The architect had a long time to wait in Wheeler's office that morning. The lawyer rarely came in before ten, so the stenographer said, looking suspiciously into the man's white, unshaven face. She knew Hart quite well, and she was wondering what was the matter with him—whether he was in trouble or had been on a spree overnight. He sat in one of the armchairs of the outer office provided for waiting clients, and, absorbed in his own thoughts, stared at the square of green carpet beneath his feet. When Wheeler finally entered, he threw a careless glance at the seated figure and said blankly:—
"Come in here!"
The lawyer opened the door to his little office, where he had confessed many a man, and without a word pointed to a chair beside his littered desk. Then he sat down and waited, examining the architect's face with his dispassionate eyes.
"Everett, I wanted to see you about something," Hart began. Then he stopped as though surprised by his own voice, which sounded far away, unfamiliar, and unused. The lawyer waited a moment for him to continue, and then he asked in his indifferent manner:—
"So you wanted to see me?"
"Yes, I want to tell you something," Jackson began again.
The lawyer wheeled toward his desk, and picked up a little silver letter-opener, which he fingered.
"About that fire?" he asked.
"Yes—that and other things."
Wheeler went to the door, closed it, and returning to his chair, wheeled his face away from his cousin.
"Well, what about it?"
"You know—you saw it in the papers—how the Glenmore burned? It was one of Graves's buildings, and I did the plans for him. Well, the newspapers were right; there was crooked work. The plans were all altered after they had been through the building department. Graves is in with the whole gang over there. He has all the inspectors in his pocket."
Then Hart paused again. He was not saying what he came there to tell. His mind seemed strangely unreliant and confused. While he stumbled, the frown on his cousin's face deepened into an ugly crease between the eyes. It said as plainly as words, "What in hell do you come here for, blabbing this to me?" Jackson, reading the look, caught himself and continued more steadily:—
"But I didn't come here to talk of the fire. It's about the school. Pemberton was right about that. It was crooked, too. I want to tell you what I know about that."
Wheeler put down the letter-opener and rested his chin on the tips of his fingers. The architect told his story slowly, without excitement, trying to give all the details and the exact figures, busying himself with being precise. The matter was complicated, and it led him to speak again of the hotel and of other affairs, of his entire connection with the contractor,—to tell the complete story of his business career in the city. The lawyer did not try to stop him, although his face betrayed no special interest or desire to comment.
"Well, the upshot of the matter is," Hart ended, "that I am through with the whole business, Everett. I am going to get out of it somehow and square what I can. And first, I wanted you to know the truth about the school, and to take this for the trustees."
He laid on the desk a large, fat envelope, which he had filled that morning from his safety deposit box.
"There's about thirty thousand there, in stocks and bonds and some land. I thought I wouldn't wait to put it into cash," he explained. "It's pretty nearly all I have got, Everett. Part of that stock in the Glenmore which Graves gave me represented my legitimate commission on the building, but I have put that in, too. You can force Graves to make good the rest. I can figure out for you what he should pay. And I'll do what I can to help you make him do the right thing. If you can't get hold of Graves, why, I'm ready to give you my personal note for the rest and pay it as soon as I can."
Wheeler poked the envelope on the desk without taking it up.
"Conscience money?" he remarked slowly. "I don't want your wad. I wish you had chucked it in the river, done anything with it but brought it here, fixed that matter up once, didn't I?"
Hart was able to realize the contempt, the ironical humor, with which the lawyer's tone was charged, and his lips tightened. But he made no reply. After the experiences of the last two days he cared little for what his cousin might say or think. In some manner he had passed completely outside of the world where such matters counted. He was for the time dulled to all but a few considerations.
"Say," the lawyer iterated, "I thought we'd closed that little matter for good. But I can tell you there's one person who'll be tickled," he laughed disgustedly. "And that's old Pemberton. He thought you were a scamp from the word go. Now he'll be well set up when the judge tells him this. He'll take an irreligious pleasure in it."
Jackson said nothing, and the two men faced each other sombrely. Finally the lawyer exclaimed:—
"So you lost your nerve!"
It had not presented itself to the architect in that way, and he winced perceptibly as he replied:—
"Well, you can call it that. And I guess that if you had seen those people dropping into that burning building, and known what I knew about the way it was put together— Well, what's the use of talking! I am done with the whole thing—done with it for good."
The lawyer eyed him sharply, unsympathetically, curious, in a cold manner, of the psychology of the man before him. Hart's sturdy body, which was a trifle inclined to fleshiness, seemed to have shrunken and to be loose in his clothes. The bones of his jaw came out heavily in his unshaven face, and below his eyes the skin was black, shading into gray. His tweed office suit was rumpled out of shape, and there were signs of the muddy roads on his trousers and boots. Usually so careful and tidy in dress, he seemed to have lost for once all consciousness of his appearance.
Wheeler had never felt much respect for his cousin as a young man. Then the lawyer considered him to be somewhat "light-weight," given to feminine interests in art and literature, feeling himself to be above his homely American environment. But since their uncle's death Jackson had won his approval by the practical ability he had shown in pushing his way in the Chicago world, in getting together a flourishing business, and making a success of his profession. Now that there was revealed to him the uncertain means by which this outward success had been obtained, he reverted easily to his earlier judgment. The man was really a light-weight, a weakling, he concluded. The lawyer despised weaklings; they made the real troubles in this life. He could not see to its depth the tragedy before him, even as the stern Pemberton might have seen it. He merely saw another nasty mess, a scandal that would probably get about the city, even if his cousin and the contractor escaped the Grand Jury for this Glenmore affair. He had little use for men who went wrong and "lost their nerve."
"Well," he said at last, "you needn't bother about that note just yet. You'll have troubles enough for one while, I expect. I suppose I shall have to take this, though,"—he tapped the fat envelope,—"and lay the matter before the trustees. I'll let you know what they decide to do."
"All right," Hart answered. As he did not rise immediately from his chair, the lawyer turned to his desk with an air of dismissal. When the architect at last got wearily to his feet, Wheeler asked, without looking up:—
"Have you seen that man Graves this morning?"
"No, I went to the bank and then came here the first thing."
"He was in here to see me late yesterday. He seemed afraid that you might split on him in this Glenmore business."
Hart listened, his eyes looking over his cousin's head far out through the office window, his mind concerned with other matters.
"Hadn't you better get out of the city for a few weeks?" the lawyer suggested casually. "Take a vacation. You seem to need a rest, bad. The papers'll quiet down after a while—they always do," he added explanatorily.
As a matter of fact, he had promised the contractor that he would do what he could to keep Hart from making any trouble. It was obviously best for the architect to be out of sight for the present, in some safe place where he could not be got at for awkward explanations.
"I've been thinking of going away for a few days," Jackson replied slowly, a flush spreading over his pallid face. "I'm going on to the Falls to see Helen. But I shan't hide, if that's what you mean. They can find me when they want me. And I shall be back before long, anyway."
Wheeler did not tell him that the coroner had already formed his jury, and that the first inquiry into the Glenmore fire was to begin the next day. If the architect had made up his mind to go to Vermont, it was just as well that he should get away before he could be summoned by the coroner.
"Well," he said, taking another look at his cousin, "whatever you do, get your nerve together. Men like you shouldn't play with fire. They'd better stick to the straight game."
The architect knew well enough what that meant. If he had been some cunning promoter who had had the wit to swindle the public out of any sum of money that ran into the millions, or if he had been some banker who had known how to ruin the credit of an enterprise which he wished to buy cheaply, Wheeler would have extended to him a cynical tolerance, and if his honesty were questioned, would have admitted merely that "there were stories about, of course—there always were stories when a man was smart enough to make some money quick." But, unfortunately, he belonged to the category of unsuccessful, petty criminals, and he "had lost his nerve."
He realized all this, and yet in the wreck which he had made of his life, he was indifferent to the world's injustice. What men thought or said about him had marvellously little importance just now. This crisis had wonderfully simplified life for him; he saw a few things which must be done, and to these he was setting himself with a slow will. His face, as he gazed down at his cousin, held new, grave lines, which gave it a sort of manliness that it had not possessed before.
"You'd better see Graves before you leave, and get together on this thing," Wheeler concluded. "You won't do any good by making a bad matter worse and spreading the stink, you know."
"I can't see any use in talking with Graves," Jackson protested slowly. "I saw him yesterday and told him my views. He made me the treasurer of his company, and I was the architect for the building. If they get me up and ask me questions—why, I shall tell what I know about it. That's all there is to that."
"Well, we'll see about that when the time comes," the lawyer replied, and then asked bluntly:—
"Are you going to tell Helen the whole story, too?"
"Yes. That's why I'm going down there." The architect's face turned red with humiliation for the first time since he had begun his story.
"I suppose she'll have to know," Wheeler admitted softly. "It will cut her pretty deep."
He was wondering whether she could forgive this weak fellow, crawling back to her now, his courage gone, broken for life, as he judged. He suspected that she might pardon him even now, though she had left him inexplicably. She would forgive her husband when he was at the end of his rope; she was made that way. The softness of character in such women irritated him, for the moment. There were other women whom he liked and admired less than her,—Mrs. Phillips was one,—who would not tolerate a flabby sinner like this man. But to Helen, disgrace would make little difference, perhaps would cause her to cling more closely to the dishonored man. And he was sorry for it all, because he loved the woman, and he could feel her tragedy, though he was impervious to the man's.
"Women have bum luck sometimes," he reflected aloud. "They have to take all the man's troubles as well as their own." Then he added not unkindly: "You had better think well what it means to her and to the children before you do anything to make matters worse. I'll keep an eye on what goes on here and let you know if you're needed—if you can do any good."
Neither offered to shake hands, and Hart went out of the office without replying to the last remark. In the vestibule of the building he hesitated a moment, as if to get his bearings, and then slowly walked down the crowded street in the direction of his office. The city sights were curiously foreign to him, as if he had come back to them after a long period of absence. The jostle of human beings on the pavement, the roar of the streets, were like the meaningless gyrations of a machine. With a repugnance that weighted his steps, he turned in at the door of his building and crowded into one of the cages that were swallowing and disgorging their human burdens in the mid-forenoon. In his office there had settled an air of listless idleness, now that Cook, the mainspring of the place, was no longer at his post. Without looking at the accumulated mail on his desk, Hart called the stenographer and dictated to her some instructions for his partner, Stewart, who had just landed in New York on his way home from a vacation in Europe. The girl received his dictation with an offish, impertinent glance in her eyes that said, "Something's wrong with this place, I guess." When the architect had finished, she said:—
"Say, Graves was in here twice this morning and wanted me to let him know as soon as you came in. He wanted to know where you were. What shall I say to him?"
Hart thought a moment before replying. He did not wish to see the contractor,—that was very clear,—and yet he was unwilling to seem to run away, to avoid the man. Moreover, he realized vaguely since his talk with his cousin that there was a certain claim in complicity. There was trouble ahead for them both, surely, and Graves had his right to be considered.
"If Mr. Graves calls, bring him in here," he said to the stenographer, as he turned to his mail.
He had some final matters to attend to, and then he should take the train. If the contractor came back before he got away, he would see him. Half an hour later, while he was still tearing open his letters and jotting notes for the answers, his door opened and Graves walked in. He had less assurance than on the afternoon before; the strain of the situation was beginning to tell even on his coarse fibre.
"So you've come to!" he exclaimed with an attempt to be at his ease, taking a chair beside the desk.
"What do you want?" the architect demanded sharply.
"Say, did you see the papers this morning?" Graves asked, ignoring the question.
Hart shook his head; he had no curiosity to know what the newspapers were saying.
"They're making an awful kick, worse than I expected. It's mostly politics, of course. They've got the mayor on the run already. He's suspended the head of the department, and Bloom was a good friend of mine. That'll scare the rest considerable. And then there's talk of bringing civil suits against the hotel company and the officers individually."
He paused to see what impression this news might make on the architect.
"They can't get much out of me," Hart answered quietly. "I turned over to Wheeler pretty nearly every dollar I have got. That's on account of the school business," he added, thinking the contractor would not comprehend rightly his meaning. "It came out of the school and might as well go back to the trustees."
Graves stared at him in disgust. He had had some idea of forcing the architect to pay part of the expense of "keeping the City Hall quiet." Now the man had outwitted him and put his money beyond his reach.
"So you've seen Mr. Wheeler?"
"Just come from there."
"He told you he'd help us out of this hole?"
"We didn't discuss it."
"I've seen to Meyer myself. He's where he can't do no harm. And I guess it's all right over there,"—he pointed with his thumb in the direction of the city hall,—"though it'll cost a sight of money if those fellers lose their jobs. Now, if we keep quiet, they can't do nothing but bring their suits for damages. I ain't afraid of that."
"I suppose not," Hart replied dryly. "It doesn't touch you. They're all straw names in the corporation papers but mine, aren't they?"
"Just now there's this damned coroner," Graves went on, ignoring the last remark. "The inquest begins to-morrow. He'll try to fix the blame, of course, and hold some one to the Grand Jury. He's got to, to quiet the papers."
"I suppose so," Hart assented wearily.
"But they've got nothing to go on if you only hold your tongue," Graves ripped out incautiously. "And you've got to hold your jaw!"
The man's dictatorial manner angered the architect. He rose hastily from his desk, gathering some papers and putting them into his bag.
"I told you yesterday, Graves, that I would have nothing more to do with you in this Glenmore business. I don't see what you came in here for. Let them go ahead and do what they can. I'll stand for my share of the trouble."
"You—" Graves burst out. "You—"
"I've got an engagement now, Mr. Graves, and there's no use in our talking this matter over any more."
He reached for his coat and hat.
"But I tell you, Hart, that you can't be a quitter in this business. Didn't your cousin tell you that, too?"
"It makes no difference to me what he might say," Hart retorted doggedly, holding open the door into the hall.
"I'll smash you, sure thing, if you do me up in this dirty way!"
The contractor crossed the room to where Hart stood, as if he meant to strike then and there. Hart looked at him indifferently. The man disgusted and irritated him; he wondered how he could ever have submitted himself to him. He held the door open, and Graves passed out into the hall, which was empty.
"I'll smash you!" he repeated, less loudly.
"All right!" the architect muttered. "I guess that won't matter much now."
Graves kept by his side in the elevator, and followed him out into the street.
"Say! Step over to Burke's place with me," he urged in a more conciliatory tone.
"See here!" the architect answered, stopping on the sidewalk. "It's no use talking, Graves, I've done with you and your methods. Can't you see that? I don't intend to get you into trouble if I can help it. But I don't mean to sneak out of this or tell any lies to save your hide. I'm on my way out of the city now, to see my family, and shall be away for a few days. Wheeler knows where I shall be, and he'll let me know when I am wanted. They won't get around to me for some little time yet, probably. If they summon me, why, I suppose I shall come back."
The contractor, hearing that Hart was about to leave the city, felt relieved for the moment. It would be easier to deal with his cousin, the lawyer, who might be able to keep the architect from making a fool of himself. So he walked on with Hart toward the station in a calmer frame of mind. As if he realized the mistake he had made in trying to bully his accomplice, he began to put forward his personal difficulties apologetically.
"This fire has hit me hard. Of course the Glenmore will be a dead loss, and the banks have begun to call my loans. Then it'll take a lot of ready money to keep those fellers over there quiet, in case the Grand Jury takes a hand. I was just getting where I couldn't be touched when this fire came, and now I shall have to begin over pretty nearly. You don't know, Hart, what hard sledding it's been to build up my business with nothing back of me to start on."
The architect realized that Graves was making an appeal to his sympathies, and although the wheedling tone, so unlike the man's usual blustering self-confidence, roused his contempt, he began to see more dispassionately the contractor's point of view. The man was fighting for his life, and there could be nothing reasonable to him in a determination to make a bad matter worse. For no amount of truth now could save those hapless victims of greed who had lost their lives in the wretched building.
"I don't want to ruin my family no more than you do, Mr. Hart," the contractor persisted. "And you can't make me so much trouble as you will yourself. You can see that," he added meaningly.
Hart turned on the man angrily:—
"I have heard about enough, Graves! It's no use your going on. I tell you I mean to come back and stand my share of the trouble—yes—if it breaks me! Do you hear? If it breaks me! Now good day."
The contractor turned away, scowling like a dog that had been kicked into the street. Hart hurried into the station and bought his ticket. He had not looked up his eastern connections, remembering merely that Helen had left Chicago by this road, and he took the first train east in his overwhelming desire to get to her, to tell her all, to submit. And already, as the heavy train moved slowly out of the station, he felt strangely relieved from the perplexities of the morning. The unconscious physical influence of mere motion, of going somewhere, soothed his irritated nerves.
He had been goaded into his final declaration to the contractor, for he had felt the ground slipping from his resolution under the persistent appeals of the man. As the train shot out into the prairie, however, he turned the matter over in his mind again and again, trying to consider it in all its varying aspects. After all, was it necessary that he should come back as he had said in his first singleness of resolution and bring on himself and his family the shame and disgrace of public exposure? He comforted himself with the thought that he had the courage to tell his story, that in leaving the city he was not merely running away to escape the consequences of his connivance with fraud. Yes, he could go back—if it were necessary; but for the time being he put the question out of his mind. While the train moved across the states, his heart grew calmer, stronger; whatever might be the outcome, he knew that his instinct had been right—that he had done well to go first to his wife. Then, whatever might seem best, he could bring himself somehow to do it.
The old Jackson homestead at Vernon Falls was a high, narrow, colonial house with three gables. Upon the broad terrace facing the south side there was a row of graceful, "wineglass" elms. Below the terrace stretched a broad, level meadow, which was marked irregularly by a dark line where a little brook wandered, and beyond the meadow passed the white road to Verulam, the nearest station. From this highway a lane led through copses of alder and birch along the east side of the meadow to the old house, which was withdrawn nearly an eighth of a mile from the public road.
It was an austere, silent, lonely place. Powers Jackson, during the last years of his life, had built a great barn and sheds behind the house with the purpose of making a stock farm, but since his death these had been shut up. He had also built along the terrace a broad veranda, which contrasted strangely with the weather-beaten, hand-made clapboards of the old building. The gaunt, lofty house seemed to be drawing itself away disdainfully from this frivolous addition at its base.
Jackson had often spent his long vacations at the farm with his mother when he was at college. Yet that April afternoon, when he came upon it from the bend in the Verulam road, it seemed to him singularly unreal. His memories of the house and the meadow in front of it had grown and flowered, until in his imagination it had become a spot of tender, aristocratic grace, a harmony of swaying elm branches and turfy lawn, lichened stone walls and marvellous gray clapboards. To-day it rose bare and severe across the brown meadow, unrelieved by the leafless branches of the elms that crisscrossed the south front. The slanting sun struck the little panes of the upper windows, and made them blaze with a mysterious, intensely yellow fire. Involuntarily his pace slackened as he turned from the highroad into the lane. The place appeared strangely silent, deserted. Was Helen there in the old house? Could she understand? Could she forgive him? ...
The northern spring had barely begun. It was cold, grudging, tentative, scarcely touching the brown meadow with faint green. Hiding its charm, like the delicate first bloom of Puritan women, it gave an uncertain promise of future performance—of a hidden, reticent beauty.
Jackson lingered in the lane, watching the sun fade from the window panes, until the air suddenly became chill and the scene was blank. Then, as he stepped on toward the house, he caught sight of a woman's figure stooping in the thicket beside the road. His heart began suddenly to beat, telling him, almost before his eyes had recognized the bent figure, that this was his wife. She looked up at last, and seeing him coming toward her, rose and stood there, her hands filled with the tendrils of some plant that she had been plucking up by its roots, her face troubled and disturbed.
"Nell!" he called as he came nearer, "Nell!"
And then he stopped, baffled. For long hours on the train he had thought what he should say when he met her, but now his premeditated words seemed to him futile. He saw the gulf that might lie between them forever, and he looked hesitatingly into her troubled face. She was wonderfully, newly beautiful. Her hair was parted in the middle and rippled loosely over the temples to the ears, in the way she had worn it as a girl, a fashion which he had laughed her out of. She had grown larger, ampler, these last months, and in her linen dress, with its flat collar revealing the white neck, without ornament of any sort, her features came out strong and distinct. That curve of the upper lip, which had always made the face appealing, no longer trembled at the touch of emotion. There was a repression and mature self-command about her, as if, having been driven back upon her own heart, she had recovered possession of herself once more, and no longer belonged to a man. She was beautiful, wholly woman, and yet to her husband waiting there she seemed to be his no longer.
"Nell," he began once more, still standing at a little distance from her, "I have come here to you, as you said."
Her arms hung limply at her sides, with the trailing plant drooping across her skirt, as though, thus taken by surprise, she were waiting for him to declare himself. He stepped nearer quickly, his heart sick with the fear that, after all, it was too late, that she had passed beyond his reach.
"You know what I mean! I have come to tell you that you were right when you went away. You were right all along, and I have been wrong."
But as he spoke she reached out her arms to him, beseeching him, drawing him to her, in commiseration for him. She put her arms on his shoulders, clasping them behind his neck, thus drawing him and holding him from her at the same time. Her lips trembled, and her breath fluttered as she looked into his eyes....
"Francis! Francis!" she murmured, holding him a little from her when he tried to take her in his arms....
And in her eyes and trembling mouth he knew that she could forgive him; but he felt strangely humble and little beside her. He saw himself in her eyes as he had never seen himself before. Slowly she drew him to her and kissed his lips, tenderly, unpassionately.
"The boys are over there by the brook," she said, nodding across the meadow.
They sat down on the crumbling stone wall to wait for them, and presently, catching sight of their father, they came tumbling over the wall with cries of "Dad, it's dad—he's come!" and together they all went on to the house.
Mrs. Spellman received her son-in-law in her equable, unknowing manner, as if she had expected him to arrive on that day. After supper she took the boys to their room while husband and wife sat in the west parlor, which the architect remembered just as it was this day, with the same faded drab carpet, the brass fire-irons, and worn furniture. The high-backed walnut writing-table stood in its familiar corner beside the window. Outside, a drooping elm branch swept softly across the glass pane. Nothing here was altered, nothing added, save the new lives of the modern generation. They watched the leaping flames lick the fire-eaten bricks of the old fireplace for a time, and then he turned to her with a sigh:—
"Now I must tell you the whole story, Nell."
"Yes," she answered, letting her hand fall softly on his arm. "Tell me everything."
And he began slowly to tell her the story as he had lived through it that night when he lay exhausted on the earth beneath the stars—the story of his work in the city, of the acts which for eight years he had hidden from all, even himself. He explained as well as he could the tangled web of his dealings with the contractor from the day when he had met him in the Canostota until the time of the arrangement over the school and the hotel. When he came to the end, to the horrible fire which had licked up the fraudulent Glenmore before his own eyes, hot tears fell upon his hands, which his wife held tightly in hers, and he could feel her body tremble against his.
"And that was the end! It made me see in one flash what it all meant. Of course, those men and women might have been caught anyway, no matter how well the building was put up,—there's no telling,—and Graves would have done the same job whether I had been in with him or not. Still, that doesn't count. When I saw them there, trapped, fighting helplessly for their lives, I felt as if I had stood by and let them be murdered—and made money by it, too!"
The horror of those minutes revived as he went over the story, and he paused wearily.
"Somehow," he resumed, "it was all of a piece—dirty work. Everything I had touched, pretty nearly, since I had started seemed rotten. It made me sick all over.... Well, that was the end. I went to Everett and tried to square the school matter as well as I could. I gave him all I had made out of it and more,—about every dollar I had. It leaves us where we started. But, Nell, I knew you would want me to do that first before I came here."
It seemed a pitifully trivial act, now that he had told it, yet he was glad that he could give her this proof of his sincerity. She said nothing, but she raised her eyes, still filled with tears, to his face with a calm, answering look.
"It's a bad story, as bad as it could well be," he resumed. "I see it clearly enough now. I wanted uncle's money, wanted the easy time, and the good things, and all that. Then when I didn't get it, I went in to make a big success and have the things I was after, anyhow. I saw men out there no more able than I who were making a lot of money, and nothing seemed to count so long as somehow you made good. I wanted to make good. It was a pretty cheap ambition."
"Yes!" she exclaimed fervently, "cheap! Oh, so cheap!"
Nevertheless she did not despise him as she might have despised him at the time of their marriage for his sordid soul. During these eight months that she had lived by herself she had come to see more justly the causes of things—she had grown wiser. She held him now less rigidly, less remorselessly, to her own ideal of life. For she had begun to understand that the poison which had eaten him was in the air he had breathed; it was the spirit of the city where he worked, of the country, of the day—the spirit of greed. It presented itself to men in the struggle for existence at every turn of the road, insidiously and honorably disguised as ambition and courage. She saw the man's temptation to strive with his competitors, as they strove for the things which they held desirable. And she had come to realize that to stand firmly against this current of the day demanded a heat of nature, a character that the man she had married and worshipped, had never possessed. He was of his time neither better nor worse than his fellows, with their appetite for pleasure, their pride—that ancient childish pride of man in the consideration and envy of his kind....
"So you have it all, and it's bad enough, God knows. Nell, can you ever really forgive it, forget it, and love me again?"
For answer she leaned toward him and kissed him, understandingly. Now that her heart knew him utterly, with all his cowardice and common failings, she might still love him, even foreseeing the faltering and unideal way of his steps, giving him, like many women, her second love, the love that protects in place of the love that adores. And with that kiss there began for her a new marriage with the man she had seen large in her dreams, the man who had been her hero....
The elms swayed softly in the night wind, brushing across the window by their side. The old house was very still with the subdued calm of age, and man and wife sat there together, without words, looking far beyond them toward the future that was to be theirs.
The next day and the next went by in the peace of the old house. Now that the event which had so wholly occupied the man's mind since the night when the Glenmore burned had come about; now that he was here in the old place, and had his wife and children once more, he began to consider personally the wreck of his affairs which had been left behind in Chicago. And he began to ask himself whether, after all, it was necessary for him to return to the city and make public his shame at the hearing before the coroner. He was not clear what service to justice or to the dead who had been sacrificed, as much through the corruption of civic government as by his own wrong-doing, his testimony would accomplish. That it would surely ruin him professionally was beyond the shadow of a doubt. He could picture to himself well enough the ferocious glee with which theThundererwould receive his evidence! Was it necessary to give his wife and his children into the merciless hands of the malicious newspapers?
The evening mail of the second day brought a letter from Wheeler. The coroner's inquest, the lawyer wrote, was likely to drag on for a week or more. The coroner was a Republican, and "had it in for the city administration." He was trying, also, to make all the personal and political capital that he could out of the affair. At present, as Jackson could see from the newspapers, they were engaged in examining minor witnesses,—the servants and employees of the Glenmore, the police and the firemen,—trying to account for the origin of the fire. So the architect could be of no use now, at any rate, and had better stay quietly where he was until the matter took more definite shape. As far as the coroner's inquest was concerned, it was a public farce,—trial by newspaper,—and it would be well to wait and see whether the affair was to reach a responsible court. In the meantime it was understood that he was ill at his summer home. Graves, so Wheeler added, had been in to see him again before he left the city. It was foolish to irritate the contractor and make the matter worse than it was already, etc.
Then Hart opened the bundle of newspapers, and glanced through their padded pages. His eye was caught immediately by an editorial caption:—
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE GLENMORE TRAGEDY?
The article was a sarcastic summary of the results thus far from the inquest, done in theThunderer'sbest manner. So far, the editorial writer pointed out, the inquiry had been confined to examining chambermaids, bell-boys, and the police, and to quarrelling about the exact location of the fire when it started. TheThundererhoped that before closing the inquest the coroner would have the courage to go higher, and to probe the building department, and to ascertain what Mr. Bloom's connection with the matter was, and whether his inspectors had ever made a report on the Glenmore. Further, the coroner might to advantage summon the officers of the hotel company, who had erected this fire-trap, and the architect whose plans for a fire-proof structure had been so lamentably inadequate. TheThundererunderstood that the Glenmore Hotel Corporation was one of those paper corporations, officered by clerks, behind which unscrupulous capitalists so often shielded themselves. Of the officers whose names appeared in the papers of incorporation, three were clerks in the employ of a contractor named Graves, who had built the hotel, and a fourth was a prominent young architect, who had prepared the plans for the building. The people of Chicago wanted to hear what these men had to say about the Glenmore hotel, especially Bloom, Graves, and Hart. "Look higher, Mr. Coroner!" theThundererconcluded solemnly.
When Helen came into the room a little later, she found her husband plunged in thought, the sheets of the newspaper scattered about him.
"What is it?" she asked quickly.
He picked up the paper and handed it to her. She read the article in theThunderer, her brow wrinkling in puzzle as she went on. When she had finished it, she let it fall from her hands, and looked at her husband inquiringly.
"They want you to go out there and tell about the building of the hotel?" she asked.
"Yes," he answered dully. "I knew it would come sooner or later. You see I was not only the architect, but Graves made me the treasurer of the corporation. I was only a dummy like the others," he explained. "The corporation was just Graves! But I told Everett that I should go back and tell what I knew. Only he doesn't think it necessary, now!"
"What would happen? What does it all mean?"
He explained to her what the legal results might be in case the coroner's jury held him and others to the Grand Jury, as criminally liable for the disaster. Then, if the Grand Jury found a true bill against him, whenever he returned to Chicago he could be tried for manslaughter. But even if in his absence he should be held to the Grand Jury, there were many steps in the complex machinery of legal justice, and he could probably escape without trial. Evidently Wheeler, who knew the involutions of the district attorney's office, was counting on the probability that no one would be brought to trial in this hotel case,—that the disaster would be buried in that gulf of abortive justice where crimes against the people at large are smothered.
"And in that case," Hart concluded, "there would be no use in letting them tear me to pieces in the papers!"
"But you must go back!" she exclaimed, brushing aside his reasoning. "You must tell them all you know!"
"Everett doesn't think so," he protested, "and I can't see the good of it, either. They won't do anything, probably. It's just politics, the whole investigation. But the newspapers are full of it just now, and they would hound me to a finish. It would be impossible for me to get work in Chicago for a long time, if ever again. And it would cover you and the boys with disgrace—that's the worst! I have paid enough!"
"But it must be done," she repeated in a low voice.
She was not clear what good might come of his testimony: she was ignorant of the legal conditions. But she had a fundamental sense of justice: men must pay for the evil they do,—pay fully and pay publicly. A private repentance and a private penance were to her incomplete and trivial.
"I've got to earn our living," he urged. "You must think of that! If I am shut out of Chicago, we must begin somewhere else at the bottom."
She was not ready yet to consider that question.
"You mustn't think of us," she answered. "Francis, you can't really pay for all the wrong that has been done. But perhaps the truth will do some good. And unless you are ready to face the open disgrace,—why, you have done nothing! The money you gave back to the trustees was nothing. This is the only way!"
It was the only way for him, at least. With his buoyant, pliant nature, as she understood it, some final act, definite, done in the eyes of the world that knew him, was needed to strengthen the fibre of his being, to record in his own soul its best resolve. For already he had begun to waver, to quibble with his repentance.
He had been ready enough in the stress of his first feeling after the catastrophe to stand before the world and confess his share in the wrong that had been done. Then he was eager to free his mind of its intolerable burden. But now that the excitement had faded, leaving him to face the difficulties of his future, he saw in all its fatal detail what public disgrace would mean, and he drew back. It was folly to invite ruin!
Yet in the end the woman held him to her ideal. Late that night he consented to telegraph Wheeler of his immediate return, and to take the first train on the morrow for the west, there to await the coroner's summons.
"I shall go on with you, of course," she said. "We will all go,—the boys, too. Mamma will stay and close the house. Perhaps you can't get away very soon after it is over. And I want to be there with you," she answered to all his objections.
"You know what it will mean!" he exclaimed warningly, as the last log burst into ashes on the hearth. "Nell, it's worst for you and the boys. It means ruin, nothing less!"
"Never!" she protested with flashing eyes. "Other people, the newspapers, can't make ruin. Ruin is in ourselves. It merely means that we shall have to do without friends, and society, and things, especially things. And I have come to hate things. They make one small and mean. I never thought we should have them, when we were married. And I don't want them for the boys, either. There is work! the best thing in life,—work for itself, without pay in things, without bribes! We'll have that and bread, Francis!"
"But the public disgrace," he objected, still sensitive to the opinion of the world in which he had lived.
"Better even that than the disgrace between us," she whispered. "No, no! There is no other way."
At least there was no other way to her love, and that love he could not live without, cost him what it might.
"You are strong, Nell!" he confessed his admiration.
"And you, too!" she whispered back, her face illumined with the courage of her nature.
Little Powers, the younger boy, had not been well, and the next morning, when he was no better, Jackson urged that it would be unwise to take him, that he had best go back alone. But Helen would not consent, knowing that he made the most of the child's illness to spare her the trial which was to come.
"It is nothing," she said. "Mother thinks it will do no harm to take him. And if he is going to be really sick, it would be better for us to be there in the city than here."
So they drove over to Verulam and took the train. After the boys had been put to bed for the night, Helen came back to the section where the architect was sitting, looking dully into the blank fields.
"What do you think of this?" she exclaimed, putting a letter into his hands. "I got it just as we were leaving. It's from Venetia,—read it!"
He took the thick envelope from her hands, remembering suddenly the girl as he had last seen her, when she had summed him up in one bitter, opprobrious word. The sting of that word had gone, however, effaced by the experience which he had suffered since, and he opened the letter listlessly.
MY DEAR MOTHER SUPERIOR,—Do you recognize the Forest Park postmark? I am not going abroad after all. At least not just yet. Mother's gone, sails this week with Mrs. Ollie B. Now listen, and I'll make your hair stand on end.
First, mother! She's had a grievous disappointment lately. Colonel Raymond,—you know him of course,—the little gray-whiskered railroad man, mother's pet indulgence for I can't say how long,—has at last been freed from the legal attachment of one wife and is about to take another at once. Whom do you think? The youngest Stewart girl!!! The wedding is for the 3d of June. We are not going, naturally. Of course, it was a crushing blow to poor mamma,—she put her sailing forward a whole week to escape from her friends. She was positively growing old under it.
I know you don't like this, so I cut it very short. Now, prepare! I am going to embrace the serious life, at last,—I mean matrimony. Really and truly, this time. You know the man, but you'd never guess: he's our doctor. Dr. Coburn. Yes! Yes!! Yes!!!
Mother threw a fit when I told her, and then, of course, I knew I was quite right. We are to be married any time, when he finishes up the work he has on hand, so that he can give me some attention. We might look in on you in your convent retirement, if sufficiently urged. Then I'll tell you all about it, and make him show you all the little tricks I have taught him. Mamma still calls him "that fellow," but he's by way of being a very distinguished man on account of some bug he's discovered. The medical journals are taking off their hats to him. I read the notices,—don't you believe I am fast enough in love?
Well, I have had to send mamma abroad to recover her nerves, and I am out here putting the place in order as it is to be rented to some awful people, whom you never heard of. By the way, the doctor isn't going to let me use my money,—mother ought to thank him for that!—and he won't promise to earn much money, either. He has no idea of keeping me in the state to which the Lord called me. He says if I want that, I can marry Stephen Lane or any other man. He means to earn enough for a sensible woman to live on, he says, and if I am not content with what he chooses to do for me I can go out and learn how to earn some more for myself! Did you ever hear of a man who had the nerve to talk that way to the woman he wants to marry? ...
We are going to have a laboratory on the West Side,—that gave Mrs. P. another fit,—and over it we'll have our rooms. Then when he's made enough rabbits dotty with his bug, and has written his papers, maybe we'll go abroad....
There are lots of other things,yourthings, I want to talk over, but I am afraid my pen is too blunt for them. Only, I hope, oh, so much, dear, that you are to be happy again. Mr. Wheeler told me that Jack was with you now. My love to the Prodigal Man. Good-by, dear...
"Isn't it good!" Helen exclaimed, with the readiness of good women to welcome a newcomer to that state which has brought them such doubtful happiness.
"I shouldn't think he would have been the man to satisfy her," Jackson answered slowly.
"I think Dr. Coburn has changed a good deal since you knew him. He had fine things in him, and Venetia could see them."
"I always thought she was ambitious, and the reason she didn't marry was because she couldn't find any one out there to give her everything she was after."
"Perhaps Venetia has seen enough already of that kind of thing!"
There was a stir among the reporters gathered in the little room where the coroner's inquest on the Glenmore fire was being held, when it became known that the architect was present and was to be examined. Graves's man, Gotz, the president of the hotel company, had finished his testimony on the previous day, having displayed a marvellous capacity for ignorance. Under advice from his employer's lawyer he had refused to answer every important question put to him, on the plea that it was irrelevant. The coroner had been scarcely more successful with other witnesses in his endeavors to determine the exact causes for the large loss of life in the new hotel, and his inquest was closing in failure. The yelping pack of newspapers had already raised their cry in another field; public interest in the Glenmore disaster had begun to wane; and it was generally believed that nothing would come of the inquest, not even a hearing before the Grand Jury. The whole affair appeared to be but another instance of the impotence of our system of government in getting at the real offenders against society, if they are cunning and powerful.
That morning, as the Harts were preparing to go to the hearing the doctor had called to see little Powers, for the child's feverish cold threatened to develop into pneumonia. After the doctor had gone, the architect went upstairs to the sickroom, where Helen was seated on the bed playing with Powers, and trying to soothe him. As he stood there silently watching them, he was tormented by a sudden fear, a terrible presentiment, that the child was to die, and thus he was to pay for his sins, and not only he, but Helen. She was to pay with him, even more than he! He tried to rid himself of the hysterical and foolish idea, but it persisted, prompted by that rough sense of retribution—an acknowledgment of supreme justice—that most men retain all their lives.
"I shall have to go now," he said to her at last. "But you mustn't think of coming. You must stay with the boy."
"Oh, no!" Helen exclaimed quickly, looking closely at the child. "The doctor says there is nothing to fear yet. Everything has been done that I can do, and your mother will stay with him while we are away. It won't be long, anyway!"
"Why do you insist upon coming?" he protested almost irritably. "It won't be exactly pleasant, and you may have to hang around there for hours."
"Don't you want me to go with you, and be there, Francis?" she asked a little sadly.
He made no reply, feeling ashamed to confess that it would make the coming scene all the more painful to know that she was hearing again in all its repulsive detail the story of his participation in the criminal construction of the Glenmore hotel.
"I think I had better go," she said finally, "and I want to go!"
She wished to be near him at the end, after he had performed this difficult act; to be near him when he came out from the hearing and walked home with the knowledge of the public disgrace preparing for him at the hands of the hungry reporters. Then, she divined, would come upon him the full bitterness of his position.
The hearing proceeded slowly, and it was the middle of the afternoon before the architect was called. The coroner, a grizzled little German-American with an important manner, put on his spectacles to examine the new witness, and the members of the coroner's jury, who knew that the architect had left the city immediately after the fire and were surprised at his return, evinced their curiosity by leaning forward and staring at Hart.
The first questions put to him were directed toward gaining information about the corporation that owned the building. As Mr. Hart was the treasurer of the Glenmore company, presumably he held stock in the corporation? A large amount? No, he had had some stock, but had disposed of it. Recently? Some time ago. To whom? The witness refused to answer. Had he paid cash for his stock? The witness refused to answer: he had been told by his lawyer that all such questions were not pertinent to the present inquiry. But who, then, were the chief stockholders? who were, in fact, the Glenmore company? Again the architect refused to answer; indeed, he was not sure that he knew. The coroner, baffled on this line, and knowing well enough in a general way at least from previous witnesses that nothing was to be unearthed here, turned to more vital matters.
"Mr. Hart," he said, clearing his throat and looking gravely at the witness, "I understand that you were the architect for this hotel?"
"Yes."
"You drew the plans and specifications for the Glenmore?"
"Yes, they were prepared in my office."
"Were they the same that you see here?"
The coroner motioned toward the roll of plans that had been taken from the files of the Building Department.
"Yes," the architect answered readily, merely glancing at the plans, "those were the plans for the hotel as originally prepared by me."
"Now I want to ask if the Glenmore hotel was built according to these plans?"
The architect hesitated. Every one in the room knew well enough by this time that the building destroyed by fire had not been erected according to these plans, but, nevertheless, they waited eagerly for the reply.
"Few buildings," Hart began explanatorily, "are completed in all respects according to the original plans and specifications."
"Ah, is that so?"
"But these plans were very considerably altered," the witness continued voluntarily.
"By whom? By you? With your consent, your approval?"
The architect hesitated again for a few moments, and then answered rapidly:—
"With my knowledge, certainly; yes, you may say with my consent!"
There was a little delay in the inquiry at this point, while the coroner consulted with his counsel as to the next questions that should be addressed to the witness. The architect gazed doggedly before him, keeping his eyes on the dirty window above the heads of the jury. In the dingy light of the little room, his face appeared yellow and old. His mouth twitched occasionally beneath his mustache, but otherwise he stood with composure waiting for the next question, which he knew would pierce to the heart of the matter.
"Mr. Hart," the coroner resumed, "will you describe to us what those alterations in the plans for the Glenmore were, what was the nature of them?"
The witness considered how he was to answer the question, and then he proceeded to explain the most important discrepancies between the building as it had been erected by Graves and the plans that had been filed with the Building Department. He described the use of the old walls and foundations, the reduction in the thickness of the bearing-walls and partitions, the chief substitutions of wood for steel in the upper stories, the omitting of fireproof partitions and fire-escapes, etc.,—in short, all the methods of "skinning" the construction, in which the contractor was such an adept. He referred from time to time to the plans, and used technical terms, which he was asked to explain. But the jury listened with absorbed interest, and he kept on until he had answered the question thoroughly.
"As an architect," the coroner asked, when Hart had completed his explanation, "will you state whether, in your judgment, these changes that you have described, especially the substitution of inflammable material for fireproofing and the weakening of the main walls, were sufficient to account for the great loss of life in the fire?"
The answer to such a question could be only speculative,—an individual opinion,—and the witness might properly refuse to commit himself. The architect hesitated, and then with a quick motion of the head, as if he were sick of evasions, said:—
"There are a good many buildings here in Chicago and in other large cities that are no safer than the Glenmore was. But if you want my opinion, I will say that such alterations as I have indicated tended to weaken the walls, and in other ways to bring the building below the danger limit."
"It was what might be called a fire-trap, then?"
"I did not say that!"
Feeling that at last he had found an easy witness, the coroner began to bully, and there ensued a wrangle between him and the architect, in which both men became heated.
"Well, Mr. Hart," a member of the jury finally interposed with a question, "can you say that the Glenmore as it was built conformed to the building ordinances of the city of Chicago?"
"It would take a number of experts and a good lawyer to interpret those ordinances!" the architect answered testily. "I should say that they were drawn for the express purpose of being violated."
There was a laugh along the reporters' bench at this retort. But the witness quickly added in his former contained manner:—
"No, the Glenmore violated the ordinances in a number of important particulars."
There was a sudden hush in the room. This point had been established before by different persons who had been examined. Nevertheless, the admission coming from the architect of the ill-fated building was an important point. It might lead to other interesting admissions.
"You were aware, then, when the Glenmore was being erected that it violated the ordinances?"
"Yes."
"Did you make any protest?"
"No."
"Did you know when you undertook the plans that the hotel was to be built in this manner?"
"I knew that it was to be put up for a certain sum, and that a first-class fire-proof building conforming to the ordinances could not be built for that money."
A number of questions followed in regard to the actual cost of the hotel and the connection of the Graves Construction Company with the owners of the building, many of which the architect refused to answer. At last the coroner returned to the one point on which he had been successful in eliciting vital information,—the character of the burned building, and the circumstances of its construction.
"I suppose the building was inspected during the construction?"
"Certainly."
"By whom?"
"As usual, by different inspectors from the building department. Mr. Murphy was there several times, I remember, and Mr. Lagrange, among others. But I think chiefly Mr. Murphy."
"Were you present during their inspection?"
"Not always."
"Did either of these gentlemen find anything to object to in the method of construction?"
"I never heard of any objection. Nothing was ever said to me. The inspectors might have talked to the contractors. But I don't think any one of them did."
"Have you reason to believe that there was any collusion between the inspectors and the Graves Company?"
Every one in the room knew that there must have been collusion. Nevertheless, the architect, after hesitation, said:—
"I shan't answer that, sir."
"You refuse to reply?"
"See here, Mr. Coroner! I am here to tell you what I know about the Glenmore,—at least so far as it concerns my own responsibility, my own work. But I am not here to testify against the Graves Construction Company. Understand that!"
"Well, I should say that you and the Graves Company were pretty well mixed in this matter. You were an officer of the corporation which employed the Graves Company to build a hotel on your plans. Could there be any closer connection than that, do you think?"
To this observation Hart made no reply, and finally the member of the jury who had interposed before put another question to the witness:—
"You have told us that the Glenmore was not properly built, was not what it pretended to be, a fire-proof building, and generally violated the ordinance for that class of building. Do you consider yourself in any way responsible for those violations?"
"Yes," the architect replied slowly, "I suppose so. At least I knew all about it!"
"You considered it a dangerous building?"
"I can't say that I did. I should consider it so now. I didn't think much about it then."
The witness's admission came with evident effort; the juryman continued insinuatingly:—
"Mr. Hart, I believe that you were present at the fire?"
"Yes."
"Did you then believe that if the hotel had been built according to these plans"—he pointed to the roll of blue prints on the table—"the large loss of life would not have occurred?"
"I felt so,—yes, I believe so now!"
"May I ask one more question? Was it for your interest to make these changes? Did you make any money out of the job beyond your customary commission?"
It was a question that the witness might properly refuse to answer as having no direct bearing on the object of the inquest. But the architect was weary of quibbles,—indeed, eager to make his testimony as thorough as might be, and to have it over.
"Not directly, but I was an officer of the company, and beside—"
"Indirectly, then, you benefited?"
"Yes, indirectly."
"That is all, Mr. Hart."
A few more questions were asked by the coroner about the inspection of the building by Murphy and Lagrange, and also in regard to the architect's previous relations with the Graves Company. Then the witness was excused.
When the architect stepped back into the room, he saw Wheeler sitting beside Helen in the rear. They waited for him at the door, and together the three went out to the street. The lawyer, who had reached the hearing in time for most of the testimony, smiled rather grimly as he remarked to his cousin:—
"Well, Jack, you gave them about everything they were after! You needn't have turned yourself quite inside out."
"It was perfect!" Helen exclaimed, taking her husband's arm. "Everything you said was right. I wouldn't have had you change a word."
Wheeler buttoned his coat against the east wind and smiled tolerantly at the woman's fervor.
"Will that be all, Everett?" she asked a little defiantly.
"For the present," he replied after a pause, and then he nodded good-by.
"What did he mean?" she asked her husband, as they threaded the crowded street leading to the North Side bridge.
"That they will hold me to the Grand Jury, I suppose."
Her hand which clasped his arm tightened involuntarily at the words, and they continued their way silently to the old Ohio Street house.
When they entered the house, Helen hurried upstairs to the child, who had been calling for her, Mrs. Hart said. Presently the doctor came for his evening visit, and when, after a long time, he left the sickroom, Jackson met him in the hall, but lacked the courage to ask any question. The doctor spoke bruskly about the bad weather, and hurried off. Then Hart walked to and fro in the gloomy dining-room until his mother came down for dinner, which they ate in silence.
Before they had finished their meal the bell rang, and in reply to the maid's excuses at the door there sounded in the hall a strong woman's voice.
"But I must see them!"
Jackson, recognizing Venetia Phillips's voice, stepped into the hall.
"Oh, Jack! I have just heard that you were all here. We met Everett at the station, and he told me all about it. Jack, it was fine! I didn't think you had it in you, Jackie, dear. To stand up there and give everything away,—it took real stuff. I know it!" She held out her hand in enthusiastic heartiness, repeating, "It was fine, fine!" Suddenly she turned back to the door, where Coburn stood.
"You know Dr. Coburn, Jack! I brought him along, too—I was in such a hurry to see you all. Where's Helen?"
"Yes, I just butted in," Coburn said, laughing. "I wouldn't let her come without me. I wanted to shake on it, too!"
"But where's that sainted wife of yours?" Venetia persisted.
When Jackson told her of the boy's illness, she hurried upstairs without another word, leaving the two men standing in the library. At first, when they were alone, with the common memory of that last meeting in the doctor's rooms barely a week before, there was an awkward silence. Coburn had now an explanation for the architect's erratic behavior on that occasion, and he refrained from his usual blunt speech. And the architect, seeing through the mist of accumulated impressions, as in a long vista, that night after the fire when Coburn had found him half-crazed, a prey to horrible visions, could not speak. Yet that experience seemed removed from the present, as if it rose from distant years, and somehow belonged to another person. Although he had never liked Coburn in the old days, he felt a kind of sympathy in the doctor's bearing, and was grateful for it.
"You must have thought I was crazy the other night," the architect remarked apologetically at last. "I didn't know much what I was up to!"
"That's all right, man," Coburn interrupted warmly. "Don't think about it again. It was damn good luck my running across you, that's all. If I'd known, of course— Say! that took sand, what you did to-day. Wheeler told Venetia all about it, and she told me. It makes a man feel good to see some one who has got the nerve to stand up and take medicine, and not try everlastingly to sneak out of things! If more folks nowadays would do that, it would be better for us all. Don't you mind what the papers say. They have to fling mud,—that's their game!"
"Well, it doesn't make much difference now what they say except,—except for my wife," Jackson answered dully. "And that can't be helped."
"Oh, I guess it won't last long. And somehow women don't mind those things half as much as you'd think, at least the best ones don't. And from what Venetia says, yours is one of the best!"
"Yes! That doesn't make it any easier. But I haven't congratulated you!" he exclaimed, repressing the confession of his own pain. "She is a splendid woman, lots of spirit," he remarked awkwardly.
"I rather think so!" A pleased smile illuminated the doctor's grave face. "She's just about the best ever!"
"I hope you will be happy," Jackson continued conventionally.
"Well, we expect to—don't see why we shouldn't. I guess we know pretty much what's to be found on both sides, and won't make ourselves uncomfortable looking for what ain't there."
Venetia came down the stairs very quietly, her exuberance all gone, and as she entered the room she was still wiping away the traces of tears.
"Poor little Powers!" she exclaimed. "Oh, Jack! I am terribly sorry."
"What's the matter?" Coburn demanded.
"It's pneumonia, poor little man!"
Jackson's lip trembled beneath his mustache, as he murmured to himself:—
"Yes, I supposed it would be. It's as tough as it well could be, for her!"
"I know he'll come through,—he must!" Venetia exclaimed helplessly, and added in a burst of admiration, "That trouble couldn't happen to Helen—it just couldn't! She's so splendid, Jack! It's a big thing to know there are such women about. She's holding him up there now, with a smile on her face!"
Jackson turned away from her eager eyes.
Again and again during the days that followed, while they worked for the child's life, and when all was done watched and waited together for what might come, that miserable foreboding of the first day came back to the man. An evil fate seemed close on his heels, ready to lay hand on him here or there. The illness of the child related itself in some unseen manner with the great catastrophe of his life. The old idea of retribution, that barbaric conception of blood sacrifice, tormented him, as it torments the most sceptical in the hour of crisis. It appeared to him that for his cowardice of nature, for all his weak and evil deeds, for the unknown dead in whose death he had connived, he was about to be called to pay with the life of his own child. And the mother, guiltless, in the inscrutable cruelty of fate, must pay with him and pay the larger share of the price of his evil, of his nature!
But during these days of dread the woman went her way calmly, serenely, prepared, outwardly at least, for any event. What the child's death would mean to her was known only to herself, for she consumed her grief patiently in the silence of the watch. The house grew more sombre, as day by day the struggle for life moved on to its crisis. Little Powers, like his mother, made his fight with unchildish patience. He had always been the quieter, less demonstrative one of the two boys, possessing a singular power of silence and abstraction, which had been attributed to physical weakness. Yet under the stress of disease he showed an unexpected resistance and vitality. The father, when he saw him lying in the great bed, with pathetic moments of playfulness even in the height of his fever, could not stay by his side....