"I've always been a lonely chap. I never had any friends—except dogs and drunks and beggars and bad boys. Women always laughed at me. I was too sentimental. Men shouldn't be that, you know. After Zbysko went out there wasn't anybody. About all I had—more than other men—was imagination. When I went down, that made me go further than most. There were times ... I'm not ashamed nor sorry ... they just happened—like starvation. Some men are decent because they have to get on. I couldn't seem to get on. For a while I gave up trying. Imagination and an empty stomach and no one to care ... well, life never had much in it for me—until I knew you. You were the first good woman who had ever remembered me from one day to another. I fancied ... I mattered to you. I liked to think that I was a part of your life—even such a small part. It was gratitude at first. Then it grew and grew until—you see what a curse imagination can be! If I'd been an ordinary, sensible person, I'd never have let myself go. But I dallied with the idea. I gave myself up to it. And then it got too strong for me. I don't know why I burst out like this to-day. I should have kept it to myself. There was no need for you to know. I was a fool ... oh, a dreadful fool!" He sighed heavily and was silent.
"I never dreamed...." she breathed.
"That's not true," he said gravely. "You thought of it often. You're too wise not to. I could see it in your eyes. You didn't want to—you had to. You're a woman."
"Mr. Good, I can't tell you how much this means to me. I do care for you ... very much—more—more—" She hesitated and stopped. The inadequacy and stiffness of her words were distressingly evident. Even in the dusk she could see the dull pain in his eyes. They had the expression of some wounded, helpless animal.
"Please don't," he begged. "I understand. When I hurt your hand ... that was enough. It's quite impossible, of course." Never, to the end of her days, would she forget the dreary hopelessness in his voice, the bent shoulders, the hand uplifted in deprecation. She wanted to throw her arms about him, as she would with Roger. Something held her—she could not move. The tears blinded her....
"But you didn't finish," he shot at her suddenly. "More—more—than any other man ... was that what you were going to say?"
And when she made no reply, he laughed, a little bitterly, a little tenderly—quite mirthlessly.
"I thought not. Well ... I used to hate him. I used to hate him very much—for other reasons, too. But he's not the man now that he was. He's been through the fire. He's better metal now. He's tempered. The dross is gone. He's not worthy of you ... who is?"
Suddenly Judith's tongue was loosed. "You don't understand," she cried, with an earnestness of which there could be no question. "There is no other man. I care for you ... very much. Oh, I do—I do...."
"Then ... would you marry me—willyou?" There was a subtle note of irony in his voice which was not lost upon her. But she did not reply and he too was silent for a moment. When he spoke again the irony was less subtle.
"You care enough to marry me if—if ... things were different?"
"I don't understand." Her voice sounded very far away, as if it did not belong to her at all.
"Oh, yes, you do, Judith Wynrod," he said harshly, like a magistrate passing sentence. She thought she had never heard a voice so cold and terrible, so cruelly impersonal. But, without warning, it changed, and she knew that she had never heard such infinite tenderness.
"Oh, yes, you do...." It seemed to come from a great distance, like the soughing of the wind in the trees, sad, mysterious, supernatural. It was not Good's voice, but something vast, inchoate, nameless. She shivered and drew her coat more closely about her.
"But you're human," the voice went on. "You have more angel in you than most—but you're not an angel. You're wise—very wise, Judith Wynrod—too wise to be an angel. Heaven is for the fools. The wise have the earth. It's the little things—like table manners and polished shoes—that keep us out of heaven. I'm fool enough to brave these little things. But you're wise. You know that they would increase and multiply and crush us both, because they are stronger than we. If we were souls—merely souls—it would be different. But I'm a man. You're human, too. If we were souls alone—less human—less wise—the little things—would not matter. But we aren't just souls. No, we are not—we are not...."
The tender, wistful voice died away. The world seemed very distant to Judith for a moment, and only this man, who talked like a god—or an idiot—mattered. There was a tense, fleeting moment, when, had Good known it, the course of both their lives might have been changed. But he did not know it. The moment passed. The wind sighed in the trees again. The myriad noises of the night were loosed. A locomotive whistled dismally. A thousand tentacles seemed to come down on Judith and overwhelm her and bind her fast; and with the sound of the whistle she knew that the world was with her once more. She had been an angel for a moment. She was one no longer. The tears fell unchecked.
"It's funny, isn't it," Good was saying in a matter-of-fact tone, "that the trifles—things we really don't value at all—should keep people from the one thing that counts. Queer world, this. But it's one of the rules of the game. It's silly to complain. As well mock the stars." His voice broke miserably and he covered his face with his hands. As she stared miserably at the stooped, shabby figure of the truest friend she had ever known, she felt very small and mean and ineffective, wishing that she might say something which would comfort him, knowing that anything she could say would hurt him more than silence. She was shamed by her impotency. But when she thought of the bright camaraderie which had been between them, and would be no more, she was angry. Why had he spoiled it all? Why had he not let things be? She was aroused from her reverie by the sound of his desolate voice.
"Truly, it is the last day. Tears ... and then ice." He paused. "It will rain presently, I think—with snow," he added quite calmly.
Almost as he spoke the rain began. They parted hurriedly. There was a quick hand-shake, a murmured word, and she was fleeing from him with the print of his lips still hot on her fingers.
It was an utterly wretched woman who sat staring for hours afterward at the blank wall before her. And it was a hopeless, beaten man who trudged through the dripping trees toward the station. Fate had had its pleasure with both. Tired of the sport, it had crushed them like eggshells.
The next day Judith returned to the city. Winter had arrived in earnest and there were other reasons why Braeburn had become impossible. She drove to the station in a storm of blinding sleet, while the wind, howling through trees suddenly become gaunt, seemed to shriek and gibber with derision at her going.
But the city house had its memories, too. Recollections clustered everywhere, mocking her. She made up her mind impulsively that she would go to Florida. It was out of season of course, but it would be the more restful for that. She felt very tired. She even consulted time tables.
But one afternoon, when she was in her motor, she saw Imrie. She followed him with her eyes until he disappeared. She had not seen him for months, though she knew in a vague sort of way, what he was doing. He was perfectly justified, of course, in neglecting her. She had surely done nothing to encourage his attentions. In fact she had done not a little to discourage them completely. Nevertheless his indifference piqued her. She decided not to go to Florida,—at least not until January.
The real reason for the postponement, she managed to convince herself, was her talk with Mrs. Dodson.
It occurred at a little dinner party given by Mrs. Weidely, a lady of the most unimpeachable conventionality, who satisfied an unsuspected craving of her nature by gathering about her the most thoroughly unconventional people she could find. Had her husband, now deceased, not been the upright president of a very large bank, and were her house not, in consequence, situated in a location of indisputable respectability, these dynamic assemblies would have been held with the attentive co-operation of the police, a condition with which some of her guests as a matter of fact were not at all unfamiliar.
Mrs. Dodson, who went out very little, was present chiefly because Mrs. Weidely was a friend of long standing, whose almost tearful assurance that her absence would ruin the evening, had been too touching for resistance. Mrs. Dodson was a kind-hearted, if not particularly credulous, woman.
When Judith arrived, having been invited, she suspected, chiefly to give "balance" to the affair, a young man with a narrow, equine face and a great deal of coarse black hair, who she afterwards learned was named Klemm, was standing in front of the fireplace, his legs wide apart, and talking very rapidly, in a high, thin voice, punctuating his sentences with rapier-like movements of his long, sharp fingers.
He was a poet, whose ready flow of language, with its glowing flights of hyperbole, had once reacted unfavourably upon a too literal-minded policeman, with a consequent very actual fortnight in jail. It had been a distinctly unpleasant experience, but one which he would not have escaped for worlds. Its immediate effect was a volume of lurid verse, which had a very wide sale. And ever afterward he was able to denounce things as they were, with the assurance of one who knew whereof he spoke. He was young in years, but—he had lived—he had suffered....
"Charity—pah!" he declared with finality. "It is futile, childish, debasing—both to them that give and them that receive. It is abomination—the more organised, the worse it becomes. It is like all—reform." The fine scorn with which he spoke would have made the word shrivel up and disappear, had it been a material organism.
"And for reform you would substitute—revolution?" Judith was conscious of Mrs. Dodson's firm, level voice, contrasting rather unexpectedly with the uncertain falsetto of Mr. Klemm.
"Revolution—yes!" The accompanying gesture was splendidly dramatic. "A man's word," he added, sternly, but unfortunately in a tone which was somewhat feminine.
"So far as I know," said Mrs. Dodson, quietly, without any dramatic effect, but in a way which carried conviction, "the real progress of the world has been by evolution. Revolution has usually been followed by reaction, the net advantage being no greater than is secured day after day, year after year, by the despised reformers. Most of the revolutionists I know—talk. The world needs—work!"
It was a stinging rebuke. Mr. Klemm, not easily silenced, had no more to say. He seemed relieved when dinner was announced.
Judith, herself, felt vaguely shamed. The past year, begun with such hopes, such fine purpose—what had it all amounted to—but talk? What had shedone? What was she but Good's cheque-book? What would she do were he removed? What was she—herself—alone—?
She was silent at dinner, dimly conscious that the man beside her was talking very earnestly about a certain philosophy of painting. She knew only that what he said was of no interest to her. Somehow, in her awakening conception of the bigness and yet the simplicity of life, and of the part she wanted to play in it, the æsthetic arts seemed irrelevant. She had always been ignorant of painting and music, caring for them only as pretty pictures or melodious diversion. Now, she no longer cared even to pretend that she was not indifferent. Hitherto she had lumped such culture with dress and servants and fine houses—only one among the many "little things." Art had been in no way vital to her: she knew no one, not even the "collectors," to whom it was. Art, to them, as well as to her, was merely one, and a comparatively unimportant one, of the conventions which went to make up the life of the "upper classes." Though she herself owned some of the finest paintings in America, she frankly admitted that they really meant no more to her than the silver plate from which she dined. She smiled as portions of the argot the painter beside her was using, filtered into her consciousness. The poor creature doubtless thought he was flattering her. She wanted to tell him candidly how little his silly chatter interested her. Why did he not tell her something of real value, something which would help her find herself, something which would make her matter in the real world of real things, so that when she was gone there would be a vacancy to fill? Art! She turned away in disgust she could not conceal.
Mrs. Weidely's was a large house, with countless little nooks and crannies where one desirous of solitude might steal away and find it. Mrs. Dodson, Judith suspected, was as bored as she. It was a simple matter to suggest an escape with her into one of these refuges. The older woman was frankly grateful for the idea. When they were seated, with the chatter of the company drifting faintly to them like the far-off rattle of musketry, Judith voiced her problem. Mrs. Dodson heard her to the end in silence, with a faint suggestion of a smile on her finely-cut lips.
"You are just where I was," she said when Judith had finished the recital, "many years ago. Only I was not so conscious of things as you are—and I had not done what you have done."
"You mean—The Dispatch?"
"Yes. That is doing a splendid work—it is waking people up."
"But I haven't done it. It's no credit to me, really."
"I know. But you made it possible. Perhaps you haven't done as much for it as it has done for you. But in either case, much has been accomplished."
"Oh, Mrs. Dodson—if I could only do what you have done—be what you are...." There was no pretence in Judith's admiration as she looked up into the quiet, kindly face of one of the most misunderstood women of her community. It was not a beautiful face. Nature had not been kind to it. But it was a face which, once looked upon, could never afterward be forgotten. It had the beauty which comes of strength and courage and travail, the beauty with which one is never born, but which must be made. It was the face of one who has grasped life firmly with both hands, and through pain and discouragement, has hewn something which must endure always.
Mrs. Dodson was silent at Judith's honest, if girlish, outburst. She smiled sadly, and her eyes clouded.
"I have done little," she said softly. "And I am—little. I saw my road, long ago. I see it more clearly every day. But I'm not big enough to follow it—very far. I'm too timid. To go on that road, where I know I should go—where I know better and better as the years come—I should have had to leave everything behind. I wasn't equal to that. Those little things—they didn't mean much—they don't now ... but I can't shake them off—quite. I can't follow the road and take them too. And I can't rest with them and forget the road. So I've—tried to do both. I can't, of course—but I try. I try very hard. It makes me enemies. It makes me unhappy. Even my children—I've stayed partly for them—the road led to such a wild and desolate country—even they don't understand. Perhaps that's why I was so cruel to that young man to-night. He said things that I wanted to say—and couldn't."
Mrs. Dodson, suddenly looking very old and tired and weak, faded away, and in her place Judith saw Good. "If we were angels," he was saying. "If ... but we're not. We're only humans...."
Then Good vanished, and Mrs. Dodson, again her quiet, efficient self, reappeared. Her voice had changed, too. It was the calm, business-like tone which the world knew.
"You have wealth, my dear. The pleasures of society no longer appeal. You have made a start. I see no reason for discouragement."
"But I want tostart," cried Judith. "I want to feel my hands on something."
"There are a number of committees and boards on which you might serve—"
"Oh, but that's the ordinary thing. I've donethat."
"Not exactly." Mrs. Dodson's voice was a trifle grim. "You were a sociological dilettante. You were an amateur, so to speak."
"But it's so cut-and-dried."
"You must first learn the ropes. You have to know your tools before you can use them. It will be dry and tedious, of course, and there will be no sense of accomplishment. It will be educational. The accomplishment—such as it is—will come later."
"And then—when it comes—it will be reform?" She wondered why the implication was so distasteful.
"Yes, my dear. You have too much to be a revolutionary. You remember the story of the Rich Young Man. It was always so. He was asked to give upeverything. He could not. I could not. You cannot. You may give more than I—in some ways you already have. But you will not giveall. You will always be a—"
"—reformer," interrupted Judith bitterly.
"Yes," continued Mrs. Dodson, gently, "only a reformer. Your influence will die with you. You will pass very little on. The radicals will hate and ridicule you. Even those you help will distrust you. And what is worse—you will some day come to distrust them."
"Then why go forward?" cried Judith. "Why not stay where I am and be comfortable?"
Mrs. Dodson smiled wisely. "Because you can't. I remember hearing a gushing young thing ask a great novelist if he didn't just love to write. His reply was, 'I loathe it.' When she looked her amazement—as we all did—he added, 'I'm miserable when I write, but I'm more miserable when I don't.' We thought he was just posing, but I know now what he meant. I understand perfectly. I loathe the wretched futility of the work I do, with its everlasting cowardice and compromise. I wish I could go back to the life for which I was born and bred, which even those dearest to me, lead now. But I can't do that. Life as it is, is unsatisfying. But any other would be worse."
"Why, I always thought you so happy—one of the happiest women I knew," cried Judith in amazement.
"Oh, well—" Mrs. Dodson's sigh defied analysis. "Such things are relative." She was silent for a moment. Then her voice reverted to its tone of business. "But come—that's enough philosophy. If you talk too much it interferes with doing. Now, if you care to come, I'll have you to lunch with me to-morrow. I'll have some work waiting for you. And when that is finished, there will be more to follow. Will you come?"
Judith looked into the kindly grey eyes, so plainly studying her, and was ashamed of the reluctance and disappointment she felt. She nodded her head affirmatively. Was life always a compromise like this? Must noble aspirations forever fade away in the cold light of fact? The older woman seemed to sense her thought, for she smiled and patted her shoulder gently.
"My dear little girl—I understand. And so will you—when you find yourself. The world's made up of doers and dreamers. The doers dream a little and the dreamers do a little—it is not given to many to be both. Dream a little, always, my dear, for the good of your soul. And listen always to the dreamers, even when their dreams seem nonsense. But you mustn't be sad because you are only an agent. We are not less human because we are not gods. We have our place in the scheme of things: we must fill it—awkwardly, incompletely, stupidly—still, as best we may."
They parted then, and as soon as she decently could, Judith assured Mrs. Weidely of the "perfectly delightful" evening she had had, and went home. It was a long time before she could sleep.
She spent the morning wandering restlessly through the house. Was she always, she asked herself again and again, to be subject to the influence of others? Was she never to act for herself? Of the influence of Good upon her, she was quite conscious. But that, she sensed, could never be again as it was before that afternoon at Braeburn. When the snow began to fall, it had ended his call, the call of the dreamer. He had given her all he had. It was not enough. Now came the call of the doer. Would that end in time, as the other had ended, and would she then go ahead for herself, not the puppet of Brent Good nor the aid of Mrs. Dodson, but Judith Wynrod, free agent? She wondered, and wondered. There was no answer.
At length, when she could endure the house no longer, she went out for a walk in the frosty air. She had an hour or two before going to Mrs. Dodson's.
The sun was shining brightly, but it was cold, and she had to walk rapidly. Before she knew it, she was well into the Park, and a little tired. A bench, in the sun and sheltered from the wind, attracted her, and still in a reverie, she sat down.
Presently she became conscious that she was being addressed. A young man had seated himself beside her.
"Arnold," she cried. "Why—I'd never know you...."
"Yes," he said placidly. "I have changed, haven't I?"
As he spoke she realised that he no longer wore the clerical collar, and that he was garbed in a grey suit of distinctly fashionable cut and colour, instead of the sombre black she had always seen him in before. Also, to her amazement, she noted that he wore a red tie. Perhaps it was merely the change of costume, but he seemed years younger than he had ever seemed before. His face was ruddier, his eyes had more sparkle, his smile was easier.
"But why—what is the cause—what's happened—what's the meaning of all this?" she stammered.
"I've moved fast since we last met. As a matter of fact, Judith, you're looking on a perfect stranger!"
"That's obvious—but why—what—I don't understand."
"In the first place I'm not a clergyman any more—for which there is no rejoicing: but in the second, I'm not a prig any more—for which there is...."
"Arnold—you've really left the Church?"
"Or it's left me—the result's the same," he said quite cheerfully.
"But what caused it? I heard you had resigned—everybody talked about it—but why?"
"I don't suppose you ever saw a 'slide' at Panama?"
She shook her head, wondering.
"Well, first a piece of rock, perhaps no bigger than your fist, slips out of place. That moves another and another and another, until before you can whistle twice, a pile of earth that has seemed as fixed as time is as flat as the back of your hand.
"That's the way it was with me. A few months ago I thought my convictions were as fixed as the everlasting hills. I looked solid—but I wasn't. Really, I was made up of very small pieces. Then, when you poked fun at me, you jarred one of those pieces out of place. That moved another—and another—and another ... until with a rush, the whole thing came tumbling about my ears. When the noise was over and the dust settled, it was up to me to set about putting the pieces together again as best I could. I don't know what kind of a mess I'd have made of it if I hadn't had the luck to fall in with Dr. Weis—perhaps you've heard of him?"
"Only vaguely," admitted Judith.
"Well, he's a Jew and a free thinker and an anarchist and a human fire-brand—and the most all around fine character I've ever known! Anyway, he took an interest in me as I floundered about—he seems to think he can make something out of me." His mingled pride and humility was indescribably boyish and lovable to Judith. He sounded a new note, quite free from the cant with which, in her mind, he had never been quite disassociated.
"And are you happier now?" she asked when he paused.
"Much," he said thoughtfully. "I was successful at St. Viateur's and I was popular, and I thought I was doing good work. But I'm happier now—really I am—consciously happy, I mean. In a way I'm a failure, of course, and I've lost most of my old friends, but the newer ones seem truer—and what I've lost in the respect of others, I've gained in the respect of myself. Yes, I'm happier now."
"But what are you doing?"
"Well, we've established a sort of peoples' church, with meetings in one of the downtown theatres. It's for those who haven't any creed, or even much faith. We seem to have some kind of a hold. There's rarely an empty seat."
"Do you preach?"
"Once in a while. But I wouldn't call it preaching. I've come to dislike that word. This is something different. You can'tpreach, you know, to our kind of people. That's what made lots of them leave their churches. Jesus never preached. But oh, Judith—" His eyes flashed and she thought his enthusiasm in keeping with his red tie. He had always been so reserved, hitherto. "I've never experienced anything like talking to those people. When I was in the pulpit at St. Viateur's, with all you comfortable, smug, well-fed, contented people before me, talking to you seemed only a form, and what I said, merely a formula. You didn't carewhatI said, and I didn't—it washowI said it. But now—I tell you there's an intoxication in talking to people who've come because they get something, not because they ought to, or because it's the thing. It's no wonder that the biggest men in the land are glad to appear on our stage."
"Do you do any welfare work?" Judith found his enthusiasm infectious.
"In a way—mostly getting people jobs and things like that. We're not very well organised yet, but we're working all the time."
"I suppose—you lack money?"
"Of course. That handicaps us tremendously. But...."
"Would a cheque—be of use?"
He looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, as if not quite sure of her meaning. Then he smiled and shook his head.
"You don't understand. One of the principles of our plan is to be beholden to no one. We can't accept gifts. You see—we want no vestries." There was a note of bitterness in his voice.
"But I—surely—" He sensed that she was a little hurt.
"We take up a collection. You might drop in some night, and then—if you cared to...."
"Yes," she said thoughtfully, "I'll come."
They were silent for a little while, but it was a silence in which there was no consciousness of the flight of time.
"Who are your speakers?" asked Judith finally, already feeling that she had a personal share in the enterprise. "Clergymen?"
"Sometimes. But that's not essential. It's the man we seek—not the creed. We want anyone with a message. We've had all kinds. You see, we're not engaged in propaganda—rather we're spreading the truth—as all kinds of men see it. We're committed to nothing. It's a good deal likeThe Dispatch—no policy but the truth. By the way, how's that going?"
"As well as could be expected, I suppose," said Judith with an apathy which did not escape him. "I really have very little to do with it."
"That's natural."
"I suppose so. Anyway, Mr. Good and Roger need no assistance from me."
"Is Roger really active?"
"Indeed he is. He used to be rather submissive to me, but now he acts as if I really knew very little about it. I'm glad he does, too. It shows he's grown up. The best thing aboutThe Dispatchis what it's done for Roger."
"No, it isn't," said Imrie soberly. "That's a good thing, of course. I'm delighted. But it's not the best thing—not by a long way. Frankly I was sceptical aboutThe Dispatchat first. I thought your friend Good was just a crank. But the paper's gone ahead so splendidly. It's done such a really wonderful work—and then, you see, when I waked up, I saw things differently. The people I've been in contact with lately have made me understand Good. I used rather to dislike him. I honestly admire him now."
"Yes," said Judith quietly, "he is rather admirable." Something in her voice made Imrie study her narrowly. A wistful look crept into his eyes, and he was silent. Judith, subconsciously, realised the change in him and she hastened to shift the topic.
"But this work doesn't take all your time, does it? What else are you doing?" She rather expected a denial, and his reply surprised her.
"No, it doesn't," he said, with something of his former enthusiasm gone. "Or rather I haven't told you all of our work. You see Weis has gone into politics rather more or less in his own city, and we're drifting that way, too. They want me to run for alderman. I live downtown now, you see. It's a bad ward. The decent people have never had a chance in it. Of course it sounds silly—but really—I think seriously of it."
"I don't think it sounds silly at all," she cried. "I think it's splendid. You can count onThe Dispatch."
"ButThe Dispatchisn't partisan," he said with a smile. "It never takes sides."
"Well, it will this time," she declared truculently.
He laughed. "You're still a woman, Judith." Then his expression changed, and his voice was tender. "I guess that's all you ever will be—to me."
The wind had shifted, making their refuge no longer comfortable, and Judith suddenly became conscious of the hour.
"Goodness—I've only ten minutes to get to Mrs. Dodson's. Coming that way?"
He nodded, and fell in beside her. They walked all the way in silence. When they reached the magnificent building in which Mrs. Dodson slept, but which seldom saw her when awake, Judith held out her hand.
"You haven't been near me for ages. Won't you come—occasionally—as you used to?"
"Do you really want me to?" His eyes seemed extraordinarily bright as he put the question.
"Of course."
"Then I will." He kept his gaze on her for a moment. With a wave of his hand he turned sharply on his heel, and was on his way as if time were precious.
Never, she thought, as she went into the house, had Imrie looked quite so handsome, quite so virile. And never, certainly had she extended an invitation to him which was more sincere, nor with the prospect of its acceptance more wholly appealing. Yet she could not rid herself of an inexplicable sadness.
It was some time, as she tried to listen attentively to Mrs. Dodson's level voice, before the picture of a pair of glistening blue eyes and a head of close-cropped, curly, blonde hair, and ruddy cheeks, and a set of firm white teeth, parted in a smile, half wistful, half enthusiastic, ceased dancing before her.
She was, she concluded, only a woman.
Good and Roger Wynrod sat in the latter's office one afternoon, about a week later, discussing, as was their regular habit, the day's paper. This conference had always been a one-sided one, but of late the balance had shifted. At first Good had done the talking and Roger had listened. Now it was the other way around. That the change was not displeasing to Good was manifest from the faint smile which played around his lips. He smoked his pipe gravely and had very little to say. He acquiesced in everything and made no suggestions.
When matters of a routine nature had been disposed of, Roger leaned back in his chair and lighted a cigarette.
"I had lunch the other day with Dick Menefee, Corey's new advertising manager," he said with a reminiscent chuckle. "He was in my class in college—same society and all that. First thing he asked me was whyThe Dispatchwas on their blacklist."
"I suppose you told him?"
"With variations. Also I told him one or two things they probably don't know at Corey's."
"About—?"
"Yes. It interested him because he doesn't cotton to Joe much better than we do."
"What happened?"
"Well, Dick's an independent sort of a chap, with some fancy ideas of his own. He couldn't see why they should pass up a chance to sell goods to our readers just for spite. I tried to explain it to him, but he didn't seem impressed. He said he was going to stir things up."
"Did he?"
Roger smiled. "Rather! I saw him again yesterday. It seems they had a most beautiful row. Dick resigned and Faxon threatened to, and Corey couldn't make up his mind whether he'd fire 'em before they had a chance to resign. Oh, it was a jolly mess ... but we'll have a contract like the old one in a day or two!"
"Not really?"
"Big as life. Menefee pointed out to them that while they could use their advertising appropriation as a club, it was only a stuffed club. If any paper had sense enough to call the bluff all they could do was to crawl as gracefully as possible. He raked up a lot of old records and showed Corey where he was losing cold dollars by staying out ofThe Dispatch. He said he didn't know what the rest of them were but he was a business man, and he didn't give a damn what sort of stuff a paper ran if it sold goods for him. That struck the old man as pretty good sense, and he refused to accept Dick's resignation. Faxon saw which way the wind had shifted and reefed his canvas. Anyway ... they're coming back."
"The other stores will follow, I suppose."
"They're bound to," cried Roger. "They're bluffed to a standstill, and they know it. With Corey's backing down they've got to follow suit—pride or no pride."
"I suppose you're pretty pleased," said Good with a smile.
"Pleased? Honest, I'm tickled pink! I feel as if I'd been sitting in on a sky-the-limit game boosting the ante with a pair of shoe-strings. I've felt like passing lots of times. Without you at my elbow I guess I'd have done it."
"You think that's—unusual?"
"Maybe not that. But I do feel—well—like a burglar."
"My dear boy," laughed Good, "I'm not much of a business man, but I think a general show-down would reveal a lot of jokers in front of chaps who are playing like royal flushes. A good face with an empty hand wins in other games besides poker. You can't bank nerve—but you can draw checks on it."
As he finished speaking, a boy entered and handed him a card. He glanced at it, hesitated a moment, scratching his head thoughtfully, and then, with an inscrutable smile, passed it to Roger.
"It's for you, lad."
"But didn't he ask for you?" said Roger surprisedly.
"Yes—but he made a mistake."
"All right—show him in."
A moment later a round little man, with bulging eyes which peered near-sightedly and with a curiously worried expression from beneath a deeply furrowed forehead, seated himself at the desk behind which Roger was seated.
"Mr. Good," he began, "I ..."
Good, who had withdrawn his chair unobtrusively into a corner, spoke quietly.
"You're addressing Mr. Wynrod. He's the man you want to see."
The little man did not hesitate. "I see. Well, Mr. Wynrod, I am Mr. Burdick—Philemon P. Burdick. Possibly you've heard of me?" He paused, and when there was no response, proceeded, apparently neither surprised nor disappointed. "Evidently you have not. However, that is immaterial quite immaterial. The purpose of my call is not to acquaint you with myself, but with my work." He paused again.
"Yes?"
"I have come, sir, to seek your assistance—the assistance of your excellent publication, I should say."
Roger stirred a trifle uneasily, and Mr. Burdick, the worried expression in his eyes deepening, hurried on, as if fearful of interruption.
"First I wish to congratulate you uponThe Dispatch. It is doing a noble work. The community owes you a debt of gratitude, sir, a very great debt."
"Thank you," murmured the young man at the desk.
"But there is one thing—a little thing, and yet a great thing—which you have left undone. It is my purpose now to ascertain your position in the matter."
"Yes?" Roger looked puzzled.
"If you knew me better you would know that I am very deeply interested in what is rather unfortunately called the single-tax. Now..."
Again Roger stirred, but this time Mr. Burdick, his eyes shining with zeal, and little drops of perspiration standing out all over his forehead, appeared not to notice the fact. He continued as if he were conscious of no interruption.
"... the theory of the single-tax is so absolutely in accord with common sense that one needs only to become familiar with it to become enthusiastic. All that is necessary to make the single, or land tax, an accomplished fact, and to bring about immediately the complete abolition of poverty, sir, is publicity. But there's the rub—"
He halted a moment to mop his glistening brow. His sincerity was indisputable, but his countenance was so incongruously droll that even Good, sitting quietly in the shadow, and not feeling at all like laughter, found it difficult to repress a smile.
"Yes, sir," continued Mr. Burdick, "there's the rub. We need publicity. But most avenues, I regret to say, are closed to us. Most mediums are afraid of us. They look upon us as dangerous radicals. Of course that's absurd. Look at me—doIlook like a dangerous radical?"
It would have required a bigot indeed to so characterise the stout little gentleman who looked as if harsh words would bring tears to his eyes. Roger made a sound in his throat which was meant to signify derision at the thought, but which, to Good, sounded suspiciously like an abortive chuckle.
"Yes, it is absurd. But the fact remains. Most newspapers are unwilling to advance the cause. Instead of getting down on their knees to the memory of Henry George, they deride it—yes, sir, they deride it!"
Roger tried to look his horror, and Mr. Burdick went on vigorously.
"I saymostnewspapers. And I say it with a purpose, sir. I don't suppose you can guess what it is?" He smiled archly, and when Roger could not guess, he added, with profound conviction, "The Dispatch, thank God, is not like most papers. It is free, daring, original. I ask you, sir, to use it in a cause worthy of all its freedom, its daring, its originality. I ask you—yes, Icommandyou—to put its tremendous and growing power behind the greatest movement of the age, that..."
"You mean..."
"I mean," said Mr. Burdick with solemnity, as if he were conferring an accolade, "I mean that I seek the enlistment ofThe Dispatchunder the glowing banner of the single-tax."
He folded his arms and waited for a reply. Roger cast a troubled glance at Good, and turned away helplessly from the blank countenance which met him. It seemed to the tall man, studying his protégé narrowly through half-closed lids, that he was indecisive. But he waited hopefully. He was not certain. Presently Roger bit off the end of a cigar, and chewed it thoughtfully. Then he squared his shoulders and the light of resolution came into his eyes. Good sighed contentedly. He had been mistaken.
"I guess you don't quite understandThe Dispatch, Mr. Burdick," said Roger quietly, but none the less firmly. "It doesn't take sides."
"But the single-tax...."
"It makes no difference what the side is. We're not partisan."
"But, my dear sir," cried Mr. Burdick, a quite unsuspected temper manifesting itself. "It's not a political party. It's not a religion. It's not—dogmatic in any sense. It's just—anidea. You seem to favour advanced ideas. You give space ... why, you had two columns about a socialist meeting that was raided by the police!"
"I know," said Roger gently. "But—that was news."
The subtle distinctions implied in that sentence appeared to halt the little man for a moment. But he was not long daunted.
"Well," he cried triumphantly, "wasn't the abolition of slaverynews? Wouldn't the abolition of poverty benews? My dear young man—" His tone became unmistakably patronising. "It would be the most tremendous piece of news you could possibly print. Everything else would pale into insignificance beside it. Why...."
"Mr. Burdick," Roger's voice was a trifle cold. The intimation of patronage had annoyed him. "Personally I might have all kinds of sympathy with the idea you represent. But that has nothing to do with it. We're running anewspaper—nothing else. We print news—not opinions. The distinction must be clear to you, I'm sure." His momentary irritation had vanished, and he finished with a friendly smile.
But Mr. Burdick's wrath was not to be thus easily assuaged.
"Then you decline to take any interest in our cause?" he demanded belligerently, his sudden truculence contrasting very curiously with his peaceful face. As a matter of fact, no one could be more keenly conscious of his inadequate appearance than he was himself. More than once he had stood before his mirror and cursed the image which blinked timidly back at him. A man of less will would have yielded and become resignedly subject to the body which Nature had imposed upon him. But Mr. Burdick was a man of rare spirit.
"You don't believe in it, do you?" he continued, in a voice which had become shrill. "You're opposed to it?"
"On the contrary—"
"Then why...." Obviously Mr. Burdick was exasperated.
"My dear Mr. Burdick," said Roger patiently, "I've already told you. Your cause is a good one—sure. But so's the Y. M. C. A. So are foreign missions. So's the Republican Party—now and then. But causes aren't news. You talk about the abolition of slavery. Sure—that was news ...afterthe abolition. Go ahead and abolish poverty—I don't care how little—and we'll give you the run of the paper. But you've got tobreak out. You've got to make news. If you can't make it by abolishing poverty, hire a hall and get pinched ... we'll give you two columns too."
"If you are endeavouring to be flippant ..." began Mr. Burdick, rising, and drawing himself up to his full height—which was not very impressive, as none knew better than himself.
"No," said Roger very earnestly. "I'm not. I never was more serious in my life. Only you won't understand. People with axes to grind never do. They always get sore when we won't help the job. You see...."
"I shall wish you a very good afternoon," said Mr. Burdick stiffly.
Roger shrugged his shoulders. "As you please. I hope the wish comes true."
The little man ignored the persiflage. He clapped his hat down on his head savagely, and beat what was intended for a very dignified retreat, but which, for reasons over which the poor man had no control, fell short of the intention in several essential particulars.
"And say," called Roger, as his visitor reached the doorway, "don't get sore. Drop in occasionally and have a chat."
The slamming door was the only response. Roger laughed and turned to Good who had sat like a graven image all through the interview.
"Well—how did it go?"
For reply Good rose and stretched himself and yawned prodigiously—all of which procedure was an elaborate simulation of emotions which he did not in the least feel. He then walked over to the desk and carefully emptied his pipe. And finally, with sustained deliberateness, he held out his great hand.
"Put it there, my boy," he said gravely. But Roger had hardly complied, eyeing him curiously the while, when Good's hand dropped and he walked to the window. It was several minutes before he turned and met the younger man's gaze with his own.
"I guess I can go now," he said in a voice which seemed at once triumphant and inexpressibly sad.
"I don't understand...."
"You've learned all I have to teach you, lad." Good's deep voice was low, but it reverberated sonorously in the little room. "You're on the bridge now. You're in deep water. You can drop the pilot."
"What the dickens are you driving at, anyway?"
"I'm quitting, Roger." The words were said almost in a whisper, and the deep-set, wistful eyes gleamed very tenderly. "My work's done. It's up to you now."
"You don't mean ... you're not leaving the paper? Why, that's nonsense! It can't be. What's upset you, anyhow? Oh, come, this won't do, you know. I won't have it. I simply won't. Why, good Lord, man—I'd be lost!"
"No." Good shook his head and his voice vibrated as if he found it difficult to hold it in check. "You're free now. This talk proved it. You don't need me any longer. I've done my work. It's time to wander."
"But w-w-why?" stammered Roger. "Can't you give any reason? What's the trouble at the bottom of it? You haven't had a fuss with sis, have you? Surely you're not doing this just because I'm more on my feet than I was? I'm far from not needing you, God knows. Aren't there other reasons?"
"Yes," said Good dully, "there are other reasons."
"Well, good Lord," cried Roger in exasperation mingled with alarm. "Won't you tell them?"
"No," said Good shortly, "I won't." Then, abruptly, he held out his hand. "Good-bye, lad. Here's luck." His voice broke, and he turned. Before Roger could get around the desk to him, the door had closed and he was gone.
The young man stood with his jaw hanging. He was utterly nonplussed. Good had gone out of his life as suddenly, as unreasonably, as amazingly as he had come into it. He racked his brains futilely for an explanation. Had he been a trifle younger it is probable that he would have wept.
It was the end of the day, and darkness had fallen. But even if it had been the first hour of the morning he would have gone home at once. The office had become unendurable.
He found Judith having tea with Imrie. Though of a thoroughly objective nature, not given to unnecessary straying into imaginative by-paths, particularly those with unpleasant endings, Roger was far from insensible to the grim irony of the situation. He almost laughed as he told his news.
Judith received the tidings more calmly than he had anticipated. Indeed, he could not recall, subsequently, that she said anything at all. It is possible, however, that she said more than he heard. The fact was that rather more instinctively than consciously, he watched, most closely, the effect of the intelligence upon Imrie.
But whatever Imrie's emotions, he concealed them well. He said very little, managing to express his surprise and regret with an apparently quite genuine sincerity. In a few moments he recalled a forgotten engagement, and left. It was not lost upon Roger that his tea was untasted....
Judith, however, recalled him to less recondite speculation.
"It's absurd, of course," she said in a voice which struck him as very strange and mechanical. "He can't leave us like this. It's too ridiculous." For a moment he thought her feeling was one of resentment. "Where can I reach him?" she asked abruptly. He concluded that it was something quite different.
"God knows," he said. "But don't worry. It's just a tantrum. He'll be back."
"Did you ever know him to have a tantrum?" demanded Judith, almost fiercely. Roger was startled. He had never seen his sister look or act just like that before. He tried, unsuccessfully, to guess what it all signified.
"Call up the office and see if you can get his address," she ordered. Obediently he went to the telephone. When he returned, she was pacing slowly to and fro before the fireplace. Her mouth was curiously set, with what sentiments he could not tell, and her eyebrows were drawn together in two deep incisions. At her unspoken question he shook his head.
"But I must find him—I simply must, you know," she cried petulantly, like a child. He could only shrug his shoulders.
"It's so utterly silly," she murmured.
Suddenly she ceased pacing the floor, to stand staring, glassy-eyed, at him ... and then, like a pricked balloon, she collapsed inertly on the lounge, her face buried in her arms. Her heaving back and the sound from the cushions, needed no explanation.
Roger stole softly from the room. He wondered, uncomfortably, as he went upstairs, if he would ever understand women. Being about to marry one, it struck him that some sort of understanding was rather important.
But more pressing matters drove the curious problem presented by his sister and Good temporarily out of Roger's mind. He was dining with Molly Wolcott that evening, and, as he dressed, his thoughts, quite properly, centred exclusively in her.
It was she herself, however, who recalled the distressing situation.
"How's Mr. Good?" she asked. Somewhat to his surprise her father echoed the question, with what seemed like more than a mere polite interest.
Briefly he told the simple facts as they had occurred, refraining from any attempt at explanation.
"But didn't he give any reason?" asked Mollie incredulously, when he had finished.
"Not a one."
"Did he say there was a reason?" Roger thought it a little odd that the Judge should manifest such concern for a person with whom he could have had only the slightest acquaintance.
"Yes," he admitted, "he did."
"But he wouldn't give it?"
"No. And he skipped so fast I didn't have time to press him much."
"Have you any hypothesis?" The Judge fingered his watch chain nervously. It occurred to Roger that he was making an effort to seem only mildly interested.
"Well ... yes, I have." Roger hesitated for a moment. The theory he had formulated was not one which he cared to present. It would be scornfully rejected, he felt, before he had an opportunity to elaborate it. And, as a matter of fact, he was forced to admit, it was not a very explanatory theory at best. It needed explanation in itself.
"Go on," said Molly. She had noted his pause and was the more expectant in consequence.
"Well ... it's a funny thing—but this business has been in the air. I've noticed a different spirit around the office for a couple of weeks. You know Good was the idol of the boys on the staff. They were a little suspicious of him at first, I guess. He was too good to be true. Bassett has hinted as much. But that wore off. He proved he was no fake. They came to trust him absolutely. Then, all of a sudden, the whole thing seemed to change. I've noticed lots of queer little things lately. The boys have been pretty cool toward him. I've taxed several of them with it, but I couldn't get anything out of them. He's lost his hold on them. There isn't any doubt of that. He isn't the leader any more. He's done something—I don't know what—but it must have made the boys pretty sore. Anyway, they seem to have sent him to Coventry for it. I guess the poor chap got so discouraged he just had to quit. That's the way I figure it out."
"Isn't that a shame," cried Molly. "Do you think he's to blame—has he really done something awful?"
"Blessed if I know." Roger shook his head helplessly. "Knowing the man as I've known him, I can't believe it. But Bassett's one of the coldest of them all—and I'd trust Bassett to the limit. It certainly is a puzzle." He was silent for a moment. Then he added slowly, as if he were reluctant to put his thought into speech: "Of course Good's led a pretty hard life, you know. Maybe some of it came back on him—maybe he had a relapse. Liquor had him once. Maybe...."
"Has Judith any explanation?" asked the Judge suddenly.
"None that I know of."
"Was she—surprised?"
"Honestly, Judge, I don't know," said Roger candidly. "She acted mighty queer. First she seemed surprised, and then she didn't. For a minute I kind of thought she was—well—sore. But...." A picture flashed across his memory of Judith on the lounge, with the sobs shaking her shoulders. "... I guess it was disappointment. She thought the world of Good, you know."
"Indeed, yes!" cried Molly. "I've often thought...." But she never finished saying what it was she thought. Her father rose abruptly.
"I think if you young people will—er—excuse me...." His voice was strangely tremulous. "I'm a trifle tired."
"Your father looks kind of knocked up over something," said Roger when the old man had left them. "Anything wrong?"
Her face clouded. "I—don't know. He's been awfully busy. He's not very well. That attack last winter—he's never shaken it off, quite. Sometimes—I'm afraid! Oh, Roger—if anything should happen...." Suddenly she burst into wholly unexpected tears.
Roger, comforting her, experienced a vague satisfaction, for which he knew he should be ashamed—but was not. Molly was such a sturdy soul, so self-sufficient and self-contained, it delighted him to know that she could cry ... just like any ordinary protectible woman.
Upstairs, in his study, the Judge had seated himself before his desk, the tips of his long white fingers clasped together. For a long time he remained immobile, staring blankly at the wall before him. The single green-shaded lamp at his elbow cast grotesque shadows at his infrequent movements. Finally he sighed, as if he were very tired, and put out the light.
When the maid went up with the Judge's coffee next morning, she found him already fully dressed.
"Tell O'Neil I'll have the car at once," he said quietly.
"But Miss Wolcott, sir, she's...."
"At once, please."
In relaying the order to the chauffeur the maid volunteered the interesting information that she had left the Judge swallowing his breakfast with unprecedented haste, and that the newspaper had not been unfolded. The chauffeur, having designs of a serious nature upon her, was obliged to conceal his natural repugnance to haste, disassociated from a motor: but he consoled himself with the other part of her message. It was not unpleasant to discover in the lady of one's choice such evidence of keen perception. He went to his task whistling.
As Roger came down to breakfast he fancied he heard the front door slam. Judith was just leaving the library.
"Having callers?" he asked cheerfully.
"No," she said shortly. He noticed suddenly that her face seemed bloodless. Fired with a vague suspicion that matters were not as they should be, he strolled over to the window.
"Whose car is that outside? Say—that looks for all the world like the Judge. What's he doing out at this hour d'ye suppose?"
"I'm sure I can't guess." Judith's voice seemed curiously dry and husky. She was gazing sightlessly straight before her. Roger ached to voice the questions which rose in his mind, but the expression on his sister's face deterred him. He contented himself with studying her narrowly.
It was Judith who broke the silence first.
"Roger," she said suddenly, "I want you to arrange at once with a detective agency to find Mr. Good."
"Oh, see here, sis," he protested. "That's foolish, you know. He'll come back—give him time."
"I can wait no longer," said Judith coldly. "Please do as I ask—this morning."
"That was the Judge who was here. He told you something?" demanded Roger accusingly. There was no reply. He finished his meal before questioning her again. There was still no reply. Then he shrugged his shoulders and left her. When his sister's lips formed a line like the cut of a razor, Roger knew the futility of interrogation or argument.
Within an hour the machinery of one of the greatest systems of espionage in the world was set in motion for the trifling purpose of locating the present whereabouts of one Brent Good, described as well over six feet tall, with hazel eyes, thin hair, a large mouth and nose, heavy eyebrows, a deep and not unmusical voice, a marked stoop to the shoulders, and wearing a suit, as Roger expressed it, "rather brown."
But the weeks rolled away, and although the reports from the detective agency were frequent and voluminous—as were the bills—Good remained as elusive as ever. Even Roger, with his dogged insistence that "he'd come back all right," grew perceptibly less and less optimistic. Yet through it all Judith came and went with her head high, and a smile always ready. Since that mysterious morning she seemed to have undergone a subtle change. Certainly there was no further evidence of the sullen resentment which Roger had thought he had detected at first. But there remained an abstractedness about her which was hard to fathom. When he thought her listening, she seemed always to be waiting for something. Indeed, he grew quite worried about her, and would, in all probability have aroused her violent wrath by consulting a physician, had not the fact of his approaching wedding driven all such comparatively unimportant matters out of his head.
Imrie came increasingly to see her, and although he never said anything about it, it was perfectly clear that Judith's detachment had not escaped him. Only once did he go so far as to voice his thoughts.
"What the dickens is Judith waiting for, Roger?" he demanded one evening, after a particularly unsatisfactory dinner, at which she had made no effort even to appear attentive. But Roger could only shake his head and wonder too ... and in two minutes forget everything in the world save Molly Wolcott.
The end came one morning, when he and Judith were at breakfast. He was aroused from his newspaper by a whispered "at last" from his sister. Her colour was strangely high, and her eyes sparkled. She was opening a letter. He watched her closely, wondering what had happened.
Suddenly her face blanched, and her hand went to her throat in a gesture which recalled to him the day he had apprised her of Good's resignation. A faint little cry escaped her lips. For a moment she laid down the letter and closed her eyes. Then she picked it up again, and read it, apparently, to the end.
"What's the news?" he asked, willing no longer to let her inexplicable demeanour go unprobed.
"It's a letter from Good," she said mechanically.
"What's he say?"
"He says he's been ill. That's why he hasn't been to see us. He'll come as soon as he's about."
"I see." Roger's tone was lofty. His disgust was profound if unspoken. He was offended by her manifest reluctance to confide in him, and he did not scruple to show the fact. Although consumed with curiosity to know what Good actually had written—and, indeed,whyhe had written at all—he was too proud to question her. With a muttered grunt, expressive of anything which one might choose to read into it, he buried himself anew in his paper, and presently, without again referring to the subject, left the table. His manner, meant to show a consciousness of injury, and at the same time, readiness for conciliation, produced no apparent effect. It is doubtful if Judith was aware of his departure. He left, therefore, with his chagrin redoubled, full of suspicion, and utterly bewildered at the tortuous mental processes of all women, and his sister in particular.
Judith was still immersed in the letter. Its bold, uneven scrawl was familiar, but with an indefinable touch of weakness, never before apparent. The paper was of the cheapest, a trifle soiled, and torn in several places. It had been written with a soft pencil, it began, characteristically, without salutation.
"Some time in the pleistocene age, journalists formed the habit of ending their news despatches with the mystic symbol, 30. It signifies—the end.
"I write to tell you that it looks as if it was time to write 30 to the tedious narrative of yours truly. In a word—I'm not the man I was. Which is a cryptic way of saying that I'm more ghost than flesh now, and shifting rapidly. The medico, who is a poor liar, also has a loud voice and doesn't know how thin boarding-house walls are. I heard him tell the landlady that money for medicine was a case of economic folly. I was a gone goose—or words to that effect.
"It's been a long road and mostly a hard one. I'm not sorry to reach the end. You see, I never really learned how to walk. Now and then I thought I had. But the thought was always followed by a tumble. The last was the hardest. I don't want to try any more. And when a man gets too tired totry—well, there's nothing left but crêpe, is there?
"Really, the doctor's information is quite the cheerfullest thing I could hear. All I ask is that they ring down the curtain on the delectable comedy of 'Brent Good, Misfit,' as expeditiously as possible. From what he said, I judge they will.
"I've tried more things in my allotted span than ten men ordinarily try. And I've failed, with perfect uniformity, in every one. I counted much onThe Dispatch. I stubbed my spiritual toe there, too...."
At that point Judith had to pause, because a mist formed over her eyes and would not let her see. And the next words brought a lump into her throat, which choked and hurt.
"... I hoped much—no,hopeis hardly the word for what I wanted—from you. And of course—as I never for an instant doubted I would—I failed there. Now there's nothing left. I wonder what the next instalment of the yarn will bring. Do the gods, think you, punish failure as men do?
"But I wander. (My speculations to the landlady regarding reincarnation have resulted in her frantic appeal to the doctor, with a bottle of something, in consequence, by my side. That's the scientific way of solving the problem of immortality.) However, I'm not writing you now to oblige you to join with me in conjecturing as to what lies in the Other Room. It's this one, and your place in it that troubles me now.
"I just want to express a sixty-first second sort of a hope that you won't lose interest inThe Dispatch. But even as I write, I know that you, being quite human, in all probability will. Strangely enough I have a feeling that Roger will be more likely to carry it through than you will. Men can play baseball all their lives, when six weeks of crusading is more than plenty. He'll go through with it because it's a sporting proposition.
"But you—well, I guess one has to starve before he becomes a real revolutionary. You'll have to pay the price the gods demand for a full stomach, by being a trimmer all your days. That doesn't mean you won't do big things. You will, andThe Dispatchwill be only one of them. But you won't do them quite as I—being more or less insane—would have you do them. Still, if you were poor, and therefore understood life as I understand it, you couldn't do anything at all. So I'm satisfied.
"This is all queer stuff and hard to understand. But remember, to the natural eccentricities of my nature are added the hallucinations of approaching dissolution.
"Keep on with the paper as long as you can, and as bravely as you can. Don't yield to the discouragement which will always be just over your shoulder, because it accomplishes little. Never forget that you're only a link in a chain. If you keep your link sound you've done about all you can do. To you life is long, and the world putty in your hands. But after all, you're only an atom on the everlasting shore.
"The Dispatchis the paper of Truth. All reformers—most hypocrites—sing the same song. It seems the easiest thing in the world to tell the truth. But I know there is nothing harder. And it's not because truth frequently clashes with the human side of our lives—though God knows that is hard enough—but because no one knows what truth is.
"It's a struggle worthy of fine souls totellthe truth. But it's a far greater struggle to know what the truth is.
"It is that struggle, being the only precious thing I have, that I bequeath to you.
"There is nothing more to say, I guess, save to wish you well. You will doubtless marry the dominie. I used to hate him, very largely for that fact. But now, as I lie here, on a cool, high mountain, far from the blinding heat of passion (that's a good line, don't you think?) things look differently. When he stood between you and me, he cast a monstrous shadow. Now I see him for what he is. He's just a fellow-traveller on the road I have tried to walk—on your side of it. May God give you both all that I would have him give me.
"As my final request (this has been full of 'final requests,' hasn't it!) I ask that you forget me as promptly and as thoroughly as you can. My rôle in your life has been played. Let me get off the stage now, and stay off for keeps.
"Forget me—the Fool. Remember, please, only the things I groped for—the Angel. Good-bye."
For a long time Judith sat staring stonily at the irregular black lines, wandering stormily, like the life of their author, over the tattered paper. She fingered the envelope listlessly. It bore no address.
When the maid came to remove the breakfast things, she was dumfounded to discover her mistress with her head in her hands, but quite silent. Frightened, she withdrew quickly, to convey the strange intelligence below stairs.
Upon her return, in obedience to the disgusted promptings of the cook, who thought she was foolish ever to have left so interesting a scene, she found Judith just rising from the table, very pale, but otherwise as calm and self-contained as usual.
"I want the car at once," she said, a little huskily. And when the maid hesitated stupidly, she added in a tone which was almost fierce, "At once—do you hear?"
"I've never seen her look like that—never!" declared the maid when she was safe below stairs again.
"There's things the likes o' you can't understand," said the cook darkly.
"What d'ye mean?" cried the kitchen in chorus.
"I believe I'm able to keep the secrets as are intrusted to me," said the cook very haughtily, and with a finality which encouraged no further interrogation. Safely concealed behind the day-old newspaper—useful shield in time of distress—she concluded that her prestige had been rather strengthened than otherwise by the incident. The chauffeur's eldest boy chuckled furtively, to be sure, but then, he was an impertinent brat, whose opinion was of no consequence whatever.
While the kitchen buzzed with suppressed speculation, Judith was closeted with a placid little man whose business was the disclosure of other peoples' secrets.
"I have a clue, I think," she cried breathlessly.
"Yes?" His tone was quite noncommittal. Years of disillusionment had robbed him of all enthusiasm.
"I have a letter—this...." She drew Good's tattered scrawl from her bag. The detective held out his hand—and drew it back empty. It was his business to see things which were not intended for him to see, and her sudden flush was not lost upon him. Nor did the involuntary movement of her hand, with the letter, toward the bag, escape him. But by not so much as the flutter of an eyelid did his countenance change.
"No address given, I suppose?"
"No."
"May I see ... the envelope?" He noticed that her blush was more pronounced as she handed it to him. And as he held it up to the light and seemed to be studying it intently, he was really considering the different features of what was, even to him, a distinctly unusual case. Why was this young woman so tremendously desirous of locating an obscure journalist that she employed detectives for the purpose? And why did she colour and hold so tenaciously to a note from him? On the face of it it looked like a typical bit of soiled linen in high place—cases of which sort he was familiar with to the point of ennui. But his professional eminence had not been attained merely through industry: he was possessed of considerably more than a normal share of intuition—and intuition made the natural hypothesis untenable. He shrugged his shoulders. To find Good—as he studied the postmark on the envelope, he dismissed that problem as unworthy of his ability. But to explain why Miss Judith Wynrod wanted to find him—that, he admitted quite frankly to himself, was another matter.