His confidence did not encourage him. Hour by hour the messengers of Curran appeared with the one hopeless phrase: no news. He walked about the park until midnight, and then posted himself in the basement with cigar and journal to while away the long hours. Sinister thoughts troubled him, and painful fancies. He could see the poor lad hiding in the slums, or at the mercy of wretches as vile as Claire; wandering about the city, perhaps, in anguish over his ruined life, horrified at what his friends must read in the morning papers, planning helplessly to escape from a danger which did not exist, exceptin his own mind. Oh, no doubt Curran would find him! Why, hemustfind him!
Across the sea in London, Minister Livingstone slept, full fed with the flatteries of a day, dreaming of the pleasures and honors sure to come with the morning. Down in the prison town lived Honora, with her eyes dulled from watching the jail and her heart sore with longing. For Owen the prison, for Louis the pavement, for Honora and himself the sleepless hours of the aching heart; but for the responsible Minister and his responsible tool sweet sleep, gilded comfort, overwhelming honors. Such things could be only because men of his sort were craven idiots. What a wretched twist in all things human! Why not, if nothing else could be done, go and set fire to Claire's office, the bishop's house, and the Livingstone mansion?
However, joy came at the end of the night, for the messenger brought word that the lad had been found, sound as a bell, having just shipped as a common sailor on an Indiaman. Since Curran could not persuade him to leave his ship, the detective had remained on the vessel to await Arthur's arrival. A cab took him down to the wharf, and a man led him along the dock to the gang-plank, thence across the deck to a space near the forecastle, where Curran sat with Louis in the starlight.
"Then it's all true ... what he has been telling me?" Louis cried as he leaped to his feet and took the hearty grasp of his friend.
"As true as gospel," said Arthur, using Judy's phrase. "Let's get out of this without delay. We can talk about it at home. Curran, do you settle with the captain."
They hurried away to the cab in silence. Before entering Arthur wrung the hand of the detective warmly.
"It would take more than I own to pay you for this night's work, Curran. I want you to know how I feel about it, and when the time comes ask your own reward."
"What you have just said is half of it," the man answered in a strange tone. "When the time comes I shall not be bashful."
"It would have been the greatest blunder of your life," Arthur said, as they drove homeward, "if you had succeeded in getting away. It cannot be denied, Louis, that from five o'clock this afternoon till now you made a fool of yourself. Don't reply. Don't worry about it.Just think of this gold-plate fact: no one knows anything about it. You are supposed to be sleeping sweetly at my house. I settled Claire beautifully. And Sister Magdalen, too. By the way, I must send her word by the cabby ... better let her do penance on her knees till sunrise ... she's praying for you ... but the suspense might kill her ... no, I'll send word. As I was saying, everything is as it was at four o'clock this afternoon."
He chattered for the lad's benefit, noting that at times Louis shivered as with ague, and that his hands were cold. He has tasted calamity, Arthur thought with resignation, and life will never be quite the same thing again. In the comfortable room the marks of suffering became painfully evident. Even joy failed to rouse his old self. Pale, wrinkled like age, shrunken, almost lean, he presented a woful spectacle. Arthur mixed a warm punch for him, and spread a substantial lunch.
"The sauce for this feast," said he, "is not appetite, but this fact: that your troubles are over. Now eat."
Louis made a pretense of eating, and later, under the influence of the punch, found a little appetite. By degrees his mind became clearer as his body rested, the wrinkles began to disappear, his body seemed to fill out while the comfort of the situation invaded him. Arthur, puffing his cigar and describing his interview with Claire, looked so stanch and solid, so sure of himself, so at ease with his neighbors, that one could scarcely fail to catch his happy complaint.
"She has begun her descent into hell," he said placidly, "but since you are with us still, I shall give her plenty of time to make it. What I am surprised at is that you did not understand what my entrance meant. She understood it. She thought Curran was due as her witness of the assault. What surprises me still more is that you so completely forgot my advice: no matter what the trouble and the shame, come straight to me. Here was a grand chance to try it."
"I never thought of this kind of trouble," said Louis dully. "Anyway, I got such a fright that I understood nothing rightly up to midnight. The terrible feeling of public disgrace eat into me. I saw and heard people crying over me as at a funeral, you know that hopeless crying. The road ahead looked to be full of black clouds. I wantedto die. Then I wanted to get away. When I found a ship they took me for a half-drunk sailor, and hustled me into the forecastle in lively shape. When Curran found me and hauled me out of the bunk, I had been asleep enjoying the awfullest dreams. I took him for a trickster, who wanted to get me ashore and jail me. I feel better. I think I can sleep now."
"Experience maybe has given you a better grip on the meaning of that wise advice which I repeat now: no matter what the trouble, come to me."
"I shall come," said the lad with a show of spirit that delighted Arthur. "Even if you should see me hanged the next day."
"That's a fine sentiment to sleep on, so we'll go to bed. However, remind yourself that a little good sense when you resume business ... by the way, it's morning ... no super-sensitiveness, no grieving, for you were straight all through ... go right on as if nothing had happened ... and in fact nothing has happened yet ... I can see that you understand."
They went to bed, and slept comfortably until noon. After breakfast Louis looked passably well, yet miserable enough to make explanations necessary for his alarmed parents. Arthur undertook the disagreeable office, which seemed to him delightful by comparison with that other story of a runaway sonen routein fancied disgrace for India. All's well that ends well. Mary Everard wept with grief, joy, and gratitude, and took her jewel to her arms without complaint or question. The crotchety father was disposed to have it out with either the knaves or the fools in the game, did not Arthur reduce him to quiet by his little indictment.
"There is only one to quarrel with about this sad affair, John Everard," said he smoothly, "and that only one is your friend and well wisher, Quincy Livingstone. I want you to remember that, when we set out to take his scalp. It's a judgment on you that you are the first to suffer directly by this man's plotting. You needn't talk back. The boy is going to be ill, and you'll need all your epithets for your chief and yourself before you see comfort again."
