He used the leisure of the voyage to review recent events,and to measure his own progress. For the first time since his calamity he had lost sight of himself in this poetic enterprise of Ledwith's, successful beyond all expectation. In this life of intrigue against the injustice of power, this endless struggle to shake the grip of the master on the slave, he found an intoxication. Though many plans had come to nothing, and the prison had swallowed a thousand victims, the game was worth the danger and the failure. In the Fenian uprising the proud rulers had lost sleep and comfort, and the world had raised its languid eyes for a moment to study events in Ireland. Even the slave can stir the selfish to interest by a determined blow at his masters. In his former existence very far had been from him this glorious career, though honors lay in wait for an Endicott who took to statecraft. Shallow Horace, sprung from statesman, had found public life a bore. This feeling had saved him perhaps from the fate of Livingstone, who in his snail-shell could see no other America than a monstrous reproduction of Plymouth colony.
He had learned at last that his dear country was made for the human race. God had guided the little ones of the nations, wretched but hardy, to the land, the only land on earth, where dreams so often come true. Like the waves they surged upon the American shore. With ax and shovel and plow, with sweat of labor and pain, they fought the wilderness and bought a foothold in the new commonwealth. What great luck that his exit from the old life should prove to be his entrance into the very heart of a simple multitude flying from the greed and stupidity of the decadent aristocracy of Europe! What fitness that he, child of a race which had triumphantly fought injustice, poverty, Indian, and wilderness, should now be leaderfor a people who had fled from injustice at home only to begin a new struggle with plotters like Livingstone, foolish representative of the caste-system of the old world.
Sonia Westfield, by strange fatality, was aboard with her child and Aunt Lois. Her presence, when first they came face to face, startled him; not the event, but the littleness of the great earth; that his hatred and her crime could not keep them farther apart. The Endicott in him rose up for a moment at the sight of her, and to his horror even sighed for her: this Endicott, who for a twelvemonth had been so submerged under the new personality that Dillon had hardly thought of him. He sighed for her! Her beauty still pinched him, and the memory of the first enchantment had not faded from the mind of the poor ghost. It mouthed in anger at the master who had destroyed it, who mocked at it now bitterly: you are the husband of Sonia Westfield, and the father of her fraudulent child; go to them as you desire. But the phantom fled humiliated, while Dillon remained horror-shaken by that passing fancy of the Endicott to take up the dream of youth again. Could he by any fatality descend to this shame? Her presence did not arouse his anger or his dread, hardly his curiosity. He kept out of her way as much as possible, yet more than once they met; but only at the last did the vague inquiry in her face indicate that memory had impressions of him.
Often he studied her from afar, when she sat deep in thought with her lovely eyes ... how he had loved them ... melting, damnable, false eyes fixed on the sea. He wondered how she bore her misery, of which not a sign showed on the velvet face. Did she rage at the depths of that sea which in an instant had engulfed her fool-husband and his fortune? The same sea now mocked her, laughed at her rage, bearing on its bosom the mystery which she struggled to steal from time. No one could punish this creature like herself. She bore her executioner about with her, Aunt Lois, evidently returning home to die. That death would complete the ruin of Sonia, and over the grave she would learn once for all how well her iniquity had been known, how the lost husband had risen from his darkness to accuse her, how little her latest crime would avail her. What a dull fool Horace Endicott had been over a woman suspected of her own world! Herbeauty would have kept him a fool forever, had she been less beastly in her pleasures. And this Endicott, down in the depths, sighed for her still!
But Arthur Dillon saw her in another light, as an unclean beast from sin's wilderness, in the light that shone from Honora Ledwith. Messalina cowered under the halo of Beatrice! When that light shone full upon her, Sonia looked to his eye like a painted Phryne surprised by the daylight. Her corruption showed through her beauty. Honora! Incomparable woman! dear lady of whiteness! pure heart that shut out earthly love, while God was to be served, or men suffered, or her country bled, or her father lived! The thought of her purified him. He had not truly known his dear mother till now; when he knew her in Honora, in old Martha, in charming Mona, in Mary Everard, in clever Anne Dillon. These women would bless his life hereafter. They refreshed him in mind and heart. It began to dawn upon him that his place in life was fixed, that he would never go back even though he might do so with honor, his shame remaining unknown. It was mere justice that the wretched past should be in a grave, doomed never to see the light of resurrection.
His mother and her party shared the journey with him. The delay of Ledwith's trial had enabled them to make the short tour on the Continent, and catch his steamer. Anne was utterly vexed with him that Ledwith had not escaped the prison. Her plain irritation gave Judy deep content.
"She needs something to pull her down," was her comment to Arthur, "or she'll fly off the earth with the lightness of her head. My, my, but the airs of her since she laid out the ambassador, an' talked to the Pope! She can hardly spake at all now wid the grandher! Whin Father Phil ... I never can call him Mounsinnyory ... an', be the way, for years wasn't I callin' him Morrisania be mistake, an' the dear man never corrected me wanst ... but I learned the difference over in Rome ... where was I?... whin Father Phil kem back from Rome he gev us a grand lecther on what he saw, an' he talked for two hours like an angel. But Anne Dillon can on'y shut her eyes, an' dhrop her head whin ye ask her a single question about it. Faith, I dinno if she'll ever get over it. Isn't that quare now?"
"Very," Arthur answered, "but give her time. So you saw the Pope?"
"Faith, I did, an' it surprised me a gra'dale to find out that he was a dago, God forgi' me for sayin' as much. I was tould be wan o' the Mounsinnyory that he was pure Italian. 'No,' sez I, 'the Pope may be Rooshin or German, though I don't belave he's aither, but he's not Italian. If he wor, he'd have the blessed sinse to hide it, for fear the Irish 'ud lave the Church whin they found it out.'"
"What blood do you think there's in him?" said Arthur.
"He looked so lovely sittin' there whin we wint in that me sivin sinses left me, an' I cudn't rightly mek up me mind afterwards. Thin I was so taken up wid Mrs. Dillon," and Judy laughed softly, "that I was bothered. But I know the Pope's not a dago, anny more than he's a naygur. I put him down in me own mind as a Roman, no more an' no less."
"That's a safe guess," said Arthur; "and you still have the choice of his being a Sicilian, a Venetian, or a Neapolitan."
"Unless," said the old lady cautiously, "he comes of the same stock as Our Lord Himself."
"Which would make him a Jew," Arthur smoothly remarked.
"God forgive ye, Artie! G'long wid ye! If Our Lord was a Jew he was the first an' last an' on'y wan of his kind."
"And that's true too. And how did you come to see the Pope so easy, and it in the summer time?"
The expressive grin covered Judy's face as with comic sunshine.
"I dunno," she answered. "If Anne Dillon made up her mind to be Impress of France, I dunno annythin' nor anny wan that cud hould her back; an' perhaps the on'y thing that kep' her from tryin' to be Impress was that the Frinch had an Impress already. I know they had, because I heard her ladyship lamentin', whin we wor in Paris, that she didn't get a letther of introduction to the Impress from Lady Skibbereen. She had anny number of letthers to the Pope. I suppose that's how we all got in, for I wint too, an' the three of us looked like sisters of mercy, dhressed in black wid veils on our heads. Whin we dhruv up to the palace, her ladyship gev a screech. 'Mother ofheaven,' says she, 'but I forgot me permit, an' we can't get in to see his Holiness.' We sarched all her pockets, but found on'y the square bit o' paper, a milliner's bill, that she tuk for the permit be mistake. 'Well, this'll have to do,' says she. Says I, 'Wud ye insult the Pope be shakin' a milliner's bill in his face as ye go in the dure?' She never answered me, but walked in an' presented her bill to a Mounsinnyory——"
"What's that?" Arthur asked. "I was never in Rome."
"Somethin' like the man that takes the tickets at the theayter, ou'y he's a priest, an' looks like a bishop, but he cuts more capers than ten bishops in wan. He never opened the paper—faith, if he had, there'd be the fine surprise—so we wint in. I knew the Pope the minnit I set eyes on him, the heavenly man. Oh, but I'd like to be as sure o' savin' me soul as that darlin' saint. His eyes looked as if they saw heaven every night an' mornin'. We dhropped on our knees, while the talkin' was goin' on, an' if I wasn't so frikened at bein' near heaven itself, I'd a died listenin' to her ladyship tellin' the Pope in French—in French, d'ye mind?—how much she thought of him an' how much she was goin' to spind on him while she was in Rome. 'God forgive ye, Anne Dillon,' says I to meself, 'but ye might betther spind yer money an' never let an.' She med quite free wid him, an' he talked back like a father, an' blessed us twinty times. I dinno how I wint in or how I kem out. I was like a top, spinnin' an' spinnin'. Things went round all the way home, so that I didn't dar say a word for fear herself might think I had been drinkin'. So that's how we saw the Pope. Ye can see now the terrible determination of Anne Dillon, though she was the weeniest wan o' the family."
In the early morning the steamer entered the lower bay, picking up Doyle Grahame from a tug which had wandered about for hours, not in search of news, but on the scent for beautiful Mona. He routed out the Dillon party in short order.
"What's up?" Arthur asked sleepily. "Are you here as a reporter——"
"As a lover," Grahame corrected, with heaving chest and flashing eyes. "The crowd that will gather to receive you on the dock may have many dignitaries, but I am theonly lover. That's why I am here. If I stayed with the crowd, Everard, who hates me almost, would have taken pains to shut me out from even a plain how-de-do with my goddess."
"I see. It's rather early for a goddess, but no doubt she will oblige. You mentioned a crowd on the dock to receive us. What crowd?"
"Your mother," said Doyle, "is a wonderful woman. I have often speculated on the absence of a like ability in her son."
"Nature is kind. Wait till I'm as old as she is," said the son.
"The crowd awaits her to do her honor. The common travelerswill landthis morning, glad to set foot on solid ground again. Mrs. Montgomery Dillon and her party are the only personages thatwill arrive from Europe. The crowd gathers to meet, not the passengers who merely land, but the personages who arrive from Europe."
"Nice distinction. And who is the crowd?"
"Monsignor O'Donnell——"
"A very old and dear friend——"
"Who hopes to build his cathedral with her help. The Senator——"
"Representing the Dillon clan."
"Who did not dare absent himself, and hopes for more inspiration like that which took him out of the ring and made him a great man. Vandervelt."
"Well, he, of course, is purely disinterested."
"Didn't she inform him of her triumph over Livingstone in London? And isn't he to be the next ambassador, and more power to him?"
"And John Everard of course."
"To greet his daughter, and to prevent your humble servant from kissing the same," and he sighed with pleasure and triumph. "Where is she? Shall I have long to wait? Is she changed?"
"Ask her brother," with a nod for the upper berth where Louis slept serenely.
"And of course you have news?"
"Loads of it. I have arranged for a breakfast and a talk after the arrival is finished. There'll be more to eat than the steak."
The steamer swung to the pier some hours later, andArthur walked ashore to the music of a band which played decorously the popular strains for a popular hero returning crowned with glory. His mother arrived as became the late guest of the Irish nobility. Grahame handed Mona into her father's arms with an exasperating gesture, and then plunged into his note-book, as if he did not care. The surprised passengers wondered what hidden greatness had traveled with them across the sea. On the deck Sonia watched the scene with dull interest, for some one had murmured something about a notorious Fenian getting back home to his kind. Arthur saw her get into a cab with her party a few minutes later and drive away. A sadness fell upon him, the bitterness which follows the fading of our human dreams before the strong light of day.
After the situation had been discussed over the breakfastfor ten minutes Arthur understood the mournful expression of the Senator, whose gaiety lapsed at intervals when bitterness got the better of him.
"The boys—the whole town is raving about you, Artie," said he with pride, "over the way you managed that affair of Ledwith's. There'll be nothing too good for you this year, if you work all the points of the game—if you follow good advice, I mean. You've got Livingstone in a corner. When this cruel war is over, and it is over for the Fenians—they've had enough, God knows—it ought to be commencing for the Honorable Quincy Livingstone."
"You make too much of it, Senator," Grahame responded. "We know what's back of these attacks on you and others. It's this way, Arthur: the Senator and I have been working hard for the American citizens in English jails, Fenians of course, and the Livingstone crowd have hit back at us hard. The Senator, as the biggest man in sight, got hit hardest."
"What they say of me is true, though. That's what hurts."
"Except that they leave out the man whom every one admires for his good sense, generous heart, and great success," Arthur said to console him.
"Of course one doesn't like to have the sins of his youth advertised for two civilizations," Grahame continued. "One must consider the source of this abuse however. They are clever men who write against us, but to know them is not to admire them. Bitterkin of thePosthas his brain, stomach, and heart stowed away in a single sack under his liver, which is very torpid, and his stomach is always sour. His blood is three parts water from the Boyne, his food is English, his clothes are a verybad fit, and his whiskers are so hard they dull the scissors. He loves America when he can forget that Irish and other foreign vermin inhabit it, otherwise he detests it. He loves England until he remembers that he can't live in it. The other fellow, Smallish, writes beautiful English, and lives on the old clothes of the nobility. Now who would mourn over the diatribes of such cats?"
The Senator had to laugh at the description despite his sadness.
"This is only one symptom of the trouble that's brewing. There's no use in hiding the fact that things are looking bad. Since the Fenian scheme went to pieces, the rats have left their holes. The Irish are demoralized everywhere, fighting themselves as usual after a collapse, and their enemies are quoting them against one another. Here in New York the hired bravos of the press are in the pay of the Livingstone crowd, or of the British secret service. What can you expect?"
"How long will it last? What is doing against it?" said Arthur.
"Ask me easier questions. Anyway, I'm only consoling the Senator for the hard knocks he's getting for the sake of old Ireland. Cheer up, Senator."
"Even when Fritters made his bow," said the mournful Senator, "they made game of me," and the tears rose to his eyes. Arthur felt a secret rage at this grief.
"You heard of Fritters?" and Arthur nodded. "He arrived, and the Columbia College crowd started him off with a grand banquet. He's an Oxford historian with a new recipe for cooking history. The Columbia professor who stood sponsor for him at the banquet told the world that Fritters would show how English government worked among the Irish, and how impossible is the Anglo-Saxon idea among peoples in whom barbarism does not die with the appearance and advance of civilization. He touched up the elegant parades and genial shindys of St. Patrick's Day as 'inexplicable dumb shows and noise,'—see Hamlet's address to the players—and hoped the banks of our glorious Hudson would never witness the bloody rows peculiar to the banks of the immortal Boyne. Then he dragged in the Senator."
"What's his little game?" Arthur asked.
"Scientific ridicule ... the press plays to the galleries,and Fritters to the boxes ... it's a part of the general scheme ... I tell you there's going to be fun galore this winter ... and the man in London is at the root of the deviltry."
"What's to be done?"
"If we only knew," the Senator groaned. "If we could only get them under our fists, in a fair and square tussle!"
"I think the hinge of the Livingstone plan is Sister Claire, the escaped nun," Grahame said thoughtfully. "She's the star of the combination, appeals to the true blue church-member with descriptions of the horrors of convents. Her book is out, and you'll find a copy waiting for you at home. Dime novels are prayer-books beside it. French novels are virtuous compared with it. It is raising an awful row. On the strength of it McMeeter has begun an enterprise for the relief of imprisoned nuns—to rescue them—house them for a time, and see them safely married. Sister Claire is to be matron of the house of escaped nuns. No one doubts her experience. Now isn't that McMeeter all over? But see the book, theConfessions of an Escaped Nun."
"You think she's the hinge of the great scheme?"
"She has the public eye and ear," said Grahame, thinking out his own theory as he talked. "Her book is the book of the hour ... reviewed by the press ... the theme of pulpits ... the text of speeches galore ... common workmen thump one another over it at the bench. Now all the others, Bradford, Fritters, the Columbia professors, Bitterkin and his followers, seem to play second to her book. They keep away from her society, yet her strongest backing is from them. You know what I mean. It has occurred to me that if we got her history ... it must be pretty savory ... and printed it ... traced her connection with the Livingstone crowd ... it would be quite a black eye for the Honorable Quincy."
"By George, but you've struck it," cried Arthur waking up to the situation. "If she's the hinge, she's the party to strike at. Tell me, what became of Curran?"
"Lucky thought," shouted Grahame. "He's in town yet. The very man for us."
"I'm going to have it out with Livingstone," saidArthur, with a clear vision of an English prison and the patient woman who watched its walls from a window in the town. "In fact, Imusthave it out with Livingstone. He's good game, and I'd like to bring him back from England in a bag. Perhaps Sister Claire may be able to provide the bag."
"Hands on it," said Grahame, and they touched palms over the table, while the Senator broke into smiles. He had unlimited faith in his nephew.
"Lord Conny gave me an outline of Livingstone's program before I left. He's worried over the effect it's going to have on his alliance scheme, and he cursed the Minister sincerely. He'll help us. Let's begin with Sister Claire in the hope of bagging the whole crowd. Let Curran hunt up her history. Above all let him get evidence that Livingstone provides the money for her enterprise."
Having come to a conclusion on this important matter, they dropped into more personal topics.
"Strangely enough," said Grahame cheerfully, "my own destiny is mixed up with this whole business. The bulwark of Livingstone in one quarter is John Everard. I am wooing, in the hope of winning, my future father-in-law."
"He's very dead," the Senator thought.
"The art of wooing a father-in-law!—what an art!" murmured Grahame. "The mother-in-law is easy. She wishes her daughter married. Papa doesn't. At least in this case, with a girl like Mona."
"Has Everard anything against you?"
"A whole litany of crimes."
"What's wrong with Everard?"
"He was born the night of the first big wind, and he has had it in for the whole world ever since. He's perverse. Nothing but another big wind will turn him round."
Seeing Arthur puzzled over these allusions, Grahame explained.
"Think of such a man having children like the twins, little lumps of sweetness ... like Louis ... heavens! if I live to be the father of such a boy, life will be complete ... like my Mona ... oh!"
He stalked about the room throwing himself into posesof ecstasy and adoration before an imaginary goddess to the delight of the Senator.
"I've been there myself," Arthur commented unmoved. "To the question: how do you hope to woo and win Everard?"
"First, by my book. It's the story of just such a fool as he: a chap who wears the American flag in bed and waves it at his meals, as a nightgown and a napkin; then, he is a religious man of the kind that finds no religion to his liking, and would start one of his own if he thought it would pay; finally, he is a purist in politics, believes in blue glass, drinks ten glasses of filtered water a day, which makes him as blue as the glass, wears paper collars, and won't let his son be a monk because there are too many in the world. Now, Everard will laugh himself weak over this character. He's so perverse that he will never see himself in the mirror which I have provided."
"Rather risky, I should think."
"But that's not all," Grahame went on, "since you are kind enough to listen. I'm going to wave the American flag, eat it, sing it, for the next year, myself. Attend: the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers are going to sit on what is left of Plymouth Rock next spring, and make speeches and read poems, and eat banquets. I am to be invited to sing, to read the poem. Vandervelt is to see to that. Think of it, a wild Irishman, an exile, a conspirator against the British Crown, a subject of the Pope, reading or singing the praises of the pilgrims, the grim pilgrims. Turn in your grave, Cotton Mather, as my melodious verses harrow your ears."
"Will that impress John Everard?"
"Or give him a fatal fit. The book and the poem ought to do the business. He can't resist. 'Never was Everard in this humor wooed, never was Everard in this humor won.' Oh, that Shakespeare had known an Everard, and embalmed him like a fly in the everlasting amber of his verse. But should these things fail, I have another matter. While Everard rips up Church and priest and doctrine at his pleasure, he has one devotion which none may take liberties with. He swears by the nuns. He is foaming at the mouth over the injury and insult offered them by theConfessionsof Sister Claire. We expose this clever woman. Picture me, then, the despisedsuitor, after having pleased him by my book, and astounded him with my poem, and mesmerized him with the exposure of Claire, standing before him with silent lips but eyes speaking: I want your daughter. Can even this perverse man deny me? Don't you think I have a chance?"
"Not with Everard," said the Senator solemnly. "He's simply coke."
"You should write a book, Doyle, on the art of wooing a father-in-law, and explain what you have left out here: how to get away with the dog."
"Before marriage," said the ready wit, "the girl looks after the dog; after marriage the dog can be trained to bite the father-in-law."
Arthur found theConfessions of an Escaped Nuninteresting reading from many points of view, and spent the next three days analyzing the book of the hour. His sympathy for convent life equaled his understanding of it. He had come to understand and like Sister Mary Magdalene, in spite of a prejudice against her costume; but the motive and spirit of the life she led were as yet beyond him. Nevertheless, he could see how earnestly theConfessionslied about what it pretended to expose. The smell of the indecent and venal informer exhaled from the pages. The vital feature, however, lay in the revelation of Sister Claire's character, between the lines. Beneath the vulgarity and obscenity, poorly veiled in a mock-modest verbiage, pulsated a burning sensuality reaching the horror of mania. A well-set trap would have easy work in catching the feet of a woman related to the nymphs. Small wonder that the Livingstone party kept her afar off from their perfumed and reputable society while she did her nasty work. The book must have been oil to that conflagration raging among the Irish. The abuse of the press, the criticism of their friends, the reproaches of their own, the hostility of the government, the rage and grief at the failure of their hopes, the plans to annoy and cripple them, scorched indeed their sensitive natures; but the book of the Escaped Nun, defiling their holy ones so shamelessly, ate like acid into their hearts. Louis came in, when he had completed his analysis of the volume, and begun to think up a plan of action. The lad fingered the book gingerly, and said timidly:
"I'm going to see ... I have an appointment with thisterrible woman for to-morrow afternoon. In fact, I saw her this morning. I went to her office with Sister Mary Magdalen."
"Of course the good Sister has a scheme to convert the poor thing!" Arthur said lightly, concealing his delight and surprise under a pretense of indifference.
"Well, yes," and the lad laughed and blushed. "And she may succeed too. The greater the sin the deeper the repentance. The unfortunate woman——"
"Who is making a fortune on her book by the way——"
"——received us very kindly. Sister Magdalen had been corresponding with her. She wept in admitting that her fall seemed beyond hope. She felt so tangled in her own sins that she knew no way to get out of them. Really, shewasso sincere. When we were leaving she begged me to call again, and as I have to return to the seminary Monday I named to-morrow afternoon."
"You may then have the honor of converting her."
"It would be an honor," Louis replied stoutly.
"Try it," said Arthur after thinking the matter over. "I know what forceyourarguments will have with her. And if you don't object I'll stay ... by the way, where is her office?"
"In a quiet business building on Bleecker Street, near Broadway."
"If you don't mind I'll stay outside in the hall, and rush in to act as altar-boy, when she agrees to 'vert."
"I'm going for all your ridicule, Arthur."
"No objection, but keep a cool head, and bear in mind that I am in the hall outside."
He suspected the motive of Sister Claire, both in making this appointment, and in playing at conversion with Sister Magdalen. Perhaps it might prove the right sort of trap for her cunning feet. He doubted the propriety of exposing Louis to the fangs of the beast, and for a moment he thought to warn him of the danger. But he had no right to interfere in Sister Magdalen's affair, and if a beginning had to be made this adventure could be used effectively. He forgot the affair within the hour, in the business of hunting up Curran.
He had a double reason for seeking the detective. Besides the task of ferreting out the record of Sister Claire, hewished to get news of the Endicotts. Aunt Lois had slipped out of life two days after her return from Europe. The one heart that loved him truly beat for him no more. By this time her vengeance must have fallen, and Sonia, learning the full extent of her punishment, must now be writhing under a second humiliation and disappointment. He did not care to see her anguish, but he did care to hear of the new effort that would undoubtedly be made to find the lost husband. Curran would know. He met him that afternoon on the street near his own house.
"Yes, I'm back in the old business," he said proudly; "the trip home so freshened me that I feel like myself again. Besides, I have my own home, here it is, and my wife lives with me. Perhaps you have heard of her, La Belle Colette."
"And seen her too ... a beautiful and artistic dancer."
"You must come in now and meet her. She is a trifle wild, you know, and once she took to drink; but she's a fine girl, a real good fellow, and worth twenty like me. Come right in, and we'll talk business later."
La Belle Colette! The dancer at a cheap seaside resort! The wild creature who drank and did things! This shrewd, hard fellow, who faced death as others faced a wind, was deeply in love and happy in her companionship. What standard of womanhood and wifehood remained to such men? However, his wonder ceased when he had bowed to La Belle Colette in her own parlor, heard her sweet voice, and looked into the most entrancing eyes ever owned by a woman, soft, fiery, tender, glad, candid eyes. He recalled the dancer, leaping like a flame about the stage. In the plainer home garments he recognized the grace, quickness, and gaiety of the artist. Her charm won him at once, the spell which her rare kind have ever been able to cast about the hearts of men. He understood why the flinty detective should be in love with his wife at times, but not why he should continue in that state. She served them with wine and cigars, rolled a cigarette for herself, chatted with the ease and chumminess of a good fellow, and treated Arthur with tenderness.
"Richard has told me so much of you," she explained.
"I have so admired your exquisite art," he replied, "that we are already friends."
"Que vous êtes bien gentil," she murmured, and her tone would have caressed the wrinkles out of the heart of old age.
"Yes, I'm back at the old game," said Curran, when they got away from pleasantry. "I'm chasing after Tom Jones. It's more desperate than ever. His old aunt died some days back, and left Tom's wife a dollar, and Tom's son another dollar."
"I can fancy her," said Colette with a laugh, "repeating to herself that magic phrase, two dollars, for hours and hours. Hereafter she will get weak at sight of the figure two, and things that go in twos, like married people, she will hate."
"How easy to see that you are French, Colette," said Arthur, as a compliment. She threw him a kiss from her pretty fingers, and gave a sidelong look at Curran.
"There's a devil in her," Arthur thought.
"The will was very correct and very sound," resumed the detective. "No hope in a contest if they thought of such a thing among the West ... the Jones'. The heirs took pity on her, and gave her a lump for consolation. She took it and cursed them for their kindness. Her rage was something to see. She is going to use that lump, somewhere about twenty-five thousand, I think, to find her accursed Tom. How do I know? That's part of the prize for me if I catch up with Tom Jones within three years. And I draw a salary and expenses all the time. You should have seen Mrs. Tom the day I went to see her. Colette," with a smile for his wife, "your worst trouble with a manager was a summer breeze to it. You're a white-winged angel in your tempers compared with Mrs. Tom Jones. Her language concerning the aunt and the vanished nephew was wonderful. I tried to remember it, and I couldn't."
"I can see her, I can feel with her," cried La Belle Colette, jumping to her feet, and rushing through a pantomime of fiendish rage, which made the men laugh to exhaustion. As she sat down she said with emphasis, "She must find him, and through you. I shall help, and so will our friend Dillon. It's an outrage for any man to leave a woman in such a scrape ... for a mere trifle."
"She has her consolations," said the detective; "but the devil in her is not good-natured like the devil in you,Colette. She wants to get hold of Tom and cut him in little bits for what he has made her suffer."
"Did you get out any plans?" said Arthur.
"One. Look for him between here and Boston. That's my wife's idea. Tom Jones was not clever, but she says ... Say it yourself, my dear."
"Rage and disappointment, or any other strong feeling," said the woman sharply, with strong puffs at her cigarette, "turns a fool into a wise man for a minute. It would be just like this fool to have a brilliant interval while he dreamed of murdering his clever wife. Then he hit upon a scheme to cheat the detectives. It's easy, if you know how stupid they are, except Dick. Tom Jones is here, on his own soil. He was not going to run away with a million and try to spend it in the desert of Sahara. He's here, or in Boston, enjoying the sight of his wife stewing in poverty. It would be just like the sneak to do her that turn."
She looked wickedly at Arthur. What a face! Thin, broad, yet finely proportioned, with short, flaxen locks framing it, delicate eyebrows marking the brow and emphasizing the beautiful eyes. A woman to be feared, an evil spirit in some of her moods.
"You tried the same plan," Arthur began——
"But he had no partner to sharpen his wits," she interrupted. Arthur bowed.
"That makes all the difference in the world," he said sincerely. "Let me hope that you will give your husband some hints in a case which I am going to give him."
He described the career of Sister Claire briefly, and expressed the wish to learn as much as possible of her earlier history. The Currans laughed.
"I had that job before," said the detective. "If the Jones case were only half a hundred times harder I might be happy. Her past is unknown except that she has been put out of many convents. I never looked up her birthplace or her relatives. Her name is Kate Kerrigan along with ten other names. She drinks a little, and just now holds a fine stake in New York ... There's the whole of it."
"Not much to build upon, if one wished to worry Claire, or other people."
"Depend upon it," Colette broke in, "that KateKerrigan has a pretty history behind her. I'll bet she was an actress once. I've seen her stage poses ... then her name, catchy ... and the way she rolls her eyes and looks at that congregation of elders, and deacons and female saints, when she sets them shivering over the nastiness that's coming."
Curran glanced at her with a look of inquiry. She sat on the window-sill like a bird, watching the street without, half listening to the men within. Arthur made a close study of the weird creature, sure that a strain of madness ran in her blood. Her looks and acts had the grace of a wild nature, which purrs, and kills, and purrs again. Quiet and dreamy this hour, in her dances she seemed half mad with vitality.
"Tell him what you learned about her," said Curran, and then to Arthur, "She can do a little work herself, and likes it."
"To hunt a poor soul down, never!" she cried. "But when a mean thing is hiding what every one has a right to know, I like to tear the truth out of her ... like your case of Tom Jones. Sister Claire is downright mean. Maybe she can't help it. But I know the nuns, and they're God's own children. She knows it too, but, just for the sake of money, she's lying night and day against them, and against her own conscience. There's a devil in her. I could do a thing like that for deviltry, and I could pull a load of money out of her backers, not for the money, but for deviltry too, to skin a miser like McMeeter, and a dandy like Bradford. And she's just skinning them, to the last cent."
She took a fit of laughing, then, over the embarrassment of Sister Claire's chief supporters.
"Here's what I know about her," she went on. "The museum fakirs are worshiping her as a wonderful success. They seem to feel by instinct that she's one of themselves, but a genius. They have a lot of fairy stories about her, but here's the truth: Bishop Bradford and Erastus McMeeter are her backers. The Bishop plays high society for her, and the bawler looks after the mob. She gets fifty per cent. of everything, and they take all the risks. Her book, I know you read it, chock-full of lies, thrilling lies, for the brothers and the sisters who can't read French novels in public—well, she owns the wholething and gets all the receipts except a beggar's ten per cent., thrown to the publishers ... and they're the crack publishers of the town, the Hoppertons ... but all the same they dassent let their names go on the title-page ... they had that much shame ... so old Johnson, whom nobody knows, is printer and publisher. The book is selling like peanuts. There's more than one way of selling your soul to the devil."
After this surprising remark, uttered without a smile, she looked out of the window sadly, while Curran chuckled with delight.
"It takes the woman to measure the woman," he said. Arthur was delighted at this information.
"I wish you would learn some more about her, Mrs. Curran."
She mimicked the formal name in dumb show.
"Well, La Belle Colette, then," he said laughing. She came over to him and sat on the arm of his chair, her beautiful eyes fixed on his with an expression well understood by both the men.
"You are going to hunt that dreadful creature down," said she. "I won't help you. What do you know about her motives? She may have good reason for playing the part ... she may have suffered?"
"One must protect his own," replied Arthur grimly.
"What are we all but wolves that eat one another?—lambs by day, wolves in the night. We all play our part——"
"All the world's a stage, of course——"
"Even you are playing a part," with sudden violence. "I have studied you, young man, since you came in. Lemme read your palm, and tell you."
She held his hand long, then tossed it aside with petulance, parted his hair and peered into his face, passed her hands lightly over his head for the prominences, dashed unexpected tears from her eyes, and then said with decision:
"There are two of you in there," tapping his chest. "I can't tell why, but I can read, or feel one man, and outside I see another."
"Your instinct is correct," said Arthur seriously. "I have long been aware of the same fact, peculiar and painful. But for a long time the outside man has had theadvantage. Now with regard to this Sister Claire, not to change the subject too suddenly——"
Colette deserted his chair, and went to her husband. She had lost interest in the matter and would not open her lips again. The men discussed the search for Endicott, and the inquiry into the history of Sister Claire, while the dancer grew drowsy after the fashion of a child, her eyes became misty, her red lips pouted, her voice drawled faint and complaining music in whispers, and Curran looked often and long at her while he talked. Arthur went away debating with himself. His mind had developed the habit of reminiscence. Colette reminded him of a face, which he had seen ... no, not a face but a voice ... or was it a manner?... or was it her look, which seemed intimate, as of earlier acquaintance?... what was it? It eluded him however. He felt happy and satisfied, now that he had set Curran on the track of the unclean beast.
Sister Claire sat in her office the next afternoon awaitingLouis as the gorged spider awaits the fly, with desire indeed, but without anxiety. Her office consisted of three rooms, opening into one another within, each connected by doors with the hall without. A solemn youth kept guard in the antechamber, a bilious lad whose feverish imagination enshrined Sister Claire and McMeeter on the same altar, and fed its fires on the promises of the worthy pair some day to send him on a mission as glorious as their own. The furnishings had the severe simplicity of the convent. The brilliant costume of the woman riveted the eye by the very dulness of her surroundings. At close view her beauty seemed more spiritual than in her public appearances. The heavy eyebrows were a blemish indeed, but like a beauty-spot emphasized the melting eyes and the peachy skin.
The creamy habit of the nun and the white coif about her head left only her oval face and her lovely hands visible; but what a revelation were these of loveliness and grace! One glance at her tender face and the little hands would have scattered to the winds the slanders of Colette. Success had thrilled but not coarsened the escaped nun. As Grahame had surmised, she was now the hinge of Livingstone's scheme. The success of her book and the popularity of her lectures, together with her discreet behavior, had given her immense influence with her supporters and with the leaders. Their money poured into her lap. She did not need it while her book sold and her lectures were crowded.
The office saw come and go the most distinguished visitors. Even the English historian did not begin to compare with her in glory, and so far his lectures had not been well attended. Thinking of many things with deeppride, she remembered that adversity had divided the leisure of her table with prosperity. Hence, she could not help wondering how long this fine success would last. Her peculiar fate demanded an end to it sometime. As if in answer to her question, the solemn youth in the antechamber knocked at her door, and announced with decorum Mr. Richard Curran.
"I have made the inquiries you wanted," Curran said, as he took a chair at her bidding. "Young Everard is a special pet of Dillon. This boy is the apple of his eye. And Everard, the father, is an ardent supporter of Livingstone. I think you had better drop this affair, if you would escape a tangle—a nasty tangle."
"If the boy is willing, where's the tangle, Mr. Curran?" she answered placidly.
"Well, you know more about the thing than I can tell you," he said, as if worried. "You know them all. But I can't help warning you against this Dillon. If you lay your hand on anything of his, I'm of opinion that this country will not be big enough for you and him at the same time."
"I shall get him also, and that'll put an end to his enmity. He's a fine fellow. He's on my track, but you'll see how enchantment will put him off it. Now, don't grumble. I'll be as tender and sweet with the boy as a siren. You will come in only when I feel that the spell doesn't work. Rely on me to do the prudent thing."
That he did not rely on her his expression showed clearly.
"You have made a great hit in this city, Sister Claire," he began——
"And you think I am about to ruin my chances of a fortune?" she interrupted. "Well, I am willing to take the risk, and you have nothing to say about it. You know your part. Go into the next room, and wait for your cue. I'll bet any sum that you'll never get the cue. If you do, be sure to make a quick entrance."
He looked long at her and sighed, but made no pretense to move. She rose, and pointed to the third room of the suite. Sheepishly, moodily, in silent protest, he obeyed the gesture and went out humbly. Before that look the brave detective surrendered like a slave to his chains. The door had hardly closed behind him, when the office-boy solemnlyannounced Louis, and at a sign from Sister Claire ushered in the friend of Arthur Dillon. She received him with downcast eyes, standing at a little distance. With a whispered welcome and a drooping head, she pointed to a seat. Louis sat down nervous and overawed, wishing that he had never undertaken this impossible and depressing task. Who was he to be dealing with such a character as this dubious and disreputable woman?
"I feared you would not come," she began in a very low tone. "I feared you would misunderstand ... what can one like you understand of sin and misery?... but thank Heaven for your courage ... I may yet owe to you my salvation!"
"I was afraid," said the lad frankly, gladdened by her cunning words. "I don't know of what ... but I suppose it was distrust of myself. If I can be of any service to you how glad I shall be!"
"Oh, you can, you can," she murmured, turning her beautiful eyes on him. Her voice failed her, and she had to struggle with her sobs.
"What do you think I can do for you?" he asked, to relieve the suspense.
"I shall tell you that later," she replied, and almost burst out laughing. "It will be simple and easy for you, but no one else can satisfy me. We are alone. I must tell you my story, that you may be the better able to understand the service which I shall ask of you. It is a short story, but terrible ... especially to one like you ... promise me that you will not shrink, that you will not despise me——"
"I have no right to despise you," said Louis, catching his breath.
She bowed her head to hide a smile, and appeared to be irresolute for a moment. Then with sudden, and even violent, resolve, she drew a chair to his side, and began the history of her wretched career. Her position was such, that to see her face he had to turn his head; but her delicate hands rested on the arm of his chair, clasped now, and again twisted with anguish, and then stretched out with upward palms appealing for pity, or drooping in despair. She could see his profile, and watch the growing uneasiness, the shame of innocence brought face to face with dirt unspeakable, the mortal terror of a pure boy inthe presence of Phryne. With this sport Sister Claire had been long familiar.
Her caressing voice and deep sorrow stripped the tale of half its vileness. At times her voice fell to a breath. Then she bent towards him humbly, and a perfume swept over him like a breeze from the tropics. The tale turned him to stone. Sister Claire undoubtedly drew upon her imagination and her reading for the facts, since it rarely falls to the lot of one woman to sound all the depths of depravity. Louis had little nonsense in his character. At first his horror urged him to fly from the place, but whenever the tale aroused this feeling in him, the cunning creature broke forth into a strain of penitence so sweet and touching that he had not the heart to desert her. At the last she fell upon her knees and buried her face in his lap, crying out:
"If you do not hate me now ... after all this ... then take pity on me."
Arthur sauntered into the hall outside the office of Sister Claire about half-past four. He had forgotten the momentous interview which bid so fair to end in the conversion of the escaped nun; also his declaration to be within hailing distance in case of necessity. In a lucky moment, however, the thought of Sister Mary Magdalen and her rainbow enterprise, so foolish, so incredible, came to his mind, and sent him in haste to the rescue of his friend. Had Louis kept his engagement and received the vows and the confession of the audacious tool of Livingstone? No sound came from the office. It would hardly do for him to make inquiry.
He observed that Sister Claire's office formed a suite of three rooms. The door of the first looked like the main entrance. It had the appearance of use, and within he heard the cough of the solemn office-boy. A faint murmur came from the second room. This must be the private sanctum of the spider; this murmur might be the spider's enchantment over the fly. What should the third room be? The trap? He turned the knob and entered swiftly and silently, much to the detective's surprise and his own.
"I had no idea that door was unlocked," said Curran helplessly.
"Nor I. Who's within? My friend, young Everard?"
"Don't know. She shoved me in here to wait until some visitor departed. Then we are to consider a proposition I made her," said the calm detective.
"So you have made a beginning? That's good. Don't stir. Perhaps it is as well that you are here. Let me discover who is in here with the good sister."
"I can go to the first room, the front office, and inquire," said Curran.
"Never mind."
He could hear no words, only the low tones of the woman speaking; until of a sudden the strong, manly voice of Louis, but subdued by emotion, husky and uncertain, rose in answer to her passionate outburst.
"He's inside ... my young man ... hopes to convert her," Arthur whispered to Curran, and they laughed together in silence. "Now I have my own suspicion as to her motive in luring the boy here. If he goes as he came, why I'm wrong perhaps. If there's a rumpus, I may have her little feet in the right sort of a trap, and so save you labor, and the rest of us money. If anything happens, Curran, leave the situation to me. I'm anxious for a close acquaintance with Sister Claire."
Curran sat as comfortably, to the eye, as if in his own house entertaining his friend Dillon. The latter occasionally made the very natural reflection that this brave and skilful man lay in the trap of just such a creature as Sister Claire. Suddenly there came a burst of sound from the next room, exclamations, the hurrying of feet, the crash of a chair, and the trying of the doors. A frenzied hand shook the knob of the door at which Arthur was looking with a satisfied smile.
"Locked in?" he said to Curran, who nodded in a dazed way.
Then some kind of a struggle began on the other side of that door. Arthur stood there like a cat ready to pounce on the foolish mouse, and the detective glared at him like a surly dog eager to rend him, but afraid. They could hear smothered calls for help in a woman's voice.
"If she knew how near the cat is," Arthur remarked patiently.
At last the key clicked in the lock, the door half opened, and as Arthur pushed it inwards Sister Claire flung herself away from it, and gasped feebly for help. She was hanging like a tiger to Louis, who in a gentle way tried to shake her hands and arms from his neck. The young fellow's face bore the frightful look of a terrified child struggling for life against hopeless odds—mingled despair and pain. Arthur remained quietly in the entrance, and the detective glared over his shoulder warningly at Claire. At sight of the man who stood there, she would have shrieked in her horror and fright, but that sound died away in her throat. She loosened her grip, and stood staring a moment, then swiftly and meaningly began to arrange her disordered clothing. Louis made a dash for the door, seeing only a way of escape and not recognizing his friend. Arthur shook him.
"Ah, you will go converting before your time," he said gayly.
"Oh, Arthur, thank God——" the lad stammered.
"Seize him," Claire began to shriek, very cautiously however. "Hold him, gentlemen. Get the police. He is an emissary of the papists——"
"Let me go," Louis cried in anguish.
"Steady all round," Arthur answered with a laugh. "Sister Claire, if you want the police raise your voice. One harlot more on the Island will not matter. Louis, get your nerve, man. Did I not tell you I would be in the hall? Go home, and leave me to deal with this perfect lady. Look after him," he flung at Curran, and closed the door on them, quite happy at the result of Sister Magdalen's scheme of conversion.
He did not see the gesture from Curran which warned Sister Claire to make terms in a hurry with this dangerous young man. The fury stood at the far end of the office, burning with rage and uncertainty. Having fallen into her own trap, she knew not what to do. The situation had found its master. Arthur Dillon evidently took great pleasure in this climax of her making. He looked at her for a moment as one might at a wild animal of a new species. The room had been darkened so that one could not see distinctly. He knew that trick too. Her beauty improved upon acquaintance. For the second time her face reminded him that they had met before, and heconsidered the point for an instant. What did it matter just then? She had fallen into his hands, and must be disposed of. Pointing to a chair he sat down affably, his manner making his thought quite plain. She remained standing.
"You may be very tired before our little talk is concluded——"
"Am I to receive your insults as well as your agent's?" she interrupted.
"Now, now, Sister Claire, this will never do. You have been acting" ... he looked at his watch ... "since four o'clock. The play is over. We are in real life again. Talk sense. Since Everard failed to convert you, and you to convert Everard, try the arts of Cleopatra on me. Or, let me convince you that you have made a blunder——"
"I do not wish to listen you," she snapped. "I will not be insulted a second time."
"Who could insult the author of theConfessions? You are beyond insult, Claire. I have read your book with the deepest interest. I have read you between every line, which cannot be said of most of your readers. I am not going to waste any words on you. I am going to give you an alternative, which will do duty until I find rope enough to hang you as high as Jack Sheppard. You know what you are, and so do I. The friends of this young man who fell so nicely into your claws will be anxious to keep his adventure with you very quiet."
A light leaped into her eyes. She had feared that outside, in the hall, this man might have his hirelings ready to do her mischief, that some dreadful plot had come to a head which meant her ruin. Light began to dawn upon her. He laughed at her thoughts.
"One does not care to make public an adventure with such a woman as you," said he affably. "A young man like that too. It would be fatal for him. Therefore, you are to say nothing about it. You are not eager to talk about your failure ... Cleopatra blushes for your failure ... but a heedless tongue and a bitter feeling often get the better of sense. If you remain silent, so shall I."
"Very generous," she answered calmly, coming back to her natural coolness and audacity. "As you have all to lose, and I have all to gain by a description of the trap set for me by your unclean emissary, your proposition won'tgo. I shall place the matter before my friends, and before the public, when I find it agreeable."
"When!" he mocked. "You know by this time that you are playing a losing game, Claire. If you don't know it, then you are not smart enough for the game. Apart from that, remember one thing: when you speak I shall whisper the truth to the excitable people whom your dirty book is harrying now."
"I am not afraid of whispers, quite used to them in fact," she drawled, as if mimicking him.
"I see you are not smart enough for the game," and the remark startled her. "You can see no possible results from that whisper. Did you ever hear of Jezebel and her fate? Oh, you recall how the dogs worried her bones, do you? So far your evil work has been confined to glittering generalities. To-day you took a new tack. Now you must answer to me. Let it once become known that you tried to defile the innocent, to work harm to one of mine, and you may suffer the fate of the unclean things to which you belong by nature. The mob kills without delicacy. It will tear you as the dogs tore the painted Jezebel."
"You are threatening me," she stammered with a show of pride.
"No. That would be a waste of time. I am warning you. You have still the form of a woman, therefore I give you a chance. You are at the end of your rope. Stretch it further, and it may become the noose to hang you. You have defiled with your touch one whom I love. He kept his innocence, so I let it pass. But a rat like you must be destroyed. Very soon too. We are not going to stand your abominations, even if men like Livingstone and Bradford encourage you. I am giving you a chance. What do you say? Have I your promise to be silent?"
"You have," she replied brokenly.
He looked at her surprised. The mask of her brazen audacity remained, but some feeling had overpowered her, and she began to weep like any woman in silent humiliation. He left her without a word, knowing enough of her sex to respect this inexplicable grief, and to wait for a more favorable time to improve his acquaintance. "Sonia's mate," he said to himself as he reached the street. The phrase never left him from that day, and became a prophecy of woe afterwards. He writhed ashe saw how nearly the honor and happiness of Louis had fallen into the hands of this wretch. Protected by the great, she could fling her dirt upon the clean, and go unpunished. Sonia's mate! He had punished one creature of her kind, and with God's help he would yet lash the backs of Sister Claire and her supporters.
Curran caught up with him as he turned into Broadway.He had waited to learn if Arthur had any instructions, as he was now to return to Sister Claire's office and explain as he might the astounding appearance of Dillon at a critical moment.
"She's a ripe one," Arthur said, smiling at thought of her collapse, but the next moment he frowned. "She's a devil, Curran, a handsome devil, and we must deal with her accordingly—stamp her out like a snake. Did you notice her?"
"No doubt she's a bad one," Curran answered thickly, but Arthur's bitter words gave him a shiver, and he seemed to choke in his utterance.
"Make any explanation you like, Curran. She will accuse you of letting me in perhaps. It looks like a trap, doesn't it? By the way, what became of the boy?"
"He seemed pretty well broken up," the detective answered, "and sent me off as soon as he learned that I had him in charge. I told him that you had the whole business nicely in hand, and not to worry. He muttered something about going home. Anyway, he would have no more of me, and he went off quite steady, but looking rather queer, I thought."
Arthur, with sudden anxiety, recalled that pitiful, hopeless look of the terrified child in Louis' face. Perhaps he had been too dazed to understand how completely Arthur had rescued him in the nick of time. To the lad's inexperience this cheap attempt of Claire to overcome his innocence by a modified badger game might have the aspect of a tragedy. Moreover, he remained ignorant of the farce into which it had been turned.
"I am sorry you left him," he said, thoughtfully weighing the circumstances. "This creature threatened him,of course, with publicity, an attack on her honor by a papist emissary. He doesn't know how little she would dare such adventure now. He may run away in his fright, thinking that his shame may be printed in the papers, and that the police may be watching for him. Public disgrace means ruin for him, for, as you know, he is studying to be a priest."
"I didn't know," Curran answered stupidly, a greenish pallor spreading over his face. "That kind of work won't bring her much luck."
"It occurs to me now that he was too frightened to understand what my appearance meant, and what your words meant," Arthur resumed. "He may feel an added shame that we know about it. I must find him. Do you go at once to Sister Claire and settle your business with her. Then ride over to the Everards, and tell the lad, if he be there, that I wish to see him at once. If he has not yet got back, leave word with his mother ... keep a straight face while you talk with her ... to send him over to me as soon as he gets home. And tell her that if I meet him before he does get home, that I shall keep him with me all night. Do you see the point? If he has gone off in his fright, we have sixteen hours to find him. No one must know of his trouble, in that house at least, until he is safe. Do you think we can get on his trail right away, Curran?"
"We must," Curran said harshly, "we must. Has he any money?"
"Not enough to carry him far."
"Then ten hours' search ought to capture him."
"Report then to me at my residence within an hour. I have hopes that this search will not be needed, that you will find him at home. But be quicker than ever you were in your life, Curran. I'd go over to Cherry Street myself, but my inquiries would frighten the Everards. There must be no scandal."
Strange that he had not foreseen this possibility. For him the escapade with the escaped nun would have been a joke, and he had not thought how differently Louis must have regarded it. If the lad had really fled, and his friends must learn of it, Sister Claire's share in the matter would have to remain a profound secret. With all their great love for this boy, his clan would rather have seen himborne to the grave than living under the shadow of scandal in connection with this vicious woman. Her perfidy would add disgrace to grief, and deepen their woe beyond time's power to heal.
For with this people the prejudice against impurity was so nobly unreasonable that mere suspicion became equal to crime. This feeling intensified itself in regard to the priesthood. The innocence of Louis would not save him from lifelong reproach should his recent adventure finds its way into the sneering journals. Within the hour Curran, more anxious than Arthur himself, brought word that the lad had not yet reached home. His people were not worried, and promised to send him with speed to Arthur.
"Begin your search then," said Arthur, "and report here every hour. I have an idea he may have gone to see an aunt of his, and I'll go there to find out. What is your plan?"
"He has no money, and he'll want to go as far as he can, and where he won't be easily got at. He'll ship on an Indiaman. I'll set a few men to look after the outgoing ships as a beginning."
"Secrecy above all things, understand," was the last admonition.
Darkness had come on, and the clocks struck the hour of seven as Arthur set out for a visit to Sister Mary Magdalen. Possibly Louis had sought her to tell the story of failure and shame, the sad result of her foolish enterprise; and she had kept him to console him, to put him in shape before his return home, so that none might mark the traces of his frightful emotion. Alas, the good nun had not seen him since their visit to Claire's office in Bleecker Street the day before. He concealed from her the situation.
"How in the name of Heaven," said he, "did you conceive this scheme of converting this woman?"
"She has a soul to be saved, and it's quite saveable," answered the nun tartly. "The more hopeless from man's view, the more likely from God's. I have a taste for hopeless enterprises."
"I wish you had left Louis out of this one," Arthur thought. "But to deal with a wretch like her, so notorious, so fallen," he said aloud, "you must have riskedtoo much. Suppose, after you had entered her office, she had sent for a reporter to see you there, to see you leaving after kissing her, to hear a pretty story of an embassy from the archbishop to coax her back to religion; and the next morning a long account of this attempt on her resolution should appear in the papers? What would your superiors say?"
"That could happen," she admitted with a shiver, "but I had her word that my visit was to be kept a secret."
"Her word!" and he raised his hands.
"Oh, I assure you the affair was arranged beforehand to the smallest detail," she declared. "Of course no one can trust a woman like that absolutely. But, as you see, in this case everything went off smoothly."
"I see indeed," said Arthur too worried to smile.
"I arranged the meeting through Miss Conyngham," the nun continued, "a very clever person for such work. I knew the danger of the enterprise, but the woman has a soul, and I thought if some one had the courage to take her by the hand and lead her out of her wicked life, she might do penance, and even become a saint. She received Miss Conyngham quite nicely indeed; and also my message that a helping hand was ready for her at any moment. She was afraid too of a trap; but at the last she begged to see me, and I went, with the consent of my superior."
"And how did you come to mix Louis up in the thing?"
"He happened to drop in as I was going, and I took him along. He was very much edified, we all were."
"And he has been more edified since," observed Arthur, but the good nun missed the sarcasm.
"She made open confession before the three of us," warming up at the memory of that scene. "With tears in her eyes she described her fall, her present remorse, her despair of the future, and her hope in us. Most remarkable scene I ever witnessed. I arranged for her to call at this convent whenever she could to plan for her return. She may be here any time. Oh, yes, I forgot. The most touching moment of all came at the last. When we were leaving she took Louis' hand, pressed it to her heart, kissed it with respect, and cried out: 'You happy soul, oh, keep the grace of God in your heart, hold to your high vocation through any torment: to lose it, to destroy it, as I destroyed mine, is to open wide the soul to devils.'Wasn't that beautiful now? Then she asked him in the name of God to call on her the next day, and he promised. He may be here to-night to tell me about it."
"You say three. Was Edith Conyngham the third?"
"Oh, no, only a sister of our community."
He burst out laughing at the thought of the fox acting so cleverly before the three geese. Claire must have laughed herself into a fit when they had gone. He had now to put the Sister on her guard at the expense of her self-esteem. He tried to do so gently and considerately, fearing hysterics.
"You put the boy in the grasp of the devil, I fear," he said. "Convert Sister Claire! You would better have turned your prayers on Satan! She got him alone this afternoon in her office, as you permitted, and made him a proposition, which she had in her mind from the minute she first saw him. I arrived in time to give her a shock, and to rescue him. Now we are looking for him to tell him he need not fear Sister Claire's threats to publish how he made an attack upon her virtue."
"I do not quite understand," gasped Sister Magdalen stupefied. What Arthur thought considerate others might have named differently. Exasperation at the downright folly of the scheme, and its threatened results, may have actuated him. His explanation satisfied the nun, and her fine nerve resisted hysterics and tears.
"It is horrible," she said at the last word. "But we acted honestly, and God will not desert us. You will find Louis before morning, and I shall spend the night in prayer until you have found him ... for him and you ... and for that poor wretch, that dreadful woman, more to be pitied than any one."