"Imperative that I see Cal at once in the presence of my friend on a matter of grave importance. Please send him down. He is stubborn."
"Imperative that I see Cal at once in the presence of my friend on a matter of grave importance. Please send him down. He is stubborn."
He handed it to the servant and said:
"Take that to Mrs. Bivens."
Bivens came in a few minutes, shook hands cordially with Stuart and ignored Woodman.
"I want to see you alone with the doctor," the young lawyer began, "where we can not possibly be overheard."
The financier's keen eyes looked piercingly from one to the other, and he said curtly:
"I have nothing to say to this man, but for your sake, all right. Come up to the library."
Once in the room and the door closed the doctor sank listlessly into a chair, seeing nothing, hearing nothing. His deep, sunken, bloodshot eyes were turned within. The outer world no longer made any impression.
Stuart plunged at once into his mission.
"Cal, you and I have been friends since boyhood. I'm going to ask my first favour of you to-night."
"For yourself, all right; you've got the answer before you ask it."
"We can't separate our lives from our friends, and I owe much in mine to the man for whom I'm going to speak."
"If you've come to ask me to settle with old Woodman for any imaginary claim he has, you're wasting your breath. I won't hear it. So cut it!"
Bivens spoke with quick fierce energy. His words fell sharp and metallic.
"I'm not asking you to settle any old imaginary claim," the young lawyer went on rapidly, "but a new one that can only appeal to the best that's in you."
"A new one?" Bivens cried in surprise.
"Yes. I needn't recall what passed between you and the doctor the night of the ball."
"No, I've quite a clear recollection of it," Bivens answered grimly.
"Let it be enough to say that the torture you inflicted and the sights he saw in your house drove him insane. Hungry, wretched, in despair over his misfortunes and the promise he had given his daughter, whom he loved better than life, in a moment of madness he took a case of your jewels."
"He took that case of jewels?" Bivens cried with excitement.
"Yes."
The little financier broke into a peal of laughter, walked over to the chair where the doctor sat, thrust his hands into his pockets and continued to laugh.
"So, that's what you meant by laughing and sneering in my face as you left that night, you d——d old hypocrite!"
Stuart suddenly gripped Bivens and spun him around in his tracks.
"That will do now! The doctor is my friend. He's an old broken man to-night and he's under my protection. He came here at my suggestion and against his protest. I won't stand for this."
"I'll say what I please to a thief."
"Not this one."
Stuart faced the little dark man with a dangerous gleam in his eye. The two men glared at each other for a moment and Bivens threw up his hands in a gesture of disgust.
"Well, what did you come for? To ask me to give him a pension for robbing me of a case of jewels? I've accused every drunken servant in the house of the act. Shall I send one of them to the penitentiary and give the real thief a medal for his skill?"
"I only ask that you allow me to return the value of your jewels and drop the whole affair."
Bivens's eyes narrowed and his mouth tightened viciously.
"Can the District Attorney of the County of New York compound a felony?"
"I resigned my office this morning."
Bivens tried to seize Stuart's hand, forgetting for a moment the jewels in the bigger announcement which meant the acceptance of his offer.
He spoke in low excited tones.
"Congratulations!"
Stuart waved aside the extended hand with a gesture of annoyance.
"You'll drop this case, of course, at my request?"
Bivens looked at the bowed figure crouching in forlorn indifference before him with a smile and replied quickly:
"I will not."
"I told you I'd make good the amount to-morrow morning."
"What the devil do you suppose I want with your money? Five thousand dollars is no more to me than five cents to the average man."
He paused, laughed and again stared at the bowed figure.
"I've waited a long time, old man, but I've got you where I want you now."
The doctor never lifted his head or moved a muscle. His eyes were fixed in a senseless stare. Only the body was present. The soul was gone.
"I say I've got you now!" Bivens repeated angrily. "Did you hear me?"
Stuart spoke in low tones:
"My God, Cal, can't you see."
"Five thousand!" Bivens cried exultantly—"It's too easy! The day I see him in a suit of stripes—I've never done such a thing—but I'm going to take a day off and get drunk."
"You are not going to prosecute him?"—Stuart asked incredulously.
"As soon as I can telephone for an officer."
"You don't mean it?"
"Don't I?" The little man spoke fiercely, his black eyes glowing, his hands trembling as they opened and closed as an eagle's claws.
"Look here, Cal."
"It's no use Jim, this is my affair."
"You've asked me to share your affairs."
"Not this one."
"Then to hell with you and all your affairs! I'll fight you to the last ditch"—Stuart's words rang with fierce decision.
Bivens looked at him in amazement.
"What! For this old fool you'd reject my offer?"
"Yes."
"It's a joke! I see you doing it. Defend him if you like. I'll have good lawyers. I'll enjoy the little scrap. A fight between us in public just now will be all the better for my first big plans. I'll send him to Sing Sing if it costs me a million!"
Stuart lifted the doctor from his seat and faced Bivens with a look of defiance. "You needn't trouble for a warrant. He pleads guilty. Your lawyers can fix the day for his sentence and I want you to be there."
"I'll be there, don't you worry!"
"And, Bivens, as you're a good church member, you might read over that passage of scripture: 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay saith the Lord?'"
"Indeed!"
"Yes, I'm going to show you that you're not Almighty God though you are the possessor of a hundred million dollars."
"I'll be present at the demonstration, Jim. Good night!"
CHAPTER XXI
A PLEA FOR JUSTICE
Stuart was not surprised to receive notice from Bivens's lawyers that they would demand sentence on Woodman within two days.
The financier was present with two great lawyers who smilingly assured him that he need have no fear as to the result. Yet the little man was uneasy. He fidgeted in his seat and watched Stuart's calm serious face with dread.
"Don't worry," the senior counsel assured him with confidence. "The old Recorder is a terror to every criminal in New York. Stuart's plea can only be a formal request for mercy, which he will not get."
In spite of all assurance, Bivens's nervousness increased as the hour drew near for the case to be called. He looked at his watch, fuming over the fact that Nan was late. He wished her to see Stuart and find out what he had up his sleeve. A woman could do such tricks better than a man. He looked out the window anxiously, and saw the flash of his big French limousine rounding the corner. He hurried to the steps to meet his wife.
"Nan, for heaven's sake see Jim before this case is called and find out what he's going to say to that judge."
"I'll do my best. I'll send my card in and ask him to see me at once."
"Good. When he returns to the court room wait, and I'll come out."
Bivens went back to his seat beside his lawyers and watched the court officer speak to Stuart.
He frowned and hesitated, rose and slowly followed the man through the door.
Nan seized his hand.
"Oh, Jim, I'm so worried. Cal says you are going to make a desperate fight against him this morning in this disgusting affair. Is it so?"
"I'm going to make the usual plea for mercy for an old broken man—my friend."
"But will it be the usual plea?"
"I'm not going to mince words. I'm going to fight for his life as I would for my own."
The woman drew close, so close he could feel her breath on his cheek as she whispered, earnestly:
"Please, don't do or say anything to-day to cause a break. I couldn't endure it. You don't know how much your friendship means to me."
"You can never lose that again, Nan," he answered, simply.
"But I must see you. Your visits are the brightest spots in my life. A break with him now would plunge me into abject misery. What are you going to say? Are you going to attack Cal? You don't have to do that, Jim! Promise me you won't, for my sake, if you care nothing for the brilliant future that is just opening before you. You do care something for me in spite of all the wrong I have done you in the past."
The young lawyer remained silent.
"Promise me," she pleaded tenderly, a tear stealing into her dark eyes.
"I'm going to do my level best for my old friend, Nan," he answered with dogged determination. "You needn't worry about your husband. He has the hide of a rhinoceros and nothing I can say will get under his skin."
"But that's just the trouble, Jim, it will. If any other man said it, no; but from you it will cut deeper than you can realize. You are the one man who can hurt him beyond forgiveness, because you're the one man on earth for whom he really cares."
"It will be all right, Nan. Men know how to give and take hard knocks and still be friends. We challenged each other to this duel when there was no other way."
"I never saw him so bent on any one thing in my life. His hatred of Woodman is a mania."
"I'm sorry—I'm fighting for my old friend's life. He wouldn't live in a prison a year. And I'm fighting for the life of his little girl who loves and believes in him as she believes in the goodness of God. If her father is branded a felon, it will kill her."
Nan tried to speak again and her voice failed. At last she said:
"Well, I'm going to sit where I can look straight into your face and if you say or do one thing that will destroy our friendship or ruin your future I shall scream—I know it!"
Stuart smiled and pressed her hand.
"You've too much good sense and self-control for that. I'll risk it. Now I must hurry. Our case will be called in a few minutes."
He turned abruptly and left her.
In a moment Bivens came out and led his wife to a seat which had been reserved near his.
One of the things which had increased Bivens's nervousness was the fact that the judge ignored his presence in the court room. He had been accustomed to deference from judges. Here was a new thing under the sun—a judge in an insignificant city court who coolly sat on the bench before him for an hour, sentencing criminals, and never even glanced in his direction. Evidently the man didn't know him. It was amazing, this ignorance of the average New Yorker.
The truth, of course, was the old-fashioned Recorder had not been trained as a corporation lawyer. He had fought his own way up in politics from the ranks of the common people. He was a man with red blood in his veins, a man of intense personal likes and dislikes and a fearless dispenser of what he believed to be even-handed justice under the law.
Stuart had based his plan of battle squarely on his knowledge of this judge's character.
As Bivens listened to the sharp ring of his voice pronouncing sentence on evil-doers and saw the officer snap his handcuffs on their wrists his spirits revived. His lawyers were right, after all. Nothing Stuart could say would affect the mind of such a man.
The young lawyer sat in silence beside the bowed form, awaiting his case which the judge, at his request, had placed last. As the moment drew near for the plea his nerve-tension grew intense. Waves of passionate emotion swept his heart. His imagination began to blaze with fires of eloquence that had been his birthright from two generations of great lawyers in the South. Somehow this morning the scene before him stirred his spirit with unusual power. Every crime apparently on the calendar had its origin in the lust for money. Every felon sentenced could have traced his ruin to this curse—thieves, embezzlers, burglars, a man who had killed his partner in a dispute over money, grafters, highwaymen, and last of all, two fallen women who had been amassing a fortune out of the ruin of their sisters.
The figures in the court room grew dim and faded, and out of the mists of the spirit world his excited fancy saw a crooked Red Shape rise over all, stretch forth a long bony hand dripping with blood and filth and begin to throw gold into a black bag. The face was hideous, but a crowd of worshipful admirers followed eagerly in the footsteps of the Red Shape, scrambling and fighting for the coins that slipped through the dripping fingers.
He waked from his day dream with a start, to hear the clerk read in quick tones:
"The People against Henry Woodman."
The judge looked at the dazed prisoner and said:
"What have you to say, Henry Woodman, why sentence should not be imposed upon you for the crime of which you stand convicted by your own plea?"
With a quick movement of his tall figure Stuart was on his feet, every nerve and muscle strung to the highest tension. His long sinewy hands were trembling so violently he could scarcely hold the slip of paper containing the notes he had scrawled for guidance in his address. And yet when he spoke it was with apparent calmness. Only the deep tremulous notes of his voice betrayed his emotion.
"May it please your honour," he slowly began, "I wish to establish to the court before I say anything in behalf of my client, the important fact that he offered to make full restitution of the property taken, that he did this voluntarily before he was even suspected of the crime, and that his offer was refused."
The judge turned to Bivens's lawyers.
"Is this admitted, gentlemen?"
"Without question, your honour," was the instant answer.
The old Recorder lifted his gray eyebrows in surprise, and settled back into his seat with a low grunt.
"I make the fair inference therefore in the beginning," Stuart went on evenly, "that the prosecutor in the case, who appears in this court to-day with an array of distinguished lawyers, whose presence is unnecessary to serve the ends of justice, is here actuated solely by a desire for personal vengeance."
Stuart paused and Bivens moved uneasily in his seat.
"I speak to-day, your honour, in behalf of the man who crouches by my side overwhelmed with shame and grief and conscious dishonour because he took a paltry package of jewellery from a man who has never added one penny to the wealth of the world and yet has somehow gotten possession of one hundred million dollars from those who could not defend themselves from his strength and cunning. This man stands before you now with no shame in his soul, no tears on his cheeks, and with brazen effrontery demands vengeance on a weaker brother.
"Two men are on trial, not one. The majesty of the law has already been vindicated in the tear-stained plea that has been entered. Between these two men the court must decide.
"I am not here to defend the crime of theft. The law of property has long been omnipotent. But I dare to plead with your honour to-day for the beginning of a new, nobler, higher law of humanity—the law that shall place man above his chattel. I shall not ask for the mercy of a light sentence. I am going to appeal to this court for something bigger, more divine. I am going to ask for justice under the higher law of man, whose divine code is yet unwritten, but whose day is surely dawning."
The judge leaned forward with one hand on his cheek, listening intently to the young lawyer's quivering words. Bivens's face had grown livid with excitement, and he sat staring helplessly at the speaker.
"Crime, your honour, is in the heart of man, not in the act he performs. If I shoot at a target, and kill a bystander, the act is not murder. But if I aim at my enemy and kill my friend I have committed murder. Out of the heart are the issues of life. Under the laws of to-day the act of this man is called a crime. Yet who can say that when we shall have slowly emerged from the era of property into the era of man, his act may not be called heroic? Morals are relative things. They are based on the experiences and faith of the generations which express them. Men were once hanged for daring to express an opinion contrary to that held by their parish priest. Such men are to-day the leaders of the world. The proud and cruel silence of ancient Europe has been succeeded by the universal cry for equal justice. And this rising chorus of the world is fast swelling into the deep soul conviction which cries: 'I will not make money out of my brother who is hungry. I refuse to be happy while my sister weeps in shame. I will not caress my own child while that of my neighbour starves!'
"I am not excusing crime. I am crying for the equality of man before the law. The English people beheaded their king because he imposed taxes without the consent of their parliament.
"The millionaire who demands vengeance against this broken man to-day has an income greater than the combined crowned heads of Europe and wields a sceptre mightier than tzar or emperor.
"Why?
"He levies each year millions of taxes without consulting this court, the legislature or any man who walks the earth. He does this by a machine for printing paper-tokens of value called stocks. The essence of theft is to take the property of another without giving a return. A green goods man sells printed paper for money. This mighty man also sells printed paper for money. What is the difference? Neither the green goods, nor the bogus capital called watered stock represents a dollar in real value. Yet we send the green goods man to the penitentiary and bow down before the other as a captain of industry!
"A burglar breaks into a store and robs the safe. A mighty man of money breaks into the management of a corporation which owns an iron mill employing thousands. He shuts down the plant, throws one hundred thousand people into want, passes the dividend, drives the stock down to a few cents on the dollar, buys it for a song from the ruined holders, starts up the mill again andmakesfive millions! That is to say, he broke into a mill and robbed the safe of five millions. We send the burglar to the penitentiary and hail the manipulator of this stock as a Napoleon of Finance. I am not justifying crime. I demand the enforcement of equal justice among men.
"An enraged Italian stabs his enemy to death. The act is murder. This man corners wheat. Puts up the price of bread a cent a loaf and kills ten thousand children already half-starved from insufficient food. We electrocute the Italian and print pictures of the wheat speculator in our magazines as an example of Success.
"In other words, the theft of five thousand dollars is grand larceny. The theft of five millions, stained with human blood, is a triumph of business genius.
"But one answer is heard, 'am I my brother's keeper?'
"The man who asks that question will always kill his brother if the temptation comes at the right moment.
"A loaf of bread in England costs two and one-half cents. The same loaf here costs five cents. Who voted to levy a tax of one hundred per cent. on every man's loaf of bread? Kings were beheaded for less than this. Why has the cost of living increased to the point of crushing the average consumer? Because the irresponsible rulers of the people have piled their bogus debts of printed paper on their backs. The lowest estimate of this bogus capital of green goods stock is five times the sum of the National debt. And yet not one of these great thieves has ever been punished.
"Our brutal ancestors lived by raiding their neighbours. Their armed bands of hired retainers ravaged, burned, pillaged—the strong against the weak, the shrewd against the simple, the powerful against the defenseless. The power of those savages was purely physical. The power we give to their modern prototype is both physical and moral. They kill the body and poison the souls of the living. The older savage made raids for the necessities of life. We permit the raiders to play their murderous game for the sheer sport of the exercise.
"The man who lives to serve his fellow-man, the artist who creates beauty, the philosopher who inspires the mind, the statesman who adds a new law to our social structure, the inventor who conquers nature, the workingman who incarnates the dreams of thinkers into spiritualized matter—these men all add to the wealth of the world; but this modern marauder whom we have enthroned as our ruler everywhere, from everyone, seizes, tears, and despoils the fruits of toil, and has never added a penny to the wealth of humanity.
"And what do we find him doing? In the midst of poverty that means hunger and nakedness, disease and death, we have the shameless flaunting of insane luxury. And to what purpose? To challenge the envy of the vain and the foolish, to dazzle the minds of the poor and inflame the lusts of the criminal.
"Do we believe that such things are the decrees of a just and loving God who created this world? Slavery, Polygamy, Famine, and Plague were once universal scourges and accepted as the mysterious ways of God. We have outgrown them all and created a new and nobler God. We find that these things are not the results of his law, but the results of the violation of law."
The speaker paused, drew close to the judge and then in low impassioned tones told as if he were talking to a father the story of Woodman's life and the events which drove him to madness on the fatal night of his crime. In flashes of vivid eloquence he described the magnificent ball and drew in sombre heart-breaking contrast the desolation and despair of a proud and sensitive man made desperate by want and ruin, the man who had given his blood to his country and his daily life in an unselfish ministry to the homeless and friendless.
"I do not ask of your honour," he cried in ringing tones, "the repeal of the law against theft—thou shalt not steal! This law, old as the human race, will be as good a thousand years from to-day as it was a thousand years ago. I only ask the suspension of its penalty on this heart-broken man until we can extend it to his oppressors as well, until its thunder shall also echo through the palaces of the rich—thoushalt not steal!
"The prosecution is enforcing the law, I grant. I appeal to this court to-day for more than man's law. I ask for divine justice. I ask for a bigger thing than the law itself—the equality of all men before the law!
"The possession of millions may not constitute true wealth, but it always means power over men. The thing which seems to be wealth may be, 'tis true, 'but the gilded index of far-reaching ruin, a wrecker's handful of coin gleaned from a beach whose false light has beguiled an argosy, a camp follower's bundle of rags from the breast of goodly soldier dead, the purchase price of potter's fields', but it still means the power of life and death over men!
"The man who has fallen was weak and poor. The man who demands his life is rich and powerful. You are the judge between them. The man who fell stood alone grappling Death and Hell, fought and lost his battle once. I appeal, your honour, to the higher law of the soul within you, within me, within this prisoner, within the breast even of his enemy—through struggle alone we triumph at last! I ask for a heartbroken man another chance. I ask this court to suspend all sentence against the poor bruised and bleeding spirit that lies in tears at our feet to-day."
Stuart suddenly sat down amid a silence that was painful. A woman's sob at last broke the stillness.
The judge wheeled in his armchair, cleared his throat and looked out of the window to hide from the crowd a tear that had stolen down his furrowed cheek.
He turned at length to Bivens's lawyers and quietly asked:
"The State insists on the enforcement of sentence without mercy?"
"Absolutely," was the sharp answer.
"This is your desire, Mr. Bivens?" the judge asked with some severity.
"Yes," the financier fiercely replied.
"And yet you say that you are a Christian—well, see to it—your Master says:
"'He that saith I love God and hateth his brother is a liar.' Henry Woodman, stand up!"
"The judgment of this court is that sentence in your case be suspended so long as you obey the law."
A murmur of applause rippled the crowd, and a muttered oath fell from Bivens's livid lips.
"And I may say to you, Henry Woodman, that my faith is profound that you will never appear in this court again. And if you ever need the help of a friend you'll find one if you come to me. You are a free man."
Stuart hurried the doctor out of the crowd. He had important work yet to do. He determined that no story of the scene should ever be printed in a New York paper. He would save Harriet that, too.
As the court adjourned Bivens cursed his lawyers in a paroxysm of helpless rage.
"Why didn't you appeal?" he stormed.
"There is no appeal. The case is ended."
"Ended!" The financier gasped.
"Ended."
Bivens suddenly threw his hand to his forehead, staggered and sank to the floor.
A doctor who was near rushed to his side and lifted his head into his wife's arms.
"What is it? Has he fainted, doctor?" she whispered, glancing toward the door through which Stuart had just passed.
"He has had a stroke of paralysis, Madam, I fear," was the serious answer.
Book 3, The Flower
CHAPTER I
THE DEVIL SMILES
Stuart's appeal to the New York papers in behalf of Harriet was successful. For a week he bought every morning and evening edition and read them eagerly. Not a line appeared to darken the life of his little pal.
Bivens's illness shook the financial world. The men who had professed his friendship most loudly to his face now sharpened their knives for his wounded body. Every stock with which his name was linked was the target of the most savage attacks. The tumbling of values in his securities carried down the whole market from five to six points in a single day.
The great palace that had a few nights before blazed with lights and echoed with music, laughter, song and dance and clinking glasses, stood dark and silent behind its bristling iron fence.
Of all the fawning crowd that had thronged its portals to drink the wine and toast the greatness of its master, not one was his friend to-day. Each sycophant of yesterday was now a wolf prowling in the shadows, awaiting the chance to tear his wounded body.
Within the darkened palace the doctors were supreme. In his great library they held consultation after consultation and secretly smiled when they thought of the figures they would write on his bills. They disagreed in details, but all agreed on the main conclusion—that the only hope was that he should quit work and play for several years.
When they made this solemn announcement to Bivens, he smiled for the first time. It was too good a joke. How could he play? He knew but one game, the big game of the man-hunt! He told his doctors politely but firmly that they might go to hell, he would go to Europe and see if there were doctors over there who knew anything.
The shaking miserable little figure staggered up the gang plank of a steamer. He made a brave show of strength to the reporters who swarmed about him for an interview and collapsed in the arms of his wife on reaching his staterooms.
He had forgotten his resentment on account of Woodman in the presence of the Great Terror, whose shadow had suddenly darkened the world, and clung with pathetic eagerness to Stuart's friendship.
The young lawyer had said good-bye to Nan with a sense of profound relief. From the bottom of his soul he thanked God she was going. It had been impossible to keep away from her, and each day he had felt the sheer physical magnetism of her presence more and more resistless.
He returned with renewed energy and enthusiasm to the practice of law. The wide fame he had achieved as district attorney brought him the best clients and from them he was able to choose only the cases which involved principles worth fighting for.
His spare time he gave in a loving effort to restore the doctor to his old cheerful frame of mind. He had returned Bivens's money in spite of his protest and made his old friend a loan sufficient for his needs, taking his personal note for security.
He had no difficulty in learning the progress of Bivens in his search of Europe for health.
A troop of reporters followed him daily. His doings were chronicled with more minute details than the movements of kings. If he sneezed, it was cabled to America. In every capital of the Old World he was received with what amounted to royal honours. His opinions were eagerly sought by reigning sovereigns. The daily cabled reports to New York always gave his condition as better.
But Stuart knew the truth. He received two or three letters a week from Nan. She had told him in full detail the little man's suffering, and at last of his homesickness, fast developing into a mania.
He was not surprised at the end of three months to hear her familiar voice over his telephone.
"Yes, we've returned, Jim—sailed incognito to escape the reporters. He is very feeble. We haven't been in the house three hours, but he has asked for you a dozen times. Can you come up at once?"
Stuart hesitated and she went on rapidly.
"Please come without delay. I promised him not to leave the 'phone until I got you. You will come?"
"Yes, I'll come," he answered slowly.
He hung up the receiver with a groan.
"It's Fate!" he said bitterly. "Every time I feel that I'm fighting my way to a place of safety, the devil bobs up serenely with an excuse so perfect it can't be denied. It won't do; I'll tear my tongue out sooner than speak."
He repeated these resolutions over and over before reaching the Bivens mansion only to find that he had lost all sense of danger in the warmth and tenderness of Nan's greeting. He not only forgot his fears but reproached himself for his low estimate of her character in supposing that she would allow herself or permit him to cross the line of danger. Her solicitude for Bivens seemed deep and genuine.
"For Heaven's sake, Jim," she begged, "try to cheer him up. He has grown to feel that you are the only real friend he has ever known."
"I'll do my best," he answered, soberly.
Bivens's joy at meeting Stuart was pathetic, and moved him deeply. He was surprised to find him so strong, apparently, in body and yet so broken in spirit.
"Lord, it's good to look into your face again, Jim! You know I haven't seen you really since that day in court when you gave me such a cussin'. But it was all in your day's work. It hurt for the minute, but I didn't blame you when I thought it over. Now I'm up against the biggest thing I've ever struck." His voice sank to a half sob. "Death! I can feel his hand on my throat, but I'm going to fight; I've got to get well."
The little shrunken hand clung to his friend's.
"You know I felt the thing creeping on me for the past two years, but I couldn't let up. That's why I tried so hard to put some of the load on your shoulders. At least you can help me to get well. To the devil with the doctors! I'm tired, too, of all the sycophants, liars and fools who hang around. I didn't mind 'em when I was well. But they get on my nerves now. The doctors kept dinning into my ears that I've got to rest and play and finally one old duffer over in France put an idea into my head that brought me back home to see you. He told me to get on a small boat with a single nurse and a congenial friend, get away from land, cut every telephone and telegraph line, get no mail, and shoot ducks all winter and he'd guarantee I'd be a new man next spring. I took to the idea. He charged me two dollars for the visit. I paid him a hundred for his advice. He nearly dropped dead in surprise. I thought it was from gratitude, but found afterward it was from chagrin over not knowing I was an American millionaire. He had missed the opportunity of his life. He would undoubtedly have charged me five hundred had he known who I was."
Stuart laughed.
"Well, the upshot of it is, I'm here, and I've sent for you to accept the invitation you gave me to shoot ducks with you down in Virginia."
"What invitation?" Stuart asked in surprise.
"Why, the one you used to reproach me for not accepting. Will you go with me now?"
Stuart shook his head.
"I can't go," he said slowly.
He was looking vaguely into the fire in the grate, but Nan's figure was within the line of his vision as she stood silently by the window gazing out on the river. Bivens hadn't said that she must go on that trip, but in a flash of warning intuition he knew it. The danger of such a situation on a yacht would be real and only a fool would rush into it. He wondered if she had played any part in hatching the scheme. He couldn't believe it possible. It had come about naturally, just as if the devil had made it to order.
"Can't go? Why?" the financier asked in tones of genuine distress.
"I've important legal business."
"I'll make good all the damages, if you'll let me."
"But I won't let you."
"If I ask it as a special favour?" he pleaded.
"There's no use in my going, Cal," Stuart said persuasively, "I can tell you exactly where to go, the guides to get, and the kind of boats you'll need. You'll get along better without than with me."
"I won't go without you," the financier said peevishly.
"But why?"
"Dozens of reasons. You know the place, you know all about the birds, you can teach me the ins and outs of the business and I can trust you. I know that you won't try to worm out of me any information my enemies would like to know. Besides, Jim, you're a friend. It would rest and help me to be with you on such a trip. I can't offer you money, you won't let me. All right. I appeal to the boy I used to know at college, the fellow who fought for me one day. I need you worse now, old man."
Stuart hesitated and looked at Nan who had stood motionless while Bivens spoke.
"Well, if that's the way you put it, I'll take a vacation and go with you for a month."
Bivens seized his hand and pressed it gratefully.
"Best medicine I've had in weeks."
Nan walked slowly across the room, looked into his eyes and said, with emotion:
"Thank you, Jim."
And the devil who was standing in the shadows smiled in anticipation of interesting events on board that yacht.
CHAPTER II
BESIDE BEAUTIFUL WATERS
In five days the party had completed all preparations and Bivens's big steamer, theBuccaneer, slipped quietly through the Narrows and headed for the Virginia coast, towing a trim little schooner built for cruising in the shoal waters of the South.
They had scarcely put to sea when Stuart began to curse himself for being led into such a situation.
Bivens had insisted with amateurish enthusiasm that they begin the cruise on the little schooner—with her limited crew and close quarters—at once, and use theBuccaneeras her tender. The moment they struck the swell outside Sandy Hook the financier went to bed and the doctor never left his side until the trip ended.
Nan was in magnificent spirits, her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkling with the joy of a child. Stuart watched her with growing wonder at her eternal youth. She was more beautiful in her stylish yachting costume than the day she landed in New York, at nineteen. There was not a line in the smooth surface of her rounded neck and shoulders.
The night was one of extraordinary springlike air though it was the fifteenth of December. A gentle breeze was blowing from the south and the full moon flooded the smooth sea with soft silvery radiance. Nan insisted that Stuart sit on deck with her. There was no help for it. Bivens would allow no one except the doctor in his room, and so he resigned himself to the beauty of the glorious scene. Not a sound broke the stillness save the soft ripple of the water about the bow of the swan-like yacht.
Nan sat humming a song, when she suddenly stopped and leaned toward Stuart.
"Jim!" she said, softly.
He looked up with a start.
"I honestly believe you were asleep!" she laughed with a touch of petulance.
"No," he protested seriously. "I was just drinking in the joy of this wonderful night."
"Forgetting that I exist?"
Stuart looked at her intently a moment and said, gravely:
"As if any man who ever knew you, could forget!"
"I don't like your attitude, Jim, and I think we'd better fight it out here and now in the beginning of this trip."
"And what is my offense?"
"Not offense, but defense."
"Why Nan!"
"It's useless to deny it," she said banteringly. "You hesitated to come on deck with me in the moonlight this evening. You've kept trotting to Cal's stateroom, when he only begs to be let alone."
"Honestly——"
"It's no use to shuffle. I'm going to be perfectly frank with you. Your assumption of such chilling virtue is insulting. I wish an apology and a promise never to do so again."
"Have I really made you feel this?" he asked, contritely.
"You have, and feel it keenly. Let's come to an understanding. You and I both live in glass houses set on a very high hill. No matter what may be the secrets of my heart, I'm not a fool and you can trust my good sense."
Stuart pressed her hand, and said gently:
"I'm awfully sorry if I've made such an ass of myself that you have received this impression."
"You repent?"
"In sackcloth and ashes."
"Then I forgive you," she cried, with a laugh, releasing her hand and rising, "but on one condition."
"Name it."
"That from this hour you be your old self, without restraint, and let me be mine."
"I promise faithfully."
"Then, you can help me down that steep companion-way and I'll go to bed."
He held her hand with firm grasp as she picked her way down the steps. Her eyes looked straight into the depths of his as her face almost touched him. He was sure that she had felt the mad impulse to take her in his arms that quivered in every nerve and muscle of his body, for his hand trembled and she smiled.
At her stateroom door she paused, smiled again and said:
"Good night."
His answer was very low.
"Good night."
But he didn't spend a good night. The longer he thought of it the more sinister and dangerous he felt his position. At last he squarely faced the fact that his desire for Nan had increased a hundred-fold by the fact that he had lost her, and that it might become a dangerous mania under the conditions of physical nearness which this little schooner made inevitable.
As he sat in the darkness in his stateroom he could hear every sound in the adjoining one which she occupied as plainly as if the thin panelling of wood were not between them.
He was a fool to be caught in such a trap! His love had been too big and serious a tragedy to end in a vulgar intrigue. There was something painful and stupefying in the spell which she threw over his senses. He realized, too, that she had put him practically at her mercy by the promise he had given. And what made it all the more dangerous was that she was sincere, and apparently sure of herself.
He made up his mind to cut his trip short on some pretext, and in the meantime he would devote himself faithfully to an attempt to start Bivens on the road to a recovery of his shattered health.
At eight o'clock the next morning the black nose of theBuccaneerslowly felt her way into Hog Island Inlet on the shores of old Virginia and dropped her anchor in the deep waters of the channel back of the sand spit on which the U.S. Life Saving station is built.
As Stuart stepped on deck a great flock of thousands of brant swept in from sea and pitched on the bar beyond the channel. A cloud of black ducks circled gracefully overhead and slowly spread out on their feeding grounds beyond the brant.
His heart gave a throb of primitive joy. He was a boy again, and the world was young.
"Confound them!" he cried. "I'll show these ducks a trick or two before this trip is over."
He was glad he came. To the devil with worry and women and all the problems of the universe! He watched the flight of the birds for half an hour, entranced with the memories they evoked. He made up his mind to stay the whole month out and get even with them for a hundred bitter disappointments they had given him in the past.
The long gleaming sweep of the Broadwater Bay, stretching from the tip of the Cape Charles peninsula to the mouth of the Delaware, was literally alive with ducks.
Bivens had put him in command of the little schooner and he gave orders at once to lower a tender and tow her to an old anchorage he knew in a little cove behind Gull Marsh.
And then his trouble began with Bivens.
Stuart rushed to his stateroom and described the prospects of a great day in the blinds with boyish enthusiasm. It didn't move Bivens, except to rage.
"Let 'em fly if they want to, I'm not going to budge. Go yourself, Jim."
Stuart was furious, and began to talk to Bivens as if he were a schoolboy.
"Go myself!" he cried with rage. "What do you suppose I gave up my work and came down here a month for?"
"To shoot ducks, of course," the financier answered, politely.
"I came to try to teach you how to live, you fool, and I'm not going without you. Get into your togs! The guides are here and ready. The tide waits for no man, not even a millionaire; it's ebbing now."
"Well, let it ebb, I don't want to stop it!" the sick man snarled.
Nan came in, pressed Stuart's hand as she passed, nodded good morning and joined her voice to Stuart's.
"Come, you must go, Cal. It's a glorious day."
The doctor slipped in a word, too.
"By all means, Mr. Bivens, get your hand in the first day."
Bivens lifted himself to a half-sitting posture, glared at his physician and yelled with fury:
"Get out—all of you—and let me alone!"
The doctor and Nan left on tip-toe, but Stuart folded his arms and looked at Bivens.
"I'd just like to choke you," he quietly said at last.
Bivens turned on him with rage.
"How dare you speak to me in that manner?"
Stuart broke into a laugh and sat down on the edge of the bed, deliberately fixing him with a contemptuous look.
"Well, of all the gall I've ever encountered—did you saydareto me? What do you take me for, one of your servants? If you weren't sick I'd slap you."
"You'd better not try it," the little man growled.
"Oh, come now. Bivens, this is too ridiculous, a quarrel the first day of our shooting. But you'll have to get one thing fixed in your head once for all; you don't run the entire world. The telephone, telegraph and mail service have been suspended. TheBuccaneerhas put to sea for New York. You're on a little eighty-foot schooner, anchored in a bay ten miles wide and a hundred-miles long and I'm in command. I won't stand any nonsense from you. Come down off your perch, quick!"
Bivens started to swear, caught the expression of Stuart's face and suddenly extended his hand.
"I'm sorry, Jim; you must not mind my foolishness. I've had the temper of the devil the last few months, and I'm used to making everybody hop when I get mad. I guess I'm spoiled. Forget it, old boy, go ahead and have a good time by yourself to-day. I'm out of sorts from that sea-sickness. You don't mind what I said?"
"No," Stuart slowly answered, "but don't do it again."
"I won't. It was awfully nice of you to come. I'll stay in to-day, but you go and get some ducks for dinner, like a good boy, and say—take Nan along and teach her to shoot. It's getting to be the rage among the high-flyers for the women to shoot."
"Please do, Jim!" Nan cried from the door. She had listened outside to the duel in the stateroom.
"All right," he answered, gaily, "quick about it. You've got a rig?"
"Yes, a half dozen," she cried, with childish glee. "Come into my stateroom and show me which one to put on to-day."
"Oh, you have one for each day of the week?"
"Yes, of course; why not?"
Stuart stepped gingerly inside and inspected the suits she laid out on her bed.
He turned them over and laughed.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"They're all wrong. These things were made to hunt butterflies in the tropics, not ducks in Virginia."
"Can't I wear either of them?" she asked in dismay.
"If you could get all six of them on, one on top of the other and wear your flannels."
"But I don't wear flannels."
"All right, put on two of these gossamer webs, two heavy sweaters and wrap yourself in oil skins and maybe you won't freeze."
"Must I?" she sighed; "I'll look like a fright."
"What's the difference? You've got to hide from the ducks, anyhow. No one else will stroll down these wide avenues to-day."
"You'll be there."
He dropped his voice instinctively.
"Well, you'll always look the same to me whether you are dressed in silk or cotton bagging."
She looked up quickly with a startled expression, began to say something, changed her mind and spoke in a matter-of-fact voice:
"Then get out and I'll be ready in fifteen minutes."
When she appeared on deck, Stuart sat down and laughed heartily. She had managed to dress herself warmly and yet look pretty as a picture. Her jaunty little hunting hat was tipped with an eagle's feather. She wore a brown sweater of the finest heavy wool over her jacket. The corduroy skirt came to the knees, and she had on the most remarkable pair of wading boots he had ever seen. They were made of brown cloth-covered rubber and cut to the shape of the leg like the old-fashioned leather boots of ancient knights.
Stuart helped her down the gangway and took his seat by her side in the tender. In five minutes they were towed to the blind the old guide had selected for the day's shooting.
The blinds are made of cedar bushes stuck into the mud in such a way that the little gunning boat just fits inside. When the tide ebbs enough for the ducks to reach bottom they come in to feed on their favourite wild celery.
The guide took the tender to keep the ducks moving and left them alone.
He had scarcely gone when a pair of black ducks started for the decoys. Just as they were about to settle, in spite of Stuart's warning, Nan popped her head over the bushes to see where they were.
Quick as a flash they leaped a hundred feet into the air and left for parts unknown at the rate of a hundred miles an hour.
"That's great!" Stuart cried, in disgust.
"I'm sorry, Jim," she said, contritely. "I won't do it again. But, you know, I'm glad they got away after all."
"Yes?"
"Because they were mates; didn't you see the beautiful colours on the drake's head? And what a yell he gave to his girl when he saw me? Aren't you really glad they got away?"
"I am not!" he answered, emphatically. "Don't you dare to do that again."
"I won't, honest. I'll kill the next one myself. Tell me just when to get up; I'll shoot him just like I do a clay pigeon at the trap, without sighting, just by instinct."
"Exactly, but please remember you are not shooting clay pigeons. A duck has an eye that can see the movement of your hand three miles away, remember that—keep your head down, there comes one now!"
"Where?"
"Sh! keep down, I tell you!"
"I am—but where, which side, where is he?"
Again Nan's big dark eyes slowly peered over the top of the blind and the eagle's feather in her hat moved.
With a sharp cry the duck swung out of range and was gone.
"Oh, Jim, I didn't do that. I declare I didn't move! He squawked just for nothing and flew away."
"Yes, of course, he dreamed he saw an eagle after him. Ducks often go to sleep flying and have nightmares."
"I won't do it again, please don't get cross now." She laid her hand on his. He smiled and said nothing.
"You're not angry, Jim?" she asked, peeping around shyly. She was sitting in the front of the boat with her back toward him.
"How could any man get angry at such a wonderful shot. You never cripple them, they just drop at the crack of your gun. I think, however, they die of fright. We will know to-night when we eat them for dinner whether the shot killed them or you just scared them to death."
"Don't be nasty, Jim, I'll let you shoot the very next one. I won't move."
She had scarcely spoken when Stuart seized her arm with a sudden fierce grip.
"Sh—now, as still as death!" he whispered. "Don't you dare move or speak or whisper, or breathe aloud."
"I won't!" Nan groaned, crouching low.
"He's circling the blind, but he's coming in sure," he whispered.
Just then the live decoy goose raised his head, saw his friend in the air, and broke into a shrill cry that rang like a trumpet over the smooth waters of the bay.
Nan sprang to her feet crying:
"It's a goose!"
"Yes, two of them; one right here in the blind!" Stuart laughed.
"No, no! There he goes, Jim! Look, isn't he a big one?"
"A very fine goose, but not nearly so plump and nice as the one we have here."
Nan looked puzzled a moment, blushed and sat down.
"Jim, I think you're awfully mean. He was going the other way when I saw him. I didn't scare him. You know I didn't."
"Certainly not!" was the scornful answer. "He just turned around and went back to pick up a feather he dropped. He'll call again some day."
Nan peeped around to see if he were angry, deliberately rose, turned and sat down on the bow of the boat facing Stuart, smiling at him, mischievously.
"Let's not shoot to-day, Jim!" she pleaded.
"We won't," he answered, dryly.
"You know I think this blind is such a cute little house, with the blue sky above and the still, beautiful waters stretching away into the mists around us; isn't it?"
"Dangerously beautiful to mere mortals, I'm afraid, Nan!" he answered soberly.
"Not if they are sensible, as you and I. Come, you can't be angry to-day. I'm too happy. You don't really care about ducks anyhow, do you? I want to talk. I'm in fairyland alone with the old sweetheart of my girlish dreams! And you're ten times better looking than you were then, Jim."
Stuart broke into a boyish laugh, and gave up to the charm of her chatter.
For hours they sat laughing and joking. The years rolled back, the fevered life of the great city faded, and they were boy and girl again.
As the sun was sinking in a sea of scarlet they were startled by the approach of the tender.
The guide took up the decoys, and made fast their boat to tow them back to the yacht.
His comment on the day's work was brief:
"Great sport!"
He winked at Stuart, grasped the tiller of the tender and signalled to the man at the engine to let her go.
The old man was unusually quiet in the crew's quarters that night. It was nine o'clock before he startled the cook with a sudden remark:
"Gee, but she's a beauty!"
"Who's a beauty?"
"Sometimes he called her 'Nan,' sometimes he called her 'Dianner.'"
"Oh!"
"You know what I'd like to do?"
"No, what?"
"She's so purty, I feel that I want to put out one finger—just like that—and tech her ter see ef she'd fly!"
"Oh, hell!" the cook sneered. "Her wings ain't sprouted yet; wait till you see her riled."
For five days Bivens stuck to his bed with dogged determination, and each day Stuart went out with Nan.
Never had she been more resistlessly charming. With tireless fancy he watched the wind blow the ringlets of black hair across her rosy cheeks, while her deep eyes sparkled with joy. Sometimes he imagined her the daughter of Venus suddenly risen from the sea, the dim roar of whose surf he could hear behind the white sands of the beach. Each day she grew more and more dependent on him, until her whole life seemed to move only at his command. Each day their association grew in tender intimacy and every fear that had stirred his heart at first was lulled at last to sleep.