Recalling his son's appearance the father remained silent. Arthur's prevision came true. The physician ordered Louis to bed for an indefinite time, having found him suffering from shock, and threatened with some form of fever. The danger did not daunt his mother. Whatever of suffering yet remained, her boy would endure it in the shelter of her arms.
"If he died this night," she said to Arthur, "I would still thank God that sent him back to die among his own; and after God, you, son dear, who have been more than a brother to him."
Thus the items in his account with kinsman Livingstone kept mounting daily.
Louis kept his bed for some weeks, and suffered a slowconvalescence. Private grief must give way to public necessity. In this case the private grief developed a public necessity. Arthur took pains to tell his story to the leaders. It gave point to the general onslaught now being made on the Irish by the hired journals, the escaped nun, and, as some named him, the escaped historian. A plan was formulated to deal with all three. Grahame entered the lists against Bitterkin and Smallish, Vandervelt denounced theConfessionsand its author at a banquetvis-à-viswith Bradford, and Monsignor pursued the escaped historian by lecturing in the same cities, and often on the same platform. Arthur held to Sister Claire as his specialty, as the hinge of the Livingstone scheme, a very rotten hinge on which to depend. Nevertheless, she kept her footing for months after her interview with him.
Curran had laid bare her life and exposed her present methods nicely; but neither afforded a grip which might shake her, except inasmuch as it gave him an unexpected clue to the Claire labyrinth. Her history showed that she had often played two parts in the same drama. Without doubt a similar trick served her now, not only to indulge her riotous passions, but to glean advantages from her enemies and useful criticism from her friends. He cast about among his casual acquaintance for characters that Claire might play. Edith Conyngham? Not impossible! The Brand who held forth at the gospel hall? Here was a find indeed! Comparing the impressions left upon him by these women, as a result he gave Curran the commission to watch and study the daily living of Edith Conyngham. Even this man's nerve shook at a stroke so luckily apt.
"I don't know much about the ways of escaped nuns," said Arthur, "but I am going to study them. I'll wager you find Claire behind the rusty garments of this obscure, muddy, slimy little woman. They have the same appetite anyway."
This choice bit of news, carried at once to the escaped nun, sounded in Sister Claire's ear like the crack of doom, and she stared at Curran, standing humbly in her office, with distorted face.
"Is this the result of your clever story-telling, Dick Curran?" she gasped.
"It's the result of your affair with young Everard," he replied sadly. "That was a mistake altogether. It waked up Arthur Dillon."
"The mistake was to wake that man," she said sourly. "I fear him. There's something hiding in him, something terrible, that looks out of his eyes like a ghost in hell. The dogs ... Jezebel ... that was his threat ... ugh!"
"He has waked up the whole crowd against you and frightened your friends. If ever he tells the Clan-na-Gael about young Everard, your life won't be worth a pin."
"With you to defend me?" ironically.
"I could only die with you ... against that crowd."
"And you would," she said with conviction, tears in her eyes. "My one friend."
His cheeks flushed and his eyes sparkled at the fervent praise of his fidelity.
"Well, it's all up with me," changing to a mood of gaiety. "The Escaped Nun must escape once more. They will all turn their coldest shoulders to me, absolutely frightened by this Irish crowd, to which we belong after all, Dick. I'm not sorry they can stand up for themselves, are you? So, there's nothing to do but take up the play, and begin work on it in dead earnest."
"It's a bad time," Curran ventured, as she took a manuscript from a desk. "But you know how to manage such things, you are so clever," he hastened to add, catching a fiery glance from her eye. "Only you must go with caution."
"It's a fine play," she said, turning the pages of the manuscript. "Dick, you are little short of a genius. If I had not liked the real play so well, playing to the bigworld this rôle of escaped nun, I would have taken it up long ago. The little stage of the theater is nothing to the grand stage of the world, where a whole nation applauds; and men like the Bishop take it for the real thing, this impersonation of mine. But since I am shut out ... and my curse on this Arthur Dillon ... no, no, I take that back ... he's a fine fellow, working according to his nature ... since he will shut me out I must take to the imitation stage. Ah, but the part is fine! First act: the convent garden, the novice reading her love in the flowers, the hateful old mother superior choking her to get her lover's note from her, the reading of the note, and the dragging of the novice to her prison cell, down in the depths of the earth. How that will draw the tears from the old maids of Methodism all over the country!"
She burst into hearty laughter.
"Second act: the dungeon, the tortures, old superior again, and the hateful hag who is in love with the hero and would like to wreak her jealousy on me, poor thing, all tears and determination. I loathe the two women. I denounce the creed which invents such tortures. I lie down to die in the dungeon while the music moans and the deacons and their families in the audience groan. Don't you think, Dicky dear, I can do the dying act to perfection?"
"On the stage perfectly."
"You're a wretch," she shrieked with sudden rage. "You hint at the night I took a colic and howled for the priest, when you know it was only the whisky and the delirium. How dare you!"
"It slipped on me," he said humbly.
"The third act is simply beautiful: chapel of the convent, a fat priest at the altar, all the nuns gathered about to hear the charges against me, I am brought in bound, pale, starved, but determined; the trial, the sentence, the curse ... oh, that scene is sublime, I can see Booth in it ... pity we can't have him ... then the inrush of my lover, the terror, the shrieks, the confusion, as I am carried off the stage with the curtain going down. At last the serene fourth act: another garden, the villains all punished, my lover's arms about me, and we two reading the flowers as the curtain descends. Well," with a sigh of pleasure,"if that doesn't take among the Methodists and the general public out West and down South, what will?"
"I can see the fire with which you will act it," said Curran eagerly. "You are a born actress. Who but you could play so many parts at once?"
