word and a mockery! All I can trust is the evidence of my own senses; what I hear, and feel, and see. So then—"
"Then?" gulped the Billionaire, holding the back of his chair in a trembling grasp.
"Just this, father. I'm going to Rochester, myself, to investigate this thing, to see this man, to hear his side of the story, to know—"
"Do that," cried Flint in a terrible voice, "and you never enter these doors again! From the minute you leave Idle Hour on that fool's errand, my daughter is dead to me, forever!"
Swept clean off his feet by rage, as well as by the deadly fear of what might happen if his daughter really were to learn the truth, he had lost his head completely.
With quiet attention, the girl regarded him, then smiled inscrutably.
"So it be," she replied. "Even though you disinherit me or turn me off with a penny, my mind is made up, and my duty's clear.
"While things like these are going on in the world, outside, I have no right to linger and to idle here. I am no child, now; I have been thinking of late, reading, learning. Though I can't see it all clearly, yet, I know that every bite we eat, means deprivation to some other people, somewhere. This light and luxury mean poverty and darkness elsewhere. This fruit, this wine, this very bread is ours because some obscure and unknown men have toiled and sweat and given them to us. Eventhis cut glass on our table—see! What tragedies it could reveal, could it but speak! What tales of coughing, consumptive glass-cutters, bending over wheels, their lungs cut to pieces by the myriad spicules of sharp glass, so that we, we of our class, may enjoy beauty of design and coloring! And the silken gown I wear—that too has cost—"
"No more! No more of this!" gurgled old Flint, now nearly in apoplexy. "I deny you! I repudiate you, Anarchist that you are! Go! Never come back—never, never—!"
Stumbling blindly, he turned and staggered out of the room. She watched him go, nor tried to steady his uncertain steps. In the hallway, outside, she heard him ring for Slawson, heard the valet come, and both of them ascend the stairs.
"Father," she whispered to herself, a look of great and pure spiritual beauty on her noble face, "father, this had to come. Sooner or later, it was inevitable. Whatever you have done, I forgive you, for youaremy father, and have surely acted for what you think my interest.
"But none the less, the end is here and now. Between you and me, a great gulf is fixed. And from tonight I face the world, to battle with it, learn from it, and know the truth in every way. Enough of this false, easy, unnatural life. I cannot live it any longer; it would crush and stifle me! Enough! I must be free, I shall be free, to know, and dare, and do!"
That night, having had no further speech with old Flint, Kate left Idle Hour, taking just a few necessities in a suit-case, and a few dollars for her immediate needs.
Giving no explanation to maid, valet or anyone, she letherself out, walked through the great estate and down Englewood Avenue, to the station, where she caught a train for Jersey City.
The midnight special for Chicago bore her swiftly westward. No sleeping car she took, but passed the night in a seat of an ordinary coach. Her ticket read "Rochester."
The old page of her Book of Life was closed forever. A new and better page was open wide.
True to her plan, Catherine ended her journey at Rochester. She engaged a room at a second-rate hotel—marvelling greatly at the meanness of the accommodations, the like of which she had never seen—and, at ten o'clock of the morning, appeared at the Central Police Station. The bundle of papers in her hand indicated that she had read the latest lies and venom poured out on Gabriel's defenseless head.
The haughty, full-fed sergeant in charge of the station made some objections, at first, to letting her see Gabriel; but the tone of her voice and the level look of her gray eye presently convinced him he was playing with fire, and he gave in. Summoning an officer, he bade the man conduct her. Iron doors opened and closed for her. She was conscious of long, ill-smelling, concrete-floored corridors, with little steel cages at either side—cages where hopeless, sodden wrecks of men were standing, or sitting in attitudes of brutal despair, or lying on foul bunks, motionless and inert as logs.
For a moment her heart failed her.
"Good Lord! Can such things be?" she whispered to herself. "So this—this is a police station? And real jails and penitentiaries are worse? Oh, horrible! I never dreamed of anything like this, or any men like these!"
The officer, stopping at a cell-door and banging thereon with some keys, startled her.
"Here, youse," he addressed the man within, "lady to see youse!"
Catherine was conscious that her heart was pounding hard and her breath coming fast, as she peered in through those cold, harsh metal bars. For a minute she could find no thought, no word. Within, her eyes—still unaccustomed to the gloom—vaguely perceived a man's figure, big and powerful, and different in its bearing from those other cringing wretches she had glimpsed.
Then the man came toward her, stopped, peered and for a second drew back. And then—then she heard his voice, in a kind of startled joy:
"Oh—is it—is ityou?"
"Yes," she answered. "I must see you! I must talk with you, again, and know the truth!"
The officer edged nearer.
"Youse can talk all y' want to," he dictated, hoarsely, "but don't you pass nothin' in. No dope, nor nothin', see? I'll stick around an' watch, anyhow; but don't try to slip him no dream powders or no 'snow.' 'Cause if you do—"
"What—whatonearth are you talking about?" the girl demanded, turning on the officer with absolute astonishment. But he, only winking wisely, repeated:
"You heard me, didn't you? No dope. I'm wise to this whole game."
At a loss for his meaning, yet without any real desire to fathom it, Kate turned back toward Gabriel.
A moment they two looked at each other, each noting any change that might have taken place since that wonderful hour in the sugar-house, each hungering and thirsting for a sight of the other's face. In her heart, already Kate knew as well as she knew she was alive, that this man was totally innocent of the foul charges heaped upon him. And so she looked at him with eyes wherein lay no reproach, no doubt and no suspicion. And, as she looked, tears started, and her heart swelled hotly in her breast; for he was bruised and battered and a helpless captive.
"He, caged like a trapped animal!" her thought was. "He, so strong, and free, and brave! Oh, horrible, horrible!"
He must have read something of this feeling, in her face; for now, coming close to the bars, he said in a low tone:
"Girl—your name I don't know, even yet—girl, you mustn't pity me! That'sonething I can't have. I'm here because the master class is stronger than my class, the working class. Here, because I'm dangerous to that master class. This isn't said to make myself out a martyr. It's only to make you see things right. I'm not complaining at this plight. I've richly earned it—under Capitalism. So, then,that'ssettled.
"And now, what's more important, tell me howyouare! And did your wound cause you much trouble? I confess I've passed many an anxious hour, thinking of your narrow escape and of your injury. It wasn't too bad, was it? Tell me!"
"No," she answered, still holding to the bars, for she somehow felt quite unaccountably weak. "It wasn't very bad. There's hardly any scar at all—or won't be, when it's fully healed. But all this is trifling, compared to whatyou'vesuffered and are suffering. Oh, what a horrible affair! What frightful accusations! Tell me the truth, Boy—how, why could—?"
He looked at her a moment, in silence, noting her splendid hair and eyes and mouth, the firm, well-moulded chin, the confident and self-reliant poise of the shapely head; and as he looked, he knew he loved this woman. He understood, at last, how dear she was to him—dearer than anything else in all the world save just his principles and stern life work. He comprehended the meaning of all, his dreams and visions and long thoughts. And, caring nothing for consequences, unskilled in the finesse of dealing with women, acting wholly on the irresistible impulses of a heart that overflowed, he looked deep into those gray eyes and said in a tone that set her heart-strings vibrating:
"Listen! The truth? How could I tell you anything else? I know not who you are, and care not. That you are rich and powerful and free, while I am poor and in captivity, means nothing. Love cares not for such trifles. It dares all, hopes all, trusts all, believes all—and is patient in adversity."
"Love?" she whispered, her face paling. "How do you dare to—?"
"Dare? Because my heart bids me. And where it bids, I care not for conventions or consequences!" He flung his hand out with a splendid gesture, his head high, his eyes lustrous in the half-light of the cell. "Where it leads, I have to follow. That is why I am a Socialist! That is why I am here, today, outcast and execrated, a prisoner, in danger of long years of living death in the pestilential tomb of some foul penitentiary!"
"You're here because—because you are a Socialist?" she asked.
He nodded.
"Yes," said he. "I tried to help a suffering, outcast woman—or one who posed as such. And she betrayed me to my enemies. And so—"
"Therewasa woman in this affair, then?" Catherine queried with sudden pain. "The newspapers haven't made the storyallup out of whole cloth?"
"No. Therewasa woman. A Delilah, who delivered me into the hands of the Philistines, when I tried to help her in what she lied in telling me was her need. Will you hear the story?"
Still very pale, she formed a half-inarticulate "Yes!" with her full lips. Then, seeming to brace herself by a tighter clasp on the hard steel grating, she listened while he spoke.
Earnestly, honestly and with perfect straightforwardness, omitting nothing, adding nothing, he gave her the narrative of that fatal night's events, from the first moment he had laid eyes on the wonderfully-disguised woman, till her cudgel-blow had laid him senseless on the floor.
He told her the part that every actor therein had played; how the whole drama had been staged, to dishonor and convict him, to railroad him to the Pen for a long term, perhaps to kill him. He spoke in a low voice, to prevent the watching officer from overhearing; and as he talked, he thanked his stars that in all this network of conspiracy and crime against the Party and against himself, his captors had not yet placed him incommunicado. For some reason—perhaps because they thoughttheir case against him absolutely secure and wanted to avoid any appearance of unfairness or of martyrizing him—this restriction had not yet been laid upon him. So now his message of the truth could reach the ears of her who, more than all the world beside, had grown dear to him and precious beyond words.
He told her, then, not only the story of that night, but also all that had since happened—the newspaper attacks on him and on the Party; the deliberate attempt to poison the community and the nation against him; the struggle to fix a foul and lasting blot upon his name, and ruin him beyond redemption.
"And why, all this?" he added, while she—listening so intently that she hardly breathed—knew that he spoke the living, vital truth. "Why this persecution, this plotting, this labor and expense to 'get' me. Do you want to know?"
"Yes, tell me!" she whispered. "I don't understand. I can't! It—it all seems so horrible, so unreal, so—so different from what I've always believed about the majesty and purity of the law! Can these things be, indeed?"
He laughed bitterly.
"Can they?" he repeated. "When you see that theyare, isn't that answer enough? And the reason of it all is that I'm a Socialist and know certain secrets of certain men, which—if I should tell the world—might, nay, surely would precipitate a revolution. So, these men, and the System behind them, have tried to discredit me by this foul charge. After this, if the charge sticks, I may shout my head off, exposing what I know; and who will listen? You know the answer as well as I! Do I complain? No, not once! What I must suffer, for thiswondrous Cause, is not a tenth what thousands suffer every day, in silence and high courage. What has happened to me, personally, is but the merest trifle beside what has already happened to thousands, fighting for life and liberty, for wife and home and children; for the right to work and live like men, not beasts!"
"You mean the—the working class?" she ventured, wonderingly. "Is this outrage really a minor one, compared with what they, who feed and warm and carry the whole world, have to suffer? Tell me, for I—God help me, I am ignorant! I am beginning to see, to half-see, awful, dim, ghostly shapes of huge, unspeakable wrongs. Tell me the truth about all this, as you have told it about yourself—and let me know!"
Then Gabriel talked as never he had talked before. To this, his audience of one, there in the dirty and ill-smelling police station, he unfolded the sad tale of the disinherited, the enslaved, the wretched, as never to a huge, and spell-bound audience in hall or park or city street. His eloquence, always convincing, now became sublime.
With master strokes he painted vast outlines of the whole sad picture—the System based on robbery and fraud and exploitation; its natural results in millionaire and tramp and harlot and degenerate; the crime of armies of unemployed and starving men, of millions of women forced into the factories and shops, there to compete with men and lower wages and lose their finest feminine attributes in the sordid and heartless drudging for a pittance.
He told her of child slavery, and brought before her eyes the pictures he himself had seen, of the pale, stunted little victims of Mammon's greed, toiling by day and night in stifling, dangerous mines; in the Hell-glare ofthe glass-factories; in the hand-bruising, soul-obliterating Inferno of the coal-breakers; in the hot, linty, sickening atmosphere of the southern cotton-mills. And as he talked, she saw for the first time the figures of these bowed and bloodless little boys and girls, giving their lives drop by drop, and cough by cough, thatshemight have purple and fine linen and the rich, soft, easy paths of life.
Then, pausing not, he spoke to her of white slavery, of girls and women by the uncounted thousand forced to barter their own bodies for a mockery of life; and, stinging as a nagaika, he laid the lash of blame on Capitalism, evil cause of an evil and rotten fruit, of disease and crime, and misery, and death. He told her of political corruption beyond belief; of cheating, lying, trickery and greed, for power. Of war, he told her, and made all its inner, hideous motives clear. She seemed verily to see the trenches, the "red rampart's slippery edge," the spattered blood and brains and all the horror of Hell's nethermost infamy—and then the blasted, wrecked and wasted homes, the long trail of mourning and of hopeless ruin—the horror of this crime of crimes, all for profit, all for gold and markets, all for Capitalism!
And then, while the girl stood there listening, spell-bound by her first insight, her first understanding of the true character of this, our striving, slaving world, held by a few for their own inordinate pride and power, the man's voice changed.
With new intonations and a deeper tone, he launched into some outlines of the great hope, the splendid vision, the Wondrous Ideal—Socialism, the world-salvation.
Sentence by sentence, imagery of this vast, noblethought flowed from his inspired lips. Clearly he showed this woman all the causes of the world's travail and pain; and clearly made her see that only in one way, only through the ownership of the world by the world's children as a whole, could peace and justice, life and joy and plenty and the New Time come to pass, dreamed of and yearned for by many sages and prophets, and now close at hand on the very threshold of reality!
Socialism! It leaped from his spirit like a living flame, consuming dross and waste and evil, lighting up the future with its shining beacon, its message of hope to the hopeless, of rest and cheer and peace to all who labored and were heavy laden.
Socialism! The glory of the vision seemed to blind and dazzle Catherine. In its supernal light, things grievous to be understood and borne were now made clear. For the first time in all her life, the woman saw, and knew, and grasped the truths of this strange nexus of conflict, pain and sorrow, that we know as our existence.
"Socialism! The Hope of the World!" Gabriel finished. "And for this, and for what I know about its enemies, I stand here in this cell and may yet go to a living death. This is my crime, and nothing else—this battle for the freedom and the joy of the world—this struggle against the powers of ignorance and darkness, priestcraft and greed, lust, treachery and foulness, cruelty and hate and war! This, and this only. You have heard me. I have spoken!"
He fell silent, crossed his arms upon the bars of thecage that pent him, and laid his head upon them with a motion of weariness.
Something strangely stirred the heart of the woman. Her hand went out and touched his thick, black hair.
"Be of good cheer," she whispered. "Though I am ignorant and do not fully understand, as yet, some glimmer of the light has reached my eyes. I can learn, and Iwilllearn, and dare, and do! All my life I have eaten the bread of this bitter slavery, taken the thing I had no right to take, unknowingly wielded the lash on bleeding backs of men and women and children.
"All my life have I, in ignorance and idleness, done these things. But never shall I do them again. That is all past and gone, an evil dream that is no more. From now, if you will be patient and forgive and teach me, I will stand with you and yours, and glory in the new-found strength and majesty of this supreme ideal!"
He made no answer, save to reach one hand to her, through the bars. Their hands met in a long, clinging tension. The policeman, somewhat down the corridor, moved officiously in their direction.
"Here, now, none o' that!" he blurted. "Break away! An' say, time's up. Yuh stayed too long, miss, as it is!"
Their hands parted. Still Gabriel did not look up.
"Are—are you coming back again?" he asked.
"Yes, Gabriel. Tomorrow."
"And will you tell me then who you are?"
"I'll tell you now, if you want to know."
"I do," he answered, and raised his head. Their eyes met, steadily. "I do, now that you too have seen the light, and that you understand. Tell me, who are you?"
A moment's pause.
Then, facing him, she answered:
"I am Catherine Flint, only daughter of Isaac Flint, the Billionaire!"
Speechless and dazed, Gabriel stared at her as though at some strange apparition.
"Daughter of—of Isaac Flint?" he stammered, clinging to the bars.
"Come, come, lady, yuh can't stay no longer!" the officer again insisted, tapping her on the shoulder. "Yuh'd oughta been out o' here ten minutes ago! No, nuthin' doin'!" he concluded, as she turned to him appealingly. "Not today! Time's up an' more than up!"
Catherine stretched out her hand to Gabriel, in farewell. He took it, silently.
"Good-bye!" said she. "Until I come again, good-bye. Keep up a stout heart, for I am with you. We—wecan'tlose. We shall win—wemustwin! Don't condemn me for being what I am and who I am, Gabriel. Only think what—with your help—I may yet be! And now again, good-bye!"
Their hands parted. Gabriel, still silent, stood there in his cell, watching her till she vanished from his sight down the long corridor of grief and tears. The officer, winking wisely to himself, thrust his tongue into his cheek.
"Daughter of Isaac Flint, th' Billionaire!" he was thinking, with derision. "Oh, yes, billionaires' daughters would be visitin' Socialists an' bums an' red-light con-workers like this geezer. Oh yes, sure, sure they would—I should worry!"
Which mental attitude was fortunate, indeed; for it, and it alone, preserved the girl from a wild blare of newspaper notoriety. Had the truth been known, who could have imagined the results?
For a long time after the girl had departed, Gabriel sat there in his cell, motionless and sunk in deepest thought. His emotions passed recording. That this woman, his ideal, his best-beloved, the cherished, inmost treasure of his heart and soul—she whom he had rescued, she who had lain in his arms and shared with him that unforgettable hour in the old sugar-house—should now prove to be the daughter of his bitterest enemy, surpassed belief and stunned all clear understanding.
Flint! The very name connoted, for Gabriel, all that was cruel and rapacious, hateful, vicious and greedy; all that meant pain and woe and death to him and his class. Visions of West Virginia and Colorado rose before his mind. He heard again the whistle of the "Bull Moose Death Special" as it sped on its swift errand of barbarism up Cabin Creek, hurling its sprays of leaden death among the slaves of this man and his vulturine associates.
Flint! He whispered the name; and now he seemed to see the burning tents at Ludlow; the fleeing women and children, shot down by barbarous thugs and gunmen, ghouls in human form! He saw the pits of death, where the charred bodies of innocent victims of greed and heartless rapacity lay in mute protest under the far Colorado sky. And more he saw, east and west, north and south, of this man's inhuman work; and his thoughts, projectedinto the future, dwelt bitterly on the Air Trust now already under way—the terrible, coming slavery which he, Gabriel, had struggled to checkmate, only to find himself locked like a rat in a steel trap!
"And this woman," he groaned in agony of soul, "this woman, all in all to me, is—ishisdaughter!"
Flinging himself upon his hard and narrow bunk, he buried his head in his powerful arms, and tried to blot out thought from his fevered brain; but still the current ran on and on and on, endlessly, maddeningly. And to the problem, no answer seemed to come.
"She must know who I am," he pondered. "Even if her father has not told her, the papers have. True, she doesn't believe the infamous charge against me; but what then? Can she, on the other hand, believe the truth, that her father has conspired with Slade and those Cosmos thugs, and with the press and courts and the whole damnable prostituted system, to suppress and kill me?
"Can she believe her father guilty of all that? And of all the horrors of this capitalist Hell, that I have told her about? No! Human nature is incapable of such vast turnings from all the habits and environments of a lifetime. In her veins flows the blood of that arch-criminal, Flint. Her thoughts must be, to some extent, his thoughts. She must share his viewpoint, and be loyal to him. After this first flush of reaction against her father, she will go back to him. It is inevitable. Betwixt her and me is fixed a boundless space, wider than Heaven and earth. She is one pole, and I the other. If I have any strength or resolution or philosophy, now is the hour for its trial.
"This woman must be, shall be put away from everythought and wish and hope. And the word FINIS must be written at the end of the one brief chapter where our life-stories seem to have run along together in a false harmony and a fictitious peace!"
Thus pondered Gabriel, in the gloom of his harsh cell, branded with crime and writhing in the agony of soul that only those who love hopelessly can ever know.
And Catherine, what of her? What were her thoughts, emotions, inspirations as—seeming to live in a dream, with Gabriel's eloquence and the new vision of a better, saner, kindlier world shining through her soul—she made her way back to the dingy hotel where now, shabby as it was, she felt she had no right to stay, while others, homeless, walked the brutal streets?
Who shall know them? Who shall tell? A blind man, suddenly made to see, can find no words to express the wonder and bright glory of that sudden sight. A deaf man, regaining his lost sense, cannot describe the sudden burst of sound that fills the new, strange world wherein he finds himself. So, now, this cultured, gently bred woman, for the first time in her life understanding the facts, glimpsing the tragedy and grasping the answer to it all, felt that no words could compass her strange exultation and enlargement.
"It—it's like a chrysalis emerging into the form of a light, swift butterfly!" she pondered, as, back in her room once more, she prepared to write two letters. "Just for the present, I can't understand it all. I don't know, yet, whether I'm worthy to be a Socialist, to be one of that company of earnest, noble men and women striving for life and liberty and joy for all the world. But with the help of the man I trust and honor and believe in,and—and love—perhaps I may yet be. God grant it may be so!"
She thought, a few minutes more, her face lighted by an inner radiance that made its beauty spiritual and pure and calm. Then, having somewhat composed her thoughts, she wrote this letter to Maxim Waldron: