San Sabatano was not a big city, but it was a very busy one. At least its citizens thought so, and their four-sheeted two-cent local news-sheet fostered their belief. No doubt a New Yorker would have spoken of San Sabatano as a "Rube" town, an expression which implied extreme provincialism in the smallest possible way. It also implied that its citizens had never turned their eyes upon those things which lay beyond the town-limits, within which they had been "raised." In short, that they knew nothing of the life of the great world about them, except what their paper told them in one single column. Naturally enough one column of the worlds news against twenty or more columns of local interest gave readers a false perspective, especially when every citizen of any local standing usually found a paragraph devoted to his own social or municipal doings.
But then the editor was a shrewd journalist of very wide experience. No, he had not been "raised" in San Sabatano. He had served his apprenticeship on the live journals of the East. He understood men, and the times in which he lived. More than all, he understood making money, and the factor which his women readers were in that process. So the world's news was packed into obscure corners, and San Sabatano was the hub around which his imagination revolved.
So it came about that this individual had for months darkly hinted that theSan Sabatano Daily Citizenhad something up its editorial sleeve with which it intended to stagger humanity, and startle its readers into a belief that an echo of the San Francisco earthquake, or something of that nature, had reached them. He told them that the mighty combination of brain that controlled theDaily Citizenand guided San Sabatano public opinion had given birth to an epoch-making thought; a thought which, before long, when the rest of a sluggish world read of it, would lift San Sabatano as a center of enterprise, of learning, of culture, to the highest pinnacle of fame known to the world.
San Sabatano stood agog with breathless expectancy for weeks.
Then came the humanity staggerer.
It occupied a whole page of theDaily Citizen. The type was enormous, and had been borrowed for the occasion. Fortunately it came in a slack time. The citizens of San Sabatano had been so long held agog that nothing much else had been doing to afford the editor local copy. Therefore the epoch-making brain wave had full scope, and the use of a prodigal supply of black and red ink.
It was a competition. Yes, a mere competition.
That was the first disappointing thought of everybody. It almost seemed as if the staggering business had fizzled.
Then digestion set in, and hope dawned. Yes, it was not so bad. By Jove! As a competition it was rather good. Good? why, it was splendid! It was magnificent! Wonderful! What was this? A competition for women clerks. Speed and accuracy in stenography and typing. Twelve prizes of equal value. Five hundred dollars each, or a month's trip to Europe, including Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Rome, London. And the final plum of all. The winning twelve to compete among themselves for a special prize in addition. A clerkship in the office of theDaily Citizenat two hundred dollars a month, an office to herself, and a year's contract!
Yes, if he hadn't staggered humanity, the editor had certainly set excitement blazing in hundreds of young feminine hearts, and upset the even tenor of as many homes.
For weeks, pending the trial of skill, that astute individual nursed his scheme and trebled his circulation. Nor was it to be wondered at that many times during the preliminary stages of organization, as he watched the increasing daily returns of his precious paper, he sat back in his creaking office chair and blessed the day he married the wife, whose sister had just won a similar competition somewhere at the other side of the continent.
At the closing of the entries it was found there were just two thousand competitors. Success for the scheme was assured, and quarts of ink told the gaping multitude that this was so.
Then came the day of the competition. It was to be held in the Town Hall. So well was the interest and excitement worked up that, all unpremeditated, half the smaller business houses were closed for the day; a fact duly commented upon in the later issues of the paper.
The competition lasted all day, and it was late at night when the last weary, palpitating competitors finally reached homes, which were still in a state of anxious turmoil.
There was no news of the winners that night. There was none the next morning. Nor the next. The editor knew his business and talked columns in his own praise, and in praise of the manner in which the women of San Sabatano had responded to his invitation.
A week passed, and then a special edition brought the long-awaited announcement which dashed the hopes of one thousand nine hundred and eighty-eight bursting feminine hearts. It was a simple sheet, with a simple heading. No splashes of colored ink. It gave the list of the twelve winners of the competition in dignified type, and invited them to meet at the editor's office at noon next day, to compete for the coveted special prize.
Among the names of the winners was that of Monica Hanson.
The following day Monica attended the final competition. She did her utmost, spurred on by the driving necessity which had just been thrust upon her brave young shoulders. Now she was sitting in the San Sabatano Horticultural Gardens waiting for the evening issue of the paper which was to tell her, in cold, hard type, the news which was either to crush her eager young soul in despair, or uplift her to realms of ecstatic hope and delight.
Oh, the teeming thought of those straining moments. It flew through her brain with lightning-like velocity, spasmodic, broken. One moment she had visions of pleasures hitherto denied her in a solitary career, eked out on a wholly inadequate pittance doled out to her monthly by her dead mother's solicitors in far-off New York. At another she was obsessed by the haunting conviction that such good fortune was impossible. Yet she felt she had done well in the examination, and, anyway, she would certainly take that five hundred dollars she had already won in preference to the European tour. It would mean so much to her, especially now—now that this fresh call on her resources had been made.
After long disquieting moments she finally sprang up from her seat. Her nerves were getting the better of her. She thought she heard the raucous call of the newsboy. She listened; her pretty brows drawn together in plaintive doubt. Yes, no—her heart was thumping under the white lawn shirtwaist she was wearing, in spite of the fact that it was still winter. But winter in San Sabatano was as pleasant as many another town's summer. In all the history of that beautiful southern Californian town the thermometer had never been known to register freezing point.
She made a pretty picture standing there amid a setting of fantastic tropical vegetation. The cacti, great and small, with their wonder-hued blooms and strange vegetation, were a fitting background to the girl's golden beauty. She was quite southern in her coloring, that wonderful tone of rich gold underlying a fair almost transparent skin. Her waving, fair hair shone with a rich, ruddy burnish, crowning a face of perfect oval, lit with eyes of the deepest blue, which shone with pronounced intelligence and strength.
No, her nerves had not played tricks with her. It was the newsboy. She could see him now, just beyond the park gates. He was selling his papers all too fast. So, with tumultuous feeling's, and a heart hammering violently against her young bosom, she darted off to catch him.
She reached the gates and slackened her pace to a decorous walk. The boy had just handed an elderly man his paper, and was searching for the odd cents of change waited for. Having paid his customer off he looked admiringly up into Monica's pale face.
His shrewd eyes grinned impishly, and he winked abundantly, so that the whole of one side of his face became painfully distorted.
"Say, ain't you Miss Hanson, Miss?" he inquired, with the effrontery of his kind.
Monica's heart beat harder. But she replied with an icy calmness.
"Yes. That's my name. But——"
The boy's eyes sparkled.
"Then I guess the paper is sho' worth 'two bits' to you," he cried, thrusting the folded sheet at her. Then his feelings and covetousness getting the better of him, he added, "Gee, five hundred dollars, an' two hundred a month! Say, how do it feel gettin' all that piled suddenly on to yer, Miss?"
In a flash Monica's dignity had vanished.
"What—what do you mean?" she cried, almost hysterically. "I——" Her fingers trembled so violently that she tore the paper nearly to ribbons struggling to open it in the breeze.
The boy grinned.
"Gar'n. You ain't smart any. Guess you best hand me that 'quarter' an' I'll show you wher' to look."
He was as good as his word, and handed her another paper folded at the right spot, nor, to his credit, did he wait for the money in advance.
"You won it sho'," he said, and waited while in a daze Monica read the wonderful news—
"'We have much pleasure in announcing that the winner of our Special Prize of a position on our staff at $200 per month is Miss Monica Hanson, whose wonderful speed, etc., etc.'"
Monica waited for no more. Snatching at her satchel she opened it and drew out a single one-dollar bill, and pushed it into the willing hand of the expectant boy.
"Keep the change," he heard her say, as she almost flew down the sidewalk of the tree-shaded main street.
The boy looked after her. Then he looked at his dollar bill.
"Wal, guess she ain't got all the luck goin'," he murmured philosophically, as he pocketed the well-worn note.
Monica hurried on at a pace, though nearly a run, far too slow to suit her mood. Never, never in her life had she felt as she felt now. Never, never. It almost seemed as if the whole world were before her with loving, outstretched arms and smiling face, waiting to yield her all that her young heart most desired. In a vision every face that passed her by in her rush home seemed to be wearing a happy smile. Even the trees overhead rustled whispered messages of delight and hope to her in the evening breeze. This was certainly the one moment of moments in her brief seventeen years of life.
She had hoped, she had dared to hope; but never in her wildest thoughts had she really expected to win this wonderful good fortune. Two hundred dollars a month for a year! Five hundred dollars capital to work upon! And all this added to the pittance which thus far she had lived on while she studied stenography. It was too, too wonderful.
She thought of all she could do with it; and at once there grew on her joyous horizon the first threatening cloud. There was her sister, the dearly loved, erring, actress sister who had come back to her out of those terrible wilds in the far north of Canada.
Thank God this good fortune had come in time to help her. Poor, poor Elsie, or Audrey, as she called herself on the stage. What terrible troubles had been hers. Deserted by the man she loved, left alone with an Indian, and another unfortunate white man, to make her way back to civilization. The thought of her sister's sufferings smote her tender young heart even in the midst of her own rejoicings. She had always disliked and feared Indians hitherto, but now, since she had listened to her sister's pitiful story of her husband's leaving her, and of the wonderful loyalty and generosity of the Indian, Si—— what was his name? Ah, yes, Si-wash—somehow she warmed towards them. It seemed wonderful to think of an Indian having such generosity as to give poor Elsie the money to get to San Sabatano from Juneau out of the payment he had received in advance from the journey from Sixty-mile Creek. Why, it must have taken nearly all he had.
Monica in her impulsive way felt that she would like to repay him, to shake hands with him, and thank him. But her sister had told her that he had gone back into the northern wilderness, which nothing could ever induce him to leave for long.
It was a strange life and they were strange people. Even her sister had acquired something of the reticence and somberness of the world she had left behind her. Poor Elsie. She seemed to have made such a mess of her life. She had been doing so well, too, in New York. Why had she thrown it all up to marry this man, Leo, and wander off to the Yukon? What a funny name, Leo. It seemed to be his surname, too. Leo; it was all right for a first name, but—Elsie had insisted that it was his name, and the one she liked to call him by.
And now, here she was fretting her poor heart out for him. Oh, it was a shame. Men were perfect brutes. And to leave her under such conditions, and at such a time. She blushed as she thought what she would feel if her husband had left her when she was going to have her first baby. The thought left her anxious. But even her anxiety for her sister was lessened by the knowledge of her own good fortune. She remembered the nurse, who was even now up in the small apartments she occupied, and the doctor she had engaged. A week ago she had trembled at the thought of how she was to pay these people, and provide her sister with even the bare necessities of a confinement. Now, now it was different, and a fresh wave of thankfulness for her good fortune flooded her simple heart.
Yes, her sister should have every care. Everything she could do to make her happy and comfortable should be done. And then, when the baby came, wouldn't it be delightful? She would be its fairy god-mother. She hoped he would be a boy. Fancy Elsie with a son. Wasn't it wonderful? And she—she would give him every moment of her spare time from the office. Ah, that wonderful thought—the office.
So her thoughts ran on, keeping pace with her feet. The wonders of the new world opening out before her eyes were inexhaustible, and long before she was aware of the distance she had covered she found herself at the door of the cheap little apartment house where she lived on the top floor.
There was no elevator, and she ran at the stairs, taking them two at a time. Her good news would not wait. She must tell her poor sister. She was dying to pour all the happy story into her ears, and watch the wistful smile grow upon Elsie's troubled, handsome face.
On the sixth landing she stood breathlessly fumbling in her satchel for her key, when the door opened and the nurse appeared holding up a warning finger.
"Come quietly," she whispered. "The doctor is with her now. It came on quite suddenly. I hope things will be all right, but—she's in a bad way."
In a moment all the joy and hope died out of Monica's tender heart. All the castles, all her dreams, fell into a tumbled ruin. Her sister, her beautiful, brave sister was in danger. She knew it. She knew that the nurse's words covered far more than they expressed. Oh, it was cruel, cruel.
Three hopeless days since the coming of that brief moment of overwhelming joy. The reaction had been all too terribly sudden for a young girl on the threshold of life. Monica sat at her dying sister's bedside crushed under a great grief.
Those terrible three days. The demands made upon her by the reporters of theDaily Citizen. The interviews she had had to endure with the editor. The letters she received. Some from strangers; some from acquaintances. Letters of congratulation; letters full of burning spite from some of the unsuccessful competitors; vampire letters demanding sympathy and practical help, pouring out stories of misery, sorrow and suffering. All these, in her simplicity, she felt it her duty to answer; and she must answer them with smiling words of hope and comfort. She must at all times keep a smiling face.
To the reporter she had to talk and laugh while her heart was breaking. To the editor she must offer her most engaging smile that his personal goodwill be assured at the outset of her career. Nor, for one moment, did she permit a sign of the aching heart underneath it all.
At the end of those three days she was an older woman by far than twice her seventeen years. She was learning from the book of life in a manner that left her almost despairing. How much she learned. That smiling world she had gazed upon as she ran home with her wonderful news was no longer smiling, its face had resumed its wonted expression which was careworn, lined with suffering, and sorrow, and regret; and was terribly, terribly old. She had learned something of what her success meant. She knew now that her success meant failure to hundreds of others. She knew that so it must always be. The successful path must be lined with a tangle of weeds of suffering and hope abandoned. For every success there must be, not one but hundreds of failures; for such was the law of Life.
Thus she was robbed of her joy and thrown back upon the grief which lay across her own threshold.
The verdict had been given that morning by the doctor; and corroboration of it was in the steady eyes of the nurse. Her sister, her well-loved, admired elder sister was dying. She was dying not as the happy mother of a beautiful son, but as the deserted wife left to starve for all her husband cared. She was dying a broken-hearted creature whose wonderful, generous nature had been made the plaything of a cold, unscrupulous villain. All this Monica told herself over and over again as she sat beside the silent, uncomplaining woman during those long hours of waiting for the end.
Her beautiful eyes were red with weeping, her pale cheeks looked so wan with the long hours of silent watching. The nurse was still there to do her work, but most of her work was now the care of the little life in the bed that had been put up at the other side of the room, rather than with the woman who had given up her life that her love might yield her absent man this one last pledge.
Poor little Monica was alone, utterly alone with her grief. There were no warm words of kindly comfort to soften her troubles. There was no loving mother's gentle hand to soothe her aching head. The world was there before her, hard, unsympathetic. She must face it alone, face it with what courage she might, doing the best she knew amid a grief which seemed everywhere about her.
An infantile cry from the other bed startled her. She rose and passed across the room. The child seemed to be asleep, for its breathing was regular, and the cry was not repeated. She gazed down upon its tiny, crumpled face, and her young heart melted with a curious yearning and love for the little life that was robbing her of a sister. It was so small. It was so tender—and—and it had cost so much. She longed to take it in her arms and press it to her girlish bosom. She loved it. Loved it because it was her sister's and soon would be all she had in the world to remind her of the generous heart from which life was so swiftly ebbing.
"Monica!"
The girl started and looked round. The dying woman's eyes were wide open.
"Come here." The voice was low, but the words were quite distinct. It was the first time she had spoken for more than twelve hours.
Monica passed swiftly back to her place at the bedside.
"Oh, Elsie, Elsie," she cried, "I'm so glad you have spoken. So, so glad."
A faint smile flickered gently over the sick woman's emaciated features.
"Are you?"
"Yes, yes. Oh, Elsie, you feel better, stronger, don't you? Say you feel better. I—I know you do."
Monica's last words came hesitatingly, for even while she was speaking a negative movement from the sick woman told her how vain were her hopes.
"It is no use, Mon. But I'm perfectly easy—now. That's why I called you. I want to talk about—him. You—you—love my little son, don't you?" There was pleading in the voice as the woman asked the question. "I saw you bending over him just now, and—and I thought—hoped you did."
"Oh, Elsie, he is yours. How could I help but love him?"
The words came impulsively, and Monica dropped a warm hand upon the transparent flesh of her sister's. Her action was promptly rewarded by a feeble pressure of acknowledgment.
"I—I knew you would."
After that neither spoke for some moments. Tears were softly falling down Monica's pretty cheeks. But her sister's eyes were closed again. It was almost as if she were gathering her strength and thoughts for a final effort.
Presently Monica grew alarmed. She dashed the tears from her eyes, and bent over the bed.
"Shall I fetch nurse? Is there anything I can do?" she asked eagerly.
The big eyes opened at once, and the light in them was a calm smile. The dying woman looked almost happy. To Monica's growing understanding of such things her happiness might have been the inspiration of one who sees beyond the narrow focus of human life; whose swiftly approaching end had revealed to her tired eyes a glimpse of the wonderful world she was approaching, that golden life awaiting all, be they saint or sinner.
"I don't want any one but you, dear—now." The voice was tired, but a sense of peace was conveyed in the gentle pressure of her thin fingers upon the soft warm flesh of her sister's hand. "I—I want to tell you of—things. And—and I want you to promise me something. Oh, Mon, as you love me, as you love my boy, I want you to give me your promise."
Monica seated herself on the edge of the bed and tearfully gave her promise with all the impulsiveness which her love inspired.
"You only have to tell me what it is. I could promise you anything, Elsie. I have only one desire in the world now; it is to—to help you."
Her sister's eyes closed for a moment. Then they opened again.
"Raise me up a little, dear. Put a pillow behind my shoulders. I want to—to—see the bed over there. I want to see my little son, his—his boy. That's better." She sighed contentedly as Monica raised her up, and her big eyes at once fixed themselves upon the other bed. There was nothing to be seen but the carefully arranged bed clothes, but, for the time at least, it was sufficient.
"I want to tell you the things I never told you before. I want to tell you about Leo; and I want to talk about my—my boy. Leo and I were not married."
A little gasp of horrified dismay escaped the young girl. She was so young that as yet her ideals of life were still intact. The thought of such a thing as her sister now spoke of had never entered her innocent head.
"Ah, that—that hurts you," the other went on. "I knew it would. I—I—that's why I lied to you before. I lied when I said Leo was my husband. Oh, Mon, don't let it make any difference to us now. The time is getting so short."
"Nothing could ever make any difference between us," Monica said, in a low voice. "I was startled. You see——"
"I know. Ah, my dear, my dear, you don't know what it is to love as I love. I met Leo a long time ago, when I was an actress. He knew me as Audrey Thorne, an actress, and I—I wanted to marry him. But—you see he had nothing on which to keep a wife—an extravagant woman as I was then. So, he went away, and—and I followed him. You must think me utterly, terribly bad—but I loved him. I followed him right up into the wilds of the Yukon, and—and I lived with him."
"Poor, poor Elsie." Monica's dismay had passed, and she gently squeezed the hand she was still holding. The pressure seemed to give the other courage to proceed.
"You mustn't pity me too much. I—I was very happy. I was very happy until I knew about—my little son. It was then that I realized the awful sin I had committed. It was then I knew the cruel wrong I had done to that unborn life. I—I think I was nearly distracted when it all came upon me." Her voice had risen. It was almost strident with emotion. "For weeks I thought and thought what I could do to remedy my wrong, and at last I took my courage in both hands. I told Leo, and—and asked him to marry me—for the child's sake."
"For the child's sake?"
The admission which the words implied filled the simple Monica with something like panic.
"You see, Leo never loved me as I loved him."
"Oh, Elsie, Elsie!"
"Yes, dear, I forced myself upon him."
The tragedy of her sister's life had almost overwhelmed the girl. The whole pitiful story wrung her heart with its pathos, its shame. Her sister. Her beautiful, clever sister. Oh, it was too, too dreadful.
After a while Elsie roused herself again. There was a lot yet to be said, and she knew her time was short.
"I am all to blame. You mustn't blame Leo," she said earnestly. "He was a good man to me. I know you think he has deserted me. But he hasn't. That is not him. He promised to marry me, and, had I lived, he would have kept that promise. We were coming down country for that purpose." She paused. "Then something happened which made it necessary for him to go on ahead. That's how I came to make the journey with the Indian. It—it couldn't be helped. You—you mustn't blame Leo. He will be looking for me. Is very likely looking for me now. But it is too late. That is why I want you to promise me something."
Monica waited. She could find nothing to say. She was learning another of the bitter lessons which life has to teach when the book is once opened. Presently the other went on—
"You see, neither of us can now remedy the wrong I have done my little son. As I said, it is too late. I shall be gone before Leo can marry me." The big eyes became eager. They looked up with piteous straining into the gentle face before them. "Do you see? Oh, Mon, do you understand? My boy—our boy has no father; and very, very soon will have no mother. Oh, Mon, what can I do, what can I say? Can—can you help me?"
But Monica was gazing helplessly before her. The warmth of her love for her erring sister was no less. But she was thinking, thinking, striving with all her might to seek a solution to the painful tangle of her poor sister's life.
"I—I—can't—— Tell me, Elsie—tell me anything I can do for him. I don't seem able to think for myself," she cried hopelessly at last.
Something of Monica's difficulty seemed to communicate itself to the other. Her brows drew together in perplexity.
"It is so hard," she said suddenly. "I have thought and thought, and I can only see one possible hope—only one. That hope is—you."
"How? Oh, Elsie, tell me how. What can I do?"
With a sudden effort the mother propped herself up with her elbows behind her. Her dying eyes were burning bright with feverish light. All the hope of her poor dying soul looked up into her sister's face as her final appeal rushed to her lips.
"How? Why, why, by taking him as your own son. How? Oh, Mon, his own mother is taken from him. Then give him another. Make him your own child—whose father is dead. It would be easy for you. You married young, and your—your husband died—died at sea. He will never know differently. No one will question it. Oh, my dear, don't you see? Bring him up as your own child, born in wedlock, and never let him know his mother's shame. Promise me, your sacred promise to a dying woman, that he shall never know, through you, his mother's shame, and his own disgrace. Promise it to me, Mon, it is the only thing that can give me peace now. Forget everything I have told you. Forget the disgrace I have brought on you. Forget everything except—except only your promise. Promise! Promise!"
Her fingers tightened almost painfully upon Monica's hand. She was laboring under a fierce emotion, almost sufficient to bring on a collapse. The feverish eyes were bloodshot, and a hectic flush burned on her thin cheeks.
The impulse of the moment was upon Monica, and she leaned forward. Her other hand was tenderly raised to the woman's moist brow, in a loving, soothing manner.
"I promise, dear; I promise on my sacred word that what you ask me shall be done. Henceforth he shall be my son. Nor shall he ever know through me the cruel wrong the world has done to you. I promise you, Elsie, dear, freely, freely. And all my life I will strive to keep the real truth of his birth from him."
"Thank God!"
The reaction was terrible. The dying woman fell back on her pillows, and her features suddenly became so ghastly that Monica sprang from her seat in wild alarm. She ran to the door to summon the nurse. But the voice from the bed stayed her.
"No, Mon, not yet." Then the dying woman added with an irresistible appeal, "Give me my boy, for—for a few minutes. After that——"
Monica ran to obey with an only too thankful heart. But her instinct warned her that the end was not far off. She laid the sleeping child tenderly by its mother's side, and placed her thin arm gently under its shoulders. She felt maybe she was doing wrong, but—poor Elsie.
Elsie's eyes thanked her, but her voice remained silent. And for a long while there was an unbroken quiet in the room.
Monica moved to the window and stood with her back turned to the bed. Somehow she felt that these moments were too sacred for another's eyes to witness. Slowly fresh tears gathered in her eyes, tears of sympathy and love, and one by one they rolled unheeded, slowly down her cheeks. And as they fell the last moments of her sister's life ebbed peacefully away.
Monica's life suddenly became filled to overflowing. She was no longer a child, but a woman of a maturity that was almost absurd in one so young. The happy, irresponsible girlhood she had so long enjoyed in her mother's modest uptown apartment had quite gone. Whatever the future might hold of happiness for her, certainly freedom from the more serious cares of life would never again be hers.
Five years ago she and her mother had bade Elsie good-bye in the same humble apartment, when the elder girl had left San Sabatano to go on the stage in New York. Monica was twelve then. Twelve; and her young eyes and younger mind were filled with a boundless envy and admiration for the beautiful sister who was to bask in the wonderful limelight of the stage, and wear clothes far beyond the beauty of all dreams; and jewels—jewels, whose splendor was incomparable to the beauty of her lovely, lovely Elsie. Had she only known it she was very near the truth when she thought of the jewels her sister would wear.
Her mother was one of those quietly good women who contrive to inspire their children with something of their own qualities by example rather than precept. Neither Elsie nor Monica ever knew what it was to receive one of those harsh reprimands so common among mothers of less understanding, of less ability. Her children must grow up guided rather than driven. All their lives this had been her method. Therefore it came as a terrible shock to her when the more wayward of the two, perhaps, in a sense, the bolder spirit of the two, suddenly announced her intention of leaving the sheltering dovecote, where money was never very plentiful, to earn her living in the flamboyant world of the stage.
True to her methods, and with, perhaps, a deeper understanding of her child, and the uselessness of refusal, the mother's permission was not long withheld. It was a reluctant enough permission, but given without any outward sign of the disapproval she really felt. Moreover, she was convinced of the rightness of her attitude. The girl, she knew, would live her life as she understood it. Her only duty remaining, therefore, was to equip her with all the knowledge of the world that lay within her simple range of understanding. For the rest the child's fate was in the lap of the gods.
But she never seemed to quite get over the parting. For a long time she bore up with great fortitude, and her devotion to Monica became a wonderful thing. It was almost as if she feared that she, too, her one remaining child, might be taken from her, and swallowed up by the hungry maw of the outside world.
She heard regularly from Elsie for some time. Elsie was getting on quite well. Then letters became less frequent. And, finally, about the time that Elsie met Leo, they ceased altogether. It was then that the signs of break-up began to show in the patient woman at home.
She had died quietly and quickly of heart failure just a year ago. Monica's grief was profound. But she was too young for any lasting effect to remain with her. She lived on in the apartment without any thought of leaving it. The whole thing seemed the most natural in the world to her. Her mother's solicitor wrote her, and offered her a home with his family, but, with prompt decision, she refused it. She told him that if her mother's affairs permitted it, she would rather remain in San Sabatano, where she had all her girlhood's friends, than break new ground among strangers. Her mother's affairs yielded her the barest living, so she remained, determined to make a way for herself in the world, her own world, as other girls of her acquaintance had done.
Now she had reached the second, and, in many ways, the greater change in her life. Where, before, only her childish affections had been bruised and crushed at her mother's death, now she realized that she had all too suddenly passed from the sunlit paths of innocent childhood, to the harsher road down which all the world was journeying; struggling, jostling, each striving to seize for themselves the easier, the pleasanter paths along which to make the journey of life.
But the change in her was subtle. There was no outward effect, there was no disturbing of the wholesome, happy nature that was the very essence of her being. The change was in an added knowledge, a quickening of naturally alert faculties. She realized that some strange force had suddenly plunged her into the midst of a life which demanded quick thought and swift action, so that her pulses might be kept beating in perfect time to the pace at which life sped on about her.
She realized that she had suddenly become one of life's workers, and that grave responsibility was already knocking at her door. From the very beginning she accepted the new conditions gladly. She felt an added zest to the fact of living. The old days of dreaming were gone. Every moment of her waking hours was filled with thought, keen, practical thought; and the demand thus made on her found her ready and able. There was no fluster, no confusion of any sort. Her healthy brain was quick and incisive, characteristics quite unsuspected even by herself. Not only was this so, but, with the added pressure, there came a quiet desire to test her newly discovered powers to the uttermost.
There were other changes, too, changes of almost equal importance. She found herself witnessing the progress of affairs about her with an entirely new understanding of them. All her understanding of the precepts of her youth received revision; a revision which was inspired by the story her sister had told her on her deathbed. The shock at first had been a little overwhelming, but, young as she was, her ready brain quickly assimilated the facts, and set itself to the task of readjusting its focus.
There was no bitterness, no horror at her discoveries. She simply realized that here was a small slice of life cut out by the same ruthless knife which no doubt served hundreds of similar purposes among the rest of mankind. Who was she to criticize, who was she to condemn? Her knowledge was all to come, and maybe, as she went on, she would discover that such tragedies were part of the real life which up to now had been entirely hidden from her.
She had no blame for her dead sister. Her memory was as sacred to her as if she had lived the most perfect life of purity under the social laws governing man's relationship to woman. Her love once given was not a thing to be promptly rescinded by the failure of its idol. The idol might fall, and become besmirched in the unsuspected mire, but her frank, kindly hands were ready to set it up again and again, and perhaps in time her broader knowledge would teach her how to secure it from further disaster.
Perhaps the first real warning of the change in her came at the moment she considered her sister's funeral. Here undoubtedly a shock was awaiting her, and, in a moment, there leaped into her focus a teeming picture of almost endless complications. Just for an instant all her nerves were set jangling, and an utter helplessness left her painfully distressed. Then the feeling as abruptly passed, her mind cleared, and, one by one, she found herself reviewing each detail of the situation, and marking out the course she must adopt.
First and foremost her sacred promise to the dying woman stood out in all its nakedness, entirely robbed of its cloak of impulse and affection, in which it had been clad at the time of its making. And from that promise, radiating in every direction, she saw boundless possibilities for more than unpleasant consequences.
She knew she must make up her mind swiftly, and she did so in an astonishing manner. A sleepless night found her in the morning ready with her plans all clear in her mind. She still had nearly three weeks before taking up her new position in the office of theDaily Citizen. This would be ample time to put everything in order. It was necessary to take the doctor into her confidence. He had been their doctor for as long as she could remember. He had attended her mother in her last illness, and knew their whole family history as well as she knew it herself. Therefore she did not anticipate any difficulty with him.
So the third morning after her sister's death she visited him at his house, and confided sufficient of her sister's story to him to enlist his sympathy, without any breach of the confidence reposed in her. She pointed out her own position, and begged his help in hushing the whole matter up.
Dr. Bernard Strong was a man of wide sympathy and understanding, and in giving his promise of help, pointed out the gravity of the position which her quixotic promise had placed her in.
"My dear," he said, "this is almost a terrible business for you. Here you are, bound to this town for at least a year, with a newly born infant in your care, which you cannot explain away, without breaking your promise to poor Elsie. You are known. You have many friends. What in the world are you going to do?"
It was then that Monica displayed the quick, incisive working of her suddenly aroused mental faculties. She told him in brief, pointed words the plans she had made during the long, wakeful night.
"It does not seem so—so very difficult," she said.
Then she plunged into the details of her schemes. She pointed out that her tenement was a weekly one, which she could get rid of as soon as Elsie was buried. This she would do. Then she would take rooms far out on the outskirts of the town. She would first find a house for the baby in the country, a few miles out, where he was not likely to be brought into contact with the townsfolk. That would be a start. After that she would meet any emergency as it arose. The help she wanted from him was to arrange the funeral, with all the secrecy possible, and see that the law was complied with in regard to the baby. His registration, etc.
The quick practical manner in which she detailed all the minor details to this man of experience filled him with a profound admiration, and he told her so.
"It is astounding to me, Monica," he said kindly, "that you, a girl of seventeen, can handle such a matter in the calm manner you are doing. Perfectly astounding. You certainly ought to do well in this business career you are about to begin. Really you have made things seem less—er—formidable. But, my dear child, I feel I must warn you. You see, I am so much older," he went on, with a smile. "I have seen so much of the world—the sadder side of the world, that I cannot let this moment pass without telling you of the rocks I can see ahead, waiting to break up your little boat. Your tale of an early marriage and all that, if the boy becomes associated with you in the minds of people in the town, will never do. At once they will think the worst, and then—what of your position on theDaily Citizen?Then when the time comes for you to marry? What then?"
"I shall never marry—now," was Monica's prompt and decided reply.
The doctor shook his head.
"It is so easy to say that. Believe me, my dear, you have tied a millstone about your neck that will take your utmost strength to bear. I even doubt if you will be able to bear it for long. You are about to embark on a career of falsehood which will find you out at almost every turn. It is quite terrible to think of. Poor Elsie did you the greatest wrong, the greatest injury, when she extracted that promise from you. And," he added, with a wry smile, "I fear, from my knowledge of you, you will carry it out to the bitter end—until it utterly overwhelms you."
Monica stepped off the veranda of the doctor's house with none of the lightness of gait with which she had mounted it. She realized the gravity of her position to the full now, and knew that, without breaking her sacred word to a dying woman, there was no means of remedying it. But she was quite determined, and walked away with her pretty lips tightly compressed, her blue eyes gazing out unflinchingly before her. Nothing should turn her from her purpose. It was Elsie's trust to her. It was the cross she had to bear. Come what might she would bear it to the end, even if at the last its weight were to crush the very life out of her.
The next three weeks passed rapidly. Monica had no time to look back upon the trouble which had so involved her, she had little enough time to gaze ahead into the wide vista of troublous rocks the doctor had promised her. In fact she had no time at all for anything but the crowding emergencies of the moment, and keeping the well-meaning friends and curious neighbors as far from the secrets of her inner life as possible.
Nor was it easy; and without Dr. Strong's help many of her difficulties would have been well-nigh insurmountable. But he was as good, and even better, than his word. The whole of the funeral was achieved without any unnecessary publicity, and Monica and the doctor were the only mourners. Then the latter found a home for the boy on a farm, three miles out of the town, where a newly born babe had just died, and so, in the end, everything was accomplished just as Monica had planned, without one unnecessary question being asked. Thus, by the time the winner of the special prize took up her duties in the office of theDaily Citizen, of all San Sabatano, Dr. Strong alone shared Monica Hanson's secret. A secret, it was her future object in life to keep entirely hidden from the world.
Monica entered upon her duties with a lighter heart than she had known for weeks. Everything was as she could wish it. All traces of her sister's shame had been carefully covered. Practically no sign was left to delight the prying eyes of the curious scandalmongers. Her future lay before her, wide, and, to her, illimitable.
Her aims and ambitions were fixed plainly in her mind. She must succeed; she must rise in the commercial world; she must make money. These things were not for herself. No, she required so little. They were for him, for the little life so cruelly wronged at its very outset. Henceforth her own life would be devoted to his. Her whole thought would be for him and his welfare, not only for the child's sake, but in memory of the love she had borne her dead sister.
How well the editor of theDaily Citizenhad judged the competitors for the special prize was quickly demonstrated. Monica's zeal was backed by the suddenly aroused acuteness of an unusually clever brain, and, before a month had passed, the complacent individual in the editorial chair had excellent reason for again congratulating himself. He had intended from the outset that the winner of the princely prize and unusual salary should earn every cent of it, but he found in his new clerk an insatiable hunger for work, and a capacity for simple organization quite astounding, and far beyond any demand he could make on it.
In this beginner he quickly detected a highly developed germ of commercial instinct; that germ so coveted, so rare. He tried her in many ways, seeking in a more or less fumbling way for the direction in which her abilities most surely pointed. Stenography and typing, he quickly saw, were mere incidents to her. She had other and larger abilities. Frequently in dictating letters he found himself discussing matters pertaining to them with her, and she never failed to center her mental eye upon the point at issue, driving straight to the heart of the matter in hand. The man was frankly delighted with her, and, in the shortest possible time, she became a sort of confidential secretary, whose views on the organization of his paper were often more than useful to him.
It was about this time that the editor's sanctum was invaded by a stranger; a big stranger of quite uncommon appearance. The man was simply dressed in good store clothes, which covered a powerful, burly figure. But the chief interest lay in the man's face and head. It was a strong face. To use Mr. Meakin's own description of him to his young clerk some time later, he possessed a "tow head and a face like emery cloth."
He gave no name, in fact he refused his name. He came to insert an advertisement in the paper, and to consult the editor upon the matter.
His objects were so definite that, in spite of the refusal to give his name, Mr. Meakin decided to see him. Monica was away at dinner, or he would probably have turned him over to her. However, when the man finally appeared the editorial mind was pleased at the study his unusual personality offered him.
The stranger very nearly filled up the doorway as he entered the inner office.
"Guess you're the editor?" he began at once, dropping into the chair Mr. Meakin kicked towards him.
"Sure," Mr. Meakin was always sparing of words to strangers.
"Ah."
Then, so long did the man remain silent that the editor found it necessary to spur him on by a method he usually adopted in such cases. He pressed the button of his dummy telephone with his foot. The bell rang out, and he lifted the receiver to his ear.
"Hullo! Who is it? Oh, that you, Allards? Oh, is it important? Well, I'm engaged just now. I shan't be three minutes. Yes, I'll come right along then. Goo'-bye!"
He looked across at his visitor as he put the receiver up.
"Sorry to interrupt you. I didn't just get what you said."
A flicker of a smile passed across the visitor's serious face.
"It's of no consequence," he said. "Guess I must have been thinking aloud. You see it's kind of a fool trick having the button of that dummy 'phone in sight under the table. Guess the feller who fixed it was a 'mutt.'"
"Eh?" Mr. Meakin's face went suddenly scarlet. He was about to make a hasty reply, but changed his mind, and laughed with a belated sense of humor.
"It's served its purpose anyhow," he said genially. "What can I do for you?"
The stranger responded to his humor at once.
"Don't guess you can do much. Maybe you can tell me a deal. I'm looking for some one who's lately come to this city. A lady. Maybe you get a list of visitors to this city in your paper."
"At the hotels—yes."
"Ah, I don't guess she's stopping at an hotel. Came to visit her sister. Her name's Audrey Thorne."
"Audrey Thorne," Mr. Meakin searched the back cells of memory. He seemed to have heard the name at some time or other, but for the life of him he could not recall where.
"Guess I'm not wise," he said at last, with a thoughtful shake of his head, while he eyed his visitor shrewdly. "Anyway, if I knew of the lady, tain't up to me to hand information to a stranger—without a name."
The stranger promptly rose from his seat.
"Just so," he said, with a sharp clip of his powerful jaws. "I'll ask you to read this over," he went on, producing a sheet of paper from his pocket, "and say what it'll cost to have it in your news-sheet for a week."
He handed the paper across the desk, and Mr. Meakin admired the bold handwriting in which the advertisement was set out.
"'Will Audie send her address to Box 4926 P. O. Winnipeg? Sign letter in full name.—Leo.'"
Mr. Meakin read it over twice. Then he looked up keenly.
"Guess it'll cost you ten dollars," he said. "Sunday edition two dollars extra. In advance."
The stranger paid out the money without comment and moved towards the door. Then he looked back.
"There'll be no mistake. It's particular," he said deliberately.
"There'll be no mistake."
"Thanks." The stranger pocketed the receipt for the money with some care.
The door closed behind the man who signed himself as "Leo," and Mr. Meakin heard him pass down the passage to the outer office. Then he turned to the stack of local copy at his elbow.
He was quite used to strange visits from stranger people, so he thought no more of the matter until nearly an hour later when Monica returned from her dinner.
As she entered the wholesome, airy apartment, with its soft carpet and comfortable furniture, he looked up quickly.
"Say, Miss Hanson," he said, holding out a pile of proofed copy. "This needs classifying. It goes in tomorrow's issue. Get it through before four. Say, and you might hand this in to the advertisement department. A guy with a tow-head, and a face like emery cloth handed me twelve dollars for a week—and Sunday. Reckon he's chasin' up his lady friend, and she's guessin' to lie low."
He passed her Leo's advertisement, and went on with his work.
Monica waited for any further instructions to come, and, as she stood, glanced down at the sheet of paper containing the advertisement. In a moment her attention was riveted upon it, and a sickening feeling stole through her whole body. Then her pulses were set hammering with a nervousness she could not control, and she felt faint.
At that moment Mr. Meakin happened to look up.
"Well?" he inquired.
Then he became aware of the pallor of the pretty face he was accustomed to admire, when Mrs. Meakin was safely within the walls of their home on the outskirts of the city.
"Say, you're not well," he exclaimed kindly.
Monica promptly pulled herself together.
"It's—it's just the heat," she stammered. "I'll—go and see to these. Anything else?"
"Nothin' else just now. Say, don't worry too much if the heat——"
But Monica had fled before he finished his well-intentioned admonition. Once in her own office she flung herself into the chair at her desk, and sat staring at the ominous sheet of paper.
"Leo!" she muttered. "Whatever am I to do? Whatever am I to do?"
For a long time the pile of copy remained untouched while she struggled with the problem confronting her. She viewed it from every aspect. And with each fresh view it troubled her the more. What was her duty? What was the right course to pursue? This man was Leo. Elsie's Leo. She had no doubt of it. Leo, the father of Elsie's boy. If Elsie had lived she would have welcomed him. But Elsie was dead. Elsie was dead and carried with her her promise never to let the child know his mother's shame. Ought she to tell the father of this child? Ought she to give him up? It would be an easy way out of all her difficulties. Yet she had promised to bring him up as her own.
No, she would not give the boy up. It was plainly her duty to keep him, and—yes, she knew it—her desire. But equally she had a duty of some sort to fulfil by this man. He must not be left in ignorance of Elsie's death. He must be told that or he would haunt this town, and become an everlasting source of disquiet to her. Yes, there was a duty to herself as well. She must safeguard herself; safeguard the child. And with this conclusion came an inspiration. She would write to him on her typewriter, and leave the letter unsigned.
So she passed the advertisement on to its department, and, on a plain sheet of paper, sent the briefest possible message to the post office, Winnipeg.
"Audie died in child birth."
There was neither heading nor signature, and she determined to have it mailed from another town. The more she considered it the more her message pleased her. She was keeping her promise to her sister, and fulfilling what she believed to be her duty to the man. He had asked for news of Elsie; well, here was news which was the exact truth.
Her work was duly completed by four o'clock, and she awaited a call from Mr. Meakin. There would be a number of letters to take down, she knew, when his editorial work was finished for the day. In the meantime she had leisure to reflect upon the visit of the man, Leo.
It was curious. Almost a coincidence that he should call when she was out. Had she been in it would have fallen to her duty to have interviewed him first. As it was she had missed seeing him. It was a pity. She ought to have seen him. Yes, she would have given half a month's salary to have seen him——
A bell rang; but it was not Mr. Meakin's bell. It was from the outer office. She took up the 'phone at once. Could it be——?
"Hello! Oh! Some one to see Mr. Meakin? Who is it? What's that? Austin Leyburn? What's that? He's dressed funny? All right, send him in to me. Right."
Monica put up the receiver and waited. It was not Leo, and she was disappointed. Austin Leyburn. She didn't know the name.
There was a knock at the door, and, in answer to the girl's summons, it was thrown open by the small boy who piloted visitors.
"Mr. Austin Leyburn, Miss!"
Monica indicated a chair as the door closed behind her visitor. He took it without hesitation, and she found herself gazing upon a most extraordinary object. He was obviously a powerfully built man with a keen, alert face and narrow eyes. He was smiling at her with a curiously ironical smile which rather annoyed her. But his general appearance was deplorable. His clothes were so unclean and ragged that, even among tramps, she never remembered seeing anything quite like them. They were patched and torn again in a dozen different places, and it would have been impossible to have described their original color with any accuracy. Yes, there could be no doubt he was a tramp of some sort. Yet when he spoke his manner was not that of a tramp. However, as a precaution, Monica kept her foot over a push button which did not belong to a dummy 'phone.
"If you'll state your business, I'll inquire if Mr. Meakin will see you," she said, in her most business-like way. "He's very busy. You see, the paper will be going to press soon."
"I don't guess I need to worry the boss if you happen to know about things." The man's manner was sharp, but his smile remained. Monica became interested. There was nothing of the usual whine of the tramp here.
"I deal with all inquiries," she said simply.
"Confidential?"
"That depends on the nature of the confidence."
"Ah. Maybe what I'm after won't be reckoned confidential."
"If you'll——"
"Just so, Miss. Well, see here, maybe it isn't a heap except to me. I'm after a feller who calls himself Leo," he said distinctly. Monica started. The man's quick, smiling eyes saw the start and drew his conclusions. "I see you know him. I knew he'd been here. Came this morning. You see he's after a woman belonging to this city. I guessed he'd get around. I'm on his trail and want him bad. Maybe you can put me wise where he's stopping?"
Monica shook her head with a calmness she was by no means feeling.
"I shouldn't tell you if I knew. You're quite right, I know the man—by name, but that's all. You see, we know many people by name—but there our information to strangers ends."
"So." Mr. Leyburn eyed her coldly. "Maybe Mr. Meakin, as you call him, will——"
"Mr. Meakin will tell you no more. In fact, if this is your business Mr. Meakin will not see you."
Monica pressed the bell under her foot.
The man laughed harshly.
"Well, it don't matter. Guess I'll come up with him sooner or later. Maybe he'll look into this office again another day." He rose, and his hard eyes shone with a metallic gleam. "If he does—you can just tell him that Tug is on his heels. He's looking for him bad. So he best get busy. Good-day."
The small boy threw open the door, and stood aside to allow the visitor to pass out. Nor, in spite of the curious threat in the man's words, could Monica help a smile at the impish manner in which the boy held his nose as the man passed by him.
The stranger's visit left an unsavory flavor behind him. Monica was disturbed, and sat thinking hard. She was striving hard to raise the curtain which shut out her view of the life lying behind all these people. She was striving to visualize something of that life with which poor Elsie had so long been associated. A number of vague pictures hovered before her mind's eye, but they were indistinct, unreal. She could not see with eyes of knowledge. How could she? Was not this life belonging to another world? A world she had never beheld, never been brought into contact with? No, it was useless to try to penetrate those dark secrets which she felt lay hidden behind the curtain she was powerless to draw aside.
Yet she knew these things had not come to her to be set aside and forgotten. They had come to her for a purpose. What was that purpose? She tried to see with her sister's eyes. What would Elsie have done, with Leo—threatened? Ah, that was it; that was the purpose. Her sister's responsibility had devolved upon her. Elsie would have taken some action to help—Leo. What would she have done?
She thought and puzzled for a long time. Then she pressed the bell under her desk once more. An inspiration had come.
When the boy appeared she demanded the proofs of the day's advertisements.
She waited impatiently until the boy returned, and then kept him waiting while she hastily extracted the one she required from the pile. She read it over carefully. Leo had worded it to suit her purpose well. Suddenly she took up her blue pencil. She dashed out the word "Winnipeg" and substituted "Toronto" in its place. And without another glance at it handed the papers back to the boy.
"That's all," she said briefly.
But the boy was full of the impertinence of his kind.
"Toronto?" he read. "Say, Miss, ain't that the place they have ice palaces an' things?" he demanded, with a grin.
Monica was in no mood to answer his questions.
"Take them back," she said sharply.
As the boy slouched off she leaned back in her chair with a sigh of relief. She had done her best to put the man calling himself Tug off the track of his quarry.