"And yet," she answered dreamily, giving an expressive kick with unconscious grace, "this is what I like best. If it could be introduced into the last act ... but of course the audiences wouldn't tolerate it, dancing. Well," waking up suddenly to business, "are you all ready for thegrand coup—press, manager, all details?"
"Ready long ago."
"Here then is the program, Dicky dear. To-morrow I seek the seclusion of the convent at Park Square—isn'tseclusiongood? To-night letters go out to all my friends, warning them of my utter loneliness, and dread of impending abduction. In two or three days you get a notice in the papers about these letters, and secure interviews with the Bishop if possible, with McMeeter anyway ... oh, he'll begin to howl as soon as he gets his letter. Whenever you think the public interest, or excitement, is at its height, then you bring your little ladder to the convent, and wait outside for a racket which will wake the neighborhood. In the midst of it, as the people are gathering, up with the ladder, and down with me in your triumphant arms. Pity we can't have a calcium light for that scene. If there should be any failure ... of course there can't be ... then a note of warning will reach me, with any instructions you may wish to give me ... to the old address of course."
Both laughed heartily at this allusion.
"It has been great fun," she said, "fooling them all right and left. That Dillon is suspicious though ... fine fellow ... I like him. Dicky, ... you're not jealous. What a wonder you are, dear old faithful Dicky, my playwright, manager, lover, detective, everything to me. Well, run along to your work. We strike for fortune this time—for fortune and for fame. You will not see me again until you carry me down the ladder from the convent window. What a lark! And there's money in it for you and me."
He dared not discourage her, being too completely her slave, like wax in her hands; and he believed, too, that her scheme of advertising the drama ofThe Escaped Nunwould lead to splendid and profitable notoriety. A real escape, from a city convent, before the very eyes of respectable citizens, would ring through the country like an alarm, and set the entire Protestant community in motion. While he feared, he was also dazzled by the brilliancy of the scheme.
It began very well. The journals one morning announced the disappearance of Sister Claire, and described the alarm of her friends at her failure to return. Thereupon McMeeter raised his wonderful voice over the letter sent him on the eve of her flight, and printed the pathetic epistle along with his denunciation of the cowardice which had given her over to her enemies. Later Bishop Bradford, expressing his sympathy in a speech to the Dorcas' Society, referred to the walling up of escaped nuns during the dark ages. A little tide of paragraphs flowed from the papers, plaintively murmuring the one sad strain: the dear sister could not be far distant; she might be in the city, deep in a convent dungeon; she had belonged to the community of the Good Shepherd, whose convent stood in Morris Street, large enough, sufficiently barred with iron to suggest dungeons; the escaped one had often expressed her dread of abduction; the convents ought to be examined suddenly and secretly; and so on without end.
"What is the meaning of it?" said Monsignor. "I thought you had extinguished her, Arthur."
"Another scheme of course. I was too merciful with her, I imagine. All this noise seems to have one aim: to direct attention to these convents. Now if she were hidden in any of them, and a committee should visit that convent and find her forcibly detained, as she would call it; or if she could sound a fire alarm and make a spectacular escape at two in the morning, before the whole world, what could be said about it?"
"Isn't it rather late in history for such things?" said Monsignor.
"A good trick is as good to-day as a thousand years ago. I can picture you explaining to the American citizen, amid the howls of McMeeter and the purring speeches of the Bishop, how Sister Claire came to be in the convent from which her friends rescued her."
"It would be awkward enough I admit. You think,then, that she ... but what could be her motive?"
"Notoriety, and the sympathy of the people. I would like to trip her up in this scheme, and hurl her once for all into the hell which she seems anxious to prepare for other people. You Catholics are altogether too easy with the Claires and the McMeeters. Hence the tears of the Everards."
"We are so used to it," said the priest in apology. "It would be foolish, however, not to heed your warning. Go to the convents of the city from me, and put them on their guard. Let them dismiss all strangers and keep out newcomers until the danger appears to be over."
The most careful search failed to reveal a trace of Sister Claire's hiding-place among the various communities, who were thrown into a fever of dread by the warning. The journals kept up their crescendo of inquiry and information. One must look for that snake, Arthur thought, not with the eyes, but through inspiration. She hid neither in the clouds nor in Arizona, but in the grass at their feet. Seeking for inspiration, he went over the ground a second time with Sister Magdalen, who had lost flesh over the shame of her dealings with Claire, the Everard troubles, and the dread of what was still to come. She burned to atone for her holy indiscretions. The Park Square convent, however, held no strangers. In the home attached to it were many poor women, but all of them known. Edith Conyngham the obscure, the mute, the humble, was just then occupying a room in the place, making a retreat of ten days in charge of Sister Magdalen. At this fact Arthur was seized by his inspiration.
"She must give up her retreat and leave the place," he said quietly, though his pulse was bounding. "Make no objection. It's only a case of being too careful. Leave the whole matter to me. Say nothing to her about it. To-night the good creature will have slipped away without noise, and she can finish her retreat later. It's absurd, but better be absurd than sorry."
And Sister Magdalen, thinking of the long penance she must undergo for her folly, made only a polite objection. He wrote out a note at once in a disguised hand, giving it no signature:
"The game is up. You cannot get out of the convent too quick or too soon. At ten o'clock a cab will be at the southwest corner of Park Square. Take it and drive to the office. Before ten I shall be with you. Don't delay an instant. State prison is in sight. Dillon is on your track."
"At eight o'clock this evening where will Miss Conynghambe, Sister?"
"In her room," said the nun, unhappy over the treatment intended for her client, "preparing her meditation for the morning. She has a great love for meditation on the profound mysteries of religion."
"Glad to know it," he said dryly. "Well, slip this note under her door, make no noise, let no one see you, give her no hint of your presence. Then go to bed and pray for us poor sinners out in the wicked world."
One must do a crazy thing now and then, under cover of the proprieties, if only to test one's sanity. Edith and Claire, as he had suggested to Curran, might be the same person. What if Claire appeared tall, portly, resonant, youthful, abounding in life, while Edith seemed mute, old, thin, feeble? The art of the actor can work miracles in personal appearance. A dual life provided perfect security in carrying out Claire's plans, and it matched the daring of the Escaped Nun to live as Edith in the very hearts of the people she sought to destroy. Good sense opposed his theory of course, but he made out a satisfactory argument for himself. How often had Sister Claire puzzled him by her resemblance to some one whom he could not force out of the shadows of memory! Even now, with the key of the mystery in his hands, he could see no likeness between them. Yet no doubt remained in his mind that a dual life would explain and expose Sister Claire.
That night he sat on the seat of a cab in proper costume, at the southwest corner of Park Square. The convent, diagonally opposite, was dark and silent at nine o'clock; and far in the rear, facing the side street, stood the home of the indigent, whose door would open for the exit of a clever actress at ten o'clock, or, well closed, reproach him for his stupidity. The great front of the convent, dominating the Square, would have been a fine stage for the scene contemplated by Sister Claire, and he laughed at the spectacle of the escaped one leaping from a window into her lover's arms, or sliding down a rope amid the cheers of the mob and the shrieks of the disgraced poor souls within. Then he gritted his teeth at the thought of Louis, and Mary his mother, and Mona his sister. His breath came short. Claire was a woman, but some women are not dishonored by the fate of Jezebel.
Shortly after ten o'clock a small, well-wrapped figure turned the remote corner of the Home, came out to the Square, saw the cab, and coming forward with confidence opened the door and stepped in. As Arthur drove off the blood surged to his head and his heart in a way that made his ears sing. It seemed impossible that the absurd should turn out wisdom at the first jump. As he drove along he wondered over the capacities of art. No two individuals could have been more unlike in essentials than Edith Conyngham and Sister Claire. Now it would appear that high-heeled shoes, padded clothes, heavy eyebrows, paint, a loud and confident voice, a bold manner, and her beautiful costume had made Sister Claire; while shoes without heels, rusty clothes, a gray wig, a weak voice, and timid manner, had given form to Edith Conyngham.
A soul is betrayed by its sins. The common feature of the two characters was the sensuality which, neither in the nun nor in her double, would be repressed or disguised. Looking back, Arthur could see some points of resemblance which might have betrayed the wretch to a clever detective. Well, he would settle all accounts with her presently, and he debated only one point, the flinging of her to the dogs. In twenty minutes they reached the office of the Escaped Nun. He opened the door of the cab and she stepped out nervously, but walked with decision into the building, for which she had the keys.
"Anything more, mum?" he said respectfully.
"Come right in, and light up for me," she said ungraciously, in a towering rage. He found his way to the gas jets and flooded the office with the light from four. She pulled down the curtains, and flung aside her rusty shawl. At the same moment he flung an arm about her, and with his free hand tore the gray wig from her head, and shook free the mass of yellow hair which lay beneath it. Then he flung her limp into the nearest chair, and stood gazing at her, frozen with amaze. She cowered, pale with the sudden fright of the attack. It was not Sister Claire who stood revealed, but the charming and lovely La BelleColette. The next instant he laughed like a hysterical woman.
"By heavens, but thatwasan inspiration!" he exclaimed. "Don't be frightened, beautiful Colette. I was prepared for a tragedy, but this discovery reveals a farce."
Her terror gave way to stupefaction when she recognized him.
"So it's three instead of two," he went on. "The lovely dancer is also the Escaped Nun and the late Edith Conyngham. And Curran knew it of course, who was our detective. That's bad. But Judy Haskell claims you as a goddaughter. You are Curran's wife. You are Sister Magdalen's poor friend. You are Katharine Kerrigan. You are Sister Claire. You are Messalina. La Belle Colette, you are the very devil."
She recovered from her fright at his laugh, in which some amusement tinkled, and also something terrible. They were in a lonely place, he had made the situation, and she felt miserably helpless.
"You need not blame Curran," she said decisively. "He knew the game, but he has no control over me. I want to go home, and I want to know right away your terms. It's all up with me. I confess. But let me know what you are going to do with me."
"Take you home to your husband," said Arthur. "Come."
They drove to the little apartment where Curran lay peacefully sleeping, and where he received his erratic wife with stupor. The three sat down in the parlor to discuss the situation, which was serious enough, though Arthur now professed to take it lightly. Colette stared at him like a fascinated bird and answered his questions humbly.
"It's all very simple," said she. "I am truly Edith Conyngham, and Judy Haskell is my godmother, and I was in a convent out West. I was expelled for a love caper, and came back to my friends much older in appearance than I had need to be. The Escaped-Nun-racket was a money-maker. What I really am, you see. I am the dancer, La Belle Colette. All the rest is disguise."
Curran asked no questions and accepted the situation composedly.
"She is in your hands," he said.
"I place her in yours for the present," Arthur replied,glowering as he thought of Louis. "Detectives will shadow you both until I come to a decision what to do with you. Any move to escape and you will be nipped. Then the law takes its course. As for you, La Belle Colette, say your prayers. I am still tempted to send you after Jezebel."
"You are a terrible man," she whimpered, as he walked out and left them to their sins.
Mayor Birmingham and Grahame, summoned by messengers,met him in the forever-deserted offices of Sister Claire. He made ready for them by turning on all the lights, setting forth a cheerful bottle and some soda from Claire's hidden ice-box, and lighting a cigar. Delight ran through his blood like fire. At last he had his man on the hip, and the vision of that toss which he meant to give him made his body tingle from the roots of his hair to the points of his toes. However, the case was not for him to deal with alone. Birmingham, the man of weight, prudence, fairness, the true leader, really owned the situation. Grahame, experienced journalist, had the right to manage the publicity department of this delicious scandal. His own task would be to hold Claire in the traces, and drive her round the track, show the world her paces, past the judge's stand. Ah, to see the face of the Minister as he read the story of exposure—her exposure and his own shame!
The two men stared at his comfortable attitude in that strange inn, and fairly gasped at the climax of his story.
"The devil's in you. No one but you would have thought out such a scheme," said Grahame, recalling the audacity, the cleverness, the surprises of his friend's career from the California episode to the invasion of Ireland. "Great heavens! but you have the knack of seizing the hinge of things."
"I think we have Livingstone and his enterprise in the proper sort of hole," Arthur answered. "The question is how to use our advantage?"
The young men turned to Birmingham with deference.
"The most thorough way," said the Mayor, after complimenting Arthur on his astonishing success, "would be to hale Claire before the courts for fraud, and subpœna allour distinguished enemies. That course has some disagreeable consequences, however."
"I think we had better keep out of court," Arthur said quickly.
His companions looked surprised at his hesitation. He did not understand it himself. For Edith Conyngham he felt only disgust, and for Sister Claire an amused contempt; but sparkling Colette, so clever, bright, and amiable, so charmingly conscienceless, so gracefully wicked, inspired him with pity almost. He could not crush the pretty reptile, or thrust her into prison.
"Of course I want publicity," he hastened to add, "the very widest, to reach as far as London, and strike the Minister. How can that be got, and keep away from the courts?"
"An investigating committee is what you are thinking of," said the Mayor. "I can call such a body together at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, our most distinguished citizens. They could receive the confession of this woman, and report to the public on her character."
"That's the plan," Arthur interrupted with joy. "Thatmustbe carried out. I'll see that Claire appears before that committee and confesses her frauds. But mark this: on that committee you should have the agents of Livingstone: Bradford, Bitterkin ... I owe him one for his meanness to the Senator ... Smallish in particular, and McMeeter for the fun of the thing."
"Wild horses wouldn't drag them to it," Grahame thought.
"I have something better than wild horses, the proofs of their conspiracy, of their league with this woman," and Arthur pointed to the locked drawers of the office. "How will our minister to England like to have his name connected with this scandal openly. Now, if these people refuse to serve, by heavens, I'll take the whole case to court, and give it an exposure as wide as the earth. If they're agreeable, I'll keep away from the courts, and the rougher part of the scandal."
"There's your weapon," said the Mayor, "the alternative of committee or court. I'll see to that part of the business. Do you get the escaped nun ready for her confession, and I'll guarantee the committee, let us say inside of ten days. Your part, Grahame, will be to write up astory for the morning papers, covering dramatically the details of this very remarkable episode."
They sat long discussing the various features of the scheme.
Next morning Curran and Arthur sat down to talk over the terms of surrender in the detective's house. Colette still kept her bed, distracted with grief, and wild with apprehension over the sensational articles in the morning papers. Curran saw little hope for himself and his wife in the stern face of Dillon.
"At the start I would like to hear your explanation," Arthur began coldly. "You were in my employ and in hers."
"In hers only to hinder what evil I could, and to protect her from herself," the detective answered steadily and frankly. "I make no excuse, because there isn't any to make. But if I didn't live up to my contract with you, I can say honestly that I never betrayed your interest. You can guess the helplessness of a man in my fix. I have no influence over Colette. She played her game against my wish and prayer. Most particular did I warn her against annoying you and yours. I was going to break up her designs on young Everard, when you did it yourself. I hope you——"
In his nervous apprehension for Colette's fate the strong-willed man broke down. He remained silent, struggling for his vanishing self-control.
"I understand, and I excuse you. The position was nasty. I have always trusted you without knowing why exactly," and he reflected a moment on that interesting fact. "You did me unforgettable service in saving Louis Everard."
"How glad I am you remember that service," Curran gasped, like one who grasping at a straw finds it a plank. "I foresaw this moment when I said to you that night, 'I shall not be bashful about reminding you of it and asking a reward at the right time.' I ask it now. For the boy's sake be merciful with her. Don't hand her over to the courts. Deal with her yourself, and I'll help you."
For the boy's sake, for that service so aptly rendered, for the joy it brought and the grief it averted, he could forget justice and crown Colette with diamonds! Currantrembled with eagerness and suspense. He loved her,—this wretch, witch, fiend of a woman!
"The question is, can I deal with her myself? She is intractable."
"You ought to know by this time that she will do anything for you ... and still more when she has to choose between your wish and jail."
"I shall require a good deal of her, not for my own sake, but to undo the evil work——"
"How I have tried to keep her out of that evil work," Curran cried fiercely. "We are bad enough as it is without playing traitors to our own, and throwing mud on holy things. There can be no luck in it, and she knows it. When one gets as low as she has, it's time for the funeral. Hell is more respectable."
Arthur did not understand this feeling in Curran. The man's degradation seemed so complete to him that not even sacrilege could intensify it; yet clearly the hardened sinner saw some depths below his own which excited his horror and loathing.
"If you think I can deal with her, I shall not invoke the aid of the law."
The detective thanked him in a breaking voice. He had enjoyed a very bad night speculating on the probable course of events. Colette came in shortly, and greeted Arthur as brazenly as usual, but with extreme sadness, which became her well; so sweet, so delicate, so fragile, that he felt pleased to have forgiven her so early in the struggle. He had persecuted her, treated her with violence, and printed her history for the scornful pleasure of the world; he had come to offer her the alternative of public shame or public trial and jail; yet she had a patient smile for him, a dignified submission that touched him. After all, he thought with emotion, she is of the same nature with myself; a poor castaway from conventional life playing one part or another by caprice, for gain or sport or notoriety; only the devil has entered into her, while I have been lucky enough to cast my lot with the exorcists of the race. He almost regretted his duty.
"I have taken possession of your office and papers, Colette," said he with the dignity of the master. "I dismissed the office-boy with his wages, and notified theowner that you would need the rooms no more after the end of the month."
"Thanks," she murmured with downcast eyes.
"I am ready now to lay before you the conditions——"
"Are you going to send me to jail?"
"I leave that to you," he answered softly. "You must withdraw your book from circulation. You must get an injunction from the courts to restrain the publishers, if they won't stop printing at your request, and you must bring suit against them for your share of the profits. I want them to be exposed. My lawyer is at your service for such work."
"This for the beginning?" she said in despair.
"You must write for me a confession next, describing your career, and the parts which you played in this city; also naming your accomplices, your supporters, and what money they put up for your enterprise."
"You will find all that in my papers."
"Is Mr. Livingstone's name among your papers?"
"He was the ringleader. Of course."
"Finally you must appear before a committee of gentlemen at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and show how you disguised yourself for the three parts of Edith Conyngham, Sister Claire, and the Brand of the gospel-hall."
She burst out crying then, looking from one man to the other with the tears streaming down her lovely face. Curran squirmed in anguish. Arthur studied her with interest. Who could tell when she was not acting?
"Ah, you wretch! I am bad. Sometimes I can't bear myself. But you are worse, utterly without heart. You think I don't feel my position."
Her sobbing touched him by its pathos and its cleverness.
"You are beyond feeling, but youmusttalk about feeling," was his hard reply. "Probably I shall make you feel before the end of this adventure."
"As if you hadn't done it already," she fairly bawled like a hurt child. "For months I have not left the house without seeing everywhere the dogs that tore Jezebel."
"You might also have seen that poor child whom you nearly drove to death," he retorted, "and the mother whose heart you might have broken."
"Poor child!" she sneered, and burst out laughingwhile the tears still lingered on her cheek. "He was a milksop, not a man. I thought he was a man, or I never would have offered him pleasure. And you want me to make a show of myself before...."
"Your old friends and well-wishers, McMeeter, Bradford and Co."
"Never, never, never," she screamed, and fell to weeping again. "I'll die first."
"You won't be asked to die, madam. You'll go to jail the minute I leave this house, and stand trial on fifty different charges. I'll keep you in jail for the rest of your life. If by any trick you escape me, I'll deliver you to the dogs."
"Can he do this?" she said scornfully to Curran, who nodded.
"And if I agree to it, what do I get?" turning again to Dillon.
"You can live in peace as La Belle Colette the dancer, practise your profession, and enjoy the embraces of your devoted husband. I let you off lightly. Your private life, your stage name, will be kept from the public, and, by consequence, from the dogs."
She shivered at the phrase. Shame was not in her, but fear could grip her heart vigorously. Her nerve did not exclude cowardice. This man she had always feared, perceiving in him not only a strength beyond the common, but a mysterious power not to be analyzed and named. Her flimsy rage would break hopelessly on this rock. Still before surrendering, her crooked nature forced her to the petty arts in which she excelled. Very clearly in this acting appeared the various strokes of character peculiar to Edith, Claire, and the Brand. She wheedled and whined one moment in the husky tones of Sister Magdalen's late favorite; when dignity was required she became the escaped nun; and in her rage she would burst into the melodramatic frenzy dear to the McMeeter audiences; but Colette, the heedless, irresponsible, half-mad butterfly, dominated these various parts, and to this charming personality she returned. Through his own sad experience this spectacle interested him. He subdued her finally by a precise description of consequences.
"You have done the Catholics of this city harm that will last a long time, Colette," said he. "That vile bookof yours ... you ought to be hung for it. It will live to do its miserable work when you are in hell howling. I really don't know why I should be merciful to you. Did you ever show mercy to any one? The court would do this for you and for us: the facts, figures, and personages of your career would be dragged into the light of day ... what a background that would be ... not a bad company either ... not a fact would escape ... you would be painted as you are. I'll not tell you what you are, but I know that you would die of your own colors ... you would go to jail, and rot there ... every time you came out I'd have a new charge on which to send you back. Your infamy would be printed by columns in the papers ... and the dogs would be put on your trail ... ah, there's the rub ... if the law let you go free, what a meal you'd make for the people who think you ought to be torn limb from limb, and who would do it with joy. I really do not understand why I offer you an alternative. Perhaps it's for the sake of this man who loves you ... for the great service he did me."
He paused to decide this point, while she gazed like a fascinated bird.
"What I want is this really," he went on. "I want to let the city see just what tools Livingstone, your employer, is willing to do his dirty work with. I want this committee to assemble with pomp and circumstance ... those are the right words ... and to see you, in your very cleverest way, act the parts through which you fooled the wise. I want them to hear you say in that sweetest of voices, how you lied to them to get their dollars ... how you lied about us, your own people, threw mud on us, as Curran says, to get their dollars ... how your life, and your book, and your lectures, are all lies ... invented and printed because the crowd that devoured them were eager to believe us the horrible creatures you described. When you have done that, you can go free. No one will know your husband, or your name, or your profession. I don't see why you hesitate. I don't know why I should offer you this chance. When Birmingham hears your story he will not approve of my action. But if you agree to follow my directions to the letter I'll promise that the law will not seize you."
What could she do but accept his terms, protesting thatdeath was preferable? The risk of losing her just as the committee would be ready to meet, for her fickleness verged on insanity, he had to accept. He trusted in his own watchfulness, and in the fidelity of Curran to keep her in humor. Even now she forgot her disasters in the memory of her success as an impersonator, and entertained the men with scenes from her masquerade as Edith, Claire, and the Brand. From such a creature, so illy balanced, one might expect anything.
However, by judicious coddling and terrorizing, her courage and spirit were kept alive to the very moment when she stood before Birmingham and his committee, heard her confession of imposture read, signed it with perfect sang-froid, and illustrated for the scandalized members her method of impersonation. So had Arthur worked upon her conceit that she took a real pride in displaying her costumes, and in explaining how skilfully she had led three lives in that city. Grim, bitter, sickened with disappointment, yet masked in smiles, part of the committee watched her performance to the end. They felt the completeness of Arthur's triumph. With the little airs and graces peculiar to a stage artiste, Edith put on the dusty costume of Edith Conyngham, and limped feebly across the floor; then the decorous garments of the Brand, and whispered tenderly in McMeeter's ear; last, the brilliant habit of the escaped nun, the curious eyebrows, the pallid face; curtseying at the close of the performance with her bold eyes on her audience, as if beseeching the merited applause. In the dead silence afterwards, Arthur mercifully led her away.
The journals naturally gave the affair large attention, and the net results were surprisingly fine. The house of cards so lovingly built up by Livingstone and his friends tumbled in a morning never to rise again. All the little plans failed like kites snipped of their tails. Fritters went home, because the public lost interest in his lectures. The book of the escaped nun fell flat and disappeared from the market. McMeeter gave up his scheme of rescuing the inmates of convents and housing them until married. The hired press ignored the Paddies and their island for a whole year. Best of all, suddenly, on the plea of dying among his friends, Ledwith was set free, mainly through the representations of Lord Constantine in London andArthur in Washington. These rebuffs told upon the Minister severely. He knew from whose strong hand they came, and that the same hand would not soon tire of striking.
In the months that followed Anne Dillon lived as nearto perfect felicity as earthly conditions permit. A countess and a lord breathed under her roof, ate at her table, and talked prose and poetry with her as freely as Judy Haskell. The Countess of Skibbereen and Lord Constantine had accompanied the Ledwiths to America, after Owen's liberation from jail, and fallen victims to the wiles of this clever woman. Arthur might look after the insignificant Ledwiths. Anne would have none of them. She belonged henceforth to the nobility. His lordship was bent on utilizing his popularity with the Irish to further the cause of the Anglo-American Alliance. As the friend who had stood by the Fenian prisoners, not only against embittered England, but against indifferent Livingstone, he was welcomed; and if he wanted an alliance, or an heiress, or the freedom of the city, or anything which the Irish could buy for him, he had only to ask in order to receive. Anne sweetly took the responsibility off his shoulders, after he had outlined his plans.
"Leave it all to me," said she. "You shall win the support of all these people without turning your hand over."
"You may be sure she'll do it much better than you will," was the opinion of the Countess, and the young man was of the same mind.
She relied chiefly on Doyle Grahame for one part of her programme, but that effervescent youth had fallen into a state of discouragement which threatened to leave him quite useless. He shook his head to her demand for a column in next morning'sHerald.
"Same old story ... the Countess and you ... lovely costumes ... visits ... it won't go. The editors are wondering why there's so much of you."
"Hasn't it all been good?"
"Of course, or it would not have been printed. But there must come an end sometime. What's your aim anyway?"
"I want a share in making history," she said slyly.
"Take a share in making mine," he answered morosely, and thereupon she landed him.
"Oh, run away with Mona, if you're thinking of marrying."
"Thinking of it! Talking of it! That's as near as I can get to it," he groaned. "John Everard is going to drive a desperate bargain with me. I wrote a book, I helped to expose Edith Conyngham, I drove Fritters out of the country with my ridicule, I shocked Bradford, and silenced McMeeter; and I have failed to move that wretch. All I got out of my labors was permission to sit beside Mona in her own house with her father present."
"You humor the man too much," Anne said with a laugh. "I can twist John Everard about my finger, only——"
"There it is," cried Grahame. "Behold it in its naked simplicity! Only! Well, if anything short of the divine can get around, over, under, through, or by his sweet, little 'only,' he's fit to be the next king of Ireland. What have I not done to do away with it? Once I thought, I hoped, that the invitation to read the poem on the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers, coming as a climax to multitudinous services, would surely have fetched him. Now, with the invitation in my pocket, I'm afraid to mention it. What if he should scorn it?"
"He won't if I say the word. Give me the column to-morrow, and any time I want it for a month or two, and I'll guarantee that John Everard will do the right thing by you."
"You can have the column. What do you want it for?"
"The alliance, of course. I'm in the business of making history, as I told you. Don't open your mouth quite so wide, please. There's to be a meeting of the wise in this house, after a dinner, to express favorable opinions about the alliance. Then in a month or two a distinguished peer, member of the British Cabinet, is coming over to sound the great men on the question.... What are you whistling for?"
"You've got a fine thing, Mrs. Dillon," said he. "By Jove, but I'll help you spread this for all it's worth."
"Understand," she said, tapping the table with emphasis, "the alliance must go through as far as we can make it go. Now, do your best. When you go over to see John Everard next, go with a mind to kill him if he doesn't take your offer to marry his daughter. I'll see to it that the poem on the Pilgrims does the trick for you."
"I'd have killed him long ago, if I thought it worth the trouble," he said.
He felt that the crisis had come for him and Mona. That charming girl, in spite of his entreaties, of his threats to go exploring Africa, remained as rigidly faithful to her ideas of duty as her father to his obstinacy. She would not marry without his consent. With all his confidence in Anne's cleverness, how could he expect her to do the impossible? To change the unchangeable? John Everard showed no sign of the influence which had brought Livingstone to his knees, when Grahame and Mona stood before him, and the lover placed in her father's hands the document of honor.
"Really, this is wonderful," said Everard, impressed to the point of violence. "You are to compose and to read the poem on the Pilgrim Fathers?"
"That's the prize," said Grahame severely. He might be squaring off at this man the next moment, and could not carry his honors lightly. "And now that it has come I want my reward. We must be married two weeks before I read that poem, and the whole world must see and admire the source of my inspiration."
He drew his beloved into his arms and kissed her pale cheek.
"Very well. That will be appropriate," the father said placidly, clearing his throat to read the invitation aloud. He read pompously, quite indifferent to the emotion of his children, proud that they were to be prominent figures in a splendid gathering. They, beatified, pale, unstrung by this calm acceptance of what he had opposed bitterly two years, sat down foolishly, and listened to the pompous utterance of pompous phrases in praise of dead heroes and a living poet. Thought and speech failed together. If only some desperado would break in upon him and try to kill him! if the house would take fire, or a riot begin inthe street! The old man finished his reading, congratulated the poet, blessed the pair in the old-fashioned style, informed his wife of the date of the wedding, and marched off to bed. After pulling at that door for years it was maddening to have the very frame-work come out as if cemented with butter. What an outrage to come prepared for heroic action, and to find the enemy turned friend! Oh, admirable enchantress was this Anne Dillon!
The enchantress, having brought Grahame into line and finally into good humor, took up the more difficult task of muzzling her stubborn son. To win him to the good cause, she had no hope; sufficient, if he could be won to silence while diplomacy shaped the course of destiny.
"Better let me be on that point," Arthur said when she made her attack. "I'm hostile only when disturbed. Lord Conny owns us for the present. I won't say a word to shake his title. Neither will I lift my eyebrows to help this enterprise."
"If you only will keep quiet," she suggested.
"Well, I'm trying to. I'm set against alliance with England, until we have knocked the devil out of her, begging your pardon for my frankness. I must speak plainly now so that we may not fall out afterwards. But I'll be quiet. I'll not say a word to influence a soul. I'll do just as Ledwith does."
He laughed at the light which suddenly shone in her face.
"That's a fair promise," she said smoothly, and fled before he could add conditions.
Her aim and her methods alike remained hidden from him. He knew only that she was leading them all by the nose to some brilliant climax of her own devising. He was willing to be led. The climax turned out to be a dinner. Anne had long ago discovered the secret influence of a fine dinner on the politics of the world. The halo of a saint pales before the golden nimbus which well-fed guests see radiating from their hostess after dinner. A good man may possess a few robust virtues, but the dinner-giver has them all. Therefore, the manager of the alliance gathered about her table one memorable evening the leaders whose good opinion and hearty support Lord Constantine valued in his task of winning the Irish to neutrality or favor for his enterprise. Arthur recognized the climax only when Lord Constantine, after the champagne had sparkled in the glasses, began to explain his dream to Sullivan.
"What do you think of it?" said he.
"It sounds as harmless as a popgun, and looks like a vision. I don't see any details in your scheme," said the blunt leader graciously.
"We can leave the details to the framers of the alliance," said His Lordship, uneasy at Arthur's laugh. "What we want first is a large, generous feeling in its favor, to encourage the leaders."
"Well, in general," said the Boss, "it is a good thing for all countries to live in harmony. When they speak the same language, it's still better. I have no feeling one way or the other. I left Ireland young, and would hardly have remembered I'm Irish but for Livingstone. What do you think of it, Senator?"
"An alliance with England!" cried he with contempt. "Fancy me walking down to a district meeting with such an auctioneer's tag hanging on my back. Why, I'd be sold out on the spot. Those people haven't forgot how they were thrown down and thrown out of Ireland. No, sir. Leave us out of an alliance."
"That's the popular feeling, I think," Sullivan said to His Lordship.
"I can understand the Senator's feelings," the Englishman replied softly. "But if, before the alliance came to pass, the Irish question should be well settled, how would that affect your attitude, Senator?"
"My attitude," replied the Senator, posing as he reflected that a budding statesman made the inquiry, "would be entirely in your favor."
"Thank you. What more could I ask?" Lord Constantine replied with a fierce look at Arthur. "I say myself, until the Irish get their rights, no alliance."
"Then we are with you cordially. We want to do all we can for a man who has been so fair to our people," the Boss remarked with the flush of good wine in his cheek. "Champagne sentiments," murmured Arthur.
Monsignor, prompted by Anne, came to the rescue of the young nobleman.
"There would be a row, if the matter came up for discussion just now," he said. "Ten years hence may see achange. There's one thing in favor of Irish ... well, call it neutrality. Speaking as a churchman, Catholics have a happier lot in English-speaking lands than in other countries. They have the natural opportunity to develop, they are not hampered in speech and action as in Italy and France."
"How good of you to say so," murmured His Lordship.
"Then again," continued Monsignor, with a sly glance at Arthur, "it seems to me inevitable that the English-speaking peoples must come into closer communion, not merely for their own good, or for selfish aims, but to spread among less fortunate nations their fine political principles. There's the force, the strength, of the whole scheme. Put poor Ireland on her feet, and I vote for an alliance."
"Truly, a Daniel come to judgment," murmured Arthur.
"It's a fine view to take of it," the Boss thought.
"Are you afraid to ask Ledwith for an opinion?" Arthur suggested.
"What's he got to do with it?" Everard snapped, unsoftened by the mellow atmosphere of the feast.
"It is no longer a practical question with me," Owen said cheerfully. "I have always said that if the common people of the British Isles got an understanding of each other, and a better liking for each other, the end of oppression would come very soon. They are kept apart by the artificial hindrances raised by the aristocracy of birth and money. The common people easily fraternize, if they are permitted. See them in this country, living, working, intermarrying, side by side."
"How will that sound among the brethren?" said Arthur disappointed.
His mother flashed him a look of triumph, and Lord Constantine looked foolishly happy.
"As the utterance of a maniac, of course. Have they ever regarded me as sane?" he answered easily.
"And what becomes of your dream?" Arthur persisted.
"I have myself become a dream," he answered sadly. "I am passing into the land of dreams, of shadows. My dream was Ireland; a principle that would bring forth itsown flower, fruit, and seed; not a department of an empire. Who knows what is best in this world of change? Some day men may realize the poet's dream: