Walker Farr, towering over their heads, talked to the men in whose midst he stood.
Mere eloquence no longer avails in these days of cynical disbelief in the motives of political orators. But this young man who stood there was sincerity incarnate. The wonderful and mystic magnetic quality which wins men and inspires confidence radiated from him. And every now and then, as he glanced up at one face in the gallery his voice took on new tones of appeal and pathos. He was one crying from the depths to those in authority! By the marvel of his language he made the men who sat there as delegates understand that theirs was the power to make or mar—to save or sacrifice their state in the crisis which was upon them. He made them feel their responsibility after he made them understand their power.
And he also made their duty plain.
The crux of the situation rested on such a man as they should place in the highest office in the state.
In other times, under other conditions, some pliant and amiable figurehead might serve them well.
He told them, with outstretched finger and vibrant voice, what must be the masterful qualifications of the man who should assume the cross of public service and carry it up the steeps where he would be lashed at every step of his weary way by the thongs in the hands of privileged capital.
Colonel Symonds Dodd had come back to the platform, cursing himself for a fool. The moment the check had left his hands he was angry because he had allowed circumstances to stampede him.
He wondered what was getting into him and into politics.
Was he afraid of mere talk from a demagogue!
But after he had sat there for a few moments and listened, and had watched the faces of the delegates, he decided that if five thousand dollars would stop the mouth of that man he had spent money wisely. It was borne in upon him that he had spent greater sums many times for lesser service.
He saw Richard Dodd and Mullaney circulating among the delegates. He restrained with difficulty an impulse to rise and shout to them to hurry. He felt that danger to his program and his political structure was imminent. Because once again were true eloquence and masterly appeal winning men.
All the listeners in the vast hall were as still as death. All eyes were on this speaker who seemed to be clothing with effective speech all the hidden convictions of the delegates themselves who had nursed protest without being able to put it into force.
Colonel Dodd had seen conventions in similar mood in the old days before the saddle of party had been as securely cinched as it had been in late years.
The chairman of the state committee uttered the colonel's rising fears. The chairman had lost his sneer and his bumptious confidence. His face was red, he was sweating, he was staring out over the convention and snapping his fingers impatiently.
“Good gad!” he informed those in hearing on the platform, “what kind of a turn is this thing taking? We have let this convention get away from us. That chap has got the whole crowd marching to the mourners' bench. He can wind up by nominating a yellow dog and they'll rise and howl him into office by acclamation!”
Farr paused for a moment to give effect to his next words.
“Such in character, in honest impulse, in honor, in ability, in devotion, and in God-given nobility must be the man who will lead you. Has God given such a man to this state? He has!”
“Yes and the devil has given us Nelson Sinkler to speak for that man!”
The voice was shrill and agitated and it came from a section of the hall where the rabid adherents of the machine were massed; it was an amazing and shocking interruption.
“I said Nelson Sinkler—that's you!” screamed the voice.
And on that, from here and there in the hall, like snipers posted in ambush, men shouted the name “Nelson Sinkler”—the words popping like rifles.
There was uproar. Part of it was protest, part hysterical demonstration of excitement in an assemblage which did not in the least understand.
Then after a time came quiet, for the object of the attack stood in his elevated position, unruffled, stern, turning bold front to right and left as men barked at him.
“I am here where all may look on me,” he said. “Let one or all of those who are attacking me stand forth in view, too.”
No one stood up.
“It's a cowardly man who will not put his name to a letter or show his face when he makes an accusation,” cried Farr.
“How about a man who doesn't dare to use his own name?” This questioner remained in ambush.
“Your right name isn't Walker Farr and you know it isn't,” bellowed a voice on the opposite side of the hall.
Other voices pot-shotted at him with the words, “Nelson Sinkler.”
“Will one man in this convention stand up and show himself so that I can talk to him face to face?” shouted the man at bay.
Detective Mullaney and Richard Dodd could not find seats. The others were sitting, and the two were marked men.
“Well, Dodd, you have been whispering. What have you to say aloud?” demanded the man they were baiting.
“I say your name is not Walker Farr.”
“You!” The tall young man darted a finger at Mullaney.
“I say you're Nelson Sinkler.”
“And what of him?”
“He is wanted by the state of Nebraska for murder.”
A sound that was mingled sigh and groan ran and throbbed from galleries to floor; it filled the great hall and seemed to vibrate back and forth over the assemblage. And for the long minute that the dreadful sound continued until it had breathed itself out into horrified silence the man who stood on the settee looked straight into the white face of the girl in the gallery.
But those of the throng who devoured him with eager stares could not discern one trace of confession on his countenance.
Then he did a strange thing.
He held his arms out toward Detective Mullaney and crossed them, wrist over wrist, and he smiled.
“If you are certain enough of your man to dare to arrest me, sir, I stand here waiting for the handcuffs.”
The detective hesitated, visibly embarrassed. He had been looking for confusion, confession by manner, even collapse.
“This is a put-up political job,” declared a delegate. “That's no murderer—that man.”
“I am waiting,” repeated Farr.
Detective Mullaney flushed. There were murmurs of hostility in the throng about him. He ran over swiftly in his mind the contents of his note-book and fortified his courage.
“I haven't secured a warrant yet—but I'll take your dare,” he announced. He started to come down the aisle.
“Just one moment,” called a stentorian voice in the gallery. “You're wrong, my man, down there. I don't want to see an innocent person disgraced in public nor an officer get himself into a scrape. That man is not Nelson Sinkler.”
“What are we running here—a state convention or a police court?” Colonel Dodd demanded, leaping up and grabbing the arm of the presiding officer. “Order all those men ejected from the hall.”
But at that moment the convention was not in the control of the chairman. Irregular as it all was, human nature demanded to be shown there and then.
Delegates arose, shouting, and surrounded Farr, making effectual bulwarks against Mullaney with their bodies. Voices asked the stranger in the gallery for information, and he motioned the vociferous mob into silence.
“I am a United States post-office inspector, and I can easily prove my identity, gentlemen. I'm here in this convention merely as a spectator, killing time till my train leaves. But I know Nelson Sinkler because I arrested him a month or so ago after he had been a fugitive for two years. He killed a mail clerk. He is now awaiting trial. If that man down there is arrested as being Nelson Sinkler it will mean a lot of trouble for somebody.” He sat down.
“Who are you?” yelled a chorus of the ring's henchmen. They pressed as near to Farr as his body-guard would permit and shook their fists at him.
“I am a man and not a spirit,” he said in the first silence—and silence came quickly, for they were eager to hear. “You can see that for yourselves. But just now I am less a man than aVoice.” He shouted that last word. “The Voice calls you to rebuke the kind of politics that has just been attempted here. You have seen, you have heard! Will you indorse it by your votes? Will you keep in power that gang that has attempted it in the desperation of defeat?”
“No,” the voices of men tumultuously replied.
Reckless and unjust attack had never tossed a more golden opportunity into a man's hands.
“Then come over to the side of decency, my men. Nominate a champion who will be spotless and unafraid. There is war in this commonwealth instead of politics. Through one war the great patriot of this state led his people with high chivalry. For the next governor of this state, in these trying times, I nominate the son of that patriot—the Honorable Archer Converse of this city—God bless him!”
“We're licked,” gasped Colonel Dodd, trying to make the state chairman hear him, for the roar that rocked the great hall was deafening. “A boomerang has come back and mowed us flatter than an oven door in tophet.”
In the rout, in the retreat—horse, foot and dragoons—crisp orders were issued and obeyed. The friends of Governor Harwood had only one resource—it was to save that gentleman's face. His nomination was withdrawn.
That convention had run amuck, it was a mass of wild men who were feeling liberty from oppression for the first time and gloried in their new and sudden freedom from ring rule.
Then the delegates who came upon their feet roared the unanimous nomination of Archer Converse.
In the gale of that acclaim the opposition uttered no protest; the delegates who still remained loyal to the machine scowled and kept their seats.
Ducking under the tossing arms of men who flung aloft their hats and cheered with the frenzy of delight that the amazing victory inspired, Richard Dodd escaped to the rear of the hall and jammed himself into the press of the spectators. He hid behind a hedge of bodies and then dared to look at Colonel Dodd's face. The mighty passion which flamed on the uncle's countenance was revealed to the nephew's gaze even at that distance. The colonel was at the edge of the platform and was beckoning imperiously to some one. Young Dodd saw Detective Mullaney work his way out of the throng which surrounded Walker Farr; the officer was obviously obeying the summons of Colonel Dodd and marched to the platform and climbed on a chair in order to converse with the angry man who had beckoned.
And when Richard Dodd saw that conference begin overwhelming fear swept out of his soul all other emotions. He no longer had eyes for that girl in the gallery. Not even love and the promise she had made availed to stay him. Panic allowed him no time for planning an excuse or framing a lie. In playing for the stakes he had exacted he had felt that his uncle would hold no autopsy on the price of success. But five thousand dollars plucked from the Dodd pocket by a falsehood for which no excuse could be offered! And on top of that a crushing defeat which had been made definite and final by the work which Colonel Dodd had paid for!
The nephew saw Mullaney shake his head and throw up his hands in appeal and protest.
That spectacle made Richard Dodd a fugitive who thought only of saving himself. He fought his way through the crowd and ran out of the hall. The thought of facing Symonds Dodd in that crisis or of waiting to be dragged before the furious tyrant—that thought lashed the traitor into mad flight.
He glanced up at the clock in the First National tower. He had three minutes before the bank's closing time. He controlled his emotions as best he could and presented the check at the paying-teller's grill. The money was counted out to him without question, and when he held the thick packet in his hand he realized still more acutely in what position he stood in his affairs with Symonds Dodd.
He rushed to a garage, secured his car, and fled.
“I tell you I gave my nephew a check for five thousand dollars,” insisted the colonel. “And the Dodds don't lie to each other!”
“Then they have begun to do it,” declared Mullaney. “He has double-crossed the two of us. There was never any talk between us of more than five hundred for the job.”
Colonel Dodd hurried into the anteroom and called the bank on the telephone. “Almighty Herod!” he yelped, when he was informed that the check had been cashed. He banged the receiver upon its hook. “Even my own nephew has joined the pack of those damnation wolves!”
Then with the air of a man recovering from a blow and wondering dizzily what had struck him, he left the convention hall by a rear door and went to his office.
Those whom he passed on his way out made no attempt to stop him, did not urge him to remain. That convention seemed to be doing very well without calling upon Colonel Symonds Dodd for help or suggestions.
Herald unofficial,avant courier, Mr. Daniel Breed squeezed himself through the pack of people while they were still cheering the name of the Honorable Archer Converse.
“Giving candy to youngsters and good news to grown folks never made anybody specially unpopular,” Mr. Breed assured himself with politician's sagacity.
Therefore, he jog-trotted down to the Converse law-offices and shot himself into the presence of the estimable gentleman who had remained aloof from the distracting business of a convention.
“He's done it,” proclaimed Mr. Breed, making his sentences short and his message to the point because he was out of breath.
“Who has done what?” demanded Mr. Converse, with equal crispness.
“Farr. You're nominated for governor. Acclamation! He's a wiz with his tongue.” Mr. Breed pursed his little mouth and “sipped” with gusto. “Some talker! Don't ever tell me that good talk doesn't win when the right man makes it at the right time.”
Mr. Converse rose and stood—a rigid statue of consternation and protest. “Do you mean to come in here and tell me that I have been nominated by that state convention? Without my sanction? Without my consent?”
“Sure thing! Easy work! Played all the tricks. Made believe he was green. Poked rights and lefts to Harwood's jaw. Had himself paged as a murderer—at least, I reckon it was his own get-up. It cinched the thing, anyway. He understands human nature.”
But Mr. Converse did not in the least understand this talk. “Look here, Breed, you haven't gone crazy yourself, along with the rest, have you?”
“Nobody's crazy. People have simply woke up.”
“I'll be eternally condemned if I—”
“That's right! You will be if you don't button up your coat and go over to the hall along with that notification committee that's probably on the way, give the folks your best bow, and say you'll take the job. We're some little team when we get started.”
“You're an infernal steer team, and you have dragged me into a mess of trouble,” declared Mr. Converse, with venom.
“Glad you're in,” retorted the imperturbable Breed. “A man needs more or less trouble so as to round himself out; I've been having some troubles of my own. Whatever job you give me after you're elected, don't put me back with them stuffed animals. Harwood made his mistake right there!”
“It has begun already, has it?” asked Converse, indignantly. “Office-seekers at it?”
“Sure thing!” responded Mr. Breed, amiably. “When you cool down you'll remember that I got to you first with the good news.”
Five minutes later the Honorable Archer Converse, muttering, but more calm, was marching toward the convention hall in the company of a proud committee of notification.
He walked out upon the platform and waited for the wild tumult of greeting to subside, and while he waited he searched the assemblage with stern scrutiny to find the face of Walker Farr.
But that young worker of miracles was not in evidence.
He had risen with the others when the band began to blare the music which signaled the approach of the nominee.
Once more he turned his gaze toward the girl in the gallery.
There was nothing in his demeanor to suggest that he had been a victor. His face was white, and after his eyes had held hers for a long time he gave her a wistful little smile which expressed regret, sorrow, renunciation, rather than pride. She no longer wondered at the interest she felt in this man; she knew that she loved him. She was able to own that truth to herself, and to view it calmly because she had made her promise to Richard Dodd and was resolved to keep it. That determination made of this love a precious possession that she could put away for ever out of the sight of all the world. Such a poor, meager, little story of love it was! A few meetings—a hand-touch—a word or two.
There in that packed forum had been their only real love-making. Over the heads of angry men they had told each other with their eyes. There was no misunderstanding on the part of either. Both knew the truth.
And yet, after he had told her, this enigma of a man bowed his head and edged his way to the door, moving unobtrusively through the press of humanity, taking advantage of the confusion which marked the entrance of Archer Converse.
Impulse goaded Kate Kilgour at that moment. She did not reason or reflect. Something in the air of this man told her that sorrow instead of triumph was dominating him; his whole demeanor had said “Farewell” when he had turned from her. The instinct of the woman who loves and longs to comfort the object of that affection drove her out of the hall, and she followed him—ashamed, marveling at herself, searching her soul for words with which to excuse her madness, should he turn and behold her.
But the autumn dusk was early and she was grateful because it shrouded her.
Farr, leaving the din of the convention, going forth alone, looked more like the vanquished than the victor. He walked slowly, his head was lowered, and he turned off the Boulevard at once, seeking deserted streets which led him down toward the big mills.
Their myriad lights shone from dusty windows, row upon row, and the staccato chatter of the looms sounded ceaselessly.
Farr climbed the fence where old Etienne was everlastingly raking. The young man had not seen much of the old rack-tender for some weeks, and now he greeted Etienne rather curtly as he passed on his way to the tree. But Etienne seemed to understand.
“Ah, I will not talk, m'sieu'. I will not bodder you. I hear how much you have work and run about, and you must be very tire.”
There was a crackle of autumn chill in the air, but Farr took off his hat and sat down and leaned his head against the tree. He closed his eyes. One might have thought that he wished to sleep.
When the rack-tender made his next turn toward the street he saw a woman at the fence, and as he peered she beckoned to him. He went close and saw it was the pretty lady to whom he had told the story of Rosemarie. She trembled as she clutched the top of the high fence, and when she spoke to him he understood that she was very near to tears.
“Is there not some way—some gate by which I may come in?” she pleaded.
“That is not allow, ma'm'selle. It is trespass.”
“But I want to speak—to—tell him—We can talk over there beside the tree and will not be heard. It is to Mr. Farr I wish to speak. I saw him when he climbed the fence.” She hurried her appeal with pitiful eagerness.
“Ah yes, I have one little gate for maself—for my frien'—for hees frien', ma'm'selle. I will break the rule. You shall come in.”
She went softly and stood before Farr for some minutes before he opened his eyes.
Then he looked up and saw her and he did not speak. He seemed to accept her presence as a natural matter. She was clasping her hands tightly to steady herself. His calm demeanor helped her.
“I don't know why I came here,” she murmured.
“I know. It's because you are sorry for me.”
“But I followed you. I dared to do that. I don't know why. I haven't the words—I can't explain.”
“I understand. You wondered why I came away from the convention. You want to ask me why.”
“Yes, that's it. I am interested in the fight. I have left the office where so many bad things were planned.”
“I know. It was good of you to warn me.”
“And now I am afraid you are in trouble.”
“I am.”
“But you have many good friends now, sir.”
“I fear they cannot help me. When I left that hall I tried to tell you with my eyes that I was going away.”
“I—I think I understood,” she stammered. “It was wrong—it was folly—but I followed you without knowing why I did so.”
“I am glad you did. I can say farewell to you here.”
“But you must not go away, Mr. Farr. You are needed.”
“I am going because I can best help the work in that way. If I stay here I may be the cause of great harm.”
“I cannot understand.”
“I do not want you to understand.”
“Why?”
“It is a matter which concerns others besides myself.”
“Does Mr. Converse know that you are going away?”
“I shall tell him to-night before I leave town.”
“He will not allow you to do.”
“Yes—he will,” the young man returned, quietly.
There was a long silence.
“Coming here—following you—it was a mad thing for me to do,” said the girl, still striving to find explanation for her act. “But I have had so much trouble in my own life—I am sorry for others who are in trouble. I want to tell you that I am sorry.”
“I understand,” he repeated.
Another period of silence followed.
“That is all,” said the girl. “I only wanted to tell you what a grand battle you won to-day—and then I saw your face there in the hall and I knew that you did not want praise—you wanted somebody to say to you, 'I'm sorry.'” She dwelt upon the word which expressed her sympathy, putting all her heart into her voice. “And now I'll be going,” she said, “and I hope you understand and will forgive me.”
Farr had been sitting with head against the trunk of the tree. When he had started to rise she requested him to remain seated. Now he stood up so quickly that she gasped. She was plainly still less at ease when he stood and came close to her.
“Wait a moment. You think that I am a very strange sort of man, do you not?”
She was silent.
“You need not answer—it doesn't need answer. You naturally must think that. You met me when I was a vagrant. You have seen me selling ice from a cart-tail. But—I will be very frank, for this is a time which demands frankness—you have seen me in other circumstances which have been a bit more creditable. You do not know who I am or what to make of me. But with all your heart and soul you know that I love you,” he declared, his tones low and tense and thrilling. “That love has needed no words. It has been strange love-making. Wait! This isn't going to be what you think. If I were simply going to say I love you I would have said it to you long ago—I am not a coward—and I had seen the one mate of all the world; I knew it when I saw you in the dust of the long highway. And after you went on I picked a rose beside the way, and the ashes of that rose are in my pocket now. I called you the little sister of the rose and plodded along after you, playing with a dream. And I threw the rose away after I saw you in the woods with your lover—and understood. But I went back and hunted on my knees for your sister. I didn't intend to say any of this to you. For it is of no use.”
“No; I am promised to Richard Dodd,” she sobbed.
“If that was all that stood between us I'd reach now and take you in my arms,” he said, with bitterness.
“It is more than a mere promise—he owns me—it was bargain and sale—it's sacrifice—for—But I must not tell you.” She went to the tree and put her forehead on her crossed arms and wept with a child's pitiful abandon. He came close and put tender hand upon her shoulder.
“Sacrifice, little sister of the rose! Then there is another bond between us! Sacrifice! My God! the curse that is sometimes put upon the innocent!” He put the tip of his forefinger under her chin and lifted her face from her arms. “I haven't any right to tell you that I love you. I must march on. I cannot even explain to you why I cannot take you in my arms and plead for your love.”
Her eyes told him what answer his pleading would win, and he trembled and stepped away from her.
“Since it can never be,” she said, brokenly, “you may as well know that I—that I do—I couldn't help it. I am forward—I am bold—it is shameless—but I never loved anybody before.” She put out both her hands, and he took them.
Old Etienne dragged doggedly at his work, his lantern lighting his toil. The looms clacked behind the dusty windows which splashed their radiance upon the gloom.
“It is a bit strange that now another wonderful but bitter experience should come into my life on this spot where we are standing,” he told her. He spoke quietly, trying to calm her; striving to crowd back his own emotions. “I guess fate picked this spot as the right place for us to say farewell to each other. I stood here one day and saw old Etienne draw a dead woman to the surface of the water, and I found a letter in her breast and I took her key and went and found little Rosemarie.”
She stared at him, her eyes very wide in the darkness.
“And that dead woman—she was the mother of the little girl?”
“Yes, a poor weaver that the mills had broken. And Rosemarie and I sat all night under this tree. It is too long a story for you now. No matter about that, but I—”
“I know about Rosemarie,” she confessed.
“And my heart opened and something new came into it, little sister of the rose. And now on this spot I stand, and all joy and hope and love are dead for me when I give back to you these dear little hands.”
She was still staring at him.
“But I must not—I dare not speak of it,” he proceeded. His grasp grew tense. “See how I am trying to be calm? I will not loose my grip on myself. Our doom was written for us by other hands, dear heart. When it was summer I walked here with Rosemarie and play-mamma. Now it is autumn and—”
“Play-mamma!” she gasped.
“Yes, a dear, good girl who worked hard in the mill and who was very good to our Rosemarie; I was making poor shifts at buying a little girl's clothes, and Zelie Dionne was wise in those matters and was busy with her needle.”
“I hope you been excuse me,” broke in old Etienne. “I overheard the name of Zelie Dionne, but I don't mean to listen. I have some good news for you, M'sieu' Farr, what you don't hear because you ain't been on this place for long time. And it is not good news for you, ma'm'selle, for now you can't get acquaint with very nice Canadian girl. The big beau Jean have come down here from Tadousac and now he own nice farm and they will get marry and be very happy up in the habitant country.”
“Thank God, there's some happiness in this world,” said Farr. “She is a good girl.”
There was almost joy on Kate Kilgour's face when she looked up at Farr.
Her god had been restored to his pedestal.
“Farewell,” he said at the little gate through which she had stepped into the street.
“No,” she cried as she turned and hurried away; “I'll not say it—not now!” And he wondered because there was joy in her tones.
Old Etienne came to the gate with his lantern; the big turbines were stilling their rumble and growl in the deep pits and his day's work was ended.
“P'r'aps you may walk to Mother Maillet's with me and say the good word to Jean from Tadousac and to Zelie Dionne, who is now so very glad,” suggested the old man, humbly. “The good priest he marry them very soon and they will go home.”
“Yes, I will go, Etienne. I can say good-by there to you and to Miss Dionne.”
“So you go visit some place, eh, after your hard work? That will be very good for you, M'sieu' Farr. You shall come back much rest up and then you will show the poor folks how you will help them some more.”
“I shall not come back—I am going away to stay.”
“But you promise under the big light at thehotel de ville—I hear you promise that you will stay,” protested the old man.
“My work is finished.”
“That is not so, M'sieu' Farr. For many men come to talk to me over the fence since I stand up in the big hall. They are wiser than such a fool as I am. They say that you have just begin to do great things for the poor folks. You shall take the water-pipes away from the men who have poison them. Ah, that is what they say. I do not understand, but they say it shall be so.”
“Other men can do it,” said Farr, curtly.
“And yet you will come back—when?” The old man was struggling with his bewilderment and doubt.
“Never.”
He understood how he was hurting that old man, but bitterness and hopelessness were crowding all tender feelings out of Farr at that moment. Once more he put on the mask of cynicism. He feared to show anybody the depths of his soul.
In the good woman's little sitting-room they found Zelie Dionne.
“I have stopped in to say good-by, Miss Zelie. I am going away. I'm sorry that the grand young man from Tadousac is not here.”
“He comes to sit with me in the evening. You shall wait and see him.”
“No, I must hurry on.”
“I have been reading about you.” She tapped the newspaper in her hand. “The boy just passed, crying the news. It is very wonderful what you have done. Now you will be the great man. But I knew all the time that you were much more than you seemed to be.”
“However, you don't seem to understand me just now,” he declared. “I am going away from this city—from this state. I am going to stay away.”
“Oui, he have say that thing to me,” said old Etienne, brokenly. “And I do not understand.”
“AndIdo not understand.”
“I'm tired—put it that way.”
“Ah no, that is not it.”
“Well, I am more or less of a sneak and a quitter when it comes to a pinch. I don't want you two good folks to feel sorry about me. Forget me. That will be the best way. I hope you will be very happy in Tadousac, Miss Zelie.”
“I hoped we were better friends,” she said simply. “I am very sad to find you do not trust us.”
“Oh, I'm selfish—that's it. Remember me as a selfish man who was tired and ran away.”
“We have talked about you, Uncle Etienne and I, and we have never said that you are selfish.”
“That shows you don't know me,” said Farr, roughly.
“But we know what you have done,” insisted the old man, with patient confidence. “For what you say you shall not do we do not care about that. For we have seen what you have done—ah, we know about that and care about it very much. You are wiser than we are, and if you say you must go we can only look at you very sad and bow the head. I wish I had some language so to tell you how very sorry! But the Yankee words—I know not those which tell how sorry I shall be. It is not much I can do for the poor little childs—only whittle and save pennies for the fresh air.”
Another man, another tone, might have put rebuke, indirectly, into those words. But old Etienne, rasping his hard palms nervously, was merely vowing himself to sacrifice because there was no one else left to do so. Farr understood and was softened.
“And now I must go to the bed for my sleep, because the rack must be cleared before the wheel start to go roompy-roomp in the big pit asking for its water.” He was showing nervousness, haste, his voice trembled; he staggered when he lifted himself out of his chair.
“You'd better say good-by to me now,” said Farr, rising with the old man. “It's a good night under the stars. I shall probably be far out on the road by daylight.”
“Good-bye,” muttered old Etienne, fumbling his hat and bowing.
“But aren't you going to say something else to me—say you're sorry to have me go?” demanded the young man. “We have been close together in some things we shall never forget.”
“I have told you. I cannot say how sorry.” The old man's voice was little more than a husky whisper.
“I like you, Uncle Etienne. I want you to know it. You are an old saint.” He put out his hand, but the rack-tender turned and hurried to the door. “Not take my hand?” cried Farr. “Am I as much of a traitor as all that?”
“Oh, I cannot speak! I have no word,” wailed the old man from the gloom in the street. His voice rose in shrill, cracked tones. He began to weep aloud. He had been restraining his feelings with all the strength of his will since Farr had announced his intentions. His departure was flight. He began to run away down the sidewalk. “Saint Joseph, guard my tongue!” he gasped over and over. “I'll go very fast so that I not say it, for I am only old Pickaroon, and he is fine gentlemans!” He continued to weep broken-heartedly.
“Mr. Farr, he was afraid he would tell you how much he loved you—afraid that you would be insulted if he presumed to tell you of it.”
“I don't think I just understand that,” commented Farr, staring into the night, peering to get another glimpse of Etienne.
“I understand!” said the girl. “It would be too bad for you to go away and think that at parting he was not polite to you. I would not like to have you suppose that fault is in one from Tadousac. He has told me. If you will not follow him and frighten him by saying that you know it, I will tell you.”
“I will not follow him. Probably I shall never see him again.”
“It may be a bit hard for you to understand, for you do not know the French nature, perhaps. But since little Rosemarie went away for ever he has loved you. You made something more of him than the old rack-tender when you took him into partnership. When you made him your friend before all the big men at the City Hall something bloomed in him, m'sieu'—something that before had been only a withered bud! Ah, you think I am fanciful? Very well! I cannot think how to say it any other way. You are a token for him from little Rosemarie who has gone away; you are friend, you are son, you are in his eyes destined savior of these poor people.”
“I am glad I am going away. I would hate to betray such childlike faith. Good-by, Miss Zelie!”
He heard her call to him when he was in the street. He turned and halted and saw her slim, white figure at the gate, and he stepped back half-way.
She was girlish sympathy incarnate, and his troubled, hungry, self-accusatory soul caught the radiation of that womanly solace.
“It's not what you say to me you are,” she said, her breath coming fast, her tones low. “It's what I know you are! That you will be when at last you shall come to yourself. I do not care what you say. I shall not remember! To the world—to me—to poor Etienne, just now, you lied about yourself, M'sieu' Farr—about your real self. But you did not lie to a little girl when she asked you to show your true self to her. Of yourself—with little Rosemarie—that shall I remember!”
“I thank you,” he said, gratefully.
“Some day some woman will love you,” she continued. “And when you are sure that she does love you, then you will tell her your troubles and she will know what to say to make things right for you. For that is the mission of good women. They understand how to listen and how to help the men they love. You shall see!” She hurried into the house.
Farr was promptly admitted when he presented himself at the door of Archer Converse's residence, and he was conducted to that gentleman's library, and came face to face with his patron, whom he found sitting very erect in a high-backed chair.
“I have been waiting for you, sir,” said Converse.
“I expected that you would be waiting, sir.”
“Be seated.”
“I will stand, if you please. I have only a few words to say.”
“Then your nature must have changed very suddenly,” said the lawyer, dryly. “Or did you pump your reservoir dry of language when you put my name in nomination to-day?”
Farr bowed without reply.
“I hear that speech commended very highly. Among opportunists you deserve high rank, Mr. Farr. You have tipped a state upside down very effectively, and I am upside down along with the rest.”
“I will stand here very patiently, sir, and take my punishment. As between ourselves, I had no right to do what I did to-day without consulting you. As regards conditions in the state, I had a right to seize that opportunity and give to the people a man who can be depended on. I did so. Go ahead, now, Mr. Converse!”
To the young man's surprise, the nominee arose and came to him with hand outstretched. A smile broke through the grimness of the lawyer's countenance. “I have accepted a public trust with pride, I am obeying my plain duty with satisfaction, and I shall work to be elected with all my might. Otherwise I wouldn't be the son of my father. My boy, I have had a talk with Citizen Drew to-day. He told me about your idea of kicking honest men into politics. I want you to understand that I thank you heartily because you have kicked me in. I'm going to swim!”
“'Then God's in His Heaven and the world's all right,'” declared Farr.
The lawyer's quizzical and searching gaze was rather disquieting; the young man had found Converse eyeing him with peculiar interest during their meetings in the recent past. Now Converse bestowed particularly intent scrutiny on his caller.
“I feel that I have done my work, sir,” Farr hastened to say, anxious to terminate this interview. “I am going away—out of the state. I shall not return.”
Mr. Converse did not break out into protest. He eyed Farr more closely. Then he reached a button and turned on the full light of the chandelier. “You have a good reason for deserting just when you are most needed, I presume, sir?”
“I have. It is a reason which especially concerns the success of the legislation which we have discussed. If I stay I shall hamper you.”
“I will ask you to stand where you are for a few minutes, sir,” said the lawyer, commanding rather than requesting. He went to a cabinet and drew forth a package. He brought that packet to the table and began to sort photographs.
He selected one, regarded it with careful gaze, and shifted his eyes to the young man's face.
“Um!” he commented, with judicial tone. “Now—suppose you tell me—just how your continued presence in this state will hamper me”—he paused; he drawled the next words, emphasizing them—“Mr. Bristol!”
Farr had begun nervous retreat when the lawyer had begun comparison of the living features with the photograph. It was plain that he feared rather than understood.
“Hold on, there!” shouted the investigator. “You may as well stay and settle this matter, Bristol. You look at this picture! You recognize it, do you? If you are in any doubt I'll inform you that it's a picture of your father when he and I were in law-school together.”
“I deny any relationship to that man.”
“Your tone and your manner convict you, my boy. I jumped you with that name purposely. I am no fool when it comes to examining a witness. When I first laid eyes on you I thought I had seen you, yourself, somewhere, and I have been puzzling my brains. Then it occurred to me that I had known in my youth a fellow who looked like you. You're the son of your father, all right. Don't stultify yourself by lying to me. You are Morgan Bristol's boy! Hah?”
“I am,” confessed the young man, with resignation.
“What is your first name?”
“Thornton.”
“Sit down, Thornton!”
The visitor obeyed.
“What have you done that you're ashamed of, my boy?”
“I cannot tell you,” said Bristol, firmly.
“Oh, but you're going to,” insisted the lawyer, with just as much firmness. “You are now retaining me as your attorney and counsel—whether you know it or not. And when a man talks to his lawyer and tells the truth it's no betrayal of confidence. Out with it!”
“There's nothing to be done, Mr. Converse.”
“There's always something which can be done when a man is in trouble. You are Morgan Bristol's son. I was in school with your father. He went West and settled. Is he alive?”
“I think so.”
“How is it that you don't know?”
Mr. Converse settled himself into the tone and pose of the cross-examiner.
“I have been a vagrant, hiding myself in the highways and byways of this country, for a long time.”
“What happened to drive you out like that?”
“Right there, Mr. Converse, is where I must halt. It is a family matter. I cannot go into it.”
“Look here, Thornton, you are in trouble. If you are in trouble, so is your father. He has lost a boy! You can tell me now what it's all about, or I'll drop my affairs and go and hunt up Morgan Bristol and ask him about it. You may just as well save me all that time and trouble. You're a lawyer, yourself—I know it.”
“Yes.”
“And you're a good one and know our code when it comes to secrets. I am not asking you to expose a family skeleton—I'm demanding that you treat me as your attorney and trust to my discretion. You are in trouble and need a helper, and, by gad! you have got to take me into this thing.”
Thornton Bristol set his elbows on his knees and clutched his shaking fingers into his hair.
“I have been meaning to keep it all to myself, sir,” he stammered.
“Quite likely. You have done mighty well at it, I should judge. But you know that any man who acts as his own lawyer usually does a mighty poor job. He lacks perspective.”
Bristol did not reply.
“I have been studying you a little since I have known you,” the lawyer went on. “You are a very strange mixture, my boy. I much fear that in some things in this life you are too quixotic in your views. We had a case here in town—a man named Andrew Kilgour—”
“I have heard about that man, sir.”
“Thornton, from what glimpses I have had of your nature, I'm going to tell you here and now that you are covering somebody else's fault. You are no coward. You would face your own delinquency just as bravely as you came here and faced me to-night. Now, what did your father do?”
“Speculated with trust funds of estates.”
“Old story, eh? Too bad, Morgan. I liked you when you were young.”
“But I want you to understand it,” cried the son. “It is hard for me to talk about it, sir, but it isn't exactly the old story. My father was too indulgent where I was concerned. He tried to do more for me than he could afford. He didn't tell me the truth about his affairs—I supposed he was a rich man. I always had everything that money could furnish. When he found that I was interested in the law he sent me to schools at home and abroad and ordered me to take my time and go to the bottom of all.”
“Well, I reckon you did,” stated Converse. “If ever I saw a chap with the true legal mind you have it, polished and pointed. You came into this state and saw a solution for a problem which has blocked us for twenty-five years. It's good law! And we will have a legislature that will pass it. But when did you find out that your father had taken other folks' money?”
“I came home and insisted on going to work in the office. Then he told me. The settlement was due and had been called for. He was obliged to tell me. And he tried to convince me that he had not taken the money for my sake. He was willing to appear in my eyes a thief without excuse. But I knew. I had selfishly accepted it all without thought—and only half grateful. Young men are thoughtless, sir.”
“Your father seems to have been quixotic after his own fashion, Thornton. I think I remember some of his traits when he was in school. But as old Hard-Times Brewster used to say, 'We are all poor, queer critters and some be queerer than the others!' So you were a little queerer than your father, eh, and tried to square matters by a worse piece of folly?”
“It may have been folly. Perhaps it was. But I did not stop to argue or reason. That money had been spent on me. I accepted the blame. I said nothing to my father. I wrote letters to the persons who had lost. I told them that I had taken the money as my father's agent—without his knowledge. I said I had deceived him as well as them. And then, so that I might not perjure myself on the witness-stand or have the truth gimleted out of me by lawyers, I put on rags and hid myself among the thousands who trudge the highways and ride the trusses of freight-cars. And no one has come to me and put heavy hand on my shoulder and said, 'I want you!' But some one will come if I remain here. I am going to hide myself again.”
“I say it has all been a piece of folly,” insisted Converse. “Dear folly! Yes, almost noble folly! But it must end, my boy. I suppose your father is back there toiling to repay those men from whom he took money.”
“I suppose so, Mr. Converse. But he has not been disgraced in the eyes of the public.”
“There's where your noble folly has made its mistake. You have doubled his grief, Thornton. Just sit there a moment and ponder. You will understand what I mean.”
“I have understood—I have pondered—but I have not had the courage to go back. At least, they could not say to him that his son was in prison. He has escaped that grief.”
“And has endured a heavier one, my boy. I'm afraid you're a poor counselor in your own affairs.” He came across the room to Bristol and slapped the bowed shoulder. “Now you have found a better one. I have taken your case.”
The young man looked up into the kindly features of his adviser and was only half convinced.
“Don't you realize how easy it will be for you to make money from this time on? You don't? Well, let me tell you. As soon as you can be admitted to the bar in this state I'm going to make you my law partner. Hold on! I'm doing you no especial favor—I'm putting into my office a man who had the legal acumen to devise a plan to break the unholy clutch of plunderers who have had this state by the throat for a quarter of a century. I'm simply grabbing you before somebody else gets you. I expect to be governor of this state, and I want my law business looked after by a man who is able to keep up the reputation of the firm. But first of all, my boy, you and I are going back to your home. I think you'll find me a fairly good lawyer in straightening out tangles. I'll know just how to talk to those folks out there. And then you're coming back here with me and face this state as yourself and help me fight the legislation we want put through to enactment—and be damned to 'em!” He put his arm about the young man's shoulders and drew him to his feet. “It has been a hard day for you, my boy. There are some hard things ahead of you. You must go to bed. The morning will bring comfort and good counsel.”
But when Bristol started toward the door Converse restrained him gently and led him toward the stairs which led up from the big vestibule.
“You're home, my boy—right here—you're home here from this time on! This is your other home until your father needs you more than I do. I have been pretty lonely in this house for a good many years without realizing just what was the matter with me.”
“After all, you have only my word for what I am and what I have done,” expostulated Bristol.
“Oh no, I have the evidence of my eyes and ears and my own common sense.”
Bristol pressed the hand stretched forth to him.
“I'm not going to talk to you any more to-night,” stated the host, when they were on the upper landing. “It will all seem different in the morning. It's going to be all right after this, Thornton. I'm sorry I haven't a wife. A woman understands how to listen to troubles better than a man. Is your mother alive?”
“No, Mr. Converse.”
“I might have known that. You would not have allowed a mother to suffer—your folly would never have gone so far. You would have been home long before this. Ah, well, my boy, some woman will know how to comfort you some day for all you have endured. Good night!”
The young man knew that Zelie Dionne had been right in what she said; he did not require the added opinion of the state's most eminent lawyer.