Power arrived at New York in mid-winter. He found that crowded hive humming, as usual, with life and its activities, but in a new and perplexing way. The Waldorf Hotel had become the Waldorf-Astoria, and, while doubling its name, had increased fourfold in size. Its main corridor had the bustle and crush of a busy street; but every face had an aspect of aloofness, almost of hostility. The old, intimate life of America had vanished. None paid heed to the newcomer. The spick-and-span occupants of the reception bureau evidently regarded him as Room Number So-and-so. Confused and mystified by the well-dressed throng of the hotel’s patrons, he failed to notice, at first, that it was composed of individuals, or groups, as unknown to one another as he was to the mass; that, in very truth, it was
“... no other than a moving rowOf Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go.”
He reached the hotel early in the evening, and was fortunate in being able to secure a suite of rooms. Soon wearying of the traffic in that world’s fair which caustic New York has nicknamed “Rubberneck Alley,” he bought a newspaper, and retired to his apartments. But the day’s record held no interest for him. He knew little of the men and women who figured therein; even less of the events which called for big type and immense headlines.
But his eye was caught by an announcement of a performance that night of Gounod’s “Faust” at the Metropolitan Opera House. He resolved to go there, never dreaming that the odds were hundreds to one against the chance of obtaining a seat; for New York had just entered the lists against the other capitals of the world, and was determined to capture the leading place in the grand-opera tourney.
He telephoned the office, “Kindly get me a stall for the Metropolitan this evening.”
And, behold! a blasé clerk was actually stirred out of boredom by the surprising statement received from the box-office that a stall had just been returned, and he could have it now if he closed at once. So Power never knew what a trick Fortune had played him, since there can be little doubt that the impression made by the marvelous music and extraordinarily human appeal of “Faust” insensibly prepared him for the tragic events of the coming day. Imagine a man of musical bent, who had dwelt seven years among veritable savages, renewing his acquaintance with the muses by hearing the most poignant of stage love-stories told in Gounod’s impassioned strains and interpreted by famous singers and a superb orchestra!
The exquisite tenderness of the doomed lover’s first address to Marguerite thrilled his inmost being.
“Ne permettrez-vous pas, ma belle demoiselle,Qu’en vous offre le bras, pour faire le chemin?”
He was struck by the coincidence that the woman to whom he was pledged should be named Marguerite!Faire le chemin!Yes, they would soon be taking the long road of life together. What assured happiness seemed to breathe from each perfect note; yet what horror and despair would be the outcome of the man’s ardor and the maid’s shy diffidence! When Marguerite told Faust that she wasni demoiselle,ni belle, Power could hardly fail to recollect that his own Marguerite, not without cruel cause, was ever tortured by the fear that her disfigurement might some day turn him from her with loathing. Even the slaying of Valentine as the direct outcome of his sister’s frailty seemed, to the overwrought imagination of one member of the audience, to bear an uncanny analogy to his mother’s death. There remained one other point of contact between the story of the opera and Power’s own life; but, fortunately for him, or his surcharged emotions might not have withstood the strain, he could not recognize as yet that last and most terrible similarity.
As it was, his rapt interest in the opera attracted the attention of his neighbors in the stalls. As a girl whispered to her attendant cavalier:
“That man near us—the man with the piercing eyes and worn face—seems to regard ‘Faust’ as history rather than allegory.”
“Perhaps he sees the allegory,” was the answer, and the girl shrugged her pretty shoulders. She was young, and dwelt in a sheltered garden. To her, “Faust” was only an opera. It had nothing to do with the realities of life; which, if she were asked for a definition, consisted mainly of so ordering one’s time as to miss no important social function.
Next morning, though aware of a nervous system still in a curious state of exaltation and strain after his overnight experiences, Power yielded quickly to the stimulating effect of the keen, cold air and bright sunshine of a typical winter’s day on the North Atlantic seaboard. After breakfast he walked to his bank, and was received as one risen from the dead. Financial institutions, even the soundest and most conservative, have a special flair for clients who allow vast sums of money to accumulate, year by year, at rates of interest which suit the bank’s own purposes.
When Power had been welcomed heartily by the manager—his friend of former days, now promoted—the latter said cheerfully:
“Well, since you have actually returned from Mars, or whatever planet you may have been visiting, I suppose you want to look into your account?”
“It seems a reasonable thing to do, especially as I am thinking of marrying,” agreed Power.
The official gave some instruction to the general office, and a passbook was produced. There were, of course, hardly any entries on the debit side, and payments from mine and ranch had been made half-yearly; so one small book contained the whole of the seven years’ statement. Power, unaccustomed as yet to the methods of financial bookkeeping, turned to the latest column, and saw a row of figures. He looked perplexed, whereat the manager smiled.
“Well,” came the question, “I fancy you find yourself well able to maintain a wife?”
Power’s eyes seemed to be fascinated by the item which had first attracted them.
“Y-yes,” he said hesitatingly; “but I had a notion that I was very much better off.”
Then it was the manager’s turn to be puzzled. He rose, came round the table at which the two were seated, and adjusted his eyeglasses.
“Better off!” he exclaimed. “Why, you are a very rich man, Mr. Power. Don’t you see——” He broke into a loud laugh as he discovered the entry which this queer-mannered client was gazing at. “Man alive,” he cried, “that is the last half-year’s interest on your capital! The current rate is rather low, two and one-half per cent. Here,” and he pointed to the top of the page, “is a summary of your deposit—four million dollars, all in hard cash. If you mean to begin investing, I must ask you to go slow. Even in your own interests, that is advisable. Heavy purchases of stock tend to bull the market, and it is a little inclined to go that way at the moment. I’ll give you a list of gilt-edged securities which will, of course, nearly double your annual revenue from invested capital alone. You had better show it to some other adviser, and, when you have selected your stocks, let me begin operating. I can carry the whole thing through in a couple of months without letting Wall Street know that a big buyer is in the market.”
Power was rather stunned by the amount of his wealth, and an odd thought darted through his brain that if, in the world of today, no tempter could bribe another Doctor Faustus with the offer of renewed youth, the fiend might pour gold into his chosen victim’s pockets. Almost could he feel the mocking phantom at his shoulder; though, indeed, there was none other in the room than the courteous banker.
“Great Scott!” the latter was saying. “What a bonanza that mine of yours is! And Bison is growing quite a town. I paid it a flying visit last summer. Have you been there recently? I imagine not, since your cablegram came from Buenos Aires.”
Bison was a word to evoke shadows; but it sufficed to drive one away just then.
“Ah, Bison!” said Power, standing up. “I must go west at once. I have not even made known to MacGonigal my presence in America. He is well, I hope?”
“Fatter than ever. There is some talk of his running for governor.”
“And Jake, the man in charge of the ranch? Did you hear of him when you were in Colorado?”
“Yes, indeed. He is married.”
“Married! Jake!”
“More than that, his wife, a pretty little woman, told me she had to threaten a divorce in order to stop him from mounting the little Jakes on what he calls ‘plugs’ before the kiddies were well out of the perambulator.”
A clerk announced through a speaking-tube that someone wanted the banker. The conventional, “Ask him to wait one minute,” warned Power that this was no hour for gossip.
“I can have some money now?” he inquired.
“As much as you like.”
“May I ask—I am a child in these matters—if gooddiamonds are obtainable in New York, and what I ought to pay for a ring—an engagement ring?”
“Our diamonds are not cheap; but they are supposed to be the pick of the market. I think you ought to get a perfect ring for a thousand dollars. By the way, there is quite an accumulation of letters here. Leave your address, and they will be packed and sent to your rooms.”
Power wrote a check at the counter, and was given a bundle of notes. He went to a well-known jewelry establishment recommended by the bank manager, and asked to be shown some engagement rings.
“What size, sir?” inquired an attendant.
“Oh, not anything remarkable, but of the best quality.”
“I mean, sir, what size is the lady’s finger?”
Power laughed. He realized that he must come down out of the clouds, and pay heed occasionally to the minor phases of life.
“I don’t know. She has small hands, and, long, tapering fingers,” he said, smiling at his own fatuity; for the description might have been a line taken bodily out of nineteen novels among every twenty.
“It really doesn’t matter, sir,” said the shopman, eager to please a new customer. “If you choose a suitable ring, the lady can send or bring it here, and it will be adjusted to the right size without any delay or extra charge.”
“But she is in England.”
“Exactly the same conditions apply in our London branch.”
So Power bought a very beautiful ring, which happened to contain seven graduated stones in a single row. The number pleased him, and he was sure Meg would note its significance. He secured the gage thus early so that he might write and tell her about it; while its mere possession and safeguarding would supply an extra stimulus for a speedy crossing of the Atlantic.
Then he strolled up Fifth Avenue, and did not flinch from memories of the last time he had passed through that remarkable thoroughfare. He would be callous, indeed, if his thoughts did not dwell on Nancy, and go back to the sweet lawlessness of their brief companionship. Where was she now? he wondered. A fine lady, no doubt, ruffling it with matronly self-possession among the high-born friends she had won in Paris and London. And that mean-spirited wretch, her father? Dead, in all probability, or eating his heart out in semi-insanity; for Power was beginning to see, with surer, wider vision, that Willard must have known he was a murderer, since no other hand but his had sent a dear and honored woman to her grave.
Then his mind reverted to Marguerite Sinclair, and he was comforted by his knowledge of her frank, joyous, make-the-best-of-everything temperament. He had not deluded himself into the belief that he was marrying her in the flood-tide of passion which had overwhelmed Nancy and himself. Pretense was always hateful to him, and it would be rank hypocrisy to assume that the madness of that first love could ever again surge through heart and brain. Marguerite’s own action in accepting him after she had looked into the pages of his earlier life gave ample assurance that she would be content with his faith and devotion. Shewas no lovesick maid, but a woman of strong, clear perceptions. He was troubled with no doubt as to the future nor qualm as to the past, and he thanked Providence humbly for having allotted him such a true and honest helpmate for his remaining years.
On returning to the hotel, he found a bulky package in his room. It contained heaps of letters and other documents which had been sent to the bank or forwarded from Bison, and, of course, they were mostly seven years old, or thereabouts. Two, bearing recent postmarks, caught his eye, and he read them first.
One was from Dacre. “You see,” it ran, “I remain on the map. If this reaches you, cable me. My house is yours for as long as you care to stay.”
The other brought a smile to his lips. It was in Spanish, and signed “Bartolomeo Malaspina”:
“Honored Señor [wrote the captain of theCarmen].—“You asked me to write after seven years. Well, praised be my patron saint, I am still alive, and I hope you are. I have often spoken to my wife of the wretchedness of soul you caused me by disappearing among those accursed Indians; but I must admit, nevertheless, that your short voyage in my ship brought me luck, for I fell in with a liner with a broken shaft caused by colliding with a derelict, and she was drifting into the reefs off Hanover Island when I got a tow-rope on board. It was a fine job to haul her as far as Punta Arenas; but, thanks to the Eleven Thousand Virgins, I managed it, and the salvage made me a rich man. TheCarmen, too, ran ashore at Iquique on the homeward voyage, and she was well insured. Write, I pray you, if you have escaped from the cannibals. If not, ayear from this date, I shall pay for two masses for the repose of your soul.”
“Honored Señor [wrote the captain of theCarmen].—“You asked me to write after seven years. Well, praised be my patron saint, I am still alive, and I hope you are. I have often spoken to my wife of the wretchedness of soul you caused me by disappearing among those accursed Indians; but I must admit, nevertheless, that your short voyage in my ship brought me luck, for I fell in with a liner with a broken shaft caused by colliding with a derelict, and she was drifting into the reefs off Hanover Island when I got a tow-rope on board. It was a fine job to haul her as far as Punta Arenas; but, thanks to the Eleven Thousand Virgins, I managed it, and the salvage made me a rich man. TheCarmen, too, ran ashore at Iquique on the homeward voyage, and she was well insured. Write, I pray you, if you have escaped from the cannibals. If not, ayear from this date, I shall pay for two masses for the repose of your soul.”
So, then, he was remembered by a few friends. The knowledge consoled him for the heedless rush and flurry of New York.
An impulse seized him to break the seals of an envelop marked, “To be burnt, unopened, by my executors,” and take therefrom two letters which he knew it contained. The action was nothing more nor less than a trial of his new-born resolve; since the letters were Nancy’s to himself and Willard’s to his mother. He read them calmly and dispassionately. Willard’s malicious threat he dismissed quickly. It had served its vile purpose, and its victims had paid the price demanded, the mother by death, the son by suffering. But Nancy’s few disconnected sentences gripped his imagination with a new force. Had he misjudged her? he wondered. What argument had Willard used that she yielded so promptly and completely? The broken, pitiful words brought a mist before his eyes. Poor girl! Perhaps, in her woman’s way, she had endured miseries from which life among the Indians had rescued him. Then he recalled the farewell message she had given to Dacre, and the momentary belief that he might have acted precipitately died away. Should he ever meet her in the years to come? He hoped not, with all his heart. He must so contrive Meg’s life and his own that they would pass their days far from the haunts of society. The worship of the golden calf permits its votaries no escape. Thank Heaven, and he and his wife would never practise the cult!
Glancing casually through the rest of the heap, his attention was drawn to a couple of cablegrams. He opened one, and found that it was dated in the late autumn of that memorable year. It read:
“Leave everything, and forget all that has passed. Come at once.“N.”
“Leave everything, and forget all that has passed. Come at once.
“N.”
One night, sleeping in the depths of a Patagonian forest, he had been aroused by the snarl of some wild animal close at hand. He had never known what beast it was that rustled away among the undergrowth; but he felt the same sense of impending evil now. Thinking the other message might be more explanatory, he tore at the envelop with nervous fingers; but the contents were an exact replica of its predecessor. Then he saw that one had been sent to Bison and the other to New York on the same day, the place of origin of each being London.
He could not doubt that “N” was “Nancy,” and he asked himself, with quick foreboding, what strong motive had inspired this urgent command. He was to forget all that had passed! What strangely variable creatures woman were, to be sure! Could she, or any woman, honestly imagine that such a request might be obeyed? Forget that struggle between love and duty; forget the delirium of that fortnight in the Adirondacks; forget the numb agony of the days following her flight? As soon might a man forget his own name!
Nerving himself to the task, he searched for somewritten word which should make clear the baffling enigma. Soon he came across two letters in Nancy’s handwriting, and bearing the London postmark. The dates were three months apart, and the earlier one corresponded with that on the cablegrams; so he opened it first, and read:
“My own dear Derry.—A few hours ago I cabled you, both to Bison and New York, that you are to come to me without delay, and I hope, I even pray on my knees, that you are already in the train or steamer. Still, I am in such a fever of dread lest any untoward event may have kept my message from you, or prevented you from starting instantly, that I write also. If, which Heaven forbid, any shred of doubt or misgiving has gripped you, and you have decided to await a more explicit reason for my action in bidding you come, I am writing by to-day’s mail to tell you that circumstances beyond my control, or yours, render it imperative that I should leave Hugh Marten now and forever. Derry, don’t ask me to explain myself more fully. There are things which a woman may whisper, but which she cannot write. Yet it is only just that I should, at least, make plain the dreadful conditions under which I left you five months since. My father meant to kill you before my eyes. No consideration would have stopped him. He was resolved to shoot you without warning if I refused to return to Marten’s house, and I yielded; for I could not bear the thought of seeing you stretched lifeless in front of the dear little hut in which we had been so happy. I may have been weak, but I loved you too much to let you give your life in exchange for my love, and he convinced me that he was in deadly earnest. So I went away with him, and tried to make myself despicable in your eyes as the surest way of searing the bitter wound myaction would cause. Remember, he left me no alternative. The break had to be final, or he would seek you out and slay you without mercy, and I knew only too well that he not only meant what he said, but that our laws would support and public opinion acclaim his action. Well, I traveled with him to England, and have been so ill ever since—though not physically such a wreck as I have pretended to be—that Marten believes I am suffering from the effects of the heat wave, and has compelled me to endure the treatment and scrutiny of many doctors. And today, one of them—— But now I must be dumb, except to tell you that, whether or not it means death to both of us, youmustcome and take me away to some secret place where none can find us. Don’t think that this letter is written in a moment of impulse. It is not the product of a woman’s hysteria. It is a cry from my very heart. And, in the midst of my desolation, I am glad—oh, so glad! I am aflame with a delight that is almost superhuman; for I know that you will understand, and that nothing on earth can ever part us again. My tears are falling on this page, but my higher and truer self is singing a canticle of praise and wonderful joy. Hurry, Derry, hurry!“I am, and have ever been,“Your true and devoted“Nancy.”
“My own dear Derry.—A few hours ago I cabled you, both to Bison and New York, that you are to come to me without delay, and I hope, I even pray on my knees, that you are already in the train or steamer. Still, I am in such a fever of dread lest any untoward event may have kept my message from you, or prevented you from starting instantly, that I write also. If, which Heaven forbid, any shred of doubt or misgiving has gripped you, and you have decided to await a more explicit reason for my action in bidding you come, I am writing by to-day’s mail to tell you that circumstances beyond my control, or yours, render it imperative that I should leave Hugh Marten now and forever. Derry, don’t ask me to explain myself more fully. There are things which a woman may whisper, but which she cannot write. Yet it is only just that I should, at least, make plain the dreadful conditions under which I left you five months since. My father meant to kill you before my eyes. No consideration would have stopped him. He was resolved to shoot you without warning if I refused to return to Marten’s house, and I yielded; for I could not bear the thought of seeing you stretched lifeless in front of the dear little hut in which we had been so happy. I may have been weak, but I loved you too much to let you give your life in exchange for my love, and he convinced me that he was in deadly earnest. So I went away with him, and tried to make myself despicable in your eyes as the surest way of searing the bitter wound myaction would cause. Remember, he left me no alternative. The break had to be final, or he would seek you out and slay you without mercy, and I knew only too well that he not only meant what he said, but that our laws would support and public opinion acclaim his action. Well, I traveled with him to England, and have been so ill ever since—though not physically such a wreck as I have pretended to be—that Marten believes I am suffering from the effects of the heat wave, and has compelled me to endure the treatment and scrutiny of many doctors. And today, one of them—— But now I must be dumb, except to tell you that, whether or not it means death to both of us, youmustcome and take me away to some secret place where none can find us. Don’t think that this letter is written in a moment of impulse. It is not the product of a woman’s hysteria. It is a cry from my very heart. And, in the midst of my desolation, I am glad—oh, so glad! I am aflame with a delight that is almost superhuman; for I know that you will understand, and that nothing on earth can ever part us again. My tears are falling on this page, but my higher and truer self is singing a canticle of praise and wonderful joy. Hurry, Derry, hurry!
“I am, and have ever been,
“Your true and devoted“Nancy.”
Power’s brain was on fire as he read; but his heart seemed to be in the clutch of an icy hand. For some minutes—he never subsequently knew how long the trance lasted—he was transported bodily to the shores of a sunlit lake, and he lived again through the frenzy of those first hours after Nancy’s disappearance. When his senses came back, and his blazing eyes could discern the written word, he read and reread thoseparts of the letter which breathed her secret. Then, with the listless despair of a man who realizes that the new sanctuary of hope and self-confidence which he had constructed with so much blind faith, to which he had given so many laborious years, was tumbling in ruins at his feet, he opened the second letter, which was somewhat bulky, and crackled under his touch. From the middle of the folded sheet he took a withered spray of white heather. Had it been a poisonous snake he could not have started more violently. There was no doubting either its origin or significance. He held in his shaking hands the very spray Nancy carried at her wedding, and she had sent it as a token that all was at an end between them. He was minded then and there to commit the whole pile of correspondence to destroying flames; but he was well aware that such a coward’s trick would prove of no avail. Strive as he might, he could never expel from his breast the blighting knowledge lodged there now and forever. Those shrunken and faded strands of heather were typical of his own life. Not all the alchemies of wizardry or miracles of science could restore their bright hues. They were dead, and sinking slowly into dust. No shower from Heaven could freshen them, no kindly care quicken them into vitality. They were dead, and he was dead, a mere dried-up husk of a man, a banned creature, to whom hope and faith and the bright vision of a new career were ruthlessly forbidden.
At last, thinking he might as well learn the scorching truth in its entirety, he turned to the letter.
It was undated; but the postmark was eloquent, and it began with strange abruptness:
“So, then, Derry, you have cast me off, left me to die; for I shall die within a month, or less. Well, be it so. I am content. If such is the woman’s lot, of what avail to cry aloud to Heaven that it is unjust? But, if ever you come to realize what tortures I have endured while waiting in vain for the answer that never arrived, surely you will pity me. I, once so full of the joy of life, am humbled to the dust. Your departure from Bison—for my constant friend MacGonigal has told me of your going—robbed me of my last frail refuge. Some day, perhaps, you will read these farewell words of the woman who loved you, who still loves you, who will love you to the end, whose last prayer will be for you and not for herself. Oh, Derry, it will be hard to pass into the everlasting night, knowing that you and I shall never meet again on this side of the grave, but harder still to deliver into the keeping of one whom I loathe the living memory of my brief happiness. It may not be so. My child and I may go out into the darkness together; but I dare not petition the Most High for that crowning mercy. Have I really done wrong? I cannot decide, but grope blindly for guidance. If I am judged, it will be by One who looks into the heart, and will treat an erring woman with divine compassion as well as justice. But you, if ever you see what I am setting down here, and I am convinced that you will, even though I be long dead—what of you? My heart aches for you. Can I give you any message of healing and solace? Yes, one. If my child lives—ah, it is bitter to think that the mother’s eyes will be glazing in death when they see her babe!—I charge you with a sacred responsibility. What do I mean? I cannot tell you. I am fey today. I peer into a dim future. I only know that I shall not survive my little one’s birth, and that some day, somehow, you will understand that which is hidden from my ken in layingthis duty upon you. And that way will come consolation. Do you remember how I used to hate that word ‘duty’? Yet it is stronger than I. It compels me, even now.
“Farewell, Derry. I kiss you, in a waking dream. No matter what the world has in store for you—though some other fair woman may quicken into life because of you—though men may honor your name and exalt you to the high places—you will never forget the girl you once held dear. As a souvenir, I send you all that is left of the bunch of white heather which formed my wedding bouquet. Did you see it that day when you hid on the ledge, and watched the triumphal start of a journey which has led me into such strange places and is now to end so soon? We never spoke of it when we passed the long, sunny hours by the lake—dear Heaven! our lake! Would that its bright waters had closed over my head then; for I was so happy, and so much in love with you and the world! But I knew what happened on that June day in the Gulch, for I could read your soul mirrored in your eyes; so now I give you one final memento, and hug the belief that you will press it to your lips. My poor secret dies with me, perhaps. I don’t imagine that the man whom I used to revere as a father will satisfy an unfathomable spite by denying my child the tending and luxury it will receive in Hugh Marten’s care. I could write reams of a woman’s sad longings, of explanations that would lead nowhere; but I dare not trust even you, else you would deem me mad. And I am not mad, only woebegone and fearful, for the night cometh, and I shudder at its silence and mystery. So, once more, and for the last time, farewell, my dear. I take you in my arms. I cling to you, even in death.”
The unhappy man wilted under that piteous leave-taking. He felt that he had descended into a tomb,and was listening to a voice speaking in dread tones. The thick curtains of despair closed over his soul, and he seemed to be falling into an abyss. He heard himself uttering a broken wail of protest; for it was borne in on him that Nancy’s heart-rending message had riveted close against the fetters he thought to have left forever amid the dun recesses of the Andes. What remained in life for him? What could there be of happiness and content, with the dire conviction lodged immovably in heart and brain that Nancy, like his mother, had died because of his wrong-doing? He was caught in some furious and fatal maelstrom which, like that fabled whirlpool of the North Sea, was sweeping him, in ever-narrowing circles, to irresistible doom. The marvel is that his mind did not give way; but a merciful release was not to be vouchsafed in that manner, for the fantastic laughter of lunacy would have been kinder than the blackness of darkness which now enwrapped his being. In that hour of abasement his spirit capitulated. Nothing mattered. He was crushed and paralyzed. He could not pray, because it did not seem as though there was One who gave heed. The bright world had become a place of skulls, a charnel house, a prison whose iron walls were closing in on him eternally.
It was a strange thing that he did not, even as a passing obsession, think of terminating the dreary pilgrimage of life then and there. At Bison, during the first stupor of grief after his mother’s death and Nancy’s desertion, he had pondered, many a time, the awful problem which ever presents itself to men of strong will and resolute purpose. When life appearsto be no longer worth living the question arises—why not end it? But seven years of lonely musing had given depth and solidity to his nature. Above all, he had been taught to endure. He had come now to a worse pass than any that pierced the Andes; for an unending desert lay in front, while he was leaving a fair territory in which lay domestic joys and a love for which his soul hungered. In the moment when union with Marguerite Sinclair was forbidden so sternly he gaged with woeful accuracy the extent of his longing for her companionship. He understood, with a certainty of judgment that brooked no counter argument, that he could never marry. He dared not. If that which Nancy had said was true, he would surely kill himself in a paroxysm of loathing and self-accusation when any other woman’s kiss was still hot on his lips.
There remained a task not to be shirked—he must ascertain, beyond doubt, that Nancy was really dead. Gathering the four letters in whose yellowing sheets was summarized the whole story of his wasted life, he placed them in a pocketbook. In doing so, he happened to touch the case containing the ring he had bought for Meg. Oddly enough, that simple incident cost him the sharpest pang; but he conquered his emotions, much as a man might do who was facing unavoidable death, and even forced his trembling fingers to put the envelop which held Nancy’s white heather side by side with Marguerite’s diamonds. Then he went out.
An oldtime acquaintance in Denver with the ways of journalism led him to the nearest newspaper office.There he asked to be taken to the news editor’s room, and a busy man looked at him curiously when he explained that he wanted to know whether or not Mrs. Marten, wife of Hugh Marten, was living, and, if dead, the date of her demise.
There was something in Power’s manner that puzzled the journalist, some hint of tragedy and immeasurable loss, but he was courteously explicit.
“You mean Hugh Marten, the financier, formerly of Colorado?” he inquired.
“Yes, that is the man.”
The other took a volume from a shelf of biographies, by which is meant the newspaper variety—typed accounts of notable people still living, together with newspaper cuttings referring to recent events in their careers. Soon he had a pencil on an entry.
“Yes,” he said. “Mrs. Marten has been dead nearly seven years.”
“And her child? Is the child living?”
“Yes. Poor lady! She died in giving it birth. I remember now. It was a very sad business. Mrs. Marten was a remarkably beautiful woman. Her husband was inconsolable. He has not married again; but is devoted to his little daughter, who, by the way, was named after her mother—Nancy Willard Marten. Ah, of course, that middle name reminds me of something else. Mrs. Marten’s father, Francis Willard, was accidentally shot last year.”
“Shot?”
“Yes. He was summering in the Adirondacks, and was out after duck; but, by some mischance, caughta trigger when crawling through a clump of rushes, and blew the top of his head off.”
“He was near a lake, then?”
“Yes. It wasn’t Forked Lake, but a sheet of water in the hills not far distant. I can find out the exact locality if you wish it.”
“No, thank you. I am very much obliged to you.”
“No trouble at all. Sorry I hadn’t better news, if these people are friends of yours.”
So Willard was dead, and by his own hand, and the scene of his last reckoning was the lake which witnessed the ignoble revenge he had wreaked on Power by sacrificing Nancy! The broken man bowed his head humbly. He had been scourged with whips; but his sworn enemy had been chastised with scorpions.
If a man be harassed too greatly by outrageous fortune, there comes a time when he will defy the oppressing gods, and set their edicts at naught. Power’s temperament fitted him for sacrifice carried far beyond the common limits of human endurance; but his gorge rose against this latest tyranny; the recoil from bright hope to darkest despair brought him perilously near the gulf. Seated in his room, and reviewing his wrecked life, he was minded then and there to fling himself into the worst dissipation New York could offer. What had he gained by his self-imposed penance, his exile, and his unquestioning service? No monk of La Trappe had disciplined body and soul more rigorously than he during seven weary years; yet, seemingly, his atonement was not accepted, and he was faced now by a decree that entailed unending banishment. Was Providence, then, less merciful than man? The felon, convicted of an offense against his country’s laws, was better treated than he. The poor wretch released from prison was met at the gates of the penitentiary by philanthropic offer of reinstatement among his fellows; but for the man who had yielded once to the lure of a woman’s love there was, apparently, no forgiveness. Whyshould he accept any such inexorable ban? He was young, as men regard youth in these days. He was rich. The wine of life ran red in his veins. Why should he fold his arms and bend his head, and say with the meek Jesuit whose moldering bones had harbored that beautiful volume lying there in its leather covering, “Fiat voluntas Tua!”
That hour of revolt was the bitterest in Power’s existence. Like Jacob, he wrestled with a too potent adversary, and, refusing to yield, asked for a curse rather than a blessing; for he thought he was striving against a fiend. Fortunately, he underestimated his own strength. Some men, he knew, would have tossed every record of the past into the fire, and married the woman of their choice without other than a momentary qualm of conscience. That course, to him, was a sheer impossibility. While the dead Nancy and her living child stood in the gates of Eden, and option lay only between wedding Marguerite Sinclair and blowing out his brains, he would die unhesitatingly. But, if he continued to live, what was the outlook? Wine, women—debauchery, lewdness? His soul sickened at the notion. He laughed, with bitter humor, while picturing himself a roué, a “sport”, an opulent supporter of musical comedy—especially with regard to its frailer exponents—a lounger in “fashionable” resorts. No; that was not the way out of the maze, if ever a way might be found.
It was a sign of returning sanity that he should fill his pipe. As the German proverb has it, “God first made man, and then He made woman; then, feeling sorry for man, He made tobacco”. Power continuedto sit there smoking, lost in troubled but more humbled thought, until a chambermaid entered the room. He had kept no count of time, and had evidently passed many hours in somber musing; for the apartment was in semidarkness, and the girl started when she caught sight of the solitary figure sunk in the depths of an armchair.
“My land!” she cried, “but you made me jump!” Then, aware that this was not precisely the manner of address expected by patrons of the Waldorf-Astoria, she added hurriedly, “I beg your pardon, sir. I didn’t know you were in. Shall I switch on the light?”
“Can you?” he said.
“Why, of course, I can. There you are!”
The room was suddenly illuminated. Power rose and stretched his limbs—he felt as if he had marched many miles carrying a heavy load.
“Like others of your sex, you work miracles, then,” he said.
One glance at his face, and the housemaid regained confidence. “Yes, if it is a miracle to touch a switch,” she answered pertly.
“Nothing more wonderful was done when the world was created. ‘Let there be light: and there was light.’ You have read the first chapter of Genesis, I am sure?”
“Yes, and the second.”
“Good! Stop there, if you would rest thoroughly content. The serpent lifts his head in the third. Will you kindly send the valet?”
The girl confided to her fellow-servants in the service-room that the gentleman in Number So-and-so was very nice, but slightly cracked. He seemed tohave been upset by a lot of old letters—and it was an odd thing that among all the rich people who lived in the hotel none seemed to be really happy. Now, if she, deponent, only possessed a fraction of their wealth, she would enjoy life to the limit.
Power did not change his attire that evening. He dined quietly in the restaurant, and strolled out into Broadway afterward. The loneliness of a great city, at first so repellent, was grateful to him now. The crowded streets were more democratic than the palatial saloons of the hotel, the air more breathable. But the flood of light in the Great White Way—though blazing then with a subdued magnificence as compared with its bewildering luster nowadays—was garish and harsh, and he turned into the sheltering gloom of a quiet side-street. He was passing a row of red-stone houses—bay-windowed, austere abodes, with porches surmounting steep flights of broad steps—when he saw an old, old man seated at the foot of one of these outer stairways. In summer, at that hour, every step would be occupied by people gasping for fresh, cool air; but in the depth of winter it was courting disease and death for anyone, especially the aged, to seek such repose.
The unusual spectacle stirred Power out of his mournful self-communing.
“Are you ill?” he said, halting in front of the patriarch.
“No, sorr,” came the cheerful answer, and a worn, deeply lined face was raised to his with a smile that banished the ravages of time as sunlight gilds a ruin. A street-lamp was near, and its rays fell on featureswhich had once been strong and massive, but were now mellowed into the rare beauty of hale and kindly age. Silvery hair, still plentiful, and dark, keen eyes from which gleamed the intelligence and sympathy every clean-souled man may hope to gain if his years stretch beyond the span allotted by the prophet, made up a personality which would have appealed to an artist in search of a model.
“But you are taking a great risk by sitting on cold stone,” persisted Power.
“Sure, sorr, av it’s the will o’ God that I should die that way, it’s as good as anny other,” said the ancient. “All doores ladin’ to the next worruld are pretty much the same to me. I don’t care which wan I take so long as it lades me safe into Purgathory.”
Never before had Power heard so modest a claim on the benevolence of the Almighty.
“Are you tired of life, then?” he asked.
“Sorra a bit am I! Why should I be? Wouldn’t it be flyin’ in the face o’ Providence to say that I was tired of the sivinty-eight grand years I’ve spint in raisonable happiness an’ the best o’ health.”
“I like your philosophy. It has the right ring. But it can hardly be the will of God that you should shorten the remainder of those years by resting on a doorstep in this weather.”
“Young man,” said the other suddenly, “how old are ye?”
“Thirty-five.”
“Thorty-foive is it? An’ ye stand there an’ talk as though ye’d just come down like Moses from the top o’ Mount Sinai, an’ had the worrd o’ the Lord natelywritten in yer pocketbook. Sure, thim days is past entirely. God doesn’t talk to His sarvints anny longer in that way.”
“Tell me, then, how does He talk?”
“Faix, sorr, I’m on’y a poor ould man, an’ it’s not for the likes o’ me to insthruct a gintleman like you; but, av I’m not greatly mistaken, you’ve heard His voice more than wance or twice in yer life already, an’ yer own heart’ll tell you betther than I can what it sounds like.”
“Friend, your eyes are clearer than mine. Still, it will please me if you get up, and let me walk a little way with you. Or, if you don’t feel able to walk, allow me to take you to your destination in a cab.”
His new acquaintance rose, nimbly enough. Then Power saw that he had been using a bundle of newspapers as a cushion.
“A cab, is it?” laughed the other. “My! but money must come aisy your road, a thing it ’ud nivver do for me, thry as I might, an’ I was a hard worrker in me time. But I’d sooner walk. I’m feelin’ a thrifle shtiff, an’ I haven’t far to go.”
“May I come with you?”
“Ye may, an’ welcome. It’s a mighty pleasant thing to have a fri’ndly chat wid a man who has sinse enough to wear fine clo’es an’ talk like the aristocracy, an’ yet not be ashamed to be seen sp’akin’ to wan o’ my sort.”
“Will you think it rude if I inquire what you mean to do with those newspapers? Surely, at your age, you don’t sell them in the streets.”
“Faith, I’ll have to thry my hand at it now, an’ no mistake. Me grandson, Jimmy Maguire, was run over this afthernoon by an express van, an’ he’s up there at the hospital in West 16th Street. Jimmy is all that is left betune me an’ the wall, an’ I’m goin’ now to give in his returns. Mebbe the newspaper folk will let me hould his stand till the docthors sind him out.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Sure, sorr, God is good to the poor Irish.”
“I hope so, most sincerely. Still, a newspaper is a commercial enterprise, and the publisher may think you unequal to the job. What then?”
“Thin? I’d take a reef in me belt for breakfast, an’ spind a p’aceful hour in the cathaydral, that dhrame in shtone up there on Fifth Avenue. Don’t ye remimber that verse in the Psalms, ‘I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread.’ Manny’s the toime thim worrds have consoled me whin iverything looked black, an’ I was throubled wid quare thoughts, bein’ nigh famishin’ wid hunger.”
“Have you actually wanted food—here, in this great city?”
The old fellow laughed merrily. Evidently, he found the question humorous.
“Sure, I’ve had the misforchunes of Job,” he said. “First, I lost me darlin’ wife. Thin I lost me job as a buildher’s foreman. I had two sons, and wan was dhrowned at say, an’ the other was killed in a mine——”
“In a mine? What sort of mine?”
“A gold mine, at a place called Bison, in Colorado.”
“When?”
“Nine years ago last Christmas?”
“Was his name Maguire?”
“No, sorr—Rafferty. A foine, upshtandin’ boy he was, too.”
Power recalled the incident. Indeed, he had helped to clear the rockfall which crushed the life out of the unfortunate miner. But he gave no sign of his knowledge.
“Why is your grandson named Maguire?” he went on.
“He is my daughther’s son, an’ she died in childbirth. More’s the pity, because Maguire was a dacint man; but he took to the dhrink afther she was gone, an’ that was the ind of him.”
“Yet you are a firm believer in the goodness of Providence, notwithstanding all these cruel blows?”
“Musha, sorr,” said Rafferty anxiously, “have ye nivver read the Book o’ Job? Look at the thrials an’ crosses put on that poor ould craythur, an’ where would he have been if the thrue faith wasn’t in him?”
“Rafferty, I would give ten years of my life to believe as you believe.”
“Indade, sorr, ye needn’t give tin minutes. Go home to yer room, an’ sink down on your marrowbones, an’ ax for help an’ guidance, an’ they’ll be given you as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow. Though, moind ye, ye mayn’t know it all at wance, just as it may be rainin’ tomorrow, when the sun will be hid; but he’ll be shinin’ high up in the sky for all that.”
The two crossed Sixth Avenue together, and Rafferty pointed to a big building, a place ablaze with light and quivering with the activities of six-decker printing machines.
“That’s where I’m goin’,” he said. “Maybe they’ll detain me some toime.”
“Before we part, my friend, tell me where you live.”
“Away over in the poorest part o’ Twinty-sivinth Street, sorr.”
“And how old is your grandson?”
“He’ll be eleven next birthday.”
“Is he seriously injured?”
Then tears came into the old man’s eyes. For once his splendid courage wavered.
“They wouldn’t tell me at the hospital, an’ that’s the truth, sorr; but a polisman who helped to pull him from undher the wagon said he thought he had escaped the worrst.”
“Are you and Jimmy known to any of the priests at the cathedral?”
“Sure, sorr, don’t they all know us? I remimber Canon M’Evoy comin’ there twinty-foive years ago.”
“And now, Rafferty, as one friend to another, will you let me help you?”
“Musha, an’ is it beggin’ you think I am?” and a gleam of Celtic fire shone through the mist of anguish.
“No. But you have given me good counsel tonight, and I am minded to pay for it.”
“Faith, I haven’t said a worrd that isn’t plain for all min, an’ women, too, to read, if they have a moind to look for it in the right place.”
“Sometimes one needs reminding of that, and you have done it. Come, now. Let me finance you with afew dollars, just to carry you along till Jimmy is around again.”
Rafferty drew a knotted hand across his eyes, and then peered keenly into Power’s face. What he saw there seemed to reassure him.
“Well, an’ it’s me that’s the lucky man, an’ no mistake!” he cried, while whole-hearted joy seemed to make him young again. “I’ll take your help in the spirit it’s offered in, sorr. If the situation was revarsed, I’d do what I could for you, because you have the look av a man who’d do unto others that which he wants others to do unto him. An’, by that same token, I’ve as much chance av gettin’ Jimmy’s stand wid the papers as I have av bein’ run for Prisident av the United States next fall.”
Power took a folded note from his pocketbook.
“Put that where the cat can’t get it,” he said. “And now goodby, and thank you.”
But something unusual in the aspect of the note caused Rafferty to open it.
“Sure, an’ you were nearly committin’ a terrible blundher!” he cried excitedly. “This is a hundred dollars, sorr, an’ you’d be m’anin’, mebbe, to give me a foive.”
“No. Don’t be vexed with me, but that amount of money will make things easy during the next month or so.”
“The next month! Glory be to God, I can live like a prince for three months, on a hundred dollars!”
“I firmly believe that you will live better than most princes.... That’s right. Stow it away carefully, and don’t forget that I am still your debtor.”
“Why, sorr, I can nivver repay you as long as I live.”
“Oh, yes, you can. Remember me when you go to the cathedral tomorrow.”
“Sorr, may I ax yer name?”
“Power—John Darien Power.”
“Arrah, an’ are ye Irish?”
“No.”
“’Tis an Irish name, annyhow. But it matthers little what nation ye belong to. You’re a rale Christian, an’ ’tis writ in your face.”
“There have been times when I would have doubted that; but the spirit of God has been abroad in New York tonight, and, perhaps, it has descended on me. Once more, goodby! I needn’t wish you content, because you cinched that long ago.”
“Ah, sorr, may Hivin bless ye! Manny’s the heart you’ll make light in this vale av tears, or I’m no judge av a man.”
It seemed to Power’s overwrought imagination as though Rafferty had suddenly assumed the guise and bearing of a supernatural being. Those concluding words rang in his ears as he hurried away. They had the sound of a message, an exhortation. The iron walls which appeared to encircle him had been cast down. His feet were set on an open road, fair and inviting, and he cared not whither it led so long as he escaped from the prison in which his soul might have been pent eternally.
Diving through a press of traffic, he reached the opposite side of a small square. A congestion of street-cars and other vehicles cleared during a brief interval,and, looking back, he saw the old man standing motionless, gazing up at the sky. At that instant a ragged urchin, carrying a bundle of papers, seemed to recognize Rafferty, and spoke to him.
The Irishman, called back to earth, bent over the youth, and, evidently obeying a generous impulse, added his own store of “returns” to those of the boy, patted him on the head, and pointed to a doorway.
Power could have repeated with tolerable accuracy every word that passed, though the notable din of New York was quadrupled in that particular locality:
“Say, how’s Jimmy, Mr. Rafferty?”
“Eh? Faix, he’s mighty bad, but God is good, and mebbe he’ll recover. Is it takin’ in yer returns ye are? Well, now, here’s some I don’t want; so just add thim to yer own shtock, an’ mind ye’ll be afther takin’ the money to yer mother. She needs it more’n I do, the poor sowl.”
Then the man of faith recrossed Sixth Avenue, and was lost to sight.
In his room that night Power wrote to Marguerite: